Wordless Wednesdays: Gemyndsted

Pirates and Plonking Along

 So my husband surprised me this Christmas with a new graphics card for my zombie of a PC. As a fun surprise, a copy of Assassin's Creed IV came with the card. I loaded it up, just to see what all the fuss was about. I finished the first AC a long time ago, and made it about halfway (?) through the second one. Then we moved, and my husband unplugged most of the consoles, and .... we never really plugged them back up. So I never finished the second one. I never touched brotherhood or the third one. Okay, I didn't touch the third one mostly out of principle. Anything involving the American Revolution is usually painful. Well, a lot of history I find painful. Err, not history, the visual representations of it. Not that the AC games ever claimed to be accurate representations of history.

Ohmygosh. Getting back on track. The first thing that jumped out at me was that this game loves to randomly capitalize words. In every. Single. Line. Of. Dialogue. I will refrain from making any too many doge jokes, but yeah, many capitals. Such grammar. Wow. Seriously though, every single line of dialogue has these capitals. Even when you are outside of the Animus.

Then there's the matter of the controls. They are clunky, loose, and in some places a bit counter-intuitive. Granted, I have not played an AC game recently, and I suppose if I had that things would be different. Easier, perhaps. But that shouldn't be how a game is designed. A game should pull you in and be so smooth and fluid that you forget you are even playing, instead of frustratingly bashing your hips and knees against the crates and ladders and other climbable paraphenalia because ... not everything is climbable. Or you're doing something wrong. You are probably doing something wrong.

Other than that though, well, let's just say the game is gorgeous. I find it odd that so much of the intent behind this game is to run quickly and jump up walls and dodge and roll and hide here and there - but all I want to do is amble slowly along, taking in the sights. It doesn't make any sense for the game to be about speed and running blindly ahead when so much of the beauty of the game lies around you.

Then there's the characters. Yes, I am only just past the intro, but I am really loving the characters - the interaction between Edward and this guy ... whatever his name is. Yes, I realize I can't make a very strange argument for characters when I can't remember his name. But it was the interaction between them that caught my eye (ear?). Maybe we can attribute that to writing and voice acting more than characterization itself. But look! More Random Capitals!

In the end though, I'm determined to enjoy it, despite the clunky and sometimes vague controls, and consider it the only tropical cruise I'll probably ever have.

Wordless Wednesdays: Fangorn Forest

 

A Minor Pair of Glitches

It seems Ben Ben the Dog found a way to swim between dimensions. That, or else the floor really is lava. In which case, I don't think he knows how to play the game. 

 

 What is this I don't even.

Technical Difficulties

So I was playing Civ V the other day, and suddenly, I had the oddest feeling I was about to crash.....

Turns out, my fears were unfounded and the game never crashed, but I did have errors like that wherever the clouds were for the rest of the game, but once I revealed the whole map the problem was largely avoidable.

Clouds are too much for my computer to handle, apparently.

They don't make them like they used to....

I have officially decided that the creators of Lotro do not make locations, instances, and fights like they used to. Take, for instance, the instance of Ost Elendil in Annuminas:

This is quite possibly one of the prettiest and most regal locations I have ever seen in the game. The strategy for completing the instance is interesting as well, and I can't think of any other place in the game that requires the tactics needed to beat this area. Granted, at level 65 in a level 50 instance, the mobs weren't too much of a challenge, but like several of the old instances, this will all change in the fall when instance scaling is released. I know I am thoroughly going to enjoy running this and all the other old instances, but this time at level 65.

And yes, I know I could run the current instances at their intended level of fifty, but I am too lazy and skeered.

A Rifting We Will Go

I'm feeling a bit wordy, and my imagination won't let me sleep, so forgive me if this post is a bit more on the .... grandiloquent side than usual. This may quite possible turn out to be my longest post to date, so I won't blame you if you don't have the time, patience, or interest enough to read it. If you are looking for information on how to beat the Rift, what strategies you need, etc. You won't find it here. This is pure creative release for my own mind, to share my experiences while they are still fresh.

 Last night, the kin got together, all impromptu-like, to do a bit of Bogbereth farming. We killed her about twenty times, at least until everyone who wanted the housing trophy had one. Farming her was pretty easy, and we had the group and were in the general vicinity, so we figured, why not? Let's go to the Rift.

Now the Rift of Nurz Gashu is the old end-game content for lotro, back when the level cap was fifty and the player base still all knew how to play their classes. I had been to the entrance of it, once, but I had never actually been inside. After volunteering myself for Horn duty, I headed up that way from Gath Forthnir. Even though I had been to the entrance of the place before, I had never really realized how desolate the place was. I felt like I was riding through some surreal movie sequence or something. My imagination began to run away with me as I rode slowly up to the summoning horn. I could almost see little puffs of ash swirl up around Bainrhi's hooves as he worked his way across the ledge. The wind was utterly still, and there were no signs of life to be seen, except for the distant glows of campfires.

After what seemed like ages and ages, I found a camp, but it was not the one I was looking for. These were no Dunadan. These were orcs. Angmarim. Trolls. I threaded my careful way between them and continued towards where I hoped the friendly camp would be.

I finally made it. I summoned my kinmates to the camp, and we marched down from the cliffside to the abandoned arena. The one thought that kept flitting through my head, like some annoying insect, was the size of the place. What sort of place was this? Why had it been built? And where was the entrance to this supposedly horrible place?

The answer to that last question was soon answered, as the leader of our party rode his horse down into a gaping crack in the stonework. A small voice inside me laughed with the thought, at least now you know why it's called The Rift. A great crack in the earth. Then, another thought soon replaced it. What happened to open up this crack and reveal whatever horrors lie beneath it? I had heard horrible things about this place, about how difficult it could be. Even now, at fifteen levels above the intended level, I knew I was up for a challenge. This used to be end-game. The old Sammath Gul. Of course the creators of the game were going to make it as tricky as possible.

I watched my fellow kinmates enter the cave, one by one, and then, I rode down last, into the Rift. Murmuring to myself that I was about to die, I turned, just before entering, and bid farewell to the sunshine. As pitiful as the sky in Angmar is, I had a feeling it was going to be a while before I saw it again.

Inside was a gaping cavern, far larger than what I had been expecting. Truth be told, I had been expecting a tunnel, but no. This was something else.  Far away, I could see orcs and angmarim wielding picks. Were they mining? What was going on down here? What was this place?

We worked our way down ramps that looked none too steady and stopped before a small group of orcs and a massive troll. They were speaking, in their own harsh way, and arguing. I have come to learn that orcs argue a lot. Those with swords and shields rushed forward, and I hung back with the other archers, as was my place. We dispatched with the lot of them quickly, and relatively unscathed.

And that was the way of things for a long while. We would press onward, ever deeper into the earth, and the orcs and evil men fell before our blades. Eventually we came to an interesting scene - some extremely large giants, fighting a band of orcs. For a while we stood back, waiting to see how it would turn out, but then, with one mind, we rushed forward and assisted the giants in defeating the orcs. They thanked us and told us of some horrible creatures ruling over the orcs, and asked if we would help defeat them.  Of course we would. That's why we were down there, wasn't it? To kill bad guys?

After the commotion with the orcs had died down and we had stopped for a bit to catch our breath around the giants' fire, something caught my attention. What was that off to the side? I ran over the the ruined archway and proceeded to view one of the few sites in lotro that have caught me quite by surprise.

What sort of place was this? Who were these fire-giants, the Eldgang? Had Tolkien invented this place, or was this one of the more fanciful (and frankly, strangely beautiful) places the game's creators had though up? But there is no rest for the would-be heroes, so I was soon called away from my sight-seeing to press onward with the rest of the group, ever deeper into the earth.

It soon became apparent that we were headed towards that great coliseum I had viewed earlier. Part of me was excited about the prospect of going there, but part of me still held a lingering fear. Deep places of Middle-earth usually hold ancient, evil terrors, and I had heard rumors that one dwelt here. A balrog. But he has no place in this story yet, for we were still a long way off from that coliseum.

We did battle with many more evil things, not the least of which was an orc named Zogtark and his many drakes. The drakes fell to the ground after we filled them full of arrows, and Zogtark was dispatched by the sword-carriers. We pushed through, and emerged through what appeared to be a promising door only to be met with frustration: We had come out too low, and now had to work our way back up toward the coliseum.

 
Letting my imagination take hold again, I wondered what the heat of this room would feel like, and how taxing it would be on our little band of heroes, both mentally and physically. The armor of the stronger ones would surely grow hot from the heat, and the air would dry out my bow and weaken it. In a place like this, how long could one expect to hold out and continue fighting? Some of my companions' clothes had even caught alight from stray sparks.

It seemed as though we had been underground for ages. The vast caverns had given way to small, tight corridors, and I longed for the sight of the stars. A clear night in the Shire. I wondered how much further we had to go. Even Moria, with all its twists and turns and tight places, gives way to the beauty of Lorien in the end. What golden wood was waiting on the other side of this darkness?

I began to think we had gone too far, surely we've gone too deep. Strange creatures, that looked at first as though they were trolls - but no. These were not trolls. I do no know what they were, even after leaving the Rift and finding the sky again. I have a feeling I do not want to know, with names like Shadow-eater and Stone-biter. Later, we found one that was named World-eater, but that is for later.

Eventually, we fought our way past the strange creatures and into the coliseum. I braced myself for the Balrog. But he was not there. Instead there was another of the Eldgang giants, and a strange creature called the Ever-seer. I was not looking at them though. I was looking at the place I was in. How many thousands of people could this place hold? I wondered, looking at the rows and rows of seats. A pity a volcano had decided to come up in the floor.

I looked below me, over the edge of the platform, and saw beautiful statues. Again I wondered who had built this place, and why. What were those stone kings put there to watch over, with their fire-bladed spear and their towering shields? What was inscribed on their shields? My elvish is a bit rusty. It was in this room that our group was put for the first time to a real test, and we failed miserably, I admit. But we got back on our feet, dusted ourselves off, and tried again.
This time we succeeded, and pressed onward, to what I still didn't know, but thoughts of the Balrog still held heavy in the back of my mind. We ran onward across a long stone bridge towards what appeared to be a fall of lava, cascading downwards from some great height. High above us the roof of the cavern stood, and for a moment I was thankful to be back out in the 'open' and away from those tiny tunnels. I laughed mirthlessly to myself and continued across the bridge with my kinmates. Far away I could see that ruined archway at the giants' fire, and I realized how far we had come. How much farther did we have to go?

At the end of the bridge we came to a great door, and going through it, I met with surprise an elf maiden. But this was no mere maiden. This was a warrior, so strong that it put my feats thus far in the game to shame. This was one of the Eldar. She pointed to a great door beyond us, at the other end of the hall, held shut by many great locks and seals, and told us the tale of how Thaurlach had been imprisoned here many ages ago by the Istari instead of being killed for what he had done to her people, and she had set guard over him for thousands of years, waiting for him to try and escape so that she could finally give him the justice he deserved. After assuring her that we would help her defeat Thaurlach, the Balrog (!!) she opened the great door with its many seals for us.

Not long after entering his prison chamber, something went horribly wrong and he broke loose from his chains. We fought valiantly, but in the end death takes us all, I suppose. It was only a matter of time. And so ends my story of the Rift. Maybe next time, when we've had a chance to catch our breath and re-summon our courage, we'll try again.

If you know me at all and the way I play lotro, I am a complete shutter-bug, and am constantly taking screenshots, sometimes of completely pointless things. This post, if nothing else, should be evidence of that - that I managed to take all these pictures and more in the middle of a twelve-man raid. Maybe that has something to do with my dying so many times. Who knows?

The Whispered World

Almost a year ago, my husband and I discovered a website for an upcoming adventure game. Adventure game? Here? In this day and age? Isn't that genre dead? Obviously not, for we stared at the screenshots from the upcoming game in gleeful anticipation. It was beautiful, it seemed. We were going to relive our childhoods through a game genre that supposedly died out years ago. I mean, look at this screenshot. It looks amazing. Think of the possibilities.

So, when we realized that the game had finally come out and was available on Steam, he bought it without a moment's hesitation. Yesterday, while he was at work, I decided to finally test the waters and try the long-anticipated game out. This is what I found:



Apparently, they put all of their talent into the artwork, and not so much into the voice acting. I guess the good old days of Broken Sword and Monkey Island really are gone. The game was developed in Germany, and so I watched a gameplay clip on youtube of the game in its original language, and to be honest, it was much better. Granted, I could only make out about half of what they were saying, but at least my brain wasn't threatening to melt just from the sound of Sadwick's voice.

I will probably keep playing the game, if only to support the people who are trying to breathe new life into a once great genre. Maybe it will get better and everything else will outweigh the negatives. Maybe this will encourage someone else to make another adventure game, if only to say "I could do a better job than that." I mean, that's how progress happens in societies, right? Someone does something, then their jealous neighbor down the street one ups them? Maybe this is just the nostalgic wishful thinking that had me hoping this was a good game to begin with. Ah well, we'll see. I'll keep playing, and maybe things will turn out okay. I mean, I have only seen the content of the game as far as the above video (because at the time, that's all I could stand).

Taking in the Scenery

One of my favorite things about playing LotRO has to be the environment. Sometimes I will get bogged down in a location and become too focused on the quest at hand to really stop and pay attention to my surroundings, but today I took my minstrel, Sioned, out to Northern Bree to finish up some quests she forgot to do before. She kind of ran through Bree in a hurry because I mainly played her during LotRO's kinship contest last year, and as I was trying to level her up as quickly as possible I didn't stay too long in any one area. Minstrels are always in short supply, especially good minstrels at a high enough level to actually be useful to a good percentage of the other players, so it probably wouldn't hurt to level her up a bit. Which I did today. Twice. She's now at the glorious height of 39. All that to say that the mobs in Bree are now no challenge at all. Which gives me the freedom to stop, take a look about, and enjoy the fields and hills.

I really do love this area - even if the quests are a bit spread out and it can take forever and a day just to get to where you need to go - the weather for one thing is always gorgeous - even when it's overcast and raining I love it.

 I also celebrated my quick stop in the Hengstacer farms (that's the horsefields for all you noobs) with a game sis and I invented: Pony Jumping. Now normally this epic sport has to be done on foot, but since I was feeling especially festive, I decided to attempt it, rather eval kineval style, on my horse, Aggregate. Don't ask about the horse's name. I don't know.

Anyways, that was fun. Jumping over the ponies always is, whether on foot or horseback. The ponies don't mind either. At least, I don't think they mind. They never make any noise or run away or anything. Sometimes they just swish their tails. Hrm....





Lately with my characters I've been dabbling in the role-playing aspect of the game, something completely optional of course, but it does give the game a little more variety as I get to add a personality to each of my characters. Kind of like acting. So I decided to make Sioned a bit unpredictable and crazy, because I usually have to be in a crazy mood to play her. I don't really like minstrel that much. Which is also why I do things like stopping and admiring the scenery, or jumping over horses, cause I have to do something. But I ramble, it's late, I'm feeling a bit tired... and I think it's starting to show.... so I'm off to bed and then who knows what will happen the next time I find myself in Middle-earth.

Stopping and Looking

I finally finished the first Assassin's Creed. I consider that something of an accomplishment, even if I never ever go back and collect those hundreds of flags.

So now Desmond is posing as Ezio, and I find myself loving Italy. Well, not so much Italy, because of all the Italians (who I have nothing against, but when you are trying to escape from the guards they tend to get in your way and clog the streets and whatnot), but mainly, I noticed as I was playing this morning, that I am loving the game simply for the location -

As I was clambering about within the Duomo in Firenze, I realized that I was smiling. Why? Because with the light streaming in through the windows in lovely golden hues while dust motes floated down about my agile hero as I guided him along the scaffoldings and beams and chandeliers of the church, I couldn't help but compare it to the first platforming game I ever played: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Now, games have come a very long way as far technically since that game, but technology is not my focus. I love it when a game makes you stop, just look, and realize you are holding your breath because of how beautiful it is.

Granted, the Duomo was the first time ACII has made me do this, but my point is that this happens very rarely for me. Only a handful of games, that I can think of, have made me stop at some point or another and just look.




The video above is from ACII, the location to which I was referring earlier, while the image below is from Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.



Maybe Ubisoft is just good at getting us to stop and look, because another series of games (a series this time, mind you, not just one game IN a series) that takes my breath away is the Myst series:





A few games I am looking foward to playing are Uncharted1 & 2 and Red Dead Redemption. I have watched Cody, my husband, play Uncharted 1, and it was gorgeous, but the second one is rumoured to be even more gorgeous -



Also, who doesn't love cowboys???



What about you? What games have made you stop and just go "oh!"?