The Watcher

I ran it. And beat it. And won the rolls for uberloot. Twice. But I gave the token away. That turned some heads. And then I ran the turtle and got this trophy for my house. Pretty sweet, huh?

Actually it was kind of funny hearing the pin drop when I said I would pass on the watcher token. I mean, it's just a game, right? And I have the Mirkwood rad gear, so what is the point? I've already sold half my Moria gear anyways. 

But, I have finished all my deeds for the watcher in one run, so if I so choose I never have to go back in there on Indy again. This opened up my meta deed for the moria goat, yay! I am getting closer every day... to what I'm not quite sure though.

Vault Day

Inevitably, at least once a week, I have to devote a good two, if not three hours, just to managing the bank space between my nine characters. Usually, it feels something like this:

(image courtesy of Penny-arcade.com. You should check them out sometime.)

Is that lore-appropriate?

Last night, I found the only tanning bed in all of Middle-earth.

Of course, I forgot to bring my swimsuit. Figures.

Finally! Sword Halls pulls through for me!

 WARNING: Wall of Text ahead. If you don't actually play the game this could be pretty boring.

 I got the cloak from Sword Halls in Mirkwood that I've been dying to get!!

Sword Halls is a three-person instance in Dol Guldur in Mirkwood. You run in, activate the instance by moving close enough to the nazgul and his fell beast to get him to start talking to you, and then you wait for the first boss to come out at you. Well, the first boss doesn't come immediately. Instead, you have to fight two waves each consisting of three cronies similar in makeup to the boss you're going to soon face. The first boss, the fire boss Urchon or some such name, is actually the hardest one to beat. He has a fire attack that snakes across the floor every once in a while, and in all the times we've run it we've only managed to interrrupt it once to prevent him from getting it off. If you have a good healer or plenty of wound pots you don't have to worry about it and can just stand there and get burned, but if you're like me, most of the time you don't have many pots or a healer worth their salt, so you're reduced to running about and firing off a quickshot when you can. Once he hits 20k you can as a hunter go Burn Hot/ Strength stance (assuming your tank has a good hold on him) and really burn him down the rest of the way in a hurry. Regaining power afterwards shouldn't be an issue if you burn him down fast enough, there should be a nice gap before the next set of people come in.

The next two waves are going to be varying types of morrovail, relatively simple and brain-free to beat. Then comes the boss, a morrovail named Carcheron or something. I'm not good with names. For some reason, no matter what group I run with, she always runs straight for me as soon as she comes in the room, whether I shoot her or not. Ah well. I just try and take her as a lesson in letting the tank gather aggro a bit before laying into her. The only thing to really watch out for with her is she has a selfheal every once in a while you need to try and interrupt, but usually a guard can handle this no problem, even if they aren't traited for quick interrupts.

The last set are a bunch of orcs. These will go down alot faster if you can fear/mezz/stun the one that will be standing in the back, esp. when the other two orcs start looking at him and chanting something in their orcish way. If he is feared out, they will keep going with their induction anyways, essentially giving you three orcs just standing there for you to wail on without them even touching you. The boss attached to them is a big Gerthyrg troll. He is also fairly simple, if a bit hard on the AoE damage, so tanks keep him turned around if you can. Also, every ten or fifteen k or so, he will turn green and run to the center of the room. Once that happens, there is a bloodspot on the floor to the left of the instance entrance. You need to be standing on this spot. If you aren't , his huge AoE attack will punt you and cause a huge amount of damage. If you are running without a healer, this could kill you in a hurry.

After he's down there's nothing left to do but to divy up the loot, usually a bunch of ixp runes/relics, and occasionally some third ages and off-hands. Make sure everyone loots each chest so that you get all three of your DG tokens. Also sometimes you can get some really nice jewelry and cloaks from the chests. I finally got the cloak I've been going after for a while.



And it only took a month and a half of trying and countless chests to get it. Granted, it didn't even drop from my chest (thanks Rashaldir for letting me roll on it! And on the one time I decided to switch chests, lol!!!) but I have it! Yay! Hopefully this puts me closer to a day without power problems. That +44 Fate certainly will help with the icpr, that's for sure. And nothing wrong at all with those other stats, that's for sure. It looks pretty sweet too. Sort of heraldic or something.

 Now to just get the +70 agi jewelry from SG.

MORE babies.

If you can't tell, I've been on a bit of a sims3 kick lately, playing my legacy game. I also have this sim I've been trying to kill off for a while, because she is glitched and it makes it impossible for her to do anything. Only problem is, she won't die. I put her in a tiny room, filled with fireplaces and rugs and loads of furniture, then lit all the fire places, and the whole room went up in flames, a massive fiery inferno. What did she do? Oh, she was terrified, but she just stood there, swathed in flames, screaming, but she wouldn't die. Why? Well, after about five attempts to burn her alive and two days of leaving her on the rooftop, something happened.

What? A baby bump? You mean she was pregnant? Oh, well that explains why she wouldn't die. It's strange how I had no qualms about killing her when it was just her, but as soon as I knew she was pregnant, it changed to: "at least let her have the baby."


Which she did. Excuse the lamp. I just had to get a shot of her face. By the way, how do you like my library? It's one of my favorite rooms in the house. Anyway, even as she was going through labor, she was still glitched. Every forty seconds or so she would stop, stand straight up with a zombie-dead expression on her face, and make some weird pose with her arms. Then she would go back to labor. Which lasted forever.

After a while, her ghostly mother-in-law showed back up, I suppose to provide moral support or something. Here is Richelle with the first baby of this pregnancy, a little boy named Wrigley. (No, I am not using traditional names for this sims bout, if you haven't figured it out by now). He also has a twin brother named.... oh I forget what his name is, but it was something very weird and I think it was even two words or something. Rice Cakes. Nine Valleys. Ross Stik. Something like that. I tend to name my sims after things I find on my desk. Hence the others' names of Pepsi, Visa, and so forth. Or what's on my mind, with Hobbit, Aion, Friday, and Sapphire. I told you they were weird names.

Inescapable death

Well, today, not two days after the death of his wife Hobbit, the patriarch Pepsi Green passed over to the other side. And while working out, no less. Great. Now every time his ghost pops up it'll be in athletic gear. So here is a rather bland shot of their two gravestones, side by side, in death as in life. Or something like that. I don't know. Now I have the possibility of two ghosts. Hooray. Oh, and I tried making more babies to keep the ghosts from coming back, but Richelle and Friday just couldn't seem to get it together.

Speaking of Friday, with the death of his father, Friday is the new head of the Green household, and I am wondering if the family's current stint of prosperity and ease due to hard work and dedication is about to end. Ever since the death of his parents, all Friday has wanted to do is this:



Yes, that is my sim. Jumping around in the sprinkler system. Instead of doing normal things, like sleeping, or taking care of the babies. Oh well. I guess we all unwind in different ways. Also, I don't know why there is no sound. There was sound when it happened. Oh well.

I knew this would happen

I suppose I deserve this for burying my poor dead sim on the lot where her surviving family still lives. Of course she's going to come back to haunt the rest of the family. Nevermind that she had a good life, saw the births of three grandchildren, and had an amazing house - NO - she had to come back and remind them of how miserable she could make their lives.

By playing computer games? Okay, if that's your idea of haunting, go right ahead. I have no issues with you using the computer while everyone else is asleep. Just don't go putting the furniture on the ceiling or anything. Then I might have to move your grave to somewhere a little less.... obtrusive.

Oh my. If just one day after she is dead and gone she comes back to haunt my family, and this is only the first sim on the lot to die, and I'm attempting to play for ten whole generations - how many ghosts will there be by the time I call it quits? There could be dozens of them. I suppose though, that the eightsimsonalot rule might prevail. I don't know. I have to make some more simbabies and see if that prevents her from coming back. Or not. Come to think of it, the babies are a pain and something I'd rather not deal with right now, seeing as I still have two toddlers loose in the house.

On a side note, I realized that this was the first time in TS3 that I'd played a single savegame long enough for a sim to actually die of old age. Usually I just get fed up with them and delete the game so I can start over.

A Sad Day

Today the founder of my legacy game in the Sims 3, Hobbit Green, died. She was old though, and had a good life, fulfilling her lifetime wish of becoming a CEO of a major corporation and going from a state of utter poverty to living in one of the largest houses in the city. Her husband Pepsi, her two sons Friday and Aion, her daughter in law Richelle, and her three grandchildren Sapphire, Copper, and Visa all mourned her at a quiet, graveside service. Well, all except the grandbaby Copper, who kept crawling away. Apparently he doesn't want anything to do with the dead.

Here's hoping she doesn't come back and haunt my remaining sims' house. I still have a long way to go if I'm to make it to the tenth generation.

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).

The Spring Festival: Extension

My first post on the Spring Festival explained the horse races, and that I was attempting to earn both Spring Horses. Well, not two hours after the beginning of the Spring Festival, Will Peartree, the festival horse barter npc (what a mouthful), was discovered to be selling one of the recquired items needed to get the spring horses for the very surprising price of 5 silver. The equivalent of about five bucks. Five bucks for a horse? Awesome! So I bought both of them, but as I only had all the items to barter for one horse at the time, I bartered for the Blue Roan horse. Here he is. All pretty like.

So I walked away a month ago with my brand new horse for the grand sum of five silver. Hooray! Well, the people in charge of running Lotro discovered how cheaply he was selling the horses for and very quickly removed him from the game, leading to many disgruntled players. Every day it seemed someone else was asking "if the horse guy was back yet" but the answer was always the same, "no, not yet." A few lucky players who entered the games free lotteries recieved the other spring horse, so the world was not completely void of happy festive horses. Just mostly.



 Today, they finally restored him, thoroughly chastised, and he is now selling the item for the correct price, the equivalent of $1600. Grrrrrr. I grimaced when I saw it, but was thankful that at least on Indrabar I already had documents for both horses and didn't need to purchase any. For my other characters though... well.... we can't always be lucky.

In triumph, I handed the items in to Will Peartree today, to receive my second Spring Horse, and now can rejoice in the fact that I have five of the eight festival horses. Hooray.... I have way too many horses. But, here is Moonshine, in all her drunken happiness. Isn't she lovely?

The Spring Festival: The Party Tree

The tents began to go up . . . Lanterns were hung on all its branches. More promising still (to the hobbits' mind): an enormous open-are kitchen was erected in the north corner of the field. ~ The Fellowship of the Ring

The Party Tree in the Shire is one of my favorite locations in LotRO, simply because it has such strong ties to the books, and because being there, for some reason, makes me smile ^.^
 It is also one of the key hubs for festival activities, especially during the summer and fall festivals.

The Spring Festival: Happy Feet

During each seasonal festival participants have the chance to learn eight dances, two for each race. These can be earned by finding the appropriate "Dance Master" and then waiting around for the dance to start. Once it begins, you simply follow the leader's instructions by dancing the appropriate steps (either /dance1, /dance2, or /dance3, all of which are very silly) until he/she announces the dance is done, upon which you can claim your reward - a shiny new emote!!

The only drawbacks to these dances are that the same eight dances are available at all four festivals - I feel as though there should be unique dances for each festival, but perhaps Turbine thinks that would be too much dancing. Another drawback is that you cannot leave the dance area once you accept the quest, or it will automatically fail you. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but as the dances have about twenty minutes between them, unless you arrive right on schedule you could be standing around doing nothing for a good while, when you could be out questing.

All in all I like the dances, and tonight I finally got the last of my eight dances on Indrabar. Why it has taken me a year and five festivals to get these I do not know, don't ask.

Yes, this is me dancing. I told you they were silly-looking.

The Spring Festival: A Maze-ing We Will Go

Just north of the city of Bree lies the festival grounds, a sprawling expanse of tents and stages full of merry-makers and feasting. A race track for skilled horseman encircles the tents, testing the unwary with hedges and ditches. But on the southern side, near the grounds, stands the Hedge-maze, and to those blessed with strong internal compasses there is a series of challenges to be completed.


 The simplest challenges of course are timed runs, where you must navigate the maze within a certain time limit. Each successful run opens the challenge to run the maze faster and faster. On the sillier side of things, occasionally chickens wander into the maze and it is up to the player to catch them all before they escape.

There is also a challenge by the Inn-league, assuming you have completed the pub crawl and been initiated, to find the "artefact" and use it. The artefact turns out to be a huge keg. I saw no danger in it, until as I was approaching the keg a hobbit lying on the ground warned me in a slow slur, "No. Go away. S'bad fuh yew." Slightly confused, I poured myself a tankard and downed it in one long draught. Instantly my vision blurred and I was told to make it to the end of the maze within two minutes.... or else. Or else what? I was so drunk I couldn't even walk properly, and began hobbling my slow way toward the exit. I confess, I didn't make it. I collapsed within sight of the exit and passed out. When I awoke, I was hundreds of miles from Bree, in Forochel, stranded on the middle of an ice-berg, and missing my pants. However, I am never one to be turned away by something so simple as that, so I made my way back to Bree and tried it again. And again. And again. I believe I mentioned before that the maze is for people with strong internal compasses. I am not one of those people. Finally I made it and was rewarded with a replica of the artefact for my own home, which produces the same effects - extreme drunkeness, a hangover the next day in some far-off place, and missing pants.

Not all who enter the maze emerge safely though, even if they never take one sip from that horrible keg. Several elves entered the maze at the start of the festival and have yet to emerge, so you are charged with locating all the elves and making sure they are still... alive. Thankfully, they are all fine, and some defiantly refuse any help at all. One of the elves I found to be a bit...strange. He claimed that he was "just so distracted by each and every leaf" that he could not find the time to leave. I kindly suggested he move to a desert where there are no leaves to be distracted by. Heaven help him if it ever rains.


A dwarf standing outside the maze takes great pleasure in the fact that the elves are lost, and he gives what I found to be the most light-hearted of all the challenges - to post confusing signs throughout the maze so that the poor elves remain lost. I posted his signs for him, and he chuckled and clapped his belly in mirth, his deep laugh rolling across the festival grounds as I walked off towards the dance-arena.


The maze challenges are fun, to be sure, and can provide you with about ten leaves or more in the space of thirty minutes, if you manage to complete all the quests without any failures. I also remember the maze as being the first festival activity I participated in back when I started the game over a year ago now. Ah... memories.

Not more horses..... no, please. No more.

So I thought I knew each and every horse in the game. I thought I had a complete list of them, and was happily checking one off each time I got it.

Today, I learned that there is always something in Lotro you do not know. Like, for instance, that there are three mounts hidden in something called "Meta-deeds," or deeds that can only be completed when other deeds have been completed.


The easiest of these hidden mounts to obtain is the Dunedain War-steed, which, to earn, you must complete ALL of the things on this list:
_________________________________________________________________________


 Carn Dûm Deeds

• Champions of Carn Dum –
  
  
  • Urro, Barashal, and Helchgam
  • Salvakh, Azgoth, Avalgaith, and Tarlakh
  • Tarlug, Mormoz, Rodakhan, Guthrul, and Morditih
• Plans of War – Find and use Plans of War, Pages 3, 7, 10, 11, 18,and 27
• Angmarim of Carn Dum —Defeat Angmarim in Carn Dum (300)
• Orcs of Carn Dum – Defeat orcs in Carn Dum (300)
• Trolls of Carn Dum – Defeat trolls in Carn Dum (180)
• Ancient Evil of Carn Dum – Defeat ancient Evil of Carn Dum (180)
• Slugs of Carn Dum – Defeat slugs in Carn Dum (100)

Urugarth Deeds

• Champions of Urugarth
  
  
  • Burzfil, Sorkrank, Dushkal, Akrur, and Lhugrien
  • Grishakrum, Athpukh, Lamkarn, and Gruglok
  • Thordragh,Brizrip, Morthrang, and Lagmas
• Marching Orders – Find and use the Marching Orders, Pages 1, 5, 7, 9, 16 and 14
• The Foul Idols of Urugarth – Find and burn the South-western Idol, Southern Idol, Central Idol, Northern Idol, North-western Idol
• The Beasts of Urugarth – Defeat beasts in Urugarth (375)
• The Orcs of Urugarth – Defeat orcs in Urugarth (300)
• The Trolls of Urugarth – Defeat trolls in Urugarth (180)

Barad Gúlaran Deeds

• Champions of Barad Gularan
  
  
  • Afraig, Coblaith, Castellan Wisdan, Forvengwath, Mulvuire, Udunion
• Lore of the Enemy – Find and use the Gularan Compendium, Gularan Tome, Gularan Scroll, Gularan Ledger, Gularan Text, Gularan Volume
• The Dead that Live – Defeat wights in Barad Gularan (180)
• Minions of Wisdan – Defeat Angmarim in Barad Gularan (150)
• Allies of the Enemy – Defeat Hillmen in Barad Gularan (90)

Quests

• An Ancient Threat – Defeat Thaurlach (Rift of Nurz-Gashu)
• Thorog Defeated – Defeat Thorog (Helegrod)

____________________________________________________________

Those numbers in parentheses? That's how many of that certain creature in that certain location I have to defeat before the deed is counted as done. I ran down the list, and out of all the bulletpoints on this list, Indrabar has completed a grand total of six of them. Yup, you heard me. Six. I have such a long way to go still.


Oh, and keep in mind that this is the EASIEST of the three hidden mounts to get. Gah.... *head to desk*

On a brighter note, I have NEVER seen any of these three mounts in the game on the Gladden server, so if, and that is a big IF, I manage to get any three of these, I will be something special. Woot.

I guess I should rethink the statement that the Moors horse is the hardest horse in the game to get....

Crop Circles

Tonight I received and filled my first farming order, thanks to a referral from a wonderful kinmate. I was growing Blueberries for one of Gladden's busiest cooks, and noticed something odd about my plants....

I have made crop circles. Literally. Woot for me.