Gaming: WTH?

LoTRO used to be a nice place to go and play.  I could log in for fifteen minutes in the morning when I needed to kill a bit of time, or spend an hour or two later in the day when my eyes needed an adjustment from knitting or reading.  Not so any longer.

I don't know if Turbine is broke, or if the influx of new kiddies from going F2P (free to play) is causing a slogginess, or what the cause is, but it takes a good twenty minutes for my server to even show up, much less my logging in. 

As people who had purchased lifetime subscriptions, we were assured that we would not be inconvenienced.  Well I'm feeling mightily inconvenienced right now.  By the time I get logged in I'm saying to myself "Feh, now I don't feel like playing."

Maybe that will change as the kiddies lose interest and the traffic dies down, but for right now I'm pissed off.

Gaming: LoTRO A-Go-Go

I've been playing the new, micro-transaction enabled version of LoTRO for about a week now.  It's had some rough patches (pun intended) and an influx of annoying kiddies, but mostly it's been a good experience.  Not great, just good.

The addition of instances that are available no matter where you are in the world, through the skirmish system, is a big plus.  You no longer have to get your group of people organized, troop them out to a remote location, and hope you don't end up dying and have to walk all the way back.  Now, it's group, click and go.  The dead re-materialize in the instance.  I cannot tell you how much of a time-saver that is.

The points system is a little wonky.  I wouldn't trust my cash with it yet.  The points, also, do not go very far.  $50 will get you 5000 points (thank goodness mine were free) but things like a permanent Fate stat increase costs 1500 points.  To save up my 500 free points per month for all the stat increases available, it'd take me a year and a half.  The first time I logged in, I got bonus points for each month I logged in over the summer, plus points for all the deeds I'd already completed with my characters.  It totaled up to about 6700 points and after a few permanent instant-teleport maps to places I go frequently, and a couple of stat increases, that is almost gone.

As far as aesthetics, the new buttons on the login screen and the shop interface are overly large, and garishly done.  The world is almost as beautiful as ever, and fitting for the Middle Earth setting with the exception of some new buttons advertising purchasable perks, but then you go to the shop and BAM!  You're jolted out of the serene world by an advertising-heavy shop front.

And that "Restore Morale" button up top?  I'm afraid to check how much *that* costs.  Talk about a crutch for poor players with more money than sense...  Ugh.

But of course, I'll continue to play.  It's been free for me to play for the last three years, more or less, so unless it becomes impossible for me to play properly with all the extra load placed on the servers, I'll be sticking with it.  I'm just not sure whether I could recommend it to friends.

Gaming: The Secret is Out

Well, since the company themselves have spilled the beans, I think it's safe to at least name the title of the secret project/Alpha/Beta I've been participating in.  It's Age of Empires Online.  That's all I'm going to say on that subject for now.  My husband and I have wasted countless hours on Age of Empires and Age of Empires II... heck, just on Age of Empires in general.  To say this is an exciting project to be a part of is an understatement.

Meanwhile, we're still LotRO-ing it up.  See how I made it a verb there?  Classy.  As Lord of the Rings Online moves towards its Free-to-Play (F2P) model switchup scheduled later for this fall, maintenance days are getting longer and longer... I hardly got to play at all yesterday, since the maintenance downtime was from 7am to 1pm my time.  Look, you keep me off the servers for that long and I find other stuff to do.  I *did* log on long enough in the evening to do the Ford of Bruinen skirmish and earn my main character the last quarter of a bubble to ding over to level 57.  What I'm going to do with myself when I top out at 65 is anybody's guess.

Tomorrow:  Knitting, Weaving, and the sock craze of 2010

Knitting: Cloaks and Felting

Still working on my daughter's LotRO cloak.  I've finished the main body of the thing, steeked it, and yesterday I picked up for the hood and got about a quarter of that done.  I really (seriously!) wanted to run pictures with this post, but it's a mass of black every time I take a picture... you can't see zip for detail.  Maybe once I start picking up and knitting the border, which will have some gold in it at least.

The cloak kind of took over as far as the knitting projects go.  I simply wanted to get it finished so I could know how much yarn it would take to make a full-sized adult version for the geeky mom in the family (yes, me).  The answer is... a lot.  It looks like the child size is taking up 12 50g skeins of sport yarn held double, and that is before I do the border with a mixture containing a second color.

My attempt at tapestry on the rigid heddle loom is not going so well.  The weaving part is fine, it's the stitch in my *back* every time I sit at the loom that's slowing things down.  It must be something about the angle at which I"m sitting, or the table height, I don't know.  I may have to spend that ridiculous amount of money on the stand for my loom.  I hate to spend that kind of money on about four sticks and a couple of bolts, but clearly my coffee table is ergonomically incorrect.  In some fashion.

And I promised the hubby I would weave some attractive pillow covers for the couch.  Hmph.

Gaming: When economy translates

The funny thing about real-world economics (at least in capitalism, where I have more first-hand experience) and how it correlates to in-game economics in an MMORPG is that they are extremely similar in almost every respect with the largest, glaring exception being supply.  In MMORPGs, it is possible to create goods from thin air... almost.  Usually there is a resource to be harvested, or money for raw materials to be paid, but there are instances where stuff just... appears.  Critical successes on creating food ingredients in LotRO, for example, will result in a triple batch instead of a single... three balls of dough as opposed to one or critical success on polishing gemstones will get you three for one.  That's the only "thin air" example I can think of off the top of my head, the rest of the supply chain is in fact earned, through either time, work, or payment.

Players often treat the economics of an MMORPG like everything is "found".  But you're not taking into account the time it took you to run all around a map zone, looking for that Ancient Silver.  Don't sell yourself short.  If you only get an hour to play on a weeknight, and you spend half of that gathering materials, charge appropriately for your time.  Consider the wear and tear on your tools, your armor, and other gear as well.

Sounds like small business, doesn't it?  By all means, keep the game fun, but if the in-game economy is bothering you, don't contribute to its downward spiral by not taking your time and effort seriously.  If you put items up for auction, do research and charge appropriate prices.  Otherwise you might as well just sell it all to an NPC game vendor and be done with it.

Gaming: What, there are other games?

Still kicking it up in LotRO.  Monkey Pants has discovered... Role Play.  Apparently she has joined a band on the Landroval server, and last night at an event I watched her play an original composition.  I don't know whether to be proud or afraid.... very afraid.

I think I'm going with a little of both.

If you listened to my advice and got Dragon Age: Origins on Steam, yesterday they released a humongous patch fixing various minor items, and apparently paving the way for some new downloadable content coming soon.  There are also rumors of a DA:O 2 in the works.  I've not heard if any major roles are going to be reprised by the same amazing voice talent (Claudia Black, Tim Russ, and Kate Mulgrew, to name a few) but even if I'm not currently playing the game that doesn't mean I can't fall back under its spell any time soon.

I've had a copy of Dead Space for months now, waiting next to the Xbox 360.  Have I played it?  Heck no.  With as much yarn as I own, I feel like I'm being a lazy slug if I sit down in front of the TV without knitting something.  Same story with Gears of War 2, with the added slowdown of wanting to play through in buddy mode with the hubster.  We did that with the first one and it was a blast.  I might even let him play Fenix this time if I can get him to sit down for five minutes.

Gaming: House of the Black Swamp

Barronius and his fancy helmet

We're still going all out in LotRO.  This week our small kinship managed to get the game money together for a modest kinship house in the Shire.  All the house-related items we've had stowed in the bank for the past three years (have we had memberships for that long already?) have been put in the house, creating a decorator's nightmare of eccentricity.

Kinship house exterior

My Sabertooth trophy and a pesky doormouse and his cheese.

A breakfast table I crafted in the main hall.

Sinister Keg... drink from it and you end up in a random location with no pants.

 I forget how I got the Sinister Keg.  I believe it was for completing a quest for the Inn League.  I do remember that when I drank from it, it was the first time I'd ever been in snowy Forochel. 

My Room

Main Hall

The Kinship house has two sections, so you can decorate the walls, floors, and music separately for those two sections.  I wish it was a room-by-room so I could have my personal colors and theme music in my room only.  Ah well.

Gaming: Still in the Shire

The family is still on its LotRO kick. (That's Lord of the Rings Online for the newcomers) so far we have started new characters on the Landroval server and taken them to level 11 strictly through questing as a family.  In fact, those specific characters are intended only for use when we're all together.... no side-questing solo.  Little monkey pants finds questing "boring" and would much rather stand in the Inn and play music, but we manage to get a bit done each weekend.

Right now, I am switching between all my characters on LotRO and playing a couple of single-player games... in fact, I'm farming Mint leaves on Silverlode while typing this.  Farming is SO boring... but the best money-maker.  Once I'm done with my daily crop-gathering, it's off to play Dawn of Discovery or possibly some rare gaming time on the Xbox 360.  Since MP co-opted my rental copy of Scribblenauts the DS is pretty much out of the picture.

As a Kinship (Guild) on LotRO, we don't have many lofty goals.  Levelling our characters to the next crafting-tool tier, earning enough gold to purchase and sustain a Kinship house, experiencing some of the content that we simply cannot experience as solo players... that's pretty much it.  So we're not getting the best raid and PvP gear... we don't really care about those areas of the game anyway.  We just like being immersed in Middle-Earth surroundings.  And that's okay... sometimes the cool, leafy surroundings of the Shire or Rivendell is preferable to the 100+ degree heat of east Texas.

Gaming: It's getting bad out there...

When I used to work at a little medical equipment refurbishing firm called Comdisco (yes, that really was the name, and no, John Travolta never visited) they used to give us the Monday after the Superbowl off every year.  Can you tell it was a mostly-male workplace?  At least it wasn't like the conference I went to for Radio Shack managers where they threw hot peppers at the audience and the guys waved them around like penises while the three women in the audience rolled our eyes.  But I digress... I took Monday off because after a weekend of chips and dip, I felt I wouldn't have much to contribute in the food arena.

As far as gaming, I haven't done much new either.  With my purchase of the Windows 7 upgrade, I pretty much had to stick with what games I already have.  Not that there's a lot of choices on the market at the moment.

I've been sticking with Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and the ever-changing array of complete-them-in-one-day casual games on Big Fish Games.

STO has improved, somewhat, since the beta and headstart ended.  Windows 7 helped my machine's performance in that regard too... by fully utilizing the 4G of RAM, which XP never could do properly, things run smoother.  This is also probably helped by the new video card.  Whatever the reason, I've reached Lieutenant 7 with my joined Trill character, and once I figured out to turn off dynamic lighting, I stopped crashing on ground missions.

The new skirmish play mode on LoTRO is fun and fulfilling even if you only have twenty minutes to play.  It's a shame you have to play PvE to get past the tutorial for it and access it, though, since my favorite character is currently in Moria, and that place is seriously kicking my ass.  Do you know how long it would take me to travel, in real-world time, to get someplace better?  Forty-five minutes.  I'm not kidding.  These days, I hardly want to play forty-five minutes straight, much less watch my gal on the back of the horse while I do nothing but knit.

Other than those two, it's been "Vacation Mogul" on Big Fish Games, one of those time-management building games.  Whoopie.  I really contribute very little to society, don't I?  :P

Tomorrow... my knitting.  Or lack of change thereof.

Gaming: LoTRO over 50

I don't know what strange whimsy came over me, but I've switched back to LoTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) for the time being. I think hubby asked me to invite one of his characters to our guild, or something, and it grew from there. Before I knew it, my two-year-old character finally levelled to 50. And with it came access to the Mines of Moria content I paid for a year ago.

I have to tell you, the Legendary weapons really change the feel of the game.

Legendary weapons gain experience points the same way (but more slowly) as your character does, improving stats as it goes. Before I knew what was going on, I had three Minstrel-class weapons in my inventory, each one more interesting than the last.

I may actually max out a character... which I've never done before. Fortunately, the Mirkwood content is coming out in December, with two new character slots and a raise in the level cap. I'm a little disappointed that the better Legendary weapons will never be available to me, as you need a six-person raid team to get the tokens necessary. Unless I get lucky on a drop from a random mob (which I doubt) I'm stuck with the lesser items from "The Third Age" instead of the better second and first age items.

And they say MMORPG's don't encourage socialization. :P I might have to make some friends.