Month: August 2008

Where I Am In-Game

Kind of burnt out.

I have a level-capped character with many hours logged past that cap. There are two instances I have yet to do, a few I have yet to complete (including the raids), and one part of a zone to visit. Other than that, I have done everything except grind deeds and PvP rank. I want to finish my Annuminas armor set, but I am below average on my rolls there: in 12-15 runs, I have won the piece at the end once. I repeated enough epic book instances to earn another piece (a wildcard barter piece), so I need to win any two rolls to finish the set. That could happen in 2 runs, it could happen in 30.

I have been leveling an alt, but my problem has been playing two of them. I got some levels on my Burglar while the “collect 70,000 lore” quest was up, because he was at the level minimum for it, so I finished a bunch of quests while doing that. My main non-crafting interest has been leveling my Minstrel, who has almost caught up to that Burglar. This means that I have already done almost all the content in his level range in the past few weeks.

I realized that what I am missing is what I am looking forward to in Warhammer: comity. I want to play with people I know. The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ gample is, essentially, WoW, a good implementation of DikuMUD with graphics, but again strongly supportive of quest-based mostly solo leveling to the cap, then forced grouping for the endgame. I want to play differently (hey, a link to someone other than us). I don’t care if it is mostly solo content: I want to share it with a friend and laugh on voice chat while we get our dozen warg paws.

Together.

: Zubon

Update: The funny thing is, within an hour of having written this, I went in-game, got a group on my Minstrel, did a chain of group quests that my Burglar has not done, then switched to my Hunter to join a group with someone I vaguely know to grind a deed, in which we fought 36 elite masters. I also found the door to one of those two instances that I have never done.

Book 14.1

New patch notes

I note that the Summer Festival is being fixed. The Summer Festival ended Monday. So if you already bought the music boxes, you can now find out what they sound like. If you already bought the festival horse, you get the updated graphics (so we hope you like that more). If you already completed the Inn League quests, you get the reputation bonus. And if not, better luck next year!

On a more positive note, assuming the bug fixes work, those are good things. It will be nice not to have Helchgam break every day. The Weavers’ day will come.

: Zubon

Update! I can now get through the door requiring Friend reputation with the Inn League. There is a decorative room behind it where NPCs have lines about how great drinking and smoking are. The taxidermist/barter vendors were removed, so the only NPC to interact with is a barmaid that sells booze on the cheap. So if you need to get drunk quickly and cheaply, and don’t have access to a keg housing decoration, there you go.

Update 2! The Summer Festival is back for a week, in case you want things now that they work. Announcement.

Warhammer Online: Biggest Failure Ever

Not.

I’m really getting a kick out of reading all the reviews for Warhammer Online. People hate it, people love it. It’s funny. There has not been any real significant change in the MMO industry since Day 1 and yet still people expect each game to be the one to change it all. These are games. If they are fun, play them. If not, don’t. Why get your panties in a bunch because there is a new game available? Check it out if you want.

Continue reading Warhammer Online: Biggest Failure Ever

The WoW Killer

There will never be a “WoW Killer” simply because WoW itself was unable to kill any of the big MMOs in existence when it launched. If big bad WoW couldn’t kill when it launched, why would we think something new would be able to kill WoW? And why do we want to kill WoW anyway? I like to have options.

– Ethic

Why Do Snapping Turtles Have Knockback?

I mean, that’s a big turtle, probably 4-5 feet tall at the top of its shell, but why can it send me flying >10 meters? I think it did that with a headbutt. Even for a game where you can resurrect the dead by smoking, that’s a little odd.

It did, however, lead to one of my most awesome little moments in-game. The turtle bashed me into a rock, I richoceted off, and cut him down with my axe before landing. That’ll teach you to toss a dwarf!

: Zubon

WAR Beta Impressions

I’m not interested in writing a bunch of stuff that will likely be covered by several other sites so instead I’m just going to write a little about the impressions I got from playing in the Warhammer Online beta.

First off, the game was not nearly as polished as I had hoped. It had plenty of weird bugs and glitches including the “crash to desktop”. It was not unusual to attack something and watch it run around trying to find a path to you. Messages appeared on the screen telling you that you are out of range of something even though it is standing in front of you. Many of the classes really did nothing for me at first glance. I almost felt like I had to choose the class that was the least boring. The level of graphics was restricted to a level that made it hard to enjoy at times. So all in all, it was not the perfect game ready to take the world by storm.

Continue reading WAR Beta Impressions

Greenskins

Since I committed to at least trying Warhammer, I thought I should look stuff up. I was briefly planning to go in completely blind and just pick what looked fun at the character select screen, but I can read the same info before I get there.

These guys look fun. Somewhat silly violent green things? I was all about the Tau when I played a bit of the Warhammer 40K game (computer, not tabletop), but the Greenskins just look fun. It will be the same sort of light-RP we get in The Shire, at least if they attract the sort I think they will.

I suppose the Squig Herder is like WoW’s Hunter: archer/pet class. I like pets, and my current The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ archer does not have one. But maybe I could use a bit of a change. I usually don’t tank, but I have always liked the “metal jaw” look of Warhammer orcs. But wait, what’s this? A hybrid healer-DPS who gets bonuses to damage from healing and to healing from dealing damage? Waaaagh!

: Zubon

I suppose this means I will also be trying a Runekeeper in The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Mines of Moriaâ„¢. That is my City of Heroes Defender nature talking: I love hybrid support-ranged DPS characters.