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...

Wow vs LotRO, a study in simplicity vs complexity

I've just gotten my internet restored after a month away (lightning strike, AT&T complete idiocy, 4 techs, new line, big ordeal), and re-subbed to WoW. That has a lot to do with my missing my awesome guildies and friends, and also missing the ease of it. I love lotro, but I love being able to just jump a griffon/wyvern and get where I need to be quickly and easily. On the other hand, when I'm in the mood for it, wandering around trying to find the next quest hub can be a lot of fun. But when I'm not in the mood for it, and just want to get some XP (I'd like to see 50 by the end of the year), very annoying and complicated.

On the other hand, I spent about 2 hours with a friend on facebook walking me through what I should be doing in WoW. I've been away since December, and lots had changed. I had almost full bags with no clue of what to do with any of it (still haven't tackled that) and no clue on where to go.  Apparently the Isle of Thunder is my friend, and I did run through the first two scenarios to start unlocking it (which also helped me remember how the heck to shadow which is also on the complex side).

I also can't help wondering if I'd have as much trouble re-acclimating if I had a max level character in lotro. Jumping back onto the hunter or minstrel's fairly easy, but one's level 40 and one's 30. That's less than halfway to level cap, so there's far less for me to think about. I don't have bags stuffed full of transmog and cooking ingredients (and I have no clue what the heck I was doing with so many scallions), they're full of trophies, wood, random crafting things I'm saving for other toons (which go in shared storage till I wanna craft on that toon), and leather. The only complexity there is which task board I need to go to, and if it makes sense to send some of them to a lower level toon (to get more XP for the buck, so to speak).

Some of the simplicity of WoW has come as it's aged. I remember when you had to discover each flight point for each toon (which you still need to do in lotro), and when Azeroth was weird and new and I ran the length of a continent using only a speed boost in my early 20s (trick or treating all of Eastern Kingdoms) and alt+tabbing out to maps. I generally don't alt+tab out to maps in lotro unless I'm looking for something specific (ruin, quest location, that sort of thing); I can generally figure out how to get where I need to go. I like that about lotro (and I like the mithral coins option which allows you to go to any travel hub for one, just wish I got a few every month as a subber as they cost points).

I suspect part of it comes down to how I think about and play these two similar games so differently. In LotRO, the journey is the point. If I try to start power-leveling, I get frustrated because it feels so slow (the rested XP change doesn't help). In WoW, the socialization and end-game are the points, and thus I expect the journey to be fairly short (I have no idea what it will take to get Lyllea raid-ready, and honestly I'm not going to worry about it, I have enough RL stuff to deal with). If the journey is the point, I want a journey to be interesting, with nifty things to see and options for side-journeys, and I'm willing to forgive a certain amount of complexity for that. If the journey's a commute, I want simple and easy, preferably short, with as few traffic jams as possible.

I don't think one game is more complex than the other, I think they're just complex in different ways. That's good, it lets me enjoy them both, but I do wonder how much my viewpoint (very experienced former raider in Wow vs newbie with highest toon at 40) has to do with it.

Computer Problems fixed, for the moment at least, now back to Middle Earth

Well, the computer problems are (hopefully) fixed for the moment. One BIOS update, way too much fiddling with video card drivers, one dismantling to clean out dust, and taking all the video settings in LotRO down to minimum.... plus my trusty (if annoying) cooling pad and I can run around Middle Earth.

I've been having a ridiculous amount of fun, to be honest. Even if I did get stuck at Rivendell (why the game would give me a quest that transports me there when Caithdein is level 23 and can't ride back is beyond me), it's been nice to run around and go "ooh, pretty"

See, I can't leave! HELP ELVES ARE HOLDING ME CAPTIVE! :)

At this point I've run 5 toons through their rested XP (okay, the two level 12 toons didn't take long), but Caithdein, Nathyrra, and Aerthiel have all gone up quite a bit (hanging at 25, 35, and 29 respectively). It's been really nice to be able to switch around and still see new stuff (or in Caithdein's case stuff I haven't done in so long that I don't remember it).

It's looking like the developers are planning to do some interesting things this year, including a housing revamp (be still, my heart) and creating a player's council. I thought there was some mention of redoing deeds/traits as well, but I can't find a source atm for that, so it might be wishful thinking on my part.

They're also released a cloak for Boston, which is a nice touch, and is pretty. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an Anniversary Celebration to get back to (last night and all)

Actual sort of content! (just not about WoW)

WoW doldrums continue. In fact, I've been in far more of a reading mood than anything else lately, but this is not "the Bibliophile Noob". So, mmo content....

Lotro's doing their spring festival, just in time for summer! It broke 90F here, it's summer, darn it. Anyway, what I've done of it was fairly entertaining, there seems to be much more to do than there was during the Anniversary festival, but that also makes it much more time-consuming. Since I also want to level, this is a bit of a problem. I think I've spent 3-4 hours on it, and I've yet to do anything related to the maze or the horsefields. So, tons of content, yay, loads of travel not as much yay, but between a personal house in the elven neighborhood, a guild house (for most of my toons) in the Shire neighborhood, and hearths/milestones set to Bree, it could be worse. Plus my hunter can just port.

I did have an interesting new experience. My kinship (guild) did an official dungeon run of the Maze in the Great Barrows. Sadly, I have no screencaps of it. It was a very long slog (especially since our minstrel healer bailed on us after the second wipe without a word), and there was a lot of wiping, and we ended up having to reset the level (dungeons in lotro can be set to various levels). We'd started at 35, with a lvl 29 melee dps, me as ranged dps at 32, minstrel at 36ish I think, another melee dps at 37, and our fearless leader's in the 40s or 50s.  We ended up pulling in another captain (our fearless leader's one) in the 50s, but just couldn't down the end bosses without healing. Reset to lvl 25ish and the only one who died was me (I don't have an aggro dump yet, and let's face it, I'm really used to having one in groups).  I am trying to level my minstrel now, so we don't have that problem again, but well, slow. I'm thinking skirmishes, and lots of them. It'll let me practice minstrel healing and the mercenary/pet warrior can do more damage than me.

Also, I leveled farming.

And there was house-buying. I already owned a small house, but I traded up. The only problem I have with lotro's housing (other than one house per server) is that they only create new neighborhoods when the old ones are full. Since there's 3 types of housing (small, deluxe, and guild) and various placements in the neighborhood are often considered more desirable, I couldn't get (any of the 5) addresses I wanted in any Elven neighborhood. But I did find a compromise location, and see, it's still pretty... (the windmill on the left is my addition)

And last, but not least, here's something I discovered and found amusing while leveling farming...

Notice that green vegetable next to the Cauliflower Field entry? Isn't that broccoli? Oh, and I maxed out Expert, got Artisan past the red bar stage, and started the next level (Master?).

Lotro: My conclusions must wait, but I'm having fun!

Well, it's been a monthish. I've been playing on and off, got my warden (who is ridiculously fun) to 19, and did some stuff....
There's a holiday going on, so I did a very fun quest that involved being REALLY drunk. My hobbit sings when she's drunk, it's very cute. Basically you had to run all over the Shire and drink 6 beers at each inn. When you finished, you got a title.

I bought a house. Then I was broke. But I have a house and isn't it cute!

Inside my really empty house.

Eventually I will be able to afford furniture. Until then, Syrana's sleeping on the bear rug.

But see, there's loads of options and you can change the floors and walls and even the music. Not that I'll be doing that any time soon, because, well, broke.

I'm waiting to give this game a full review (at least of the free-to-play bit) until after I get the warden to 20. That unlocks skirmishes, which I think are a big deal.  But I am willing to say the following...

If you're looking for a quest-heavy MMORPG with an unlimited free trial of the first 20ish levels, you could do far worse than LotRO. Explorers, questers, and crafters will like this game. That said, if you enjoy the game you will end up spending money on it. The quest zones beyond 20ish are not free-to-play, though you could probably stretch the Breelands content to 25ish or so.

More lotro and a bit of WoW

I've been laid up for most of the week with sprained ankles. This has given me a lot of free time to play games, lotro in particular. Oh, and if you're interested in lotro, please read the excellent comment left on my last post explaining the classes far better than I can.

I've been having a blast, especially with my Hobbit Warden. I'd forgotten how relaxing I find farming, and isn't she cute?

And here we see the Shire at sunset. So pretty!

In WoW news, I may be switching healing roles from raid to tank. The holy pally in our raid team wants to try raid heals, so we'll likely be switching roles.  I need to figure out stat weights, and I'll likely spend some of my weekend playing around with Mr Robot, experimenting with different stat weighings. I'll let you guys know what I come up with, but tonight I wander around Bree!

Noobing it up in LotRO: Part 1

This is the first in an occasional series about other MMORPGs. Basically, I'm going to try games, and report back. First off is a game near and dear to my heart, Lord of the Rings Online. This game is free to play, and while there are loads of extras you can buy, you earn currency through in game stuff as well, allowing you to never have to purchase points if you don't want to.

To that end: complete deeds. I know, you're going "wtf are deeds?" Deeds are rather like achievements, but there's a lot more of them and you get titles and turbine points and virtues from them. So, you kill x goblins, you complete a deed. You use special attack A so many times, you get a deed. See, here I just got one for Wolf-Killing.

And here's my deed log, showing an example of a virtue. There's deeds for exploration, killing stuff, questing, using special class abilities, running dailies, and probably more I don't know about yet. The toon there just got rolled this morning, and already has quite a few deeds to her name.

So, when you see a deed pop up, try to get it done.  More points = different classes, more bag space, quest areas, crafting bonuses, and a bunch of other stuff.

Now: classes....
Your creation screen won't look quite like this.  I ponied up for the two pay classes, Warden and Runekeeper cause I wanted to. But the basics are pretty similar to Wow. Different races, not every race can be every class, and oh, no female dwarves.  Dwarves and elves start in the same zone, and hobbits and humans share the other starting zone.

The class info screen is really useful. Class difficulty, role, and gameplay are all things you want to take into account when rolling up. Below is a very vague description of each class.
Burglars->rogue-like
Captain->think pallies with squires. Yup, they're a pet class.
Champion->warriors (but not prot ones)
Guardian->the tank
Hunter->More or less the same as WoW, but no pets. Good in range, not so good in melee, kinda squishy
Lore-Master->the closest you're going to get to a mage, but with pets.
Minstrel->healers and buffbots
Rune-Keepers->Dunno, haven't rolled one yet.
Warden->weird combo of ranged and melee dps with complicated on the side. My warden's lvl 2, so it's entirely possible I have no idea what a warden actually does yet.

There are a few things to keep in mind with lotro. First, it's the journey, not the destination. Yes, there's end-game raiding (or so I'm told, my highest toon is in the low 20s), but there's a huge amount of stuff to do before then. In fact, if you rush straight to endgame, you're kinda missing the point. There's a huge world and tons of content!
Second, crafting's a bit more complicated than in WoW, but also more valuable if you keep it up (the weapons I crafted right off the bat are better than any quest drops I've seen).

So, go try lotro. You lose nothing by trying it (being free and all) and it's a fun game for explorers and quest-lovers. Just be aware, if pvp's your thing, this is probably not your game. PVP is monster PCs vs regular PCs, and is not free (last time I checked).

And Now For Something Completely Different

Okay, not completely different, just sort of. I've been dealing with WoW boredom, and that combined with rewatching the LotR trilogy inspired me to try LotRO again. I have played it before, and enjoyed it, but then I started WoW and it ate my brain and yeah, it's been years. Like 3 of them.

First off, I had to remember what server my toons were on. Since, unlike WoW, Lotro is not so nice with the switching servers bit, it took a while. I finally found them on Gladden, and figured my hunter would be the easiest to jump into. Boy, was I wrong. Hunters in lotro are more like mages in WoW, glass cannons who depend on CC and really fast dps.  No pets, just traps and nerves of steel.  Also, a really pretty world and ooh, I can make my own bows! (I love being able to do that). Here we see my hunter wandering through Erid Luin, with her crafted bow clearly visible. See, very pretty!

There's a lot of stuff I miss when I play lotro. For one, all my buttons are different! I am slowly remapping them, but it's a bit of a pain. I also miss addons, and um, actually having enough cash to train skills. I am broke. Really broke. Like, can you spare me 50 silver so I can go train a skill I got access to 5 levels ago broke. I'm attempting to try the AH there, which just made me miss Auctioneer. Also, I don't have much of a clue what my various toons (hunter, minstrel, and captain) need profession-wise so I'm never sure what to sell and what to keep.

Is LotRO going to replace WoW for me? History says probably not. I played LotRO last time for about 7 months and got bored. WoW's held my attention more or less for almost 3 years now. But there are things in LotRO I loved, like the crafting and the customization and the achievements with titles and possibly the housing. Due to the lack of cash, I've never actually had a house, but I suspect I'd enjoy it.  And with LotRO now free to play, I see no reason not to wander into Middle Earth now and again, even if it's just to chop some logs and remind myself why WoW priests trump LotRO minstrels any day of the week.

Wow Malaise and cheating on Wow with other games

I seem to be in a general sort of WoW malaise. I log in because I feel like I should, putter around for a bit, then log back off. It's just not very fun right now. I can't figure out if that's because I'm not in the mood to play, or what...

So, in an effort to a) do something fun, and b) try to break myself out of this funk, I'm going to try other games. Starting with LotRO, since they're having a free weekend. I played LotRO for about 6 months and did like it quite a lot, just lost interest. It's a lovely game, and I'm hoping that playing something else for a bit will remind me why I play wow.

Plus, I have a new computer coming (drool 1 gb video card drool) and that means I will actually have HD space to have more than one game installed.

I'll report on what I'm playing and what I think about it, but I figured I should warn you guys that WoW stuff may be short on the ground for a bit.

And to start off, here's my original impressions of LotRO, written way back in July 2007.....

So, guess who got Lord of the Rings Online yesterday? Yup, me. Guess who hasn't played any other MMORGPS besides City of Heroes (at launch for less than a month)? Also me. So, you're getting first impressions, under the cut for those of you who don't care. I'm probably pretty close to a MMORPG virgin at this point, but I did my best to compare to City of Heroes. As I get more familiar, I'll let you guys know more. Also, expect screenshots. This game is incredible-looking. Seriously beautiful. And remember, I'm running a 256 mb video card, not exactly top of the line.


So I installed the game, and waited for it to patch. This took a while, since they released a patch yesterday and everyone was patching at once. Grr. Like 2 hours. I should also point out that my connection is a max 256 kb up, 756 kb down, so not so fast to begin with. I do like the fact that the game a) doesn't need the discs to play, and b) comes with a buddy key good for 10 days of play. Good marketing there. Oh, and Sid's already spoken for mine. Sorry. Anyway, after spending lots of time thinking of names (it's probably a good idea to have about 10 or so on hand and I would suggest the everchanging book of names for this), I was finally ready to go. YAY! Opening cinematic was cool. Then you pick a server (I picked Gladden since the Ars fellowship is there (Ars Techica is a site whose forums I belong to and had read before I bought the game) and make a character. Many names are taken and I ended up with my 5th choice name. Sigh.

Also, not every class is available for every race. I made an elven hunter. Probably not the easiest choice to start, but I hate running up to my enemies, and I liked playing a blaster (ranged fighter) in City of Heroes, so I figured why not? Hunters are better at ranged, but they can use melee weapons. As far as elf goes, I tend to play elves.

You get quite a few choices, though not as many as CoH(City of Heroes), and your hair, eyes, and such do somewhat depend on what region you chose (I think). Then I entered the tutorial region and got very confused. I figured out movement fairly quickly, though I'm not overly enamored of the hold down the right mouse button and move mouse or use a or d to look around system. The equipping what you take took me most of the tutorial to figure out. I was wondering why the enemies were so difficult, and why I kept dying. Then I decided to figure out what the bag things on the bottom of my screen were. Turns out, hey they're bags and there's stuff in them. And if I switch out my fairly useless knife and bow for the better knife and bow, wow, the goblins fall down now. And ooh, if I change out this pair of pants for that pair of pants, my pants change colour.

And hey, there's Elrond! And he looks like Elrond should look! Yay!
I finished the tutorial and started the actual game, which is damn impressive. So far I haven't gotten lost. The directions aren't too bad. The ring quests (which are the only ones I've done) tell you to go north or follow the road until it branches, then follow the west branch, things like that. Actually, the graphics are good enough that I think I can find my way around via landmarks, but I haven't wandered very far. So far, I've seen Dwalin, Elrond, Gildor, and Elrond's two sons. I like the looks of the first three, but not the looks of the twins. You can see pictures on the game website, if you're interested.

No lag yet on my system. I've seen some other players, but haven't interacted with anyone yet, mostly cause that would either mean I'd have to figure out how to use the chat system or find my mic (there's built-in voice chat). And since I haven't even figured out the targeting system yet (something to do with tab, but I'm not sure and I'm already at level 4), that can wait. If you're interested in finding me, I've got 3 characters on Gladden and one on Brandywine so far. Gladden has Mirelle the hobbit burglar (level 1), Colldoran the elven champion (level 1), and Nathyrra the elven hunter (my main so far and level 4 and yes the one I've been talking about).

So that's what I think, and yes it was fun and damn I'm tired and migrainy. I was already so, and playing till past 11 (I got sucked in) did not help.

Random Funnies

(I would like to offer apologies to Terry Pratchett, who I stole the immaterial name line from. He is full of win and awesome and if you've never read any of his books you really really should.)

A female draenei, dressed in robes, with an exclamation point over her head, stood just inside Forest Song. A gnome, dressed in leather and carrying two daggers, ran up to her and spoke...
"So, what's your name, pretty space goat?"

"My name is immaterial," the draenei replied, looking down at him.

"That's a pretty name," the gnome said, smiling up at her.

The draenei rolled her eyes. "No, you don't understand. I'm immaterial."

The gnome poked her.

"Ow!"

"No, you're not. You're solid."

"Hey! No touching the quest NPCs. Look, all I'm saying is that my name is unimportant."

"But you just said it was immaterial!"

"You know what, I think I'll find someone else to do this quest," and the draenei stalked off. The gnome ran after her.

"Wait, I need the rep!"

And because I am too lazy to go through my massive screenshot folder, and also because it is a free LotRO weekend (and if I could find the discs I would so be reinstalling to try it again), I give you a silly LotRO shot.

You know, you'd think growing about 3 feet, shaving off the beard, managing to go from stocky to willowy, and growing pointy ears would successfully disguise me. Damn you!