Close your eyes, it's..

Purple prose time!

From Bad Roleplayers Suck:
The frosty breeze cooed hither from the coast, the seasonal leaflets whirling downward like papery snow settled, the crepuscular beams split down through the web of branches as a silvery blade and splashed alike holy water upon the sward, and Anel passed by, the phantom of the woods unseen and unheard. Of quiescence, Anel’s presence was utterly unknowable but the utterings of the breeze thereabout was ubiquitous. Sibilating, the susurrus from his shifting lips echoed amidst the oaks and conifers. Anel’s tune desisted; he sat.

(click on the link to read the whole thing - at your own risk, though!)

Whenever some elements in the Laurelin RP comm make me facepalm so hard I can't find my nose anymore, I'm still happy this level of thesaurus-molesting purple prose hasn't found a foothold there - yet.

First look at the Summer Festival

The Summer Festival started today, and me and a friend were already camping the pub in Thorin's Hall, counting down minutes and eagerly looking forward to the new festival items. Here are some of the things I managed to grind today:


The new dress is fabulous and dyes really well!


Wicker chair and summer tunic.


Summer horsepony, looks like a toy :D.

I noticed that all the new cosmetics are Bind on Acquire (can't be traded to others), meaning I would have to grind individually all those costumes I want for each of my nine characters. However, the recent free-to-play announcement also heralded a new Wardrobe system that will be used to store cosmetic items, and cosmetic items only. I made a thread on the EU forums about it, asking if the Wardrobe will allow Bound items to be shared across the account - if it does, I could just grind each costume once and then wait for the update and share them to my other toons. Anyone have any info on this?

Brb, making stupid face

Damn, playing a warden is addictive. It's a constant thought of "one more level and I'll get a really cool gambit", and after I get one I start aiming for the next one, cuz gotta catch em all!

I'm sort of amazed I'm still having fun doing lower-level content for the tenth time - it's fun in a mind-numbing way, although the prospect of having to start Legendary Items and Moria soon is already dampening my spirits. I actually wouldn't mind a switch that made me stop leveling after 50, so I could just say forever in Vanilla LotRO.

Remind me why I even bother

So I thought "why not?" and bid on a 2nd age symbol, won it, made a sword for my hunter. In before "3rd agers are just as good" - I wanted to get rid of my ugly 3rd age club so I could fix the relics, and hunters actually have some pretty good legacies on melee weapons nowadays, plus on a 2nd ager I could even max out all of them. I got 2 starting legacies, and on reforges I only got some crappy melee legacies nobody in their right mind would use - at least not before all the more important ones are maxed. So please remind me again why the Legendary Item system is so legendary and useful and rewarding?

I find it completely inexcusable that a 2nd ager, which are so damn hard to get in the first place, can get less than four (not to mention just two!) starting legacies - I would have been happy with just 3 pool A legacies and replaced the rest with stat scrolls, but obviously I can't have nice things EVER (I'd show the awesomeridiculously bad LM staff I made a couple months ago but I just closed the game and don't feel like logging back in again).

*grumble*

I'm guessing the only people who like the LI system are those luckwhores who get nice things on the first try - I know for certain this was my last attempt in a long, long, long time.

>> QQing over virtual items

Legit Lens Flare

Red boots \o/.

/random

FFXIV Character creator sneak peek

Maybe I'm still a terrible weeaboo, but the 'art style' in FFXIV appeals to me a lot more than those in other MMOs. You know how some MMOs go for the realistic look, and others for a cartoony one because simpler styles require less resources and they're said to last better. I must say the cartoony look we've so far seen of SWTOR is a big, BIG turnoff for me, I don't find it pleasing or appealing at all - but there's something in the looks and animations of FFXIV characters that makes me like them on first sight.

(also, lulz at the people in the video :D - it's a pretty smart way to do a bilingual video though)

EDIT. Haha, the video has apparently been removed by Squeenix. I'll re-link if it comes online again.

OMG HORDES OF WOW KIDDIES

-- IN MY GAME NOOOOOO.



^ that seems to be currently the hot potato in the LotRO community, and even more so in the RP threads. As we learned last week, The Lord of the Rings Online is going free to play later this year. This "f2p" is very far from the more common, free Asian mmos, since it's pretty much just an unlimited trial with severe limitations (such as only one character per server, money capped at 2G, less storage space), which can be removed with microtransactions in the ingame store. What most of the early ragers on the forums missed was that subscribers and Lifetimers would see no change in their game, in fact they are getting free points each month to spend in the store. Personally, as a Lifer, I'm pretty happy with what we've seen of the new model so far. There's even going to be additional character slots in the store, so I could roll at least two more toons! Because 9 is so not enough.

Back to the topic - of course, the new f2p will mean that EVERY SCREAMING KID ON THE INTERNET IS COMING TO ROOOOOOIN MAI AR PEE SERVERS. Some of the folks on the forums are wondering if their precious Laurelin should be turned into a VIP-only (VIP meaning subscriber/Lifer), with a multi-part questionnaire posed to each new player thinking of rolling a new scrub there. I have a feeling that in reality that would not stop those who plan to join Laurelin just to grief role-players, but it would most likely deter those who are still undecided about RP or who like RP servers for the community. I hate it when role-players get all territorial.

(it's a funny thing how each f2p discussion brings up "wow kiddies" - aren't they already busy playing their p2p game? kiddies logging in while wow is in maintenance, you say? well, that's maybe an hour or two away from my life, and in that time I can easily avoid them, if I ever even happened to run into any!)

What personally makes me RRRAAAAAAAAGE is that there will be NO CONTENT UPDATES until the game goes f2p, meaning there will be a ~10month gap between any meaningful new stuff. Meaning it's going to be a very, very quiet summer in Lotroland, unlike last year, when we got a nice new set of instances to entertain us until SoM. I'm assuming there will be a summer festival in a month or so, but that's not comparable to proper new level-cap instances (no, I won't forgive Turbine, not even when there's a wicker chair and a hammock among the new summer festival prizes). I had been sort of hoping there would be a new update soon-ish, which would give me some incentive to play again (I don't count role-playing as playing the game - it's 3D chatting :D), but it seems like we'll have to wait until autumn now. Tsk tsk.

What I fear the most now is that the quiet period will make me lose touch with many new acquaintances I've made, both ingame, on the forums and even real life - I'll just have to come up with something to combine all three.

Shades Concert

There was a massive, 3-hour concert on Laurelin tonight, performed by the Shades band of the kinship The Shadows. While the lag was awful (close to 200 players present, I bet), the music was sublime and the company the best kind. The concert was held in the glade outside Celondim, and the theme was very elvish - between songs the storyteller would recite old elven legends and history.

Trüü RP art

chadmango made me do it.

(if the flash doesn't show, here's an image of it, sans the awesome glitter)

Under the stars and moon

Before I noticed, I had turned into a full-time roleplayer. There have been some brilliant events this week, and next Sunday there's also going to be a big concert. Ooooooo.

Let's just hope I won't start writing purple prose character stories and adding lens flares and glitter effects to my screenies.

More knots

Funny how the time flies when you do something mindless... like drawing or gaming.



Also, wallpaper size. Brushes from redwhirlpool.

Knots

Gahh should have gone to bed hours ago.