PlayNotes Mixed

Lord of the Rings Online

I feel a bit guilty, but after thinking of my last post, and that I’ve basically been stuck in the same area of Middle Earth in LOTRO since 2009.   How is that even possible?  I’ve gotten stuck in plenty of Action/RPGs, but an MMO?   So, I have not bought the expansion till I see if I can get out of Mirkwood, or at least advance through it.

Secret World

I’m also stuck in Secret World with those security cameras, which has been depressing.  I’m wondering tonight though, if the reason I kept failing had to do with my recent connection problems.  My computer guru spouse fixed the connection problems as far as I can see, so maybe I’ll give it another try.  I will be so relieved to move on.

World of Warcraft

In WOW,  I ended up doing what I always do and have a newly established family guild on my new server.   I’m continuing to run my Paladin ahead of the rest of my characters to earn money for guild tabs, and guild repair monies, plus everyone’s riding training up through Northrend.

I’ve gone back to rotating my BWR characters who are in their 100s, but just those.  Everything is so easy for all of them except my Frost Mage, who I have to load with potions to keep alive.  Sheesh.  My new server Mage is going Fire, a spec I’ve never really played much.  Early on when I played the game, for some reason, Fire Mage and Destruction Warlock seemed too similar to me, at least for the lowbies I was running.   So I went Frost.

EverQuest 2

 All  of my characters are finally working in Antonica.   I had a bad moment when I considered sending one to the Frostfang Sea instead of Qeynos just to get a bearskin rug I’d picked up on the Fallen Earth server in that area.  Bad idea!   There must be a bearskin rug somewhere else in Norrath.

I love the fighting moves of my Monk and Bruiser, and have been trying to capture pictures of them in action.   It’s never easy to get a nice shot of your character in a fight because, well, dead doggie.

The Bruiser    Look at those brass knuckles!   Smoke effects, light effects!  The Froglok is on fire.

Monk    Watch out for those legs!

Been busy lately, but hope to be back on schedule for my games next week.

Lord of the Rings Online: Escape From Lothlorien

I purchased the Mirkwood expansion when it came out, played very little (as it turns out my character simply wasn’t high enough level for the area and things didn’t go well for her). 

I was never a fan of Lothlorien, and didn’t wish to continue playing there, nor did I want to drop my main character and level through older areas, only to get here again in the future.

So I stopped playing for a few years.

Here I am, frustrated with Lothlorien still, so I thought to look at the level for Mirkwood.   61-65!  Yay!  I’m level 62.

Abandon ship, I said, find the way to Mirkwood and la la la.

On the area map, it isn’t so far away.  I just need to cross the Anduin River and I’m off on new adventures.   Note my happy arrow.  Good ol’ Paint.

Ride, ride ride all the way across Lothlorien to the shores of the river.    Hmm, I can see they won’t let me get up on the other side from here.

Ride ride ride the shoreline.  This looks good, clearly I can swim over and climb up easily right from here.

Swim a few feet. Dead.  Inexplicably dead.  Retreat puts me back in the middle of Lothlorien.   If you’re going to cause me to die bogusly, at least stick me back on the shoreline where I apparently went so foul of the river’s swimming rules.

Many many bad words spoken.

I then looked up “How to get to Mirkwood for Lothlorien”.    How nice, I can get a quest from Haldir (which I likely unknowing got in 2009 but hmmpf), or I can ask the Elf at the Docks for a ride over.

Nice.  The boat awaits!

I actually wasn’t sure if I’d been to Mirkwood already, but I certainly had.  I had a FAILED quest in my log.  Welcome back, puny dog.   Been Here, Failed That.

Oh, man, we’re bunnoles deep in ORC territory.   How I’ve missed them!   Hubba hubba, ORCS, I say.

Damn. I was sooo eager to reach the Orc fortress, I didn’t see a Goblin in the murk.   He popped me off my horse, then completely grayed out all my skills so I had a tough time beating him, but I did get him, he’s a dead little goblin.

This doesn’t bode well.  Nope.  

PlayNotes: LOTRO

My goal this evening was to do as many quests as I could, to try to move on from Lothlorien.   The main set of quests took me into a sprawling orc camp, where I needed to find several locations as a scouting mission.

Way, way at the back of all the camps, there were weapon racks to destroy, a common past time in Middle Earth.

Unbelievably, when I got back to my quest giver he wanted me to go right back through all the camp locations and destroy five more weapon racks. 

You know how dogs look like they’re grinning but they’re really really concerned about your request?

Then the next three npcs to offer quests want me to go in several other orc camps and kill as many orcs as I can.

I had to log out.

Orcs aren’t my favorite foes.

Goblins are next worst.

Middle Earth as presented in LOTRO is full of orc and goblin camps.   Way too many.

Dear Diary:  Trapped In Lothlorien, surrounded by Orcs, send help!

PlayNotes: Rift and EQ2

 Rift

And it’s Rift day!  I didn’t feel like dealing with The Guy On The Stairs, so I did the classic thing:  I jumped down from the area starting platform to the area below and started fighting things.

I’m pretty sure this is where my character would have come out if I’d done the more frustrating route:

Heading left, I soon found myself in my new favorite thing, a Dead End.   I fought my way through rhinos and demons to get there, dang it.  Changing course,  I kept getting further away from my quest goal, which was always above me, with no way to go up.

Luckily Staypoofed and I are serene creatures who can take a moment to contemplate our ill luck:

I’ve been in this area numerous times via Instant Adventures, but of course you’re just on the run constantly trying to get your quest goals and you get no real sense of the layout of the area.   Try try again next time.

Everquest 2

The two games I’ve been playing most are WOW and EQ2.  In EQ I have all but my Froglok Bruiser off the starter island.    I thought it was time to send my main character, my Fury, out adventuring.

Somehow tonight she got from level 11 to 18.

She spent the entire time in wolf form.  It isn’t one of those shape changing classes that has the use of different skills in another form.  The only difference I can see is when you hit the skill to start a ranged attack, she barks at the opponent.

Oddities in games continue.  As it turns out I’m having connection problems once again, so that explains a few things that have happened.  As I came out of Qeynos though tonight, there was this big floating wall of text, and there wasn’t anyone fighting anything, and I wasn’t fighting anything but there it was:

It’s hard to describe the charm of Everquest 2.  I like the world, the quests, even the lovely drawings on the loading screens.  I was carefully picking up every quest I could see, and there are many.  I was thinking tonight if you are a quest lover, this is a great game to play.

I haven’t selected crafts yet for my characters.  I always want characters who can make potions, bags and furniture, three essentials for adventurers everywhere.   Sometimes certain crafts go well with certain classes, but I can’t tell if that’s the case here yet or not.  I’m reading guides before I commit to anything, but I’m filling my bags with materials just in case.

PlayNotes: Guild Wars 2

I was thinking I should play through a character’s Personal story, which I’ve only done to about level 20 on anyone, then dropped it as uninteresting and causing me to backtrack too much.

I do keep thinking that GW2 always seems a shallower world than most, but if I’m not playing all the parts that perhaps are supposed to give it depth, that’s on me.

I tried out a Necromancer I’d made but not played, to fill my last character slot.  I didn’t care for her skills at all.

So I deleted her, and tried a Mesmer, a class I have also never played.  She wields a sword, though a skinny pointy one that is probably called something else.   I’m comfortable with sword wielders, so this went much better.

I have a Norn Warrior who seems more at home in this area.  It is sort of rustic in a woodsy, barbarian way, but the Mesmer’s outfit doesn’t match the bravado she presents, and her  deep voice when she speaks in cut scenes doesn’t go with her movie star face.

In addition to the flouncy little skirt, she wears a mask at character creation, all three choices totally creepy.  I wonder if anyone wears them and doesn’t take the “hide” option?

If she can fight, that will be all that matters, and I’ll try to stick with the personal story for her to see how that adds to the game.

PlayNotes: LOTRO The Secret Road

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run…

I found the Secret Road with relative ease.  It was disappointing as a Secret Underground road, just very dark and twisty.  Orvar was impressed, but I couldn’t see much of anything.

Then I take on a level 60 semi-elitish thing like a scorpion without the curvy tail they usually have.  I could have beat him, but my controls froze up.   As these things go, the monster could still attack.  Then I was dead, but everything was frozen and I couldn’t even get out of the game.

I finally exit and go back in, and I’m way back in the Great Delving, 860 frustrating meters away.

I’ll come back to this another time.  I ported to Lothlorien, which has never looked so open and beautiful, despite the whole yellow thing.  Lovely Lothlorien.

PlayNotes: Elder Scrolls Online

I spent quite a bit of time last night in ESO, but didn’t write it up.  It’s on my mind though.

Things began with a quest called Pickpocket the Ode to Ethrandora.   Once again I had to play the sneak thief.  Slinking up behind a busy wizardess, I attempted to pluck a note from her pocket.  There was some flashing of numbers, then she was shouting at me.   In giant letters on the screen it was announced there’s a bounty on me and any guard will take me down.  Eek!

I checked how much gold I had, ran outside and gave myself up to the first guard I saw.   Whew!  9 Gold and I’m Ms Perfect again. 

 

I did manage to pick the note on the next try.  Apparently you have to watch for your chance to be at least 75%

While looking for the next part of the quest chain, I wandered into a quest giver outside the Matus-Akin Egg Mine.   I think I was in there for an hour or more, trying to accomplish the quests.   It seemed as if it were in the middle of nowhere, but there were plenty of people to casually run with.  

I was hitting things other people were fighting then tossing up heals, so I thought it worked great.   Others would help me if they were going by.  There was not any, “oh you’re killing my mob” feeling to it, it had a nice “we’re all in this together, thanks for the help” aspect.

I leveled up, got a Skyshard, loaded my inventory…

Once done, I thought dang I need to empty my inventory, but I’m so close to the quest location for the Friend In Need quest which would give me a snuggly inn room of my own.

Wouldn’t you know, the place is another Delve.

I really like them, but no way I can go in without selling some stuff off.   I’ll have to backtrack.

Before I wrote this I wanted to look up Delves, a very faerie world sort of name.   I didn’t get the answers I want, because I’m not clear what the difference is between a Delve and a Public Dungeon in ESO, even after reading several things.   Trials I get, because I ran across one and it said large groups only, don’t enter.

I did like reading that there is a Skyshard and Lorebook in each (oddly this particular character hasn’t found a single Lorebook, and I didn’t think to look for one here).   

Oops, I didn’t realize these don’t scale to your level, so here I am running in there like a yahoo, shooting at everything I see.   I should be careful.

/http://esoacademy.com/eso-dungeon-guide/

Notice I got my bear after being in the mine as well.  Yay for my bear.   While he doesn’t seem to do much damage, he kept things from attacking me, which was all the extra bit I needed.

He isn’t all cute and bear fuzzy as I’d like, he seems in fact a bit plastic-y.  Still, he’s my buddy, my buddy to stay until he’s peeled up and sailed away  (old Garfield reference).

PlayNotes: LOTRO (plus)

I’m finding my way around in Moria and navigating between the maps and the way the halls are laid out.  Less in the way of dead ends tonight.

Working on Hewers of Stone more, I found the Chamber of Wisdom with relative ease.  I was surprised how far back towards the beginning of Moria you had to go.

Chamber of Wisdom

Mining Records

I confess I keep thinking each quest turn in will send me back to the surface, but no.   Instead a new doorway leads me out into the snow.  Whipping winds, wolves, awooo.  I liked the story behind this quest, a Lost Workshop that might have papers revealing a hidden passageway.

Luckily the sojourn in the snow was short and the cave entrance was nearby.

I liked these caves.  The path was mostly straight, with a couple of places where you had to jump down.  There was just something that appealed in the design.

In The Workshop With The Orcs

Once I had the papers I sought, the doorway out sent me right back to Broin (that adventuring Hobbit) without the interlude of winter.

The next quest is called Chapter 8 The Secret Road.  I love a Secret Road!

World of Warcraft

I spent a tiny bit of time working on my almost level 105 Frost Mage and my level 12 druid (on different servers)   I didn’t get any Wow time on Saturday, so you know how it is, you sneak in.

Galaxies

Working on getting good stock on my Architect vendors.  I’m working to stock everything she can make.  Oddly, things like Guild halls sell pretty well, but while I’m slowly getting a big stock of steel and ores (thanks to my spouse, the most excellent miner in any game), I need other subcomponents that I haven’t stocked at this time.  

Even with that, I needed factory crates of Power Core Units, for which I need Energy Distributors, which are made by Dustbunnie, so a pause while I make a factory run of those…

Everquest 2

My Fury on Antonia Bayle and Fallen Gate is my main.  The AB one was level 9, so I grabbed loads of quests on my way out of town.  Mobs were level 7-8 on one side of the road and 10-11 on the other.

I just love the flavor of this area.

At level 10 I got the 10th Season Adventurer Achievement, plus what seemed like quite a few skills.

One that stood out was one that turns my High Elf into a beautiful white wolf (I’m guessing) but to me she is a dog, and I love dogs!  I’m trying to think if anything has let me be a pup before.  Bears, cats, they’re everywhere.  Puppy!

Talk about unexpected surprises in games that make them so much more fun. 

The ability to Teleport others was also given.  I love being able to port people to other destinations,  I’m pleased to have that one too.

PlayNotes: Elder Scrolls Online

A large volume of Adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything.

That’s just how this evening went.   First there were ruins to visit.  Luckily it was a fairly busy place so things went quickly.  I practiced a few healing skills on unsuspecting adventurers.

I was given two maps to try to locate places in Balmora.  The first one was very distinctive, and easy to find the location.

With the second map, I just didn’t see a house I thought looked quite like this, with the mushrooms growing by the steps and the distinctive tree in particular.

Once I did find this spot, there was still the matter of the hidden doorway, which was luckily given away by the quest arrow symbol nearby.

Next I was to break into a house and steal something.  How they do love breaking and entering in Tamriel.  Unfortunately, my constant snapping of lockpicks in an effort to open the simplest locks left me at the door all bummed, with “no lockpicks or key”.

I couldn’t find a place to buy lockpicks in Balmora so back to Vivec, where I bought ten.  Pricey!  I hope these will be enough.

Instead of heading straight back to Balmora, I sold some stuff from my inventory and looked for the guy who starts the housing quest.  It turns out my habit of grabbing every quest I come across had me already started on his quest line.

His is another quest location way north, so I decided, after looking at the map, to take the ship for the Mushroom quest, and I could do that one, then just swim over to the housing quest location.

The City of Mushrooms (whose name I clearly didn’t write down) is really stunning, and full of quests I had to pick up.   I won’t be swimming to my house guy for a bit.

There are also two quests involving romance, something this game includes often, and successfully, I think.  “Sunning herself in the light of a book”.   I love that.

PlayNotes: Mixed

Lord Of the Rings Online

Monday is Lord of the Rings Online Day, and I spent about an hour and a half trying to get from Tharakh Bazan  to the Chambers of Wisdom, Knowledge and Deep Thought or Katatub-zahar, somewhere near the Chamber of The Crossroads in Moria.

I’m working on Chapter 6 Hewers of Stone within Moria.  I got within 230 meters once near the Chambers, but a very solid wall still lay between me and my destination.

I’m just going to relax about the whole thing and find my way.  There are some pretty sights in Moria after all.

Everquest 2

Irresistibly, I spent some time with my next EQ2 Character, a Warden.   Bhagpuss of Inventory Full has joined the new Fallen Gate progression server, and some of the comments on his post helped me decide to make sure my Warden got all of the quests on the Isle of Refuge (I had missed some with the Fury somehow) and also the Collections.  She left at level 10 rather than 8 and is snuggled down in the shared apartment.  I really do love being able to have my characters in a warm safe spot after they’ve been adventuring.  No one likes sleeping in caves or under trees.

World of Warcraft

My Paladin dungeon-ed her way from level 57 to glorious 60.   Man it was an odd day in the dungeons. Super weirdo tanks doing inexplicable things.  In Lower Blackrock (?) the tank kept jumping down to the level below, in various locations, and everyone got killed each time.   This was after starting out the dungeon not moving at all for about 2 minutes, saying nothing. People get twitchy, then (she) shouts WAIT, and eventually gets moving.  So odd.

Then there was the brand new Death Knight who didn’t seem to understand the tank was supposed to attack things….zzzzz….

Secret World Legends

Another day, another dive into some tunnels.  There were the usual laser traps, easily handled.  Next thing you know, I’m back in, but

What do we have but those pesky motion detection cameras and a long hallway.   I’ve done it before, dang it.  Not today.  I even watched two different YouTube videos to see just where they made that first turn to go to the other wall.   Intruder Alert!   Death death death.  Sometimes you’ve just gotta walk away and come back fresh.

Star Wars Galaxies Emu ed.

There is some nice Reptile Meat on Tatooine so my sweetie and I got in some Dewback Hunting.  Hunting in a group is one of my favorite things to do in the game, and there’s no one better to hunt with than my spouse.