There has been little gaming, due mostly to the overheating monster showing back up. The fan pad buys me a couple of hours of running around lotro, but that's not really enough. Nothing like laptop going black just as you're finishing up an escort quest or the unlocking of Moria to cause lots of cursing.

I have really been enjoying myself (or I was) but the shutdowns are both frustrating and REALLY annoying. I've gotten to the point that I just run around the world and try to get deeds done. Since I'm at the point where I have to level my bow to defeat the tentacle monster to get into Moria, this isn't so bad.

Since my mom's computer is dying, there is a new computer on the horizon for me. Ordered, but I won't see it for at least a month. Still, I am vaguely excited. Enjoy Black Friday, check out the Steam and Turbine deals, and try not to get killed by angry shopping mobs!

Lotro's New Expansion! New WoW Character Models!! Way too many exclamation points!!!!

First off, LotRO changes....
Oooh, lookie, talent trees! Dual-spec as default! While I am saddened by the loss of the old way (which I saw as partly giving me a guide on how to play the class a, b, or c way), I do like talent trees, and let's face it, the whole getting deeds by using class skills to get talents was a bit over-complicated and not binge-gamer friendly. Of course, it looks like I still need to get deeds by using class skills, they just give me talent points instead. Here's a couple examples of what the trees look like, I appear to have screencapped the captain and burglar ones. The numbers on the right side are to change between specs. The left buttons are class, virtue, and race (possibly not in that order)

Captain talent trees once you select a specialization

Captain Specializations

Burglar Specializations

Aesthetically I find these very pleasing, I like the clear explanations, and overall I'm happy. I'm rather annoyed that I need to remember to lay traps to get the deed for it on Nathyrra (never used 'em much), but I do understand that traps (and all forms of crowd control) are an important part of the game. Now if I could just figure out how to get to the window again, that'd be nice. I'm probably missing something, quite honestly, but a little popup along the lines of "to get to this specializations window again, hit h or x button on the menu" would be nice.

The trees really remind me of the old WoW ones, which I miss. Obviously, with my main at 50 I can't speak about end game balance, or pvp balance, so no clue on that. Oh, and I haven't bought the expansion yet (because I never really saw what it would get me that I needed right now).

I was also happy to get lots more Turbine points. I did notice my bars had fewer buttons on them, but sadly they don't appear to have combined all the hunter travel skills into one button that brings up a selection. I'd love for them to do that. Oh, and there's item levels now, so I know what level my items for dailies are without hitting the wiki. There also appear to be some crafting changes, but I haven't looked at that yet. I basically logged in, played Nathyrra for a bit (things still die when I shoot them), spec'd 6 other toons, and wandered off.


Now, WoW character models. Thank goodness. I'm not paying huge amounts of attention to them, mostly because I figure I might as well wait till they're all finalized and also, they don't appear to have released many that would affect my toons (belf, human, draenei, undead, panda, goblin, and almost all female). I do like the instant 90 idea, because quite frankly I can't stand leveling through Wraith and Cat yet again (I've done it 8 times or so, quite enough). The new expansion looks interesting, but I honestly don't know if it'll hold my interest or not. We shall see...