Finger Licking Good News

Some pretty funny news for Lotro I found here , obviously they are having soem april fools day fun but I like it all the same:Cluck(click) for chickens!

Greetings!

Hi! Thallian invited me to post on his blog. I'm an artist, and an RPG fanatic. We've been discussing plans to collaborate in a game of our own. Our current endeavor is for him to figure out how to implement 3D assets for use in a game.

Since we've been talking about this for a year already, I don't expect this will come about over night, so at this point, you can just enjoy us rambling about how cool it would be, and since I love designing games and creating artwork for them, you should be able to see some artwork here shortly. I already have a few characters created, and a basic plot, as well as some interesting gameplay mechanics.

Oops sorry

To those with an OpenId I am sorry I unwittingly had the privacy settings winched down too tight, you can now comment on posts. Please bear with me I'm new at this stuff. Anonymous people will have to get some kind of account to post though, none of this impersonation business like I am hearing from Tobold, Keen, and Bildo.

Happy Easter!

Whether you celebrate the pagan holiday or the Christian one, happy easter! and umm good passover too :) (I think) I just wanted to rant today so if you "/RANT" filter is on just skip this article, otherwise feel free to join in!

So Heres my beef, or chicken or whatever: Have you ever noticed how restaurants seem to have a preference for you ordering certain things and if you order those things they get your order done right away but if you order certain other items on the menu (and this goes especially for fast food but also for slow food) They always take forever!.

Well I am wondering why don't they just put: "You really don;t want to order this, why don't you order one of these quick dishes over here instead :)" in big friendly helpful letters on the menu ever, huh? Or least the cheap places could put things into sections: Fast food, mediocre food, and slow as a snail food. For example, I have a penchant for fish, I like it, unlike the rest of America apparently, so if I were to go to BoogerKing or WackDonalds and buy their fish burger they would act just delighted and then there I would sit for at least 15 to 30 minutes waiting for them to make it even if there are no other customers.You get the idea.

Fancy restaurants do the same thing often, they have gobs of certain food prepared already like mash potatoes or whatever and none of certain other foods. I'd like some improved customer service, anyone else have some ideas on how they could improve this?

Pug raids and locking instances

So I am always wondering what can be done to make pick up groups more appealing to people. Encouraging smaller guilds as Lotro has done seems to be a part of it. Still getting a pick up group together to run the rift did take a half hour (probably to be expected for 12 people at lvl 50 and in exactly the right class distribution) I have heard that Pug raiding was common in EQ and I think the BAD thing World of Walkcraft did to kill the pug raids rep was a. let everyone solo to lvl 60 (especially hunters, cuz they get there twice as fast) and then they didn't learn to play their classes in a group setting (i.e. taunt and heal at the right times and not over dps the tank) and b. add raid locks to instances. I was saddened to see Lord of the Rings Online implement this evil, nefarious, redunquerus (ok I just made that word up, but you get the idea) system because it means you cant just play what you want to play with whoever you want to play, whenever you want to play it.

Thanks to small guild sizes though we have found a larger number than what existed in wow of random people not locked to the rift and excited to go, so there is a plus side to my story. We pugged the rift and killed the first five bosses Saturday and it only took a little longer than usual due to lots of explanation being done.
But I am getting off topic which was this: what can be done instead of raid locks? How about we stop punishing the masses for the abuses of a few. If people want to burn through a game and see all the content that exists and then quit when they hit the brick wall that IS always there at the end of programming land, LET THEM :) These power players will have to learn not to do that. Free things up by giving us the ability to break raid locks at our leisure or reset the dungeon. Even more freedom could come from ability to Save your progress in a dungeon FOREVER, (I feel like using capital letters today, trust me I wont make a habit of it) until you come back to resume said dungeon.

Why not? I see no reason why not. Give them save tokens or something. Wow did this to a very limited extent in many dungeons including Karazhan with keys and back doors and flight paths but I am talking about changing our thinking here. Let people save the game, leave at the drop of a hat, and come back to where they were. If you have to be restrictive make it bosses beaten or something. Does anyone have any ideas or see any problems with this?

Expansion for Lotro announced

Here are the details http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=94707
http://www.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=12646

Not sure if anyone is reading my blog at all but if you are head on over to these sites and read up.

I am glad they are adding two classes.. its more than wow did with their first expansion. I am also glad that fishing is going to be added soon and they are going to work on mob AI to be environmentally conscious. Lots of other goodies to be announced shortly I'm sure.

Fud for thought.. mmmmm

Speaking of food I really like it... And I like how in Lord of the Rings Online it is actually important for raiding which makes the cook profession relevant, unlike wow where it was only relevant for hunters.

So aaanyways I thought I'd post this link and share some of my blatant opinion plus hear yours.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7284196.stm
This is a good little blurb about food prices rising. Now I'm going to be unusually forthright with my beliefs here (and totally unobjective) and say that I believe God created this earth with enough to provide for his children. Most liberals consistently, (since the 60s/70s) have opposed this view.

That said I also know people are starving and cant afford to eat what they need to eat. This is due to what I would call "unchecked capitalism". Capitalism is the survival of the fittest some say, but I would say its survival of the "lucky fit ones". Those who have less chances for learning or providing do not need Doles of money. "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" The doles just get grabbed by corrupt warlords in Africa and Asia anyways.

We need to help people help themselves with more micro loans like my church is doing with its 'Perpetual Education Program' and many organizations are doing in India and other places. We also need to help people in Africa by showing them how to build well taps and teaching them better farming techniques or new skills that will help them branch out. I am very supportive of the 100 dollar laptop program for example. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/02/24/vision_evolves_but_100_laptop_is_still_the_goal/
This is a better use of money then just sending goods. Any comments or opposing views are appreciated.

Gary Gygax

So I don't really know this Gary Gygax guy and doubt most of you do too but I think he must have a pretty good imagination and for that I respect him and his accomplishments. Too much gets done without vision and imagination for me to think it is commonplace. I love D&D and pretending to be things I'm not, not to mention the games and mythos that have come about because of what he did. Tons of fun.

Hope he has fun on the other side of the veil. :)

Where are we going with this?

So many things happen each day in our society. Sometimes its easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and then you just need time to unwind. I was glad to get a few forced days off last week by being sick. It seems interesting to em that people are so concerned with where things are going and much less concerned with where they are now. Wow was able to keep me for a long time on this principle, I thought I was excited with where it was going, and the new things being added to the game. It was only when things they added were displeasing to me (Naxxrammus and AQ40) once I actually got to them, though the idea of some uber adventure was pleasing, that I realized I didn't like where they were taking the game. I didnt quit then though, I was still holding out hope for the expansion, which they kept delaying so I eventually quit.

This same principle made me try out Vanguard and stick with it for a little while, and City of Heroes and runescape and so on. I love to see where games are, and with an MMO that can take quite a while. I also like to see where they are going. This requires information I'm not always privy to but thanks to some scouring of forums I have a pretty good idea of where lotro is going and I am happy. Does this mean I will not try out Warhammer? of course not. I will try it out and try to be objective and enjoy it like the good game it probably is. It may well become my pvp game, and lotro my pve game. We'll see. I'll definitely try out Bioware's new MMO when that comes out too. But I am loathe to give Blizzard any more money considering what they did with my money the first time.. oodles and oodles of it. They stowed it in their raid development budget and then sat on the rest.

I personally could design those raids so I know that it doesn't take an army of programmers.. just a few good ones if you want to develop fast. I like Turbine's philosophies better, they use the money to make the game better, and they keep some to make themselves richer of course but not a huge percentage.

Into the Rift of Nurz yo Daddy

Well Friday night I ran the rift with my brother and some friends who needed a spare minstrel and tank, and we one shotted each boss up till the Balrog who we didn't have time to face, including Thrang. Our tank did die on Thrang once but it was early on in the battle so we resed him and let him build up agro. Thrang is no joke but the other bosses we faced weren't to much to squawk about,. they were fun and the loots were phat all right and there was strategy that let the champions shine big time or the off tanks.

But Thrang was a different matter... kinda reminded me of wow. The tank has to pull him from fumarole to fumarole because hes only vulnerable while they are erupting right next to him. This hazardous to him and the tank, so it gets tricky. I was healing like nobody's business and so were the other two minstrels, for a good half hour. The poor lore master we had had his hands full replenishing us. He was funny though, he said he liked out group because we had just the right mix of anal retentive and laid-backness. I thought it was a pretty cool group as well, mostly due to my awesome dwarven battle-cries (jk).

Umm the Rift is interesting though, though as the name implies it is fairly linear, with a series of challenges proceeding each boss and you have to fight them all in order. A certain ugly orc called the overseer interacts with each one after you get past Barz and Zurm. (the first two Troll bosses who are sometimes harder than the later ones except for Thrang) There are fumaroles that pop up and threaten to blow you to kingdom come if you don't destroy them, and there are rickety stone bridges made by fire giants over lava where the heat is so great it hurts just to be on it. No dawdling. Lastly there are dragons, flying around here there everywhere in some places, and ugly little creatures that suck power and light called darklings.

I'd say the Rift took 4 hours to do 3/4 of it so I estimate Barz and Zurm being another half hour and the balrog maybe being a half hour if you don't wipe at all it can be completed in 5 hours. Not too shabby, and a lot more fun and rewarding than MC ever was, or ZG. I give it props for being the first raid difficulty dungeon I have enjoyed very much, other than UBRS.