It’s that time again, folks! LotRO’s Spring Festival has begun once again as of yesterday. It’s very exciting.
The Spring Festival is not all that different from years previous. However, we do have some new things. We have new cosmetics, though I warn you right now, dear readers: that new robe is not flattering on anyone. You can actually obtain the Steed of the Jester (last year‘s surprise horse) if you gather enough flowers. But, this year, we also have a brand new horse!
The newest addition to the LotRO stables, the Lissuin Steed
He’s a pretty guy, isn’t he?
The Lissuin Steed will set you back 40 spring leaves, but, not only that, you can also buy his gear for your warsteed! Unfortunately, unlike the Yule Festival, you can’t buy a box that has all the pieces. If you want them for your warsteed, you’ll have to do a bit of shopping. The caparison and leggings can be obtained from the various Spring Festival quartermasters or at Hengstacer Farm, I believe, for 20 spring leaves apiece. The halter and saddle, however, are at the vendor in Bree near the Boar Fountain for 80/80/80 flowers apiece from that flower-picking daily.
As I understand it, the cosmetics can be dyed, but as I write this, I’m not sure how they look when dyed. Unfortunately, Anthyllis is only level 49, so I definitely won’t have the opportunity to try for myself, and I’ve been scouring the internet for a picture. Unfortunately, I’ve so far turned up empty-handed, but I remain hopeful!
My first exposure to roleplaying (apart from games of make-believe when I was younger, of course) was in high school. A friend introduced me to the Dragonlance novels, and I was promptly hooked. It was only after I had been reading these books that I learned about Dungeons and Dragons, as I discovered Dragonlance was a D&D setting. Intrigued, my friends and I formed a little D&D group of our very own. I remember very little of our actual plots, as we tended to derail them quite a bit and upset our Dungeon Master in the process to the point where he threatened to set a never-ending pack of wolves on our characters in order to get us to move forward.
The Dungeons and Dragons love continued through to college, where my college friends and I would meet weekly on Saturdays for dungeoneering exploits, and even after, where I participated in an online Shackled City campaign with some of my internet friends. It wasn’t quite the same, due to the lack of dice rolling, pizza, and generally hearing everyone’s voices, but it was fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, due to circumstances entirely beyond my control, I no longer have people to play with.
Until now.
You see, new MMOs seem to be popping up quite a bit lately, from Star Wars to whatever else you might be able to think of. Dungeons and Dragons, however, has two to its name: Dungeons and Dragons Online, and most recently, Neverwinter. I tried DDO in the past and was unimpressed with it. Compared to LotRO (as both games are made by Turbine), the graphics seemed ridiculously sub-par, and I wasn’t entirely fond of slinging my weapons around every time I tried to left click on something.
Neverwinter, however, is a whole new ball game. It will immediately make you think of Neverwinter Nights (both one and two), and it rightly should, as they exist within the same world. I’d give you a proper timeline as to where Neverwinter falls in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve been searching for this information for two days, and I’ve come up with zip. I have no idea where this game falls in the Neverwinter timeline. What I do know, however, is that it’s fun.
Character creation is incredible. I come from World of Warcraft, where character customization is virtually nil. Neverwinter, however, takes the Guild Wars 2 approach to character customization. While you can choose a preset look to run around with if you really want to, you have the option to customize the look, therefore making your character feel like yours. Case in point, meet Kathra Mineshadow:
Kathra Mineshadow, Devout Cleric, at your service
Kathra here is dwarven devout cleric of Moradin. She can heal, but she’ll also use the powers granted to her by Moradin to kick your butt. She’s generally unapologetic about it, but, then again, she’s also seen some things in her time. She knows she wants to keep her friends safe, and they’ll always be her priority. Well, they would be if I could wrap my head around how healing is supposed to work in this game.
The controls do take a bit to get used to, especially if you’re coming from other MMOs, but you get into the swing of it easily enough. There are a few other “drawbacks”, I suppose you could call them, but they’re mostly minor. For example, I miss a lot of the puzzles that come with playing Dungeons and Dragons in a tabletop setting, but it may be that I have yet to run into them in Neverwinter. The quests themselves seem to be a standard MMO fare, and they probably contribute to an overarching story, but so far, I have yet to see anything that links these quests to what we had to contend with in the tutorial zone. I’d really like to see all that tie together eventually, but Kathra’s only level eleven. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.
My favorite bit about the game so far, however, has to be a system called the Foundry. Now, the Foundry is a way for players to create their own Neverwinter-based adventures and share them with the rest of the community. I actually played a couple last night, and it was really entertaining. Mostly, I was fascinated that we could take the world and shape it as our own, if only for a little while. Not only that, but you can come across some pretty awesome bits of gear in those things, all of which seem to be randomly generated, but typically geared towards things your class can actually use.
The game itself is currently in pre-launch/open-beta-but-no-actual-wiping-is-happening-so-they-say, so if you don’t mind ridiculously long queue times, I highly encourage you to go check it out and draw your own conclusions. It’s also free-to-play, so if you’re like me and money’s tight, that’s incredibly convenient. Regardless, you really can’t go wrong with a D&D based game. Well, I don’t think so, but my bias is showing.
What about you, dear readers? Have you checked it out yet? What do you think about it? If you haven’t, are you going to?
Ladies and gentlemen, my good gentle hobbits, today, we begin two weeks of celebration for Lord of the Rings Online, for this is it’s sixth birthday party. Some might say it’s a bit excessive for a party to last for two weeks, but when you love a game as much as it’s players do, sometimes that just doesn’t matter.
As for me, I’ve only been playing this game for two years, but what a great two years it’s been. In that time, I’ve played with the game’s cosmetic system, and while I’m nowhere near as good as Hymne over at Cosmetic LotRO (my favorite LotRO cosmetics blog), I’m having fun with it nonetheless. I’ve seen so much of the world that means so much to me and I know there’s only more for me to see. I’m so excited about that. I’ve even gotten a chance to go visit Bilbo’s trolls! So what better way to celebrate all of that than with fireworks and beer battles?
This year’s party really hasn’t changed too much since last year. You can still gather invitations that may or may not include ponies in the envelopes (we’re not sure yet; stay tuned). You can still shoot off fireworks, play courier and run gifts all around Middle-Earth, and even knock people around at the beer battle! If you choose to go beer battling, just don’t let your opponents knock you out of the ring or you’ll be disqualified. There are a few differences, such as the anniversary mounts no longer requiring horse race tokens to obtain them (every single anniversary token you earn can be put towards those), and if you want another shot at collecting invitations, you can spend five mithril coins (our newest currency item) as opposed to the tickets of last year to have another go. However, this adds up really fast, and I wouldn’t recommend doing it if you’re saving up for something.
Like cosmetics. I seriously spent a hundred mithril coins yesterday on pretty cosmetic gear sets off of the mannequins in Bree. Don’t judge me.
If you’re looking for a proper guide for the anniversary party, you’ll want to go visit A Casual Stroll to Mordor for that. Their guides are always the best. And now that you’ve been properly armed, maybe I’ll see you in-game for the party!
Hey there, folks! How are all of you doing on this fine day? I hope the answer to that question is “awesome”, because I certainly am!
I know, I know. Long time, no see, right? There’s really no excuse I could give all of you that would even be remotely adequate. I could claim real life had eaten my soul, but that would be a lie. I could tell you all that the search for a new home in WoW has taken up a lot of my time, and while that would be true, it would also be a horribly inadequate response. The good news is that I think I have it narrowed down to two places. However, at this point in time, I can’t afford a character transfer, so it’s really just a lot of waffling right now.
Regardless, though, I’ve still been having fun with RP! Some of us ThoBro folks have claimed a corner of Wyrmrest Accord for ourselves and we’re rolling baby alts and running dungeons together, which is kind of fun. I even went on and on about RP over at WTT: [RP] today, because I’m such a good sport and Bricu made me. (Well, no, not really. It was entirely my choice to answer his questions.) If you want to check it out, swing on over to WTT: [RP] and give it a look. I mean, you should, anyway, because that particular blog’s run by some pretty kickass people, and they deserve more views.
So what exciting things have you been up to these past few months, my friends? Share with me!
I’m not saying it’s an official death sentence for my home server of almost four years now, of course, but I have the feeling it’s coming close. I took a hiatus for about a month in an attempt to try to straighten things out for myself and explore a few other games. When I came back, I was saddened to discover that the usual chat channels, once full of life and happy conversation, were dead. In fact, most of the time, it seemed like I was the only person in them. To say it broke my heart was an understatement. I love Thorium Brotherhood. It’s where I met a wonderful group of people, people I’m proud to call my friends to this day. Unfortunately, it seems as though most of my friends have moved on to other games. The majority of my friends list haven’t logged on in months, and while I still love my characters, I’m slowly realizing that I don’t think Thorium Brotherhood might ever be server that I knew again.
As a result, I’m server shopping once again. I haven’t done this in years, and it’s a little scary. As a roleplayer, I’m really only looking at RP server, maybe even RP-PvP. I know the “standards”, of course. Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord are certainly viable options, and the servers I see lots of people recommending, but at the same time, I’m a little worried about this. For one thing, I left Moon Guard to escape some particularly bizarre drama after I left my old guild. For another, Wyrmrest is where a couple of the dramamongers went to. If I went to WrA, would I run into them again? Would they even remember me? Also, I’m in Eastern Standard Time. Would going to a Pacific-based server throw me off too much? WrA does have a few points in it’s favor, however, as a few of my friends have gone there.
If not either of them, though, where do I go? What do I do? Do I just abandon the thought of RP entirely? The thought of that kills me, to be perfectly honest.
So, fellow Warcraft players, help me out. Any recommendations?
Hey, WoW players of the United States! Guess what? IT’S PANDA DAY! Mists of Pandaria is finally here, and today, I want to know all about your panda plans. I, for example, will be making the slow level push to 90 and doing a lot of exploring out in Pandaria. I shall also (maybe) be rolling a panadaren shaman. But what about you?
Are you planning on rolling a pandaren? Or a monk? (Or a pandaren monk?) Are you going to set forth and explore Pandaria? Try to get a server-first level 90 character? Craft like a fiend? Roleplay your heart out?
ALERT! ALERT! The following post contains spoilers for the Horde version of the Theramore’s Fall (level 85) scenario. If you have not completed this scenario, you should not read any further. You have been warned.
Hello, everybody! Long time, no see! It’s been about a month since my last post. I hope everybody’s doing well and hasn’t given up on my little corner of the internet.
Since I last posted, things have taken a much different turn than I expected. Race changes went on sale (GASP!), and Adaret, whose story has been done for quite some time, got changed into a blood elf as opposed to a pandaren like I had originally planned. The short version of the story is that Thyanel, my old main, lives again, though as a priest and not a paladin as she was originally. I missed her so much, and I’ve slowly been getting back into the swing of playing her.
On the roleplaying front, chaos has occurred amongst the Harbingers of War (my beloved RP guild). ICly, we’ve been stationed in Hillsbrad Foothills, supposedly helping the Forsaken as punishment for something that happened long before any of my characters joined up. None of us have been particularly happy about it (the majority of the unit consists of trolls; what did we honestly expect here?). However, finally, we were supposed to move to Hammerfall out in the Arathi Highlands last night so we could help slaughter the Alliance out there. While the trek went without incident, we were greeted at the little Horde outpost by a trio who promptly arrested our guild leader. While it was planned OOCly (I can only assume), I completely didn’t see it coming at all, and felt just as outraged as Jinaki, my druid, did. Currently, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and one of our officers has temporarily been appointed guild leader, so we’ll see what happens there. Needless to say, however, I’m excited. RP again!
The trek, however, made me realize that I never actually obtained the raptor Jinaki rides ICly in the course of me rerolling her multiple times. Thyanel has, once again, been running the Argent Tournament dailies to fund it, since mounts are account-wide now and she’s been exalted with the Crusade for ages.
Speaking of account-wide mounts, however, patch 5.0.4 dropped when I wasn’t looking! It’s taken me awhile to figure out what talents work best for my playstyle, and while I still haven’t quite solidified them, I’ve found a workable set for shadow priest PvP. Thyanel has been participating in a lot of that lately, mostly to fund obtaining a Swift Warstrider and a set of armor for transmogrification purposes.
Today was going to be a different post. However, today Blizzard unleashed the Mists of Pandaria cinematic and I was so thrilled by it that I had to share it with all of you. It would have been nice, at least, to see the monk be a female pandaren, but I still enjoyed it.
Other people have said that the cinematic is missing the epicness from previous cinematics, and while that’s technically true, it fits into what seems to be the general theme of Mists of Pandaria. For once, there’s no major villain we have to worry about here (that I know of, anyway, though I will maim people if Blizzard throws one in at the last minute). It’s just the game getting back to it’s roots, with the Alliance and the Horde fighting each other, and something new getting a starring role (in this case the pandaren). The cinematic itself also emphasizes the pandaren and their initial neutrality by having the monk fight both the Alliance and the Horde, which, I have to admit, is pretty cool to see.
It might not be as epic as seeing Deathwing break through Azeroth, or watching Arthas raise an undead army, or even seeing what we could be depending on the classes we choose. However, I really don’t think the cinematic needs to be. It is what it is, no more, no less. That in and of itself seems to be what the pandaren are all about. They aren’t flashy. They are practical, in my experience, and this cinematic captures that from the minute the pandaren enters the picture.
Also, would you just look at the backgrounds in this one? They’re gorgeous!
So quite a few of you, dear readers, follow me on Twitter. As such, most of you have been subjected to my ongoing tweets about messing around with Alliance-side RP. See, the majority of the people I know on my home server of Thorium Brotherhood have been taking a bit of a break due to various reasons. While I hope that things pick up come Mists of Pandaria next month, I did miss RPing with people, and with my druid almost at 85 and my other characters on standby until Mists drops, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try something new. After all, none of my Alliance characters have ever lasted very long. When I mentioned this on Twitter, Bricu of WTT: [RP] naturally suggested Feathermoon. I do follow a good number of Feathermoon people on twitter, and they all seemed ridiculously awesome. I figured that if I was going to try this anywhere, it should be on a server that I knew had awesome people. I was even told there was RP happening Tuesday night!
I had a bit of personal drama regarding what character I was going to roll (the race remained consistent, but the class changed several times), and, unfortunately, twitter got the brunt of it. (I do apologize for that, guys.) Ultimately, I went back to a dwarf priest, one I spent all of Tuesday leveling like mad so she could at least look decent for when she made her appearance. Finally, six p.m. server time rolled around, and I made my way to the Pig and Whistle in Old Town of Stormwind. I was all excited on the way there, and a little bit nervous, but it wasn’t until I got to the door of the inn that I realized something.
I was completely and utterly terrified.
I could see Tarquin and Threnn and even Aelflaed (whose blog, Too Many Annas, I also follow) already inside, and these are people I’ve spent at least two years reading about through various blog posts. And then I saw Bricu himself walk in, and I panicked. I couldn’t even get my little dwarf through the door! Yeah, suffice to say that I was incredibly starstruck already.
Eventually, I decided I just had to get in there, similar to ripping off a bandaid, so I just ran inside and hid upstairs for a few minutes before sneaking downstairs and hiding at the table under one of the staircases. Bricu, however, saw me, and he was nice enough to provide me with a way into the conversation. Everyone was wonderful, and even though I may have botched the dwarf accent horribly, I really did have a lot of fun. I didn’t say much, no, and I spent a good chunk of the time thinking it would probably be easier if the character was a hunter or some other class (and I did have to admit that a priest drinking seemed a little odd to me), but I still had a great time. So much fun, in fact, that I’ll probably be back next week, if the Feathermoon crew will have me.
