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January 31, 2008

Money makes the world go around

So Frelliel and Frellien finally got to Michael Delving  and learned the wonders of (a) auction houses and (b) farming (as in, y'know, actuall growing-seeds farming).

A good thing, too, because we were all full up on swag that we figured could be auction for Big Silver, which we desperately needed, having had to basically rebuild our active inventory from scratch due to major repairs (shakes fists at dwarves).

The auction house mechanism is pretty decent -- a minimum price based on what you could sell it for directly, a chance to see what things are going for, etc.  Using the mailboxes is a clever way of delivering the results.

Margie observed that LotRO is all about the money.  Everything costs money (except getting missions).  It costs money to buy things, it costs money to level (slot talents, etc.), it costs money to travel (except by foot), it costs money to put things up for auctions and it costs money to mail them to other folks.  It even costs money to die, indirectly, due to repair costs.

It's a restraining mechanism, to be sure, so I understand why it's there.  But it does lend a mercenary air to the whole enterprise which I find sometimes a scosh jarring (though not necessarily incompatible with Tolkien's world).

Which brings me to farming, and crafting in general.

So not my bag, baby.

"Here, let me plant some of these onion seeds I found.  Oh, wait, need to get some water (and water for farming, not water for cooking, can't get those mixed up).  Okay, I've found a field I can plant in.  I'm planting now.  Now things are growing.  Now I'm harvesting.  Okay, got a few good onions out of that -- but some poor ones, too.  Oh, wait, I can go back to the workbench and turn the poor ones into more onion seeds.  Great.  No, wait, I also need to buy more water.  Okay, now back into the field to plant more onion seeds.  Cool!  More onions!"

I'd rather be battling orcs.

So I need to find (for me) the right balance between direct sale of swag, auctioning of swag, and using of swag to grow (craft) more swag.  Which is a bit more logistics than I really care for, though I'm sure there's a sweet spot that will satisfy me.  We'll see.

And off to Bree.


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Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

January 28, 2008

Meanwhile, back in Eriador ...

Though we keep talking about doing up some other duos (including reimagining Rita and Runt -- Mistral/Guardian? Burglar/Champion? Elf/Dwarf? ("An elf?  Where?  Where?  Where's the elf?")), we continued moving along with Frelliel and Frellien, our elvish hunters -- now around ... 13? ... and finally moving into Shire after waaaaaay too many unsuccessful attempts to duo a fellowship mish, even at teal.

Still having fun.  And now that I've finally gotten to an auction house and see how it works -- I seriously just need to sell a bunch of stuff I've been lugging around rather than wait to auction it.  I am strawberries-rich and silver-poor, such that I am behind on picking up some very valuable skills from the trainer (well, all those repair costs didn't help, either).


Posted by Dave at 12:22 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay , LotRO

Anniversary

My little desktop calendar reminds me that it was three years ago today that I started playing CoX.

Hmmmm.  Can't recall offhand the 36-month award.  The little pets?  Tempted to sign in and see ...


Posted by Dave at 7:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , True Life

January 21, 2008

Costuming Options in LotRO

One of CoX's rightfully renowned strengths is its costume creator, with zillions of combos of outfts, accessories, body types, features, etc.  While there's always "just one more thing" every player wants, it's without a doubt one of the gems in CoX's crown.

LotRO is very pretty in many ways, but character customization is limited.   You have control over hair style and color, complexion, eye color, a couple of other things, but after that, the only variations are ... what adventures you have.  Every class/race/gender starts off looking exactly alike, and based on the gear you pick up (or buy), you can change that.

But it's more complicated.  My elvish hunter, Frelliel, picked up a lovely plumed hat somewhere.  Loved it.  But eventually I had to give it up because, well, I picked up a stupid kind of hat that had much better armor rating.  Good-bye, plumed hat.

Things get found of different colors, too.  Margie notes the "clown" effect -- "why the heck am I wearing these purple shoes with this outfit.  Oh, yeah, they have a nice armor class and Agility bonus."

You do get one other level of customization -- you can turn off helmets/hats (so that your bare hair is shown), cloaks (to admire your outfit), or boots (if you're a hobbit) in the UI, which lets you keep the bonus, but tune the look just a bit.  It's an imperfect solution, but that's what you got.

Enter Book 12, and Outfits.

The goal of The Outfit System is fairly simple: Give players complete control over how they look in the game, without impacting the gameplay benefits they gain from their currently equipped items.  [...] Now, as of Book 11 you already have your first Outfit. The Outfit System refers to that set of items you currently have equipped. That won't be changing at all.

What we're unveiling in Book 12 is the ability for you to define two additional cosmetic appearances, called Outfits, for your character. These Outfits will override the visual appearance of your base Equipment.

Now, it's important to emphasize that these additional inventories are only cosmetic, and that your Equipment will continue to be the only items affecting your stats. With that said, once Book 12 goes live it's really up to you as to how you want yourself to look in Middle-earth.

Spiffy!

Two extra outfit slots open at level 20.  If you pick it up (or buy it), you can make it part of an alternate outfit.  There will be some (reasonable) restrictions, but also the adding of a lot of various non-combat-related clothing items.  Excellent.

Also being introduced is the Barber Shop, which lets you change some physical appearances -- hair styles, facial details, etc., with various new ones of these also being added in.

It doesn't look nearly up to CoX level yet, but it's a welcome addition to a good game.

Other Book 12 patch notes info is here.

(via Doyce)

Posted by Dave at 6:05 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , LotRO , Resources & Rules

January 18, 2008

Alas, they take plastic rather than copper

Signed up for our permanent accounts with LotRO this evening.  The Turbine purchase process was as bizarre and convoluted as the Cryptic/NCSoft one for CoX, but I managed to eventually make it work. 

In case I haven't mentioned it, many thanks to Avo for the Founders Referrals.


Posted by Dave at 9:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: LotRO

January 16, 2008

The Road Goes Ever On

We're continuing our LoTRO accounts.  Huzzah!

(For the record, we both still have accounts on CoX, and Margie's still been doing some solo play over there.)


Posted by Dave at 2:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: LotRO

January 15, 2008

Fellowship of Three

Got an invitation last night by e-mail to do some fellowshippy stuff in LotRO with Doyce and Kate, so made preps to do so.  Kate, alas, suffered from technical difficulties, but Doyce got on and he brought an added Champ of the same level to join our Cap/Champ combo.

And, yes, it was a lot of fun.  We had to backtrack one mish in the epic storyline, but that wasn't that big a deal, then we proceeded with it, and eventually it brought us to the "berserker Ranger you have to run ahead of to keep safe" mish, which we managed to pull off with only a minor misstep or two.

In the meantime, we were picking Doyce's brains for gameplay advice, tips of this and that sort, and so forth.  We had the voice chat enabled, which made that a lot easier.

We played around three hours or so, then called it a night.  Many thanks to Doyce for the drive-along.

Tonight's the last full night of the trial period.  Still not sure what we're doing, but I feel like we've given it a good try-out.  We'll see.


Posted by Dave at 6:16 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

January 14, 2008

Google Middle-Earth

Google Map-style LotRO map.


Posted by Dave at 8:10 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: LotRO , Resources & Rules

LotRO Playtest Continues

Continued grinding things out wiith our human Cap/Champ combo.  Finished a big brigand finale (despite it being a Fellowship quest) through an effective combination of (a) reading a guide that noted a shortcut past some bad groups of bad guys, (b) following someone else in (inadvertently) who cleared a lot of the riff-raff, and (c) using the Map to exit after finishing off the head bad guy.

Then ended up in another climactic brigand mission, this one an annoying combination of story-driven railroading ("Can't act now -- have to wait for NPCs to emote) and the opposite of our berserker Ranger from the other night -- a very slow-moving lady who, once rescued, insisted on snail-pacing her way through various caverns of bad guys, just in time for them to wake up ("Lady, listen, I'll bloody carry you, okay?").

When we picked up again last night, we were starting a new duo to see how it went -- a pair of Elvish Hunters.  Got through the 1-5 content with no problem, and were making decent progress with the 6-10.  Hunters are fun -- if nothing else, they let you be lazy and draw the bad guys to you, often with entertaining results.  And they're not quite as squishy as blasters are, either, which was my initial impression.

I'm enjoying the elvish content, even if is relentlessly depressing (these guys could teach Marvin the Robot a lesson or two about wistful moroseness).  And, of course, it occurs to me that I found the Shire bits of LotR to be the least interesting in the books, too, so maybe that's a clue I should pick up.

We have a couple more days on the trial accounts, and I'm not sure we're hooked enough to go for it.  I find the story-driven missions to be pretty keen, though that isn't grabbing Margie the same way at all.  We're probably spending more time kvetching over things than waxing enthusiastic over them.  I'm enjoying it more than Margie, but it's not yet grabbing us by the noses and making us want to play it full-time.

We'll see.


Posted by Dave at 6:23 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay , LotRO

January 13, 2008

World of Peacecraft

Running a character in WOW that never kills anyone.

Both my priest and my rogue try not to hit anything, although there's always a chance of a misclick when trying to open a quest item with mobs fighting near it. Both of them always wield a fishing rod, so any accidental hits won't increase their weapon skills. Neither of them will do quests where they have to kill things. In battlegrounds, my rogue will throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters. My priest only heals, so he is actually closer in roleplaying terms. Neither will "get around" these limits by grouping and having other players do their dirty work.

In terms of bragging rights, I intend to keep my rogue's weapon skills (dagger, thrown and unarmed) at all 1s. My priest will also have all 1s, but it won't be obvious on WoW Armory that he has no offensive spells beyond the level 1 Smite all priests start with.

Sounds like a good case of self-challenging.   Not my cuppa, but props to him.

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Filed under: Gameplay

January 12, 2008

Meanwhile, back in Combe ...

Finally got back to LotRO yesterday, after a few day of conflicting evening activities.  In the afternoon I did some solo play, learning about things on the short, stocky side with a dwarf named Frellin.

In the evening, Margie and I continued our Rohirrim Champ/Cap combo.  Not quite as easy in the 10-11 range.  First we decided to thrash out the crafting system to fulfill a couple of crafting missions we'd picked up (I was tempted to shout "Wood for Sheep" several times). 

After that, we had a big mission up dealing with brigands in the northern Chetwoods.  And ... hit a wall.  Or, rather, the ground, being defeated something like four times.  Ugh.  We're still dealing with "scaling" problems with LotRO vs CoX -- a group of four opponents, even blue ones, can be a serious threat, my healing morale abilities are fairly limited, and it's way too easy to draw a crowd, with less-than-salutary results.

*sigh*

I note that, unlike an instanced mission setting (like CoX), the mobs don't scale except to the general level of the population in the area.  So a duo is under definite disadvantages vs. a larger fellowship.

Anyhow, decided to come back a level later, and instead pursued some mishes on the other end of town, including one that took us down toward Bree.  Bree!  Huzzah!  The Big City!  Garsh!

Found trainers.  Hey!  I have one of those goofy Heralds now!  Yay!

Wandered about there a bit and ... yow, the Prancing Pony!  And ... tucked in a back room, it's Strider!  Zowee!  And he's sending us on a mission (that we seem to have missed some prereqs to, but never mind).  Investigate the brigand's castle and find the source of terror!  Protect the insane Ranger assigned to us as he lunges from mob to mob at full tilt and is immune to my morale powres!  Rerun the mission multiple times trying to get him alive through the fearful brigands!  Make some great progress, then during one of the Ranger's few resting moments wander about to clean up the courtyard and get mobbed by a dozen brigands!  Discover yourself outside Bree again and with the mission restarted.

*sigh*

Seemed a good time to call it an evening.  Or, rather, I did while Margie did some quick research on the quests we'd been flubbing.

Frustrating, but good times.

I don't know which was the most amusing online chatter we saw -- the guy asking "Where are the trinkets in the Barrow Downs" (which just made me giggle -- "Hey, let's go to the Barrow Downs and pick up some trinkets, maybe a snow globe or a charm for my braclet, or even a 'We broke into Barrow and lost half our party and all I got was this rotting t-shirt" t-shirt), or the folks who were consistently challenged spelling "Minstrel" and "Guardian."


Posted by Dave at 9:47 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

January 7, 2008

LotRO links

A few links I've already dug into a bit to answer some specific questions.

On the positive side (I think) I'm not feeling compelled to compulsively print out all these sites and delve into the forums and all, like I did back in the CoX days, even early on.  I plan on letting Margie do a lot of the research, since she's very good at it.


Posted by Dave at 2:37 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: LotRO , Resources & Rules

Acronym

LOTRO?  LotRO?  LOTRo? LoTRO? LoTRo?

I've seen all of these used.  The official site uses the first.  I'm inclined to use the second, just because as a title (as seen on the official site), the title capitalization of the letters. 

"Oh, you spell it LOTRO,
And I spell it LotRO,
You wield a longsword,
And I wield a longbow,
LOTRO, LotRO, longsword, longbow,
Let's load the whole thing up ..."


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Filed under: Humor , LotRO

Heroes with Swords (and Axes and ... Clubs?)

Clubs?

Yeah, we took the plunge over the weekend -- a "birthday treat," Margie framed it -- and downloaded Lord of the Rings Online.  Many thanks to Avo for the reference trial keys (10 days rather than the current 7 day offer), and a hat tip to him and Doyce both for offering some sage council.

We fired things up early in the afternoon on Sunday, and continued playing (with a couple of evening breaks) until about 10 p.m.  Initial thoughts.

I had to download the low-rez version, because of system restraints.  I also installed it on an external (USB2) drive.  This wasn't ideal, by any means, but it actually worked pretty darned well.  Margie was capable of much higher rez on her machine, of course, but is having some performance problems.

We started off with two humans (duoing with the same race looks to be significantly easier early on), and, at Doyce's suggestion, went with a Captain and a Champion (myself and Margie, respectively) as fairly versatile starter characters.  Managed over the course of the day to get them up to 10, and be hip-deep in Coomb quests.

Generally speaking, had fun.  Some basic thoughts:

Like:

  1. Plays a lot like CoX, with a few keybaord/mouse tweaks.  The game mechanics are similar enough that it's not that big of a problems.
  2. I like the idea of "morale" as the "hit points" -- it finesse around death-vs-defeat, and also provides some nice mechanics for "healing" classes.  Plus, it just feels epic.
  3. Though folks have noted the character generator is not as fancy as the one in CoX, it's pretty good, and does some nice origin localizations with color tones and the like. 
  4. I love the storyline-driven play, with careful instancing for certain events (the attach on Archmet, for example) and their aftermath.  Feels very "real" and immersive.

Dislike:

  1. Running everywhere, though this isn't -- yet -- a horrible burden.  The teleport map helps.  Disappointed my Captain's "move faster" shout (which increases running speed, too) isn't a toggle.
  2. Facing is sometimes annoying.   I should be able to say, "I have X targeted, keep me facing X," especially since people and critters can clip through each other.
  3. Oh, dear Lord -- crafting quests.  "Can you find me three redberries, a block of granite, and a rowan axe-haft?"  Yeah, bet you'd ask Boromir that, too.  Far as I'm concerned, the whole crafting system could vanish -- I just don't know to what extent I'll seriously regret it if I ignore it.
  4. A lot of mechanic subsystems and icons that pop up and pull you into various windows where it's not clear what's going on or what you should (or shouldn't) do about it.  I'm sure that will be mitigated with some experience, but it's more than a bit confusing early on.
  5. Finding your way to things, quests, etc., can be -- challenging.  Sometimes that's okay -- it's part of the story.  Other times, it's just annoying. 
  6. Slow repop of certain mission goals ("Bury Will Wheaterly") -- if both of the folks on a team (fellowship) have the mission (which makes sense, right?), why does it take a minute or three for Will's body to reappear after someone on the team buries it.  That would be nightmarish with a larger group.  And when you have multiple teams running around in a non-instanced area (see Will, above), they can make it really difficult for you to ever get to slowly-repopping goals.
  7. Non-instanced sites mean you spend a lot of time watching other adventurers fighting bad guys without lending a hand.  There's a bit of that in CoX, too, but it feels worse here.
  8. Yes, I see what you mean about people getting irked at their mismatched (and ever-changing) wardrobe.  "I found green shoes!  No, wait, the red leather boots are better armor!  Hold on, what about this stylish set of black, patent-leather pumps?"  It's whacky.
  9. There are times when the action stop because you have to click on someone who's standing there so that they can give you some story dialog.  That's almost unavoidable in these circumstances, but it still sometimes feels a bit like railroading.

All that said, the "likes" are pretty darn keen, vs. a lack of deal-breakers for the "dislikes."  I'm pretty sure we'll continue to play for at least the 10 day trial period, and likely beyond.

That said, as enjoyable as it is, I don't feel a burning urge to play hooky from work and Just Play.  I think (mercifully) I'm over that level of fanaticism for a game.  :-)  Heck, I have plenty of TV and DVDs I still want to watch, not to mention various other evening activities.  This will be a passtime, not the passtime.

And, for the time being, I'll be recording my LotRO thoughts here in this blog.  Not that I plan on renaming it -- and I still haven't canceled or uninstalled CoX, either. 

But I certainly feel heroic ...


Posted by Dave at 10:49 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO , Resources & Rules

January 5, 2008

MT 4.01

Upgraded the site to MT 4.01 today. Consider this a test to see if I did it correctly (and if there are any little idiosyncrasies of this site that would cause grief).


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Filed under: This Blog