Brian posted this on January 17th, 2012.
Categorized as champions, lotro, mass effect 3, minecraft, MMO, pc, Rambles, Rift, skyrim, star trek, Steam, swtor.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://bluekae.com/2012/01/17/looking-forward-to-2012/
Family
Before I get into what games I’m looking forward to, I wanted to mention some personal and blog related things. My wife and I are expecting our second little Kae to show up sometime in June. I’m sure that’s going to kill any time I have to play MMOs for a few months. I really dislike logging into an MMO, when I don’t know if I’m going to get pulled away at a second’s notice. When my son was born, I focused mostly on single player games, since I could pause it and go do father things without worrying about ruining anyone else’s game.
Not playing MMOs will either mean that this blog goes silent for a few months, or you’ll see tons of posts as I’ll have lots of time to read, think, and write.
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Brian posted this on January 17th, 2012.
Categorized as arkham city, batman, champions, dawnofwar2, lotro, mass effect 3, minecraft, MMO, pc, portal 2, Rambles, Rift, star trek, swtor, warhammer 40k, Xbox 360, year end.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://bluekae.com/2012/01/17/looking-back-at-2011/
Xbox
Last January, I wan’t looking forward to much on the Xbox. In fact, there were just two games: Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Akham City. Unfortunately Mass Effect 3 was delayed, but Akham City more than made up for that. The game had everything I loved about the first Batman game but added improvements, and even though I’ve finished the game, I still pop it into my console occasionally to beat on some thugs.
Outside of Arkham City, my Xbox didn’t get much playtime, which I guess is why it decided to red-ring on me in December. I had hoped by waiting through the first few manufacturing runs and getting an Elite, that I had dogged all of the overheating problems with Microsoft’s console. I was wrong. The repair process was relatively painless: go online and submit a repair request, print out a label, box and ship it out. I just wish it hadn’t cost me $99.
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DocHoliday posted this on September 26th, 2011.
Categorized as captain, champions, Classes, End Game, epic line, expansion, gear, group, isengard, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lotro, Minstral, Raid, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/09/26/rise-of-isengard-official-patch-notes/
While you wait for the patching and servers to come live, there are certainly enough patch notes to keep you busy.
I don’t expect too many changes, but as always there are a few things that we haven’t seen.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 30th, 2011.
Categorized as beta, captain, champion, champions, expansion, isengard, lord of the rings online, Lore-Master, loremaster, lotro, Minstral, Minstrel, Rise Of Isengard, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/08/30/rise-of-isengard-information-collection/
With all the news of late, it has been hard to keep track – so I wanted to put this post up as a sticky and will keep it updated as new things come out.
I’ve been using the Rise of Isengard tag on all my RoI related posts, so you can always check out that tag on the lower right side of the blog. Or there’s a Pull-down menu for this under the LOTRO button on the top of the page. The newest information bubbles to the top such that you can see the latest information first.
You can also use the class pull-down from the top menu if there’s a class of interest that I cover which will show each class with the newest post at the top. I’ve been trying to keep up with my main classes, Captain, Warden, Minstrel, and Champion, and Psychobabble has been doing a great job keeping things updated on the Lore-masters.
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DocHoliday posted this on June 6th, 2011.
Categorized as champions, End Game, gambits, group, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, moors, Potency, pvp, Raid, Rise Of Isengard, threat, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/06/06/the-potent-warden/
I realize this is a little late, but wanted to get my thoughts on these changes out there.
After the previous post on the planned changes for the Wardens, quite a bit of feedback prompted Orion to further tweak the concept of Potency. He described it pretty well in his blog post, but here’s my take on it.
Some of the pieces aren’t changing, you’ll still need to use either Deft Strike, Defensive Strike, or Goad to trigger the potency state and the trait bonuses are the same such that if you go deep enough (4 traits) in a line you’ll have 100% chance to trigger potency. But that’s where the similarities end.
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DocHoliday posted this on May 24th, 2011.
Categorized as beta, champion, champions, End Game, group, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, moors, pvp, Raid, Rise Of Isengard, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/05/24/lots-of-lotro-developer-activity/
It has been quite hard of late to keep track of the various developer postings as they’ve been very active. I’m sure we don’t always agree with 100% of what they’re saying, but I really appreciate the information this early in the game as we at least have a chance to not only voice our opinions but the possibility that those opinions might be acted upon. I’m going to summarize a couple recent posts here as well as hint an upcoming post I’m working on for later today.
One of the shortest yet most exciting posts (at least for me) was Kelsen’s post on the upcoming changes to PvMP for freeps. There’s a huge thread there, but the quick information is that stats will increase with rank, and the stats being things like vitality, will, might, etc. As it stands this applies to both PvMP and PvE but I could see a potential for this to be a PvMP buff only. For me this is quite a game changer as there are now real rewards for people who want to PvMP and another way to grow your character. All along one of my biggest issues with freep side PvMP is the lack of rewards, and this is a great first step to correcting that. This is a small change but one that I think could really boost activity out in the moors once it is implemented. There’s also a final note in his post that he realized the PvE grinding is not desirable so possibly my other gripe (grinding PvE for PvP armor sets) will be addressed as well.
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DocHoliday posted this on May 15th, 2011.
Categorized as beta, Bullroarer, champions, End Game, Equipment, expansion, gear, group, hard-mode, isengard, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lost legends of eriador, lotro, podcast, Raid, Rise Of Isengard, Skirmishes, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/05/15/episode-13-of-the-sally-forth-in-lotro-podcast/
Episode 13 is now live, take a listen and make sure to keep me posted if there are any suggestions or feedback. I’m especially interested in hearing what other topics people would be interested in. Full show notes are live over on TGN-Stratics.
DocHoliday posted this on May 11th, 2011.
Categorized as beta, champion, champions, End Game, Equipment, gear, group, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raids and End-game, threat, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/05/11/lotro-forums-exploding-concerning-tanking-fears/
It has been quite an interesting couple days on the LOTRO forums. Orion has been pretty active trying to explain some of the upcoming changes to the Champion class as well as a peak at the Warden changes.
But his more detailed post on the upcoming plans (still could change) for Champions has really set people in a frenzy as not only are people responding to the proposed changes, but freaking out that this will be the end of Guardian and Warden tanking as we’ll be back to the Moria days of preferred Champ tanking.
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DocHoliday posted this on May 10th, 2011.
Categorized as champion, champions, End Game, gambits, group, isengard, legacy, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lotro, Rise Of Isengard, threat, Traits, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/05/10/upcoming-warden-changes/
Just like the previous posts on Champions, there’s been a pretty hefty thread going on the Warden boards talking about what folks would like for the class. It actually is a pretty interesting read, and has already grown to over 7 pages. For me, I think the biggest issues with the class are:
- Lack of a secondary role
- Fist line is more or less useless
- Stances need to fit better with their roles, and Way of the Warden needs some love
- Many less then desirable skills, traits, and legacies
- At times squishy if there’s nothing to leach off of
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DocHoliday posted this on May 6th, 2011.
Categorized as champion, champions, group, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, Rise Of Isengard, tank, threat.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/05/06/more-on-the-upcoming-class-updates/
Orion posted again, this time on his MyLOTRO blog with all sorts of goodness. First off, as many expected all the freep classes are getting updates for Isengard and he will be writing blog posts for each outlining the general idea behind the changes BEFORE things hit the test servers such that more people get a chance to comment early on. Orion is mainly writing the blog posts with the dev team behind him, and he’s been tasked to write the Champion, Minstrel, and Warden classes.
Needless to say, I can’t wait for what’s coming and if they’re anything like what the champ write-up I’ll be quite happy.
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