What's Hot, What's Not in Lotro

So I've been busy playing the new book chapters and trying out all the new fangled features. I've come up with a small list of likes and dislikes from what I've seen in the changes to the game.

Dislikes:
1. I don't like the color scheme of the exp bar, I liked the old one better.
2. I don't like the blaring annoying "Lotro store icon" in the lower right that is now always there instead of hidden away in a menu. (the marketing ninjas probably required that)
3. I don't like the names I'm seeing come up on some of the new players, they are rather offensive (prolly came straight from WoW :P)
4. I don't like how you can buy travel things/deeds/etc, that you used to and still can earn the hard way. I agree with Keen on this point, that it trivializes past accomplishments.
5. I don't like how low the population bar is set on the new area layering technology. It seems like if 40 people come into an area, it splits it into two instances of 20 people unless they are already in a raid
6. I don't like how they have given us "perks" that fill our already overflowing bags up.
7. I thought they said that the new area was going to be an alternative place to level from 60-65 but make no mistake about it folks. This new area (Enedwaith) is for lvl 64+ characters.

Likes:
1. I do like seeing lots of new players around everywhere. The game and world is alive again!
2. I do like chatting with people in OOC chat and there is a lot of chatting going on.
3. I do like they are making more real money off of the suckers willing to buy potions and perks in the game instead of craft/earn them so that they can afford to develop more gorgeous areas and more importantly, PlayerVersusMonsterPlayer skirmishes!!!!
4. I do like the new area they added (its really pretty), though the quest designers need to be given a lesson in creative quest design. They should all be sentenced to play Baldur's gate 2 for 2 hours every night, in which there are NO kill 10 rats quests and very very few "run to this side of the map and then run back" quests just to waste your time.
5. I do like that they upgraded the graphics engine to directx11 now.
6. I do like the instance join option. I may actually get to see some instances I never got to run now, like Annuminas!
7. I do like the newly revamped Hobbit/human area involving you with Aragorn and politics of the area more in the quest line.
8. I do like the fact that my friends who played WoW are now considering jumping (and some have) into Lotro.

All in all I think more good qill come of this than bad because if things get really unbalanced Turbine has thus far been pretty good at hitting things with the nerf bat eventually. But there's always the few who will buy their way to world domination and then leave cuz there's nothing left to improve and thus they get bored. They too help fund additions to the game so bully for them... (I guess I'm not a purist after all :P)

Random Links about Games...and stuff.

Here are a few links I want to read over again. For various reasons of interest.


http://gamerant.com/interview-author-dean-koontz-talks-storytelling-video-games-poole-38472/

http://gamerant.com/hardcore-gamers-wii-culture-poole-37277/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/24/this-hunger-for-reality/comment-page-2/#comments

http://www.world-mysteries.com/rennes_mneyman.htm

Labor Day Special

I had a great horse race with my wife and my little sister last week in lotro, and this week I got to raid with my sister-in-law, soon to be brother-in-law, sister, and friends I made in-game. We started up a "Hand of Smack" (our kin) raid and had 6 people in no time! took me about 20 minutes to round up another 6 and bam! we were rolling.

This was to be a lvl 34 raid of the Seige of Gondamon. Not something to do lightly, I might add. The enemies were fierce and the waves came on two sides sometimes. I foudn that once (not if) the outer defenders died, it was best for the group to stay in the middle downstairs and just deal with everything there. If you hang out upstairs there's more chance something will kill Mathi and that's never good. On our second try we downed both dragons, and the Mr.Heat Wave Dourhand Dwarf. (You have to fight three bosses at once in raid mode, and they all do tons of damage. They really DO want to take down the city of Gondamon after all) Lastly I spent some time playing a vicious game of Scrabble, swimming in the pool, and helping my brother-in-law learn how to craft and navigate quests in Lotro with his newbie hunter who is now lvl 16.

And today, I can't play so I'm writing instead. Cuz apparently the servers are down until tomorrow. I'm kinda reserving my judgment on this whole FTP thing until I see the results. It might be beneficial for the long term health of the game. But personally I think they should have at least let them have the lone lands free, if they really wanted them to get hooked, or at a discount anyways. Well I live on Windfola, one of the least populated servers previously so maybe it'll be a great thing. Maybe I better start recruiting noobs. Who knows. If any of you bloggers come to Windfola add Thallian to your friends list and send me a letter. I'll add you to my friends too, and invite you to the kin when I catch you on. ;)