arbitrary posted this on May 6th, 2010.
Categorized as Barad Guldur, Dol Guldur, interesting fights, lotro, MMOs, raider, raiding, raids, skills, sociable.
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Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/old-raiders-dont-die/
…they just wipe at 1% (with thanks to Spinks for the ending, I was too lazy to think of one).
Or, can you just drop raiding and not worry about it? I know at least one person who’s happily made the transition that way. I’m vacillating about it.
There’s things I don’t like about the current raiding I do, solely in LotRO, in the Dol Guldur cluster. I’m not overly keen on the radiance gating, I’d rather it was trait-based, or .. hrrm many other proposed systems. I prefer a closed-ish raiding group, but our kin has opted to go for rotations, and a much more broad brush approach.
There’s things I do like about raids in general, and the current one is included in that. I like the social side, the larger group size and chance to group with people I may not group with every night of the week. I like the more interesting fights a raid can bring in (though to be fair, lots of the 3-man instances have some fairly interesting fights in them which probably allow me to display my ‘leet skillz’ more obviously than in the current raid.
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arbitrary posted this on April 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as bored, doldrums, funk, is it me or am I just crap, lifespan, lotro, mmorpg, MMOs, natural lifespan.
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Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/lotro-funk/
I logged onto LotRO tonight, determined to make a triumphant return to the game – to join in with a kin activity and to just knuckle under and remember why I enjoy the game.
It didn’t go according to plan.
I grumped at people, ended up in a smallish but nice group of people, but faced with a really hard fight to be sole healer for. We did fine, until that last fight. Then died. And died again. And it doesn’t really matter whose fault it was because it made me feel like it was my fault. Bad healing situations always do, if you’re a responsible and proud healer. I know it’s not always JUST the healing, but I want to protect the people in my group. That’s why I heal.
So, I ended up feeling frustrated.
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arbitrary posted this on March 12th, 2010.
Categorized as birthdays, bored of raiding, casual play, friends, lotro, MMOs, personal, random, status, turning 40, Updates, warcraft, world of warcraft, wow.
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Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/what-im-up-to/
So blogging has fallen a bit by the wayside. I went to London/Reading to visit family and haven’t really got back into a schedule yet.
Add to that a bit of a turn from LotRO – I’ve been there, done that. I have 750 Dol Guldur medallions now and no weapon or emblem decent enough to spend any of them on. I can run through Sammath Gul without standing on a bone pile with my eyes closed. Volume 3, Book 1, was a small distraction – but didn’t do what I wanted it to. We’re raiding Barad Guldur, and making good progress, but raiding has diminished for me somewhat, and I think in the future I won’t be quite so gung ho to go twice a week. Ah yes, the casual vibe has started to catch me…
…I still log onto LotRO almost daily and do some of the daily quests to level up yet another emblem. They’re all rubbish. I feel, as I do it, as if I’m wasting my life. I really hate the LI lottery these days. And then I realise I’m raiding with what I consider rubbish and no-one cares, so why should I struggle to upgrade? Why pursue the Symbol for crafted 2nd Age items, when it may just be a wasted piece of crafting that someone else craves a lot more than I do?
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arbitrary posted this on February 22nd, 2010.
Categorized as Barad Guldur, Dar Narbugud, healers, healing, loot, lotro, MMOs, raid healers, raid healing, raiding, raids, social aspects of MMO, why raid.
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Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/why-raid/
Was having an interesting Twitter chat with a kinmate this morning (@sauronsbeagle to give him his due) when we touched on amusing reasons to raid. He’s a Minstrel, I’m a Captain – we both heal in raids. And there’s your context:
I felt my #3 key wasn’t being pressed often enough. The 1st boss and gauntlet make up for that!
Yes, I like to use Gauntlet to bask in the smugness of my 8.3s on-defeat heal. Will go when I break DN* set up.
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arbitrary posted this on November 10th, 2009.
Categorized as boss names, Bosses, Dar Narbugud, games, humour, lotro, mistress, MMOs, raids, Rift, the mistress of pestilence.
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Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/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.
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arbitrary posted this on November 5th, 2009.
Categorized as Codemasters, EU vs US, europe always gets a suckier service, european service, free trials, GOA, links, lotro, MMOs, mythic, turbine, warhammer, warhammer online.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/finishing-up-the-feed-reader/
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).
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arbitrary posted this on October 14th, 2009.
Categorized as casual, dkp systems, dragon kill points, fairness, guilds, hardcore, lists, loot distribution, loot systems, lotro, MMOs, raiding, raiding in lotro, raids, rotations, sk, suicide kings, unfairness, when casual raids become hardcore.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/does-everyone-hate-dkp/
Since when did DKP become a polarising factor? I quite like it, and I’ve seen a few different versions. Each DKP system can be tweaked for a specific raiding group/guild, it’s up to you how you award points and how to spend them. But it seems people either love it, or despise the very concept.
Dragon Kill Points. Something we’ve all become aware of since the old Everquest days. Who knew they’d become so fixed in the MMO world?
In the days of massive raid numbers in Dark Age of Camelot we had a pretty simple system going. Turn up for a Sidi raid, get 10 points. Spend points each week bartering for items that dropped at the guildhouse of the guild running said raids. Either save up points for armour or weapons (at say 40 or 50 points per piece), or spend 10 points on the cheaper loot, such as respec stones. Perhaps from this I started with a good opinion of DKP.
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arbitrary posted this on September 29th, 2009.
Categorized as adventurers pack, clever marketing, cost, expansions, Lifetime Subscription, lotro, Mirkwood, MMOs, money, packages, siege of mirkwood, SOM, Subscription, turbine.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/making-money/
Ok, so the Turbine offers surrounding Siege of Mirkwood have already raised a few eyebrows. They’re a little confusing until you sit down and read them properly and realise lifetimers are being treated differently from those without a lifetime sub.
Me, I think it’s great. Let’s face it, they need to make regular money. That’s their development lifeblood. And yet they had the lifetime offer and obviously through all the returns to the offer, they’ve gathered quite a number of lifetime subscriptions. In terms of big wads of cash the lifetimers represent one-off payments, but no regular money. Which has long been seen by us, the audience, as a great offer if you love the game and get your money’s worth, but for the company must have more dubious status compared with people paying a monthly fee.
I was really happy to see that Siege of Mirkwood comes free with a multi-month subscription. Presumably those wanting to level to 65 and see the new content who aren’t lifetimers will buy a 3 or 6 month sub anyway at some point, but if not, this might get them to do that vs. buying monthly. In addition, they save some money when purchasing multi-month, and Turbine get a cash injection just before Xmas. And the lifetime offer returns to its lower price, so that may mean even more money to put towards the next expansion, next game, Xmas presents for employees (don’t get excited Turbine employees, I doubt this is where the money is headed).
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arbitrary posted this on September 16th, 2009.
Categorized as bilbo, competitions, Europe, frodo, hobbit birthdays, lord of the rings online, lotro, MMOs.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/what-do-a-triple-nelson-and-lotro-have-in-common/
Codemasters just announced on their web pages and Twitter that they’d be giving away 111 full Shadows of Angmar game keys, as well as other prizes to celebrate Bilbo and Frodo’s birthdays. The big celebrations will span next week, from 21st Sept to 25th Sept.
So, first of all get yourself a Codemasters online player account (using link in the quoted section), so you’re ready to activate a key. Then get or bookmark the Twitter channels, check the forums and keep an eye on the May Contain Gamers blog. And, if you win and want to pop in and say hi – I play on Laurelin and would be delighted to have a chat.
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arbitrary posted this on September 13th, 2009.
Categorized as expansions, lord of the rings online, lotro, Mirkwood, MMORPGs, MMOs, siege of mirkwood, warhammer online.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/when-is-an-expansion-not-an-expansion/
Back in the day I was a bit mean about Warhammer’s ‘live expansion’, calling it a mere update. People are already saying the same about Siege of Mirkwood. Both undoubtedly add content to the game, one through digital download and payment, the other through a summer of added content. The Warhammer one was free, deservedly so, as the game needed the changes it brought badly. The Mirkwood one will only be available to purchase as a download. Not seen either before in my MMO-ing, but that IS limited to Dark Age of Camelot and World of Warcraft before either of the above games.
Perhaps we’re too harsh sometimes on definitions. If the developer calls it an expansion it’s an expansion. Just because it doesn’t fit into our preconceived idea of one, hey, things change… it’s expanded/added content and the word mostly fits. Now, whether Mirkwood is smaller or bigger than one of LotRO’s content updates (that are traditionally free), remains to be seen. We’re a cynical bunch, we love to remind ourselves that LotRO launched with the promise of an expansion a year. Come on, did anyone necessarily expect them to keep that pace? Especially seeing/reading what was left out of the Mines of Moria due to time constraints.
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