Tanking in the Great Barrow

September 1, 2010

Confusing sign that sums up my first tanking experience in LOTRO.Tanking is something I used to do, haven’t done for a while and keep thinking about doing again. As you can see I’m certainly no expert at the moment and in my occasional MMO Lord of the Rings my main character is a Warden. Wardens are tanks though the kind that wear only medium armour throw spears and in my case has a penchant for fancy cloaks. I chose the class based on their ability to solo well and as I decided it was a good chance to play something I am not familiar with.

If your a reader (or should I say the reader) of this fine blog you’ll no doubt know I hit the level 25 mark a while ago and due to the dreaded real life and my MMO time spent in EQ2 I only just made level 26 last night. I like to take my time in LOTRO, so much to explore and get lost in as well as the fact that unlike EQ2 if you want to go somewhere you really have to travel there.

Anyway I digress…

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Lord Of The Rings
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FFXIV Woes.. (UPDATE)

August 31, 2010

So, tomorrow the open beta is due to begin! Or rather, was due to begin, read on below, complete with pictures!

UPDATE: PANIC AVERTED!! Beta is back on, a day late, means I can finally finish patching before it gets underway!

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Beta Testing and Final Fantasy XIV

Written by Wodge 2 Comments

Are you an MMO completionist?

August 31, 2010

As some of you may know, I like most of my guild have an army of Alts in EQ2. My latest plan was to work the higher level ones that are not 90, to 90 to get the xp bonus for the remaining characters. The target alt was to be my warlock Naitey who is 83 at the moment.

This was until I got thinking about my main Yetian the Warden. I really need to be working his AA’s as he’s only on 208 at the moment, so I began working his remaining quests and finding new ones. I then thought it would be nice to finish some of the main quest lines that I’ve yet to finish on any character. These include quest lines such as Swords of Destiny and the Claymore lines.

I started working those and then ended up finding a Heritage quest I hadn’t completed. For those that don’t know these are quests that give items from the original Everquest as rewards, as well as personal and guild status. To date I think I’ve finished 36 HQ’s and have 7 or so in my journal, with one still to pickup.

I intend to complete all the HQ’s, then go back to quest lines and then other random quests to complete my AA’s.

So what about the rest of you? Do you have one character you like to complete all quests on, or is there some other aspect of your chosen MMO that you just have to complete?

Everquest 2 and General MMO

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Final Fantasy XIV Open Beta Date!

August 27, 2010

September 1st.  That’s the date the open beta for Final Fantasy XIV starts, mark it in your diaries/quest journals/holographic logs.

Fancy trailer below!

Remember, Intrepid is recruiting on the Ultimecia server!

Beta Testing and Final Fantasy XIV

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Final Fantasy XIV Closed Beta Test Ends!

August 25, 2010

After much bug reporting, feature requesting and all that jazz, the Final Fantasy XIV Closed Beta has ended.  Open beta should start in early September, hopefully by then Squeenix should’ve fixed the awful patcher.

I’m really looking forward to the game, recent concerns about the “Surplus” exp system have been somewhat off-putting, but I’m hopeful it’s not what it looks like and is actually just an exp bonus system that’s suffered from bad translation.

Anyone else unsure of the game and going to be jumping in the open beta?  If you like it and are going to play it on release, don’t forget I’m forming a sexy linkshell, for sexy people ™, on the Ultimecia server, we’re called Intrepid and recruitin’ now!!

Beta Testing and Final Fantasy XIV

Written by Wodge 3 Comments

Crazy Tech Shenanigans!

August 16, 2010

Ok, bare with me a moment.  This will start a bit techy… Watch this video.

For those who don’t know, that Legendary Nerd of Distinction is John Carmack, he who programmed Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake, at QuakeCon 2010. He is showing off Rage running on an iPhone 4. After having a gander at the game running at full resolution on the Rage website, you can probably see that it’s quite an awesome looking game.  But what does this have to do with MMOs?

Basicly, with id taking mobile phone gaming seriously, and putting out a tech demo that looks better than every game on a mobile before it. Makes other companies take notice, and other companies include MMO developers. No more bizarre zombie based GPS MMO things, no more sub N64 style attempts at MMOs with 3 classes and 7 weapons. Now we’ll have a proper MMO in our pocket, and about time!  MMOs are meant to be played alot, with all the good stuff you can do in them, but they’re also good for keeping in touch with friends, so having one in your pocket makes sense, and if it happens to be one of the larger ones all the better.

Give it a few years and most popular MMOs will have mobile clients, and not just the auction apps Warcraft, Aion and Fallen Earth have, but a fully fledged game in their own right, obviously the faster paced games like APB and Global Agenda will probably not work, but for your normal fantasy based game, should work a treat.

Anyone looking forward to their mobile battery taking an even bigger pounding than usual?

General MMO

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Flying mounts in EQ2

August 12, 2010

As well as Everquest next SOE are also working on expansions for both current Everquest titles. The one I’m interested in at the moment is the Everquest 2 expansion Destiny of Velious, the return of the frozen continent which is due for release in February.

I have fond memories of Velious from the original Everquest, wandering through the frozen wastes and dodging ice giants. Now someone will have to remind me of the large tower on Velious which players could fight their way up. I remember fighting through the tower with a Gnome alt of Pandemic, an Enchanter who aided my character on many occasions.

Anyway enough  nostalgia, the new expansion has the usual tons of quests, a couple of overland zones and more than a few raid zones. There are 10 instanced dungeon’s more HQ’s and a Signature quest line, a new battlegrounds area (I still haven’t played any of the existing ones) and something else…

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Everquest 2
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LOTRO – Level 25

August 9, 2010

Fishing in LOTRO

It’s been a while since my level 20 post, but Lord of the Rings online is my really casual MMO so things take me an age. It’s the kind of game that allows you to take your time, never feeling rushed to level. The scenery makes you stop and take a screenshot, something I don’t do as often in EQ2.

Yetian is now level 25 and although I planned to post at level 30, I decided 5 level posts would allow me to post more than one every 6 months.

As with most of my character posts there’s a few screenshots along the way to help explain what’s going on, mostly because I can’t remember what I’ve done in any detail so pics help, must be getting old. ;)

The first pic is of Yetian fishing, yup that’s right I broke off stabbing things with my spear to fish by a lake. It’s actually for a festival quest but did allow me to chat to a few people along the way. Granted I’m alone in the picture, so obviously my conversation wasn’t that interesting.

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Lord Of The Rings
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Whats next for Everquest? EQNext, of course!

August 7, 2010

That Fan Faire thing is currently going on in that den of inequity and filth that is Las Vegas. From there SOE are holding various panels on the state of the various SOE MMOs.

All standard stuff on the upcoming stuff for EQ2 and SOEs other MMOs, apart from the EQNext Panel.  EQNext is just the name SOE are giving to the follow up to EQ2, the EQNext name is only being used for the time being, and it probably won’t be called EverQuest 3.  From what I’ve read over on EQ2Wire (here, here, here, here and here!) it seems they’re going for somewhere between EQ1 (less classes etc.) and EQ2 (ease of travel, streamlining of content etc.).  Of the images I have seen, the game is looking very nice indeed, seem to have managed to inject some much needed atmosphere (the joys of shader model 3), I found that EQ2 was always a little flat looking.

There wasn’t much info on gameplay, but I guess it will be similar to EQ1 and 2, no Vindictus style realtime hack and slashery.  Pretty much a graphical update with some tweaking then, which is exactly what the EQ fanbase wants.

Who knows if those EQ devs had a gander at the Symposiums very own EQNext(ish) and pilfered/borrowed some ideas from there?

Everquest 2 and General MMO

Written by Wodge 3 Comments

Farewell to the Fields

August 7, 2010

Due to the impending arrival of a mini-me my gaming time will be reduced for a while. As I haven’t been able to get in Battleground Europe enough to justify the monthly sub I have decided to let my subscription slide and for the moment at least I’m saying farewell to the battlefields of Europe.

It is a shame as I have enjoyed my time in the game, it’s something different to everything else out there and with the latest graphical patches the appearance of the game improved too.

I met some good people in Battleground Europe and had many a laugh on my squads voice servers as you can tell if you have a quick read of the Battleground Europe category here on this site.

I hope to return to the game once things settle down here as it’s nice to have a bit of PvP to go with my main PvE games. For now I’ll be sticking to EQ2 and LOTRO as I’m only paying for one of the two and with the LOTRO life sub it doesn’t matter if I only drop in now and again.

WWIIOL: Battleground Europe
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Written by Yetian 1 Comment