Serielley's Adventures in Gaming

In between customer calls and various projects involving spreadsheets, I received an email. At first, I laughed, thinking that a spam mail had gotten through Gmail’s filter and landed in my inbox. The subject line read: Turbine Account Security Notification. I opened the email knowing that it was just another phishing email, sent by goldfarmers halfway across the world. As I read though, that sinking feeling that people always talk about made itself known, slowly but surely. I checked the headers. I then went immediately to the Turbine Account login and tried in vain to log in for the next fifteen minutes trying every password combination I had ever used just to be sure.

My Lord of the Rings Online account had really been hacked. I couldn’t get in.

Since I couldn’t do anything about the situation at that exact moment in time, I stepped outside the office to clear my head, put my work face back on, and kept at it for the rest of the day.  I went on my guild’s forums and let my static group know what had happened, and there was instant empathy. It’s something that’s happened to a lot of people in the last few years, so the damage that can be done to an account is fairly well known, and our static group is just full of wonderful fellow human beings. When I got home, I immediately started following the directions the email provided. I ran every program I have in my arsenal to see if I was infected. Nothing. Checked my Firefox settings. AdBlock, NoScript, FlashBlock. Everything was turned on, working properly.

How did this happen? Weeks later, and I still don’t know. I never will, and that’s ok. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and I have my account back now, thanks to two customer service reps at Turbine who were very helpful and patient over the phone. I wish I knew your names, but thank you!

This is Serielle, my level 65 Minstrel. I tried LOTRO at the urging of my husband, and I created Serielle to play with him as his pocket healer, heh. I really enjoy playing Serielle, since the Minstrel is both a healer and a really great damage dealer. They can hold their own pretty well, but are still pretty squishy. Plus, you can kill with music! Heal with music! Who wouldn’t love that? Also, PIMP HAT.

Seriwen, blog readers. Blog readers, Seriwen. I equally enjoy playing my Hunter. It’s addictive to have high DPS, the ability to travel where  ever you need to go, and be able to make campfires. Campfires rock!

I’ve been playing LOTRO since December of ’07, so almost three years now. I’ve put a lot of time into each of these characters. Serielle is my most complete character, with very decent (but not the best) gear, fully leveled crafting, and a lot of crap in her bank vault. I mean, really. There were things in there that I was keeping purely for sentimental value. My Minstrel class quest rewards, clothing items my husband had made me, all of the wood crafting materials I’d saved up… It was just pixels though. Those items weren’t “mine”, no matter how attached to them I was.

During the week that it took to get the account back, I went through a lot of different emotions, but after my initial reaction, I felt pretty zen about the whole situation. I knew exactly what would happen to my characters, so there wouldn’t be any surprises. First, they would send all of the gold to another account, then start stripping the character of items to sell on a vendor. If the thief were particularly malicious, they’d drop all of the character’s equipment. I knew that I’d be lucky to have anything left, and as luck would have it, I ended up with a lot more than I ever thought I would. All of my gear was intact, along with some other useful items that would allow me to get back what I had lost in a short amount of time, except for anything that was purely sentimental, of course.

Compared to others, I got off really easy. Some people have waited weeks to get their character back, and have had to spend as much time restoring lost items and gear. I know I was lucky. I didn’t lose anything physical, and technically the characters I’ve created aren’t mine, but belong to Turbine as any MMO character belongs to their respective creating companies. It all boils down to pixels and time, since that’s all that any game really is. It can be more than that though, and we really can feel strong attachment to those goofy looking polygons. Ultimately, our gaming is what we make of it, as is our connection to the characters we create.

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I’d like to thank OTG and the Sunday Night Chili and Beer group for all of the offers of assistance to replace missing items and the offer to run instances to get equipment back. I’ve said it before, but I’m lucky to hang out with yous guys.

The Sunday Night Chili and Beer group.  You can always count on us to deviate from the path to attack a troll!

I love E3 week. So many shiny games, so little time!

The festivities this year get started on Sunday the 13th with an event thrown by Microsoft for their Project Natal launch event. Cirque du Soleil will be performing, ooooooh flashy. Monday will be the beginning of the ever-popular and heavily media-covered press conferences, with Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft all starting the party off. Sony and Nintendo will wait until Tuesday for their conferences, so by about… ohhh, 2:00p on Tuesday afternoon, we’ll have all of the juicy goodness spilling forth over the intarwebs to inform us about what to look forward to during the coming year.

There are very few games that I’m really looking forward to seeing at E3. I’m mostly waiting for the unknown, the big surprise announcements for things that no one knows about yet. I wanted to write about the few games we do know about that I’m looking for, and maybe put down a prediction for an announcement that would make my year.

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Welcome to 2010! A new year brings new games, new innovations, and new experiences in the world of gaming. I’m really excited for the year to come, as there are quite a few games being released this year that I have waited a very long time for. Some of them for years, no joke! Here’s my list of what I’m going to be playing this year, and I would love to hear from others about what they are looking forward to in the months to come, so feel free to let me know and discuss in the comments!

I’ve never done a “Top 10 List”, either here or at Adventaruing, and I don’t really see myself starting anytime soon, so the seven games I’m (SO FAR) looking forward to are below the fold. Follow me into the future, my friends…

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That’s right, Squenix is now accepting applications for the Windows beta for XIV! Head over to this link: http://entry.ffxiv.com/na/index.html and sign up today! You must have a valid Square Enix Account and/or Security Token in order to apply, and your application is good for all phases of the beta.

Remember, all beta participants will be required to consent to an NDA in order to participate, so if you get in, no sharing information!!!

What is this blog going to be about, you ask? Well, the story of this blog goes back to three years ago, when I created Adventaruing in Vana’diel as an adventuring journal for my character in FFXI, Serielley. As time went by, FFXI wasn’t the only MMO or game that I played, (not in the slightest!), and I started to feel constrained by my choice of blog. I finally broke down and bought this domain and created what you see here now.

Serielley’s Adventures in Gaming will have content similar to Adventaruing in Vana’diel, but from whatever games I may be playing currently. I may also write about casual gaming, gaming as a female, gaming as a couple, issues in the gaming industry, or other topics as they come to me.

Mostly though, I want to share my love and enjoyment of gaming with others, and this is the best way I know how. I appreciate every reader who stops by and contributes to the conversation, and I hope to meet many new faces as this blog grows and develops in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

(For people coming by from Adventaruing, I’ve moved all of the posts over, so that everything is in one place, and easy to find if you so desire. Up in the menu, there is a button titled: Adventaruing Archive. That will show you all of the posts from Adventaruing, archived for your convenience.)