I now know how he feels....

For anyone who's ever seen Leroy Jenkins, they will understand completely what this post is about. For those who have not seen it, I will provide the video, so that you may watch it and erase all confusion.  This is a clip someone captured from the game World of Warcraft, which in all actuality is at the bare-bones level very similar to LotRo, which I play. I do NOT play WoW.

*bad language alert*


Okay, so now that we have that out of the way, I want to say that today, I felt like the leader of the group in this video. We had a good group, we had a plan, we had a very difficult instance to run, and then somehow, someone (thankfully I don't know who or I would be a bit upset) managed to ruin everything. We all died. About five times each. We were locked out. Mobs were spawning incessantly. There was no shouting, no cursing, no declarations of chicken, but we did all kind of stand there and get hit by mobs we couldn't see while we died, suddenly and unexpectedly. LotRO tends to be a bit more mature and laid-back than WoW, thank goodness, but the instance tonight represented, to quote my favorite sea-captain: "a level of ineptitude that borders on the imbecilic."  To put it in the plainest of terms:

NO ONE was following the plan. 

So after we had all wiped for the umpteenth time, we stood around the rez circle, wondering what the heck happened and how we could do better next time, when everyone took a look at their repair bills and suddenly disappeared. Apparently having to spend lots of money makes people hesitant to try again. And again. And again.

Thankfully, after we all went our separate ways, I managed to get that horrible repair bill repaid and realized that sometimes, being an officer, being the one in charge, isn't all that great.

"Stick to the plan!" doesn't work when no one is listening. 

A Night with the Loremasters

So tonight sis and I finally went questing (yay for questings!) and this is a brief summary of what happened:

We started off in the Misty Mountains, where I gave sis the scroll that would let her summon her very own fox! It is a rare item, and I was glad I found it on the AH, so I grabbed it for her, cause I'm nice like that.
Isn't he adorable? Then we did ONE quest to get just that much farther in the epic line, but then we were stuck at a full fellowship quest, and when we asked for help, we were met with the news that Turbine is nerfing ALL of Volume I, to my great dismay (and tiny joy. Now I might be able to finally get my white horse). In other words, if we wait till Monday, when they make the changes, we might not need the help and should be able to do it on our own.

Here we are in the Misty Mountains while I tried to get my mic working again. Thankfully my headphones didn't die on me this time. Just in-game problems. Sis, of course, is looking radiant as always, all shiny in the moonlight, while I look like a dork and don't even have my eyes open. Typical.

Then we went down to Rivendell, where we contemplated fishing in a lovely little water hole we found, until we noticed this strange bubbly bit of water. It intrigued us greatly.

Then we were bored, and started swimming about in the water. It was a lovely swimming hole, after all, and a welcome break from the cold mountains we had just left.

 Then we were joined by a couple Kinmates, and ran up to Forochel, where we killed many mooses (meeses?) and wolverines and wargs. Sis also discovered that she cannot play the Lute well. So she smashed it and I threw the bits in the nearby campfire.


All in all it was a lovely night, and except for us wandering too far ahead of our level and getting ourselves killed (repeatedly) by mobs much stronger than we were, it was loads of fun. I love running with my sis ^.^

Today In Urugarth

We fought a bunch of dragons. 

Oh, and a hint to all those using voice chat. Please, please, please don't ever use the "hands-free" option.

Not only will everyone else be able to hear your dog bark, your doors open and close, your radio, your phone ring, your conversation with your pharmacist discussing all your meds (cut back on the Ambien, by the way), we can also do nothing but listen in pain while you cough up a lung for ten minutes. 

Then there is that uncomfortable silence from everyone else in the group.

Dude, are you okay? It sounded like you should be bleeding.

65

Well, I hit the level cap tonight.

Now what do I do? I suppose I could go back and clear out old deeds like I've been trying to do since I had old deeds, or I could keep pushing forward. I feel kind of reluctant to keep going forward though because if I am not gaining any level experience, I feel almost as though all that work will be wasted. I know it's not, because I am still gaining experience for my LI's, but still....

I miss my blue xp bar.....

I suppose if I didn't want to push forward at all I could go to my EIGHT alts and level them a bit. Some of them have been around almost as long as Indrabar, and are still below forty. How sad.

My First Rep Horse

Finally. I have a reputation horse. And it's one you don't see very often, too. Mostly because to get it you have to be considered kindred with the Lossoth - and most people hate Forochel, so they don't even bother getting the horse. But I got her, and I still have deeds to finish - so hey, all those extra items I loot will give me a headstart on the rep with my other characters. Yayyyyy!

Because she is the "Tundra Pony" (you can't really tell, but her fur is kind of long and shaggy) and because she came from the snowy realms of Forochel, I named her Losslir, which means Snow-flower in elvish. I took this screenshot from the backyard of my house in the Shire, because I consider that better scenery than the icebergs and whatnot that adorn Forochel.

And technially, now that I think about it, she isn't my first Rep horse. I have the ability to purchase the horse from the people of Bree, but I forgot and haven't bought him yet. I couldn't buy the other horse now anyways because I spent all but 41 silver of my money to buy Losslir. (Why I have to buy the horse after I spent all that time doing quests and whatnot for these people anyways is beyond me - after all the work I put in they should just give her to me, lol)

.... but I do hope I don't die anytime soon, otherwise I won't be able to afford the repairs. At least now when I go out on the moors I won't get laughed at for not having a better horse.

Dear Turbine

*note* I was going to post this on the Lotro forums, but somewhere in the process of writing it I lost my nerve in the face of angry apathetic devs and the ever-present trolls. Maybe if I ever find my courage I'll put it there...

I've been here almost a year, and for a while, something has been growing in the back of my mind, bothering me.

When I first started playing lotro, I was amazed at the depth of the lore, the attention to detail, the high level of immersion in another world that this game gave me - compared to other games. I quickly fell in love with the game and over the past ten months have devoted countless hours to wandering the fields and hills of Middle-earth.

However, the farther east I wandered, the less impressed I was with what I was seeing. Yes, the views are still fantastic. Yes, there is still a certain something (something I don't know quite how to describe) that will hold my attention. But something has also been lost.

Perhaps it is the lore - the quests began to seem less unique, I suppose. Perhaps it was the players - the higher in level I moved, the farther it seems I was from other enraptured, wandering souls and suddenly I found myself in the company of power-hungry players only interested in the quality of their gear or their personal stats.

When I gained Kindred Reputation with the people of Bree - I really felt as though that meant something. I had worked tirelessly, serving the people in so many ways - and finally, I was rewarded. The Council of the North, however, or the Galadhrim, or even the Lossoth - while I may know these people, know what they supposedly stand for - I do not have the same connection for them. I have not yet reached Kindred with any of those, but when I do, instead of a grand sense of achievement, I instead fear a feeling of "so what? I finally finished a long grind and can now ignore this facet of the game. Yayyyyy." Turbine, this is not how I should be feeling after leaving an area.

I will still play, Turbine. And chances are I will still love LotRO, but please, remember what you have left behind. Remember the Shire and the hills of the Lone Lands. Not all players are interested in leveling at lightning speed and running high-risk instances. I don't consider myself a RPer, perhaps I am just full of whimsy and wanderlust. There are many facets of the game you as devs have not touched for reasons totally unknown to us players since the launch of the game. Why is there still only one hobby? Why is the housing system made up of code over fourteen years old when the game is only on its third year? Why is the crafting system horribly unbalanced?

I started playing LotRO because it was different from all the other MMO's I had seen out there. Why did you feel you had to change, Turbine? Why must you become like all the others with your new content that pushes forward - raises the cap, raises the bar, the intensity, for what? Three days or less while the die-hards run everything and suddenly, they are all at level cap again and bored. Do you work just to please them while the rest of us run at our own pace? Just because we are not first does not mean we should be ignored.

The Farming Loop

To help out a fellow kinmate last night, I offered to make him some Bundles of Tea Leaves, which he would then give to someone else to make Cups of Red Tea for him to use - they offer a nice Vitality boost which can be very helpful before a rough battle.

It also didn't hurt that I hadn't gained any experience in Supreme Farmer yet and that growing this tea for him would give me a good amount of points.

So I bought 100 Tea seeds, some fertilizer and some water, and headed out to the field in the Shire. It was raining, but that was okay - I tried to think that instead of getting soaked it was helping the little tea plants grow.

I use 5 seeds for every plant, and each plant has the possibility to give me all sorts of items in return. The two main items I get though are the Poor Tea and Fair Tea Crops. After harvesting all my tea plants, I take these poor and fair crops to the nearest workbench to transform them into the Tea Bundles, and amazingly enough, more seeds.

So, 100 seed, 5 seeds per plant, that's 20 plants. Only, each plant can sometimes spit out up to five of each of the two types of crops. Which means, when I take those plants back to the workbench and separate them, I suddenly, instead of having no seeds in my bag, have 38 seeds. Hooray. That means I can go out and plant some more!

So I go back out (after buying two more seeds to make it an even eight possible plants) and plant my second batch of tea. This time I come out with 27 new tea seeds. So I buy three more and go again. This time I come out with 13 seeds. So I buy two more and go again. This time I come out with 7 seeds.

At this point I realized that I was caught in the vicious French Fry/Ketchup loop. You know, the one where you order some fries, and in the process of eating those fries, you run out of ketchup, so you get more ketchup to try and even it out, but then you finish your fries and you still have ketchup, and you hate wasting ketchup, so you go get more fries, but then you run out of ketchup.... you get the idea.

So yeah. I looked at those seven seeds, looked at that muddy field I'd been standing in for two hours, and then walked up to the little farmer hobbit standing near the field. Instead of buying more seeds to even it out (so I could plant *gasp* more tea plants) I sold those seven little seeds back to him and called it a night.

I escaped the cycle, but I think I might have wasted some ketchup.

The Absent-minded Adventurer

Yesterday I quite ferociously declared that my account had been hacked, due to my logging in and apparently missing a rather large amount of in-game money.

Today I logged in and realized that I had spent the money myself.

It is a relief to know that my account is still, for the moment, secure, but it is also somewhat disheartening to know that I could be that forgetful.