Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.
.Trademark/Service Mark Application, Principal Register
Serial Number: 77695820
Filing Date: 03/20/2009
MARK: RIDERS OF ROHAN
OWNER OF MARK: The Saul Zaentz Company
Where does RidersofRohan.com go? Naturally.
Could this be the next paid expansion? Mounted combat?
– Ethic
Hat tip: LotRO official forums via F13.NET
I see comments here and on the general Guild Wars forums about the MMO being “dead.” The game will, as far as we know, have no further commercial updates, such as their three campaigns and one expansion. However, with ArenaNet still selling units (over 200,00 between 9/08 and 12/08), heading towards a whopping 6,000,000 units sold likely sometime this year, and the Guild Wars Live Team feverishly adding updates and content to the game. It is far from being proclaimed “dead.”
Most of my pick-up groups have been rather good. I have clearer memories of the horrid ones, but my non-guild groups almost never fail to accomplish their objectives, and few have really serious problems along the way. The problem is that the good groups blend together: teams succeed similarly, but each fails in its own unique way.
I’m running Volume One, Book Ten on my Minstrel. You know when is a really lousy time to add small group content? Immediately after a forced solo instance. You know where is a really lousy place to add small group content? On three different points around Lake Evendim, for which there is no faster means of travel than swimming across a freaking lake.
Bringing your players together through shared adversity annoyance?
: Zubon
To be clear, I hate the name of this post, but it kind of wrote itself. Can’t argue with that. The new lair raid for Volume 2, Book 7 is unlocked on many, if not all, the servers now in Lord of the Rings Online, and the gate crashed open the wrong way, on many accounts.
First, the design. I think that the monster turtle in Filikul was supposed to be designed as a kind of tank-swap. The raid boss, Nornuan, hits with an unremovable DoT on the player it is attacking. The trick is to not let this DoT stack because every time it does it does more damage over time and the duration refreshes. By having multiple tanks the DoT will not get to the point where the damage cannot be healed through.  There is also a “time limit” DoT that the raid boss applies to all the players. This latter also-unremovable DoT keeps stacking until it cannot be outhealed and the raid wipes. It seems like an okay base design, but the raid is basically a DPS fest. A raid full of hunters and champions, with maybe a token healer, is all that is needed. Without massive DPS, the party will just wipe from the “time limit” DoT.
Second, the bugs. The loot from this raid is pretty nice. There are First Age weapons, radiance gear coins, and a pretty nice trophy. If working, the short raid can be done once per week. The raid lock was not working properly, and the raid went on ultra-farm mode with people burning through the turtle every 5-10 minutes. Saturday night became the night of First Age fun. Turbine locked the raid on Sunday pending a bug fix.
Finally, is the sinking feeling that this raid was hurriedly designed and not really tested. The classes that were less desired, are still less desired, and the current “gods” of Middle Earth, the hunters, the champions. and now the runekeepers, are all the more desired in group play. It is very unfortunate that Turbine is going this direction for their high-level dungeons. All the tricks and shticks of the utility classes are being ignored, and even the holy trinity has had two of its corners sanded down. Lore-masters, I feel your pain.
–Ravious
cowabunga
If you do not know the term “augmented reality,” read Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, or for a simpler version, watch the opening to Stranger Than Fiction. If you watched the last link, imagine that on a grander scale: GPS directions projected on your windshield with the arrows in exactly the right places, binoculars that pop up information on whatever you see while bird-watching, or contact lenses that use your wireless to be the perfect monitor.
So, how are your spam filters working? Messages getting through your ad blockers? TV networks that have pop-up ads wandering through your shows because they think you’ll skip the commercials? A good company will have signs that add the equivalent of “click here for our menu and hours” as your go by. Bad companies will be like those TV ads that double the volume, or those ads you need to X out of to see the page, or flash ads that shout, “Hey!” Been rickrolled lately, or sent to something less appealing? I can think of a half-dozen way around these problems, but many of them involve potentially blocking yourself from things you want to see.
Having an IRL ignore list could be helpful, or seeing who people on your friends list have rated as an idiot. We may lose a bit of shared reality as people edit out parts of the world they don’t want to see or think about. I can already see parents putting filters on their kids’ wearable computers, so now they really can keep little Tommy from ever seeing X; we can only hope that kids continue to be better at getting around filters than their parents are at making them. Fast Company has some thoughts on the matter, but frankly, it is an introduction for the flatscans out there, and you probably have much more interesting thoughts on ways to use and abuse having computer overlays in your daily life.
: Zubon
Hat tip: Daily Illuminator
For those of you just joining us, The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ is the game of unnecessarily long travel times. Epic quests frequently involve spending an hour riding horses. As I type this, I am in windowed mode, riding from Rivendell to Echad Dúnann to complete Volume Two, Book One, which you may remember this from Tweety’s write-up. For those of you who did not click the link, you open the gate to Moria (yay!), get attacked by The Watcher (ooh!), open a trove of legendary items that you will use to fight him back (yay!), and then are sent a zone away and told to level up your weapon ten times before coming back (wut?). Each one-way ride adds 12 minutes onto the quest, which I am spending not looking at the game.
Having horse access is a valuable thing. Later, after I complete 40-ish quests in Eregion, I can take the instant travel horse there, but poor zone ordering means that comes after I really need it.
You can also get your own mount. I hit 35 on a third character today, so I sent him to do the mount quests. You must complete quests to unlock the ability to ride a horse, despite having ridden stable horses for thirty levels. First, walk to the horse farm to start the quest chain. There are no horse routes to the horse farm, because … they don’t have stables there? They give you a horse; take it to the nearest city and run back. They give you a horse; take it to a city at the far end of the next zone and run back. They give you a horse; take it to an outpost across another zone and run back. They give you a horse; ride an obstacle course within the allotted time. You are then allowed to buy a horse.
Because putting the carrot on a string is fun, but the real fun comes from repeatedly tugging it away just as he is about to reach it.
: Zubon
GN: +25% xp on kills this weekend, which stacks with rested xp.
BN: queues for the welcome back weekend.
: Zubon
This game raises the question, taking the action movie approach whereby any two wooden crates in close proximity will explode with the pulse-pounding impact. I was left wondering, “What if everything you ever wanted came in a rocket can?”
: Zubon
After perusing a few Book 7 threads on the Lord of the Rings Online forums, I hit an interesting node. It seemed that people were thankful of the fact that Turbine added content to their subscription game. Now, I am a thankful customer whenever I get my product or service without a hitch, but these posts were more in line with getting a free bottle of wine at a restaurant. I was really confused that these people believe that this content update was not part of the subscription fee they had been paying all along. As more and more games (and game playing) becomes a service, rather than a product, consumers should be aware of the service they are paying for and the norms with similar services.