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.
[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:
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.
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:
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
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
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!
[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.
It’s clear! I’ve read it all! And with a cat sleeping on my keyboard so I can’t type without hitting her ear (got to love helpful cats). So here goes, with two stories from a variety of blogs this time – one about WAR and one about LotRO:
A lot’s been written about the new WAR free trial, taking out the 10 day restriction and just opening up Tier 1 for free play. WAR is a game that will always be close to my heart and I would definitely boot it up sometime post-Mirkwood and play through some Nordenwatch for old time’s sake. I hope it gets them some extra subs, and going streaming is great too. Of course, it’s not ALL good news, because apparently GOA hasn’t announced a similar scheme yet.
When we were writing The Book of Grudges back in the day, it always frustrated me how much of my time I had to spend talking about the differences between the EU and US experience for players. I thought I’d dropped that as a topic when I switched to a more generic blog, but now it’s raised its ugly head for me in LotRO. Turbine run and develop the game in the US. Codemasters run it in Europe. In terms of server stability and even my own personal experience with GMs, I have no problem with the Codemasters service. But, it did take an age to get EU players access to the Lorebook for editing purposes (a bit of a smokescreen I have to say and one I never got behind, because I think the Lorebook is pretty pointless).
But with the my.lotro service, Turbine has finally produced something related to the game that I am actually jealous of, and which I’m mad at both Turbine and Codemasters for not extending to the EU players. So now to the links, right? Well, both Casual Stroll to Mordor and Doc Holiday talk about the new class-specific lotteries being held on my.lotro at the moment. And this follows some more generic lotteries. It sounds fun, it sounds community-building, and we don’t get it. Grr.
(Spinks just asked if I’d pick an EU service again. It’s looking less and less tempting with each game with a split in service).
So, I decided to make a stab at tackling my Feed Reader today, in some of my spare time. I’m greatly enjoying reading everyone’s blog posts, even though I’m hideously behind with things. Haven’t finished it yet, but here’s some of the things that caught my attention:
More as I catch up further tomorrow!
In a shameful personal post, I just wanted to comment about today’s bike ride. I’m really good at putting off getting on the bike. I used to bike with my husband almost every day and was at my fittest in years. Then, a knee accident, some new pedals that led to many falls and knocks to my confidence and one of the rainiest winters on record last year put me off. It’s been about a year since I’ve ridden for anything other than the 2 miles to the nearest shops (and even that with some heavy cajoling from my uber-cyclist husband).
I’m nearing 40 and I look very much like a hobbit, barring the over-sized hairy feet, naturally. To get on the bike may SEEM a good idea for my long-term fitness, but I’m so used to being lazy it’s the mental barrier I find hardest.
I’ve been in a definite slump recently moodwise though. Some of it is fallout after my father’s death, some has been Diesel’s bad paw and the vet’s inability to find anything wrong, coupled with some heavy bullying from our other cat Malarkey. It got to breaking point last week, and I’ve spent the last few days in my own little deep, dark Moria of the soul.
Yesterday I cycled to the shops. I said I’d cycle the rest of the week, but I didn’t really mean it. I’m also still adjusting to this 1-day a week work pattern that everyone’s so jealous of. But I’m finding it hard. My only hobby is gaming really, and I just can’t stare at a screen all day. So today, despite my worse nature, I put on my best cycling gear and took the bike out, thinking I’d do 3-4 miles and call it quits.
I did the first ever circuit we learned with a beginners cycling group. It’s right by the house and fairly flat. And it was pretty hard going at points, but I took the longer route anyway and got to 7.9 miles by the time I got home. Not bad since my work commute is 6.3 and that’s what I’d like to get back to, no reliance on public transport, except we are at the start of winter and it gets very wet and cold here.
It felt a bit shameful to go back to the very start of my cycling education 3 years ago, but at least I completed the circuit. And I realised, on the way home, that I should use some of this free time a little more wisely than baking cupcakes we don’t need in the house or lounging around killing time looking at forums.
Luckily I did the cycling in under an hour (just! I told you I was really really unfit and rusty) so I still have all day to play Torchlight, and fight the Watcher in LotRO and feel good that today I didn’t fully waste my time on my own.
I was reading this story about the UK opening its first games addiction clinic when I came across the following quotation:
It’s not unusual for people to get so obsessed with online gaming that they forget to eat and drift towards an anorexic and undernourished state…
While I’m sure it’s true, it’s certainly not true for me! Which obviously means I’m not obsessed or addicted. Hurrah (and bring on the chocolate).
