Gamer's Ramblings

Going on vacations without any net access and only an aging notebook that is good enough for typing but certainly not for gaming means you have a lot of time to do other things.

That includes vacations things like visiting sights, taking pictures - and of course gobbling down completely unreasonable amounts of food.

But for me it also includes reading. So before going away I got myself several books to consume while away.

So in the coming days and weeks I'll be posting some reviews of the books I have read in the order of my reading.

-

Slave of Chu Kutall
by Michael McCloskey

Rated 5 out of 10 hulking orc brutes

I started with this book since the plot sounded rather engaging and I needed something that would thoroughly grab my attention while on the plane. I find flying incredibly boring but for whatever reason never manage to fall asleep.

The setup is this:
An orc slave (Nergal) escapes from a galley of the Nation of Chu Kutall (hence the name I guess) and swims to shore. Here he encounters a group of adventurers on their way to slay an evil monster. Since he doesn't have anything better to do and they offer food he joins them on their quest and proves quite an asset with his brute strength. So he sticks with them.

It is the first novel of the author and I must say it shows. He writes well enough when it comes to style and describing battles he is quite good. His vocabulary is rather limited though. There are only so many times you can read about the same huge orc arms, bulking with muscles before you get bored.

The real problem is that he doesn't have the slightest clue about actually telling a story.

The whole book is nothing more then a parade of single adventures loosely strung together by the overlying quest to slay some evil wizard which is completely blown out of proportion in importance.

Characterisation initially seems well done with character traits, physical descriptions and style of speech but quickly deteriorates since there is now character development at all and character interaction solely consists of them making plans on how to defeat this foe or solve that problem. They stay impersonal and "business like" the whole time.

Actually the whole book to me feels like the author is recounting the adventures of his role playing group - with his character being the orc Nergal.

There are typical archetypes of characters - the brute knight, the shining, intellectual, noble knight, the gentle priestess. There is great emphasize on them casting various spells, doing this or that kind of combat manoeuvre. They always find some kind of interesting loot when they have completed another little adventure.

At some point one of the knights gets critically hurt (I smell a botched roll of dice) and leaves the group and gets replaced by another character with similar abilities (player rolled a new character since the old one was disabled?). For a while the priestess is not with the group and them reappears rather suddenly and in-elegantly (player absent for a few game sessions and then dumped back into the action by the game master?).

There are also lots of loose ends that seem rather pointless but are recounted in detail as if they matter. Like the orc finding a talking mace, then getting rid of it again because it annoys him. But not before the mace has dropped various hints on a deeper background story (plot opening offered by the game master but discarded by the player?).

The ending is rather unsatisfying as well. The quest gets completed but that's it. There is no feeling of accomplishment or closure. And since there has been no character development and next to no relationship building between the characters it feels like the book could just as well continue.

That is not to say it is a bad book on a whole. The individual adventures are fun and diverse, the settings exotic and interesting. It is however quite disappointing that the author didn't do anything more interesting with the set up than "let them have an adventure".

I am sure it made a great role playing campaign and it could be used as a game supplement without having to tweak much again.

As an actual story however it fails.

The only real positive thing that sticks is the fabulous expression of "having the quick smarts" for when someone is really intelligent. Hubby loves that.

The Volume 3 Book 1 Update is now on the test server and preliminary patch notes can be found here:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=316278

Reading them I find myself very positively surprised. Seems they left out the totally awesome stuff in the original announcement.

Like the fact that some skirmishes will now get a duo mode. Which means me and hubby or me and Mue can happily skirmish together without needing a third man.

And the fact that the reworking of Volume 1 which has been hinted at before will also be in the update.

The new crafting aspects look entirely underwhelming. The only halfway usuable thing in there would be a new horn for Jace.

Apart from that there are tons of bug fixes. Which is always good.

But just the Duo Skirmishes already have me excited and happy. Hopefully we'll see this live soon.

 

Now look at that! They came up with a new mini game while I was away that is actually fun and playable and worth buying. Who would have thought...

Shaman Odyssey is basically a classical building simulation.

You have a little tribe of island dwellers and led by their shaman (you). You only controll the shaman who runs over the island collecting resources like herbs and sea shells. The tribe members work in production buildings like a wood cutter or a fisherman's hut.

Herbs are used to brew potions that can be used to heal villagers, scare of sharks or put ghosts to rest. Sea Shells are used for buying blueprints for new buildings and potions.

You travel with your tribe from island to island (the levels of the game) and for each you get a set of goals like building certain building, finishing in a time limit etc.



It's really a very simple game but the animations and graphics are cute and it's easy enough to be playing for a few minutes here and there without paying too much attention.

I'll rate it 4 out of 5 masked shamans.

You can find the trial here:

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/6985/shaman-odyssey/index.html

In our project to catch up on all our favorite TV series we missed while we were on vacation, yesterday evening me and hubby curled up together to watch the two new episodes of Burn Notice.

Michael has met the "new villain" in town who I think will remain the focus until the end of this season. Or rather I hope he will. He's very cool, cultured and a rather believable psychopath. Sadly I can't seem to remember his name... nee to pay more attention...

But just listen to this bit of dialogue to see how cool he is:

Michael: What happened to Claude?
Villain: He didn't survive his injuries.
Michael: What? He had a broken ancle??
Villain: There were complications.

Just perfect.

In Episode 11 Michael got to dress up again for an undercover job. He looked quite good in black suit and red shirt and tie. And the coolness factor was through the roof with the finger snipping... Watch it to see what I mean.

We also got a sappy, cuddle Michael & Fiona scene which made hubby go all oooh and aaaah and mushy cuddly. Good stuff!

Episode 12 was more action oriented but also held more of the cool villain (that dialogue bit is from episode 12).

The series definitely keeps up in quality and I already hope there will be a Season 4.

The Mirkwood excitement is slowly dying down so Turbine is pushing hard to keep it's playerbase occupied it seems.

The next free update - well, mostly free since you can only play it IF you have bought the Mirkwood expansion - is on it's way and you can read the news here:

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/601-oath-of-the-rangersr

It doesn't exactly sound amazing but it is a little more to chew on.

A new skirmish sounds good but I would have hoped for one in the lower level range. There are plenty for high levels already. Being able to only play a very few in the lower levels is what sucks. Oh well, I'll keep on hoping.

The crafting updates don't sound thát hot either but I guess I'll wait and see how that pans out in the actual update.

And the story sends us back to the "old lands" again to gather up Aragorn's rangers? Meh. Give us some new lands to chew on!

Oh well, not like I won't still be busy for a while with Jace to complete Volume 1...

Yesterday in the middle of the night me and hubby came back from our vacation.

We have a bit of catching up to do on our TV series and we decided to start with this one.

I had high hopes for Spartacus. Maybe too high hopes after seeing the trailer. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with lots of half naked, slightly hurt, fierce men, fighting for their lives combined with some roman depravity?

Apparently a lot.

After wahtcing this the one thing I have to say first is this:

It's bad. Really bad. Like in totally trashy bad. Like in cringeworthy bad. Like in "I feel like I'm watching a train wreck" bad.

So what the hell went wrong?

Let's trý to take this apart.

1) Acting

The lead actor (Andy Whitfield playing Spartacus) is one of the worst actors I ever had the displeasure of watching. In two hours worth of time he showed two facial expressions one of which is him just... well... doing nothing and the other is screaming. And here I thought Craig Horner in Seeker is a bad actor... compared to this he deserves and Oscar. And Erin Cummings who plays Spartacus wife Sora is not much better. They are so unbelievable in their roles it plain hurts.

The same goes for Craig Parker who is playing the main villain. Which really annoys me since he isn't such a bad actor really. But he too makes do with one face.

Actually they are so bad that the moment Lucy Lawless and John Hannah first appear on screen it feels like someone just switched on the lights. And they aren't exactly stellar actors either.

2) Visual Effects

I imagine the conversation on this between the dude responsible and the producer went something like this:

Producer: I really liked the style of 300, can we do something like that?
Dude: Well, that was pretty expensive...
Producer: Can't we do a cheap version of it?
Dude: Yeah we could... but that would... well... look cheap.
Producer: Hm... would the viewers notice?
Dude: Of course they would!
Producer: Well, do it anyway!

So yeah, it looks cheap and overdone and kind of ridiculous.

The overly colorful sunrises and sunsets can be forgiven I guess...

3) Plot

Okay... maybe I am being a little too harsh here. But really, IF you insist on calling it Spartacus shouldn't it... well... have a little more Spartacus in it? Just saying...

Barbarian gets captured and dragged off to become gladiator while beautiful wife is enslaved...

Sound familiar?

Actually it has been done before in a much, MUCH better version with much cooler plot here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brath_(comics) If you get a chance to get your hands on this have a look, it's very well written.

Then of course it has been done before in "Gladiator". That movie with Russell Crowe.

And then there was this little TV movie in German TV a few years back called "Held der Gladiatoren" which back then I thought was really bad but compared to this is a shining gem in originallity.
http://www.kino.de/kinofilm/held-der-gladiatoren/68038.html

4) Sex

Yeah, you read that right.

Sex.

There is too much of it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely don't mind some sex, even explicidly so when it has a point, when it fits into the story.

Here it feels like they had a quota of sex scenes that somehow had to be crammed into the plot and at every unexpected turn they suddenly start fucking.

It gives you a feeling of "AGAIN?? Dear lord..."

5) Foul language

Same as above.

I can just see the producer handing the script writer a check sheet with a quota of cock, cunt, fuck and whatever that he needs to work off for every scene.

Pointless.

Ridiculous.

6) Costumes

Okay... they look real enough. They are not chosen well in some scenes but they are okay.

That sadly doesn't apply to the... uh... what shall we call it... body makeup??

You know, there is this incredibly dirty, bloody barbarian with lots of beard and hair and then his doesn't have a single hair ot scar on the rest of his body. It looks like they screwed the head onto another body.

And trust me, you get to see is naked ass a lot (see point 4).

While we are at it let's talk about one of my personal pet peeves: wound consistency. How can darling Spartacus be slashed open with wide arcs of blood in the arena one day and wake up the next day with not a scratch on his body? How can he be a seasones warrior of many battles with not a single scar on him?
 
FAIL!

-

Conclusion:

I am dissappointed. This should have been really good! I WANTED to like this!!

Will I keep watching?

I guess I will check out a few more episodes. Maybe it will get better.

Hope dies last after all.

Me and hubby are going away on vacation for the next two weeks. With no internet access and next to no computer access.

So there will be no new posts for the next two weeks.

Stay safe while I'm gone, everyone =)

Burn Notice is back on!! YAY!!

*claps hands happily*

What is Burn Notice? What? You poor sod have never seen it or even heard of it? Damn, you've missed some fine piece of TV entertainment.

It's the story of an american spy (Michael Westin) who got kicked out of service due to some intrigues and stranded in Miama with no cash, no job history and the vague hope of somehow getting his life back with the help of his "trigger happy ex-girlfriend" Fiona, his old friend Sam and his mom.

The first Season mostly dealt with him trying to find out who "burned" him (kicked him out of the secret service).

In the second Season he was forced to work for those people on the hope of getting his job back some day.

Now in the third Season he is rid of those people but stuck in all sorts of intrigue trying to get his case re-evaluated.

Michael is a smart boy but also emotionally scared so his relationship with Fiona is a constant fabulously played part of the series. It is on, it is off and in the worst possible moments it goes all right or all wrong.

Michael is also a very practical and well trained spy and he constantly narates about what he is doing and how his business works during the episodes in that calm, dry voice. The actor (Jeffrey Donovan) is REALLY great at playing all the odd cover identies Michael is taking on including tons of different accents.

Fiona is a marvel in itself. She is smart, violent, pretty in a very thin way and has a cruel sense of humor that makes you snicker evily again and again.

Sam is the aging gigolo type. He is kind of sweet and very helpful to Michael but can just the same be an outright bastard.

Then there is Michael's mom (fabulously played by Sharon Gless of Cagney and Lacey fame) and his brother Nate who bring in all sorts of plots as well.

All of them are kind of in a business helping people in trouble while at the same time working on Michael's project of getting his job back.

In the last episode before the break all hell broke lose with Fiona being attacked and kidnapped by an evil errorist from her homeland Ireland and Michael trying to save her and in the process shooting the guy who had been helping him get his case re-evaluated - and who also sold Fiona to the terrorist to get her out of the picture.

The episode ended with Fiona saved but everything in the air.

WARNING!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!

This episode picked right back up on that with Fiona still hurt (she had been shot I think...) but recovering and needing Michael to help a woman who had asked her for help before everything went wrong.

So Michael and Sam once again were running two cases at the same time: trying to help that woman and trying to find out who had come to Miami to deal with Michael now that he had shot that important guy.

The woman was being threatend by guys running an insurance scam so Michael once again got a chance to dress up, put on a cool accent and get under cover to get enough dirt on them to hand them over to the police.

He also dragged his mom into it again to get him some files he needed. Which was extra sweet since the woman she needed to convince to get her those files was played by her old partner of Cagney and Lacey times. It ended with ehr having to blackmail that woman which really hurt her and Michael getting shouted at quite a bit. But he did manage to make it right in the end again and she forgave him. *happy sigh*

And of course they got the insurance scammers s well.

They also got the name of the guy who had come to Miami for Michael but no more than that. I guess we will be seeing more on this in the second half of this Season.

The episode was packed with action, perfect character interaction, humor and small little bits of info.

An awesome return that wets the appitite for more.

Today little Beeryn turned 30 after slaying countless whatnots all over the North Barrows.

She is really MUCH easier to play than Jacenira - her being a Warden and Jace being a Champion. With Jace I was always struggling when taking on more than 2 mobs at once while Beeryn handles three easily and survives up to five. It truly is a joy to watch the tiny hobbit girl beat up huge orcs en mass.

So with turning 30 she now has access to skirmishes and of course she immediately set to it.

Completing the intro quest was done quickly enough, then rush through the two tutorial skirmishes and she got to the hard part: deciding what soldier she wants. Since she doesn't really have trouble with her hit points I decided to not get a healer (even though it might have been a good idea for the always empty blue par...) and instead got a Sage.

That is what's Mue's warden is running with as well and he says he is doing extremely well.

So far Beeryn is very happy with her Sage's performance. She does decent damage, doesn't get herself killed muchly and stays back doing ranged damage.

Beeryn is however NOT pleased with her Sage's look. Huge, bony human woman! Not good. As soon as I get another attribut slot at level 35 she will be turned into either a Hobbit or a Dwarf. Beeryn complains she is getting a stiff neck looking up at the woman.

She doesn't have a name yet either. I guess I will wait until Sage gets a proper race to decide what I will call it.

In contrast to Yalenja I very much plan to continue questing with Beeryn though. Yalenja is useless on her own but Beeryn is doing so well that I think I will very much enjoy taking her places.

And here is a screen of her getting the usual speech by Mathi in Gondamon:

Seems there have been some promotions and role changes over at Paragon Studios:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=206508

I have to say I LOVE hearing that War Witch is in charge of development now, she is one great girl. Major congrats to her!

You can read a fresh interview with her here:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/3/feature/3946/page/1

The fact that Posi is stepping down to do "secret things" makes me curious though... Smells like a new MMO project or - dare I say it - City of Heroes 2?

More content for 2010 defionitely is sorely needed as long as it will be high quality content and not the crap new story arcs we have been getting lately.

Maybe my favorite MMO is not dead yet after all?

Dear Minas has returned home to the Tower of Magi. Now isn't that sweet.

Nope, it's not, because it is probably the last place on earth he ever wanted to set foot in again. I think he only joined the Wardens in the first place to get out of that prison.

But all is not well in magic wonderland.

Abomination roam the tower.

The templars are helpless and useless as always.

Surprise, surprise...

So what is a self respecting mage to do?

Head in and save his brethren? Aid the templars.

What seemed like a simple decision (rescue as many mages as possible) came to a sudden grinding stop when we met Wynn just inside.

That now-it-all, intruding, hag got Minas more and more rilled with each word that came out of her stupid mouth.

And then she insisted on coming along. Which would have meant leaving either Shale (my beloved, take it all, ridicule everything golem!! NO WAY!!) or Zevran (my sweet darling boy toy that never minds sneaking off to a dark corner for some take-a-break romp even in the middle of the worst of it) or my beloved Al (the dog. yes, I named the dog Al. To spite Alistair. Did I mention Minas hates Alistair?).

So...

What can I say...

We killed her...



But the bitch really brought that on herself! She could have stayed behind save and sound but she kept insisting on coming along and ruining my perfect party!

But we made atomement for that later in letting some Blood Mages escape in a grand gesture of mercy...

What??

Don't look at me like that! I did it out of kindness! After all Minas wants to be the only super powerful mage around. So that means killing anyone who could intrude on his decisions and kindly leaving all lesser mages alive. He is not a complete monster. Just a bit... odd...

Now he is stuck in the Fade until next play time.

Hubby will LOVE this!

For the last few weeks Jacenira has been working very hard on getting all her chosen virtues up to 10. That meant traveling all over the place and killing lots and lots of beasts.

Today she finally completed her goal:



As a reward for all the hard work I allowed her to buy the horse that you can get when you have kindred reputation with the Council of the North. You can marvel at it here:

http://ashuroa.livejournal.com/174951.html

She and Azumas have also been hard at work on completing the epic Volume 1.

Yesterday evening they got together a nice group to do an instance in Book 12 and the group stayed together for a change.

Azumas had to go off but Jacenira and the the rest of the group quickly rushed through the rest of Book 12. All in all it took us about an hours tops.

And today Jace worked her way through most of Book 13 which brought her back to her adored Forochel. Damn, it is good she has all the quick travel options there already since she was sent all over the place.

Now she only has to complete the last group instance of Book 13. Then Book 14 & 15 and she will finally be done with Volume 1.

Hurra...

I am not entirely sure I will do this again with any other character.

Oh, who am I kidding... I probably will...

Jace's next horse project are the white horse in Lorien (she is doing crafting instances in Moria to get the 30 golden leafs) and the black horse in Mirkwood (daily Thangulhad for the Maledhrim stars).

Awesome episode!

Sometimes you watch an episode of a series and after watching it you can't really say what happened in it because - frankly - nothing much happened at all. Or you watch an episode and it's none stop action and you get the feeling the characters have totally been swept under the rug for all the special effects action.

This episode was packed with plot and still managed to have lots of those "squeeeee" moments where the characters got to really shine.

WARNING!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!

There were so many story lines it's hard to keep track of them all but I shall try!

In the last episode Anny took a job in the local pub. There she met a guy who seemed pretty nice and she has been flirting with him a lot. In this episode we got some solo screen time for that guy and saw that he was seeing odd things like the TV talking to him and telling him to go date Anny. It later turned out these were actually voices from beyond (the dead). First they made him assault any on their date, then they got him into a car accident which killed him. And when he then was a ghost like Anny they tried to make him drag her through the door to the afterlife (which Anny turned down in the last Season).

So it seems the dead REALLY want her to join them. There have been quite a few spooky hints on what terrible things await beyond that door so Anny was scratching and fighting and in the end the guy let her go and went through the door himself.

But now Anny is invisible again to normal people. Which is a shame since she was just starting to also flirt with her very sweet boss in the pub.

George and his girl friend Nina got some time to work on their relationship which didn't go too well since George helped Mitchell with some of his troubles and Nina absolutely couldn't cope with the insanity of it all so in the end she left the house and George quietly.

The strange religious creepy guys have planted a listening bug in the house and all through the episode we got glimpses of them listening in on the gang. In the end the creepy old dude showed up next to Nina to talk to her but we didn't get to see what he wanted.

And last but not least we got a lot of Mitchell this episode (which is great since he is so cute!)

First of all he had been flirting with a doctor (at the hospital where he, George and Nina work) last episode. This time he continued that in a really cute, dorky way. So sweet to watch a century old vampire make a fool of himself.

But that doctor got a corpse in which turned out to be someone Mitchell knew. A mortal who had been the boyfriend of the vampure who taught Mitchell how to live without drinking human blood a few years ago. The guy had been complete drained of blood so obviously had been killed by a vampire.

That rought up two problems for Mitchell that he had to chew on during this episode.

1) The coronor refused to cover up anymore for the vampires, now that the evil head honcho vampire had been killed (by George in last Season's finale). So Mitchell had to find a way to cover up the whole thing which was personally difficult since the doctor who he has a crush on was really curous about the case.

2) It turned out that the guy had been killed by his boyfriend vampire who had suddenly not been able to resist drinking blood again. So Mitchell now had his ex-mentor gone depressive over murdering his boyfriend on his hands. And to worry about maybe falling back to drinking human blood again himself.

He also had to get his ex-mentor out of town since the police would now be looking for him since the coroner refused to cover up. And that was the part that George was helping him with.

And Ivan (the vampire from the last episode with the slightly mental girl friend) helped him as well but also very clearly told Mitchell how the world would go down the drain if and when mortals now found out about the existence of vampires, werewolves and ghosts.

So basically all three of our heroes got a hard kick in the gut this episode and I suffer with all of them. They all deserve some kind of a bit of happiness since they are so sweet really but things just continue to go wrong.

Azumas has said a very wise thing.

"How can it be that a girl from Rohan can't find the right horse?"

It took me a while but Jacenira has told me the answer. She wants all of them. After all a Roherrim should have many horses. So my new pet project is getting her all the horses in the game. All the horses! Not all the goats.

So in this post I will track which horses she has gained, including the date when she got them. At least from now on.

-

The first mount she got was a sweet regular brown.

This is Moos:



Next she got the goat that came as an extra with the pre order collector's edition of Mirkwood.

This is Klee:



During the Julfest event she got the old Julfest horse:

This is Eisblume:



And today (01/17/2010) she got herself her dreamhorse, which you get for getting the kindred status in reputation with the Wardens of Annuminas.

This is Sonnenblume:



01/20/2010
Jacenira got herself this horse as a reward for getting all her virtues up to 10. You have to have kindred reputation with the Council of the North to be allowed to buy and ride it.

This is Distel:

I'm not sure I mentioned this in my first post about this series so I'll say it here:

Legend of the Seeker is my favorite of the TV series we are regularily watching at the moment.

It just has the right mix of okay and funny plot, adorable characters (and actors), style and... well... everything.

Episode 8 was especially good though.

WARNING!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!

It brought back Denna again with Richard and the gang following her since the stole the compass that can lead them to the Stone of Tears which they need to repair the tear in the veil that separates the Underworld from the realm of the living and keeps the (evil, evil) Keeper of the Underworld where he belongs.

This time Denna manages to kidnap Zed who she wants to train to become her pet. I mean - who wouldn't want her very own wizard pet?

At the same time Richard is suffering from terrible headaches and some women calling themselves the Sisters of the Light conveniently appear out of the forrest telling him that it is the wizard in him awakening and that he has to come with them to learn to be a wizard or the pain will kill him.

This I believe is an adaptation of the second book which I didn't really read anymore but just skimmed over.

Richard agrees to go with them while Kahlan and Cara (the reformed Mord'Sith) go after Denna and Zed. Richard gives the Sword of Truth to Kahlan since he doesn't know how long his wiozard training will take so they can name a new Seeker.

I have to say I LOVE Kahlan's new outfit. She has at last shed that ridiculous white flowing gown and exchanged it for a dark sort of gown with leather and slit almost up to the hip showing lots of leg and thigh high boots. Very sexy.

Kahlan and Cara get some extremely cute and funny scenes.

Richard gets to fight some Mistwraith (I think that#s what the mumbling was supposed to mean) which are also from the second book. He also rescues some natives and by the end of the episode reaches the Palace of the Prophets where he is supposed to be trained as a wizard.

Kahlan and Cara manage to rescue Zed and Cara shoots Denna right off a cliff. Which of course means we didn't see a body so she can come back any time a plot might need her.

Yay!

So this episode had everything I enjoy about Seeker. Really looking forward to seeing how things will go at the Palace of the Prophets in the next episode. If I recall correctly teh Sister are evil actually...

Today Jacenira and Azumas continued their ongoing struggle against the evil of Angmar, embodied in Amarthiel, the Champion of Angmar who continues to look for her lost ring (seems to be quite common among villains in Middle Earth) and against the endless stupidty of elves, embodied in too many elves to count.

They had followed Amarthiel to the Trollshaws where she seems to think the ring is hidden.

We killed a few of her scouts to see if she had better info then we did but didn't find anything. So we started looking for the ring too to find it before her.

Which - honstely - I think her plan is. So nice of us to find the blasted thing for her, eh?

We did find Sara Eichenherz journal which in turn brought us to a place that revealed quite some things about Amarthiel's past and the past stupidities of elves.

We went into an old dungeon where we caught glimpses of the past. Admitedly this was very cool done. Kudos to the devs for storytelling.

Turns out Amarthiel originally was called Narmeleth and the daughter of Laerdan. The stupid elf of today obviously is the stupid elf of the past.

Apparently Narmeleth had been caught by Angmarin long in the past, been given an evil ring and turned into Amarthiel. Then Laerdan managed to capture her and take her ring away and hide it somewhere. But instead of getting her help from some healer elves she locked her up in a remote dungeon hoping to cure her himself with only an old Hobbit woman to look after her (Sara Eichenherz). Brilliant plan...

Of course it didn't work out.

Mordirith found his missing Champion eventually and freed her. Amarthiel killed Sara and took her form occasionally from then on. And is looking for her ring ever since.

And after we had figured all of that out the super evil servant dude showed up again, locking us up in the dungeon and gloating about how Amarthiel had already found teh ring.



I swear if I ever get my hands on that dude I am going to do so unspeakable things to him that even Morgoth will flinch...

Anyway - a moderatly bright elf showed up to get us out again.

And now we are looking for Laerdan who got himself captured by Amarthiel when we stole the bowling ball. Since he must know where he hid that blasted ring.

-

In other news:
7.000 reputation to go to dreamhorse!

Let's talk about the story. The main story. The so called "epic story".

It is pretty cool in most parts but in some things you just want to scream and shout and slap the NPCs left and right.

Like when they grab they super mithril axe and march off with two people and the PC to defeat all the orcs in Moria.

Or when they run off on their own to do something so monumentally stupid that you'd really think a centuries olf elf should know better.

Or when they leave the incredibly dangerous and evil artifact with the incredibly dangerous and evil prisoner who has been mocing them all along and then SERIOUSLY are surprised when the prisoner grabs the artifact, kills a few of them and disappears.

VALAR!! WITH DEFENDERS LIKE THESE MIDDLE EARTH IS DOOMED!!!

Eherm...

Sorry devs but maybe you should try to come up with something that does not leave the player standing there raging at the screen for not being able to make her character do what she SHOULD be doing since she has a little sense left in her tiny pixel brain.

Anyway...

Jacenira and Azumas have completed Book 10 of the epic story with much exasperation and are now well into Book 11 which still has them hunting for the evil Champion of Angmar,

Which also included burying the dead after their stupidity got them killed:



This really was a well done little instance and should have moved me but after witnessing how they died all I could think was "Why can't I throw their stupid leader off that cliff he is standing so conveniently close to? The rest of them would be so much safer under my lead..."

*sigh*

at least Jace is making good progress on the horse project. Only 13.000 reputation to go.

It's thursday which means the LOTRO servers are down for maintainace which in turn means I headed back to Ferelden this morning to spend some time with Minas.

This time we headed down into the werewolf infested ruins of the Brecillian Forest.

And damn, these ruins are so PRETTY. I really love how they have been done with the sun shining through the roofs, the huge roots breaking through walls. SOO much prettier than the dank Deep Roads.



I remembered there being a few difficult fights in the ruins when I came through there with Sonaris but with this team make up I had no trouble whatsoever. Not a single death or even close call.

I found so new and much better armor for Zevran which he looks quite hot in (well... new is relative in this case since it's ancient elven armor...). Minas and Zev took some time outs to snog and flirt in the darker corridors. They really are not very shy. Shale was already complaining there wasn't enough killing.

Then we got to the cutscenes with the Lady of the Forest and Minas went for the diplomatic solution just like Sonaris. He definitely would have sided with the werewolves and he was tempted to go kill the Dalish but in the end the fact that Zev seems to like them and that he is an elf himself won out. So the curse is lifted and we get the Dalish to help in the coming battles.

I think if I do a third run through of the game I will go all evil. Side with Branka, kill the Dalish, kill everything in the Mage's Tower, defile the Urn of Sacred Ashes... the whole thing.

But Minas is not so stable in his decisions, he likes a more "spur of the moment" approach.

He did however wonder why he couldn't recruit "the babe" to his party and romance her for some hot threesomes...

This babe:


Naughty little mage he is...

When he got back to camp after finishing the Dalish quest he took the chance to repeatedly shag Zev and then talk to Alistair and get some minus approval from him. Funnily Oghren totally approves of all the shagging... Pervy dwarf...

Next up he'll be heading to the Mage's Tower.

Beeryn is my sadly neglcted Hobbit Warden. She is a very cute girl with a sense of style. Meaning she wears a huge hat and no shoes. I mean - come on! - each time I see a Hobbit wearing shoes I cringe inside. What self respecting Hobbit would put on SHOES?!!

Not Beeryn - she is running over any ground with her good naked feet.

I didn't really play her though for quite a while since I was so busy with Jacenira and then leveling up Yalenja with skirmishes. But now Jace isn't so busy anymore and Yalenja is a bit stuck herself. She and Mue (Mue's Warden) have started questing together in Forochel and since I really like it there I don't want to level ahead.

So I'm back with little Beeryn. Yesterday she completed her last quests in Breeland, then she moved to Threstlebridgt (or whatever it is called in English...) and did some stuff there.

But since I have just done all the North Barrows quests with Thalwen I decided to move her to the Lone Lands today and try out the new design there since the zone was revamped with the Mirkwood expansion.

I must say she solos VERY well. Better than Jacenira actually. She can take on three even level mobs without really getting into trouble. So she pretty much easily rushed through all the Weathertop quests, including the solo version of the instance.

Now she is safely parked at the Forsaken Inn awaiting further orders. She is level 24 now so I am quite pleased with her progress.

Here she is killing orcs:


And in other news:
Jacenira has 25.000 reputation to go to her dream horse!