August Update

So what's been happening in the world of Lothirieth?  Well, I've been renovating a house, finally moving into said house (yay for something newer and more space), went on a holiday to France (oh the lovely sun!) and will be wrapping up my second Dutch language course (maar ik kan nog steeds geen goed Nederlands spreken.  :/  Het is heel moeilijk voor mij.  Maar ik begrijp meer en dat is goed!) 

Oh wait, you mean what's been going on with game stuff? ;)  Well, the backlog of screenshots continues to grow due to some busy months, so I figured I'd do a concise update of some things I've won or obtained.  Other than that, I've not been playing Lotro all that much.  The combination of bugs, lag, Turbine blatantly displaying its greed and not feeling at all excited about the new expansion has left me with not so much interest.  I'm logging in for raids and a bit for the current festival, but that's really it.  I feel I mainly want to rant about the state of the game, but I'd rather not have my blog contain mainly that.  So I'm taking the approach of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" I guess!

Anyway, stuff! Stuff that's been going on! Well, I found one super ugly staff!  It just looks a bit too evil...

My warden won the Steed of Bright Days, which means I'm rarely going to see it as I have no intention on playing warden anytime soon. :P  It lives up to its name of being quite bright, but I like it. :)
My loremaster won the loremaster steed.  It's nice I actually won the class mount for my main, but I have mixed feelings about it.  When I first saw the preview pictures, my thoughts were "Yuck! That's hideous."  I wasn't alone.  It's been entertaining to read some of the comments on the official forums.  I quite enjoyed something Catburg said:
I can't decide whether it looks like it's wearing old lady's bloomers, busty barmaid's blouse, or a babygro.

I laughed when I saw I'd won it in a lottery as it seemed so ugly, but it's not so bad ingame.  The sheer number of scrolls is a bit over the top, the books have poor graphics and your cloak clips with all the stuff on the back (which you can see in the next picture)... but I don't know.  It's okay.  I'll ride it around for a bit, if only for all the stares I get. :P  It's entertaining to be sat in Galtrev and see people stop, stare and walk around you. :D  Oh, you can also see I have a new snazzy cloak. ;)  I got a broken cloak clasp a little while ago but was torn about what to do with it.  The necklaces are clearly the better upgrade, but I've gotten the clasp so late ingame that the necklace would be obsolete soon.  The cloak offers a small upgrade but a cool cosmetic that lasts until they pull the plug on the servers.  But my need for my character to be the best it can be is strong.  I finally bit the bullet and just got the darned cloak, even though I feel the need to explain to everyone that yes, I do realise the necklace is better!
Fuzzy books and cloak clippage. 

I joined an impromptu Barad Guldur run and somehow lucked out and won the chest and leg pieces which happily are now bound to account rather than character.  I've lusted after the minstrel armour in the past so went and got that, then immediately slapped it on my runekeeper!
Lastly, I finally got a chest piece I've been looking for!  It dropped in a T1 Saruman and everyone got a chuckle when I had to yell out for the raid leader to just not distribute all the junk as it wasn't all junk!  My hobbit loves his new outfit.  I think he looks quite dashing! (Though I forgot to put on the matching gloves I have when I took these screenshots. Doh!)

4 comments:

Ravanel 6 August 2012 at 01:09  

Great to hear some news from you. :D

An awesome that you're working on your dutch. My boyfriend has done one like that as well, and it really helped. He really got good when he got a dutch job (in a supermarket, even), when he was forced to speak dutch to all the customers.

And, haha, that LM horse *is* ugly! I've totally forgotten about the lottery that past weeks. >.< However, on a closer look, I don't think I've missed that much.

It's not only the overdone scrolls or the ladybloomers, but the skin colour of the horse itself doesn't fit well with it either.

Sorry, I shouldn't mock your horse now, you should of course still be happy with it! ^^

I got my own clasp a lot earlier, so I did go for the neck. I think you're totally right about going for the cloak now, though. It's really a minor stats increase either way, and you'll have more fun out of the cloak in the long run. I still think it's a bit of a shame that they made the cloak stats increase so underwhelming, but ah well. At least it looks a *lot* better than the original caster's dragon cloak.

Okay, this is almost starting to get as long as a blog post itself, so I'll head off again. Congrats with all your new shinies!

Unknown 6 August 2012 at 10:05  

Lol. I got a good chuckle about your current anti-rant stance. Your ability to spot issues is such a contrast to my rosey-dana-sunshine. I often am so optimistic that I can't even see problems; whereas, you have a knack of pointing out the gaps tactfully with thought-out intelligent prose. Go you!

I nearly had tears in my eyes from laughing when you said "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all", then followed up with "I found one super ugly staff!"

I like your horses! I fear that you will lose your scrolls though if your horse exceeds a trot. That bag of scrolls doesn't look secure at all!

Always a pleasure!

Lothirieth 7 August 2012 at 11:06  

Ravanel - I hadn't realised your boyfriend isn't Dutch? Where is he from, if you don't mind me asking? Also how did he manage to get a job if he couldn't speak Dutch very well? Meh.. I have to do that myself. I'm not looking forward to it. I can tell that those expats that immerse themselves in Dutch learn much faster. A girl in my lessons works in a bike shop and she could speak better than any of us. I can read and listen as well as her, but she has that edge with speaking. I just went on a family holiday and my new family spoke Dutch to me the whole time and I had to try to speak some back. It actually helped quite a lot!

And nah, you've not missed much with the horse. I wouldn't say I'm happy with it.. just not as appalled as I thought I'd be! ^^

Danania - oops. :P I meant not saying anything bad about Turbine and the state of the game.. which is REALLY hard at the moment given the 'Bind on Acquire festival token move' Turbine just pulled! I worry about being too negative and scathing. I don't want to alienate people (although some blogs do quite well with continual rants :P).

Unknown 8 August 2012 at 11:21  

True. The Bind on Acquire for tokens move was appalling! I roll with it and try to re-optimize, but it was so very clear that the move was intended to increase TP sales for tokens. "Induce sales by killing competition."... not so impressed. Combine it with the poor drop rate for the egg hunt, and it made the festival much less fun.

I am collecting daily tokens and not using them now, with the intention of having a stockpile for the next festival that uses them.

You are good at finding the problems and discussing them without being overly negative. Turbine needs people like you. :)