Gameplay Archives


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June 16, 2008

CoX - No, really!

Have been playing -- not scads, but a decent amount. Over the weekend focused on Kitsune-chan and Ex-Terra -- got them up to 26 over the course days. I figured they'd be good -- as an Ill/Rad Controller and Spine Scrapper -- doing the Rikti raids over the weekend, and they were indeed (and, in the meantime, managed to finish off getting the Wedding Band and the Talos safeguard mission, too). Good times.

Next up ... hmmm ... Margie mentioned there's some Midnight Club content at our level. I'm interested in giving it a try.


Posted by Dave at 11:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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June 5, 2008

State of the Gameplay

A few notes about this and that in my online gaming life:

  1. Health check: left elbow (and compensating for it) make it painful for me to use the standard QWE movement keys and power numbers for any great length of time -- meaning that Margie and I don't play more than an hour or two tops at any given sitting. Which should be helping our sleep, but not our gaming. It's annoying.
  2. CoX: We've spent most of our time playing a Fire/Fire scrapper (fun, but a bit squishy) and a Mind/Mind blaster. The latter is a delicate trick -- I'm still trying to get a good set of attacks and tactics to use with her. At 15 or so, of course, things are limited, and I also foresee a lot of secondary pool setups for her. But at the moment, balancing a bit of attack, a bit of knockback, a sleep and an immobilize is proving challenging. 
    I'm seriously looking at shifting to a couple of other alts for a bit. We did do a bit of play with a new scrapper duo, a couple of Jaegermonsters, but I didn't feel any buzz.
  3. LotRO: Haven't touched it in a couple. Not feeling any great desire to. Not sure what's going on there with me.

Posted by Dave at 7:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

June 3, 2008

CoX: Speedy auras

Noticed a Forum entry (now no longer up) complaining about the Hasten effect (and, peripherally) the Superspeed effect. Hasten wreathes your hands (up to the elbows in a burning yellow glow. Superspeed gives you a bright flashy area all around your feet -- and, of course, as a trail when you run.

The Superspeed effect can be a little irksome -- but Hasten is one of those that's bugged me practically since I started the game. If it would have any good I would have added the following:

 

I'll toss in my vote to significantly tone down the Hasten effect (hey, if you want flaming hands, take an Energy power, a Fire power, or an Aura). Superspeed is a bit annoying, too, but while it makes no sense that your feet/running would be glowing at only 90mph, it's at least a canonical sign of, well, superspeed.

The problems/differences are:

1. Superspeed is a toggle. If I want to appear without Superspeed's aura, I turn it off. If I want to appear without Hasten obscuring my hands and arms, I have to wait a minute or two (and be sure I turn off the auto-fire).

2. Superspeed is a power. Hasten is a character mechanic enhancement, like Focus and Build-Up, only with less justification for the effect. People take it, mostly, not because they think glowing hands fit their concept, but because their build will be helped by faster recovery. So obtrusive an effect for an enhancement used by people of all Origins and ATs and Builds makes little sense.

(Of course, I find the dust kickup from Sprint and the trailing dustfall from Combat Jump to be mildly annoying, esp. when flying or standing still, so I may be oversensitive.)

(I'll also note that it makes more sense for Hasten to be a whole-body thing, since the recharge effect works on kicks, mental powers, pretty much everything, not just swiftness of hands.)

I am not a Dev, nor do I want to be one on TV, but it seems to me that this effect could be toned down quite a bit without a lot of development effort. Ironically, its ubitiquity means it much less likely that's going to happen, since it would affect the appearance of so many players.

That said, if we could get a toned-down "Custom Hasten" similar to the "Custom Sprints," I would be very happy.

 

The impression given from the replies form BAB and his forum supporters was (a) it's not broke, so it ain't gonna be fixed; (b) if it ever does get fixed, it will be with powers customization; so (c) it's not likely to get fixed any time soon.

Which may all be true, but it's still an annoyingly bad choice of effect for most characters, and I wish it was different.

 

 


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May 14, 2008

I'm not dead, simply AFK ...

Between my sports injury and some un-ergonomic hunching in front of the computer crunching numbers, my arm is exceedingly sore in the evening, leading to a dearth of gameplay of any sort. Good for my DVD watching, not so good for my gaming blog. My apologies.


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Filed under: Gameplay , True Life

April 29, 2008

CoX: Happy Gaming

No distinctive details, just ended up on a faboo PUG last night with Lady Zebra -- one of those times which justifies and makes up for all the crappy PUGs one gets on. There was glorious battle against impossible odds, there was witty dialog and role-playing, there was a balanced team that worked together and a leader who got things done ... it was all very nice, and dinged LZ up twice, to 26, and I stayed up way too late.

Good times.


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April 27, 2008

CoX - Observations from the weekend

  1. Did a lot of solo play in CoX, mostly with lower-level characters I hadn't run during the Rikti invasion period (since jogging around Paragon is sooooo passé). Didn't play much with Margie because she was [REDACTED DUE TO NDA].
  2. There is very little in the game that matches throwing a Tesla Cage on a Tesla Knight. It made me giggle. Repeatedly. Ask Margie.
  3. Which is worse about the character "Anoying Little Demon" -- that he was spamming the Broadcast channel asking for Influence, or that he misspelled the word "Annoying" in his name?


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April 25, 2008

CoX - Rikti madness!

Have had a lot of fun the past week or so with the renewed Rikti invasion stuff -- it's a good periodic "event" for the CoX world.

Mostly played various solos and duos in the high 10s and low 20s -- folks with the mobility to get from invasion zone to invasion zone, the power mix to be of use, but low enough to get some appreciable XP impact. Old Saucy Jack, Lady Zebra, Miss Crackle ... we even pulled out Fazenda and Araware (hi, Storm Knights!) for a couple of nights, which was fun.

Did some invasions where things went swimmingly -- which usually means huge crowds, lag time out the wazoo, lots of bad guys, but enough healers and buffers to make it all a foregone conclusion. Alternately, some of the zones where there weren't a lot of people worked well, too -- the invasion groups are smaller, but with a good PUG (or multiple PUGs) you can usually do okay.

Of course, I've also seen invasions go horribly wrong. There's a sort of death spiral with the things -- if enough of the team goes down, then not only do you lose the healing and buffing, but the already-established rate of bad guys coming in have fewer targets -- including you -- to zero in on. When you start seeing a lot of orange death names, that's a problem. Of course, nobody's losing XP -- just opportunity loss as you jet back from the hospital (some zones are better for that than others). But as folks rush back in piecemeal, they tend to be dispatched the same way. Regroup and work in from the edges ...

It can seem like it would be monotonous, but the mass craziness of the Rikti invasions can be addictive -- at least for a while. Wouldn't want to do it all the time

Thoughts on zones (just from the hero side -- didn't run any villain groups, though we ought to have done one with our MM duo):

And that's enough of that. The event ended last night, but I'm sure it will be back eventually. Good times.


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April 3, 2008

CoX: Advertising

Ads are coming to the CoX universe.

NCSoft's deal with Double Fusion would replace the fake billboards that dot the scenery of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles with genuine, revenue-generating advertisements. The ads should go live some time this summer, but Clayton stresses that it's up to the player whether or not the ads are visible.
 

"I want to make it very clear that we are not 'forcing' in-game ads upon our players. Thus, the word 'optional' is of key importance. None of our players have to change their game experience in any way if that's what they prefer. All that you need to do is opt-out via the Options menu in the game," he wrote in a post on the City of Heroes web site.

 

Seems fine to me. And CoX (vs WOW or LoTRO or other fantasy/sf games) is perfect for such a thing. Thoiugh I'm not sure who's going to want to advertise over in the Rogue Isles.

So why would anyone want to show the ads (stay opted in)? Because NCSoft will only get revenue when they are opted in, and the proceeds to go CoX development. Again, nothing wrong with that.

I have no problem with this. 


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Filed under: Gameplay , Media

March 31, 2008

CoX: "Hey, this is Doctor Vahz, isn't it!"

So we ran Kitsune-chan and Ex-Terra from 13 to 21 over the weekend, on Rugged, including a pushover (okay, we were a level high for him) Doctor Vahzilok.

Man, I remember how scary that mission was the first time ...


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LotR: Likes and Dislikes

Because of my recent playing of CoX, and chit-chat with Margie, I found this set of lists slowly growing, so I thought I'd toss them out there. Your mileate will almost cetainly vary.

Comparison caveats:

Things I like about LotRO (particularly in comparison to CoX).

  1. The scenery. The exteriors are just incredibly gorgeous, imaginatively but effectively evocative of Tolkien's books, but further fleshed out. The interiors aren't shabby, either. The world and environment have been lovingly crafted, and is the real star of the game.
  2. The epic, heroic story line. Part of that is the books, but the game has done a lot to incorporate that without getting players too on-stage for the books' tale. When LotRO is being heroic, it's great. 
  3. Mission variety. Margie disagrees (or, rather, seems to think it's a wash), but I feel like CoX has a much more limited number of sets (interior/exterior) and mission types than LotRO. Maybe it's the ability to take multiple missions at the same time, or the lush scenery that they take place in.
  4. More shops. You can sell stuff practically anywhere to anyone, rather than spending a lot of time jumping around town to get to the one Nat Store when you're in Indepndence Port.
  5. I love time-not-logged-in credit on experience for characters. 
  6. I think I prefer the "Defeated, a Bit Worse for the Wear" mechanic of LotRO to the "Back to the Hospital, gaining experience more slowly" mechanic of CoX. 
  7. The PUG/LFF/general chat environment seems a bit more positive than CoX.
  8. The crafting ingredients, so to speak -- the stuff you pick up to do things -- tend to be more controllable and makes more sense than the crafting system grafted onto CoX. Heck, the whole Inspiration bit always seemed a bit lame ("Wait, are these actually little pills, or concepts, or karma points, or what?"). And the who-remembers-their-names origin-specific DO/SO stuff is either underplayed (no actual game effect) or too complicated (trying to pick things out from the stores) for CoX's own good.
  9. The general mechanisms around buying/selling/crafting -- recipes and loot and auction houses and crafting halls and sellers -- and the interfaces to them are, by and large, quite a bit easier to use in LotRO than in CoX. While I feel like it's still a huge time sink in LotRO, it's a lot easier to figure out what something is worth, and a tad easier to figure out if you should sell it or auction it, in LotRO.   And while I've spent an inordinate amount of time running around in Bree between Craft and Auction Houses, it's trivial compared to even the most convenient of setups in CoX (i.e., Steel Canyon, where the University (crafting), Wentworths (auction), two stores and a variety of contacts, plus the Vault, are all within a relatively easy distance (except you need a travel power to make it such), and I still end up spending several orders of inordinate time making it work. 
  10. I like that you can take a large number of missions in LotRO, and that world tends to send you to clusters of missions -- rather than the Steel/Skyway or Talos/IP shuffle, for example.
  11. I like that you can see what level you are at all times.
  12. I like that there's no kill-stealing in LotRO.
  13. It may be because of the preponderance of outside zones, but the distribution of bad guys (plus their "wandering") feels more organic and natural than, say, CoX's standard spawn points within each interior map and standard spawn groups for each type of foe. Plus it's believable that there's hostile wildlife all over the place, except for pockets of habitation (towns, camps, lairs, etc.) -- while it's not believable that the whole of Paragon City is actually overrun by street thugs and crime gangs.
  14. I love that auction results are mailed to you, rather than having to revisit the auction house.
  15. I love that you can send stuff (money, items, raw materials) to your other alts.

Things I dislike about LotRO (particularly in comparison to CoX).

  1. The teeny-tiny freaking radar/map. It's smaller than it should be by an order of magnitude. The amount of time one has to spend popping back and forth to the "big map" is proof of that. I don't expect an entire CoX zone map, but something bigger would be very nice.
  2. Too many missions that, well, aren't heroic. "Can you go run back and tell Fred that I have the money I owe him?" Dammit, Jim, I'm an immortal elf huntress from Lothlorien, not an errand boy!
  3. Too many suicidal NPCs, esp. of the type where you go and rescue them and they wander around, blundering into every bad guy in the immediate area. Granted, CoX had a few of these with the more recent issues (waves at Fusionette), but not to this frustrating extent. Too many cases where I just throw up my hands and say, "Screw it -- let the orcs have him." On the other hand, CoX has a lot more static NPCs (never-ending purse tug-o-war, police perma-cringing from gang members), and more mute NPCs (the perma-cringing cops are more vocally thankful for help than the AI cops you help against the AI villains in the newer zones).
  4. Running around. Yes, the game compensates for it some (clustered missions, compressed distances, horses/stables), but CoX travel powers just simply rock. (I'm not sure how LotRO could get around this given the setting, though.)
  5. Limited character options. I've only gotten into the mid-twenties with one set, and into the teens with another couple of toons, but I feel I've now "done" half the archetypes and most of the races. One elf hunter is a lot like another, it seems (heck, two hunters are pretty close, once you're in the same territory). Yes, there can be subtle differences depending on traits, professions. etc., but those differences are trivial compared to what you can do in CoX with its plethora (and growing) of primary and secondary powers, a larger set of archetypes (if you consider CoV), and much more interesting cosmetic effects (character design). 
  6. Limited storyline options. Within the caveats of the limited experience above, it feels in LotRO that "journey" for any given character is going to have much less variation than CoX, limiting replayability.
  7. More logistical busy-work. I loathe encumbrance rules in any game. And between profession "hunting" and looting and selling and auctioning and crafting, it seems fairly easy to spend at least a third of your time or more doing stuff other than thwomping orcs. And, as far as I can tell, it's really pretty much necessary to do so in LotRO (vs. CoX, where the crafting stuff was grafted on relatively recently, and theoritically is still fully optional).
  8. Squishy characters. LotRO characters may be heroic, but they are easily overcome by numbers (or, rather, more easily than CoX characters).
  9. What level am I? I know what level it says -- but did I level since I last visited a trainer?  I know there must be an easy way to determine whether you've gone and leveled, but I haven't found it.
  10. I think I prefer the instanced mission arrangement of CoX to the common zones of LotRO, where other heroes might be running past picking up your treasure, making you wait for re-spawns (or letting you slip past without opposition), etc. It's a bit of a toss-up, though.
  11. Tell me again why I'm collecting Neeker-Breeker Wing Slime? And why someone will pay for it? And why I care
  12. I miss @names. I like being able to globally hook up with a friend (esp. when it's my wife).
  13. I don't like looting bodies. It's realistic (using the term lightly), but it's an annoyance. Even with auto-loot turned on. (This was one of the greatest reliefs when I played CoX this past weekend.). 
  14. I dislike that if I want to give something to someone, I have to open up (and wait for) a trading window. I really like the CoX drag-and-drop (optional) interface.
  15. Facing is a wash. It's, um, realistic. It can also be a pain in the neck.
  16. Having to trudge back to the mission contact is a pain. I don't know how to mitigate that, given the setting -- though a number of missions could be handled, for example, by just mailing a postcard back to the mission sender. And, yes, some missions don't require returning.
  17. I dislike that there's no incentive (aside from being a nice guy) to help someone who's in over their heads. That's the flip side to the no-kill-stealing mechanism. (Perhaps a "the encounter owner / first damager gets full credit, while other damagers get a lesser credit" rule might be the best.)

None of this means I plan to not play LotRO, or that one game is the clear winner over the other. And, as I noted above, a lot of the above is my own play style and preferences. But, then, it's my blog, and I'll whine if I want to.


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Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

March 30, 2008

CoX: Gameplay for a whole day!

Basically spent the day playing CoX, which is something that hasn't happened in ... well ... months. And it felt good. Not something I want to devote every Saturday to, but a lot of fun. Especially given the company (bats eyelashes at Margie).

More Kitsune/Ex-Terra fun, getting them from 14 to 19.  We're also actively pondering what we're going to do when I12 hits. I'm seriously thinking the Psionic Blaster (at least until it gets nerfed), but a Fire/Fire scrapper sounds like it could be fun. Margie has a yen for a Plant Controller, too. Whatever we do, I look forward to seeing how the Hollows operates.


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March 29, 2008

CoX: Gameplay!

I actually played CoH last night! 

Yeah, it's pretty pathetic that that's news.

Actually had a very fun time. Kitsune-chan (my Illusion/Rad Controller Fox Onii) and X-Terra (Margie's Spine Scrapper), both around 14 (Travel! Yay!), and we just kicked butts and chewed gum -- save that there is no emote for chewing gum.

Just plain fun.

Yay!


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March 28, 2008

Yeah, it's been a couple of weeks

I haven't actually been doing any online gaming in the interval -- travel, illness, more travel, holidays, just not been in a gaming sort of mood.

Margie has been plugging away solo in both systems in the interval, though. Her Hobbit thief is up to 26.

My play drought might be shifting, though. Margie and I did some LotRO last night (let me say, I think Weathertop is faboo, visually), and I'm feeling a yen for some CoX building up in me (esp. to do some of the new I12 power combos and see what they've done in the Hollows -- except that I12 isn't in beta yet).

Chatting with Margie yesterday, she opined that one of the frustrations she finds is that you really need to stop active adventuring about an hour before you need to get away from the keyboard -- since it take that long to (a) get someplace safe, (b) check mail, (c) hit up contacts you need to hit up, (d) sell stuff that you want to sell (to get things out of your pack, and to earn enough to spend on needful activities), (e) craft stuff you need to craft (to get things out of your pack), (f) put things up for auction that you've acquired or crafted (again, to get things out of your pack and to earn vital money).

While the same is true to a lesser degree in CoX (Wentworths can easily be a half hour visit every session), it's less so because (a) you don't really have to craft in CoX if you don't want to, and (b) encumbrance / pack overflow is far less of an issue in CoX than in LotRO.

And, yeah, that is a bit annoying.

More as I ponder it.

 


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Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

February 28, 2008

LotRO: Fellowshipment

Played a few hours of LotRO last night with our elf Huntesses and a Captain/Minstrel duo that Doyce and Kate were running. Amazing how, in non-scaled missions, having twice the members, a melee guy (plus pet), ranged-attack folks who get to attack at range, and a healer/buffer, can make a difference in mission success ...

Plus it was fun hearing a musical coda to each battle.

Cleared some brigand and barrow missions which would have been tough on our own (as we'd already discovered on one mish). And it was fun to do some more group stuff. Thanks, guys -- let's do it again some time soon.


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Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

February 25, 2008

LotRO: Getting the hang of things

Been sort of slowly getting into the groove of LotRO, figuring out what works and what doesn't, learning how much crafting / auctioning drives me nuts and how much just adds some change to my pocket. Becoming comfortable with death defeat and figuring out how much we can bite off to chew and all that.

Our Loremaster duo is up to 13, which is where our original Cap/Champ pair were when we got tired of them. I feel like the LMs are a lot more enjoyable (in a game with excessive running around, ranged attacks are da bomb). Our Hunter duo is at 19 now, and doing well, too (see previous note).

Margie is doing a fair amount of solo play; I occasionally get on for that, but it's really about fourth on my list of things to burn my spare time.

I remain fairly happy with the game -- not obsessive, but it makes for a pleasant passtime to leaven the TV schedule (or vice-versa).

 


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Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

February 13, 2008

Jogging about Eriador

Took the Elfgirls off to the Lone-Lands. One of the things I love about LotRO is just the richness of the terrain. In LotR, we catch just glimpses, the major stopping points and places of battle and the camps where dialog occurs. Part of that is that Tolkien portrayed much of the North as desolate wasteland after the fall of Arnor, but part is just the result of any novel -- you don't see what you don't need to see.

Here, instead, off east of Bree, we have a semi-ruined inn, the fringes of a society being slowly pushed back by incursions of goblins. We have the remains of a fortress (complete with a "Minas" name), and backstory, and a combination of both the epic and the mundane, hints of what's happening in the big picture even as we help Joe Yokel reestablish his supply chain back go Bree.

We went to the Forsaken Inn simply to close off a quest, but it's hard not to click on all those shiny ring contacts, and, hey, we can do these three or four things all together without any trouble, right, and that would let us do this and that, and, wait, they want us to also go back and collect ...

So we visited Minas Eriol a couple of times, only getting defeated once. We've learned to go slow and steady, and Hunters rock in terms of being able to (usually) pick the field of combat, which is fine until the little goblin bastards repop on top of you. 

If I have a criticism of the evening, it's the necessity to allocate time at the end of the evening to go sell, level, auction, craft, etc. That's true in CoX, too, of course -- even moreso since the auction houses opened -- but it seems moreso here. That said, I am sort of working my way to a sweet spot with what I want to be bothered with, and what I don't. (Margie's comment, dragging herself up to bed a bit after I was up there, was that she either had to spend an hour doing all the logiistics/management stuff at the end, or spend an hour in bed thinking about what she was going to do when she got back on next).

Overall, a good time. And beginning to think, parenthetically, of the whole Kinship schtick, and to what degree I might have an interest in our characters getting involved in something a bit bigger than the two of us. There would certainly be times when it would be convenient, or a break from our (very effective and enjoyable) duoing.

 


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Filed under: Gameplay , LotRO

February 8, 2008

Ding-Ding!

Dinged Torchielle and Hildegard to 50 this afternoon. Woot!

 

 

Torchielle was probably my second character (after Velvet, before Psi-clone) that was a long-term success. Hildegard was a tank that Margie created to duo with her some time afterward. The two of them are a laugh riot -- heavy-duty tanky-taunts combined with AoE damagey goodness. Great duo.

A little bit of closure there ...


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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).


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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 ...


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Filed under: Gameplay , True Life

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

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.

Posted by Dave at 4:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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

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


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