I Have Become . . .

. . . that which I despise.

Well, not really. But almost!

I was circling the Trollshaws yesterday in Lord of the Rings Online. Kammris, my champion, does circles around the zone, gathering up dwarven ore for sale on the auction house. It brings in some easy cash and is mindlessly relaxing after a hard day at work.

That is, until the unexpected happened. Kammris rode through a sea of bears towards a node. A bear trailed me all the way to the ore, so I had to dismount and learn him who was boss. I then turned my attention to the node. I mined it for two ore.

Just as I was about to remount my horse, an elven hunter popped into view. He stood there for a moment and then gave me the finger. He wasn’t anywhere near the node I just mined, but I suspected he was angry that I had mined it. So I /tell him.

“Why did you flip me off?”

“You took my ore.”

I lol’d. “You weren’t anywhere near that ore.”

“I guess you didn’t see me clearing all those bears out.”

“No, I didn’t. Plus, how am I supposed to know that’s why you’re killing the bears? You weren’t even within range of that ore.”

“Your (his sp.) an ass.”

“You seem upset about this ore so come here and I’ll give you the two ore I mined.”

“I don’t want anything from an ass.”

“I guess you think if you call me an ass enough times, it might just become true.”

“So you get that a lot huh?

I think he meant getting called an ass, so I said, “Nope.”

I then went on to ask him how old he was in real life. He stopped responding to me at that point, but he didn’t put me on ignore. When I eventually reached a mailbox, I did send him the two ore. He either hasn’t read the message or he decided to keep the ore because he didn’t send anything back to me.

Turns out he does want something from an ass.

It’s highly ironic to be accused of ninjaing ore when I wrote a post about this very topic just a few months ago. Only, I was the ninjee venting about a ninja. Comparing the two instances, I find the differences acute. Yesterday, I didn’t even see the player when I mined the ore. He wasn’t even close to the ore. He was five levels lower than the surrounding bears and having a hell of a time fighting his way through them to even get to the node. When I see a player racing to a node, I almost always divert course and head for greener pastures. Farming ore in LotRO is not difficult. The ore spawns in plentiful amounts and it’s rare when I patrol a vacant landscape. There’s just too much ore around to act like a dick while farming it.

So was I an ass? I really don’t think so. And I elected to error on the side of mailing the ore he claimed was his. I don’t think he really deserved it, but it’s only two ore. Like I told the jackass from my June post, a couple of ore isn’t worth a player’s reputation. And racing players to nodes is stupid when the Trollshaws offer a vast territory full of ore for everyone.

But as I write this, the guy I ran into yesterday is likely writing a blog himself, blasting me as badly as I did the jackass from a couple of months ago. Which is fair I guess. When it comes to contested resources, everyone thinks they’re right.

I know I am.