Holiday Loot and Gaming

Because Ardwolf did one, I have to do a holiday loot post (not really, but I like blaming other people for things they inspire me to do).

It shouldn't take too long, as finances kept the loot rather sparse this year. However, the number one item on the list is Mass Effect 3. Having been given a pre-order of ME3, I also used a little gift cash to pick up the last ME2 DLCs I did not have. Now I just have to suffer till March/April for ME3 to actually arrive.

My other gaming score was a Turbine Point card for Lord of the Rings Online. I spent some time in LOTRO over the holiday, working my way through the Yule Festival content in order to get my horse collector alt the newest Yule horses. Besides the new 2011 one, I picked up the 2010 one as well, as I hadn't started horse collecting for him when 2010 Yule came around. Surprisingly, I haven't spent many of the TP yet, though that's mostly because starting to figure out a list of which quest packs I didn't have yet resulted in realizing there is far more stuff I'd like to have than points available. None of the stuff on my list so far is currently on sale, so in proper lazy gamer fashion I've put off making a decision on what to buy. I did break my usual "no buying cosmetic items from the store" rule twice this season. One during a sale to acquire the Helm of Rohan which I still alternate between loving and hating (those 3 combs should be just 1), and once after claiming the TP to acquire a cloak to complete an outfit.

My other gaming time, except for a brief foray into ME2 to view the alternate appearances and tinker with a couple of the new weapons, was split between Pirates of the Burning Sea and Star Trek Online.

Another blogger provided a link to an Alienware promotion for a 10-day access code to STO, so I've been giving it a try. I'm kind of liking it, and kind of looking forward to it going f2p. I discovered the menu item to go to the ship's bridge the other day, and really like being able to wander through the bridge, crew deck, and engineering. The only really odd thing was that the Bridge had two copies of each of my bridge officers at different stations.

In PotBS, my main is a Privateer who's just reached level 27, and has become involved with a pretty nice Society (Burning Sea's version of Guilds). Burning Sea does a good job of having a consistent flavor to it. Swashbuckling/Avatar combat is a little clunky to me, but the sea combat is really nicely done. I particularly like that there is a certain amount of "a cannonball is a cannonball" going on in the combat. I've joined 5-ship and 6-ship groups going up against 8-12 ship level 65 NPC fleets with my own character and ship being as low as 15-17, and have not felt completely useless. Granted, you can't go broadside to broadside with a 65 at close range and expect to live. But at longer ranges, the difficulty the big ships have in hitting a small fast ship has resulted in my being able to plink away and actually see the big ships take armor damage. My level 24 Mastercraft Locust Corvette took the concentrated attention of at least six level 65 frigates and line ships for several salvos at long range and while not unscathed was still fully operational. I would note that this only works vs the NPC ships however, which do not have the benefit of the extensive captain skill tree that other players do. Trying the same shot against six skilled up level 50 players would not likely have the same outcome!

A Trip to Rivendell

This week I made my first trip to Rivendell in Lord of the Rings Online (commonly known as LOTRO). It was a harrowing experience. My character, you see, is a level 20 Man Captain. If you don't play LOTRO, this number is fairly meaningless, but the LOTRO players among you will know that this is substantially lower than the level of the region that Rivendell is in. I'm pretty sure that a couple of the creatures that pursued me were level 37, nearly twice my own level, and everything for quite some distance on my walk was purple (a color code indicating a considerably higher level enemy than my own level). And yes, I did say WALK. I took a stable horse as far as the Forsaken Inn, and then walked my way from there through the Lone Lands, into the Trollshaws, and all the way to Rivendell. It was my first time ever past Ost Gutruth (Guruth?), and thus my map was most uninformative except to give me an idea of the general direction in which Rivendell lay. LOTRO's map system only displays regions that you've actually entered, and is sometimes seemingly a little unpredictable as to how far into a region you must go before the map unveils that section. Once you actually find Rivendell...which I did by running in the direction I thought it was with a lynx on my heels...it's a beautiful location. And I saw at least a few recognizable figures there, though I did not get to explore it all and thus may have missed more.

So why did I take a level 20 to so high level an area? The answer lies in crafting. You see, my Captain has gathered all the craft XP necessary for his Artisan Jeweler ranking, and the crafting quest to achieve it sends you to talk to an elf in Rivendell. Naturally, just when I was feeling self-congratulatory at making it to Rivendell alive, this elf felt it necessary to ask me to go to Angmar to retrieve a jewel with which some brilliant fellow has apparently decided to go waltzing through enemy territory. So now I am waiting to catch a properly high level Kinmate on who is willing to escort me into Angmar and kill Orcs for me till one drops what I need. Esteldin is nice this time of year. Well, not really, it's kind of a ruin. But it's a safe ruin, and that counts for much in the North Downs. I did make an attempt to follow the road north to Angmar, but after running into far too many giantkind, wargs, and hillmen, I decided that sneaking north was not going to work (for my nerves, if nothing else) and went back to Esteldin to wait in safety.