Phew, Moria defeated

Last night, a little against my expectations we took down The Blind One (for the second time, and on our first attempt, yay) and then went on to kill The Mistress of Pestilence on our third try. Against expectations because I wasn’t sure how many attempts we’d do in an evening, not because I don’t think we’re capable (of course, kinmates read this blog, y’know!).

So, with that, aside from what seems to be a bugged quest in Dar Narbugud, I have now finished all the content in Moria, a week before we get Mirkwood. This I like. It’s not that it hasn’t involved a lot of grinding and time-killing to fill the time between raids (for me), but it feels satisfying nonetheless.

I wish, sometimes, I was a bit slower with content. But I love the game, I love to hang with my friends there, and I only work one day a week. This is a combination that means I rush into things headfirst when they’re new, even if I read every bit of quest text I’ll still finish before the majority, purely on the time I can chuck at it.

I’m also fairly resilient to grinding. More than many. As an example, I have accumulated 350 silver branches and 100 gold leaves (mostly through crafting instances), and spent a good many more back in the day! I’ve done most of the hardmode instances a lot more than 6 times, and I’m happy that way. I switch on a podcast and spend my time in Middle Earth, doing whatever I need to do to stay there. Have taken a few weeks to be on there less in preparation for Mirkwood, but once it launches I know the skirmishes will keep me pretty busy, as well as quests, instances and raids.

But, it does feel kind of nice to be able to finish DN. Now we have to go back to help people get the 4-pieces for the resistances, and for them to have the same feeling of satisfaction in completing one raid before we look to the next!

The Cat, Nerfed

Larky, with her new pink nails, courtesy of Soft Claws. It’s a bit of an experiment for us, but so far she’s not been acting any different with them than without! (and yes, it was my cruel decision to go with the pink and not the cool black option).

Mirkwood, briefly

I’m having to rely on the time I have to read people’s thoughts now the NDA is down, and I’m sure there’s a lot more useful info out there. But, early in the morning, here’s my initial thoughts:

• Yay, forgot my hunter alt is a whisker from 30. Can try some low-level skirmishes to see what it’s like.
• Will. Hrrm. Can’t remember what my Will is like. I may need to do some serious re-equipping. This kind of sucks.
• Dol Guldur armour is f-ugly (for capts, all I care about), but I like its name. The stats are apparently dps-oriented, and the 5-set bonus sounds rubbish. (all taken from captain threads on the Turbine forums, which aren’t behaving for me right now)
• But yay, my 2h sword can stay as a legitimate weapon  equal to halberds now. It looks good. But will have to butter up unwize to make me a higher level one (maybe a swap for some burglar tools, eh?), also my friendly armourcrafter for a better emblem (at last).
• I actually joked about an improved Withdraw with a fellow captain, since it’s a skill I really never use. It was such a joke I didn’t blog it, and that’s what we have. Ho hum!
• Looking forward to the content though!

Cynical amusements

Ok, we’re getting a skill upgraded at 62 for the Mirkwood expansion. Be still my beating heart!

Instead of worrying about it, I’m going to assume it’ll be a pretty rubbish skill getting some kind of enhancement so discussed with a fellow cynical Captain last night. We decided to put our money on Inspire (and we’re hoping it isn’t Inspire! While I can see it one day becoming a very useful tool for the shield-brother toolset, there’s other things I’d like them to look at first).

Thought I’d commit it to the blog so we can all laugh about how wrong I was.

Any other classes care to take a wild stab in the dark before any devs reveal it? Or other Captains want to think of another skill they could use instead.

Lovers of Cute

Because I haven’t posted an animal pic for a long time, here’s one from Nap Tiem, a site I think we should all get behind and support with new pictures whenever we can.

Ok, so they request I put it as a link rather than an embedded pic. What can I say – go, look. You won’t be disappointed.

I’m actually surprised they sleep.

Inappropriate Boss Names

[Inspired by the sign-up thread on my kin forums]

Please game companies, do not give bosses silly names. When we sign up to kill them we want them to sound fierce. Also assume your players will abbreviate to the first name or a description of the boss.

Examples from LotRO:

• Nornuan – too much like Norman, we all just say ‘The Turtle’.
• The Mistress of Pestilance – sounds ominous until you get sign-up threads asking ‘who wants to come to the Mistress on friday night’ (seriously, one day I AM going to write Carry on Raiding)
• Zurm – an old Rift favourite, also known as Zurm the Worm, even though he isn’t ;p
• Narnûlubat – can’t pronounce it, so he just gets called Narn-thingy
• Thaurlach – a decent name, but will always just be called The Balrog. Until we have to fight another!

In general I’m very bad at learning names in LotRO, but that’s actually because Turbine have made the names Tolkeinesque so I approve. The Mistress just makes me laugh, and I hope we soon start to call her Miss Pestilence, MoP or something else. But let’s face it, the ‘giant slug’ will always be known as The Mistress.

I’d think of some from other games, but I didn’t raid in them much, any contributions gratefully received.

Charity thoughts

The MMO Blog Alliance Charity Drive. First I’ve heard of it, despite my sister being involved! but hey, it’s a good idea, so I thought I’d shove up a quick post for anyone that could possibly read this blog and not any of theirs. Anyone? Bueller?

Go visit their links and peruse all the places you could donate time, money or just a blog post about over the holiday season:

• Epic Slant
• Spinksville
• Psychochild
• Multiplaying
• Stylish Corpse

As we all know, this year I’m poor, and will probably therefore donate to a few local causes – one for ovarian cancer since a colleague died of that last year, the hospice my dad died in, and possibly a cat one!

If there was somewhere I could give time that involved a cause I was into, I’d consider that, but I think I’ll be in and out of the area so that might be further down the line.

Maybe we should have a charity levelling contest ;p

Quick raiding update

Last night we downed The Blind One, for the first time, and got The Mistress of Pestilence down about halfway. Found the last mushroom for the deed, by a stylish case of falling. I won’t spoil how or why, but it was kind of funny.

The first time we get a boss down there’s a definite sigh of relief and a cheer. Followed by a strange pang of fear that we now have to show we can repeat the feat. I’ve said it before, but the second kill is my favourite in any raid. The one that proves it wasn’t just good luck that got us through the fight. Of course, I love the first kill – that goes without saying, but nothing quite beats the sensation of feeling we’ve conquered the fight, and I tend to get that on kill no. 2.

So – looks like we may have a good chance of finishing Dar Narbugud before Siege of Mirkwood launches. Although I’ll miss the Mistress/Blind One fights next week as I’m taking a trip down south for a family lunch, and then to go stay with Spinks and sneak a peek at Dragon Age: Origins, so everything makes sense to me ;p

Fun times with Funcom

Ysharros reminded me about The Secret World, an MMO I’m totally fascinated about, I just want to see one in a real world setting. I love the idea of paranoia, secret societies, and three factions. I want to see how a classless system works. And I have faith it’ll be interesting enough to give a good shot.

But, it did remind me of my sole concern. We all had fun with the ‘what secret society are you’ test Funcom put up as marketing hype and beta sign-up. And we spanned the three factions Dragon, Illuminati, Templars. Now, you can only pick one, and you only work for that one. I can imagine some groups of friends having some real problems sorting out which faction they want to play together in. Or – will we do something more radical and all play in the same world together, and chat, but play for different factions.

I know as it draws near I’ll be having a few words with friends over which faction seems the best fit for us. Any thoughts how you’ll tackle this?

Fun times!

Apocalypse now: An alternate story

[Blame Syp and Ysharros for this departure from my normal-type posts. Didn't edit it, didn't really spend much time on it, but we DO call Larky 'pest' which is where the initial joke came from. I'm no writer!]

Ok, so this is all a bit embarrassing. I’m pretty new to all of this, got the Apocalypse assignment quite late in the day, due to.. unforeseen circumstances. I did what any good administrator would, read up on the protocols, what was needed logistically. So we needed four harbingers of death, destruction and chaos. The old dusty tomes said ‘horsemen’, but seriously, our budget these days just wouldn’t stretch to four horses and their spectral riders. Besides, it all seemed a bit ‘Lord of the Rings’, horsemen foretelling doom.

I thought I was being post-modern and more than a little ironic, while preserving our budgetary constraints. Did a bit of reading in human mythology and it all seemed a good idea to just switch out with a cheaper animal to anthropomorphise. Humans are such malleable creatures, able to believe almost anything. So, I think they were bullshitting me a bit, when I kept hearing cats were pure evil. But, you know what, they’re also easy to work with, so thought I’d give it a shot.

Talk about disaster.

The four cats of the Apocalypse. Really, it’s going with me to the grave. But, since you asked. Here’s a quick picture of what went wrong.

Let’s start with Pestilence. I picked a small silver tabby kitten born outside a care home. She got taken in by a decent enough couple, hand-reared and hissy. Was quite proud of her ability to pick up fleas! And she was certainly a naughty kitten, but not really evil at her core. And very sleepy. After a few months, when she should have been out there spreading disease to the local population, I caught her napping, and noticed she’d not really left the house in weeks. She was my first project, so I called her in to have a chat. And she just yawned at me! I asked her all about living up to her name. And you will never guess…she’d fallen asleep during her initial briefing and thought her name was Pest!

I tried to do a better job with War, thinking War is one of the big important ones. For this we’d need a proud and large ginger tom. Picked him out, made sure he was a fighter, gave him the pep talk and sent him out to spread battle and dissent amongst the foolish humans. Backfired? Hell yes. He only got as far as the local mouse population, and when I asked he said he thought he’d start small and work up to bigger evil deeds. Ah well, at least he got some shrieks when he brought his carcasses home as gifts.

Famine.  A white tomcat this time as I’d decided to work with males since Pest’s admission of inattentiveness. Picked the scrawniest animal I could find and sent him out into the world. I know, you’ve already guessed this one. No-one told me how single-minded cats could be, nor how much humans would pander to them. Famine is now the size of a small balloon, and has 6 houses in one street that feed him daily. He says he’s decided this is a better way to live…

So, Death would be my redemption. I had it all worked out. I really did. I even saved the superstition-inducing black cat for the role and found a really evil one in an animal shelter just desperate to bring down the human race. Perfect!

But I never got the chance, I’m off the project now and additional funding is being sought. Remember this when the horsemen come. It could, and SHOULD have been the four CATS of the Apocalypse.