Monday

One Small Step Closer to Mordor

Fleata


Mára aurë
The continuing story of my LotRO experience.

 

So continuing on from my first steps into Middle Earth this is my next blog about my encounters in Middle Earth. In the first of these blogs I had just stepped into the realm of Middle Earth with my optimistic drum beating Minstrel, with all my expectations, fears and ready comparisons to WoW of which I have clocked up to 10k hours on.

dont_follow_me_signI’m level 39 just hit this yesterday and I’m at a bit of a loss at where to go now. After completing most of Everdim and Trollshaws quests (well the ones I can solo) I haven’t really been given any quests to go elsewhere. My problem is that there are quite a number of fellowship quests (understatement there are loads) and not a lot of people willing to do them. I’m on the RP server of Laurelin and I’ve seen many people running around about my level in each area, however when you ask in the area chat people seem very unwilling to group together for those harder fellowship quests; which has made levelling somewhat difficult, especially when I have completed all the normal quests and run out of quests with a load of fellowship quests clogging up my Quest Log of which I try and fail at doing solo.

Now I can hear you cry that's what a guild/ Kinship is for and yes I agree, but coming from the knowledge of being an officer and guild master in WoW, I header-logo know what’s like when you have a noob continually asking for help on quests group or not. It’s ok to start but quickly gets annoying;  so I try not to ask much if at all. I’ve asked kinfolk my level if they wish to group for fellowship quests and again I get not much response or a sure ok and then not really much in the way of actually questing going on. moan over. SO what’s the issue with all the fellowship quests and should they be downgraded to normal now that the initial influx of low level new players have dwindled and those like me are struggling to find a person to group with?


Servant of Sauron?
927428c707917388I am still loving LotRO and playing it quite a bit each week as well as other games  like Dragon Age:Origins and the new DLC and playing with various mods as discussed in Hangman’s blog. He does make a very good point tho, I’ve just completed my 30th Please go kill 10 bears quest, its a grind I tell you a pure unadulterated grind; now, coming from WoW I’m used to these sort of quests, they are Wow's bread and butter, and I understand why they are in there. But come on 30 quests to kill Bears let alone the 30 or so quests to kill Boars, Wolves, Spiders, (ok all spiders can die and I do honestly usually have to kill big ones with my eyes closed as much as poss) and don’t forget the eagles and I’m only lvl 39 how many more genocidal quests for the various Middle Earth wildlife species am I going to get before I get to 65? What did these poor animals do to warrant sure extinction?

This aside the world is lovely still and as Swift travel is free I’ve been exploring AAAAC8cLDmEAAAAAAE3OaAsome of the lower lvl parts of the realm, heading to Thorin’s Gate last night and taking a few screenshots. 
Disappointingly the dwarf place looks identical to the location of WoW’s Ironforge; very snowy mountain side fortress, none the less it’s an awesome site when you first round the corner and enter to witness the majesty of the opening chamber and huge dwarf statue bathed in light. So get your trust swift travel on on and get riding around the world as its free atm and go see some sites you would normally miss.

 

funny-pictures-cat-is-lost So where do I go now people Misty Mountains seems a little to high as the first creature I encountered travelling from Rivendell looked a mighty unfriendly Red and the quests I have left in Trollshaws are for beasties that like to smash my singing face and drum beating arms into the ground.
Are there any good LotRO sites and guides out there that you know of for noobs like me that are a good source of information that you would like to share?

oh and just a quick random WoW comment: PvZ in Warcraft Cataclysm looks awesome!! I can’t wait for Cataclysm. Fail of the Lichking wasn’t a patch on Burning Crusade.


fsFollow me on twitter @mmo_meanderer
or add me as friend and chat games and LotRO on Steam(Fleata), xfire(Fleata), or raptr (LadyFleata) or msn/xboxlive (mystiebudgie@hotmail.com)
 

See Hang I didn’t mention Codies abysmal LotRO F2P delay and subsequent unknown release date at all….. D’oh

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Thursday

Questing For Puzzles Again

Fleata


Puzzle Quest 2 on Steam

 

I saw this a while ago on steam, but was unprepared to pay the full asking price, as is the story for me with most games on steam. So again I wait and yup it goes on offer for £9.47 on this weeks midweek madness, so I snapped it up post haste along with another fab little indie game VVVVV which is on off for about £3.50 atm. Back onto Puzzle Quest 2. I never played the first one, but i heard all good things about it so was well up for paying the offer price to play it.

PQ2 A cute and casual RPG/ puzzle game. Very much in the fantasy RPG genre, where you control your selected char (male of female) take it around the world and visit various towns and lands talking to and helping NPC with their various quests and picking up loot, gaining XP to level and equipment to use. ITs all good, what makes this game different is the way to deal with mobs, loot and the environment. IT all comes down to a bejewelled like battle.ehDup

Both you and you opponent (say a goblin) take turns in swapping jewels to make lines of 3, 4 or 5 or more if you can to gain there amounts in coloured jewel. So 3 greens in a row gives you 3 green jewels these add up and can be used for various spells and moves. So healing need say 15 green jewels, see how it goes, continues making green lines when you can till you have enough to heal or injure your opponent. There are also other way to deal damage lines of skulls to deal direct damage and fists that give you points to deal damage with your equipped weapons. the winner is the one who is still standing after there opponent reaches 0 hit points

 

49a5780d79e68_featured_without_text_bookwormy This jewelled grid is also used for breaking down doors and collecting loot. Its a very insidious little game :P  You start off playing 10-15 mins next thing you know its 4 hours later and you are loving it while giving your brain cells a work out. Its just like Bookworm adventures 1 and 2 deluxe (Also awesome little games to get the old grey matter firing). So many hours spent trying to find the word Zealot in each grid of letters in BWA 2 :D

This is with this game its alot harder than you think. I started playing it on normal and found that i felt the game stacks in favour of itself. Sometimes if you go with the suggestion the game suggest it usually give the Mob a home advantage of a huge bonus pq2_610hrun of jewels and damage, which just isn’t fair. After being beaten a number of times flat and getting the “epic fail” achievement. ROFL I’m a noob i know, but MMO’s are my game usually. Long story about why I bought PQ2 and wasn’t playing LotRO, needless to say I’m a Virgin Media customer and LotRO doesn’t like VM very much, and after yesterdays fiasco with connection services.

So after being wiped out a number of times I started thinking differently, well more additionally. Instead of think just about what I needed colour wise I also started to think about what my opponent needed, and snapping up the colour they needed and I found this works rather effectively.. See the pic above the Orc needs Red for both of his attacks. If you snap up red jewels whenever you can he wont be able cast anything but his weapon damage when he has enough fists. Doesn’t matter how much yellow or blue has has without red he cant use his attacks. And this way the key to my success. pq2b

To much you will see this from your opponent and not you.

I do however believe the game cheats (that’s my excuse) the game is far to clever for my liking gaining huge amounts of jewels in 1 move or skills that allow it to gain more than 1 move per turn, its far to clever for its own good, and its only downfall its frustrating to see the game getting huge combos cos you just aren't clever enough. being defeated isn’t such a big deal, but games shouldn’t make you feel dumb and this game does that quite a bit. I hoping its just me being tired and unable to concentrate very well and that I can get more in the game even tho I lose battles alot.

Its a good game tho and one to defiantly one to get while its on offer, a great casual game easy to play and save when you only have 15/20 mins or so to play. Also good for those wishing to exercise their brain matter.

PuzzleQuest2_Screenshot01

How can a Basilisk be so good at bejewelled, does it have a DS stashed somewhere?

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