Blue Kae

Volume 3 launched a few days ago. There’s lots of good info (and podcasts) at Casual Stroll to Mordor and LotRO Reporter as usual if you want details on the patch.

What I wanted to mention is how much more I enjoyed the new content than I expected to. When I first read how Volume 3: Book 1 was starting out, I was disappointed. It felt like a rehash of old content. Going back to old areas and talking to rangers that I had met before. In practice it was actually a good deal of fun. The quests were pretty quick for the most part. There were some interesting story tidbits which I won’t go into for spoiler reasons. Best of all several of the missions took place in pretty cool instances, one of the neatest was the ice cave in Forochel.

Book 1 was pretty quick, around three or four hours at most, and is entirely solo. There is one skirmish where you can group up but all of the instances are solo instances, and the rest is easy open world stuff.

I’m looking forward to continuing the story, although I could stand to wait a few months for the next book, I still haven’t finished Books 8 and 9 from Volume 2.

Couldn’t come up with a witty title, especially since this is a real ramble of a post. Lemme know if you have a title suggestion. So…

Lord of the Rings

Turbine has announced their next book release, Volume 3 Book 1: Oath of the Rangers. Aside from the advancement of the epic story quests, it seems to be all skirmishes and crafting recipes. I don’t know what I was hoping for but that wasn’t it. I did read a rumor that Volume 1 will be completely solo-able though which is nice, I only wish I remember where I’d heard that or how reliable the source was.

Star Trek and Champions

Despite what my Twitter says I didn’t actually play STO last night. If you look at my Raptr profile you’ll see I spent 3 minutes in the game because I launched the patcher last night and decided to click on Engage since the launcher said the server was up. I did get the game to launch to a “No logins authorized at this time,” which was enough for Raptr to think I was playing. The best part was a message I got from Blamefulgecko wanting to know how I got in so soon, was accidental but very funny.

No real news on the Champions front as far as the expansion controversy. I played a bit last night and had one disconnect early on but that was it. Crafting still seems to be a problem but only for some specific items (can’t remember which, sorry). The only major irritation from my play session was the camera spin bug. I’m not sure what causes it, but occasionally the camera would start to rotate wildly around my hero. It seemed to happen most often when I was flying. Fortunately, I’ve always been able to stop it by using the mouse look, but still I will be glad when it gets fixed.

Last thing I wanted to mention is there’s a follow up from the STO team regarding upcoming features. Lots of interesting stuff there, especially for Klingon players. For me, the IP location additions are the most interesting. All of the high level stuff is something I won’t be ready to see for quite a while. The most interesting bit though is the last paragraph under the Engage heading.

These updates are entirely free to Star Trek Online subscribers.

Obviously this was included in response to the Champions drama going on. I wonder how much communication is going on between the two teams, because PR-wise they don’t seem to be on the same page. I’m imagining Craig having a little hallway conversation with Bill about his timing.

We had a kin event scheduled on Saturday to get a those of us you just finished Volume 1 through the Drums of the Deep (2.5.5) in Volume 2. The instance runs went very smoothly, thanks to Gorandir, Azzbuk, and Mortermeer (from the Weathertons kinship) for helping out.

After finishing, Tele, Phebe, and I decided to push on into Book 6. We got all the way to the next big fellowship instance, and we must have been feeling especially motivated because we picked up Berniard from our kin as guide/healer and recruited Thomborn and Mercatio from lff chat.

Even with a full party of 65’s and one 64, we wiped twice getting to the end boss but strangely had no problems with the last two big fights. The Cloak of Flame and Shadow dropped and I lucked out to with the roll (which usually never happens). Unfortunately Mercatio was bugged somehow and didn’t get credit. So we may be getting a rematch against 2.6.8 sometime soon.

In the end, I stayed up playing until nearly 5 am and finished Book 7 up through Chapter 6.

Grey quests get a bad wrap. Lots of players don’t understand why anyone would “waste” time on a grey quest since they don’t get any XP or likely any item upgrades, but I think that grey quests can still be rewarding. You still get to experience the content and occasionally you can still be challenged (if you’re into that sort of thing). Plus if you’re MMO offers cosmetic slots, like LotRO and EQ2, you can also still get some use out of any quest rewards that you just like the look of.

Sometimes a quest will go grey while languishing in your quest log because you need a group and can’t find one. Sometimes you move to  another area and forget to come back soon enough. Sometimes you find  an area you missed while exploring. This happened to me in LotRO once with Echad Candelleth. I’m not sure if I just missed it since I didn’t spend much time in the Trollshaws beyond traveling to Rivendell and doing the epic quests there, or if Turbine added it to the game after I had out-leveled the area. Regardless, I was exploring the Trollshaws and saw a quest icon on my map which led me to the camp of Echad Candelleth. All of the quests were grey to me, but I decided to pickup them all up and see where they led me. I’m very glad that I did too, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have bothered with The White Hart, which starts out pretty generically, but begins a quest chain culminates in the first appearance of Gollum in the game (that I’m aware of).

The epic quests in LotRO are another good example. There is a lot of story told through quest text, in-game cut scenes, and session play (to allow for alternate points-of-view), making it well worth completing at least once, even if you’re 15 levels above the quest level like I was when I finished.

So if you’re the kind of gamer who enjoys lore, story, and experiencing content don’t just skip a quest because it turned grey. You might be missing out.

Sometimes I have pretty limited time to play LotRO. Before the Mirkwood expansion, I would have picked out a quest or deed on my main character that I could finish quickly, or maybe logged in on an alt. While I’ve always had fun doing that, any traveling required or remembering where I was at with an alt would cut into my already limited playtime. Now I can run a skirmish instead. Skirmishes add another option for secondary activities, just like crafting or going to the Moors for creeps versus freeps.

So last night, when I logged in to see what was going on in the kin, I ended up joining in a small (3-player) fellowship running Skirmishes.  With an hour to play, we were able to complete Ford of Bruinen and Stand at Amon Sûl. When I was done I had a bunch of Marks to use on upgrading my dwarf protector, who had been ignored and neglected during my recent quest to finish Volume 1. Doing skirmishes also meant we didn’t have any logistical issues of meeting up or traveling (even though that’s rarely a problem for a hunter). Just join the fellowship and then insta-travel into the skirmish instance.

Skirmishes still feel fun and fresh to me, which is good since I’ve run through maybe a dozen total, and I have no intention of grinding them. I’ll keep using them for quick play sessions when my time is limited or when I’m waiting for a kin event or raid to start and have some time to kill.

As I mentioned on Twitter last night, I finally completed the Volume One epic quest in Lord of the Rings Online. Council of the Secret Fire members Azzera (loremaster), Kelmric (captain), Phebe (hunter), Telebrethil (warden), and Brynulf (myself,  hunter) joined up with Narmeleth to defeat Mordrambor and Mordirith.

left to right: Telebrethil, Brynulf, Phebe, Azzera, and Kelmric

Having Volume 1 completed is a great feeling of accomplishment, very much like when I first hit max level. Incidentally I also hit 65 last night, but the novelty has worn off of that experience since this is the third time I’ve hit max level with Brynulf.  Finishing Volume 1 was fun and rewarding for me, not because of any difficulty involved, but because of the amount of time I had invested. I’ve been chipping away at Volume 1 since the game launched, which also means that I’ve had at least one quest log slot dedicated to a Volume 1 epic quest for the life of my character.

So now it is time for Brynulf to make a victory ride on his new white horse back to Moria and tackle Book 5, Chapter 5 of Volume 2.

I had no idea it was Professor Tolkien’s birthday today (thanks Goldenstar), but I’m definitely going to offer a couple of toasts in his honor. If you want a bit more biographical information on the Professor, go see Once Upon a Hobbit.

Tolkien has been the largest influence on my reading habits every since I was 8 years old. I bought the Hobbit when I was in elementary school via a class book fair. The teacher passed out a small pamphlet that had all of the books being offered with a small summary and a picture of the cover. I don’t remember why I picked that one, but I can remember counting out dimes and quarters to pay for it and I’m sure the librarian was thrilled when I came in with my bag of coins. I still have the book and the slip which I used as a bookmark.

If I remember right, it was that summer that I checked out the Lord of the Rings trilogy from the public library. It took me the entire school break to finish them and I don’t know how much I really understood (certainly not as much as when I read them now), but from then on fantasy was about the only genre I would read (until I found Heinlein and got into sci-fi).

Since then, I’ve reread the books multiple times (including the Silmarillion), enjoyed Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation, and now I spend a little bit of time almost daily in Turbine’s interpretation.

Happy birthday, Professor!

If the release schedules and expectations hold, 2010 will be an interesting year. There are the two huge science-fiction IP’s coming via Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blizzard is doing something of a reboot of the Warcraft world, and the DC/SOE juggernaut is expected as well. SWTOR is also interesting since it marks Bioware’s entry into the MMO genre, and I’m very very interested to see how well they are able to bring a focus on story over to a massively multi-player environment.

My biggest concern for 2010 is a repeat of the Warhammer effect on SWTOR.  Warranted or not there seem to be a lot of players who are expecting SWTOR to revolutionize MMOs, kill WoW, and possibly cure cancer. I hope I’m wrong, but I think that most of the gamers disappointed with 2009 will also be disappointed with 2010.

So here are my bullet points for the coming year. Continue reading ‘Looking Forward to 2010’ »

I think 2009 was a good year for games, even MMOs. Sure WoW is still on top, Warhammer continues to struggle, there’s not been any revolutionizing innovation in the MMO genre, but I don’t really care about any of that. All of the games I started the year playing (EVE and LoTRO) I still enjoy, and I found a new game (Champions) that I like an expect to be playing through the whole of 2010. Continue reading ‘Looking Back at 2009’ »

Back in October I posted my goals for the remainder of the year. The short version was:

1. Have a Drake in EVE for my main Blue Kae, Gallente Jack-of-all-trades.
2. Max level hero in Champions.
3. Finish Volume 1 of the epic quests in LoTRO on my main, Brynulf.

How did I do?

EVE

Blue Kae has the skills and certificates to fly a Drake, but not the money.  He has 4 million ISK in his wallet, and the current market price for a Drake in Sinq Laison starts at 25 million ISK. That’s not counting insurance and fittings. To be honest though, I’d completely forgotten that I’d set this goal until I started this article so I’m happy that my skills are met. I’ve been in skill training only mode for the last few months, although I did do a bit of mining recently.

Champions

This is another goal that I forgot I set for myself. Max level in Champions right now is 40, and my main hero, the Silver Hunter, is at 32. He’d probably actually be 40 by now if I hadn’t started two alts in November: the Ant (level 12) and Deadaim (level 17). Still, I’m not disappointed about missing this goal. I’m still enjoying the game and I’m sure that Silver Hunter will get to 40 soon™.

LoTRO

So I didn’t hit this goal either (which make me 0 for 3), but I got so close. Volume One has fifteen books in it and I’m on Book Fifteen which has twelve chapters. Want to guess what chapter I’m on? Yup, Chapter Twelve. To be completely honest, though, that’s much farther than I expected to be. I was only on Book Ten at mid-December. I happened to volunteer to help some kinmates out with an instance, which turned out to be part of Book Ten (but past where I was). After that instance, the kin group helped me get up to the same chapter and then we continued on to finish Book 10, then 11, then 12, all the way up to 15. So a big thanks to for all the help to Phebe, Telebrethil, Kelmric, Lylariel, and Daevin. I should actually finish Volume 1 this weekend, we have a kin fellowship planned for tonight so I may get to check this goal off only two days late.

So while I was 0% on my goals for the last three months of the year, I did have a great time gaming. I made more progress in LoTRO than I truly expected, and I’ve joined a great kinship (more on that later).