Balrog Down

After weeks of trying and countless gold pieces spent in repair bills, I finally managed to down the balrog with an outstanding group.

The most amazing thing to me is that after all these dozens of tries and failures, where the group would wipe multiple times - on this go around, not a single person died. It was perfect. Textbook, in a sense.

Other than getting bugged out at the end of the fight and thereby unable to receive any loot ( insert sad panda face here) I gleefully ran back up to the surface to turn in the quest. This was the final step in gaining my Dunedain Warhorse, the first of my meta-deed mounts.

However, after turning in the quest, I was woefully surprised when my meta-deed did not update, and I did not get my horse either! In something fast approaching a fury (it is amazing how, when you play a game long enough, not receiving a reward, even a pixelated and quite imaginary one, can send one into confused and startled anger. Like a badger), I cried out to the gods on Olympus (aka the GMs) and asked where my horse was. I wanted my horse.

The GMs actually responded, and a certain +Ohtah+ told me to try relogging. I did so tentatively, but upon my return to the game I found a Dunedain Warhorse waiting for me in my inventory and a very satisfyingly complete Saviour of Eriador meta-deed.

So here is the much sought after horse, and while he is indeed rather ugly (the modeling of the head is the most horrific), I ride him proudly throughout Middle-earth, showing off my triumph and dedication to the game (and also my complete and utter lack of any meaningful activity, production, or social life).

Video Games and the Movies

I've been seeing trailers for this movie called "Scott Pilgrim vs the World" floating around, and while I know I don't normally talk about movies here, I felt since the film seems to have an awful lot to do with video games I would mention it. Especially since their website has this fun little character creator.

See? I made me ^_^

If I was better at drawing comic-style art, and had a reason to draw myself (wow I suddenly sound very narcissistic) I suppose this is how I would make myself look. Except maybe taller. That chick up there looks a bit on the petite side, and I'm not that, for certain.

Ales and Tales at Goldberry's Spring

Last night, I decided to go to an Ales and Tales meeting on the Landroval server. Since sis called and wanted to play together just in time for us to make it, we each rolled new hobbits on Landroval (I have a warden named Elimiera and she has a burglar named Pangiruk, a tribute I suppose to her Gladden characters) and ran as fast as we could towards Goldberry's Spring, the location for this week's meeting.

I was expecting maybe a dozen people to be gathered under the trees, but no, there were probably fifty or more people standing around in the clearing. Some were dancing, many were drinking, and all were having a good time. On the large rock under the tree, a band stood and performed, and that rock became the speaking platform for each performer as the night wore on. Some recited poetry, some sang, some played music. One elf even told a lovely story of the old days and the Two Trees.

All in all it a was a fantastic time to be had and I am looking forward to next week's meeting at the Plough and Stars Inn! I might even work up my hobbit courage and recite a poem of my own!

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 Sims 3: Ambitious?

The new Sims3 expansion pack, Ambitions, was released today, and after the UPS man was kind enough to bring it straight to my door, I loaded it up to see what had changed. I mean, after all, with this expansion EA was supposedly finally giving us the option to see our sims while they were at work. We could supposedly have complete and total control over our sims 24/7 - for whatever that's worth, anyways.

After loading the expansion and fiddling about with the new bits for a while on my legacy family, I decided that the family I had been playing had way too many children, and way too many ghosts. I knew it would take forever before I had a sim high enough in the "Ghost Hunter" profession to catch them all and leave my house ghost-free, therefore my only option was to start a new legacy. I'm crazy. I know.

Since I don't play by the official legacy rules (point-keeping, etc) I decided to put my new family in the new city of Twinbrook. Only problem is, they had no money, so they had to buy a cheap house in the swamp on the poor side of town.

To compensate, I had my legacy founder get a career as a stylist at the salon in town. Ooh! One of the new jobs! I can control her at work! One of her first customers was this fellow, who only wanted some new formal-wear to celebrate his recent job promotion. That was it. New suit. I was to leave his horrible hair alone. *shudder* I am beginning to learn, through several botched jobs and unhappy clients, that when they tell you what they want, that is all you are to do. No more, and no less.

When she was not working, my founder would head upstairs to the drafting table and work on new sketches (which so far I have found have absolutely no effect on her abilities/performance as a stylist, but it is a nice touch). It also seems that her artistic abilities have little to do with the outcome of her sketches other than the fact that as her painting skill increases her sketches have moved from pencil/charcoal to colors, possibly paints. I don't know. I think I'm putting way too much thought into this.

I also found that the new careers are salaried jobs, that earn sims a certain amount of simoleons per week (with added bonuses earned per job completed, I suppose as some sort of commission), while the original jobs are still wage jobs, earning per hour. I have yet to determine which is more profitable in the long run.

My founder's husband I had join the Law Enforcement careers, one of the original careers in the game. This, to my disappointment, I saw had not changed at all. Apparently it's only the NEW careers that can be controlled. All the original ones are still off in the land of whoknowswhatsit. And so, for the first time, TS3 falls flat on a promise (that of complete and total control) but I'm sure it's for a reason. I mean, if I had the max limit of playable sims (eight) at a time and was trying to control all of them at work at the same time, each at a different job, I would probably go crazy and quit the game. EA doesn't want me to quit, so I suppose that's why they made the game the way they did.

Work and gameplay issues aside, I am enjoying some of the changes in the home. My favorite, in a sort of ironic way, is the new laundry feature. Before, when sims would change clothes or get in the shower or go swimming or anything, their clothes would magically change to whatever was needed. Now, when they change, there is a little pile of clothes on the floor. Which they then have to pick up and put in the hamper. When the hamper is full, they have to wash the clothes, and then either put them in the dryer or hang them out on a clothesline (gasp! Just like IRL!!!! Only, irl I don't do the laundry, and it just keeps piling up). Of course, the more appliances you have in a house, the more chances there are for things to go wrong, like the little episode pictured above. My poor Sean was trying desperately to keep the thing under control (at one point he actually had the option to "subdue" the washing machine, which required him to then hang onto the thing in terror while it jumped and shook like a thing possessed). 

Most all the other elements of the game remain the same, but then I have still only dabbled at the surface of Ambitions.  Babies still look adorable playing with blocks on the turtle table, and there is still no weather (give me seasons, EA!!!) but I am still just as addicted as ever to the game.



 On a side note, I think the game's randomizer when it comes to generating styling jobs can be a bit too random at times. I received a notice that a Coy Jones-Brown wanted a complete wardrobe do-over to celebrate being hired for a new job. I get to the house of the client, ring the doorbell, and who answers, but this guy, my client.  A child. A very, very, creepy looking child. What kind of town is this Twinbrook, that they hire children? And what is in the swampwater, to make them look like that?

Screenshot of the day: Loremaster edition

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).