Wednesday 30 December 2009

Mail will go through


With the new character slots that came with Siege of Mirkwood I was finally able to roll more characters. My collection lacked a hobbit (previous ones were played to 35 and 42, and then deleted for various reasons), so I thought I'd make a new one and take it easier this time. I decided I would level up in the Shire for as long as possible, since I'd never done all the quests there on-level.



I reached level nine doing just the mail delivery quests, and not killing a single animal or evil goblin. I'll have to see how far I can push this extreme pacifism.

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Mirkwood Snapshots

Quickie postcards taken from the gorgeous landscapes of Mirkwood - there's a certain abundance of horse behinds because I snapped all of these while questing (and mostly, when running for my life).

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I really love Mirkwood.

Friday 4 December 2009

Wordswap

Log your fantasy mmo, and mentally replace every "dark" you see with "nerd".

My mmo has Nerd Delvings, Nerdrage Wolves and Nerdlings.

Thursday 3 December 2009

Well, damn

I installed Win7 last weekend, completely replacing my old Vista. I backuped all my important program files, documents and pr0n, and in a couple hours I had a nice fresh Win7 running with all my tabs in Firefox, Vent server configs and whatnot intact.

Except I'd lost a month's worth of Aion screenshots, because they were apparently located in the program installation folder and not my Documents folder like every other mmo does. As I wrote earlier, play.com had charged and shipped me a copy of Aion although I had cancelled my preorder, and because I never got any kind of reply from their customer service I decided that what the heck, I'll try this.

So I played it for a month, taking a ton of screenies for a multi-part report about the game, community and stuff. But now all the screenies are gone and I'm not technically savvy enough to dig up anything from a formated hard drive, so I'll just give a summary:

The graphics are bad. Characters look cool, but the average player can only create characters that look like horrendous clowns or crackwhores. Environments are bland, empty and lack any kind of close detail if you wander just a bit further away. Give it dynamic lighting, like in the video a couple posts down, and it'll start looking good.
I don't mind if people like the Twilight books but I do get annoyed when they say it's "good literature" - same with Aion, who markets itself as "the most graphically advanced mmo" which some people even seem to believe when it looks only a few steps better than some Korean free-to-play games. This is mostly why I collected such a vast amount of screens to illustrate my point, but as they're gone now I'll be happy to challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

Around level 20 you are basically forced to group to advance in the game. My server was full of spanitards, who LFF'd in English but only spoke Spanish in groups, even though me and some others said we don't understand. Some PUGs I left intentionally when I realised we couldn't get anything done when four people are chatting to themselves in a foreign language, only to end up in another moonlanguage-speaking PUG after answering another LFF that was clearly written in English. Besides the community seems a bit too young and weeaboo for my tastes, although I did run into the fabled Aion RP community a couple times and would have loved to look into it more.

At level 25 you're able to enter the Abyss, which is the main pvp area in Aion and spanning levels 25 to 50, meaning there's always some highlevel asshat camping the spot where newbies land the first time to do pve quests. I really really don't see the point in clumping half the players, and with such a large level difference, in one area and expect them to play nice. Then again, the whole pacing of Aion is very strange to me, since first you need to endure 25 levels of very dull pve to get to a pvp area, where you have to do pve again to gain levels while being farmed for pvp points by highlevels.

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Saraste, Spiritmaster level 25, of Gorgos server, taken from the Aion database. I liked that you could log into the site to check your auctions and mail, or look up a recent ganker's level and gear :D.

My class of choice, the cc-and-pets class Spiritmaster, is also apparently very broken at the moment. While it has some very powerful pvp crowd-control abilities, some of it's basic functions are just so laughable that it was actually the first thing that made me decide not to continue playing (since now way I'd be willing to endure the first 20 levels again on another toon). Firstly, it's a pet class whose pets don't fly in a game where pvp revolves around flying. Secondly, all Spiritmaster damage is damage-over-time, but mobs can only have a limited amount of buffs/debuffs on them (7-9, can't remember correctly), so once you've fired off your damage spells the opponent could just rebuff themselves with their own abilities to completely remove the SM dots. Thirdly, SM pets and related abilities don't scale with gear, so if I'd ever hit the level cap I could still walk around naked while everyone else could make their characters even more powerful with epix gear.

I did have occasional fun times in the game too, especially at level 20 when I eventually found a good, English-speaking pick-up-group for the mandatory group quests. The monster design is funny and combat is fairly engaging. It's just that so many things in Aion are complete opposites of what I'd consider a good mmo, and while I can aknowledge that not everything should suit my personal and often quirky tastes, I just never had enough fun in the game to continue subscribing.

Wednesday 2 December 2009

Eve of Mirkwood

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Tomorrow, I won't get one-shotted by a row of smelly orc blackarrows. From tomorrow on, that forest is mine.

Tuesday 24 November 2009

Aion Candy


Uhhh. Changing seasons in an MMO? Me likey.

Also, player housing? Yes please! I always thought Aion would be a pretty interesting platform for RP, and player-run neighbourhoods would be just perfect.

Complete graphical overhaul? Mmmm. As it is, Aion environments look like crap compared to too many other fantasy mmos, but with proper textures, better water and more frills it actually looks nice. On the video, anyway :D.

Oh well, one can always dream. Right now I'd be happy if they just upped group xp and fixed my class's problems, but until it happens I won't be resubbing.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!


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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.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Being skinny does not make you pretty

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.. 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.

Wednesday 14 October 2009

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.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Was fun while it lasted

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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.

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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.

Thursday 1 October 2009

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.

Monday 28 September 2009

New Roads

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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.

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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.

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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~!

Thursday 17 September 2009

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

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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.

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

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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:

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

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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.

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

Thursday 3 September 2009

Fashion Mag #1

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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!!

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

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

Wednesday 2 September 2009

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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

Monday 17 August 2009

Rift Drift

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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:
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And then the champs:
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