Hytbold, Moria and Mirkwood

A very busy week for me, with a lot of fun had and a lot achieved.  It’s been a mix of grouping and deeding this week (click for larger images and slideshow)

Dimzad in his element

the last funny message in the old kin

this npc’s chat had me in stitches

deeding with mallendis in Moria, I get distracted by the stonework

and the light

and the symmetry

wow… finished up some Moria epics with Mallendis

OMG I finished Hytbold!!!

tanking Aeo style 😛 such a funny night!

the skies in the epic books are just… stunning

ding 85!

Last night was a night of achievements for myself and Dimzad.  Our first was successfully boinging our way up Eaworth’s beacon (I did it on my 3rd attempt if you don’t count missing the very first beam :D)  I know a lot of people are having problems with this (not surprisingly) and the only real advice I can give is that I found it easier to jump on the outside edges rather than close to the tower wall.  oh and be ready with the s (back) key because I found I was over-jumping as a rule.

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  😛  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 🙂

little by little, one travels far

Sorry, this is going to be a screenshot bare update as I don’t really have access to my PC at the moment (family staying :)), Avast is reporting malware from a Steam update (false positive I think, although Avast definitions are up to date), the .bmp screenshots are saying they are corrupt and I can’t open them and I just don’t have time to sort it all out 😦

So I’ve been back playing Skyrim after a fairly long break.  Scarily I’ve now put in about 160 hours on the game and I’m still not bored or anywhere near finishing it 😉  After playing around with a couple of new characters (still bow wielding sneak thieves!) I’ve gone back to my original character to try and sort out where I’m up to quest-wise and I’ve now braved the shite spread across her 6 houses and am currently consolidating into one crippling monthly repayment,   a mess , a new house.  I will be posting on the inventory side of things for Ambermist’s latest challenge so I will say no more here.

I’ve also downloaded quite a few new mods (last time I played, the Steam Workshop had only just released I think) and they are proving to be a lot of fun.  I’m currently using the better roads and maps and SkyUI (which I had installed early on via the Nexus site) but now I also have Better Females (not entirely to my taste but stops my female wood elf from looking like a man ;)), The Reserve (a stunningly beautiful house which has everything you might need), the Build Your Own House mod (fun!), a couple of graphics enhancers, arrow crafting and erm a cheat…  Its basically a mod which gives you the perks you are entitled to based on skill level rather than the standard one perk per level.  Its slightly overpowered but I think I’ve put enough hours in by now to justify it 😉  I can’t remember the name and I can’t currently look it up – sorry (but search for perks under cheats and you should find it).

I’m currently deciding what to do next.  I’m thane in all available cities, halfway through the dragon shout questline, halfway through the main questline (sided with the imperials), guild master of the thieves guild and am archmage of the magic college (which is ironic given how little I use magic).  I may skill up the crafting and work on filling/completing the two new houses and just carry on dungeon running and exploring for now.

We played lotro on Saturday evening and had a lot of fun finally doing the Culling Pit quests with Team Orange (that’s my hunter, Dimzad’s RK and Aeowulf’s warden!  Aeo came up with the name….) and then doing Saruman’s armPits Pits of Isengard on T2 challenge.  We were successful but because Aeo and I popped out between kills, our quests reset so we’ll have to do it again to get the deed.  Its pretty easy once you get past Zaburz (sp?) which is quite hectic but fun.  Hopefully we’re grouping again on Wednesday night 🙂  I feel like I ought to be working on my Limlight Gorge faction, but with the expansion so close there does seem little point in grinding for level 75 gear.  I do want to try and push Mallendis to 75 though, as she is my Cook and it would be great if she could get the faction recipes.  She’s currently level 58 so it is possible….  I’m not intending grouping with her, although occasionally it might be fun 🙂

I haven’t had time or the mental energy to look at the new festival though.  There are a couple of cosmetic pieces I would like to get so hopefully I’ll get time in the week to check it out.

I may also have to pause the Tale of the Red Maid posts, August is a horrendously busy month and they are not in a fit state to publish as yet.  I will see how it goes and will try to get them out if I can.

little by little, one travels far

everquest:  its unlikely we’ll be playing this again.  I can see why it was such a good game and why so many people have fond memories and so many still play it though, I think I came along too late.

vanguard:  not sure what’s happening with this game.  its absolutely gorgeous, feels quite different and we’ve had fun so far.  Now we’re back in lotro though, I’m not sure we’ll have time to play here too.  Its possible though, we will be grouping here when it goes f2p.  Must remember to log in and check out the free house loyalty reward.

lotro: well we’re back in lotro 🙂  I’d been popping in a bit and playing my lore-master and grinding through the festival but our friends we were playing with in everquest are trying out lotro so hopefully they’ll like it and stick around.  My 12 mth sub is going to run out next month, although it was a really good deal I think I’m going to try subbing from September to March ish and lapse to premium for the spring/summer months.

lotro pre-order /rant: I’m holding fire on pre-ordering the expansion at the moment, I’m really lucky that my birthday is in August so Dimzad has given me an early birthday present and I can pre-order the legendary expansion:D  I really want it but I really really dislike how they’ve done it this year.   I’m holding out for now as a token of protest.  What would I like to change?  Well it just doesn’t seem like very good value, perhaps if they included some TP included for the heroic and legendary versions, that might be better.  I think they could have been more generous with the 6th bag pre order bonus too…  Why on earth is there exclusive game content for the legendary pack? that just feels really, really wrong.   Why doesn’t the legendary pack get the stuff included in normal and heroic?  its just really strange, not what I expected and I don’t like it… Lets hope that there are some tweaks to the packs.

admin: I really must update my blogroll…  remember that I was going to reblog some posts on a friday…

little by little, one travels far

so…

Everquest… yes well, we’re grouping up with some fantastic people and having huge amounts of fun over voice chat but Dimzad and I are having huge problems getting into the game (not helped by the fact we can only bring ourselves to log in on the weekly group night and once we do, we’re just running round in circles killing the same mobs over and over again – for explorer/achiever types, not the ideal night gaming :P)  So really you’d think we’d try and do something about this…  you know maybe put a bit of effort in, buy our spells maybe… get some money for gear together… roll a class I like (I hate the bard class, really really hate it)…  have a look around… do some quests, maybe check out crafting?

erm no…

instead we accidentally decided to sub to a different game…  Vanguard… and we LOVE it!  Dimzad is still pottering about the Isle of Dawn catching up on crafting and diplomacy.  I have more time to play than him, so I’ve done the crafting quests there, tried out diplomacy, decided I didn’t like it so ignored it and oh yeah… I’VE ROLLED A RANGER AND NOW I’M HAPPY!!!!  I’m currently running around Ca’ail Brael, doing a bit of crafting, seeing what’s over there and not picking up any adventuring quests until Dimzad joins me.  Pure bliss 🙂

suzita the ranger

distant mountains – isle of dawn

night time – isle of dawn

sunset on the isle of dawn

wood elf starter area

wood elf starter area

wood elf starter area

ca’ail brael

stone piles, half elf starter area

am feeling guilty about everquest now, so will log in and buy some spells for the dreaded bard ;p and think about levelling a rogue maybe 😉

little by little, one travels far…

…although it feels as though I’m going nowhere in a gaming sense 😉  i’ve completely lost motivation and direction which is having a real impact on blogging.  when I am playing *something* it is slightly half-heartedly and even when I am concentrating, it isn’t anything really worth sharing 😉

so what have games have i been thinking about / pottering about in?

lotro:  currently on the back burner,  mixture of being in a quiet (yet lovely!) guild, our weekly small fellowship not being able to happen at the moment combined with alt burnout.  (after stupid amounts of alts in eq2 I CANNOT face the same in lotro, so the alts I do have are crafting slaves ;))  I do want to continue a comic adaptation I started over on My Middle Earth Net and I do want to explore the new region so may well be tempted back in soon 🙂

eq2:  well I never got Tanzi to level 90 and never got my little guild up to being able to have a guild hall, so i’ve been pottering about a little there.  If, at any point in the future, I am forced to open an account with Alaplaya I will stop playing completely.  still disgusted by that.

minecraft:  I made a little jungle home that I want to finish and have a couple of ideas that I’m playing about with.  such a cool game 🙂

star trek online: I downloaded and got very excited (absolutely LOVE DS9!) but the space combat is just beyond me at the moment.  It makes me feel like a stereotypical girl so I may have to go back just to beat it 😛

rift: I thought I’d give the first 20 levels another go (its free for those levels) but I had to stop downloading and the whole thing cancelled when i was halfway through.  have been too annoyed to re-download as yet.

skyrim: currently not playing, though there is a new patch with new kill animations so I may well be back stealthing and sniping away soon 😀  still love the game and fully intend ‘finishing’ it at some point

dragon age: although i started again i can’t really face going through the whole thing so more occasional pottering here 😛  there is talk though of more in the series – yay!

so there you go – plenty of potential gameage but not really in a gaming mood at the mo.  so have been doing lots of other non-computery stuff over the last month or so 🙂

although usually when I write a post like this, I get my game back on and blogging resumes 😛  we shall see