Quote of the... YEAR

Yes, LOTRO was only ever 'Tolkien flavoured' but of late, one suspects Turbine of using cheaper ingredients and more artificial additives. They've also made the packets smaller, if you see what I mean :)

~ Radhruin

Return of the Fashion Magazine

I'm sorry about the long silence — cats, work, Christmas preparations and lack of sleep have kept me from updating. I got my faulty graphics card replaced yesterday, so now I can play LotRO in dx11! Which amounts to, uhh, one new water effect and some small shadow improvements. But at least the new card doesn't have idle temperatures at 100°C...

To break the long blog block, here are some new outfit creations. You know the new minstrel I posted about a couple weeks ago? She's doomed to be my eternal dressup doll.


Managed to complete my radiance robe collection - my wardrobe now has all Moria, DN and BG robes, yay. Not sure if I want to expand into the new Classic sets...


Since the armour type restriction got removed in the latest patch, I rushed immediately to kit out my minstrel in epic heavy armour (and I know many others did the same). I love the D&D Cleric look, even if it's not exactly Middle-Earth and makes loretards rage.


Lhas in her tight pink leggings. Again an outfit I made for the lulz, because it's just fun to look at when I'm out questing.


Not a cross-class wardrobe creation per se, but managed to take a nice screenie of my RK and a LM from Custodi wearing full red BG sets. Those LM shoulders are simply gorgeous!

Purrrrrminators

These cute little brothers arrived in our home last Wednesday, they're 4-5 months old kittens from a local pet rescue group. The orange one is called Taika-Jim (Mandrake the Magician) and the grey one is Mustanaamio (The Phantom). They're very shy and tend to dart off from the smallest sound or movement, but since yesterday they've become much bolder and have let us pet them and even pick them up. When we're not looking they're busy tearing the house apart, though, so seems they're just wary of people. Nothing a good bribing-with-noms shouldn't cure :3.

Also, my PC's power supply unit broke conveniently the next day after the kitties came - so I haven't been able to play much and probably won't, either, until I get a new PSU. I hope all the graphics card troubles were caused by the faulty PSU too...

I don't get this

So basically CM removed all multi-month subscription options from LotRO. What it means is that people who had had some really good 3-month or 6-month sub plans, from various Founder or anniversary offers, got their subs cancelled and were forced to renew them into more expensive 1-month plans.


Meanwhile Turbine is, like, uh, EVERY OTHER MMO OUT THERE, still happily trying to sell me a cheap multi-month sub.

So please remind me, what does the EU distributor (CM) have to offer to EU players, especially new ones without established accounts and social circles, that Turbine doesn't provide better and for a lower price?

"That doesn't look very STABLE"

Quote by Leo :D.

Songs of Power(gaming)

Guess what was the first thing I bought from the new LotRO Store? It wasn't an outfit, it wasn't a wardrobe unlock, it wasn't even a stat tome...

I bought a new character slot so I could roll a second minstrel.

As some of you may know, my first* character was an old man playing a banjo, and that was aaaaaaages ago. Like two years at least! Anyway, will all nine classes close to the level cap, the whole F2P update experience and the interesting possibilities offered by the new wardrobe system I thought it might be fun to roll a lowbie and dress it up in endgame gear and then see how much I can twink it in order to steamroll through lowbie content.



So I did it. And now my level 20-something Minstrel is oneshotting on-level skirmish mobs. It's awsum fun!

Hey, it's just for the lulz. It's not like I'm ever going to level it past 50. Right?

* technically my first toon was a hunter on the US servers, second one a hunter here on Laurelin that I deleted soon after, and the minnie, which was my first main, was the third character I rolled. After that I rolled the LM, though, and because the first minnie lost the Undying title I rerolled him too - so the Wakey I have today is the fifth.

F-f-finally!

Finally, the elusive Fall festival Skeleton Horse is m-m-m-MINE! And I'd only been checking the chest seven times every day for the past weeks.. and now with festival ending on Friday I finally got it - and for my main even! Well, the hunter isn't quite my main, but she does get the most screentime. Yay!

I'm also very happy that I switched from Photobucket, which I'd been using since, hmm, 2004 or so, to Imgur which is so much faster and easier to use.

Rattles behind the curtains

Tiny Easterling Hobbit says hi!

So, LotRO finally went F2P even here in Euroland, and the past week has been pretty exciting. I haven't been able to play as much as I otherwise would have (or would have liked to), since I started at a new job last week, my aching arms are killing me if I play more than half an hour, and seems my main PC is, once again, going all drama on me ("baaaaw my innards are at least 3 years old, let's turn the monitor signal on and off and have some overheating-induced flickering artifacts in your face"). If it turns out it's really the graphics card that's dying my conscience should finally allow me to buy a new, beefy dx11 card to replace it. Yay?

I'm also thinking of getting a cat. Or, actually, two.

And I mistyped that as "car" on the first try.

WAAAAAH I WANT A KITTEEEEEH!

November Store Shopping List

These are the new cloaks that are currently available in the store on Bullroarer, Turbine's test server. I'm assuming these cloaks will come with the next update which should be sometime during this month. All cloaks are available as hooded and hoodless versions.

Completionists and collectors should also rejoice; the rare cosmetics that were previously only available from GM events and the seldom-run Angmar battlegrounds will be available in the store, as well as the elusive Helm of Rohan!

As usual, click for full size! Green denotes dyeable areas.


Wood-wanderer's Cloak, Cloak of the Windsinger


Twilight Cloak, Cloak of the Silver Birch, Cloak of the Mallorn


Cloak of the Autumn Wood, Elf-lord's Cloak, Cloak of the Mountain Wolves (Middle-Earth version of those kitchy wolf t-shirts?)


Cloak of the Ibis, Cloak of the Dove


Cloak of the Fallen Leaves (last of the new ones, the rest here are the old event/battleground rewards), Cloak of Vigilance, Helm of Rohan, Cloak of the Steadfast, Campaign Backpack, Hauberk of Glory.


I want Cloak of the Windsinger. Nao!

Twiit tweet

So I made a twitter account for small game-related messages and for all the stupid stuff I'm too embarrassed to post here :D.

picture unrelated

That time of year again

Next Yule festival items as currently seen on Bullroarer - two cloaks, a tunic and a scarf. Green/red are dyeable.

And this post is here because we were collectively wallowing in our laziness so I thought I'd post something right now. Now the hot potato goes to Breggie and Erun to post something.

Dwarven Facelift

The next update, which is due somewhere in November, was recently added to Turbine's test server Bullroarer. Since I still had that client installed I though I might as well go and have a look at it, and after hearing some praise for the revamped Dwarf Intro I decided to check it out.

The updated intro instance marks some interesting changes that I hope will be made to the entire game sooner or later. Almost all of the NPCs have been completely remodeled and they're no longer just standing around waiting for someone to click on them (actually you can't even interact with most of the NPCs in the new intro, they're just decorations). Now they've got individual faces, clothes and animations, and it was fun just running from NPC group to another just to see what they were doing.

This post is very image heavy and contains many spoilers! You have been warned!

Mirkwood Hunter

A couple weeks ago I commissioned a drawing of my hunter from fellow Finnish artist and LotRO player, Milawyn. And whoa does it look good!! Remember to check out her other stuff as well on her DeviantArt page.

Heart Catch☆Dwarf !

Just... wow.

The Legend of Beracula

Now with Halloween on the doorstep you should go read Beracula, a funny Dracula-LotRO crossover written by my friend Berandon. You should check out her other stories too on the Laurelin Archives, they're all worth reading!

---

I was browsing through my rss feeds and bookmarks when I realised most of the mmo blogs I read are written by women. Is that just a coincidence, or are girls/women more likely to write blogs? (or post pictures, as in the case of roll100)

Hello Beastie

So we thought this whole raiding business is getting a bit boring already so we sat down with the big guy and had a talk like adult people.



As a token of good will, a peasant was offered to compensate for all the damage we had done to the tower's interior decorations.



Then we all went to play bingo together.

Look Back

Here's a tip for you explorers: when running forward in a dungeon, remember to stop every now and then and look back (or up, or down, or whichever way you came from). You might be surprised by what you find.

Posers

~ can't touch this ~


~ epic raid boss: hobbit warden ~


~ got my wings, now I can die happy ~~

T&A

One member in our Dungeons&Dragons party had* an elven sorceress best described as "something from a Korean mmo".

* said character died right at the beginning of a boss battle; got burnt by a well-placed fireball and subsequently smashed by a big bad orc

Classic!

The irony.

Also, at this point, anyone NOT wishing to hear about my misadventures in FFXIV should turn their links to http://roll100.blogspot.com/search/label/lotro or whichever label they like to read about the most.

Useful mods: Songbook

While some still like to claim that LUA addons are unnecessary and will be the death of LotRO, mods such as the Songbook should prove them wrong. It's a really nifty tool that lists all your ABC music, including subdirectories, and helps synchronising songs with members of your fellowship. It's a boon compared to alt-tabbing and manually copying song names from a folder with close to 1000 files.

I can't wait to get the update live here in Euroland as well, since the Songbook and Lotropad really are addons that would enhance my personal gaming experience. Big cheers to Chiran for making these!

Rivendell Nudist Colony

Faces censored to protect the innocent.

FFXIV: Plans for the future

I managed to get into the Open Beta of Final Fantasy XIV, and I also succeeded in getting the client to work after a long struggle. I was feeling a bit worried at first, since the game was far from stable on my system and the controls felt really awkward, but after a while I found a good settings combo and got a hexbox controller working and so the game experience changed completely. All in all it doesn't seem like a bad game, just very very different from the current generation of PC MMOs (and XIV isn't really a PC game at all).

The head start should start next week, on 22nd of September. I've decided to roll on the Besaid server, which was named the unofficial RP server by the FFXIV Role-Play Coalition. If anyone else is joining at launch drop me a line and join me on Besaid!

Robe of Gender Bending

Meet lady Spaixwen :D!

LotRO Store shopping list!

With just a few days left before the big launch of Lord of the Rings Online going "free-to-play" it's time to prepare ourselves again for new features! And in my case that obviously means clearing my bags, sorting my vaults, crafting a truckload of dyes and counting my reputation points in anticipation of the big day when the LotRO store opens. Who cares about pots and stat tomes and whatnot when there's a ton of new cosmetic items to be had?!


The lawgiver's robe, raven cloak and raven mask will definitely become "the new black" (or rather "the new ranger mask"). Not that I'd mind, this time, since they do look pretty cool, unlike the ranger mask :D.


I'm fairly certain the elf-queen's dress and swan-cloak will become the new fad in the elven rp circles. I think I'll roll a dwarf and dress him/her/it up in these.

I hope you don't mind the ugly background colour, I couldn't be bothered to run yet another beta toon through the starter instance so I just took the screenies there. Anyway, here's the rest of the new store-only cosmetic items:


Innkeeper's Dress, Elf-queen's Dress and Elegant Formal Dress


Hauberk of the Eagle's Crest, Greenwood, Mirrormere and Sellsword's Hauberk.


Rugged Adventurer's Robe, Lawgiver's Robe, Hauberk of Rhun and Cloak of the Sunset Wood



Cloaks of the Boar, Algraig, Dragonfly, Swan and Northern Lights


Inn-League Survival Pack, Cook's Pack, Sage's Pack, Sea-turtle Pack and Elk-hunter's Pack


Battle-mask of Rhun, Raven Festival Mask, Circlet of Adamant and Feathered Felt Hat

It seems the "loyalty rewards" (bonus store points for having subscribed for years) won't be given out at launch, so I'll just have to hope I can get enough points from completed reputation deeds so that I can buy at least something nice on launch day. I think I'll start by maximising my vault and wardrobe spaces and then buy some cosmetics depending how many points I have left. I think my first days after the launch will be spent creating new outfits using the wardrobe, so I'm not in a hurry...

Sunshine and rainbows!

The gay elven ladies :D!

On another note, I was browsing through my Analytics results and found several new referring sites. It also reminded me that my own blogroll is still tiny, so if you, dear reader, have a similar mmo-related blog let me know and I'll add you! (both to my rss reader, if it's not there already, and to the link list)

Also, 私のブログを読んでありがとう~ Aikanaroさん

Flawless Victoly

Finally our awsum kinship got the LT down in Hard Mode \o/. Actually the whole fight is so much easier in HM than EM, but the radiance gating kept us from trying HM - until now. It does feel good having beaten the last raid challenge in the whole game before the next update.. which is due in just 2 weeks.



Meanwhile, my minstrel is feeling down and getting drunk and thrown out of bars. Totally not mirroring my miserable snot-filled flu day.