2010

Always Someone Bigger

I was on my way to Jita to make my first ever contract. I’ve been working on invention along with Kasul, to create blueprints to sell in order to raise money for my Orca. I’m about 1/8th of the way to affording one, and still two months away from flying one, so I’m hoping it works out. Anyhow, Jita was amazing. I’d never been there before, and it was by far the largest number of ships I’d ever seen in one location, with more then 900 flying the skies. The chat channel was also far different then I was used to, and it really reminded me of a galaxy with traders from all over the world. In fact it was probably the first time my brain grasped the concept of the fact that I was playing a sci fi game and enjoying it. My favorite comment of the night came from someone who was replying over scamming attempts. His reply to the person who seemed a bit outraged was “dude, you’re in Jita.” – it just hit home for me.

The screen shot above came from my trip to Jita, a Charon flew side by side with me almost the entire way (it was easy to tell we were both on auto pilot) and I felt incredibly small in my hulk which I have been raving about for weeks now. The hulk is the largest ship I own, and previous to the Charon the Orca was the largest ship I had ever seen. The Charon was gigantic, and amazing, and graceful and just made me remember all of the reasons why I’m enjoying this game so much.

I put my contract up, and now I’m eagerly waiting to see if it pays off (literally). In the mean time Kasul and I have a nice little invention rotation going on. We’ve been working on hammerhead II’s since we’re both playing drone boats, and I’ve successfully invented and manufactured a few of them now. The cost of creating five of them is less then one million ISK, and since the drones themselves sell for half a million ISK each, we’re saving a good amount of money.

Kasul has also been creating rigs for us to use, I’ve added some to my Dominix that increase my CPU, and stabilized myself finally. The Dominix is ready for all sorts of missions now, and I’m excited about that. In the mean time I’d like to work towards Research Project Management, which is a skill that allows you to work with more then one R&D agent at a time. It takes a fair amount to be able to train this skill, and it’s just one more item in a long list of things I wish to learn. I do have to admit, I’m having a blast.

Happy flying!

The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling!

Turbine announced today That The Lord of the Rings Online would be going Free to Play by this fall. Now, there’s a lot of posts out there about this news already, and you can read everyone else’ opinions on it for the next little while no doubt. There are good points, bad points, and all the ones in between. Personally here’s my stand on the matter.

I’m excited about it. Why? Well, for a few reasons. Number one would have to be: yes, I do have an active LotRO subscription but I very rarely ever get to play, and I really don’t feel as though I get my moneys worth of play time out of the $15 I spend every month. In fact once my billing cycle was up I had made plans to cancel the account until I felt that I had the time to dedicate to it. I own all of the expansions, and don’t even have a level 30 character yet. I love the game, but the amount of time I have just doesn’t match up.

Going free to play allows me to drop the subscription and pay when I have the time to play, and when I reach the content I want to access. I don’t even consider this model exactly ‘free’ to play, because there’s still a subscription for those who pay monthly, and you’ll have to pay to access content and other goodies (don’t know all of the details yet as this is still a ways off) and those who have life time accounts will also gain a bonus. You can read all the details on the lotRO web site. I enjoy tripple A titles going F2P – although I realize the name has a LOT of bad connotation along with it (lower game quality, etc) I have heard that the model has worked for DDO, and I am anxious to see how it pans out for LotRO. Obviously a decision like this was NOT made lightly, and I trust the company to do the right thing for them. Notice that I said for them, and not for me. Despite what we all like to think, companies have to look out for themselves first. It’s just the way they function.

I’m looking forward to being able to spending a few hours here and there in game instead of trying to think of a way to warrant spending $15 for an entire month. I think that in this gaming age with so many people all over the place and playing multiple games, having optional payment methods is a huge deal. How many of us actually play just one game any more? Moving to a free to play model is going to allow me to actually play the game more then I currently do, and that excites me without having to worry about stressing over the cost.

I realize this is not true for everyone, and I know everyone else has their own views, but for now, I’m happy. Whether or not this actually works for turbine will still have to be seen, but until it goes live I don’t quite understand why there are some out there hoping it fails before it even gets off the ground.

Weekly Reminders

First of all, don’t forget that this week the city festival is in Halas, and there are some amazing looking house items going along with it. It’s a fantastic way to spend your city tokens that you’ve worked so hard to earn. I particularly love the mail box reward this time around, it’s different then what the other city festivals have given.

If you’re a fan of live events you’ll also want to make sure you check out the druid ring event on your server before it vanishes. Even if the druid rings have all been reconstructed, the NPCs will stick around to offer you the quests so that you can continue working towards the housing items. There are a few unique items within this event, as you can get some different looking rings, a must have for any aspiring druid. You can check out the event and a list of items sold at EQ2traders.

If you’re not a fan of patch notes, you may have missed a few of the smaller changes that went in with the latest update. Most notably (and incredibly awesome for those with alts) is that you can now speak to a research assistant on each one of your characters, instead of only one per server. Remember you need to have the expert level of a spell before training to a master level, and the length of time it takes to train will vary depending on the level of the spell. I absolutely love this change, and couldn’t be happier. It’s not much, but it’s still great to get 1 master a month or so without cost.

Any other great changes or notices you’d like to bring attention to? Please don’t hesitate to let me know in comments. Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Winners of the Prowler Mount!

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest for a key to your very own prowler mount! There were over 30 entries, and I can only pick five winners, though I wish I could have given everyone one! If you’re listed as a winner be sure to check your email for your code, and if you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to contact me at stargrace@mmoquests.com. Happy gaming!

The winners and their mount names are as follows:

Amanda:

  • I’d name mine Koshka.
  • I typically come up with something descriptive of my character or pets and then translate it into another language so it doesn’t sound lame. Calling it Cat would be pretty boring. Calling it Koshka (Russian for cat) just sounds better. (I’ve used Koshka for characters and pets in several games including CoH and WoW, so I’m pretty fond of it).

Entrails_770

  • I’d call mine evie as that’s the name if my daughters cat ;-)

Cassini

  • Hyperion.
  • I would name it this for a couple reasons. First, its an epic name. Second, my main (on Unrest) is named Cassini, after the Italian astronomer who discovered several things related to Saturn, and Hyperion is one of the moons of Saturn. I try to stick with a theme, and I have named other mounts after other moons of Saturn (Titan, and Calypso). Third, Hyperion is a Gallente battleship in EVE Online which i’ve been playing for over 3 years. I cross trained into Gallente and have flown this ship and liked it a lot. Tanks like a beast. Cant wait for t2 blasters!

Green Armadillo:

  • I’d name the cat Lessanna, and give it to the Ratonga monk I’ve always intended to roll up but never actually got around to. Since I do play on an RP server, I felt like I had to have some reason for betraying with a bit more backstory than “I think Ratonga are cool unarmed fighters, but would rather play a monk than a bruiser”. The backstory that the Dark Bargainers wanted to turn the Ratonga’s unlikely pet cat into a rug would be a great story hook for leaving Neriak.
  • Also, due to the irony of a tiny Ratonga riding around on a giant cat, I’m sure that the cat will learn to answer to “nice kitty, please don’t eat me”.

and Bob:

  • My name for your contest is: Ulterex
  • It is derived from Ultera, the place associated with Quellithulian teleportation and “ex” for movement in modern language or “from” in latin.

What’s in a Spell

It seems that every class I play, no matter the game, has at least one ‘unique’ spell that makes me want to play the class even more. It may not be the best ability, or even the one I use the most, but it’s one that I look forward to casting every single time it’s up.

This weekend my newly betrayed fury managed to pick up six of her master spell upgrades. The first one was a heal that I use constantly as a fury, ‘Back into the fray’ – it is a very fast casting direct heal, which increases the lower my target is in health. It’s one of those ‘class defining’ spells that I adore. The next master spell I managed to get was hibernation, which is another unique-to-the-fury heal. It is group wide, and I have put aa into it to trigger if anyone in the group goes below a certain amount of health. Fantastic spell that I constantly use.

The third is my ‘new favorite’ spell to use, and is pictured above. This spell was actually revamped with Sentinel’s Fate, it used to be something I’d rarely cast. Now it’s something I want to cast as often as possible, especially in raids. Yum.

What’s your favorite spell to cast? Is it something unique to your class or a basic spell that everyone gets? Why do you think we’re so drawn to these spells, and do they really make our characters unique?

Most of the spells I ‘enjoy’ the most happen to be heals and buffs, I just can’t help it. For the mystic, I’d have to say bolster is my ‘favorite’ spell to cast, and not just because it enlarges my target by a certain amount. Instant cast spells are high up there too, although I don’t have very many of them in EQ2.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and that those who have today off are celebrating it with friends and family. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Nomadic Gamer