From Dusk 'till Dawn

Back to LotRO... for now.

2011-12-19T02:32:00.000-08:00

Temporarly back to LotRO, but somehow most of the passion is gone.
I make screenshots, but I never seem to get around to make posts like I used to...

I am missing playing with my fiancee terribly, that's probably adding to the general unhapiness with what Turbine presents. Waiting for Diablo III to get me out from Middle-earth, and then for Guild Wars 2.
Mesmer has officially been revealed, not I really, REALLY can't wait.

Any good advices for how to leave a game that became a chore but you're still addicted to?
I'd gladly not waste anymore of my time in there but... well... I am weak.

State of the game

2011-10-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

There is nothing about Turbine and Lotro lately that shows any polish. From bad moderation on their forums, horrible PR, deceptive marketing, screwing over people who buy TP, buggy unfinished delayed content and this could possible be worst of all if it turns out to be true. They even got their lotrostore wrong by mistakenly putting Draigoch on sale for 20% this past week LOL.

There is something wrong with the leadership and the culture there that lets this get out of hand in all facets of their business. When I think of Turbine I think one word: Unprofessional! It's too bad, there is a lot about the game that I really like, but I wonder how much of it is really left over from the beginning days of LOTRO? Once the content creation tools were made how many of those developers stayed with the product?

by Arkenstone@Lotro Community

Turbine practices, or lies

2011-05-24T02:04:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I am too disheartened to write anything from myself about the subject at the moment, so I'll just quote.

I agree, the way everything is worded suggests that the 3 Relics will be Store only options.

I would really like to understand the offical reasoning that connects these two offical statements;

7. Will I still be able to play and enjoy the game without buying items from the LOTRO Store, or is that my only option for gaining weapons, armor, potions, and other goodies such as premium loot?
The purchase of items in the LOTRO Store is entirely optional. While items in the Store are designed to immediately enhance your in-game experience, premium loot and rare gear are the rewards of adventure and are only obtainable through gameplay. Source

and

Instantly acquire 3 new top tier relics, created by the LOTRO Community!

Originally Posted by Gedachtnis

I am very very sad and disappointed. I am not angry anymore I am just disheartened. I was so happy Turbine, new content as fast pace, I was okay with new content that had to be separately bought (update 3 new skirmishes & new instanes). Even relic removal scrolls was well bearable.

But what you just did is sad. There is no talking out of it, you broken your promise and imho crossed line between "hybrid model" and pure f2p pay-to-win model where important ingame stuff has to be bought in store.

Sorry but if this decision won't be revoked and those 3 store relics added into melding panel. I don't see a point in paying subscription AND paying for premium core in game items, that are as important for character build as armor , jewelery or weapon.
I also don't want to play a game where I cannot buy free access to all gear by subscription. I gladly buy TP to buy things like cosmetics, vault or share storage, xp and other timed buffs, even recipes or heck even I could "swallow" relic removal scroll.

This one is imho DIFFRENT.

You lied to me and made me very disappointed.

Bad move. Very bad. Especially when new strong MMORPG's titles are coming relatively soon.

Originally Posted by Munitis

Galadhrim War-steed

2011-04-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

As mentioned not so long ago we decided to come back to Dol Guldur after a few months of denying the annoying place even exists.

I was quite insistent on going back as I never got to beat the Liutenant before we stopped visiting him for tea al together, which meant four deeds lingering in my otherwise perfect (Ettens doesn't count! Yes, I be a deed-whore) deed log:equipment comes and goes and level cap increases, but titles and mounts stay!

Galadhrim War-steed was not only "he one which got away", I also considered it a perfect choice to match my Annuminas outfit(s)... Finally, mine, along with assorted titles like Savious ofMirkwood and such ^^

Lady of the Golden Wood

2011-04-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't done any of my "Design" posts in a while and this one I wanted to do even before I actually got to meet Galadriel in game.

Gorrem (Devon Candy-Lee) is probably my favourite LotRO designer to date (no longer working on the game from what I know, unfortunately) - and his vision of Galadriel is, as one might expect, pretty awesome and sleek. I love the details and the little gold leaf ornaments... I was really, really grabbed by the artwork when I first saw it, it made me hope for some improvements in in-game dress department too...

In-game model disappoints. No wonder really, LotRO has quite bad models for most humanoid NPCs... The dress is still epic and at least The Lady got some custom hair, but who else would deserve a better model than her? Narmeleth model would match pretty well I guess... But no, she got the default tree-stump one... Sad.

I really, really wish Turbine would finally got around to revamping the poor models and animations, especially for NPCs. Elf/human NPCs seem to be place holders from early stage of development. Why do they look like members of totally different races than player elf/man characters? Why do they walk in such an unnatural manner?
It's been four years and noone even seems to notice, so so sad...

24 weeks for a deed?! or when it starts to get too much

2011-04-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

Finally getting the Savious of Mirkwood on Silirien (after defeating Lt for the first time and with Challenge), my desire for deed completion burns hot anew.

And this is when I realise that Ost Dunhoth deed will take at least 24 weeks to complete!!!
Seriously, what the fcuk? Almost half a year?
And this too only if you raid every week and successfully and your raid leader decides to kill the adds in different order each time.

Adding to that insane amounts of tokens required for the loot... Even if I decided not to focus on itemisation too much (I want my life back), I do see what Turbine is doing and I don't like it a bit.

2011-04-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Lost Temple is one of the new instances which I particularly like (at least, the above-ground part of it). Probably because of it's awesome Indiana Jones feeling. While the actual game part of it is long and tedious (especially the challenge, which also likes to bug out), world-design part is jaw-dropping, especially if you consider that basically everything in there (like in the whole world in general) has already been reused multiple times.

Working as the team intended... LotRO, Lord of the Rings Online

2011-04-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was about to write a passionate post about how the 4th Anniversary is a complete grindfest, but I can hardly add anything new to 1005 posts made on official Turbine forums before it was closed by Sapience to "prevent disinformation", or other community reactions (The Grindaversary or Why is Goldenstar Skipping the Anniversary Events)

What kindof disinformation Sapience?
Or did you mean information of how you guys completly shut your ears to any negative feedback once again (like with many, many things on Isenguard server before Moria and after).

I am sorry, but if Dev's team official statement on this issue is the event is working as the team intended and designed it and there will be no changes to the content or cost of rewards, it's just... uh... enraging. You make the game for us, you need our appreciation to pay your bills. And for 2 years you keep on failing your player base with under-par expansions, in-game systems, now also events. And this event is a shining example of your attitude, and I can't wait to move to somewhere else.

Only Turbine bootcamp anniversary shows loving appreciation. Brew bash SLAVE! Now go Bash like you mean it! Nothing says customer love like strict discipline. By someone on US Forums. So sad, so true.

It's funny, I was actually contemplating moving to US servers recently, because players get all the little perks (like lotteries) in there. But yeah, no way now. I'll continue on leeching on Codemasters with my life-timer and I won't fail to mention to anyone asking about LotRO how tedious end-game and now even events are.

Ancient Annuminas Statue

2011-04-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am a huge, huge Annuminas fan-girl. I love the feeling of Evendim (even the Ever-swim parts), I've always enjoyed the instances and I am a terrible sucker for Annuminas armor sets.

This small statue was once used as a reward for service to the Kingdom of Arnor. The Wardens of Annuminas now only offer them to those who have proven themselves to be truly heroic.

Hence, this statuette was a must-have for me, and I am displaying it proudly when not engaged in battle.
Here with the Mistress of Annoyance, Gwindeth (still plotting to steal her dress).

Snow Queen

2011-04-19T06:48:00.001-07:00

Almost ^^

When I got dragged to Sari-Surma for the first time, it felt like walking into Snow Queen's palace and I mentioned to my fellows that it's really dissapointing that none of the bosses could qualify as one. A friend commented We don't need annother Snow Queen, we brough our own - oh yes, how I wished this was true (thanks for the compliment Mike ^^).

Glacier Queen is not quite Snow Queen, but it's good enough ;)

Bombay.tv

2011-04-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

A guildie discovered this phenomenon and entertains us with brilliant movies regularly. The two below feature "me" and my ecto fetish ^^
Unfortunately, the dialogues are in polish... I might translate them later.

Gniewosz: Cherrie, I've told you I'll give you ecto, haven't I?
Cherrie: Yeah! Multiple times! But in the end you always said you need it all for powersell.
Gniewosz: You know what? Let's do the froggies and share the drop. Accept the party.

Gniewosz: How's going? Any good drops? Anything to put on Guru?
Cherrie: Hey, what's up with my ecto?
Gniewosz: And you're on it again. Women! We have to be patient. I am still waiting for my comissions.

Enjoy xD

Łukasz Jop - or why not to trust friends

2011-03-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is Łukasz Jop, currently living in Wodzisław Śląski, Poland.
Łukasz is not a trustworthy person - he has gained an unauthorised access to his friend's LotRO account by making use of said friend's personal information.

He was directly approached multiple times and questioned if he is in posession of the account's access data, but he denied (until he stopped anwsering any form of contact at all, that is).

When contacting Customer Support, he impersonated the rightful owner of the account.

Material damages would be around 250EUR (LotRO expansions, Liffetime subscription no longer available etc) but he also deleted several high level characters created by the original owner.

Currently, he is working at BioStat as Project Manager (though he has a different possition listed on Polish equivalent of LinkedIn, hmm) - a nice position for a scammer...

~~~~

Pan Łukasz Jop aktualnie zamieszkaly w Wodzisławiu Śląskim wykorzystal bliska znajomosc w ktorej byl uwazany za przyjaciela by przejac cudze konto w grze Lord of the Rings Online. By to osiagnac, zrobil uzytek ze swojej znajomosci chronionych danych osobowych innej osoby w sposob nieautoryzowany.

Wielokrotnie pytany o to, czy posiada dostep do konta, zaprzeczal.

Narazil prawowitego wlasciciela konta na straty materialne rzedu 1000PLN (zwiazane z zakupionymi dodatkami do gry oraz tzw. Lifetime Subscription).

W kontaktach z Customer Service podszywal sie pod prawowitego wlasciciela konta.

Obecnie zatrudniony w firmie BioStat jako Dyrektor Handlowy

Niezbyt budzace zachowanie jak na dyrektora handlowego jakiejkolwiek firmy, prawda?

And so it is done

2011-03-04T01:56:00.000-08:00

With today's update, Tyria has changed significantly.
Many features that have been vocally requested by GW Community have finally been introduced, most - if not all of them - positive, although I can't stop thinking they are at least 2 years late...

Hero parties

One of the most advertised changes to come is the ability to fill up your party with your own Heroes, rising the limit of Heroes a single player can add to a group from 3 to 7.

This feature has been requested by players since Heroes were introduced. While highly disputable (it's hard for me to name an objective that can not be completed by a single player alone now) for making the game a single player online game with co-op mode now, in the end I guess it's a good decision. The population of Guild Wars has declined and it became harder and harder to find a group for some activities, this will ultimately help players.

Mercenary Heroes

An unexpected addition is one to create your own Heroes, based on your existing characters' profession, name and armor look.
While this option requires a purchase of "Mercenary Hero Slots", it caters for other Community requests concerning Heroes - there's always been a need for more Heroes of certain professions, ones that had a better AI/Build combos. Especially now that a player is able to form a party out of their own Heroes, many would desire to have more than 3 Necromancers or more than two Mesmers (Me! Me! Me!).

While I see the mechanicts itself and the linked (one-time) fees reasonable, one characteristics of the new system is hard for me to accept. Namely, the "original" character who was used to create a Mercenary can not use it's own clone to prevent "Clone Wars". While I understand the reasoning behind the decision, the lose and complication involved is bigger than the immerion gain it provides.

Lets say I want to make my Mesmer character a Mercenary Hero because I like to run around with Mesmer Heroes and until now I could only use two.
With how the things are right now, every other char on my account can have 3 Mesmer Heroes except for my Mes herself.
Unless I make 2 Mesmer Mercenaries or use a phony character to create one in the first place...
Same for every other class that I'd find useful.

The problem of Clone Wars is, in my opinion, negligible - we already can have more than one same Hero in our parties (think of 1 Gwen and 5 Vanguard Mesmers in the Deep or in Urgoz) and players ale not really bothered with it - it's a price you pay to use the system. If it breaks your immersion and it's more important for a player to retain it, he will simply not take duplicates.
What's more, the name of a Mercenary Hero can be changed if the original is present much like default heroes' names are already, for example to "[Personality] [Profession]" ("Arrogant Mesmer", "Born Leader Paragon" etc) to further limit the problem.

Also, players can protect themselves from having exact clones if it bothers them - they can change their armor.

I simply find it hard to accept that if I want to be able to use a 3rd Me Hero on every of my characters, I can't register my Main, or I have to register two...

Legendary Defender of Ascalon title change

This is one I am undecided about at the moment.
The main change is that it is no longer required to employ use of an exploid (so-called Death Leveling) to achieve the title (to level a character to 20 in Pre-Searing Ascalon), making the achievement less grindy and - I think - faster and easier to achieve.
Also, a Legendary Defender of Ascalon doesn't have to leave the Pre-Searing anymore to immortalise their achievement (to put it to Hall of Monuments in preparation for Guild Wars 2), they can record it with a Historian in Ascalon.

While I find the second change simply put awesome (the fact that one had to leave Pre to get a monument ultimately ereased the whole effort of leveling a character to level 20 in a starter zone), the change of the title is more difficult to judge for me.

LDoA was always a special title, it did not come out from the developers, it was a reward for the ingenious players that devised a method to do something devs thought impossible. With lots of hard work involved. Thus, it was unique, not to say elite. Hence I see it as sad that this characteristics of the title was removed... I understand however that it made it unobtainable for many players and was widely requested to be changed... A pity the legacy of it will suffer, but ultimately it brings more life to the Pre-Searing community.

My only regret is that I did not finish my LDoA before the update (for boast-reasons ^^) - I am currently 3k short. With the new quests, I should be done in 3 days!

Assorted thoughts

This big update leaves me worried about the release date of Guild Wars 2 as it gives the current game new life, simply put. I can't help but think that all the features - a few years late in their nature - were brought in to artificially prolong the wait time (Survivor, LDoA and Drunkard titles being made obtainable for players who disregarded them for their problematic nature before, for example).
This, the halt of new GW2 features and remaining profession released to the public and the fact that year 2012 is the year of the Dragon in Chinese calendar (with GW2 focusing on mighty dragons' reawaking) in the light of so many epic releases GW2 would have to combat for players this year, I think 2012 is ultimately the best bet for release right now. Regretably.

You have acquired the Eagle-friend (Ember-eagle) skill.

2010-12-18T03:24:00.000-08:00

I've waited 3 years for this. Now he is mine.
Nostalgia of the old real good Shadows of Angmar days hits me.

v3b2: Who's creeping there in the shadows?

2010-11-11T11:37:00.000-08:00

I felt an urge to explore the other day while doing the amazing v3b2, and... I saw IT.
IT lasted only a few seconds before my eyes, I watched in amazement as HE crossed the tunnel and evaporated in a cloud of smoke on the other side, too puzzled to press PrntScrn in time... Gandalf? Here?!

I leave it up to you to find out where, and to guess why! Because he's not really supposed to be there. Or is he..?

I realised He was there all the time, Elladan mentions he he felt an presence watching over them as they went down the ramps and that it was ancient and intelligent.

You can supposedly catch a glimpse of him for the second time after you pull the leaver too.
Even though he was not named, I believe it's Gandalf - we don't really have too many characters "assuming" other character's appearance (and Amarthiel had to kill for that) and Turbine was always careful to make modles of main characters distinctive.
Gandalf himself could be out of Lothlorien by now, I am no LotR lore expert, but hobbits met him near Isengard and the time of the Battle of Hemls Deep wasn't far away. He could have very well had watched over the Dunadain as they crossed.

On the other hand, we know Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas mistook Saruman for Gandalf - not at the time of sighting, but when they realised Gandalf was actually around. The difference was a dented wizard hat... Gandalf's hat was always pointy in LotRO model, this person however has a dented hat...
Mystery deapens!

Credit for this screenshot goes to Grimmy.
Thank you Grim, it wouldn't be possible without you!
Guest Appearance post made by Grimdoin on Codemasters forum

Have the Valar heard my pleas?

2010-11-10T05:27:00.000-08:00

I was swearing I'll never go back to LotRO, especially not with F2P, but here I am again, enjoying Endewaith and pyromancing through stuff... but this part I'll elaborate somewhere else and later because...

OMG!!!11!11one!11!!11eleven!!!!!!!!!!
!BIND ON ACCOUNT!

Yes I know it's no big news for you out there keeping up with LotRO, but noone ever tells me anything. I only hope that devs will introduce BoA on more items, like... Skeleton Horse maybe?

Inapropriate

2010-08-27T03:05:00.000-07:00

Norgu is. Very.

Sign of playing too much...

2010-08-24T01:31:00.000-07:00

I was planning to go back to Guild Wars only to make some of the loose ends meet: getting myself a Legendary Defender of Ascalon on my my account, buying the last three Tormented weapons I am missing in my collection, maybe Party Animal title...
I never, EVER suspected I'd end up in any kind of PvP, but there I was, first time in Heroes Ascent with a group or Ride the Lightning Elementalists: I started Thursday with Zaishen quest and stayed throughout the weekend for the special fame bonus. In the end, I am 50 fame short of rank 6 in just four days!!! And I can't help regretting I started doing it so late... I will barely be able to get rank 8 to put it in Hall of Monuments, and I might not make it to 9 for the awesome tiger emote... snif...

Anyway, I've really played hard during this weekend: like in my old days of no-lifing.
Sunday saw gathering of storm clouds and a storm woke me up in the middle of the night with thunder and lightning. I rose my head and thought Those RTL's are still kicking it off!* and went back to sleep. It wasn't until the morning that I realized how much I really no-lifed for that to be my only tought at a site of a storm!

* RTL - short for Ride the Lightning elementalists

Blog merge

2010-07-30T03:58:00.000-07:00

I've decided to merge both my game blogs (Guild Wars and Lord of the Rings) into this one as it became too tedious to keep both updated and polished.

LDoA, the chain of failures

2010-07-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

My attempt at Legendary Defender of Ascalon is a chain of failures...
First, long time ago when I made the LDoA-to-be, I accepted my secondary profession, not to mention I missed out on War Preparations, Message from a Friend and Gwen's Flute.
So yesterday - with my character at 14 - I realized I missed out on quite a lot. Foolishly though, I was too impatient to count down on how a-lot exactly and I deleted the character... while it was only 1600 exp, 16 charrs! Doh... *facepalm*

So here I am, going for it AGAIN.
Wish me luck.

Edit: the full gravity of what I've done just got to me. WTF was I thinking? I must have Mad Cow or something...

Wicked Wave!

2010-07-20T13:00:00.001-07:00

After spending few weeks playing Bayonetta (such an awesome game, I am totally in love!) I took a bit of a break from torturing angels and brought my Lore-master to Mirkwood where she encountered Shards of Twilight.

My continuing thoughts were - and still are:

Wicked wave!

Please excuse the poor screen-shot of the Shard of Twilight, if I get anything better, I'll update it!

It was nice playing LotRO. Bye.

2010-06-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

Codemasters will make LotrO Free to Play with Premium Shop starting this Autumn.

For me, it's been nice playing LotRO but now it's time to go buy that xBox and wait for Guild Wars 2.

http://www.lotro-europe.com/freetoplay/info/

Protector Of Thangulhad

2010-05-15T02:29:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed the collection of dark poetry I came across here.
Very well written. A bit too harsh but good poetry is good poetry. That sorcerer is not getting it back..!

Forded Bruinen

2010-05-15T02:23:00.000-07:00

"If you want him, come and claim him!"
Actually, I profoundly dislike Arwen, especially in the movies (she stole my Glorfie's horse and sacked him out!), she is a flat, empty shell with no character, no characteristic apart from an extreme Luthien-wannabe... but meh.

Silirien will not let Glorfindel get hurt. Only please don't tell Rhyaewald she still cares.

Stood at Amon Sul

2010-05-15T02:15:00.000-07:00

Weathertop is on the other hand one of my favourite skirmishes.
Maybe its because the escort is - for once! - actually quite useful and skill-wise impressive? Maybe because of the general feel and pace of the fight?

Gondamon Siege Breaker

2010-05-15T02:09:00.000-07:00

Not much to say, really. One of my least favourite skirmishes, probably because the encounters gave me the most pain here. One specifically - I always seem to get the gate dwarves (including Agi Gatebreaker) and so far I've only seen the goblin once...
I have my own theory about randomization seeds being generated once per character and reused which would lead some characters with unequal, polarised seeds...
All it took for me to get the goblin was to pair up with a friend who - on the contrary - was getting him all the time. He lead and goblin showed up. Try this for some of the more elusive encounters!

Tuckborough Troublemaker

2010-05-15T01:54:00.002-07:00

If you live forever, you inevitably get bored and start doing really silly things: messing with poor little hobbits' minds, to name one.
Bad, bad elves.

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
No one ever said elves are nice.

Terry Pratchett

Stopper of Thievery and Mischief

2010-05-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've saved the red squirrels from the grey flood, I am that awesome.

PS. Please note the extremely rare to Middle Earth example of large, see-through glass windows.

Defender of the Priancing Pony

2010-05-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

I guess every male of the race of man or hobbit, or any dwarv regardless their sex dream of the title and of the day when they'll acheve it, or respectively cherish the memory of the day they did.
I am an elf, and a female thus I can't understand what the commotion is all about...

Lothlorien Goat

2010-05-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

I was very sceptic about the Wild Goat as a reward for becoming Saviour of Lothlorien - elves on goats? Over my dead body!
But apparently I am quite easyto convince with enough of aesthetic stimulation. Andthe goat's visual apperance is simply... amazing and totally elf worthy. And if I need to use a bloody goat, it's better be a pretty one and if it also matches my outfit, I am more than happy.
And it does! the goat is in great synergy with my all-time favourite Annuminas set.

In other words, I am in love yet again. And with a goat!!!

Rescuer of Nurz Gashu

2010-04-30T12:27:00.001-07:00

I love Titles, I collect them with passion.
Thus I hope I will be able to overcome my legendary laziness and create a series of posts showcasing at least some of them.

Rescuer of Nurz Gashu shall be the first of the series, if it ever comes to be.
I must say I do enjoy the skirmish (mosly). While quite dull and boring while solo, you get to look at in from a completely new perspective if in duo or bigger fellowship! Only `but` is the annoying dialogue at the end... do I really have to stand there for a minute every time listening to it, is that neccessary? Well, at least I get a decent chance of finally getting Kindred with Eldgang on my Rune-tard.

Anyway, beware: Silirien the Flame of the Rift! or something. Burning hot, as usual.

The Grey Flood

2010-04-30T12:12:00.001-07:00

One of those little, small LOLs scattered around the Middle Earth ;)
I actually screen-capped this one because when I managed to stop laughing I remembered - or tought I remember - that Tolkien strongly disliked grey squirrels and was personally upset about them pushing natural to British Islands red squirells out.
I was googling for anything that would back this statement hard but to no wain. Maybe I made it up? Wouldn't be the first time...

Fishing with the enemy

2010-04-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

This is something I wanted to do back in a times Silirien was still a wielder of bow and arrow - to join this little merry group of Angmarim in fishing amongst the ruins of Annuminas. Back in the days they would rudely chase me away, but now they seem friendlier somehow...

He is right behind me, isn't he?

2010-04-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Nazgul with their steeds are arguably the best thing there is about the whole Dol Guldur. I will disagree - Unwelcoming Matt is xD

The concept is by /roll100 who posted a screenie like that a few months ago. I must say I l.o.v.e.d it, so I arranged for a photo session for myself ;)

Sleepy Hollow

2010-03-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

In my Siege of Mirkwood first impressions written a few months ago I've mentioned how atmospheric the newarea is. Evey step you take it always feel like you were in a haunted forrest out of Tim Burton's imagination... and indeed, you are - in both!

Remember Sleepy Hollow? I had sooo many reasons to love that movie:

made by my favourite director (Burton, of course)
starring two of my favourite actors - Deep and Walken
also starring the unforgetable Claudia from Interview with a Vampire - Dunst
as every Buron movie being creepy, gothic, dark and absolutely enchanting..!

...and when you near the infamous Dol Guldur, you will more likely than not and defenetly lead by a cruel fate come acroll the Tree of Suffering overlooking what once was Greenwood the Great, dressed in skeletons and skull flags...

I do wonder why was the Tree of Suffering placed where it is. I can't recall any quest line evolving around it, and yet there it is, for a Burton fan like me a must-be token of admiration for his work! Is it?

The true story behind Legendary Items

2010-02-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

Silirien brushed away sweat from her forehead only to realize with utter disgust that her gloves were covered with slime as if she was walking in Dar Narbugud on her hands, scribing Words of Power with her feet.

Rhyaewald jumped over the carcass of the Mistress of Pestilence and proceeded towards the circle of throbbing eggs, crushing them one by one. Nameless creatures not fully formed yet fell to the floor in fountains of (ewww) slime to die under the Warden's boots, others were quick to help.

And then, instead of the usual *plop*, a much more desirable sound of *bling* reached their ears - in the faint light of a few fires (and a few pillars of flame - after all, Sil was a Rune-keeper) they saw the unmistakable shine of Gold. Dwarves, naturally, got an instant +3 modifier to Mood.

"So the Mistress was indeed female", someone commented, looking at a pile of golden leaves and some other shinies.

And then... she saw it... the unmistakable shape of a Rune-stone with the power of the Word simply radiating from it, calling her... As if in a trance, she approached the pile of loot and took it in her hands. Even through her slime-covered gloves she could feel warmth emanating from it and she knew before she even laid her eyes on the runes covering it that this stone has told many tales of Fire and that they were scorching to the core of the Earth. Its intricate beauty was unmistakeably elf-made, with delicate lines of ornaments following natural lines of existence.

This was the most amazing Rune-stone she had ever seen but nothing in her centuries of elven life had prepared her for the shock she was about to experience when she saw the signature of the maker...

...Fëanor...

A few months later, in Ost Galadh...
Legindir, Relic Master: *with clear panic in his voice* You want me to do what?
Silirien the Alluring, Rune-keeper: I want you to deconstruct these.
Legindir: But... but... they are works of immeasurable value, you surely are aware of that?! This Rune-stone... I would never believe it if I wasn't holding it in my hands. It was crafted by Fëanor for the love of the Valar! And these satchels here, Yavanna bless me, are the works of our beloved ladies Melian and Luthien..!
Silirien: Yes. but... I kinda don't need them anymore...

Legindir: *with tears in his eyes* ...and this Rune here, a work of Celebrimbor...
Silirien: A personal gift from the last era, a pretty trinket, but...
Legindir: Rune-keeper, have you any idea what you ask of me?!
Silirien: *a tad irritated* Yeah, I just did kinda... Destroy them! I need some settings to decorate this rune. A very nice aspiring hobbit tinker from Stock created it for me last week and his younger sister sewed this satchel here. Lovely, ain't it? It has the Bullroarer stitched on it! And next week I am planning to maybe make my own stone, I'm quite good with metals, you know, and I have those miserable trinkets from the fabled works of Celebrimbor that I can use to improve the overall design. I'm going to attach it to my stone and create a true avatar of pew pew!
Legindir: Silirien...
Silirien: What? I can't help it! Apparently the schooling work of this hobbit tinker from Stock holds more power than the creation of the legendary maker of the Silmarils. So destroy them, as I'm still asking nicely and not by making a barbecue out of you, and give me back some relics!

Legindir, crying, shatters the rune stone made by the hand of Fëanor and tears apart satchels stitched by Fey Queen Melian and her daughter, fabled Luthien Tinuviel in Nargothrond thousands of years before. The relics they hold and that he is able to extract he delivers with a shaking hand to Silirien the Alluring, proudly wielding her Rune-stone of the Third Age, made by Bobbie, a young tinker's apprentice from Stock.

Silirien: What the..? Copper settings..?
Legindir: *cries*
Silirien: Out of my three First-Agers and one Second-Ager? I was planning to update my Third-agers with the left-overs and all I get is this crap?!
Legindir: *races to the top of Minas Celebolf and leaps to his death*
Silirien: ...

Many thanks to Raedwulf for proof-reading and refining this little story!

Grenth and Dwayna costumes

2010-01-12T02:34:00.000-08:00

Being the great Guild Wars fan that I am, I got myself those fluff little costumes. Not because I particularly like them (tho I am impressed by the design) nor because I am a spoiled brat (as I've seen some players referring to costume wearers), but because I wanted to somehow support NCSoft while they are developing GW2.

There is something bending in human minds with the word FREE, and now in a good way. Regrettably, free is rarely of any decent quality or the price comes in at some point. After all, you get what you pay for. Guild Wars is awesome, but with the project being discontinued, what kind of support were we left with? Balance went to hell ages ago, broken skills became part of the game culture because noone bother to fix them, serious exploits are left unattended for weeks... No, GW doesn't have a good vibe with it for me anymore. And even in the times it shone, there's something it was lacking and of which I know now that I've played a subscription-based game - in-game support. A little thing that sometimes changes so much..!

But I am still looking forward to GW2 and this is why I bought the costume pack - to support it's developement.

Dwayna's costume rocked my socks off. I love the details, I adore the wing-like sleeves and the mesh of the dress! It does clip like hell when running, but when standing - it's marvelous!

Grenth... for the first time in known history I am not impressed with something grenth-like. But still, I like.

The Best Epic Chapter EVER

2010-01-12T02:24:00.001-08:00

This weekend I've finally forced myself to press on with the Mirkwood Epic Book - took me a while because I _hate_ soloing, and with the introduction of the Skirmishes chapters tend to be either solo (the joy...) or said Skirmishes which - regrettably - don't have duo-option...

Anyway - I got to chapter I-don't-remember, I guess it was 17th and I got literally blown away by the plot. It very much resembles the annoying little solo instance from Volume I where we get to see images from Narmeleth's past, but here... oh joy... here we see Gandalf investigating the shadow falling over Greenwood the Great..!

I was very, very much impressed with Turbine lore-monkey's grasp of lore and creativity. Everything felt like being in the right place, everything made sense and... oooh... just do the Chapter ;)

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T01:20:00.000-08:00

Snowfall in the most unexpected places prompts Tyrians to decorate their abodes to welcome Dwayna and Grenth in their yearly ~~war~~ visit!

And I must say that apart from one (major! but all in due time) f*ckup, this is my favorite year yet when it comes to headgear! Finally, gifts suitable for beautiful, proud lady that do not require Cherrie to attempt a drastic hair makeover!

Predacious, cold and yet gentle - Grenth rarely let me down when it comes to gifts (ECTO! <3).
But this year I think it's Dwayna who wins... Gentle, delicate, meticulous, ultimately feminine and an andunmistakable snow symbol, this is truly Snow Queen's crown.
Grenth's one - a crown for a king still!

When the ex-b is coming to town...

2009-12-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

...I guess we should catch up.
I'll be looking for a date opportunity extensively.

In Love (again)!

Siege of Mirkwood: First Impressions

2009-12-07T02:05:00.001-08:00

I must say that despite my pre-launch lack of optimism, I am overall very, very pleased. Finally, after a year spent in damp, sultry dungeons of Moria - I can now roam in the wilderness! What's more, in my natural habitat of gloomy, gothic-fairytale forest filled with haunted ruins, graveyards, towers of black sorcerers and roamed by the spirits of dusk xD I trully feel like in one of Tim Burton's movies and I am loving it.

Also, one more item has been added to my Residences to Buy Once I become a Dark Queen, aside of Barad Gularan: Dol Guldur!
I would be having a really hard time deciding which would become my Main Residence, if it was not for the whole awesomeness that is Mirkwood to accompany the latter. And the awesome Dark Gothic Castle Tower on the South edge of Dol Guldur. I am totally in love.

I've also enjoyed the storyline immensely. I laughed at how silly elves and dwarves are thinking any Servant of the Enemy would fairly trade one of his own kind for Freep prisoners in their custody... And when 6 Elves (including me) and a Dwarf show at their stronghold's gates. Stronghold! Of the Enemy! LOADS OF FORCES! 7 Freeps! Even just looking at the encounter, contra 3 Nazguls, one Master Sorcerer Black Numenorian, several elite Archers, at least 3 Trolls and others..!
I still LOL thinking about it ^^

My pessimism about Skirmishes also proved (mostly) void. They are fun and not that grindy (unless you want them to be). I must say I quite enjoy the stories behind them and their random encounters. It's hard for me to appreciate them in solo mode however - it's dull, slow and Soldier's AI is a horror, but let's face it: I don't enjoy any solo aspect in MMORPG and AI is always a weak side of any game, so this point is negable.
In a fellowship however, the whole experience is simple awesome. The difficulty lever I encountered so far is fair (maybe aside from the Grims - WHY GRIMS, Devs, WHY?), rewards are decent.

But it's not all roses, of course.
For starters, some quests are extremely annoying to do, like the one when you have to kill 5 Huorns on the swamp, while there are 4 hostile in total, respawning every few minutes... (I'm so glad me and Rhy rushed to keep ahead of the crowds!)
Or 3 quests - regular quest line, epic book one and repeatable daily of great importance, of which the last one requiring 25 mob drops - all require killing same mob type in same place. In other words, there's no danger from spiders there anymore, because there are no spiders to be seen anywhere near. Only extremely annoyed players, some of them behaving highly unethically...

New mount system is an extreme relief for my storage, but brings on some annoyance while usage. The [Dismount] button is no more, instead to dismount players need to right-click on mount vitals and select appropriate option. Or bind this mount to a skillbar and use the skill. First option is not handy, second option only works to dismount from a mount summoned by used skill.
Unfortunately, Developers regarded lore as bendable enough to squeeze Rune-keepers in, but were not flexible realistically thinking enough to let horses be trained to enter Moria. Which means that for ease of use of two mount types (because I shall not be seen on a goat unless it can't be helped!) I'd need to sacrifice yet another skillbar slot (which is impossible, because I am already lacking those) or switch mount skills whenever I enter/exit Moria (also impossible because I have better things to do). Can I has my [Dismount] button back please?

While new mount system was a relief for my storage, along with the awesome Shared Storage feature, any gains due to those two were basically negated with the amount of Barter Items that came with SoM (and before). Skirmishes are especially to blame in here with the huge amount of (rarely dropping) Marks/Exclusive Campain Drops. At least Skirmish Points seem to stack indefenetly... but the rest is still a pain. Add 3-4 stacks of Bronze Feathers/Silver Branches, some Gold Leaves/Stars, Lothlorien Medalions and hell, I need to keep everything on my mules because my Storage is more full that it was before the Landing!

Oh, and about the annoyance that is Landing deeds... I really, really hope Turbine/Codemasters will do something about "Mirkwood Landing" deed that is (or was) uncompletable due to one of the quest chains being "disabled due to performance reasons" (or something along these lines). At least it doesn't grant a title or I would cry like a baby hobbit, but it's extremely annoying to come across a deed like that that can't be completed later on. I don't want this incapacitated deed in my Log! Complete it for me or delete it, but I don't want it there!

Returning to Barter Items for a bit, I absolutely love the fact that now everyone in the Raid gets a little reward from each and every boss chest. Unfortunately, while this distribution worked in 3/6 man instances, it fails in a full raid due to the chest loot mechanism. Only one person can be looking into the chest at any given time, which means that the whole raid needs to queue up for their reward. Barely noticeable with 3 people, hardly annoying with 6, extremely irritation with 12. How about putting those on boss' body so everyone can pick them at the same time?

And about raids - yes, the radiance gating is regrettably still there and doesn't seem to be going away. I wish I knew a way to force some sense into Turbine Devs, unfortunately I don't, nor most of the community seems to have any influence over this. Argh.

Now to get my Gothic Loremaster out into the Gothic Woods xD

I will add some screenshots to illustrate this post later. I couldn't hold it up any longer after writing it for two days!

Dangerous Woods

2009-12-02T08:06:00.000-08:00

Another one that waited for months before I finally forced myself to blog about it - and only succeeded because in two days it would make no sense whatsoever...

...the horrifying woods of Mirkwood. Do not enter alone, actually - do not enter at all. Stay on the other side of the river, in the Fairy Land.
I managed to sneak a peek a few weeks ago, but it was a scary - and gray - experience. I hope those guys will go attend Dol Guldur dance courses or Tea Parties before Thursday!

The Birds

2009-12-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

Suspense and shock beyond anything you have seen or imagined!

It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made!

The Birds is coming!

Heh, that's exactly what I was thinking when me and my faithful bodyguard had this encounter in Eregion's forgotten Libraries. Pure Hitchcock!

Trolls and other d*cks

2009-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

Guild Wars on the hold again. If I wanted to play a solo game, I'd play one. If I'd want to play an Assasin, I'd make one my main. And I really don't want to get near - even virtually near - some serious d*cks.

Anyway, lets get back to trolls.
I simply love some of those easter eggs left by devs here and there. Bridge troll... patrolling on a bridge.... and next to him, his chest of goodies... LOL.

Our Mrs. Reynolds

2009-11-17T02:32:00.000-08:00

I am like months overdue with my posts in here...
This one, for example, should have been made... 6 months ago, during the Summer Festival. Oh well, hate me - better late than never, I guess.

Any Firefly fans out here? No? Shame on you! One of the best, most ingenious SF series tehre ever were (and a proof that true value doesn't equal popularity and/or commercial success, unfortunately).
Apparently though, at least one Turbine Dev is a Firefly fan and has provided us with Saffron's Lipstick during the Festival. A cheap fan imitation though, I am afraid, because it doesn't knock people unconscious...

If you did not understand the joke, go get Firefly TV series NOW! You will not regret it, I promise!
Unless you get yourself a cinematic that is, wasn't very good at all...

Being pessimistic...

2009-11-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

...about Siege of Mirkwood. A lot.
I've been looking at it's development _closely_ and from a privliged point of view for a few months now and... well, as the title says.

I'm extremely disappointed in the fact that Dev's refused to acknowledge feedback about raid gating and the tool they decided to gate them with (radiance) itself.

I'm also really fed up with the fact that the new update (I refuse to call it an expansion) seems to depend solely on Skirmishes. New skills (at least new Hunter port skills)? Farm Skirmishes for barter items.
Legendary items? Same.
Cosmetics? Same.
Lvl 50 class quest items? Same.
No believe? Check the Bullroarer screens of Skirmishes rewards that are all over the forums. Or read latest WarCry DevChat transcript.
Skirmishes Deeds? Enormous grindfest. Remember Council of the North battles? How many of you done it dozen of times? And Battle of Lorien? How many of you are "of Victory"...? Let me bet, it was boring to do it over and over... Well guess what, that's 80% of what's coming with Siege of Mirkwood, just worse. Mind dumbling, neverending grind of same stuff.

Sure, it's extremely fun when you do it for the first time. It's entertaining when you do it the second time. Than you start wishing you were at work.

Wake the fuck up, Turbine.
The only reason I'm still playing your annoying game that breaks almost every rule of the "Commandments to be a good game" is because I enjoy playing with my boyfriend. I just can't wait 'till I can lure him out to play something DECENT.

Halloween 2009

2009-10-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

Peek-a-Boo!

Kamadan Halloween '09 mask is, I guess, one of the best so far. LA's not even worth mentioning, at least not now.

Happy Halloween!
Don't forget to do UW quests, they're fun, different, new and rewarding!

PS. Only after I decided to prepare the SS for posting I realized I didn't have AA on. Darnn.

There's a paragraph for this

2009-10-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

Concerning the Codemasters SoM "promotion".
Not only we are not getting any offer comparable to the one US gets.
Their offer is: if player has any multi-month plan by October 31, his accounts gets upgraded with Siege of Mirkwood FREE, while the regular price is 19.99$; not available to Lifetimers tho.
Lifetimers get SoM for free if they buy Adventurer’s Pack.
In other words, if you're a Lifetimer of have any multi-month plan, you pay just 19,99$

Now, offers for Europeans don't include this promotion at all. We always have to buy both.
That's sad, as we always seem to pay more for less, but that's not the funniest part. Math is.

Standalone expansion costs £14.99/€19.99
Adventurer's pack goes for £4.99/€6.99

Special edition however - expansion plus pack - was priced as £19.99/€27.99, while the only difference between it and buying the two products separately is a new, unique mount (another goat)

£14.99+£4.99=£19.98 (notice the extra penny missing)
€19.99+€6.99=€26.98 (notice the extra ONE EURO and a cent missing)

Neither of the offers makes the darnn goat FREE, as advertised on Codemaster's site.
But while I can live with one penny (still unethical), everyone paying in Euros falls a victim to unethical, misleading commercial practices because they do, in fact, pay for the FREE goat the ammount of 1.01€

There's a paragraph for that.

DIRECTIVE 2005/29/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 11 May 2005
concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council
(‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’)
(Text with EEA relevance)

COMMERCIAL PRACTICES WHICH ARE IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES CONSIDERED UNFAIR
Misleading commercial practices
18. Passing on materially inaccurate information on market conditions or on the possibility of finding the product with
the intention of inducing the consumer to acquire the product at conditions less favourable than normal market
conditions.
20. Describing a product as ‘gratis’, ‘free’, ‘without charge’ or similar if the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of responding to the commercial practice and collecting or paying for delivery of the item.

When dreams come true

2009-10-07T02:53:00.000-07:00

Finally!
When I first saw Nian back in 2007, I fell in love. While still playing Guild Wars, I always dreamed that one day, a Miniature Nian will be introduced for me to be able to carry it around with me all the time.
I must say I am wondering if some Dev was peeking on my blog and decided to grant my wish? Because there it was - 3rd birthday purple miniature!
If that is so, thank you!

(That's how my baby looks when he's pissed off)

I only have one problem with my Nian (whom I think I'll be calling Shiro) - he doesn't match any of my regular outfits :(

To Do List before I leave

2009-10-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

finish all non-repetable quests with my Mes
buy FoW gloves so i can finally have a full FoW
get more Tormented Weapons; actually, all 11 meaning that I need 6 5 more
get a Moss Spider in my Menagerie
get all animals in the Menagerie to lvl 20
achieve Legendary Defender of Ascalon
~~buy myself this mini Nian I'm dreaming of for years now~~
get all my characters to 20
get Asuran andpart of Deldrimor armor on my Rit
get Monument armor on my Assa
get Silver Eagle armor on my Warrior

That's quite a lot actually. But shouldn't take that long.
Pity i will have to do it all by myself, but that's how life goes, I guess.

The New

2009-09-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

There's no better (although not always persistent...) cure for the pain than spending some money. It always works, at least temporary. So, I decided to finally do what I was planing to do for years, change Cherrie's name.

I was in much of a hurry creating my very first character in GW and I had no idea whatsoever how to name her.

I didn't get a feel of the community yet, I had no idea how totally awesome one can name their avatars. I liked 'Cherrie' back than, I found it a cute world play between 'Cheryl', 'Cherry' and 'Cherie'. And Rimbaud's book of poetry was just lying there on my desk.

I haven't come up with a good name for Cher 'till much later. Wasn't big of a fuzz so when I learned I can't rename her (seriously A-Net, what took you so long?! And for 13E, you reaping bastards?!) I just stuck with it.

But yesterday I decided that a tiny bitsy bit of spending might actually make me feel a little better, I'm a girl after all. So please wave goodbye to Cherrie!

...and give a warm welcome to the newly named Princess of Mesmers

I kinda regred that my PreS Mesmer got to be named Perilous Liaisons, but I am way too lazy to remake her and I'm not sad much enough to buy name swaps. And Parlous is even more cryptic, making more people reach for dictionaries, which suits me. Much!

Pulchritudinous Flight

2009-09-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

Happiness is purple and sparkles and flickers.

I must admit I totally don't understand the amount of negativity GW community shows towards this promotion. So if you buy Aion now when the game launches, you will get a bonus in form of GW emote, a sparkly fluff. If you like it but don't plan to play Aion, it's not like NCSoft makes you buy the game - ask around, there surely be someone among your friends who doesn't plan on using the key. If you don't like it, than don't bother and give they key to someone else that does like it.
Because seriously, all those angry comments make me think of their authors as of people who'd love to have those wings, but can't spare money on Aion and can't think of another way to get the serial key.

Well, people, those wings were ment as gifts for players that supported NC Soft through both Guild Wars and Aion. It's that simple.

Did this promotion make me buy Aion?
No, I bought it way back in June because I was planning to play this game. Things changed since than and I'm ending up with a $80 worth of CE I'm not even gonna touch, but my mind was seriously made up.

Would this promotion make me buy Aion if I was undecided?
It would probably count as an argument, but it would depend on contr-argument.
Defenetly not at the moment, I'm a bit disgusted with Areteia farm-fest and the fail that is a head-start with 7h of login cue and so on and so forth. Will probably play a bit when and if it is possible to actually log in until my free month ends because the game looks simply a.m.a.z.i.n.g, but I don't see myself paying monthly fee for it.

Would this promotion make me buy Aion if I didn't want to play?
No. I would look for other ways of getting the bonus key, I have plenty of friends who plan to play Aion and never played Guild Wars or don't care about the emote.
If I wouldn't be able to obtain it from anyone I know, I would consider buying Aion CE in box, using up the bonus key, and selling off the CE in a year or more, depending on how the prices would look like.

Some more God(dess) rubbed in...

2009-09-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

...because I like it, because I'm (kinda) proud, and because my gl asked me to snap something that would fit into the Pantheon on our guild website. He wanted one with my class' God in the background, but unfortunately there's not a single statue of Lyss in any place that looks good. Apart from pre-, but my Goddess can't go back there. So I came up with something else...

I've also decided to catch my fully litten up Hall of Monuments

During the session, my Nix insisted on joining

I must say I'm a bit puzzled as to what to do now as I don't really feel attached to any of my alts.
Thoughts of Guild Wars 2 make me consider filling up the Hall, but this would require a considerate amount of farming. I'm also not thrilled with the tough that I can only put one item of a kind in my Monument of Valor (at least for one character) - o I spend all my remaining savings to get 6 more Torments, and then assign them to Cher? Or split them among my alts (I will never play [much] anyway)? What about armors? Do I buy all elite armors thinking of benefits in GW2?
Blegh.

Aion WIN[gs]!

2009-09-17T02:10:00.000-07:00

Subject
/aion command in Guild Wars

Discussion Thread
Response (John)09/16/2009 06:38 PM
Hi Cherrie,

Thank you for contacting us regarding the Guild Wars Aion Wings emote. While the exclusive emote was intended to be a promotion for retail packages, there has been plenty of feedback from customers such as yourself who prepurchased the game online. Because of this, we will be providing you with a Guild Wars Aion Wings Emote Access Key for your Guild Wars game account.

We will be providing you with your access key once this feature becomes live in-game. You will receive an update to this ticket with your key as we approach game launch.

Thank you,
John
NCsoft Account Support

Obviously, I'm extremely ^-^.

The new God(dess)

2009-09-13T04:03:00.000-07:00

And so, my ascension is finally complete. After nearly two years of being inactive, I've decided to finally catch those loose ends and finish what was started.

I tough it will make me more proud...
Maybe it's the fact that it took the one title is deeply despite to do so?
Drunkard and Indomitable Ale Hound are just... disgraceful... It makes me feel ashamed that I had to go through it to "complete" my girl...

Now aall I need is a Nian, and a name change

...and /aion emote..! If i don't manage to get one, I'll become DEEPLY depressed.

There can be only one Mistress...

2009-09-09T04:47:00.000-07:00

...every usurper gets eliminated!

In other words, I've finally got to see the Mistress of Pestilence in person, and show her who really deserves the title (who is naturally not her; or was, rather).

She looks like a big, fat worm with arms; and a pair of very overgrown ones.
I don't overall like her design much... the only interesting parts are the green cysts looking like ornaments or even jewels on her overgrown body, but that's about it. There are regular mobs with more interesting design than her :/

But oh well. My get-them-all personality finally got fulfilled as I completer Surpressor of Pestilence. Somehow, I like collecting titles.

Notes: the picture is not made by me, unfortunately. I had insane graphics lag on the poison clouds phase - every time it would pop, I'd get something of 0 fps... I lowered my settings as much as I could to gain nothing... and I didn't feel like making a ss of single-colored blobs...
I'll try to correct that by stealing some SS from my bf.

The Mistress, Chapter III: The Betrayals

2009-09-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Hence somewhere between T.A. 2050 and T.A. 2900 Amarthiel regains her position as Champion of Angmar, now assigned to Mordrith, Regent of Angmar in the absence of the Witch King. For a long time, her position is stable – a champion, Angmar’s servant, Mordrith’s fetch-n-bring girl. Even deprived of Narchuil, her power is remarkable and she is able to use some magic when she assumes the form of Sara Oakheart (and later of other people she killed). There is a lot of desire for power in her, probably fueled by the fact that while she was captured by Laerdan, someone else took her place. Mordrith. We know she at least desired to overthrow him as she reveals in words You’ve done me a great favor in Carn Dum when players, led by Golodir, strike The False King down. She was actually on her way to his throne room, most certainly to steal the palantir in his possession, but who knows if not for something else as well? Not that Amarthiel doesn’t let her true feelings show before: while The False King resides in Carn Dum, she dwells in Barad Gúlaran, the tower of the Witch-King, true lord of Angmar. But before that happens, she’s a servant with some side projects, a leader her followers obey blindly. We know she is the one who orchestrates the summoning of Udunion, a Rogmul called forth in Barad Gúlaran: when she tricks heroes into meeting her in her tower, she approaches the Castellan saying that she brought two relics that will help calling the devil; one can only guess that she retrieved them from Garth Agarven (either Staff of Dark Shadows of Scroll of Ruin) and Fornost (probably the Horn of Arnor, lore-wise it would fit), with the help of the players…

After Mordrith is stricken down, Amarthiel takes his place as Regent of Angmar, with the blessing (and warning) of Sauron. She also sets out to reclaim her lost ring, Narchuil. She and Elrond race against each other, a race which Elrond wins and both halves are delivered securely to Rivendell. However they don’t stay there in relative safety but are reclaimed by Narmeleth’s father, Laerdan, who – while being captured by her forces – was bewitchered by her and led to believe that his daughter can only be freed from the shadow of Sauron and from the control of Amarthiel with the power of her lost ring reforged. And thus, Laerdan brings the pieces of Narchuil to Mirobel. With no more use for him, Amarthiel leaves him to die at the enterance of the forges, and herself restores Narchuil.
But she does not enjoy her regained power for long, for Mordrith enters the scene again, arriving to Mirobel on a Wyvern to reveal that Amarthiel has lost the favor of Sauron because her ambitions were reaching too far. Mordrith throws her down and offers Mordrambor, a Black Numenorian who players have encountered numerous times before and who was a traitorous servant of Champion of Angmar, a reward for his service – the ring Narchuil; Mordrambor cuts of Amarthiel’s hand and takes his reward of her finger, but before strikes her dead, Laerdan arrives and instead she is left alive, in misery, seeing her father die.
Elrod imprisons Amarthiel, who now claims to be her fair self again in Delossad. After Glorfindel, on his request, tests her heart and judges her intentions to be true. He also foresees that only her hand can strike Mordrith down. And again, he is right – with the help of the heroes of Eriador, against whom she before – as Amarthiel – have fought, and whom she used in her dark plots, she sets off against Mordrith. She reveals a secret passage to Mordrith’s chambers (something she might have found out as Amarthiel, while already plotting against him) and she deals him a killing blow with the very same sword Golodir has wounded The False King before.
And there, in Angmar, her story ends. Was that deed enough to redeem her for all the evil she has done..?

Radiance system working a bit different that asumed by most

2009-08-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

Credit for this discovery goes to my guildie Tarinas who decided to check what rest of us assumed without proof about the radiance (former hope) system.

As it is true that the system rounds hope down to multitudes of 10, it is also true that dread is part of the same system and it is also rounded down, so contrary to popular belief, it's actually worth it to get all 3 parts of the Tier 1.5 gear.

Proof - also taken by Tarinas in Vile Maw (I think):

The Mistress, Chapter II: The Champion of Angmar

2009-07-31T02:13:00.000-07:00

The next circa 3500 years*** in the story of Narmeleth are very vague. We know that Sauron broke her mind and we can suspect that the ring of power she forged for herself (either while still in Eregion, or after she left, which is either way irrelevant) , as linked to the One Ring, could have played a role in that (like the Nine Rings broke the Nine Kings until they became the Nazgul). When her spirit was broken and she herself became corrupted, Sauron named her Amarthiel. I would suspect that she was tied with the other Servants of the Rings and that she was present when the Witch-King founded Angmar at circa T.A. 1300. As her ring Narchuil was of a lesser power than the nine given to the kings of men, she was less powerful that the Nazgul were, but still she bore a great power which gained her the name Champion of Angmar. She was eager to fight even as Narmeleth (And father says I am not ready to fight in the wars. See how they fall before me!, as she comments to her elf friend in her session play), and so she probably did in the wars wrought by the Witch-King on the bidding of Sauron, until the Battle of Fornost, where the armies of Angmar were driven forth and Amarthiel, the Champion of Angmar, struck down.

Here comes the twist (kinda): at first we are led by Laerdan to believe that Narmeleth and Amarthiel are not the same person and that his daughter’s hand bore the sword that struck Amarthiel down, but Champion of Angmar’s malicious spirit was so powerful that it possessed his daughter. The first part of the story – the one I described above – player only learns much later. But as they are one – as Narmeleth herself claims and we know she does not lie because Glorfindel admits that he senses no lies in her words – Laerdan’s first version of the story can not be true.
What exactly happened is never revealed, we only know that Amarthiel was defeated and Laerdan took her captive with her ring. Maybe when Amarthiel catched a glimpse of her father in the heat of the battle it gave the spirit of Narmeleth strength to break from the spell temporary and surrender herself to him? This would mean that the first version of the story players get to know still holds a piece of truth – it would be Narmeleth that bested Amarthiel. This would also explain why Laerdan fell so easily for her decoy, when Champion of Angmar assumed the apperance of Narmeleth claiming that she managed to take over her evil spirit just for time long enough to tell him that if he gets Narchuil back to her, she could set free of it forever... After all, Laerdan would have seen her doing it before.

Whatever happened during the battle, only the outcome was certain. The army of the Witch King was driven forth in the pyrrhus victory of North in the Battle of Fornost and Laerdan captured Narmeleth barely recovered from under the control of Amarthiel as well as her ring Narchuil. Laerdan attempted to destroy it to set his daughter free from the shadows, but as the task was beyond him and he only managed to break it in two, he decided to secure the pieces in the best way he could. One f the fragments he gave to his friend, a warrior in King Earnur’s forces who will, after Earnur’s dissaperrance, serve his son Arvedui and perish with him in Forochel. The other half he kept himself.

Believing that Elrond would sentence his daughter to death and certain that only his love and care and her seclusion can recover his daughter from under the control of Sauron, Laerdan hid Narmeleth away in desolate area of Trollshaws. There, he locked her up in Sithad - now known as Delossad - assigning a long line of riverfolk (my guess, judging from Sara Oakheart’s appearance and from the fact that riverfolk – like hobbits – are resistant to corruption) as her guardians. He also hides his half of Narchuil there. Meanwhile Narmeleth shows little signs of recovery, often struggling between Amarthiel and her noble self and complaining that she doesn’t remember anything good and pure from the time before Sauron broke her mind – that she doesn’t remember flowers, only blood. This continue for a while, until one day, at the absence of Laerdan, Mordrith, a regent of Witch King, appears in Delossad and sets the Champion of Angmar free, allowing Amarthiel to take control of Narmeleth again. Out of malice, she kills her last guardian, docile Sara Oakheart and burns her cottage down.

The timeline for this event for not entirely clear – it had to happen between T.A. 2050 (this is when Eärnur, son of King Eärnil of Gondor shamed at Fornost accepts Witch-Kings challenge to duel and, as game-lore tells us, is captured, his spirit broken and he himself becomes Mordrith) and T.A. 3001 (when Frodo becomes the Ring-bearer). Actually at least a century before that, because the fisherman family in Trollshaws states that the remains of Sara Oakheart’s house were a ruin for as long as anyone can remember.

*** Rings were forged around S.A. 1900. Second Age Ended 3441, Battle of Fornost took place in T.A. 1974

The Mistress, Chapter I: Smith of too great skill

2009-07-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

It’s hard for me even to start writing about Amarthiel because I feel that my word-smith skills are not sufficient to address a subject so complicated and so important for me. This piece lore, even though coming completely from Turbine, not only seems to fit perfectly into the puzzle of lore left by Tolkien, but also – at least in my humble opinion – is worthy of other works of the Master.

I also must admit that I got mesmerized by Amarthiel – I have a soft spot for villains in general and it grows even softer for beautiful, strong femme fatale. And the Lady in Red – well, she hit right into the bull’s eye… I can remember exactly the first time she sent a little shiver down my spine, long ago when my Silirien was still wielding a bow and when she first reached Fornost – and I didn’t even got to know her name back then, nor if she was anyone important. A shade of a traitorous warrior from the time of the Battle of Fornost mentioned a Champion of Angmar for whom he betrayed, using a she as a reference. I picked that line immediately, because the lore of Middle Earth is characterized by a strange absence of female characters.

The story evolved slowly, first as a background-lore of side quests and later taking over the main stream of epic books by storm. I also well remember the confusion once it turned out that both currents of the story seemed to differ from each other. But as I began to give the story more and more thought, I began to think that even if this difference was due to a mistake Turbine storywriters made, it didn’t compromise the tale, but in fact it gave it more depth. But I shall keep those remarks for later. I gave in into by boyfriend's plea to publish the story in chapters; maybe this will motivate me to elaborate a bit more on the story covered by epic books - I didn't see much need in going into details of something everyone can dig up easily and at first I simply concentrated on the facts hidden between the lines.
I'm also holding back an awesome character design made by Gorrem, it will make the last chapter.

The tale of Amarthiel begins in Eregion of the Second Age, where a Noldor* maiden by the Name of Narmeleth, daughter of Laerdan lived in Mirobel**. She was a Forge-Maiden (as Glorfindel refers to her when he tests her heart few thousand years later), a Smith of too great skill by the words of her father who, like many artisans of Eregion, fell under the spell of Sauron.
For somewhere in the around year 1900 of the Second Age, after recovering from the loss of his Master, Sauron initiated a scheme that he hoped would enable him to subjugate the Elves to his power. Assuming a beautiful appearance and calling himself Annatar "Lord of Gifts" (Antheron “Gift-lord” in game) Sauron befriended the Elven-smiths of Eregion, led by Celebrimbor, and counselled them in arts and magic. Some of the Elves distrusted him, especially the Lady Galadriel and Gil-galad, the High King of the Noldor. The Elves in Eregion, however, did not heed their warnings.
Among them was Narmeleth, who – as I dare to say, even though no direct hints to this have been given in the game lore – fell for him not only like an apprentice falls for the Master and his knowledge as he promised to show her how to make things not even the mind of Fëanor has imagined, but also like a woman falling for a man. How else would one break a woman’s spirit so completely, if not through love? Was there any other reason for Tolkien’s heroines to disobey their fathers to such extent, if not love? But in the end, the reasons are of lesser importance here. In her session play, we see Narmeleth sneaking out into the woods to meet Sauron, disobeying her father who already forbade her to speak with the Gift-lord – still in his beautiful appearance – secretly, but followed by Laerdan. After a confrontation, Narmeleth decides to leave with Sauron against her father’s wishes, and Laerdan doesn’t stop her. As I believe, they then set out for the Mount Doom in Mordor, because once Sauron left Eregion to forge The One Ring, he never returned: as soon as he wore the Ring, the Elves became aware of his true intent. While they are leaving, Sauron promises her that They shall begin her learning immediately - how bitter this sentence sounds! Narmeleth herself confesses in Book 15 Sauron took me away... and broke my mind…

* Not only were the elves of Eregion of the Noldor lineage, but also Narmeleth herself in her session play comments 'Dost thou see? No uruk can withstand the might of the Noldor!'
** Also in Narmeleth session play Laerdan urges her ‘Come, Narmeleth. We are returning to Mirobel at once!’

Lord of Gifts UPDATED!

2009-07-20T02:20:00.000-07:00

Men he found the easiest to sway of all the peoples of the Earth; but long he sought to persuade the Elves to his service, for he knew that the Firstborn had the greater power; and he went far and wide among them, and his hue was still that of one both fair and wise. Only to Lindon he did not come, for Gil-galad and Elrond doubted him and his fair-seeming, and though they knew not who in truth he was they would not admit him to that land. But elsewhere the Elves received him gladly, and few among them hearkened to the messengers from Lindon bidding them beware; for Sauron took to himself the name of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and they had at first much profit from his friendship. (...)

It was in Eregion that the counsels of Sauron were most gladly received, for in that land the Noldor desired ever to increase the skill and subtlety of their works. (...)

J.R.R. Tolkien The Silmarillion

I have such a soft spot for villains *.*" Probably because they are usually way more interesting than the plain old borring good-guys... So yes, I totally understand how could Narmeleth fall for him, I would probably fall for him too...

I also find his outfit very interesting... those red adorns looks like blood flowing over him and certainly do make him look like a predator.

Some of you might wonder why is he not named Annatar in game - my guess would be it is due to the fact that Turbine doesn't own rights to Silmarillion, but they somehow wanted to point LotR fans towards the right track in Narmeleth's history.

Edit: A visit to the Forges of Mirobel payed off in us discovering this painting of the Gift-lord. One of the more remarkable pieces found in LotRO, if I may say so myself - the details are astounding. I love how the typical red-leafed trees of Mirobel look like flames behind Sauron... We can see (at least I believe so) the three rings of the Elves, but also - I guess - the One Ring already. But the elves were not aware of Sauron's intentions before One Ring was created...

I guess the writing on the wall paint would shed some more light on why and when it was created. I can't really decipher it well, I think the first word means something along the lines of "the one who creates and spreads jewels" or simpler "the creator and giver of jewels" and middle word "elf-friend" or "everyone's friend", but I'm not sure, neither I'm any sure of the last word which I translated as "story-teller". But if my very sturdy knowledge of elvish (and to think that I'm an elf!) are any good, this should indicate (the middle-word at least) that it was created before Sauron forged The One. And thus The One should not really be there on this wall ;)

And of course it's worth-wile to notice the dread - even if you don't know who he was, a mere reference to him gives you more dread than any elf-stone can cure!

A pot lid that had An Adventure

2009-07-17T07:34:00.001-07:00

How this shield (or rather lid?) made it's way all overfrom the Shire and through Fornost not only to the Rift, but to the very Balrog's chest?

Concerning the Shire, Gandalf said to the dwarves at the very beginning of The Hobbit: Swords in these parts are mostly blunt, and axes are used for trees, and shields as cradles or dish-covers (...).

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Angarim Nomad by Jeff Murchie

2009-07-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

I used to regard Angarim girls as the prettiest in game - before Amarthiel/Narmeleth, there was nothing that could compare with them; defenetly not the poor version of Arwen standing somewhere in Rivendell - at least they've done the poor soul a favor and they keep her somewhere out of sight... Angarim girls however have genuinely beautiful faces and very feminine outfits (how I envied them their dresses!). The design came from Jeff Murchie; he posted it on his blog over 2 years ago. It's fun to see (yet again!) how art department carefully reproduces the basic design into the actual game skin; the funniest part is the chain hanging at Nomad's belt - originally, it was purposeful and was meant as a handle for sword cover, but as NPCs in game simply hold their weapons in their hand or they magically dissapear, it became purely ornamental. Noone bothered to alter it in any way though, so it still looks like a sword-cover chain hanging there and waiting for the weapon... :)

Jeff Murchie's post with the design can be found here.

The Palantir of Fornost

2009-07-13T04:18:00.000-07:00

Silirien and Rhyaewald payed a visit to Fornost recently. A pair of tourists lost in a big, unwelcoming city... I must say it was really fun, especially because I love exploring so much.

When we got inside the main tower, I got startled by an unusual view: in a spacious room, a large group of evil spirits was standing in circle, watching a construction in the center without a word.
The construction was in fact a pedestal, one I've seen in Middle-Earth several times before: in Annuminas, in Carn Dum... Palantir! But the pedestal was empty, ghosts were peering into nothingness.

I asked Rhy Did there used to be a Palantir in Fornost? He answered that yes, Arvedui brought the stone from Annuminas to Fornost when he fled the White City. I wanted to make a picture of the council of ghosts watching the pedestal, the sight was truly amazing, but before I had chance to do so, a patrol of spirits noticed us and as all ghosts in the room attacked us ferociously. The battle was long and hard, even for the pair of us, so experienced, because of the sheer number of enemies, but in the end we prevailed. Only than I got a chance to make a screenshot.

I do hope we will go there some day again so I can make the picture I really wanted!

But that experience got me thinking, and researching.
According to some internet Encyclopedia of Arda (I didn't have time to browse through books yet), two seeing stones 'took refuge' in Fornost. Long before this city fell (some 3000 years), the stone from Amon Sul (Weathertop) - one of greater power than the stone of Annuminas' Kings, in fact - was rescued and brought there. Than, Arvedui brought the Evendim stone when he run. He allegedly took both of them with him to Forochel, where they were lost.

Calming the Turtle

2009-06-18T02:03:00.000-07:00

Some more random thoughts that hit me recently concerning the upcoming changes to Filikul instance, namely the Nornuan becoming immune to Burglar's Enrage.

To those now familiar with the subject, Filikul is an instance with just one encounter, which is basically a DPS race against time: as you are fighting the giant turtle, a DoT builds up on all members of the raid that deals increasing amounts of (HUGE!) damage. To make matters worse, turtle is quite a flesh-hungry beast and he will snap on your tank's flesh, applying another building-up DoT; the two together are so huge that there is no way for any Healer to outheal them, and to keep everyone else alive.

Burglar's Enrage skill is, on the other hand, a completely legitimate way to make a monster... well... enraged, randomly switching between characters in sight, much like those annoying Grims . I'm putting an emphasis on 'completely legitimate' because that's exactly how devs designed this skill years (two years almost?) ago.

As you can imagine, the skill works almost perfectly in Filikul, as Turtle rarely stays on one character long enough to apply more than one lvl on DoT. It does also have it's drawback, Tier I DoTs apply quite commonly on all players, also those squishies that are not made to take it.

My point here is, I completely don't understand why Devs are determined to grant Nornuan this immunity. That's how they designed the skill and that's how designed the encounter (a very very poor encounter imho, too) - blocking one skill because it's too good? It just seems.. lame... and silly. Totally lazy, totally the easiest way. What's next? In-combat rez works too well in raids, let's disable it? Forced taunts work too well for tanks, let's disable them too?

Seriously...
If you don't like the way the elements you've put into the game first interact - without any exploit on player's part! - change your design, and not use an exploit yourself, because it's your fault in first place that you have came up with a design that doesn't match those elements. In short, you screwed up and if you acknowledge it by trying to fix it, do it properly or don't do it at all.

Actually, same goes to Shield Wall. Please be more aware of your own game's mechanics in future...

Why do they never listen

2009-06-16T00:59:00.000-07:00

A little digression from my usual virtual Middle-Earth posts: I was reading The Children of Hurin and i couldn't help but wonder... why do they never listen?

I mean, there is Melian, a Maya gifted with foresight, and a true one as well. Everyone knows that: people from the Hurin's House, because they've always been close to Elves of Doriath, and especially elves of Doriath to whom Melian is a queen.

But hell, no! Everyone always knows better than her. She tells Turin not to leave the Girdle or his course will catch up with him... he does. She urges Morwen to hide from Morgoth into the Girdle, she refuses. Than she asks not to leave the Girdle as it would be Morgoth's design (actually, she confirms Morwen's words that it is Morgoth's design), she still does.

And so on, and so forth.

But those are all stupid mortals, and there is still Beleg, high among the elves of Doriath, Melian's subject who, after all those hundrets of years, should be aware of her powers. And still, she tells Beleg, don't take that sword or it will be your doom, but he literally answers 'I'll take it anyway'!

If I was her, I'd throw a fiery hissy fit at all those annoying losers...

Elf of the First Age

2009-06-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

I've always loved artificial women - a strange statement out of mouth of anyone, yet even stranger when it comes from a girl (many of my gamer friends pondered upon my declared inability to play male characters; I truly don't enjoy that at all, don't know why).

Lord of The Rings story lacks outstanding female characters (there's Eowyn and Galadriel, and that's about it; and don't get me started about Arwen!), while The Hobbit has none - apart of course the legendary Luthien. And along with Luthien, other Tales fortunately do mention some outstanding females (Morwen comes to mind), but never warriors. Come to think of it now, this makes Eowyn truly unique, she's the only female (to my knowledge) mentioned by Tolkien that held a blade and fought.

Fortunatelly, Turbine didn't take lack of female warriors in Tolkien's work as a bane on them, but rather as a lack in description, and did introduce some remarkable female characters in their stories. One of them has dominated the story of Shadows of Angmar (Amathriel/Naruhel), the other had a role far less visible, but still of great importance both story- and lore-wise.

Glathriel, female elf warrior whom players meet deep in the Rift of Nurz-Gashu and with whom they try to stop an awakening Balrog, whom she guarded for centuries.
We know little about her, apart from what we can gather from her brief tale: she took part in the War of the Valar at the end of the First Age (Gorrem in his brief description of the design writes: An Elf from the 1st age of Middle-Earth. that means she's REALLY old.), to which she refers at "the breaking of Thangorodrim", when The Mountains of Oppression were destroyed as Ancalagon the Black - a dragon bred by Morgoth to be the greatest and mightiest of all dragons, and the first of the winged 'fire-drakes' - crashed upon them as he died. That's when she first engaged Thaurlach , one of Morgoth's Balrogs - in fight, and followed him east to the lands that would later become Angmar. The Balrog than hid somewhere in the land he turned to wasteland with his fire and Glathriel couldn't find him, but she waited for him to awake.

If what she says is true, she tried to pin him down for the whole Second Age, as - by her account - when Thaurlach has awaken, she defeated him "with the aid of the wizards". She also mentions that this happened when "the Dark Power rose again". This would mean that he stayed in slumber while Saurons rise to power during The Second Age and during his War with Elves, if - naturally - we take the wizards she mentions as the Istari (who arrived in the Middle-Earth in the Third Age when Sauron formed a new army and began to command from Dol Guldur -hill of dark sorcery- in southern Mirkwood). Gandalf seems to confirm that, saying that saying that "two others of my Order, who have since vanished into the East, aided her in imprisoning the Balrog". Those would be the Blue Wizards, vaguely mentioned in Tales. The wizards "deemed Thaurlach should be imprisoned where he could await his judgment at the end of days", but Glathriel feared that the Balrog might sought to escape, and she chose to stay and guard him. Her foresight, as it is revealed when the players find her, was true - they arrive just in time to see Thaurlach break free.

When, after an epic battle, Thaurlach is finally thrown down, Glathriel accompanies players to Rivendell where she meets with Gandalf and Glorfindel. There seems to be one problem here though: Gandal says that the chain the Balrog was chained with, named Angithron, "was forged when this world was young" - well it was not quite young at the beginning of the Third Age... Nor could Thaurlach have awoken "by his master's call", as his master was Morgoth, who was defeated in The War of the Valar. Maybe Gandalf ment Sauron, who - as Morgoth's successor - could potentially become Balrogs' new master? Still, world would not be young when Thaurlach was chained, as it seems to be during the Thrid Age when the Istari came, and his true master's call could never have awakened him, as the master was no more. Unless we assume that the Blue Wizards were sent to Middle-Earth much earlier...

It is there in Rivendell where, I think, Glathriel's origins are revealed - she seems close to Glorfindel, a sword-mate for sure. They couldn't fight together at the Thongorodrim, as Glorfindel died during the Fall of Gondolin, and king Turgon's armier left the Hidden City only once before, and barely interacted with other elves during the brief and Tragic Battle of Unnumbered Tears. Judging by this, and by the fact that her battle-cry is "For Gondolin, for Nargothrond!" I would like to assume that she is from Gondolin as well, one of the House of Golden Flower like Glorfindel, who managed to escape after he perished in his clash with Balrog. And if you look at the original design by Gorrem more closely, you'll see that her armor is decorated with many aquatic ornaments - the shell on her belt, the wave-like design of the plates... Nodlor of Gondolin lived under blessing of Ulmo, King of the Sea and Lord of Waters.

At first Glathriel desires to stay in Middle-Earth and fight on against The Shadow, but Glorfindel tells her that this is no longer the deed of the Eldar, as their time is fading and "the duty of great deeds has fallen to others", she than leaves for the Grey Havens and on to the West, to find her peace.

Transcript of the story of Glathriel as revealed in LotRO I've posted before in this post.

Original image can be found here.

The cuteness that is Nanu

2009-06-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

My cute little Nanu.. We found him on our first Turtle attempt few weeks ago, but because he's so special I decided that the screenshots I made back than weren't good enough. Today I finally made my Meleth Nin spare me his computer for a few minutes so that I could catch the cuteness in full grace.

So, here is cute little Nanu, my little dream in LotRO - next time he appears in the Mossy Chest, he is mine. Unfortunately, despite the numerous attempts since the encounter was released, we haven't seen him since... And trust me, restraining myself not to steal this one from Nimminas kin house is a big achievement for me.

As you can see, the small little fella is not quite shy, above you can probably spot that he's trying to nom on Sil's satchel. He probably wants the treats she always brings him ;)

Just in time

2009-06-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

6-maning Balrog is not a great achievement nowdays (as it has been 3-manned back in old good 50 days anyway), but we were down there on business (hunting for Broken Chain Link for a Watcher run). Good fun!

Still, one thing worries me. With b7 (I think, maybe even earlier) they managed to bug that encounter again. The jumps - which used to be really painful - don't do anything anymore. You can even spot that on the movie - there's a missing part of the animation, Balrog doesn't land, he just appears on the ground...
Also the change to LM that came with MoM (the one that makes them unable to remove diseases/wounds outside their fellowship) could be fatal, especially for non-lvl-60 groups: the Balrog casts loads upon loads of nasty diseases that can only be removed by LM due to the amount of the deadly effects that appear and Glathriel gets affected by them as well. Players can not control her, tell her to move or sod away and if she gets them... well... even for her few thousands morale, they are deadly. I hope someone bugs that!

Unfortunately, you can't see much of me in that film, 90% of the time I'm hidden somewhere beyond Cal's left lower corner, but you can spot me on few occasions.

Join me in Death

2009-06-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

Silirien and her trusted grumpy bodyguard Rhyaehar the Warden have been visiting Garth Agarwen to see if Sil would fit into Naruhel's dress (she does and she looks awesome, trust me - but because of the fact that the dress comes out a bit torn here and there, it would be a mature content, and not really a sight Rhy is fond of sharing ;) ) and apparently they've spotted Ville Valo among the emo-zombies in there.

Sil, of course, has resisted the call. She prefers more fleshy, manly and lively partners. And better-smelling. And she prefers to stay good-smelling as well.

Loosing heart

2009-05-27T06:14:00.001-07:00

I must confess that I'm slowly but surely loosing heart for this game.
For me, the downfall started with Mines of Moria and the unsettling changes that the Devs decided to make to what seems the fundamentals of the game for me.
I have a hard time accepting the amount of grind that sneaked into Middle-Earth Online; in some cases grind with very non-optimistic odds...

The Journey, as leveling is often described in LotRO, is still worth playing, but I personally am all but an alter, so once I've finished mine, what's left out there?

Raiding has been compromised by instancing and the enforcement of radiance gathering. You can not anymore simply gather with friends and go have some high-end gameplay time, first you have to farm the instances to death to equip all those friends and only than you can have a go at boring and badly designed fights - or encounters - that Devs try to make pass as raids. I simply can't imagine why they keep on rejecting the fact that this approach is far too limiting for most players as too time-consuming and in the end simply boring.

Lets do some math to picture the situation better assuming that we have a dedicated static group of 12 people. This means 6 instance runs per player providing that they are all great players that never suffer from fkups and thus each and every run is succesful. This will give us:
Grand Stair: 6x30min = 3h
Skumfil: 6x20min = 2h + 1h to get the key
Forges: 6x40min = 4h
Fil Gashan: 6x1.5h = 9h
16th Hall: 6x1.5h = 9h
Dark Delvings: 6x1h = 6h
This gives 34 hours of initial instance grind per raid member to even get close to Sushi!!!

Turtle Encounter, promised as an encounter that's supposed to help people get geared up for Watcher, fails miserably as such. In this stupid damage race against time and huge acid dot, players that are already geared up have an insane advantage with their better weapons and radiance set offering big acid defense bonus along with all the other bonus stats. Those players don't need the Turtle anymore in the promised sense, they will just farm him for LIs.

And now, with b8 patch we will get more raids where we must counter more dread, which means we have to farm radiance gear anew. I'm thrilled.

I've played many games, starting with asian grindcore and slowly mowing to something more player-friendly. I'm an experienced MMO games, I even graduated and recieved my Master of Arts title for a work on ethics in MMOs. I've always read about declining numbers of players after some unfortunate nerfs, but truth be told I've never seen anything to support that observation: people on forums would write about how their kins are turning into ghost-kins. But in LotRO for the first time I've seen it with my own eyes: forget even my Kin (two actually). But our Raiding Alliance (RrU) used to have 30+ members on channel in the evenings! For few days already, I don't see much more than 10. Same for globallff which I remember scoring around 500 members in the evenings - it's around 200 recently as well.

I hoped to see LotRO as last step in my MMO journey, or at least one of the last. And I always rejected WoW as an ugly, 'jelly' game. But the insanely stupid movements Turbine are doing finally got me to try some WoWing, because I simply can't make myself log into lotRO anymore. What for? Doing 16th Hall for the 50th time? Or reading a book while grinding Fil Gashan for 30th time?

The Gates of Caras Galadhon

2009-05-25T02:52:00.000-07:00

More from Andy Murray, this time - The gates of Caras Galadhon, home to Galadriel and all of the other fun-loving elves of Lothlorien.
One can play 'Find the differences' in here, the most obvious ones would be the lack of water (the space ended up populated by flower bushes) and statues at the stairs. The gate itself remained pretty close to the original design.

Original can be found here.

Moria Dwarf Design

2009-05-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago I came across Andy Murray's weblog, where among other things I've stumbled upon the design for the dwarf from Mines of Moria loader. Andy doesn't spoil us with descriptions, writing only that this is Moria dwarf, made for marketing purposes.
His armor became a bit more goldish and his beard decorations a bit less elaborate, but there he is!

Original can be found here.

The numbers behind LIs - or how Turbine made our life hell.

2009-05-11T03:34:00.000-07:00

There are many threads about the tediuos grind for T8 relics, but virtually none about the actual chance for decent legacies on legendary items (LIs). It has been shown that one T8 relic on average equals the deconstruction of less then 100 lvl2 items, and thus can be earned within a few days.

However, I've come to the conclusion that for some classes, the chance for getting a really good LI within a lifetime approaches zero. The LI system, promoted as character customization, is in essence a lottery with the delusion of customization, and with similar low chances like you favorite RL national lottery.

(Sidenote: Other classes automatically get their dream legacy (DPS), and don't need to care that much about other stuff. I guess for them it's at least 100-10k times easier to find a satisfying weapon...)

First, the basic numbers, taken from experience:
On identification of a LI, 2-4 legacies are completely randomly chosen from 15 possible legacies and 6 qualities (bronze-gold), giving a total of 90 possibilities. When reaching lvl 10, 30, and 50 you can "choose" one additional out of 2 random legacies. (I won't discuss upgrading one of two random legacies on lvl 20 and 40 by 2 tiers here; it doesn't matter much compared to other aspects.)

So what's up with this "customization" upon reforging? If you've been very, very lucky (see below) and got your nearly perfect LI with 4 initial legacies, you probably only need one special, additional legacy. The chances to get this are
up to lvl 10: 1-(10/11)*(9/10) = 2/11 = 18%
up to lvl 30: 4/11 = 36%
up to lvl 50: 6/11 = 54%.

However, we forgot quality. If you intend to max out this legacy and thus want it golden (5 or 6), chances are only
lvl 10: 1-(32/33)*(29/30) = approx. 2/33 = 6%
lvl 30: approx 13%
lvl 50: approx 22% (...and some 12% when heading for pure t6-gold)

Anyone having fun with spending 3 million xp on a blue or yellow item for a 20% chance of NOT being forced to throw it away in the end? I did it twice, failed twice, and lost 50 gold and 2 million xp twice.

That's why we need all of the crucial legacies right from the start. Let's calculate the chances of finding one (the maths are identical to a lottery):

3 legacies of random quality out of 15: 3!/(15*14*13) = 1/455 = 0.2% chance
(That's 500 tablets on average already; but of course we don't want bronze quality!)

3 T4/5/6 = 3 out of 30: 1/4060 = 0.02%
3 golden = 3 out of 45: 1/14190 = 0.007%
3 T6 = 3 out of 90....: 1/117480 = 8.5e-6

4 T4/5/6: 1/27405 = 0.004%
4 golden: 1/148,995 = 6.7e-6
4 T6....: 1/2,555,190 = 3.9e-7

Now for the Jackpot: On the US forum there's a screenie of a 2nd age runestone with exactly those 6 legacies everyone wants for dps, 5 of which are T6. Probability for this is approx.
3.9e-7 * 6% * 9% = 2e-9 = 1 to 475 million.
That's worse than the chance for the jackpot in most lotteries.

How many blue or yellow runestones are found each day per server? 10? 100?
If it's 100 per day, chances are 50% that no other one of similar quality will be found within the next 13000 years :P

Keep in mind that that jackpot-stone *could* have been better. And keep in mind that runekeepers also need a different stone for healing, and at least 2 different satchels.

Good luck people!

Notes:
1. Chances are somewhat better due to upgrading legacies, maybe by a factor 5.
2. On lvl50 one of the proposed legacies is always T6.
3. First age items tend to have primarily golden legacies.
4. I'm no pro, so correct me if I'm wrong somewhere...

Article by cthun
posted on LotRO Europe forums

I must say I was afraid to do the math alone, and - as it comes out - on good grounds. The numbers are horrendous.
Now, adding to all that depressing number, please keep in mind that the Devs are planning to give us a lvl cap rise this year already!
This means that even if you win the 1/145 million lottery now, your dream item will be less that useless within half a year (as their plan goes).
Muahaha. No, not funny. Makes me want to quit.

Someone on the forums suggested that maybe this insane grind is aimed to attract grinder asian gamer community... Even though a joke, it might hold a seed of truth... Why would Turbine care if they lost couple of thousands of Western players, if they could attract million of Asians?

Bird and Baby Inn

2009-05-05T04:27:00.000-07:00

The Shire is probably the best and most rewarding place to explore for all and any Tolkien fans. A big, glittering Egg pops up for them right at the beggining of the journey - The Bird and Baby Inn. No, the name and the sign are not coincidence ;)

The Inklings was an Oxford writers' group which included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. From 1939 to 1962 they met at the Eagle and Child Friday before lunch, to drink and talk, usually in an area at the back of the pub, which was then a private sitting room and is now known as the Rabbit Room. Contrary to popular impression (and also contrary to the plaque posted in the pub), the Inklings did not read their manuscripts to each other in the pub: these readings took place at evening meetings usually in Lewis's college rooms. The Inklings changed allegiance in 1962 by moving across St Giles' to the Lamb & Flag pub, but it is the Eagle and Child's Rabbit Room that attracts visitors.

The Sign
The pub's sign shows an eagle carrying a small child in a fold of cloth suspended from a claw, which was derived from the crest of the Earl of Derby. The image is said to refer to a story of a noble-born baby having been found in an eagle's nest. It is said to bear a resemblance to artistic representations of the abduction of Ganymede by Zeus in the guise of an eagle in Greek Mythology.

Alternative names
It is also known as the Bird and Baby. Other less common nicknames have included the "Bird and Brat", the "Bird and Bastard", the "Bustard and Bastard" and the "Fowl and Foetus".
(thank you, wikipedia)

The House of Celeborn

2009-04-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

Lothlorien made me squee (and my computer cry and sweat)...
The House of Celeborn (as it is named in the game), or Galadriel's Court is simply... magical, even among other trees in Caras Galadon, it's details come together creating something truly special. Some of them are unique for this place only (or only here used in this, and not other, manner), something one should mark carefully as LotRO is mostly build with and from reusable elements.

The attention to detail in the design is astounding and most of those elements can be traced - though sometimes in modified form - in how the place looks like in game. Do you see the swirly way up the root of the great mallorn tree, appearing in pastel blue on the detail?
Yes, it's there as well as the minor branch somewhere at its end.
The circular platforms like giant steps are there too, and so are of course the huge structures just beneath the leaves of the mallorn... and the lanterns hanging down from too.
And if you look closely, you'll notice lanterns hanged on the gatelike-roots... and they are there too.

The place is stunning, but truth be told... it could have been done better. I love Caras Galadon, but every time I look at it's panorama I can't stop thinking that the platforms as they ended up in game don't look as organic and natural on the mallorns as they could be. Gorrem managed to achieve the symbiotic look, or at least I think so. Art department scored lower in here, but still... The place leaves me speachless.

Gorrem: Another rare environment piece of mine, done for Caras Galadon. This was my interpretation of Galadriel's courtroom from the exterior, which was described as a giant mallorn tree in the middle of a clearing supporting many flets, reachable only by ladder.

Original image can be found here.

Moroval Design

2009-04-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I've discovered that one of art designers providing his work for the sake of LotRO has an account on deviantart. Not only that, he's the one that designed my all time favorite elven outfits Glathlírel and Narmeleth that always make me want to strip her... And for Galadriel too!
Basicly as it came out, he designed most of the elements of LotRO that I found the most stunning, so I decided to pay a tribute to him and catch his designs as they ended up in game (he himself is a blasphemer, playing the Jelly-WoW ;) )
Behold, the art of Gorrem you all love (but you just don't know that yet).

First on line, new in Moria Morroval designs I cought while in Morroval LI Instance.

Morroval Robber and...

Morroval Mistress

If you look closely, almost all details are there, even the droplet of blood running from Mistress' lips and the frivolous shoulder strap.
The only detail missing are, I think, Robber's glove-like straps.

Gorrem: Sometimes I need to make new versions of characters that are already in the game. These two are variants of the Morroval, which is a succubus. Instead of a screenshot paintover- Which usually turns out hideous- I decided to just paint them from scratch.
I believe the original concept was by Jeff Murchie.

Original image can be found here.

Did you know...

2009-04-20T05:22:00.000-07:00

...that some dwarves have golden teeth?

I didn't and, I must confess, I was totally surprised when I came across this fashionable dwarf!

Holin Ridge

2009-04-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

I've enjoyed some off-regular exploring recently, and when I heard about this title, it seemed like a perfect challenge.

The aim is to get to that old elven watch tower. The way is steep and narrow, and falling, or slipping, down is an ever present danger. But if your steps are sure...

And you can, finally, enjoy the breath-taking panorama of Holin, too!

The Evil in Sejer Tharakh

2009-04-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

An enormous Caveclaw lying injured (?) in Sejer Tharakh...
Tho I prefer to think he just hit his head real hard and is fine, just a bit drowsy.

An Epic Fight

2009-04-20T03:49:00.000-07:00

At least for me!
I encountered this scary vampire in Morrovail Caves in Eastern Durin's Way yesterday. I'm no Loremaster nor a Minstrel, but still I was able to bring down his 35k morale ass in just... 15 minutes!
Yes, I smacked him to death with my Rune.

...and 15 minutes only because I had Fall To Our Wrath slotted...

Tale of Heroism

2009-04-20T02:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friend's Minstrel's Tale of Heroism cought my attention.
Not the skill itself actually, but the icon - my first thought (first, as I have never payed attention to this skill before) was - Beren and Luthien!

Because what else could one think in Middle-Earth, if a Tale of Heroism is illustrated with a picture of a pair, her up the front, fair-skinned, black-haired and clad in white, him behind her? And their story is, indeed, one of heroism way beyond that of their mirrored pair at the dawn of times, Aragorn and Arwen (Aragorn may have been heroic, but Arwen never done anything to remotly deserve that term... yes, I don't like Arwen). Beren and Luthien has both done truly heroic deeds..!

Also the rich green background brings Ossiriand to mind, the green and forested land of seven rivers where Beren and Luthien lived.

...and... do you also think you can see Nauglamír on Luthien's neck? :)

Hidden Hobbit Village

2009-04-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

I've always regretted that I missed out on Hobbit Farmer and Squirrels... I was kinda thinking it will always be there for me to explore, and now it's closed off..

One more reason for me to hurry to explore another hidden wonder, The Hidden Hobbit Village just west of the Shire.

If you manage to fool the Bounders and sneak* pass Ered Luin gate unattended, following the road will finally lead you to this secluded, quiet place (alternatively, you can sneak* pass the gate in Michel Delving leading west...).

The place itself is surrounded with thick foliage of elderly oaks, which make quite a lovely sight as you approach.

Not many know about it's existence so no wonder that the knowledge about it exact location is even more rare, which suits it's shy inhabitants. As you will inevitably notice, they did not agree to pose to any of the pictures I've made.

Rare visitors can leave their mounts at the stable in northernmost part of the village (visible on the right side of the photo) and proceed to the center of the little town, marked by a huge windmill, standing proudly above the fields.

Among cozy hobbit holes a more extraordinary structure stands, clearly showing the influence of long legs architecture on the native art of the Shire folks.

Weary traveler can take a sip of clear, cold water from the village well.

But this building is unique in the whole Shire - you will not find another one like that. Even the Mathom House - itself build bearing strong resemblance to the architecture of Bree - looks totally different. I don't recall a building like that in the whole Middle Earth I've visited so far. The type of windows is unique, so are the ornaments adoring it.

In some distance to the east, digging under the hills of Little Delving, new hobbit holls are being buid. Still unfinished, and for some reason missing doors...

A campsite to the far south end of the area. Secluded, and empty. A puzzling sight, as the fire still burns brightly and the rabbit has just been prepared for roast, but not eaten yet. Who might have camped here?

As gossip goes, the "hidden" Hobbit village was added to showcase the game at E3 many years back - as Liquilla posted about the place of CM Forums (adding but you didn't hear that from me! (...and I may be wrong)).

Some old Shire preview screenshots show area bearing a striking resamblence to this village, but they are not identical. I tried hard to catch the same angle, but it has prooven impossible.

The Windmill Sight looks very alike, and at first glance it may seem that the only thing that has changed was the design of the horses in game, and that the chickens are gone. But the angles are seriously different, bushes have moved and a cart has been placed a bit off.

While trying to reshoot the scarecrow image, I stumbled upon even more difficulties. Apparently the guy has been moved altogether, and so have the fences. Also, there's no bag of grain resting anywhere in place allowing me to get the windmill and hobbit holes with the right angle.

But still, the place looks remarkably the same... Just... recreated?
My guess would be, it's either not the original E3 location, or it has been modified for some strange reason. Anyhow, the adventure was a great one!

* These passages are by no means ment to represent the actual route to Hidden Hobbit Village. It's an even longer trip, I just used Ered Luin and Michel Delving gates for RP and localization reasons.

All epic stories all build up on countless tragedies

2009-03-30T06:24:00.001-07:00

This sight I encountered in Annuminas really caught me...
If playing is a form of storytelling (and I personally do think it is, at least to some degree), this would do for one of those all-time tear-shedding moments in epic movie...

...and yes, the Warden died, we have arrived too late to help him, but we have honored his name by spilling the Gorthorog's blood... and blood of many, many other Angmarim.

Tribute to one of the icons of XXth century culture

2009-03-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Dark Delvings... one of those MoM infinite farming instances, and a very,very annoying and badly designed one (like most of them, unfortunately). But even in a boring, tedious and discouraging place like that one might find an Easter-Egg (I hope, otherwise it's a ripoff!).

Couldn't possibly be much more Alien than this ;)

It all comes down to Mirrors

2009-03-30T06:07:00.001-07:00

Finally, some signs of civilization in this dark place!
Wait, what?! Does my hair really look like that..? Aaah, the horror..!

I found it somewhat.. hmm... prophetiic? to find this mirror just besides the Waterworks mirror quest giver. For him to drag it all the way down here..! Wait, could it be? Maybe he is... one of those fabled female dwarves? ;)

Vampire Toads in Moria

2009-03-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

Beware, adventurers, for there's one more Evil lurking in the dark depths of Moria!
The elusive cold-blooded blood-suckers, the Vampire Toads!

My Rune-keeper and her faithful Warden companion and bodyguard were ambushed by this terrifying creature in the Waterworks and the sight immediately made me think of Stephen Rea dancing on the ceiling as Santiago in Interview with the Vampire!

Eldars' Grace

2009-02-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

This misty, rainy morning on my way to work I had a revelation:
Eldar's Grace icon is a miniature od Ted Nasmith's Luthien painting!
Well, not exactly, the elf has been repainted (the position of Luthien's left hand is slightly different than on the orriginal photo, same goes for the head), but still the resemblance is striking.

2009-01-05T05:07:00.000-08:00

"Up the trees quick!" cried Gandalf; and they ran to the trees at the edge of the glade, hunting for those that had branches fairly low, or were slender enough to swarm up. (...)

But even the wild Wargs (for so the evil wolves over the Edge of the Wild were named) cannot climb trees. (...)

This glade in the ring of trees was evidently a meeting-place of the wolves. (...) [They guarded all the trees with anyone on it], while all the rest (hundreds and hundreds it seemed) went and sat in a great circle in the glade; and in the middle of the circle was a great grey wolf. He spoke to them in the dreadful language of the Wargs. Gandalf understood it. (...)

The Wargs and the goblins often helped one another in wicked deeds. (...) Then they often got the Wargs to help and shared the plunder with them. Sometimes they rode on wolves like men do on horses. Now it seemed that a great goblin-raid had been planned for that very night. The Wargs had come to meet the goblins and the goblins were late. The reason, no doubt, was the death of the Great Goblin, and all the excitement caused by the dwarves and Bilbo and the wizard, for whom they were probably still hunting.

(...) All the same [Gandalf] was not going to let them have it all their own way, though he could not do very much stuck up in a tall tree with wolves all round on the ground below. He gathered the huge pinecones from the branches of his tree. Then he set one alight with bright blue fire, and threw it whizzing down among the circle of the wolves. (...)

"What's all this uproar in the forest tonight?" said the Lord of the Eagles. (...) He swept up into the air, and immediately two of his guards from the rocks at either hand leaped up to follow him. (...)

A very good thing too! Dreadful things had been going on down there. The wolves that had caught fire and fled into the forest had set it alight in several places. (...) Then suddenly goblins came running up yelling. They thought a battle with the woodmen was going on; but they goon learned what had really happened. Some of them actually sat down and laughed.

(...) Back swept the great birds that were with him, and down they came like huge black shadows. The wolves yammered and gnashed their teeth; the goblins yelled and stamped with rage, and flung their heavy spears in the air in vain. Over them swooped the eagles; the dark rush of their beating wings smote them to the floor or drove them far away; their talons tore at goblin faces. Other birds flew to the tree-tops and seized the dwarves, who were scrambling up now as far as ever they dared to go.

J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

Goblins still seem to dread this story, and paint graffittis of it! You will surely stumble upon a few while visiting Gobo Town.
Now, just one question... Where would the woodsmen that were planned to fall victims of the goblins + wolves raid live? Are those Hillmen and Angmarim that dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf saved by chance? No other men anywhere near Goblin Town in LotRO!

Gollum Cave

2009-01-05T04:39:00.000-08:00

Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum - as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for ke it was, wide and deep and deadly cold. He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make. Not he. He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could get it; but he took care they never found him out. He just throttled them from behind, if they ever came down alone anywhere near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about. They very seldom did, for they had a feeling that something unpleasant was lurking down there, down at the very roots of the mountain. They had come on the lake, when they were tunnelling down long ago, and they found they could go no further; so there their road ended in that direction, and there was no reason to go that way-unless the Great Goblin sent them. Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake, and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back.

Actually Gollum lived on a slimy island of rock in the middle of the lake. He was watching Bilbo now from the distance with his pale eyes like telescopes. Bilbo could not see him, but he was wondering a lot about Bilbo, for he could see that he was no goblin at all.

J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

I always have insane troubles with finding anything I want to find in Goblin Town... Gollum Cave is no exception. Thankfully, goblins draw a warning graffitti at the start of the tunnel leading to the cave!

How far technologicall advanced are the Dwarves exactly?

2008-12-18T07:32:00.000-08:00

Well?

A perfect addition to Sil's cozy deluxe house: Elven Snow Globe

2008-12-18T07:21:00.000-08:00

<3!

After days of present-farming and kinchat-nagging about the ball not appearing, my dear Kinnie (and actually, Kin-leader) Hith presented me hers. Now my humble elven abode looks even more elvish!

Just one question to Devs: Have we all been very, very, VERY naughty players that we get those insane ammounts of Coals and Taters from Gifts?
Waaait, did I say Gift? It's not much of a gift if I have to work better half of the hour for it.
Seriously, why not add an option to barter for rewards of our choosing? Like during Lithe festival? I'm fine with higher ammount of barter tokens required, but please understand how frustrating it is to grind my ass off on five characters everyday to exchange their tokens to Elven Gift Boxes in hope to get the Elven Snow Ball, and not to get one for four days?! If it was not for my friends, I wouldn't ever see one I am afraid.
Please, make better design decisions in future. unless you aim for pissing your playerbase into pblivion during Yule festival - that indeed would be something new on MMO scene!

What came with Moria: Psychoactive Toads!

2008-12-18T07:18:00.000-08:00

And with funny names too!

Seriously, do toads roar?

What came with Moria: gender-unsure elves.

2008-12-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

Well, OK... Gender-unsure more than usual elves.

What came with Moria: telekinesis powers for female elven hunters!

2008-12-18T07:09:00.000-08:00

If you say Runekeepers are lore-breaking, than what you'll say about those D&D phantom swords, eh?

'Unfortunatelly', was fixed with patch 1 ;)

What came with Moria: Tea!!11!111eleven

2008-12-18T07:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true! Not I can indulge myself with tea not only in real-life, but also in game ^.^

One question though, why hobbits?
Go to Gwingris and see how crazy elves are about tea!
Or just fellow up with Silirien...

The Doors of Moria

2008-12-18T05:44:00.000-08:00

And so, we have followed The Fellowship in their journey and reached the Gates of Moria as well... The Darkness followed and lied ahead...

    'Look!' he said. `Can you see anything now?'
    The Moon now shone upon the grey face of the rock; but they could see nothing else for a while. Then slowly on the surface, where the wizard's hands had passed, faint lines appeared, like slender veins of silver running in the stone. At first they were no more than pale ossamer-threads, so fine that they only twinkled fitfully where the Moon caught them, but steadily they grew broader and clearer, until their design could be guessed.

    At the top, as high as Gandalf could reach, was an arch of interlacing letters in an Elvish character. Below, though the threads were in places blurred or broken, the outline could be seen of an anvil and a hammer surmounted by a crown with seven stars. Beneath these again were two trees, each bearing crescent moons. More clearly than all else there shone forth in the middle of the door a single star with many rays.
   `There are the emblems of Durin!' cried Gimli.
   `And there is the Tree of the High Elves!' said Legolas.
   `And the Star of the House of Flanor,' said Gandalf. `They are wrought of ithildin that mirrors only starlight and moonlight, and sleeps until it is touched by one who speaks words now long forgotten in Middle-earth. It is long since I heard them, and I thought deeply before I could recall them to my mind.'
   'What does the writing say?' asked Frodo, who was trying to decipher the inscription on the arch. 'I thought I knew the elf-letters but I cannot read these.'
   `The words are in the elven-tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days,' answered Gandalf. 'But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only: The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. And underneath small and faint is written: I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.'

J.R.R. Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring

    The others swung round and saw the waters of the lake seething, as if a host of snakes were swimming up from the southern end.
    Out from the water a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it was pale-green and luminous and wet. Its fingered end had hold of Frodo's foot and was dragging him into the water. (...)
    Twenty others arms came rippling out. The dark water boiled, and there was a hideous stench. (...)

J.R.R. Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring

`I felt that something horrible was near from the moment that my foot first touched the water,' said Frodo. 'What was the thing, or were there many of them? '
'I do not know,' answered Gandalf, 'but the arms were all guided by one purpose. Something has crept, or has been driven out of dark waters under the mountains. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.'

J.R.R. Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring

Silirien, Mistress of Typos

2008-12-18T04:05:00.000-08:00

[To Kinship] dear got Wilf, you have an Tentacle of Helchgam
[Kinship] Wilfbur: nice eh?
[Kinship] Arin: or is he just pleased to see you :)
[To Kinship] perfectly fits my definition of EEEEW
(...)
[Kinship] Wilfbur: did you like my tentacle then?
[To Kinship] seriously Wilf, not in pubic...
[To Kinship] public*
[To Kinship] omg =.=
[Kinship] Wilfbur: lol

Fellowship Manouver Trainer

2008-12-17T06:24:00.001-08:00

A little thing I've created few weeks ago, ment to help training ad hoc straight manouvers.

Hereby we present you v1.0.

The application is pretty simple and it only covers straight manouvers (the Around the clock combinations).

There's not much configuration to be worried about at the current state, you can only change Difficulty (the speed with which the manouver progresses; by default you get plenty of time to react) and Mode
(you are either assigned a possition at which to contribute to at the
begining of each round, indicated by a golder ring on Fellowship
manouver display - Fixed position mode - or you can try to contribute at any given time - Full ad hoc mode).

If you're interested, please visit http://www.raidsrus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=457

Silirien the Fashionable

2008-12-17T06:23:00.003-08:00

Luilloth: 'I couldn’t help but notice that lovely ensemble you’re wearing. I would go so far as to call you Silirien, the Fashionable!'

Not that it comes with any supprise to me, it's aparent that my (virtual) fashion choices have always been flawless..!

So Sil, like most famous top models of real world, decided to show herself off while posing in Moddle-Earth most famous fountain in Bree... ;)

You are strongly aware that you only get one chance to make a first
impression, and take great care to ensure that your garments are up to
the task!