I’ve hit a wall. Though I’ve been paying for it, I haven’t played Lord of the Rings Online in weeks. I’ve been busy, but I’d been busy before. So why haven’t I been playing? It is a unique, MMOG-centric experience to hit a point where the game, all at once, no longer holds its appeal… and yet you keep paying for the privilege of playing again one day.

Call it the Wall. But where does it come from?

In every MMO, there’s a point—or several points—where I abruptly lose interest. One day I’m playing the game, and then a week later I realize I haven’t been playing.

(Un)attainable Goals: The first time I hit the Wall in World of Warcraft was when I finally got my first character his first horse. With that hurdle jumped, I didn’t see anything else attainable on the horizon that didn’t feel downright tedious. I was playing a Warrior, and the idea of doing dozens more levels of the same fighting just bored me. The idea bored me.

The Fix: Time off, followed by starting a new character, the Hunter I got up to level 54. The Hunter had more variety over time, was easier to get by with, and maybe I just knew better what my options were during play, so I didn’t have to bore myself doing nonsense quests.

The Promise of Tedium: That lack of new actions and abilities on the horizon is a killer… but even knowing that there’s a great new power to learn two levels from now can’t always overcome the tedium of killing boars for another six hours. When I log in, look at my Quests, and see that I’ve got a list full of gathering chores with 2/30 accomplished, I know the Wall is near.

The Fix: Time off, followed by sad but hopeful deleting of a few quests and trashing of quest items. Maybe I’ll come back when farming lich fingers isn’t so likely to kill me twenty-three times.

Obligation: Life’s full of obligations, play shouldn’t be. Even actions that aren’t tedious can become a chore if you have to do them, maybe because your Guild is pressuring you or you need better equipment to stay on par for your level. In LOTRO, that obligation can come from not having finished the “Books”—epic quests that tell the core story of the game, and usually require a good-sized group to overcome. By and large, I find myself looking forward to these quests, but then rushing through them in the hopes of catching up to my Kinship. It never works. I end up doing them many levels too late, when they’re worth no experience, the rewards are outclassed, and the story has been spoiled for me.

The Fix: Time off, followed by sucking it up. You got to do what you got to do.

Difficulty: Obviously tied to all of the above, I find that my taste in Quests periodically leaves me with a stack of unwanted missions that are either too easy to bother with or too difficult to manage alone. These in-between times are drags—every grind is a resource-draining pain and every quest is a grind. It’s like I’m caught between levels, chipping away at high-level quests in viciously perilous realms just in the hopes of eventually being of the right level to fit in.

The Fix: Time off, followed by sucking it up. Chip away, or wait for new content to open up so you can level up with the type of quests you like.

No Blank Space on the Map: I’m an explorer. I like to see the next new thing in the game. I’m a tourist. I like to wander and sample. In World of Warcraft, new zones are too far apart in levels and difficulty. I left the game, then came back for the expansion. (Dropped $35 on it, too.) That got me 30 levels into an alt and six more levels with my main Hunter, but before long I was experiencing the same problem: the tedious obligation of having to grind away at monstrous bugs just so I could see the next new zone.

The Fix: LOTRO has expanded itself with new zones several times in its first year, all free. (The first paid expansion, Mines of Moria is also coming.) This has been a vital part of Turbine’s success at keeping players like me around. There are still blank spaces on my map and, while I haven’t played in a month, I know I’ll be back because a new zone—the arctic realm of Forochel—is coming soon. Even though I still don’t have a max-level character (or maybe because I don’t), new content is being developed for me and my style of play. This is vital to keeping me, a largely PvE player, coming back.

So, the trick to finding the love again, is to mix things up. Take some time off, and play something else. But it’s the responsibility of the game to make me come back.

This is not just something that happens with MMORPGs.