I will not be updating this blog anymore, although I will be keeping an eye on it and the posts will remain.

I have transferred some posts over to my new blog – the cook’s guild repast spreadsheet, some useful info posts, the red maid series and the sindarin series.

I’ve moved for a few reasons.  Firstly, I am now getting a lot of spam comments to deal with (even though Akismet saves me from loads), I don’t really want an audience of spammers  Secondly, as this blog is now over 4 years old and was something of a learning process, I have hundreds of posts and screenshots all organised very badly…  Finally, the change from blogging about EQ2 to LoTRO meant I lost focus with what I wanted from writing a blog.  Really I want a place to share screenshots and details of my adventures.  I do occasionally write something that others find useful and I’ll continue posting anything I do like that.  I will also carry on sporadically adding entries to the sindarin and red maid series.

See you all over at the new site

It seems that the classes do need looking at – I was reading a thread on the official forums where it seems that there is one unpopular trait line for each class (e.g. yellow for hunters – its situationally useful at best but I have to admit, I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve needed or wanted to trait yellow).  It does seem a bit of a waste especially as some of the legendary capstones are very um… unlegendary…  I think virtues are also in a similar position, once at level 85 it seems most people slot very similar virtues – those giving you extra morale, armour, phys and tact mit.  I know I slot the same traits on Eldaeriel and Mallendis (and on my lower lvl burg), Dimzad uses pretty much the same set as I do too (for heals and dps) and I know at least 2/3s of my virtues cross over with Aeo’s tanking ones.  So I think I can see why they are doing it.

Obviously, there are a multitude of possible ways in which they can change the classes.  I did have a mad leap of logic though…  I looked at the colours of the mounted combat stances and then at the colours of the trait lines…  Given that most modern MMOs are introducing more flexibility into classes and into group makeup, what if our trait lines could reflect different roles we could play within a group, similar to how it’s supposed to work in mounted combat?  E.g. Red being a DPS setup, Blue being a survivability/healing setup and Yellow being a crowd control / debuffing setup.  It could make for some very interesting changes and choices.  I’m not sure change on that scale is actually needed though but well, I’m sure I’m completely wrong and they won’t be making any changes even as nearly drastic as that

By the way, I’ve obviously been thinking about virtues and the Slayer deeds are really quite odd.  I did think after completing the Slayer of Dunland meta-deed, I should have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rather than gain a level of compassion… (of all the virtues – compassion???!!!!)

some speculation re: class changes

I signed up for our kin watcher raid and I’m really glad I did.  We went in with a mostly overlevelled raid force and it was a lot of fun.  I was really pleased to have finally finished the deed and experienced the fight, even though it wasn’t anywhere near the challenge it must have been.  I did sneak the UI off for a quick screenshot before we moved to the platform, I’m glad I did as I was too busy tanking tentacles after that!

I had an interesting night recently.  I took Eldaeriel into challenge mode Roots of Fangorn with our usual group and even though it was 10 levels below us, we had a bit of a mare with Aeo being practically perma-stunned during the first section of the zone.  It got a bit annoying and although we could have persevered through, I offered to bring Mallendis instead with her super awesome anti-stun.  The difference the lore-master made within the group was pretty shocking -  it went from being fun but manic to fun and chilled.  Its hard  to say exactly how much of it was purely down to the change in class but I’m pretty sure it was at least somewhat significant.

So I started  to wonder why I was so fixated on only ever playing a hunter/ranger type and whether I should try something else out for a while.  I have to admit that I am finally getting bored of playing a hunter type in MMOs (it’s only taken me 6 years to get to this stage )

So I’ve decided to keep Eldaeriel for our Team Orange 3-mans (the warden/rk/hunter combo is just fab) and I’m going to try playing Mallendis for 6 and 12 man content.  I like the fact that I will have more choices in playstyle and traiting and that she can be useful in a number of ways.  I’m currently going for a 5R/2B combo so that I can dps, debuff and backup heal but I can switch / partially switch to full debuff/cc mode if we find ourselves in a situation that might need it.

In a way, she is reminding me of my inquisitor in eq2 (a class I really miss) she’s wielding a staff and sword instead of a great big thwacky hammer and wearing cloth instead of plate but she seems to have the same ability to wade into a fight swinging with a ton of other skills to back it up.

Although she is in a bit of a mess if I’m honest.  I’d zoomed her up through the levels and I missed a lot of deeds and content.  So I have a lot of catching up to do – her virtues and the mirkwood skirmishes being the priority to sort out.  My first aim is to get all her needed virtues to 10 (yes it’s that bad!) and to get her geared up.  Fortunately Eldaeriel is very close to finishing Hytbold so she’ll be able to barter for her gear and I should be able to get her staff to 2nd age, definitely once U10 is out anyway.  I’m really looking forward to doing something a bit different.

We had an evening spent in my personal alt kin house (especially chosen and decorated for our littlun to play in) and ended up just chatting away on mumble and erm dancing on the stage for ages… I promised not to mention names…

I really must learn some dance moves

I was finishing up some deeds in the Great River and took this screenshot, which I just really like and am including for some screenshotty goodness

Finally, your horse may have a secret.  A mild-mannered steed during the day:

but does he have an alter-ego?:

I don’t often equip a halter but I was trying one out the other day and thought he looked like Batman…  I would have done more if I’d had more colour packs – you may be grateful for that

Team Orange wearing their spiffy orange outfits

MMOs
I am still having a lot of fun in lotro (especially with team orange), there are niggles (store + grind) but its where my friends are and its a visually gorgeous, lore rich game.  I expect to be spending most of my MMO time there in 2013.  The only other current contenders are EQ2 and Vanguard on F2P terms.  EQ2 just holds nostalgia and a superb housing / decoration system and Vanguard, well I’d just really like to explore there more.

Single Player Games:
Spent my other gaming time either in Skyrim or Minecraft.  Both great games and this year I will probably also play some Morrowind and I’ve just found Towns (on Steam) which is a fun, addictive, city builder.  There is new content for Skyrim on the horizon and talk of Dragon Age 3 to keep my eye out for too.

The Hobbit:
We went to see this yesterday.  We really, really enjoyed it.  Yes it is a bit long and the addition of Azog did seem a bit unnecessary.  Surprise shock was that I ended up really liking Radagast – bearing in mind I can’t stand Sylvester McCoy as an actor (he ruined Doctor Who for me ).  As Radagast though, thought he was superb.  Looking forward to the next film.

We do also have Lego Star Wars and Lego Lord of the Rings to play on the PS3 with our littlun.  Both games are a lot of fun, though Star Wars is still his favourite.  We also treated ourselves to new 23″ WS monitors for the desktops, as I was sick of the UI clutter (MMOs) taking up most of the screen.  I cannot believe the difference it has made!  As well as the UI elements taking up much less space (proportionally as well as actually), its as though we have turned the graphics settings up a notch – wasn’t expecting that difference!

Happy New Year

PASS!

I ventured into Moria today, trying to clear up some old deeds and realised that the 2nd half of Moria has been revamped.  I had completely forgotten about it!  I started a quest chain with Svanr the dwarf and it led to this solo instance where you receive a memory or vision.  It was a pretty cool surprise and visually its simply amazing – I love the misty stone trees in the background.  I don’t know if this quest chain was in game before.

I love the adventure xp gained from crafting, if I’m honest I’d buy levels if I could…  I took my time levelling Eldaeriel and saw most of the sights of Middle Earth, its a bit daunting to face all that again.  It must be really off-putting to anyone who starts playing and has friends at cap.  Open tapping, auto loot and auto quests across the game is great and the great Bree-vamp is also very good.  I have started the very scrooge like grind for the Yule war-steed appearance, I don’t know if I can be bothered to go the whole 120 quests or not.  I am at 40 so far and I’m certainly not paying TP to reset the quests.

Team Orange have been busy, we’re all geared up (though improvements can still be made – most notably 2nd agers for myself and Aeowulf, c’mon Bugud!) and we’ve cleared the new instances on Tier 1 and will start tackling Tier 2 challenge shortly.  The new instances are stunning and a lot of fun, am looking forward to running them again.

I have been completely slacking on the blogging front – usual combination of playing, being busy and getting cold after cold…  Perhaps the New Year will be better

Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you all

I caved and I bought one dye pack so that I could dye my horse a smokey black like my favourite normal horse (the Mirkwood reputation horse).  I would like to buy some dye packs for the caparisons (and I would dearly love the elven caparison set which seems to be currently unavailable) but those are way out of my price range for now (and I’m still hoping they may adjust the dye pack price).  It would also be very cool to have markings for your horse (such as a star or a blaze) but well, I guess there is enough to spend your TP on already…

Anyway, here is Eldaeriel and Celebel.  I’m using part of the Steed of the Hunter appearance.

Beacon at Eaworth

I have a new outfit for Eldaeriel, I got fed up with wearing brown and the outfit is blue… very blue… I haven’t decided if its too blue yet  :P  We finished our 4 quests at Eaworth and headed over to Snowbourn (we’re at ally standing for The Wold, Norcrofts and Entwash Vale now) and we picked up the quest to fish for guppies…  We fished for ages until Jaedwyn passed on a top tip of looking for a small circle with tiny fishes, and we got our updates very quickly after that (I think there is a clue in the quest text but we managed to um ignore it )

Dimzad fishing outside Garsfeld

Oh and I got level 85 upon the hand in of that quest  So I went off to Hytbold and I had enough tokens for 2 pieces of gear  My plan is to get to Ally status with all 4 factions and do targetted rebuilding quests so that I can get 3 pieces of one set and 3 pieces of another set.  I decided that the stats were more important for me initially than the set bonuses and I can get those pretty quickly.  Once I have done that, I’ll continue working on faction and rebuilding and aim for at least one complete set.

We went off and joined in killing Bugud,  I think there were about 5 of us and it was a fun and quick fight as per usual.  Dimzad, the jammy little dorf, looted a tarnished symbol of Celebrimbor  I got some marks and…. *rolls eyes* a banner…

I logged in Mallendis (now lvl 80) to clear out the shared bank, and then decided to kill Bugud on her too *just in case*.  So Mallendis and Dimzad started the Bugud fight, figuring that a few more ppl would join in soon.  Well aside from a burglar, they didn’t…  I was feeling quite squishy and slightly useless as over half of my attacks were missing him.  One epic (and long) battle later, we did kill him and I didn’t get a symbol  Was a long fight but a lot of fun and I was pretty chuffed to have done it.  We’re very grateful that burglar joined in though!

was a good night