Month: November 2023

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Into the Gondorian frontier

Posted on by Syp

This past week in LOTRO, I seriously tucked into the new Corsairs of Umbar expansion. And it all started that week with the greenest, leafiest Dwarf hall I’ve ever seen in this game. Heck, I didn’t think Dwarves knew what plants WERE, outside of hops for beer. I like that this questing area dangled a mystery of what these Dwarves are actually up to and what lies behind a locked door that’s emanating dread.

I do kind of worry that players are kept in King’s Gondor for too long at the start of this expansion. Umbar and the southern areas are what we’re all waiting to see, so having us spend several hours before getting there can make one antsy and dissatisfied.

I got a chuckle out of the low-key humor of this quest to mark trees to keep them from being chopped for lumber. For whatever reason, the devs decided to give each tree a personality that’s only expressed in this popup. How does my character know what the tree is thinking? No idea. But it’s real.

Racing westward across King’s Gondor, I’m starting to sense that I’m almost at the spot where I’ll be sent into a brand-new zone. At least the quest writing has been surprisingly sassy so far!

Kind of really loving this outfit from the Gondor renewed vendor. It’s fancy without being overblown.

We don’t often see wheelchairs in LOTRO, so this really caught the eye. Was neat that they included it, tho.

Took me a while to get through King’s Gondor, but I finally crossed over the border into Outer Gondor — AKA Alfalas. It’s a bit sparser and more of a frontier feeling, which I don’t mind in the least. Gondor’s been full of surprises this past half-decade, and it’s a delight to find more.

Posted in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Inna Garden Dream Vida

Posted on by Syp

One of my initial goals coming back to WoW is to gear up my woefully underperforming DK. She’s languishing in the 300s, so I started running some heroics and plugging those weak in her character sheet.

My guildies, however, said that the best way to go about catching up on gear was to do dreamsurges, time rifts, and go through the brand-new Emerald Dream storyline. So I’ll take the advice from counsel and focus on those for the time being.

I think a much better title for this expansion would be “Dragons Cosplaying As People.” I *still* don’t get why they keep shifting into humanoid form, other than to be attractive and/or help us visually relate to them. Or to keep the screen from being cluttered by giant lizards trying to get a word in edgewise.

I leapfrogged over some of the older content to go right into the Emerald Dream — the newest, most recent zone — because I’d heard there are better rewards here. Plus, who doesn’t like to pine for a big tree now and then?

A problem quickly reared its head: My quest log got absolutely maxed out. I’ve got so many dang Dragonflight quests, spread over multiple zones and major storylines, that I am starting to feel overwhelmed. Even trying to limit it to the Emerald Dream doesn’t always work, as these questlines take me to other places and often try to throw even more quests at me than my log can handle. All I can do is resolutely chip away at them one at a time, but it’s going to take a while.

I swear, every Druid-esque zone in World of Warcraft is the same overall. Gorgeous visuals, oh no people are being mean to nature, we’re very in tune with nature and powerful but we can’t address this threat, at least one Druid has become corrupt and must be redeemed, etc etc. Just raze it all and put in a strip mall, I say. Starbucks may be filled with pretentious people too, but at least you can get a caffeine fix.

I’ll put up with the nonsense solely because this is one very pretty zone. Beats lava fields any day of the week!

Posted in Fallout

Fallout 76: There’s a fish in the toilet

Posted on by Syp

With the Wayward questline fully done, I felt it was time to head up north to the Grafton area to work on all of the quests and explorables up there. The computer mayor of the town tasked me with reopening no fewer (but no more) than four tourist destinations, so my work is cut out for me.

Anyone want to go fishing? I didn’t think so.

I reached level 20 as I continued to quest around the large dried-out lake bed. It’s not the most pleasing, visually, but there are some interesting quests here. I solved one mystery of two girls who had this low-key rivalry that ended up in murder.

At the local shooting range, I had a genuine Night-of-the-Living-Dead experience as a couple dozen scorched swarmed me all at once. Fortunately, they were pretty easy to take down with my shotgun and did minimal damage, so it was more fun than frantic.

Word of advice: When you go to the water world, I wouldn’t recommend sliding down the Sssslither. Thing literally looks like a death trap.

There’s a rather long “cold case” questline here to find a missing kid which takes the player all over the place, including up into a dam. But in the end, it’s worth it — the kid might be fine and I got a submachine gun that fires incendiary bullets.

Who’s ready to go to scout camp and earn some merit badges? Me! Me!

Posted in Project Gorgon

Project Gorgon: Rat love

Posted on by Syp

I’m not exactly sure why, but the urge to do some serious Project Gorgon hit me — and I’m not going to wait on that. I feel like I’ve been sitting on this MMO too long instead of enjoying it, and with the recent news that the game (and its creators) are in dire straits, it felt appropriate to give it some love. Thus, I whipped up a new defiant pawn to get mind-wiped and start fresh on her journey.

As an aside, I do wish that we had more facial options than the one. Character customization in this game is really lacking.

Time to get my game legs back on the tutorial island. And by that I mean “take a power nap” because why wouldn’t I? I’m tuckered out just logging into this game!

Gorgon definitely has its own style, and it initially requires a lot of forgiveness for its floaty, janky nature. It’s serviceable, to be sure, but you can definitely feel how “loose” the game is compared to other MMOs. Yet there’s a charm in it as you experience many different forms of progression through various skills. I took a while to get used to combat, which uses two skill lines at a time (kind of a mix-and-match situation). You start out with sword and unarmed but can diversify from there.

Ha… I’d forgotten there was a dying skill. I wonder if this is usually the moment when most people get an inkling of how different this MMO is. You die, you advance. It takes the sting out of it, for sure. And at the top of a tower, I found a butcher knife, which will allow me to carve up enemies once I’ve killed them.

I also got an autopsy kit and skinning knife by giving a lonely woman some spoons and bones to increase her favor level. Never let it be said that Syp doesn’t know how to treat a lady right. Spoons and bones, my friends.

There’s so much to find on this starter island that it’s absolutely imperative to take one’s time, look everywhere, and try to get as many skill starters as possible. I was happy to get the tome that let me tame rats for combat pets. Now I just need a lot of cheese…

I AM THE MASTER OF RATS! RATS LOVE ME!

I’m almost done with the island, now that I’ve gotten most of the skills and items that can be procured here. I made sure to get psychology, as it’s handy to have a magical attack early on — and it’s fun to shame enemies to death. Now… to the dungeon!

The Anagoge Records Facility is an abandoned research facility where crazypants Dalvos was performing all sorts of experiments — including making giganto-headed skeletons, like Gaijus here.

Posted in Rimworld

Why Rimworld keeps me coming back to its story generated setting

Posted on by Syp

So I’ve been playing this ongoing game of Rimworld for a couple weeks now, and I had to share this story with you. The colony was nothing of great note, but it was solid. Good location, abundant resources, and a team of characters who could get stuff done. I’d been working to carve out rooms in a mountain, build up the infrastructure, set up a huge food chain with crops and hunting, and generally made my cast very happy. It eventually grew to nine colonists, all decked out with heavy submachine guns and a hearty outlook on life.

Cue an early winter day when two of my colonists get married. Everyone’s assembled in a bedroom for some reason, and the ceremony begins. Right at that point, something happens I’ve NEVER seen in this game to date, which is that I was raided via drop pods. These transport pods crash through the ceiling of the bedroom where everyone’s at, and six raiders emerge firing guns all willy nilly.

I’m trying not to panic — I was playing commitment mode, so no going back to an earlier save — and I tried to pull my pawns out of there and into one of the two security nests I’d set up with gun turrets. One of my guys gets killed during that retreat and a bunch others wounded. Then the raiders set a giant fire to the room in which they’re looting, gutting four rooms in total.

Eventually the raiders emerge — some ON FIRE — and are gunned down by my turrets and run away. But the damage is done. Half the base is on fire, and my guys are dropping like flies from wounds and burns. Out of the nine that I started with, only one is without any wounds. She drags a few people to one of the remaining beds to try to tend to them, but infections start setting in. Within a day, I’ve lost six colonists, with two more bedbound. It’s not good, but I can recover, right?

I almost just quit and restarted, but I do try to keep playing until there’s no colonists left, and that wasn’t the case yet. So I kept going.

My healthy colonist almost immediately snaps, partially because her husband was among those killed. She then tries to outright murder one of the surviving colonists, so I drag the other one from bed to arrest her and throw her into prison until she calms down and I can reform her.

By the next day, we’re out of prepared meals and nobody is available to cook. Half the power is out, the snow is blowing into the holes of the walls, and I have characters sleeping in rooms with piles of corpses because I haven’t had anyone available to bury them.

Day three, my prisoner/former colonist breaks out, grabs a gun lying on the ground, and goes nuts again. This time, she sets fire to the common room, which guts most of the other half of the base and kills another character.

I really thought it was over then, but the game threw me a lifeline — a Man in Black and a wandering nomad, both of whom join the colony. So I’m down to just three characters, but they’re clothed, they’re fed, they have heated bedrooms, and there’s more than enough food to last the winter. Now I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that the bad events stay away long enough for us to repair and clean this mess…

Posted in Fallout

Fallout 76: Vaulting over the competition

Posted on by Syp

First up this week was taking a trip down the vaunted halls of Vault Tech University. Go VTU! There wasn’t a whole lot to do here, other than listen to another Overseer log. But it’s all new to me, so I’m relishing the freshness of it

Oh, and there was a simulated training vault in the basement that had a tragic tale (aren’t they always in this game?). Apparently there was a group of students doing a one-month controlled experiment during which the food went bad. But because this also happened when the bombs went off and killed everyone outside, they couldn’t get out… and so they all died. Even though they survived the war. Ironic!

Next up, I ran through the army camp’s training exercises to become an honorary soldier or somesuch. And since I’ve done and documented that many times before, here’s a picture of a magazine I found in the base. I want that cosmocat as a pet!

…wish there were real pets in this game.

Maybe it’s a good thing the apocalypse happened, if this is the standard of exterior house decoration in the world.

I spent a little bit of time this past week actually working on my CAMP. Because it’s located in a rather ugly area due to the junk pile that I’m constantly farming with machinery, I went with the Red Rocket garage so that I wouldn’t have to look out of windows at anything. This is all a very basic quick slap-dash job… but I think it comes off as halfway decent AND functional.

Posted in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Swooping back in to Dragonflight

Posted on by Syp

Well, this takes the spider level concept to a ridiculous level. And what’s really funny is that all of this is set dressing — you don’t fight any of these guys in here, or any other spiders, for that matter.

Adventures continue in Dragonflight’s Azure Span. I keep alternating between questing and running dungeons for gear. I haven’t even broken into heroics yet, so I’ve got a ways to go, but oh well. What’s six months between friends?

It’s been heartening to see how much development and positive word-of-mouth this MMO’s received in 2023 so far. I don’t think we’re on the cusp of a WoW renaissance or anything, but it’s heading in the right direction these days, and that’s heartening. Now, all I need to do is to plug into a solid community in this game!

Whenever I mount up on my dragon and head to a somewhat far-off location, I get the same kind of traveling vibes that I did from City of Heroes when I’d use superjump or flight to traverse lengthy zones. There’s a kind of minigame in seeing how quickly and efficiently you can do it, especially with these dragonriding skills.

Call it a “BlizzCon Bump,” but for the first time in a long time, I’m actually pretty excited about the future of retail to the point of wanting to engage with it. Plus, I’m trying to go for the award of “last player to actually finish Dragonflight,” so don’t mind me a full year behind everyone else.

A little icy hedgehog that didn’t want to stand still for a picture. But I got you, little fella! I got you!

As I’m coming back to the game after nearly a year away (barring a few days here and there), I feel the weight of leveling, catching up, and learning all on me. One thing at a time — and my initial goals are finding a good guild and settling on what characters I’m going to pursue. My plan is to get my Death Knight through all of the story/solo content in Dragonflight and begin to gear her up, at which point I’ll pick back up my Druid to do the same.

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online

LOTRO: Swanfleet is the WORST (but Umbar may be the best?)

Posted on by Syp

Having done all the newbie zones multiple times, I feel qualified in saying… Swanfleet is THE WORST. I was generally OK with it at first, but with successive characters, I’ve found my blood pressure going up when I’ve done Swanfleet.

Generally, the reason is that this zone is too complex and intensive for a starter zone. Navigation is often truly frustrating, with hills and hidden paths and cliffs and “how do I get to this place I want to go?” all over the place. Don’t get me started on the quests that force you to try out crafting skills, even if you — like me — give crafting a pass in this game. And the zone exploration deeds include those terrible “collect X treasure chests but we’re not going to label them so that you have no idea which ones you’ve yet to find.” Those? Those can burn in whatever bathtub that Balrog scrubs his nethers.

Need another reason? Swanfleet is continuing this quiet recent trend of SSG being remarkably stingy with LOTRO Points in its newer zones. Swanfleet only grants 65 LP if you do all its deeds (with some deeds not awarding any). By comparison, the Shire grants 150 and Ered Luin 185 LP. It’s the sort of thing I’m sure the studio hopes nobody will notice whatsoever. Well… someone noticed. It’s cheap.

So now that my Mariner is here on a completionist run, my enthusiasm for playing this character is about a -1 on a scale of 1 to 10. I can summon maybe 15 minutes of energy before I nope out. But I can make some progress in those 15 minutes.

Of course, the solution to getting through any chore is to partially go on autopilot while you distract yourself with something more entertaining. So as I knifed birds — which shouldn’t work but it does — I busied my ears with music and podcasts.

One thing I’ve been more mindful in doing is getting into my head whatever small goal or objective I want to accomplish with a particular MMO play session before I log in. I find this helps me focus up and not get distracted or end up aimlessly wandering around or become overwhelmed with the large-picture progression. Just… “I’m going to work on this area of the map or do these two deeds.”

It does kind of stink to hit a zone where you’re getting so little XP from it. I’ve been level 20 for a couple of weeks now as I casually log in and out, and it feels like my Mariner is stagnating because of it. That’s the price of completionism!

There was a skirmish quest in Swanfleet I’d never seen before, so I had to scoot on back to Bree to go through the skirmish intro quests in order to be able to access it.

But my fledgling Mariner is going to have to go into drydock, for Corsairs of Umbar finally launched last week — and my Minstrel became the first in my roster to answer the call. Exciting times! And as it begins, King Strider here and his lovely bride are touring through Gondor to see how the people fare. That picture up there embodies one part of what makes this world — and game — unique: It looks to genuine virtues of its characters. Just because he’s a king now doesn’t mean that Aragorn is above grabbing a hammer and helping the war-touched people repair their homes.

I know I say this a lot, but I am going to take this expansion slow and leisurely. I’m looking forward to a couple of months of brand-new fresh content and storytelling… then some rep grinds, probably, and eventually doing it all over again with two more alts.

Didn’t expect to be hobnobbing with Dwarves in the mountains! You know, again!