Divinity 2: Devine?

Divinity 2: Eco Draconis Reloaded



With the launch of Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga  this month, I decided to reinstall my year old copy of Divinity 2: Eco Draconis. When I last played this game I was astounded by the graphics, the humorous conversational choices and decent voice acting, vast story lines and impressive skill set. But only a few niggles really spoiled it for me, the largest of them being the awful graphical glitch that kinda looked like the game was trying to catch up with my frame rates every few seconds, a 1-2 second stall and jump forwards(I’ve later found that with a new GFX card and drivers this still happens now and then), the other being the Goddess awful memory leak.

These still seems to happen but can be worked around by alt+tabbing out and CTRL/Del to processes and increasing the priority to HIGH this seems to eradicate the leak. I’ve played for hours with no memory leak at all. The graphical glitch seems to sort itself out after i reinstall my graphics card drivers (GTX 460) which I’m not not sure what the issue is as I have to do the same (Reinstall my GFX Drivers) to get LotRO to detect my Dx11 card options. So not sure if its a driver / win 7 compatibility issue or not.

So I’ve been playing this again for the last few days. We think its been patched since I last played as these problems seem to be more minor than they were last and easily sorted.

I tried very very hard to love this game and did so for the first part (no dragon form) the game play, stories and infinite skill set, I just love it. But with the various niggles it was 2 patches away from being my perfect game. I toiled with these issues and after 17 hours or so and dragon form + battle tower achieved, I was too frustrated and the sudden change in game play was a little too much for me especially the OUCH! invisible wall, go that way, OUCH! another invisible wall what the hell. I gave up, after an hour or so.

At the time I paid for £29.99 and thought that was a hefty sum for a game that was frustrating buggy and I had tried so hard to overcome them.

This time around after sorting my two most irritating, game breaking glitches, the game is a delight to play and I very thoroughly this time did alot more quests, secrets, side quests and the mind reading that I had skipped previously. I’ve spent twice as much time going from first steps to gaining my own Battle Tower and Dragon Form, this time around, and Walkthru in hand, I persevered with the invisible walls and anti-dragon zones.

The Dragon part ain’t too bad, but still frustrating with the invisible walls and the flying fortresses bit seem overly harsh and overly difficult. but preserve I shall and see if I can get thru the game further.

I have yet to buy Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga, which by all accounts is Eco Draconis reloaded with Flames of Vengeance  expansion tacked on. So its a good time to get reacquainted with the Eco Draconis the original and when/if The Dragon Knight Saga comes on sale on Steam get that and see the difference between the two.

I’ve learned my lesson well, games that appear on steam, appear on steam sale very soon after.

Follow me on Twitter @mmo_meanderer
Steam: Fleata

* raises arms to the sky* IT’S A SIGN!!!!

A sign from the Gods I tell you…



Just got a twitters
LOTRO_Europe LOTRO-EU
The Lord of the Rings Online™ Europe Preview Event!http://bit.ly/coyY5E

Come and join in the European Preview Event for The Lord of the Rings Online Free-to-Play! If you'd like to participate, you can sign up at our Preview Sign-up page.
The preview event will start on Monday the 25th of October. Stress tests and events will be organized on the dedicated server of the preview event, in order to prepare the F2P version for all EU servers shortly thereafter.
The more players we will have to test the new content and F2P, the quicker our tests will be completed and we can then apply the F2P model on all our EU servers.
Don’t be shy and come sign-up!

Spread the word and maybe we can save LotRO EU

The Calm Before The Cataclysm

OO… Can I wait?



As Dec the 7th approaches, I’m getting more and more anxious. I was a HUGE WoW player, as I’ve said in blog posts of past, but I’ve been free of my WoW addiction for many months now. I’ve held off logging in and done well so far and have played many other games, some MMO’s some not. I’ve done my best not to think about WoW and have survived oooo about 12 months all in all with a small 3 day blip earlier in the year without logging in.

But, as Cata’s release date got announced and the 4.01 patch dropped, I’ve been getting the urge; the itch if you will and by goddess it needs scratching. I was hoping LOtRO might satisfy my WoW addiction, but as HexDSL and I have both said Codies have done an extremely good job of utterly destroying the LotRO EU servers and as I bought a LTA on LotRO i have no wish to move to the US servers. (I won’t say any more, it makes me too angry).

So I find myself looking again towards WoW and remembering the good ol’ times, mainly TBC (oh those times in Karazhan, how I miss you) as WOTLK wasn’t a scratch on TBC. I’m hoping that Cata can bring back some of those things that made TBC so fun and well.. hard. As many WoWers have lamented in the past WOTLK was EASY, too easy by far and well along with the lack of new content and the ease and speed you went thru the content that was released it was well boring and got boring fast.

I relented last week and downloaded the 4.01 patch, which essentially is all the changes bar the world and quest modifications. So all the class changes, spec/ build and glyph changes I think. patch notes are available at the usual website. I was however surprised at the speed of which it downloaded using the WoW downloader which is usually horrendously slow. It did well under 2 hours I think all in all for a 5.5Gb patch.
So now as LotRO in the UK is as dead as a doornail and Guild Wars 2 still…. heck 6 months away at best? I’m finding resisting the subscription to WoW harder to resist.

I have been playing Guild Wars 1 again and really finding it lacking compared to WoW. I know, I know HexDSL blasphemy, I know, but it lacks something for me that only WoW can satisfy. I got rather disillusioned with WoW before I stopped subbing for many reasons and that’s what I keep reminding myself of each time I feel like going back.

I found myself browsing the net for the cheapest I could get Cata for today and found it very difficult not to press the preorder button. Oh.. Jackofallgames have it for £16.99 cheapest I found.
In the end I resisted and bought an Apad from Amazon Instead.



I will try and hold out till Dec7th and buy it when its released and not before. I know I’ve definitely changed as a gamer and I do enjoy playing a range of games now, whereas before I was a dedicated WoW player and nothing else. I guess I’m just a little apprehensive that I might get back to that stage of 24/7 WoW obsessiveness. World of Warsmack isn’t just a smartass Tabloid Headline and know one knows that better than I.
I can’t help going YEY! every time I see and advert or Kotaku/ PC gamer post and get all excited about it. I watched the official trailer that was released yesterday and it looks AWESOME! I know I will buy it, its a given, how much will I get into it or not, has yet to be seen. You might say if its that bad stay away from it, and you probably would be right.

My name is Fleata and I’m a WoWaholic. You can take the person out of the MMORPG, but can you take the MMORPG out of the person?

Back Seat Gaming: A Spectator’s Sport

 

You are going to fast, turn left here, no you are doing it wrong!

Hang and I have a very relaxed lifestyle of mostly gaming, he has his rig, I have mine; we have a PS3 and a Wii and we will eventually buy the Move (prob at the Xmas sales). I generally just use my pc to play games, but Hang loves his PS3. Now as with most families and couples the TV is the central focus of daily life (how sad of us) and the console usually feeds into this. So when “his lordship” is playing his consoles what do us ladies do, or for that matter anyone else not playing the game, who is in the same room that might not have access to another form of entertainment.
Now as I said, I have my own PC, but both of us playing games and not talking to each other may seem very sad and it is, I cant deny that. Hang likes his PS3 and although I’m not really into playing PS3 games I like to watch Hang and ‘supervise’ his gaming efforts :P

We have both commented in the past about how games can involve more than just the player, and I’m not talking about Co-op here, I’m talking about the spectator: the person who can’t watch TV cos the other person in the house is playing a console game.

This discussion came up again recently when Hang now 40 hours thru Final Fantasy 13 sat on the couch next to me as we discussed strategy for the Boss he had encountered, which paradigms to use at any given moment, should he grind for a bit, should he try for a pre-emptive strike or use a potion etc. Now, this could be a rare occurrence because we are both gamers and spend alot of time dealing with strategy in games in various ways, Raids in MMO, group quest boss battles in various games etc or puzzles to find the secret item or path.

What we started discussing was how some games appeal to the back seat gamer more than others and how games can involve and engage the non-player. In my opinion FPS games don’t really engage the spectator apart from the odd argghhh I’m dead and me laughing, poking fun with a “NAHOOB” as Hang ain’t very good at these games, he has his moments :P but not many. So FPS games like MW2 or BF BC2, aside as I find these do little to engage the spectator, what do other games do, even if completely unintentional to engage the non player?

It has become a recent trend to add co-op to games, either online local or LAN and I’m all for this. I love playing co-op with Hangman and played RE5 to death on both the Xbox 360 and the PC and thru completely again with a friend Nikushimi from my WoW days. Its a good way to engage the the female gamer that would normally not play against another person, but would enjoy the gaming experience helping the “main” char get thru the game (it’s a well known fact, we girls don’t like to lose) :) And this helps the normally back seat gamer get into the  game as the co-op member. Games like RE5, Borderlands, Trine, even L4D 1 & 2.  Currently Hang and I are working thru The secret Army of General Knoxx on Borderlands DLC and will be getting the next instalment of the BL DLC when it goes on Steam sale. (Not mentioning Lara Croft GOL as Hang has ranted enough about this in earlier posts).  


Back on subject; with games getting more story influenced and character driven this certainly helps the person not playing the game get more interested in what going on. Games like uncharted 1 and 2, FFXIII, and Assassin's Creed 2 have defiantly engaged me on the PS3 even tho I haven’t played a single hour of any. I love to help Hang solve puzzles on games when he gets stuck like the glyphs in AC II or seeing something he missed like a route he just can’t find to the next area or a way to go, all these can help engage the observer into becoming interested in the game and you never know, play it themselves.

I anticipate this trend of engaging story driven content and cinematic interactive medium continues to grow and I can’t wait to try RE5 Gold on the Move when we eventually get that. I hope I don’t have to rearrange the living room to get to the recommended Move 8ft from eye cam :D. I do really hope the co-op MP game really takes off and becomes the future. Is this the way natural evolution of sitting round the dinner table talking with each other or playing board games?

On a side note I hope game devs continue to develop the strong female protagonist as seen in Hangs blog post earlier on in the year which I can’t find. Female chars like Sheva from RE5 who don’t need big boobs to open doors just the grenade launcher she found in the room before or Lightning from FF XIII :)

One Small Step Closer to Mordor

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.

I’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 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?
I 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 some 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.

 

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.

Follow 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

Questing For Puzzles Again

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.

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.

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

 

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 run 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.

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.

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

Confused about the LotRO free to play/ VIP bonuses?

What does VIP get you? and how do you become a premium member?

Free-to-Play opens up more choices and options so you can play your way. When LOTRO Free-to-Play is available, you can download the game for free and start playing without a subscription or even a credit card.

Anyone can join the game for free as a Free player when LOTRO Free-to-Play is available. You will automatically be upgraded from Free player to Premium player status with your first purchase of Turbine Points in the LOTRO Store.

And for a monthly fee, LOTRO's VIP program offers the best value and the most options for players who like the convenience of having unlimited access to all of LOTRO's game content and features. If you are already a subscriber, just maintain your active subscription to be automatically upgraded to VIP!

To make things simple:

Free to play : Pay nothing ever
Premium: Pay once at any point
VIP: Pay a subscription each month or pay for a lifetime one off payment.

Here is a link to the LotRO chart for the benefits of each “Tier” of subscription

http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html