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[LOTRO] New In-Store Armors

Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is an MMO with a few gray hairs showing. It’s not dying, fools that think that, but it is an old game that requires a certain agility to stay alive. It appears that in doing so Turbine is going back on their word that they would not sell armor with stats attached. Turbine’s Sapience responded that “[m]any players have given us feedback that there is a sparcity of [lower level] gear on the AH at these levels and they wanted an alternative. We’re trying to accomodate that.”

The Tier 3 versions appear to be on-level somewhere in the level 20-30 range. This isn’t low level armor, this is super low level armor. I tend to think that anything below 50 is definitively “low level” so Tier 3 versions won’t even last players through all the low-levels. So this offering is clearly not “pay to win.” It’s barely “pay to accelerate through much-needed leveling.”

What I am disappointed in is how Turbine handled it. First, they went back on their word. They are allowed to do that, but if they want to seem “not shady” then they should have preemptively issued a statement as to why. Some statement even just repeating what Sapience said above would at least show they weren’t going to slide this in without acknowledging they were crossing a line they had made. Continue reading [LOTRO] New In-Store Armors

[GW2] Ree: Focus on the Enemy

I admit I was a little concerned with the story of Guild Wars 2 within the game. Of the three starting zones we’ve seen, there seems to be absolutely no mention of Zhaitan, the Elder Dragon of Death. This seems very much unlike ArenaNet’s Guild Wars mode of storytelling where the crisis is told early on, such as the dragon-forged destroyers chasing players towards an asura gate. It really wasn’t until late last year at the big conventions did ArenaNet show us “the Enemy” with Sparkfly Fen and the Tequatl the Sunless zone boss. How would our character stories progress from racial issues to Big Bad Zhaitan? How much focus would there be on the villain that had the first Guild Wars 2 trailer dedicated to it?

Continue reading [GW2] Ree: Focus on the Enemy

[GW] Alone Together

This could just be my time or place, but Guild wars does not feel particularly vibrant. It really does feel like a single-player game, with the capacity for becoming a small-group game if I find people I already know. The main chatter I hear is trade spam in Kamadan. There are people around elsewhere, but beyond the Eye of the North, they blend with the NPCs. I don’t see any reason they would want to interact with a newbie, and if they are interacting with each other, they are in a different channel. Maybe Embark Beach is where the action is.

The instanced exploration areas have a more severe version of the same effect. Like launching a game in a MOBA, once you’re in there, you’re cut off. This is your own little chunk of world. I like having my own zone, but you might pause and realize that you have not seen another player in an hour. It does not feel dynamic.

Guild Wars is a sort of accidental MMO, a something else that acquired more MMO elements over time. It was not built with the World of Warcraft feeling of soloing alone together. When you’re soloing, you’re not really “together” in any sense.

: ZUbon

[LOTRO] Go Your Own Enedwaith

I am significantly behind the herd in Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) since I took my prodigal sabbatical just a little after Enedwaith’s release. I think what really ran me off was the early parts of Book 2 (Vol. 3) in getting the rangers to even get to Enedwaith from Eriador. In hindsight I should have enjoyed some of Enedwaith and then returned back to the epic line of quests.

I have just completed perhaps a third to a half of Enedwaith coming from the North downward as I haphazardly follow the Book quests. I must say that I am really enjoying the design of this zone. It feels like a refreshing return. There is the old comfortable with a bit of new flash. It is actually getting me pretty excited to hit Dunland, the next zone.

The story of Enedwaith is one of flux. Rangers in the Grey Company are traveling southward trying to ensure a safe route through tribal lands. The tribes are dealing with enemies and allies of the Grey Company, Saruman the White, and other tribes themselves. And, so far, the Enemy seems to have less of a stabilized power base than the half-orc companies in Eregion to the North. The theme of this zone is really well done, at least in the northern half of the zone. I will have to see if it changes as I hit the main town and a possible dwarven area. Continue reading [LOTRO] Go Your Own Enedwaith

[GW] Questing Against Your Interests

Many games have challenges and achievements for making things harder, like beating a boss without using any potions or cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring. Early the the Guild Wars Nightfall primary quest chain, the Master’s rewards are mostly for intentionally delaying and acting against your interests during wartime. You are in disguise and headed to a rendezvous with a traitor general, being guided through the swamps by her lieutenant … so why not slip away at hunt down some cobra=headed velociraptors? You are leading an assault on the enemy base, where time is of the essence as reinforcements are arriving and artillery fire is raining down … so why not take your time and scour the corners for enemies who are not engaging? You are sneaking a group of monks through enemy territory, with a primary objective of avoiding notice from the troops garrisoned there … with a special bonus for visiting every guard post and slaughtering the troops.

As a player, your meta-game knowledge tells you that time is not of the essence unless there is a timer in the corner of your screen, and enemies only react as scripted. I slipped away from the lieutenant as the dialogue for the boss fight with the traitorous general was starting. It merrily followed me into the swamps as I searched the corners for rinkhal monitors. She was threatening to destroy me and all that I love while I was fighting giant insects several blocks away.

That’s the other thing you Guild Wars has been training me to do: avoid winning too quickly. Once you reach your objective, everything resets, so you cannot complete the bonus objectives, or if you are in an explorable area, you will need to re-clear areas to complete other quests. While questing, let crises pile up so that you can clear them all at once, and when fighting the war, stop to smell the roses. Well, don’t stop, because you’ll need to hunt down those roses in the corners of the map while clearing another dozen spawns of trash mobs.

: Zubon

[LOTRO] Sensible Folk

My captain is legendary. His name has been sung across Eriador, in the depths of Moria, and his legend is swiftly growing east of the Misty Mountains. The captains latest tales tell of crippling Dol Guldur’s armies. During his journey into Enedwaith, he happened upon a lost colony of hobbits. Good folk living on their own in some small canyonlands. Some big, armored galoomph comes along, and what do they ask of this god walking among mere mortals to do as a token of friendship. Well this picture has a couple dozen words:

Turbine devs doing this kind of reminds me what Viktor Taransky (Pacino) did to his digitally created star in the movie Simone. I expect to be cleaning horse stalls in Rohan as part of mounted combat pre-training.*

–Ravious

*mounted combat not confirmed, as far as I know.

[LOTRO] A Tale of Re-Entry

I deftly evaded the siren song of the Dark Side (for now, even with Grandma Christmas Cash burning a hole in my pocket), and decided to reinstall Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). Me and the Tolkien MMO go pretty far back, and except for Guild Wars, it ranks as the number one MMO for time played in my book. It is number one if you don’t think Guild Wars is a “true” MMO. Anyway, I have been taking a long sabbatical from the game since the Mirkwood expansion and the Free-2-Play (F2P) switch. It was not the game’s fault by any means. The Mirkwood expansion was excellent, and as I was a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO anyway, the switch really didn’t affect me. I just seemed to have wandered off somewhere near the beginning of Volume 3, Book 2 as the Grey Company headed south.

My return was horrible to be frank. When I logged back in I was beset on all sides by system mailings, announcements of new achievements I had somehow started, resets to all my legendary weapons, and a new trait / stat regime. It was bad enough that I was in the middle of a book, with tons of other quests already started, in the beginning of a region I didn’t remember while staring at a virtual cockpit of skills. Like a strange, albino gangle creature emerging into sunlight, I just blindly stumbled around for awhile until I found something to kill. It took me way too long to kill the enemy (as I, in the madness of things, had forgotten to up my legendary weapon’s DPS because it had been reset), and frustrated I logged off.

All I wanted was to start playing. Was that so much to ask? I didn’t want to think about all the chores I had to do. I would get to that. There was no easing back in to things. It was a sheer cliff wall of activation energy facing me. Continue reading [LOTRO] A Tale of Re-Entry

Coming Late to Early Guild Wars

I am enjoying Guild Wars in a non-focused way. I have not seen much of the game, but I have been enjoying what is around. I feel absolutely no pressure except maybe that I might want some Hall of Monuments points by the time Guild Wars 2 comes out, assuming those do something useful for me.

I started a Ranger in the Nightfall campaign. I picked up Monk as a secondary profession, but given how I’m playing, I think I’ll switch that to Mesmer at the first opportunity. (Monk/Elementalist alt?) I am up to three hero companions, one of which I don’t have much use for yet (the suicidal Dervish), but this works nicely, bringing along my own tank and healer. I have not yet grouped with anyone.

Continue reading Coming Late to Early Guild Wars