Postcards from Middle Earth, 30th of March


Outside of Sarnur.

A wee bit crowded... and the update

A shot of the crafting hall in the 21st on update day of people puzzling over the new LIs. :D

I'm mostly okay with the new system. I was finally able to make the perfect staff, perfect dps book and perfect raid book. That part took minimal effort given ixp is very easy to get in the new instances. There was one bit that really made me grumble though. I extracted t6 legacies and replaced t6 legacies, but I got a t2 legacy instead. So I had to buy 8 empowerment scrolls which cost me around 14k in marks. I've calculated that my new raid book is going to need 15 empowerment scrolls. The bill for that comes to 29250 marks. :o I suppose this is what I had wanted though: more control over my weapons with the tradeoff being it takes longer to work on them. Though given we'll be replacing these weapons with first agers and then when we're level 70 we'll start the whole process all over again, I still feel it's a bit too much work being put into weapons that will be thrown away. I'm still waiting for those legendary weapons that will grow with us...

The relics are easier to get now, but I'll still be having to buy the relic removal scrolls from the store as the best combination for me is old and new relics. I really do wish they would have kept the old ones. Alts that never got high tiers or that are leveling up will never have the opportunity to get them.

All in all it's been mostly a good update. The instances have been plenty challenging though my only gripe is that they are overly long, especially the spider boss in the Farm and the final fight of the Temple. I found the new book to be highly enjoyable, especially the session play. It was fantastic. All in all, I'm not sure this update is going to hold people for very long. I know people in my kin have been going quite hard at the instances. At least the raid will keep us busy for quite a while. :)

One of these things is not like the others


Two well dressed elven ladies, then well, um... a man with an interesting choice in fashion. The LM Helegrod hat is always a great source of laughter and amusement. :P

Also funny capture of the birds. Looks like they're having a fight!

I got to see a bit of the new raid last night. It was fun, but the fear wing boss is pretty damn hard. :P The Endless Stair was really feeling endless last night with all the running up it we kept having to do. ^^

Not so cannon

Spoilers ahead! You've been warned!

So I saw a video of the new raid's boss (final boss I believe). (and meh can't figure out how to embed a youtube video, sorry :P)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FBcyt8RvFw

It looks pretty darned awesome. But the thing is... Durin's Bane is supposed to be dead already. :P And Gandalf was the one who took care of it. Anyone who's been to Zirakzigil can see the corpse laying there, yet some how it's back for us to fight? Riiight. Though some of the dialoge is asking if we can stand against that which smote the wizard, which obviously didn't happen. So perhaps there's some trickery going on there.

Oh well. At least it looks badass enough that hopefully I can get over my purist tendencies. :P

Distractions

Long time no post. I suppose that's a side effect of a job you really don't like and sucks all your energy out of you. :P Also I've not been playing lotro all that much recently. I've still been logging in to do my daily Rift skirmish...only 12 more to go! I think I've found myself burned out on solo lotro. I suppose a break is good though. It helps you to enjoy the game even more again when you return to it. I'm looking forward to the new content though it's going to suck that I'll be working! ^^

So lately my main diversion has been Titan Quest. A good friend suggested we play it so we have been. I've been leveling up a Pyromancer. Oh the surprise! I'm playing a caster who throws around aoe fire! :D Here she is with her Core Dweller pet. I named him Bert. He's awesome!

I've been enjoying actually having to aim my attacks as well as being able to dodge mobs' attacks. It's always annoyed me in lotro when you can't dodge wight puke. :/ It's pretty important that I do dodge attacks or otherwise I go SQUISH! very quickly! Also Titan Quest is actually quite nice looking and my class's skills are super flashy. I have one that can one shot a whole group of mobs. Good times!

I wasn't much of a gamer before lotro, so this is my first experience with spending points in different skills and stats. You can choose your masteries and which skills you want to level up. Much different than hitting a level and buying a skill from a trainer.

With Titan Quest, the only issue this creates is that in order to maximise your damage you really need to focus all your points into certain skills. So you're left with not that many skills. I am missing being able to use multiple skills. But all in all, it's been fun. :)

Also I've been *very* slowly playing through Assassin's Creed 2. It's a super pretty game...as well as the main character. :P It has great atmosphere and I'm enjoying it... except for when I accidentally go leaping off buildings... which I do *a lot*. :P

I do highly recommend the game though. Awesome scenery and music, a great storyline, cool combat and getting to run around a hot Italian guy. What's not to like? :D