LoTRO; a poem, yes!

To celebrate the new LoTRO expansion, I think we’re all due a new poem, and to my excitement, we have a new poet. Rhiannon (Berath’s Brain Burps official poet-in-resident), has briefly stepped aside to allow a newcomer to experience the adulation and adoration of the readership, regularly accorded to those artistes published on Berath’s Brain Burps; Rhiannon herself, arbitrary, Tommy the Cat, Ripsaw.

So, here, let’s wave our feathers in the air for Jonsong, of the Kin, and now official Visiting Poet to Berath’s Brain Burps.

Jonsong has not written a poem about the new expansion.  Instead, he has produced a poem about the last big expansion, the Mines of Moria from a while back; generally thought to be one of the best expansions of any MMO. But that is of no matter to Berath’s Brain Burps. Berath’s Brain Burps prides itself on rarely being at the forefront of anything.

Now all you need do is make yourselves a brew and  enjoy:

“Oh Moria! Oh Moria!

Oh Moria! Oh Moria!

You make me such a worrier!

With windy stairs and stairs so tall

I see a ledge then oops, I fall!

 

Oh Moria! Oh Moria!

I am not a warrior!

Can you install a lift or two?

A Stennah to the  dwarven loo?

 

Oh Moria! Oh Moria!

All dwarves rise in euphoria

But then I think- catheter bound

Is this the Waterworks I’ve found?

 

Oh Moria! Oh Moria!

Is this phantasmagoria?

I jump down a well and then I see

I died and then forgot to pee

 

Oh Moria! Oh Moria!

You make me such a worrier!

A mistress harsh and vengeful still

As I stare at my repair bill…

Wandering back to Middle Earth

So Rise of Isengard has now been released, the latest expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. And I’ve wandered back to LoTRO.

I’d logged on a couple of times earlier in the week, pre-release for some late night roaming. I wonder if there’s a word for the feeling  you get, returning to a MMO after a long break and exploring familiar places that take you right back? It struck me once again what a beautiful place LoTRO is especially compared to the brashness of WoW.

I haven’t many impressions of the new expansion yet, I haven’t had time to play much. I didn’t even manage to connect to the server on Monday, the day of release. A lot of people in the kin had similar problems. On the Tuesday, I managed to connect and patch and began the first chapters of the new Book, having a brief look at the first new area. The first quest was interesting, giving you a choice leading to a potential moral dilemma. Possibly an attempt to continue to give a little more depth to quests given, though I did hear grumbling in kinchat, apparently at some point turnips need to be collected.

The level cap is now 75, an increase of 10 levels. And for the first time since my early days, I don’t feel a rush or pressure to reach it. Much of this is because, as I’ve written before, I am no longer focussed on Raiding and any accompanying end-game instances. The drive has gone; and I don’t really want it to return. As a result, I feel I can go properly at my own pace and truly enjoy the journey and the work that has gone in to the design of the game.

Our move to the States

So the countdown starts.

On June 1st LoTRO moves over to Turbine and we all become American; no Green Cards needed. In my earlier post, I expressed the concern that roleplaying won’t be supported after the move, but we have been assured that Laurelin will remain intact, roleplaying and all.

That’s good.

But, at the present time, I have no idea what will happen on 1st. We’ve been told we need to migrate our accounts. How? What will happen if I don’t on June 1st? The odds are very very high that I won’t. Even while I’m writing this, I can only just keep the concept in my head. I’m sort of vaguely hoping that I’ll just log on sometime next week and see this:

Turbine. YES or No. Click

Rift and my faerie

Whilst LoTRO is going through it’s content-lite phase, in the rare moments when I’ve not been playing Team Fortress, I’ve been playing in the, relatively new, MMO, Rift.

A lot of people have already blogged about Rift and have said some useful stuff. As you all know, I am incapable of ever writing anything of any relevance so I won’t tell you anything that might help you play the game, I’ll tell you instead of about my chav faerie, Petal.

Because she’s ace.

My character in Rift is a Defiant cleric with justicar/shaman/druid souls. Petal comes with the druid. At first I thought she was just rather sweet but then I noticed something. I’d be crossing a field full of shambling undead, on my way to peaceably harvest some rat tails for a local NPC vendor. Petal would be flittering behind me. Note, behind me. Then, from in front, shambling undead, runs straight past me, to Petal.

There was no way I could have aggro’d them, well if I had they would have gone for me. But yes, I’d turn around and there’d she be, seriously handing it to shambling undead, taking it down with a quick one, two. My only conclusion, Petal, from behind me, giving a bit of  the old ‘you’re going home in a St John’s ambulance’, ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’, shambling undead falls for it, getting a bit riled, goes for the kill, gets taken down.

Petal, dyed blond hair piled high and pulled tightly back, ity bity skirt, rules.

Apart from that, what does Petal do? Well she heals. After the fight. I’ve just managed to scrape through alive. I’m standing there. Petal throws some leaves over me, they do a bit of healing. Thanks Petal, could have done with that during the fight. Petal ‘s not bovvered.

Petal 'wot you lookin at?'

Middle-earth moves to the US

So, from June 1st, Turbine will be taking over the entire operation of LoTRO. Well, well, but what could it mean?

There is slight concern within my kinship. We’ve already checked that our lifetime memberships will be honoured; they will be. But it sounds like we’ll have to all transfer our own accounts over ourselves, I’m not sure how that will work, will it be straightforward? I hope so. And I hope we don’t lose numbers in the process.

It seems that servers will be transferred over ‘as is’, without change, so after June 1st we should just be able to log on and nothing will be different. Except lag? Will lag be an issue? A kinmate said he plays on the Turbine DDO servers and hasn’t had any difficulties, maybe it will be alright. And what about Laurelin, so far Turbine have not specifically supported roleplaying servers. Will this mean that the restrictions on naming and so forth will be relaxed and the server lose it’s identity.

There is a little bit of cheer, surely this move means that Turbine feels it’s worthwhile acquiring the EU population and it helps assure the game’s future. I’m not so sure, organisations usually consolidate when times are bad, and this sounds like a consolidation. But then again, consolidation as a survival function can be a sensible move and in this way, assure the game’s future. And we may get the benefit of services such as My-LOTRO and a more direct link to the developers.

Whatever, it’s going to happen; we have to wait and see. But it’s a shame for Codemasters, we’ve always had the feeling that they’ve done their best by Europe and certainly their Community Officers on the forum will be missed.

Berathiela; a new musical interlude and about time too!

Well, Rhiannon (Berath’s Brain Burps’ official poet-in-residence) has put pen to paper once more and produced another composition. And a corker it is too.  About my LOTRO elven hunter, Berathiela but please note, Berathiela does not pull aggro. Let me say again for those asleep at the back; BERATHIELA DOES NOT PULL AGGRO. Thank you. Instead, Rhiannon is taking licence of the most poetic kind and talking amusing generalisations.

As you will see, this composition has been written with a popular song in mind. So find some friends, grab a tamborine and all large it to:

Berathiela
(Originally titled Cecilia and performed by those loveable 60′s/70′s pop poppets, Simon and Garfunkel.)

Berathiela, you’re breaking my mez!
You’re grabbing my aggro completely!
Oh, Berathiela! I’m down on my knees.
I’m asking you please, not that bow.

Berathiela, you’re breaking my mez!
You’re grabbing my aggro completely!
Oh, Berathiela! I’m down on my knees.
I’m asking you please, not that bow.
Not that bow!

She’s a hunter is our dear Berathiela,
And a hunter is my doom.
I went up to tank that mob
When I turned it around
It had run for the crowd.

Berathiela, you’re breaking my mez!
You’re grabbing my aggro completely!
Oh, Berathiela! I’m down on my knees.
I’m asking you please, not that bow.
Not that bow

Oh, tarnation! She’s at it again!
I fall on the floor and I’m gasping!
Resuscitation!  I’m running again,
Hunters kill tanks by exertion.

WoW: maybe not

While I haven’t been playing LoTRO so much, I’ve been having a go at WoW. And it hasn’t grabbed me. I know when a game has. I devour as much information as I can about it; on forums, websites, in magazines. But with WoW, nothing. No intense reading round class build, skills, background.

I’ve tried to work out why. At first I though it could simply be that WoW was not LoTRO. But I’m enjoying Rift and have exhibited many of the ‘Berath grabbed by game’ signs. So it’s got to be WoW itself.

Well to start with, I don’t like the Art style. This is probably a major factor. I always thought gameplay trumped appearance for me, but in the case of WoW it has proved an irritant; the mix of archetypical fantasy and cartoon. Not my taste.

I find it difficult to navigate. I have been questing, mainly to level so that I can keep up with my instance group (the reason why I’m continuing to play is my little group). I have found mayself completing the quests in one hub and then being directed to another quest hub. However, on arriving, I’ve found all the available quests to be lower level and instead of getting 1900+ per quest I’m getting around 600. When my main goal is to level, this is frustrating.

Then there are the hills. Why does WoW put things on the top of hils and then make it so difficult to find the way up? Do they think we enjoy the challenge of finding a path amongst a wealth of dead ends and slopes that look as if they can be climbed but can’t be? A couple of times I’ve just given up.

And finally the ‘witty’ modern references and wacky humour. From time to time it does amuse, but generally I am a grim and humourless person, not a Terry Pratchett fan here, it wears thin.

So, not grabbed.

I’ll continue playing because of my Group which I really enjoy and, a positive here, it seems it’s possible to level mainly through the instances/dungeons; there are many of them. They are well designed and I can see the designers trying to be creative; in general I do appreciate and understand the vastness and detail of the World.

But apart from that I will be playing my other games. Probably not too bad a thing in my time-limited life; I have a feeling that WoW will survive.

Ost Dunhoth: the new Raid

We have now tried out the new Raid in LOTRO and so far it gets a thumbs up from the kinship. The first weekend we tried one Wing, the following weekend the other. In the first Wing we managed to get the Boss down, easy mode and then moved on to the second Boss and had a good attempt there. The fights were good….the mechanics were interesting involving disappearing islands and acidic water; I’m deliberately not saying much to avoid spoiling it for those who haven’t tried it yet. And the Boss we didn’t defeat involved the strategic use of tree sap.

The second Wing gave us a very different challenge; another nice aspect of the Raid, variation. Again I won’t say much, just think Indiana Jones running from the boulder. All the party was fully involved, there was none of the waiting for carefully timed pulls from one or a couple of players only, that we found in BG.

And throughout, there were none of the endless trash mobs to be fought through, taking time and tiring people. It all seemed much more compact and efficient.

Finally, for the whole Raid, there was the removal of cool down for skills used during the Boss fights. Thinking about it, this was a very logical move, having to wait for Rally, for instance, to come off cool down after being used, never served much purpose. It was just a time waster. Now, as soon as everyone has retreated from a wipe, everyone was able to go straight back in again, able to use all skills. After all, Raiding should be about the fight and not constrained by skill mechanics outside.

Echoes of the Dead is here…er….are here?!

New material in LOTRO. New instances, a new raid and no radiance. We’re going to have a crack at the new Raid tonight and Sunday, previously those were our Barad Guldur evenings. As I said in my last post, we’ve got the LT down Normal mode a few times but have yet to attempt Challenge mode. I’d like to think that we will one day….may be a small group of masochists will get together at some points and have a go.

However, there is still concern over the amount of new content being released. Hopefully the Raid will keep us busy for a while but I’m not sure about the instances. Apart from that there are character changes to be explored and the changes to the Legendary Items; the relic system, and the new book but for a largely end-game kin such as ourselves, there is not a lot more. No new areas to explore and no questing.

But as an alternative kin-game Rift is keeping us busy and together, which is good. The guild there is doing well with plenty of members, it’s nice. We have our LoTRO members (including some members who had drifted away), we have members who have come to us via friends, usually through blogging, and some fresh members who have simply seen us about.

It does all mean that the flavour of this blog may change a little. I’ve largely wanted to write about LoTRO in the past, but, because things have been quiet, I’ve been writing a lot less. I hope to continue with LOTRO as of all the mmos I’ve played/am playing I’ve taken to it most, but I think I will start to write about Rift, a little about WoW and Team Fortress 2, as well as the inconsequential nonsense I’ve always written about.

But anyway, with luck I can report back on the new raid after tonight. I just hope the stair count will be less.

LoTRO and odds and bobs

Life in LoTRO is still a little slow. We managed to get a Raid group together (23 of us) and killed Thorog. We did it on the second run through and it was pretty straightforward, but most of us really just wanted the title and the chance for a lot of the kin to raid together. We also returned to Barad Guldur for the first time since before Christmas. Numbers have been an issue with this Raid recently, both due to the nature of the Raid and a bit of kin/raid politics unfortunately.

We have had a lot of that recently which has included some lengthy and sometimes heated forum discussions. But hopefully people have now reminded themselves that, whatever their individual preferences, helping fellow kinmates is good. And it’s not to say that these sorts of intra-kin debates are bad. I think it is always good to challenge and review whether it is about the election of officers, a new kinleader; much of the discussion was relating to how the election, nor non-election of kin officials, or just about general transparency and involvement of the membership.

Anyhow, it was Barad Guldur on Friday and we managed to get our rusty and creaking selves through the first two bosses so it is back to the LT on Sunday.  It was nice to be raiding again.

Apart from that, a fair few of the kin have been entertaining themselves outside of LoTRO. As I said, life in LoTRO is pretty slow. We need our next injection of new content. There has been a slight fear that we might find ourselves splintering off into other games. We have an Away team in WoW at the moment and many people have been exploring Rift (the new mmo still in Beta but due out in March). However, in these games, people are sticking together and there is a desire to explore these games with other kinmates so I think we are holding together. And there is the advantage that most of us are lifetime members of LoTRO, so whatever happens, at some point or other, people will return.

And what have I been doing, well the bits of Raiding that we’ve managed and WoW. WoW is impressive in it’s scale, the quests are amusing and manage to be different and the instances plentiful but somehow I haven’t fallen for it. I play weekly, a group of us are levelling up through the instances and that’s really enough for me though I will try PvP. I’m not quite sure what hasn’t grabbed me, I’m not big on the cartoon graphics, I don’t need the humour (I hate comedy and laughing), I find the user interface a bit clumsy; is it just that it is not LOTRO? One of the reasons perhaps why I want to try Rift.

And still Team Fortress 2 which I love. At the moment:

Day no play Team Fortress = Bad day

Day play Team Fortress = Good Day

Life is really as simple as that.