Clarysta Bangs, She Bangs

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...

Not sure why orcs are portrayed as just one step above beasts, but I like the simplicity of creepside. And I love flashing my BA's moobs all the time.





Cazper: Clarrow, don't any of your toons wear shirts?
Clarrow: No.

Simple answer for simple folks.

I like having fewer skills on my BA than my captain has. I like not having to worry about Legendary Traits and Legendary Items and Legendary Lag (ooops sorry that just slipped out)

At the same time, one or two more skills would be nice. Not all skills have to be flame-throwers or rocket launchers. You can have a few Big Bangs or many Little Bangs. (o.0 - I think I have a new theory of the universe!)

Hunters can nuke for, like, a billion points. No, I exaggerate but hits of 8-9k have been reported. My highest was a devastating VT for 4k. This was before audacity and probably before the freepvictim had earned any level 75 instance gear.  I would love to have one Big Bang like the hunters get. But I'm not picky.

I think we could stand to have either:

1) A moderate damage skill with a low chance for a mega-crit with a long cooldown

2) A skill with low damage on a short cooldown

3) A skill with a long cooldown that applies a fear or silence

I hate not having a skill up. It seems to happen more in Skirmisher than in no stance or Keen Eye, which makes sense because of the reduced range in Skirmisher stance. But even in Keen Eye I find myself occasionally staring at cooldowns.

Here I find myself staring down .... someone.




Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

Bazinga! You probably thought I was going to use some other lyrics, didn't ya! April Fool!

Clarysta Goes Shopping...Um.. Again

All this money can't buy me a time machine (Nooooo)
Can't replace you with a million rings (Nooooo)
I should've told you what you meant to me (Whoa)
'Cause now I pay the price


Sometimes a girl just needs a little retail therapy. With Update 6 out, I decided to take a look at the store. 
Confession time: I have purchased things with Turbine points. I don't think I've bought any points with cash, but I could be wrong. I am usually wrong at least once per day and I don't think I've been wrong so far this morning. I could be wrong about that though.

All prices are Update 6 prices as of today.

Things I've purchased on the store (freepside):

• Delving Scrolls (Greater or Lesser or weaker or poorer or whatever): You need one per LI which means for me, I need one about every year. I cannot for the life of me ever remember where to find them. So yes, I buy Delving Scrolls - aka "Legendary Cap Increase."  195tp
• Cosmetics: Not so much actually. I have most of the clothing looks because I EARNED THEM THE HARD WAY - yeah I said it. I earned them after I got done walking home from school uphill all the way in 10 feet of snow and 30 below weather or however that goes. I did buy one or two cloaks, then I realized that as in real life, I hate overly embellished, elfish-y clothes ingame.  195tp
• Relic Removal Scroll: Um...I think I bought two way back when we first got them, and then I forgot to buy two more when I deconned my lovely second age when RoI made it worthless. Losing years,  yes years, of relic farming.  195tp
• Stats: OH OH OH I KNOW THIS ONE! Yes, I have purchased 5 tiers for every stat for my captain. Hey, she's worth it, ok? Geez, get off my back already. I only found 2? low level scrolls in all those lovely GB runs. So yeah, I bought them and I'm proud of it. I probably won't buy the tier 6 ones though because now I'm cheap. 295tp although I know I waited for sales for these
• Deed Increases: Of course. I ground out all deeds in Eriador and most in Moria THE HARD WAY on 4 toons*. This was a no-brainer. Used one just the other night actually, killing ugly monster thingys in Skumfil. Do you blame me for not wanting to spend more time in a place called scum fill? 75tp
• Reputation Increases: See above "Deed Increases". Same reason. Well, not quite. I leveled the minstrel up to 70 on tasks so she could have enough rep to buy the recipe journals. Still not quite done with her reputation and now she's out leveled the Dunlending tasks. Darnit.  225tp
• Task Reset: This time, really do see above "Reputation Increases."  100tp
• Food: I parked my champ for a year. She was the cook. It was either buy food or starve. I admit that there was very little I needed food for, so this was probably only a 1-time purchase. Maybe twice. Maybe more - hey, what are you, Weight Watchers? Making me track every bite, lick, taste? Geez. It's not like a toon can get fat or anything. 90tp

Working out in Galtrev

Things I Will Probably Never Buy:

Just about everything else. hehe - short and sweet, just like me :)
Ok, details... 

• Skirmish Soldier Time: Ridiculous. If this was a mechanism for gating, then it was a bad idea to gate this. People who can afford it don't need it. Have all of you forgotten how painful leveling from 30-50 was? Give the lowbies a break and let them play with their soldier. 100tp per hour
• Content: Well, I might buy it. But I CAN'T. Because as a subscriber I am blocked from buying quest packs and skirmies. For my own "protection." But also effectively blocking me from buying a little at a time before I unsubscribe. Also I think we saw this fall with RoI that Turbine is going to overprice releases bought with TP. No clue how much this costs since the powers that be have decreed that I'm not even allowed to SEE IT.
• Shared Storage: Honestly, what is this good for? Especially now that it overlaps the wallet. It's like you need one or the other if you have alts, and the wallet seems a little better. Oh wait, I'm not into the whole cosmetic thing the way some folks are so..yeah.  995tp
• Horses: Too expensive for something for only one character. 1995tp
• Buffs: Ridiculous to spend "real money" on short-term boosts just to complete content. And I'm not a freep so I don't need them to prevent dying in the moors. Price - not enough to keep the freeps from buying them
• Crafting Mat Bundles: Ridiculous - account only? If I do make stuff, it's almost always for another player. 25-175tp
• Anything to do with travel or housing: Easy enough to get around this game and housing is worthless. 

Things I MIGHT Buy When They Go on Sale:

• Premium Wallet: Honestly I think they got this backwards. Should have been free to put everything into the wallet, and premium (purchase) to share account wide. Useful though, especially if I do keep leveling the other ladies.  995tp
• Mark Acquisition: Now that they're shared across account, I can see doing more skirmies. I'm probably the only person on Arkenstone that enjoys doing them. Price: 90tp

So there ya go. Store use, per the Lovely Lady Captain.

In another life I would be your girl
We'd keep all our promises
Be us against the world 

In another life I would make you stay 

So I don't have to say

You were the one that got away
The one that got away

Clarysta Gives Feedback

I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited

But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it

I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded

That for me, it isn’t over  yet

Next week will be my fourth anniversary in LotRO. I plan to post a light-hearted discussion of what I like and why I still play.

But today is not that day.

Today I'm going to provide some feedback to Turbine in the form of a blog post. It may or may not reach their ears and it may or may not have an impact. Either way I'll feel better, and that's what's important, right?

If I could give Sapience any advice it would be this: get another job. Sounds harsh, right? But eventually his words will come back to haunt him. Patience was lucky; she got out before her statements were washed away in Turbine's spin cycle. I am glad that Sapience posted this, but this is communication that should come from the people responsible for the actions, not those that get stuck with the response.

For those of you that missed it in the thread, here's my little comment:

Lot of words in this thread already so I'll keep this short:

1) I don't care what goes into the store. I'm in the camp of "Don't Care What Other People Do." I am finding this trickle of items, cleverly and constantly pushing the boundaries to be very annoying. Put whatever you want in the store, see if it sells. Get it over with. Just promise me you'll still call me in the morning.

2) This thing that Sapience posted can't be applied to pvp. The whole "advantage vs convenience" thing goes right out the window for pvp, where ANY benefit is an advantage. Oh, I'll also point out that he even referred to "unbalanced game" as something fun - whether that was sarcasm or not, it's a slap in the face to pvp players that face imbalances as a chronic condition.

Ok, I'm done. Back to this awesome OC/Rez fight.

By the way, it was a terrible OC/Rez fight and I was falling asleep at the keyboard. Good thing I'd done a lot of questing yesterday or I probably wouldn't have gotten any infamy at all. Hurray for pve in pvp.

**************************

But today's announcement prompted this post. Another expansion, another level cap increase and two yes TWO substantial changes to combat.

According to the Massively article, 

Players will learn special skills for mounted combat and spend their spare time up-armoring their My Little War-Ponies. 

Well, I guess we've learned that it's possible for Turbine to not know what they are saying in interviews, but even accounting for the playful tone of the article's author, it's pretty clear that the Pony Grind is coming soon to a game near you.

I have ZERO confidence in Turbine's ability to implement the combat changes necessary for mounted combat. And here’s why:

• Great Water Bug of Moria - The issue with the z-axis that caused mobs to bug out if you'd been anywhere near water.
• The combat changes that rendered guards impotent and gave minstrels jelly arms when Moria released
• The book 8 release that killed the champs so bad my partner deleted his
• The (insert release here) changes that left wardens wondering why they'd ever been created
• And even now, the mitigation changes that made creeps melt before the enemy, and the big, "Look we fixed it! Oops, did I say we fixed it? Sorry!" issues that STILL continue 4 months after RoI released

Nothing compares, no worries or cares

Regrets and mistakes, they’re memories made

Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste

**************************

Specific feedback for Turbine:

·         Fix Bullroarer. Bullroarer is a preview server, but it needs to be a beta test environment.

o   Remove auto-ranking on Bullroarer. Many of the issues with creep mitigations could have been seen if Bullroarer's pvp wasn't just an epeen sausage fest. If there is a need to test at rank 15, it seems that could be handled differently. I'd like to see creeps get at most a 2 rank boost above their current rank. Of course that would mean migrating creeps to Bullroarer first.

o   Provide instructions for beta and require feedback. 

o   Act on Bullroarer feedback. A lot of bugs were caught on Bullroarer and reported and yet RoI released on schedule anyway.

·         Revamp LIs. There's only 3 things I think this needs:

o   Provide for scaling of existing LIs with level cap increase. NO ONE wants to repeat the grind.

o   Remove the tiers of the legacies to allow for true choice. Right now captains "need" 4 major legacies. That means at least a 400% increase in grinding items to level 30 to find an item with that structure.

o   Add legendary items to the front half of the game. Similar to skirmish soldiers, this allows the leveling process to begin much earlier and reduce the feel of the grind.

·         Put pvmp back on the table. Or remove it entirely. Either will work. Neither is no longer acceptable.

o   Put a development cycle in place that INCLUDES monster players. Either include the pvmp developer in the planned freep changes early, or publish a schedule that lets monster players know exactly when their toons will be buffed in response to the freep changes.

o   If we can spend TP in the Moors, we should be able to earn them there. I'd like to see more deeds, and deeds with TP attached for monster players. And no, killing 24570183470187 hobbits, when there are only 3 that play on my server, is not an acceptable deed.

See you next week with a happier post.

Clarysta Wants the Big One

Forum post :"I really can't imagine what a pure soloist who never even does 3-man content would really do end-game. "

I've stopped doing a lot of end-game group content. So I'll answer this as a soloer/duoer. For me it's about character progression which means

BIG CRITS.

Don't kid yourself and say that's not what you want too. What do you do when you get new "stuff?" Yeah, you know it. No need to be embarrassed. You equip it, run out and see how much you can hit or heal for. 

KaBLAMM! WHAM! SMASH! (you go, melee demon!)

SHAZAAM! (all the tactical damage classes focus fire!) 

And a big operatic la-La-LA-LAAAAA! (healers sing it LOUD!)

I don't care about much else. Just how do the stats affect my crit size and frequency. So I see a set of gear with 3 times as much might as the crafted set, and I probably want that. At least to play around with. And impress the lowbies that I help occasionally. 

Maybe Turbine should have a gear-rental program for those of us that just want to try not buy. New marketing - "Look what you can do when you hit 75!"

Sadly, I have no screenies of my big hits. Probably because the lovely lady captain was not in any position to do damage until mid-2011. Or it could be because I stopped taking screenies.

Oh, the other thing I want are awesome cosmetics. Please no make ugly crafted gear no more thank you. Or if I'm going to craft something, at least it should look like I made it to fit me and not my horse.

I swear you hit me like a vision
I, I, I wasn't expecting
But who am I to tell fate where it's supposed to go?

I'll take flying mounts too please.

Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun, yeah

Clarysta Finds ... Something

If I was just another dusty record on the shelf

Would you blow me off and play me like everybody else

Welcome to the era of the Instance Finder! You can read all about it here Release Notes and in this forum thread

My concern is not with the tool itself. From what I've seen on Bullroarer it is working as intended. Why it is intended to work that way, well, it seems to function as something that wasn't asked for. Kind of like getting a kitten when you really wanted a puppy - not an altogether bad thing, and hey at least you got something.

My concern is with the deployment.

I completely get that this is Instance Finder 1.0. I understand that future releases will be impacted by our feedback. To get that feedback, players have to actually USE the tool. So of course Turbine creates motives for our use.

Carrot:
Woo! +50% currency reward! This is a good thing, yes? Makes using the tool a pretty good idea, especially if you're in the grind for the new gear. That kind of reward would get a lot of players to use the tool.

Stick #1:
But...not using the tool is now bad player behavior. It's not enough to reward players to use this tool, Turbine must prevent anyone using the tool. So let's remove the daily quest rewards. In order to come close to what was earned before, a player HAS to use the tool.

Stick #2:
One stick is not enough apparently. To really hammer home the fact that this tool MUST be used, they increase the cost of the gear. So now really the only way to make it reasonable to get the gear is to use this tool. 

Are the raised gear cost and the enforcement of the Finder tool linked?

They could have just given a carrot. Announce the tool, explain that it's 1.0 and feedback is necessary. "Play through 15 instances in 6 weeks using the tool and give feedback through an online survey and get a reward." Wouldn't even have to be +50%. 10% probably would have been enough. Heck, doesn't even have to be marks - lots of players would be glad to participate for a deed, a title (Clarysta Sunshine, Finders Keepers) a cloak or even a cosmetic item Cookie. Or a bro-stache app.

Turbine is really developing a reputation for not respecting the customer. How many more examples do we need?


If I could only find a note to make you understand
I'd sing it softly in your ear and grab you by the hands
To keep me stuck inside your head, like your favorite tune
And know my heart's a stereo that only plays for you

Clarysta Gets Twitterized

In case you ever need to know, like, RIGHT NOW what I'm up to, you should probably follow me on Twitter. Because you know, like, you need to know this.


@clarystainsun 


Yes, this is just about what I look like IRL, except I work from home so I wear bunny slippers a lot.

Clarysta Speaks

To my friends in New York, I say hello
My friends in L.A. they don't know
Where I've been for the past few years or so
Paris to China to Colorado

Best thing about this game is meeting people. And then making them laugh with silly emote text.

./sit slips into BA Stealth Mode. FYI - BA Stealth Mode is currently broken: it only works when no one is around to see it.

I stole this from the forums today. And then I reformatted it so it wasn't The Great Wall of Text that Blogger turned it into. A great guide to LotRO chat by Niwashi:

I'm sure there are probably guides on the chat system, but don't know of any off hand, so I'll just explain some of the basics.

The chat box serves basically three different purposes: It's a place where the game software can notify you of what's going on. It's a place where you can have conversations with other players. And it can be used to perform various actions within the game.

The information you see in the chat boxes divided into different channels.

Channels like "Standard" and "Combat" are for notifications from the game software about what's happening to your character (or in some cases what's happening in your vicinity).

Channels like "Advice", "LFF", and "OOC" are for players to use for conversations with other players.

If you right-click on the current tab at the top of the chat window, there's an option for "Filters". This allows you to select which channels you want shown in the chat box when that tab is selected. You can also add additional tabs and set different filters for them, if for example, you want one tab that shows everything, and another that just shows what's being said in the "Advice" channel. (It's easier to follow a conversation if you can look at it by itself without stuff from other channels interspersed amongst it.)

I'll divide the rest of this description by the three purposes I mentioned at the beginning.

Notifications from the game system.The most significant of the channels used by the game software is called "Standard". This is the channel that will tell you when you earn XP, when you advance a quest, when you complete a deed, when you earn reputation, when you receive items, etc. You'll want this displayed (i.e. included in the "Filters" option described above) on at least one of your chat tabs, and that's probably the tab you'll want displayed most of the time you're out adventuring.

Conversations with other players.Some of the channels are for conversations with other players, and are divided by topic. You'll see displayed whatever channels are included in your display filters.
To select which channel you want your own messages to appear in, click the little speech-bubble icon in the lower left corner of the chat window. A few of the most common output channels ("Say", "Fellowship", and "Kinship", IIRC) appear in the first dropdown menu. There's also an "Output Channel" option that will bring up the other possibilities in a secondary dropdown menu. (I don't know why they didn't just put them all under "output channel". It would have made it much clearer.) Note that although the game will remember your display filters from one game session to another, your output channel will be reset to the default "Say" each time you log in.

The basic channels for conversation:

Advice - This is where to ask questions about the game, or answer other players' questions. If you don't understand how to do something, there's likely someone else around who can point you in the right direction.

LFF - This stands for "Looking For Fellowship". It's where people get together with others hoping to do group content together.

Trade - This is for advertising items that you want to sell to other players or ask for items you'd like to buy from other players.

OOC - This stands for "Out Of Character", and is basically for general chat with other players that doesn't fit into a particular category.

Say - This channel has a smaller area that it gets broadcast to. Whereas the channels listed above will go to all players in the region who have the channel in their display filters (e.g. throughout the Shire if you're in the Shire, or throughout Bree-land if you're in Bree-land, etc.), "Say" will only be seen by those who are nearby. It's meant to emulate the audible range in which your character could be heard if he/she was talking. If you're role-playing, this is where to put whatever your character says. This is also the default channel you'll start out in each time you log in.

Emote - This channel is somewhat of a combination. It shows actions your character or others around you take using emote commands (which I'll describe below), but can also be used by role-players as an output channel in which to describe actions their characters are taking that don't fit into the emotes defined by the system. Like the "Say" channel, it also has a smaller radius that will only be seen by those nearby (roughly near enough to be within visual range).

Fellowship - This channel is used when you're grouped with other players in a fellowship. Anything said in the fellowship channel will be broadcast to all other members of your fellowship, but not to any other players in the area. It's where to plan your strategy for how to complete a quest or decide what objectives to do next, etc.

Kinship - If you're in a Kinship, this channel will broadcast to all other members of your kinship who are currently online and have it in their display filter (no matter where they're at in the game world). It can be used to discuss anything that would be of interest to your whole kinship (which can vary from one kinship to another).

Tell - The Tell channel is used for private conversations between two players, and it works a little differently from other channels because you need to enter a command to direct the message to a specific character. For instance, if you want to say hello to my champ character, Ceolrath, you would type "/tell Ceolrath Hello". The person you direct the Tell to is the only person who will see it, and they can see it no matter where they're at in the game world.

There are also user-defined channels. If you and some friends want a chat channel between yourselves, you can use the "/createchannel" command to make one or "/joinchannel" to enter a channel one of your friends made. The more widely used version of this is to join widespread user-defined channels. For instance, many players (particularly once reaching the higher levels where they'll be doing end-game content) find the division of channels like "LFF" into just the region you're in to be inconvenient. So most servers have a long-running user-defined channel for Global Looking For Fellowship. (On some servers it's called GLFF and on others it's called GlobalLFF. Ask on your server which they use.) You can join this by using a command like "/joinchannel glff" or "/joinchannel globallff". Some servers divide out the functions similarly to the standard channels, so will have a global advice channel, a global OOC channel, a global trade channel, etc. whereas on others the global lff channel sort of became a general global channel for everything. 

Once you've joined a user-created channel such as GLFF, to send a message to it, you would set your output channel to User1, which simply means the first user-created channel you joined. If you join multiple user channels, they become User1, User2 and so on, in the order you join them, up to a maximum of four.

Actions.The chat window can also be used to perform actions. That you want to execute an action or command is indicated to the system by including a slash character "/" at the beginning of what you type.

The most common types of actions you can perform using the chat window are emotes. For instance, if you type "/sit" or select "sit" from the dropdown menu under the speech-bubble icon, your character will sit down and a message stating that you sat down will appear in the emote channel of the chat window. If you type or select "/smoke", your character will take out a pipe and start smoking it and a message to that effect will also appear in the emote channel. You can find a listing of all the emotes currently available to you under the drop-down menus when you click the speech-bubble icon. (It takes several pages of menus to list them all, so you'll see a "more" option at the end of the first list of emotes that will bring up a second list, and so on till you get through all of them.)

For some emotes, it makes a difference who/what you have selected when you perform the emote. For instance, if you're simply going to sit down, it doesn't make much difference who you have selected, except that the text in the emote channel will say "<your character's name> sits with <selected character's/item's name>". However, if someone is playing music and you want to applaud their performance, it's good to select them when you do the "/clap" emote, so everyone can see who you're clapping for. If you want to thank someone, select them and use the "/thank" emote. Not only does the text change from "(name) gives a hearty thank-you to everyone nearby" to "(name) thanks (target name) heartily for {her|his} help!", but your selected target player gets a point towards a hidden deed that could earn them the title "The Helpful".

Many emotes are available to everyone, but there are others that you can earn in the game. For instance, during festivals (such as the fall festival running now through Nov 7) you can go to the Party Tree in the Shire and do a dance quest to learn the /dance_hobbit or /dance_hobbit2 emotes, go to the basement below Thorin's Hall to learn /dance_dwarf or /dance_dwarf2 emotes, go to Duillond in Ered Luin to learn to dance like an elf, or to the festival area north of Bree to learn to dance like a man. There are emotes you can buy with festival tokens (for instance, 12 fall festival tokens can buy the /BOO emote), emotes you can learn by having other people use emotes on you (for instance, if enough people select you and perform a /bow emote, you can learn the /heropose emote), emotes you can get from factions you have reputation with (for instance, once you reach Friend status with the Inn League you can get the /dance_jig emote from one of the faction's traders), and so on. (Many of these are now also available through the LOTRO Store, but IMHO it's more fun to earn them than to just buy them.)

There are also commands you can send to the system other than emotes. I already mentioned the /createchannel and /joinchannel commands. The /afk command will toggle on or off a notification that you're away from your keyboard (the text <AFK> will appear in front of your name and anyone who sends you a /tell will get a notification that you're afk.) The "/rp on" or "/rp off" commands will toggle your character's name display to white text as an indication to other players that you're role-playing and would prefer them to speak to you in-character if they're going to talk with you. Typing /loc will give you the coordinates of your current location. (This can be useful if you found a guide online telling where to find something you need for a current quest. Such guides often specify locations by their coordinates.) There's several others as well. (I'll update later if I find a complete list.)

Ok, well, that explanation is getting rather more long-winded than I originally intended it to, but hopefully the answers you were looking for are in there somewhere.

I say, "Oh, got this feeling that you can't fight"
Like this city is on fire tonight
This could really be a good life, a good, good life

Clarysta Moves...Like Jagger

You want to know how to make me smile

Take control, own me just for the night

And if I share my secret

You're gonna have to keep it

Nobody else can see this

So watch and learn

I won't show you twice



Turbine isn't learning. Apparently there's an annual fee added to my monthly subscription just to keep playing. Forget getting anything new for the cost of this expansion.


Phasing 

Interesting idea, poor execution. I believe a lot of the quest bugs were phasing-related. I duoed the whole way through with The Champ and we constantly had npcs with unusable quest rings, instances that said they could be duoed that were riddled with bugs, and a number of times where there would be 2 copies of an npc when we returned from an instance. I'm pretty sure this is because the engine was trying to render the right state for both of us, perhaps seconds after the state would have updated.

In Forthbrond, we actually saw different sets of npcs. We were in the same layer, so I think it must have something to do with the phasing again.

The Attack of the Clones 

Well, for those that are soloing, the helper npcs were probably pretty useful. In a duo though, we ended up with two sets of every npc helper. It looked ridiculous. 

Can't Touch This 

Many of the quests were not set up for groups at all. I don't mean difficulty, I mean the ability to update the fellow when an item is used by one person. We had to kill several bosses twice so we could both get credit, quest items disappeared on use, etc.

What Were They THINKING!

I am ANGRY about the Goat quest line and I'm sitting at 4/7 for the deed. There, I said it. Way to fail, Berephon. 

Crafting. What a mess. The lack of complete sets for 66-74. The absurdly high cost yet low crit rate for the level 75 gear (best you can get with a journal is 63% at the cost of 2 sigils, a high-level rep gate requirement and single-use recipes). Or week long cooldowns.

EDIT: I'm going to add to this - gating quest lines so they HAVE to be done in a linear fashion. I really wanted to just pick up the Riders rep quests ... and I can't ::madface.

And It Goes On and On and On

Where are the rep barter items? I much preferred that because at least you had a reason to keep doing the quests once you had rep. 

The repeatable rep quests in Galtrev: move them to Forthbrond and make them Rider quests, please. We hit kindred with the Dunlending around level 73 - while those quests were still orange to us. Now at level 75, I'd like to never see the Pit of Iron again and I still have 1/2 way to go to finish kindred with the Riders. 


Those Galtrev quests are interesting too. I still haven't conquered the one with the torch bearers (but I will!). Even though the fishing one drags out too long and the Forges one is easier than it needs to be, I'd redo them if I had a reason. 12k IXP is not enough for the time it takes to complete.

Several of the open world instances felt like they had been planned as skirmishes. The Forges quest at Galtrev for instance has this amazing space that was built, with just a handful of hornblowers, orcs and uruks running around. The Culling Pit. Dol Baran.

Monster Play Note

I am an UBER BA now. Actually I still suck at this game and I still die A LOT. I almost had a star last week, but thankfully that cleared up before anyone saw it.

I'm glad to see that in groups I can now contribute a lot of damage. I think that any cries for nerfs of any creep class are out of line, and I think that the freeps need to shut up for a couple of months. 

Skirmisher stance FTW! I got the mooooooves...like Jagger.

Clarysta Maps Out a Plan

Today I don't feel like doing anything
I just wanna lay in my bed
Don't feel like picking up my phone, so leave a message at the tone
'Cause today I swear I'm not doing anything

Clarysta's Guide to Ettenmoors Maps

Maps are much less important than some folks say. It sounds great, "You need to be able to map in and smash the freeps" but really, how often does that happen?

The Ettenmoors is actually a nice, scenic area. The time spent running down from the rez circle gives your cooldowns a chance to time out. And you never know when you'll meet a juicy freep when you're running across country.

Seriously, go grind your legendary items if you want to PvE. PvP is supposed to be fun, not work!

But if you insist, here are the rules for getting your Moors maps:

1) Get the Grams map first.
2) Always pick up the Kill quests - the ones you have to have in order to get quest credit. Do not pick up the Collect quests - they just clutter up your screen when you loot.
3) Always have An, outpost, and raid captain-general quests - never know when you'll accidently get those done.
4) Never ever do the norbug quests. Ever. If we all avoid those, then maybe Turbine will take those quests away.
5) You are there to pvp. Quests will get completed in time; there is never a need to "work on your maps." Do not listen to people who tell you to work on your maps.
6) Sell everything you loot. You'll get enough Kill quests done to get your maps over time - no sense in not having cash to buy stun pots.

There are only 5 maps worth having, maybe 6 if you prefer solo fights. The only maps you probably really need are:

1) Grams - 1 minute cooldown to safe place to log and to buy pots
2) Crude TA - so you can turn in An and participate in rez fights
3) Poor TA and 4) Poor TR - so you can get to whichever side of STAB you want to be on
5) Poor Grim - puts you almost the same place as Good TA for 1/2 the work

If you like to solo, I'd recommend:
6) Good Grim - closest to GV

Crude Lugz is usable because it puts you close to the Delving. Crude TR, which you'll have because you want Poor TR, gets you north of the TR rez circle, close enough to Isen that you'll never need to grind Isen maps.

I saw a freep in Isen once; I think he was lost.

I'll just strut in my birthday suit
And let everything hang loose
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Clarysta Teaches the Facts of Life According to Captains

So if you're too school for cool 
And you're treated like a fool 
You could choose to let it go 
We can always, we can always party on our own... 

A post on the forums today: What does a captain actually do? What is expected of me? To which, in characteristically silly manner I responded:

Captains hit things with a big stick and yell a lot. We also get to wear big clunky metal armour and have a flag which can be carried by a dude or a chick or stuck in the ground in front of the tank's face, which by the way the tanks LOVE.

As a result of all this, things die a lot faster and the group the captain is in is a lot healthier, or if solo, we're still alive to talk about the 4-6 on level mobs or Rare Elite Master we just smashed.

And my personal fave - we wave our arms and yell, "You all are a bunch of dumb fraidy-cats!" and suddenly the group isn't feared any more. AND the captain gets healed by doing that! Win-win!

And if we wave our arms a certain way, our BO wafts over the group, raising their morale by huge amounts! must be some crazy deodarant we get to wear.

Oh we also get to do the WHOOSH thing and people are miraculously raised from the dead. And if we do that 19348 times, we get a trait that allows them to not be automatically dead again after we rez them.

Geez - I keep editing this as I think of all the fun things we do: how about the, "Stop dying, you fools!" button followed by, "Neener-neener," and "In yo' face!" (In harm's way/Last stand/Man heal combo  )

And shield brother makes champs LURV us. Plus putting SB on someone makes a Tornado of Light appear - very cool. Almost as cool as the spotlight shining from our banners into the heavens, like a light for God or a "Captain is HERE" announcement.

What captains don't do, is post in their bios about the big crit number they had, with or without IG, or the duels they won in pvp. Because captains like to play it cooler than that 

 

Then an actual smart person came in behind me and posted:

Had to LOL at Lurker's post...(note: I told you she is smart)

But that said, captains are freaking amazing and no one knows what they do but everyone is glad they are doing it...

If you decide to roll one, note that you won't feel like you are anything all THAT special until you get around at least mid 30's.... I know I did not much care for my captain until I finally got her up to around level 40... then I started grouping more and more and discovered how much I could contribute to the group's success... and now at 65 she feels a bit like a rockstar...

* I can put a mark on the mob, increasing damage to it by 10%
* I "motivate" my group, increasing their morale by 10%
* My "In Defense of Middle Earth" will increase your Might, Vitality, Will, Agility, and Fate by 50 for the next 6 mins 50secs

* My banner of hope will increase your morale by +1055 and give +2948 Melee Offence Rating
* My banner of War will add +3685 Melee Offence rating, +527 morale and +5% melee damage
* My banner of Victory will add +2948 Melee Offence rating, +376 power, +527 morale

* I can increase your in-combat power regeneration by 100.2
or
I can increase your Melee, Ranged, or Tactical critical rating by 780
or
I can add +923 to your parry rating

* My rallying cry is improved by another 15% to heal the group when we kill junk
* My rallying cry is available every 6 seconds too, so kill something quick!
* My "vocal skills" healing overall is improved another 15%

* Shield brother enjoys his/her incoming healing modifier improved by 20%
* I can add 25% more damage to my shield brother's attacks

* I can rez your sorry butt with 100% of your morale and 75% of your power
* I can remove 3 fear effects every 23 seconds and add +6500 fear resist for the next 30 seconds

* My outgoing healing is at 7338 (22.2%) , my melee damage is at 7788 (23.2%)

* My one AoE melee skill can put the hurt on 7 targets and has a +435 additional potential to crit, which means I can heal you some more!

* One of my melee attacks will raise the morale of my shield brother and put a HOT on him for 15 seconds
* One of my melee attacks will likewise heal my group for a bit over time
* I can focus a heal on a group/raid member applying a hefty heal and then a HOT

This is all from a nicely tweaked HoH spec... captains have two other trait paths to choose from as well that provide other fine benefits too.

Linwe's post gives a lot of detail, but here's some categories of skills I think most groups expect you to use:

Tactics Buffs - know which class prefers which buff or ask which they'd like. Then keep these up during the entire instance. They have 30 minute timers. Once you get legendaries, level up a buff stick and emblem so you have the very highest buffs possible.

Stat Buffs - keep IDoME and Motivating Speech up at all times. Much shorter durations on these, and can affect IDoME duration with a legendary, so just be watching the buff timers. Banners - most groups don't want you to use a herald. Keep your banner planted. 90% of the time, you'll use the Banner of Hope. You may get asked to use Victory instead. Rarely use Banner of War in groups. Some bosses can "kill" banners especially with AoE damage, so you have to make sure to replant when necessary.

Marks - Telling Mark, Revealing Mark and Noble Mark all have different uses, learn these. Two of the same marks will not stack, so if there is a second captain in the group/raid, negotiate who will throw telling, who will throw revealing. Generalization - telling mark is used when there is little potential for damage and you just want to blow through things, revealing mark provides an incoming heal so is used when more heals are needed.

Oathbreakers Shame - usually the group/raid leader will call for this when the time is right to maximize DPS. Giving a 10 second notice goes a long way for hunters/RKs to get up to their top DPS potential, then unleash the ghosts and watch the red numbers roll up the screen.

Heals - you may be main healer, or you may not. If you are, you still have to be up front in the action in order to heal properly, captains have some melee heal skills. If you're not the main healer, you may want to use War Cry or Shadow's Lament when you get a defeat response or a crit response. But you'll always be expected to keep an eye on group health - so there are more times when you'll hit Rallying Cry. Words of Courage is usually expected on anyone taking damage.

The Healing/Kiting manuever - see an awful lot more of this now. Captain's heals can generate a tremendous amount of aggro. A captain can run into a room and pull multiple mobs, hit Rallying Cry and keep throwing Words of Courage on the dps or heal classes, and kite the mobs all around while the rest of the group picks them off one by one.

Fear removal - biggie, and very noticeable if you're not doing this. Muster Courage removes fears. Use it.

Shield Brother - lots of debate about appropriate use of Shield Brother. I personally throw it on main DPS, definitely on a champ if there's one in the group. The +incoming heal boost can overcome the -incoming heal penalty of a champ in fervour, meaning they can go all out dps without giving the minstrel heart attack. You'll be expected to have a Shield Brother, and for raids, you may be expected to switch shield brother in order to maximize the buffs - put Strength of Will on the tank, then switch to a hunter/champ/RK for the +damage buff. There are legacies which make SB even more awesome.

In Harms' Way and Shield of the Dunedain - most of the time the group won't notice you've used these, except to say "Wow, can't believe we survived that!" Captains can do a lot of things while in combat.

Point is, noncaptains don't really understand the class and can't tell you what to do. You can switch up almost everything mid-fight - change banners, change buffs, rebuff, etc. If someone dies and gets rezzed, they have less than full power. Put the power regen buff on them and once they're back to full power, switch back to the crit or parry buff. If the minstrel called for a crit buff at the beginning of the fight but now is hurting for power - switch buffs and plant the power banner.

So raise your glass if you are wrong 
In all the right ways 
All my underdogs, we will never be, never be 
Anything but loud 
And nitty gritty dirty little freaks 

Clarysta Gets Another Horse!

Cause I saddle up my horse
and I ride into the city...

Most expensive in-game item ever! Think I'll name this one BigAndRich...

 

PAX East Exclusive Horse - aka "Cremello Horse." For some reason I was thinking it was more golden. Oh wells. Pretty anyway.

 

Save a horse, ride a cowboy...

Clarysta Feels the Hate

We're cool we're different
And we hate things
Yeah we hate things

Just learned something new and cool: Sting's son is lead singer, guitar and bassist for a band called Fiction Plane. Sounds a lot like his dad too.

Today's post is just to store info that I pulled off the forums. I tend to collect these so I can look all smart and stuff in teh GLFF. (in real life, I'm a really smart ditz)

Overview of Hate in LotRO

Every mob carries a list with it. The list only lasts for the duration of combat so every fight starts out fresh. The list is "people I hate" and the mob checks that list continually to decide who to attack. Everyone nearby goes on this list, while people who actively do things that the mob doesn't like will get "stars" next to their names. Having a "star" means the mob is not only aware of you but is seriously considering attacking you.

Things that will get a "star" put next to your name:
* Being the first person the mob sees
* Attacking the mob
* Using a healing skill on anyone that already has a "star" next to their name

Of the people who have "stars" next to their names, the one highest on the list has "aggro" and will be attacked.

Note that attacking and using healing skills will continue to increase the hate the mob has for you, such that the more you hurt it, or the more you heal people it hates, the more it will hate you.

You can also use some skills to decrease the amount of hate the mob has for you. Some classes can also transfer hate from other people to themselves, or from themselves to other people.

Hate is always relative to each specific mob. If you're fighting two things, they have two unique hate tables that they each check continually.

Best hate quote ever:

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.” - Drew Care

Clarysta Joins the Dark Side

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that’s alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that’s alright because I love the way you lie


When you see a naked Uruk running into the keep with 2 champs and a guard behind her, that’s ok just ignore her, she doesn’t really want help.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”

The Black Arrow screams like a girl, especially when she’s running away from freeps. Which is an excellent tactic when there’s backup in the keep, ready to throw a heal or a slow or ambush in a way that would seemed planned. Or at least helpful.  But not this time. This time, the word apparently went out, “Oh, look there’s Clarrow getting chased. Wonder how far she’ll get this time. Hahaha.” Geez, guys, thanks.

Because creep apparently refers to personality as well as faction. It’s definitely not easy out there.
Creeps are pretty mean, exclusive, and they get emo easily. Especially right now, when raid v 6 is the typical freep:creep ratio at night when I’m playing. Clarrow has managed to get to rank 5, but the first 3 ranks she had to get completely solo, before one of the tribes took pity on her and started inviting her to group.  Creepside on Arkenstone is so sad right now, Clarrow has actually made it into the top 15 infamy gain on one of the leader boards.



But Clarrow is giggling all the way to the rez circle. This creepside stuff is fun, as long as you don’t take it seriously. And although the numbers are better in groups, running solo when you’re outnumbered can be awesome.

Naked Uruk charges into a full raid, screaming GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Pretends she’s a champ and tags most of the raid with her sad little AoE melee skill. Manages to run a circle through the raid and back to the keep, and SURVIVES. Evade Evade Evade Evade Evade

When that evade skill actually works, it works well.

The Lovely Lady Captain is taking a break, waiting for something to do besides escort dwarves-with-dynamite in an attempt to earn enough gold Malledrihm things to buy another Malledrimh horse. (Since I have no idea how to spell that, I’m just going to randomly place the “h” wherever from now on. Hopefully that won’t cost me one of my gold Malledhirm things.)

Taking her place for now – Clarrow Goes Pewpewpew. Clarrow wants the Captain-Foe title (ha!), so pity Nimitar and Halindale, since they’re the only captains that go out to the Moors on a regular basis. I figure they only need to die 245 times more each. Muahahaha…..oh…..hm......yeah….that might take a little while.

I can’t tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now it’s a steel knife in my windpipe
I can’t breathe but I still fight while I can fight

http://www.askajedi.com/2011/03/11/pax-east-2011-taral-v-gameplay-jedi-knight/

I would have posted my own video, but this was nicer.

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of SW:TOR. Hopefully they'll have it next fall at PAX Prime, which I've already decided I'm going to attend. There were HUNDREDS of people in line for the TOR demo, so no chance in H-E-double hello of getting to play it. There were a bunch of screens up though, so you could watch as folks were playing. The animation reminded me of SWG.

SW:TOR is still an unknown for me. 

Clarysta Goes Somewhere Else

This one goes out to you and yours, worldwide

I say, hey, I be gone today
But I be back around the way
Seems like everywhere I go
The more I see, the less I know

I tried the LotRO tourney on Friday. Chance for a lifetime membership (which doesn’t exist, except in PAX-Land). Now, three years in the game means I’m really awesomely good at this, right?

Apparently not. No captain, no champ, no Black Arrow. Instead – minstrel, guard and hunter. Level 65 3-man Barrow Downs skirmish. Two strangers in my group. No voice and there was too much noise in the Expo Hall to try to communicate.

I pull Minstrel. Oh geez. A HOBBIT minstrel even. Been a while since my minstrel got a chance to play, and I may need help remembering how to tier up….oh wait.

Great. A GIMPED hobbit minstrel. Maybe 6 skills on the hot bar. One of which is a ballad. No Song of Soothing. No songs at all. My yellow sword skill thing is missing. Oh geez, I can’t remember which is the good heal. I know it’s a green button. Where’s Pajama Boy The Flying Minstrel when you need him?

Deep breath: best group so far barely went 10 minutes, so this will be ok….OH EM GEE NOBODY SET UP PASS THROUGH TARGET!!!

We lasted 9 minutes. Not good enough to stay in the tournament. The healer died, silly hobbit. Next tournament needs to be a captain/champ duo, please.

On Sunday, I played again. My height advantage was negated because someone put out stools for the freakishly tall people so they wouldn’t have to hunch down to reach the keyboard. More importantly - there were actual SKILLS on the HOTBAR!!! Typical Turbine, always dumbing down the game.

I have a new horse from PAX but I have to wait until the update before I can see what it looks like. Most expensive in-game item ever.

I’ve been a lot of places all around the way
I’ve seen a lot of joy, and I’ve seen a lot of pain
But I don’t want to write a love song for the world
I just want to write a song about a boy and a girl

The Lovely Lady Captain playing Guild Wars 2 at PAX:

Quick review of GW2:

It seems like Rift got a jump on GW2. The GW2 events felt very much like Rift - although the content designer I talked to said the GW2 system is more fixed in size, scale and location. Similar approach to "grouping," as in, GW2 doesn't even require the public groups. Kills are shared, xp is shared, loot is shared. All you have to do is hit it - which makes me a little concerned about slackers/griefers.

And I don't care how many times this content designer told me "GW2 doesn't have quests." That personal story line looks and feels EXACTLY like questing. And to make things worse, those aren't shared with the people you group with. At character creation, you start branching along some story line. I guess if you play with a partner (like I do) you could create identical story lines so you could play together.

Skills have a global cooldown, like Rift. My Warrior chick had a skill that looked EXACTLY like the animation used for Rift's Bullrush charge. I had a nice self-heal, very spammable, and the health meter is a circle instead of a bar.

The Fight On or whatever they called it was really cool - if you are dying you are given a "last chance" and if you succeed you get invulnerability! That was very cool. The moose that zoned into a rock and back out again, and then dropped a sword that was a definite upgrade, was not so cool. Made me very concerned about itemization and loot.

Lovely to look at. My character was very pretty. However, the run animation was really bad - she looked like she had a tummyache, all bent over. GW2 has no mounts and relies on class-based run speed buffs. Swift travel is via the map to rally points. Death penalty is money - even in the tutorial, dying cost me 8 copper.

No cosmetic system. When oh when will these mmo's learn? GW2 allows you to keep the look of a particular piece of gear, but it is not slotted as a separate cosmetic. The armour has multiple dye areas which was really nice. Unfortunately, the starting armour for my Norn Warrior chick looked remarkably like the new LotRO captain set.

I'll try it again in beta, when I can play for more than 40 minutes. It may be that Rift will be on a 2nd or 3rd update by then, which would probably put Rift ahead of GW2. Right now, GW2 = Rift < LotRO.

Clarysta Works It

Just a little embarrassing last week, to be on LiveMeeting for work and get caught with the LotRO forums up. Ooops.

Where's the song, Clarysta? Good question. The process goes like this: I'll have a thought in my head and Google for lyrics to fit that thought. (Fit That Thought is an interesting tongue-twister, and even more so if you say it like, "Fit That Thought Is A Thongue...Tongue Thwis..." ah, forget it.)

Coincidently, I found the lyrics to a song called You Got Caught, by Career Suicide. Nothing I'd ever heard before. And didn't want to take the chance that it was prophetic.

Not my kind of music, which can usually be found on Last.fm under Singer/Songwriters. Clarysta has her own Last.fm account. I think you can search for it.  She's all over this social media stuff. Word of warning...if the theme song to Despicable Me shows up...well, don't hate on me too much, ok? Freakin' scrobbling, there are no secrets left in this world...

Anyways,

Been wrangling ponies all month. Clarysta now has the Dunedain, Algraig and World Renown horses. Woooo. None of which match the green outfit she's wearing. Is it sad that I'm waiting for an update just to see what new outfits we'll get?

Caption this - Why I don't play in the Moors:

 

Why I do play in the Mistys:

http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f385/Clarysta/?action=view&current=Sled...

 

Clarysta Lights It Up

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, saying AYO

Muster Courage! Rallying Cry! Words of Courage! Then I point at the mob and yell War-Cry Kill it faster!

Duoing with The Flying Minstrel - his dps with me there to wave my arms around a lot, we should be able to finish these deeds. That are KILLING me - literally and figuratively.

Funning tonight was Old School Barad Gularan in Angmar. It never fails, no matter how specific you are:

Clarysta: 2/6 LFM for Barad Gularan, the level 50 instance in Angmar

Dork Player: Is that the raid?

I was soloing the Hillman and Angmarim deeds in there yesterday, and was reminded of that by a 368s repair bill when I stopped by a vendor this morning. Tonight 6 level 65's shredded it. I sneezed and missed the Forvengwath fight entirely.

BG was actually my very first level 50 instance, ran it the summer of 08 with The Riders of Rohan, an amazing group of really nice people. So nice, in fact, that they forgave my newb-ness and let me have Captain's Arm. Which the bad men sold off when they hacked my account.

Took 2 1/2 years for Clarysta to finally finish the bosses in there. I'm sooo happy to get my 5 Turbine Points! Only 1990 more to go to buy the Steed of the Night. Epic title comes with that 5 TP - You may now be known as Clarysta, Defender Against the Terror

Only 8 more deeds to finish the Eriador instance meta-deed. 

And it goes on and on and on...