Fashion Mag #2

Fashion Mag is back! While waiting for Siege of Mirkwood and the imminent new armour sets, there's still some eye candy to be found in the old ones too.


My eyes, they BURN. One of the better attempts to create feminine dwarves :).

It's a shame really that there's no option to create a female dwarf in LotRO - then again it might be a blessing, too. While I do admire the look of dwarf women in 4th Edition D&D, lolikon dwarf girls of Lineage II have left me eternally scarred.


Peachy!

Meanwhile, I'm building a new armour/outfit set for my main, only missing the shoulders now. I've just had awful luck with bids, and also getting into that raid with that particular character. I just love the look, although every other Lore-Master in the kin already has that armour set and everyone's colour-coded so I don't have that many dyes to choose from anymore either :D.


Same armour set on male and female elf - notice the difference?

I see what you did there, Turbine! Trying to make female characters less clothed than males! How indecent, showing her bare wrists like that!



All the women have such girly faces :D.

I just wish they'd give more options when creating characters, especially all the faces look too much the same. And why is there no height slider!!?? I certainly consider both height and girth important parts of a character's looks, but in LoTRO the only difference is between races. Read More......

Being skinny does not make you pretty

.. or even happy. It really doesn't.

This is a bit of a personal rant, but I just can't help it. People admiring bone-thin looks just makes me so angry. Also frustrated. Once again I managed to stumble upon some pro-ana discussion forums while casually browsing the internetz, and it still makes me feel sick to the bone. Read More......

Joy of being a gamer in Euroland

...is that publishers will rip you off as much as they can. After over two weeks of "we'll have the info next week", that is, waiting for the European pricing of the upcoming LotRO mini-expansion, Codies dropped the bomb an hour ago. Not only are they NOT bringing us the sweet life-time and multi-month subscription deals that Turbine offers their customers on the other side of the pond, they've managed to make an even more confusing list of Special Packs, Triple Packs, Adventurer's Packs and whatnot.

Also, according to their calculations, 20 pounds equals 28 euros (xe.com says it's just a bit more than 21).


Graph made by Berryl of TSM.

In my wildest doom&gloom imaginations I had thought they'd take the original 20$ price on the new expansion and somehow convert it to 30€ for us poor oldworlders... so in a sense I wasn't too far off in my speculations. They did indeed manage to get us pay twice as much as we would have in the US (or I at least, in my current subscription situation).

I'm kind of suspecting that the reason (or maybe one of them, other than good old Greed) Codemasters aren't bringing us the multi-month or life-time-based pre-order offers is that, somehow, their accounts tech doesn't allow it. I mean, Turbine are eagerly promoting their social network and how it ties with the new expansion, but us here in Euroland can't have it because CM don't have the tech for it. I really really wouldn't be surprised if their accounts system doesn't allow them to make special deals for certain types of subscriptions.

I always love having to pay more so I can have less stuff <3.

Also, I made a new tag for this level of BEING VERY MUCH PISSED OFF. Read More......

Was fun while it lasted

Naming guidelines on RP servers, who uses those?

Before the latest patch, it was actually possible to keep a kinship (=guild) all by yourself and level it up for possible kinhouse benefits. For some reason the "disband in 24 hours if not enough members" mechanic was broken for a long time, so me and my bf used to amuse ourselves by creating silly "subtitles" for each of characters.

However, the latest patch (a good month ago or so) seemed to "fix" the kinship disbanding, although it's still possible to buy a set of kinship charters and then make yourself a silly subtitle for 24 hours, or whatever the time limit is these days.


My little burglar-in-training is skilled with keys.

Besides, it's still possible to run a legit kinship without outside help - grab a trial account or two, roll half a dozen dummy characters, login your own account and run another instance of the game for your trial account, invite the dummy characters to your solo kinship and you can safely start leveling up your kinship for a personal kinhouse... which only takes 3 months or so. Read More......

Order Fail

As I wrote previously, I had cancelled my preorder on Aion, but nevertheless it just came with the mail a moment ago. Apparently my credit card had been charged a week after I had cancelled the order, bleh. I don't have the time or energy to start playing it now, so if anyone wants a pristine, unopened copy of Aion for 39€, leave me a note here or on facebook. Otherwise I'll have to tackle play.com's returns procedure tomorrow. Read More......

New Roads

Me and my bf had left our long-time kinship a couple months ago. For a time I felt free, and I really enjoyed not having to answer to or for anything or anyone.


We had a really nice all-Finnish raiding group going, and for once it was great to start events at an early hour (like, 6-7pm our time, as opposed to 9-10 in international guilds). Even though I read and write English well enough, it's just so much easier to raid in my native language than trying to squeeze out English in a tight situation. And the jokes, ohhh the jokes. However with the last Open Beta of Aion, and finally the launch itself, the group pretty much dissolved.






But I'm a social(ite) creature when it comes to internet communities, so it didn't take long before I started missing being part of a bigger group again. Last week me and my bf finally joined a kinship again, and it's been great so far. I'm actually enjoying playing through some of the old content again; the stuff I'd been utterly bored with is actually fun and interesting again, especially doing it with new people. And downing the last raid bosses with a competent team is also a great bonus :D.

I've got a ton of screens and more stories waiting, so stay tuned~! Read More......

Atreian Holiday

So, I managed to get in Aion's Open Beta last week. Most of the blogosphere must be pretty bored by Aion rants already, but since it's the most exciting thing* that's happened in my life recently, I guess I should write something about it.

* shows just how exciting my life has been lately



I like the game, but won't be buying it (I had a preorder, which I cancelled). LotRO is pretty stagnant at the moment, and most of my raiding unit are about to switch over to Aion, so of course I was curious about the game. Also the artistic RP community is something I've really missed - LotRO just doesn't have anything like that. I'd certainly welcome something new, and exploring a new game felt really exciting.

Except it wasn't, because when I logged in and spent an evening grinding myself to level 10, it just felt like the free-to-play Korean MMOs I used to play in high school (meaning you stand still using 1-3 skills over and over until a mob topples over, and then you move on to the next one). Even though Aion has an extensive questing framework, the actual leveling still consisted of killing x amounts of y. Which is all right as long as the quest framework makes it interesting and gives it some kinda twist, but the Elyos side staring area was just awfully dull. Okay, so here's a sparkly lake. Here's a magical forest. Aaaand... the Asmodean side had the very same things! The sparklies kinda lose their effect when they're force-fed down your throat everywhere you look.


Omg, big tree with magical sparklies?! VERI ORISINAL YES


It's only a model.

Once I got my wings, visited the capital city of my side and started to explore the 'real world', it started to get interesting. I giggled out loud when I found a Fashion NPC whose shop had these on the walls:


Base patterns, which I had to learn to draw from day one at Fashion Design. Also, WTFnapoleon? :D


These guys look kinda cool. I wanted to try and fly to them, but was met with a glass wall. Bleh.

However my biggest disappointment with Aion were the graphics. Everywhere it's said that Aion is the most graphically advanced MMO at the moment, and it certainly has its merits, but the quality isn't very obvious, at least not in the starting areas (which you'd expect to look stunning!). Monster and armour design is really cool, but what bothers me more than necessary is the horrible texture quality! I play with a big screen, so low-res textures look really bad (I remember when I got this 24" to replace my old 19", and was shocked how awful Guild Wars looked). Except for some really nice shine effects on armour, Aion seems closer to WAR than LotRO or AoC, at least judging by the outdoor areas. I guess it must look incredibly stunning to WoW players.


The textures don't scale at all according to distance - the mountains in the back look all right, but the same texture is stretched out there on my character's right.

Here's the "shroom" from the previous picture.


Click for original size, and be amazed!

I'd still like to play Aion, but it feels like the kind of repetitive and time-consuming game that I really, really shouldn't pick up at this moment in my life (still aiming to graduate next spring..). Plus, LotRO has a new expansion coming, and me and my bf have just applied to a really cool kinship... let's see what the future brings :). Read More......

Fashion Mag #1

Waiting in line for a daily quest. Poor endangered drakes.

A significant portion of my LotRO screens seem to revolve around outfits - what I'd like to call MMO fashion, because in a virtual world with thousands of near-identical player characters it's always so important to stand apart. I love mixing&matching different pieces to create unique outfits, hunting down rare skins and, of course, /inspecting everyone else's outfits.

From here on, I'm just going to shamelessly slap my best recent outfit screenshots under the title of Fashion Mag. Yay for vanity!!


I recently re-created my main's pre-Moria outfit - for once it looks unique.




PROTIP: the light in Grand Stairs is simply gorgeous! Makes for really good-looking closeups, as well as action shots! Read More......

Moors

Lately, as I've sometimes done the last ~weeks before new content updates, I've spent in the Ettenmoors, doing, zomg, PEE VEE PEE. If you've ever had the joy of sitting next to me while I'm getting ganked and are forced to listen to me whine and utter curses when the it's always just me screwing up... well, yeah, me and disappointments don't go too well together ("but I waaaaaaaa~nt him dead, waaaaan~nt"). But Monsterplay in LOTRO is fun, because I get to be this big pretty orc who throws fiery arrows at those disgusting princes on their white horses.


Meet my beautiful Blackarrow: Villemon, my endless source of amusement. He's purple. With manboobs and great hair. Playing Monsterplay (which our tribe calls affectionately 'perseily') is really therapeutic. What's more fun than seeing someone you really dislike on the other side and then light their ass on fire? Why, of course, seeing a friend there and doing him the same!



I also feel that there are more funny personalities behind monster faces than heroes. Whereas freep raids tend to be rather dry, the humour on creepside is often much more, uhm, down-to-earth, and I've often almost rolled off my chair /giggling late in the night. Besides, it's just so much more rewarding to play creepside, knowing that you're always the underdog and one of them would easily be match for 4 of us. When you do get them down, it just feels so good.


I've been a couple times to the Moors with my Lore-master again to finish Rank 4, but it's not nearly as fun as with my dear Blackarrow. The LM is easily the most hated class on the Moors, because everything they do is designed to be as annoying as possible. Luckily my computer lags so horribly when playing freepside that I'm not often tempted to join. Creeping is so much better. Read More......

Rift Drift

Rift, the original "The Raid" of the game. I've visited it a couple times again, for fun and profit. The old kin did a hunters-only raid some time ago, which was, well, interesting, but didn't get that far. A raid with 6 champions (and 6 others, though), on the other hand, was ridiculously easy and fun (SHING SHING). Some pix:

The hunters:





And then the champs:



Read More......

Pie break

Spent 4 days at my folks' new(er) summer cottage:

Pie and coffee and cookies <3.


Swimming and sauna <3.


Curse you, mobile internet! Not letting me have a single break from the game, are you?! Read More......

Lhassie WIP

Bluuuurgh first time in a year or more that I'm actually drawing(/painting) something. So rusty! Thought I'd start with something easy, like a superboring portrait :p. Let's see if I ever have the time and energy to finish this.

On another note, Laurelin Archives, a RP portal for Laurelin, opened yesterday. I've played 1½ years on a RP server and haven't really done any RP at all there, but I felt curious so I registered to see what the site is like (I love the idea of Argent Archives, the similar WoW RP collective, and have long wished Laurelin would get something similar). My issue with RP in LotRO, and Middle-Earth in general, is that character options are so limited and you can't really be that original when coming up with a backstory for your character.

Besides I'm rather picky about quality - in my version of ME elves don't spend nights getting drunk in the Prancing Pony and not every Man is a direct descendant of the Dúnedain or a mad serial killer. All those Gil-Galad's heralds, Elrond's apprentices and Aragorn's illegitimate daughters just make me die a little inside. How hard is it to make a character with no relation to existing canon characters?

I'm sort of interested in elf-RP, but I'm not sure I'd be able to pull it off that well, and frankly I've no idea what people even do when RPing elves. Compose bad poetry about stars and moonlight? Angst? The thing is, I'm severely allergic to purple prose writing, which seems to be rather prevalent among elf role-players. I'm not a native English speaker (durr hurr), but I just hate cheesy verbose character backgrounds (why do so many players try to come up with the most ridiculous and pompous descriptions for their character's looks?!) and how some role-players feel the need to write a 200-word paragraph about their intimate feelings while picking up a fallen coin.

Rrrrrrrage.

And now off to the countryside for four days of relaxation--> Read More......