Jan 26 2012

hibernating

as we’ve all been struck down with the lurgy and the littlun is showing signs of chicken pox I’ve been retreating into Skyrim of an evening, to transport myself away from miserable January.  Plus being able to quicksave and pause makes life much much easier at the moment ;)

I did pop onto lotro last night and bankrupted myself buying a worn symbol to forge a second age bow (yayyay!) I got fairly crappy legacies on it which was… crappy :P  nevermind, I have the legacies I want on there now and they can be increased.  Hopefully we will be able to group up with our friend Aeowulf tonight.

I will have my champion outfit to share soon and hopefully will be back posting regularly soon :)

Jan 20 2012

lotro outfit: dwarven runekeeper

Dimzad created this outfit for his rune-keeper and I thought I’d share it with you all.  I love the outfit, especially the detailing on the hat.

 

Head: Linen hat (crafted)
Body: Robe of Countless Stars (Dunland faction)
Cloak: Singed Cloak (drop from Moria epic instance)
Gloves: Heavy Cloth Gloves (crafted)
Shoes: Shoes of the Learned Stag (Dunland quest reward)

all dyed black

Jan 19 2012

well after being super-organised and managing to get three posts scheduled to be published while I was away (last week), I’ve now not managed to post at all since I’m back :P    Our toddler is developing his immune system and catching any bug that floats past and he kindly sometimes passes onto us too :P  and there is a backlog of housework/washing/appts/errands to catch up on – which is obviously super-exciting for you lot to read ;)  Anyways, should all be settled back down very soon and I’ll be back to posting regularly.

Planned posts:  

  • hoping to get a dwarven runekeeper outfit posted on Friday (modelled and designed by supermodel-turned-designer Dimzad – screenshots by noted fashion photographer Eldaeriel
  • updated spreadsheet for cook repasts (and possibly one for regen/trail food)
  • elvish…. honest, I promise!!
  • I made a new outfit for my champion which I’ll post next week
  • some tips/useful info I’ve found on legendary items

see ya soon ;)

 

Jan 13 2012

my ui and plugin setup

I thought I’d share my ui and plugin setup in case anyone finds it useful or interesting :)

I’m using Narajana UI as I like the uncluttered, minimalistic approach.  I group my skills into sets (e.g. short term buffs, ranged, melee, fears/stuns, pots etc) and I don’t use keybinds for skill use.  My favourite plugins are:

  • Travel Window:  Useful for all characters, not just hunters :)
  • Lotropad: The beauty of this plugin is that it can be used on all characters, i.e. all of your alts can see and edit the information you input.  Great for keeping track of crafting levels, resource needs, general useful info.
  • Alt Inventory:  if you’ve stashed *something* in one of your alts bags *somewhere* or if you just simply want to check the amount of something an alt is carrying, this app is great :)
  • Paged slots:  These are an additional 24 slots, which are setup with 6 slots per page.  I love these for things that I like to access often but I don’t necessarily need on a hotbar (e.g. buffs, horses, food, traps, tracking) I think I may use this for travel skills and pets (lore-master) on alts.
  • Palantir:  I find this most useful for click to cure pots (self) rather than the health/power bars.

Quick install guide (full instructions are on lotro interface)

To install UI:  Download and extract files to Libraries>Documents>The Lord of the Rings Online>UI>skins

To install plugins: Download and extract files to Libraries>Documents>The Lord of the Rings Online>plugins

If you haven’t installed plugins before I recommend reading CSTM’s excellent guide.

Hope you found it useful :)

Jan 11 2012

weekly screenshot: purple heather

I lost Dimzad in the beautiful purple heather...

Jan 9 2012

things i would love to see in lotro

a wishlist for the New Year :)

  • books! readable and placeable in your home to create a library…  The devs have done a wonderful job creating new stories and tales to fill out our world, it would be great to read them.  They could be connected to quests (e.g. Vol 1 Book 2, The Red Maid, we could receive a book of her tale as a quest reward) or excerpts of the history of middle earth, details of place names, I suppose the list is endless).  I really miss my library in eq2… (library 1, library 2)
  • an overhaul of the housing system.  At the very least, I would really like a main horse station just outside or within our neighbourhoods, but I would drool at the thought of the item limit being increased and the hooks being done away with.  My house looks so… characterless and empty :(  I do miss eq2′s housing capabilities but I would settle for those two ;)
  • female human walk.  I really wish they would re-animate that (I’m sorry but I am torn between embarrassment and fits of giggles as my poor rohirrim captain waddles off down the street looking just like my toddler when he’s filled his nappy… :P )
  • more hobbies.  I’ve now discovered fishing and its perfect for moods where you just want to relax in beautiful surroundings (even if they are pixels!) and listen to music or podcasts.  So other hobbies would be fab…  I guess they could tie in the maps to a hobby system perhaps as well as being a deed, books could also be involved in a hobby somehow.  Painting…  I’m sure other people have much better ideas than me.
  • kinship overhaul.  There are several thread about this on the lotro forums with some excellent ideas.

I know that none of this is end-game instances or raids and perhaps other things (like bug fixes :P ) might be more important, however, it is the social and play/rp aspect that people turn to while they are waiting for groups to start etc or when they just want a quiet yet social evening.  I know these won’t be on everyone’s wishlist ;)

Jan 6 2012

little by little, one travels far

Steed of the Elf-Lords

We’re both now level 75 (yay!!), have just started the Gap of Rohan questlines and have been through the new Isengard 3-man instances.  We really need to gear up so our plan is to save up our marks, medallions and any seals that we might be lucky enough to get, finish the Rohan questline and epic book, save up our Cracked Rhi Sigils and then sort ourselves out with a mixture of faction, bartered and crafted gear…  As you can see I also completed the ambassador to the elves deed (max faction with malledhrim, galadhrim and rivendell) and got my lovely horse :)

The new instances are fun and we’re starting to get the tactics down.  Our biggest challenges so far have been Dragnakh (didn’t manage despite getting to the 3rd platform on our first two attempts and it went steadily downhill from there – first time in though), the final ent battle in Fangorn (our 2nd time in today was much smoother and quicker though) and the horrible fire orc bit in Pits (been in once).  I like our group of warden, hunter and runekeeper though :)

My lore-master is now at 45 and working on various bits and pieces (epic book for legendary, quests in Forochel / Eregion and the final 2 pages needed for the books quests).  She is maxed on cooking and rep :)

My other alts are all sitting around the 30s.  I like both the champ and the captain, though I don’t want to tank with either lol  They’ll probably stay as solo alts and may never see a high level.  Similarly my minstrel looks like huge fun but is sitting at level 21.  I don’t have enough time quite simply.

I’m away next week and I will try to get a couple of posts scheduled and once I’m back from hols I’ll start on the sindarin place names again.

Jan 4 2012

weekly screenshot: inside Isengard

Saruman's throne. I personally think it doubles up as a pipe organ and Saruman plays while the orcs dance. I'm thinking a cross between Captain Nemo and A Night on Bare Mountain (Fantasia)

 

 

Jan 1 2012

Happy New Year :)

Last year I did a roundup of 2010, so I thought I’d do a quick roundup of my gaming this year and share some of my favourite moments and screenshots too :)

Games I played:

Lord of the Rings online was my most played game but I also played (and finished!) Dragon Age: Origins, DA Awakenings and Dragon Age II.  I also played Minecraft, Skyrim and Everquest II.

Favourite moments (sort of in order):

5. The intro to Skyrim.  So there I was sitting on this bumpy wagon, looking around and going OMG! it looks amazing!  From there onto the  execution wondering how I was going to get out of this, THEN running away from a dragon (was amazing when it crashed through the tower), then going through a series of beautifully lit caves looting, killing, picking locks,  and finally out into the beautiful open world with it all set out before me to do as I please… ah bliss!

4. The Party Banter (Dragon Age series).  Ohgren’s filthy conversations with Wynne, Varric discussing Sebastien’s cocking ring, Zevran and his constant sleaze, Alistair’s one liners – great fun all :)

3.  The Thieves Guild (Skyrim).  I love the atmosphere here, the voice acting for Brynjolf and Karliah is superb (my only annoyance here is that now that I’m master of the guild, all Brynjolf says to me is ‘sorry lass, I’m too busy to talk’ pfft…)  Sneaking about and fighting alongside those two was just amazing…

2.  Volume 2 of the Epic Questline (lotro).  The story woven into Moria and Mirkwood was bleak with the Elves and Dwarves facing impossible odds and centuries worth of mistrust.  The session play (Moria) showing the awakening of the balrog (stop! you’re delving too deep!) and the last stand in the Chamber of Mazarbul was amazing – I was rooting for the dwarves even knowing it was futile… Moving on to Mirkwood, I loved seeing fighting alongside elves, I loved that my character was finally ‘home’ and was fighting the evil found there.  The twist in the story when Broín has ‘disappeared’ from the elven stronghold at Ost Galadh was brilliant (I had also felt some resentment and frustration at Broín’s determination to rescue Bori).  By the end, Broín was my absolute hero (I’ll just mention the scenes with the Nazgúl and Mazog as why without giving away too much) and if I’m ever captured by Orcs, please put him in charge of getting me back!

1.  oh noes I killed Alistair!  (DA: O) The story was so thoroughly absorbing in Dragon Age: Origins that I was rendered speechless and motionless when Alistair ran off to deal the final blow against the arch-demon.  My carefully orchestrated, self-sacrificial ending of the story was ruined by something I really didn’t expect –  Alistair’s refusal to allow my character to take the fall.   I have to admit, it was pretty awesome and even though I was so shocked, I did have a slightly silly grin on my face :P  Well done to Bioware for foiling my carefully researched (though clearly not carefully enough) ending ;)

Some of my favourite screenshots:

for 2012?

I will still be playing lotro as my main MMO but now EQ2 is free to play I’ll be popping on there to do some decorating and other noodly type activities.

I’m looking forward to the creation kit being released for Skyrim so I can mod the game some (mostly house tweaks I’m looking forward to I think) and also for the new dlc to be released.  I *may* start again with a resolution to not collect junk ‘just in case’ although that probably won’t work ;)

*cough* i haven’t started a new game of dragon age: origins… oh noes… oh no… not at all :D

I haven’t heard of any games I’m interested in being released this year as yet, although of course I am on a countdown to go and see The Hobbit ;)

Dec 13 2011

Yule break

I will be having a break over the festive period,  I will be back and blogging in the New Year :)

Hope you all have a wonderful christmas and a happy New Year!