Category: Gaming

Little Minstrel Continues On

I’ve been having a blast in the Lord of the Rings Online these past few days, things are a LOT smoother then I remember. I started off three days ago at level 19, barely remembering my way around Middle Earth, and now I’m sitting at level 25, and still exploring through the lone lands. There is a bonus to experience while the Yule festival is going on, but even without that, the experience is flowing nicely. One thing I love about questing in the Lord of the Rings Online is that the quests actually flow together. You don’t finish all of the quests at one hub and wonder where you’re supposed to be next, each quest leads to the next area, and you’ve got a clear path on where you’ll find encounters your level. I find that in WoW I’m all over the place, without the faintest idea of where I should be for my level without looking up some sort of guide. Now, this could also be seen as a bad thing, after all maybe that’s too much ‘hand holding’ in a game, but if I don’t WANT to follow the quest path, I don’t have to. I can wander off and explore, or go harvesting, or craft. There’s other things for me to do.

The quests themselves are a little lack luster, your typical kill X number of bears/boars/spiders/orcs/goblins and return them to an npc, broken up by periods of instancing. Rewards have been good enough to keep myself and Hampooj (Guardian pictured beside my Minstrel above) geared without feeling as though we’re going to die any second. Although we have died, plenty.

This is the furthest I’ve ever gotten in the game, and I’m having a lot of fun this time around. I’m not sure exactly why, nothing has changed since other times I’ve played, but as long as I’m enjoying myself I suppose it doesn’t matter. I guess one factor is that I’m exploring places I’ve never been before (in game at least) and while the quests may feel the same as every other MMO out there, I love looking at new sights.

Tomorrow I plan on spending most of my time in EQ2, as I am preparing for my Troubador to finish her mythical. That will make my 3rd completed mythical (Illusionist and Mystic already have theirs) and I’m excited. I just need leviathan and my Veeshan’s Peek kill to complete it, which should be easy enough. Of course she’s well behind in achievements so who knows if I’ll ever manage to hit 200 on little Goudia, it’s not something I’m actively working towards at this point in time.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend no matter where you find yourself. Only one week until Christmas! I can’t believe it’s snuck up on us so fast this year.

Happy Gaming!

Changes in WAR

One of the great things about the holiday season, aside from the hustle and bustle of activities (typically involving malls and a lot of credit cards, and food) is that there’s a pretty great selection of festive activities to enjoy in game. Not only that, but a lot of games are offering a welcome back promotion of some sort. WoW offered me 10 free days, EQ2 has activated old accounts until the 31st of December, LotRO has a welcome back weekend currently running, and WAR also offered me 10 days to return to the game and check out the changes. WAR was one of those games that I enjoyed playing, but not enough to want to pay monthly for it. I love pvp and I enjoyed the thrill of battle, but there wasn’t enough ‘other stuff’ to keep me playing. I don’t enjoy pvp ALL of the time (I don’t enjoy any one thing ALL of the time, which is probably why I play so many games).

That being said, it’s a beautiful game, and I never disliked it. It just didn’t have enough ‘umph’ to keep me playing. I’m not above taking advantage of promotions to see changes, and of course I dragged a friend with me because everything is better when you’re playing with someone else.

It didn’t take any time at all to patch, and when I logged in the first thing I was greeted with (once I’d created a character) was a “changes since last time you have logged in” screen – which is a VERY SMART IDEA. I wish other games took note of this and implemented the same sort of feature. Some key notes based on the last time you’ve logged in that will show on the screen and remind you of all of the wonderful new features that you should be taking advantage of. Fantastic attention to detail, and I (as a player) like that.

One of the changes since I played last, is there’s a new tutorial area. In fact I was so out of the loop I didn’t have any idea there was this area, and figured that myself and my friend would have to create the same race in order to start together. Turns out, that’s not the case any more. The starter area was bustling with players, probably because of the new ‘unlimited’ trial that allows you to play Tier 1 for as long as you’d like. I play Order on Badlands, and Destruction on Gorfang. The highest character I have is level 12. I love playing healers, and my archmage, but there’s no way I would be able to just jump right back into the game knowing where I left off (it’s been months) so I created a ranged melee type character. Like every tutorial, the starter area introduces you to the game and puts you into WAR head first. Before level five you’ve already experienced your first public quest and are gaining reputation. I always enjoyed the fact that there were multiple methods of ‘leveling’ in WAR, through public quests, battlegrounds, and PvE (even if the pve was lacking at times).

It was starting to get late so I didn’t get very far, I think I logged off at level four or so, but it was fun. It was a little confusing and overwhelming trying to understand and remember all of the commands and what everything did, but that’s true for every game, and the fact that I play so many just compounds this because I have to remember commands and keys for not just a few games, but closer to 15 different games at any one time. Typically I go through and bind everything I can so it all matches one game, or I spend hours trying to figure out the basics (like hiding my UI so I can take a screen shot, or auto attacking).

I’m looking forward to continuing my adventures through WAR. Will I subscribe after my 10 days are up? Well. I haven’t decided yet. There’s a good chance I just might. It depends on my schedule though and whether or not I think I can justify the cost with work gaming + play gaming. In the mean time, I’m just going to enjoy.

Exploring the Lone Lands

The Lone Lands recently went through a revamp in the Lord of the Rings Online, and I was pretty excited about it seeing as I was just coming up to that zone. My little Minstrel was sitting at 19, and I had completely forgotten how to play.  Never a better time to start!

By the time all was said and done, I was sitting half way through level 21, and had also picked up new songs and skills, as well as a bunch of new gear. The most exciting part (for me) was that I finally get to make use of my appearance slots. I had saved up my plumed hat from a low level quest specifically for this moment.

My minstrel has been paired up with a guardian for most of her adventures, which has been a pretty good combination. Of course they’ve also made multiple changes to the game as of late, so things are a lot easier then they once were. Thanks to the rest experience we both had saved up the two levels pretty much flew by. On the other hand, there’s also 65 levels in game now, and since we’re only sitting at level 21, it’s still a long way off.

There are Yule Festival events in game right now too, when I logged in I managed to get a title for it, even though we haven’t made our way to the actual events yet. Those will come tomorrow, maybe. I haven’t the faintest idea of what’s actually going on in game, but I’m excited to find out.

I play as Lysthia (though I do have three crafting alts) on the Landroval server – I’m in Casualties of War if you’re looking to say hello. I’ve got a three month subscription as part of the Mirkwood promotion that I picked up, so hopefully I’ll be able to find the time to actually play. So far this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten in LotRO, and I’m excited about leveling up more. Being able to actually use my mount that I have would sure be nice.

A Little Free Realms

It’s not often I get some time to play Free Realms, but I do occasionally find myself looking for something very relaxed to play for a few hours, and Free Realms certainly has that covered. They’ve just released a huge update with new pets, new housing, and their winter events so I decided to take a peek around last night with Hampooj (better known as Wpus from EQ2). I really enjoy their ‘spin’ event. When you log in you get to spin a giant wheel and have the chance to win some prizes. I actually managed to win myself a small wooded cottage, and some housing blocks for that cottage. Since I’m a member I also had a little package of furniture waiting for me to claim to put into the house.

It’s not that big, and there’s not many furniture choices (and they’re expensive I found) but hey, it’s housing and it’s pretty neat. Your pets (if you own any) roam around the property, and you can invite your friends over. Plus who doesn’t like decorating.

I like the activities in Free Realms. I hadn’t tried fishing before, so when I checked it out I was surprised that I spent so long doing it. There’s really nothing to it, you cast your rod (hopefully where fish are) and when you get a bite, you mouse click and reel it in. There are collections for different types of fish, and you can catch treasure chests with prizes inside. There were a lot of others hanging around fishing, and the area was bright and colourful with fantastic music, it was just relaxing and fun.

Free Realms is probably the only game I’ve ever played where I have no need or desire for alts. You can do everything you want on one character, no restrictions. Any class, any game, any pet, any adventure. I’ve been an alt-o-holic since the early days of EverQuest, even before that in MUDS I’d have a plethora of alts. Free Realms is the only game I’ve ever played where I haven’t made a single alt, nor do I have any desire to. I LIKE this factor, a lot. It feels great to concentrate on one character.

Before I knew it, two hours had passed by, and it was getting late. I headed to the vault cave to turn in my tokens (and picked up a few more pieces of gear) happy that I had gained a few levels in a few classes. Who says only kids get to play these types of games? I had a blast, and I’m looking forward to finding more time to play. Now I just need to keep leveling up! I think the highest I’ve reached so far is level 9 in a few classes. There’s lots more that I haven’t even tried yet (like archer, and wizard). Looking forward to some nice relaxed gaming!

Frostfell and Decorating, Oh What Fun

With Frostfell here I spent most of yesterday doing one of two things. Running the heroic instance with Wpus and Ultann, and then decorating. So much decorating. After a year, I finally finished off my Norrathian Museum. Of course a house like that is never really “finished” so what I mean is that now there’s no structural things that I need to do, I just need to take my relics and place them. Which reminds me, I need to run the Will of a Tyrant quests on Ellithia. I have been neglecting the quests since I no longer receive aa from them.

For those who may be new to Frostfell – you get different aa for doing the easy / hard versions of the zone, even though they’ve got the same mobs. It was my first time experiencing the ‘heroic’ version of the zone which was really fast and a lot of fun. Not to mention it rewarded an incredible frozen sword house item.

I’ve been trying to set up in game ‘goals’ for myself, to achieve before Sentinel’s Fate comes out in February. So far I haven’t come up with too many, but I’d like to get at least one or two other characters to 200aa and I’d love to get all of my characters to at least level 80 crafter on my main account. Since I’m spread across three servers (Oasis, Antonia Bayle, Lucan D’Lere) this can be a little frustrating, I have crafters all over the place, but I’m determined. I love crafting.

I should be doing shard runs, so that I can finally empty my bags of the WoE gear I’ve had saved up forever, but I’ve done so many shard runs over the months that I’m a little bit tired of it. That’s to be expected though, you do any one thing for any length of time and eventually you’re going to get tired.

What is everyone else up to in game? Frostfell? Raids? Instances? Crafting? Excited about the expansion? All of the above? Let me know!

In the mean time, I’ll see you in Norrath.