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One thing I love about GW2 is the “hidden” gems one can find.  The developers reward people who pay attention to their surroundings or talk to NPCs, with enjoyable bits of conversation.

Whilst doing a jumping puzzle, I suddenly heard some humming.  My interest piqued, so I waited around and was serenaded by a cute quaggan.

After I finished the jp, I went down to her to see if she had any more songs to sing.

Luckily some other people found her too and did some recordings, so you too can bask in her cuteness! (I dunno why, but I found her so cute and entertaining. )

Apparently these are popular quaggan songs, as others around Tyria sing them as well.  They even sing in German for the German client!

I love that I’m still finding stuff like this in game.  I’m very glad I didn’t rush world completion and instead have taken my time.

 

 

 

The New Lotro

Credit: monteeburns, in response to the forthcoming Hobbit Presents.

Into the Wide World of Mods

I’m not sure why, but I had the itch to play Skyrim again.. well.. perhaps listening to the soundtrack did it.   I’d played quite a bit of the game and have an awesome sneaky dual-wielding heavy armor character, but I’d never actually finished the main story.  I was trying to pace it out whilst completing other bits of the map.

I’d seen how lovely other people have made their game so I’m trying to sort out improving the look of mine before I start playing.  I mean, it’s pretty but it can be a heck of a lot better.  I’d first set out to get some quality of life things and also a helmet hider as this is what my character has been sporting:

I have several like that that are awesome stat wise, but goodness are they horrible looking to me.

I of course got distracted by even more mods as I used Ravanel’s post as a starting place.  Of course one would want a pretty looking character.  I no longer have a screenshot of my toon, but found this picture that looked very much like what I had:

It was a bit of a learning curve installing the mod manager and then learning how certain mods worked or load order (and also found I’d have to update my game before getting many of the mods I wanted), so I started out small with Apachii Sky Hair and Better Females.  I was pretty happy with how it improved the faces and ended up with this:

But then I saw it… and couldn’t unsee it.  I’d created an ingame Kim Kardashian!

Two more mods later (which I’ll have to link later as the mod site is down) one which had way more lovely eye options and another that added more sliders, I ended up with this:

Much better! It’s a pretty amazing makeover when you look at what I started with.  Maybe she’s a bit *too* pretty, but she looks a bit less glam in the open world:

Next up is improving the world of Skyrim and hope that my pc can run it!

Quote of the Day

If you make a game and then spend more time worrying about its economy than its gameplay, you’ve failed at making a game.

Mungrul at the official GW2 forums

Now I don’t at all feel that ANet has failed in making a game but I often feel they’re focused too much on the economy.  I’ve never worried about making money in an MMO so much before.  I suppose it’s not surprising when you can pay real money to buy a currency you can then exchange into in-game gold.  It’s probably in the company’s best interest to make money making difficult and allow the more rare or desirable skins cost extraordinary sums of money.

Sacrifice

For anyone who played any Zelda games.. a different view of Fairy Fountains:

http://www.thegamercat.com/2011/12/sacrifice/

(I <3 Gamer Cat!!  Finally getting around to posting some of the comics.)

 

 

Conflicting Armor

One thing that tends to bother me in game is female armor, or well, the lack of it.  So often it’s downright stupid and only designed for male titillation.  I think it’s one of the reasons I liked Lotro so much.  The armor stays respectful to women.  Sure there are tight pants or a dress that’s low cut in the cleavage area, but on the whole it tends to feel somewhat realistic or appropriate.

Guild Wars is a game that’s caught its share of flak for skimpy armor.  I never played GW1 so I don’t know about the choices in it, but in GW2 you do at least have the choice between full coverage or something skimpy.

I did find one piece of heavy armor that I both loathed and loved.  Loathed as it is skimpy and no woman would ever wear it into battle yet I couldn’t help but sort of love as it made my Norn Warrior look awesome.

Behold, a gladiator chest piece (and to be fair, the male version is just as revealing I believe )

It displays her awesome muscles so very well.  I mean, look at how ripped she is! She’s one strong woman who you don’t want to mess with!

And I absolutely love these next photos.  She looks like some badass model!   Or maybe some unwitting dude just called her sweetie and she’s walking towards him with her “What did you just call me?” look and preparing to deck him!

I was actually tempted to use this chest piece in an outfit, but I couldn’t find any decent leg piece to go with it.  The matching stuff was just bad, in my opinion.  So it didn’t last long and she soon upgraded to some new armor, which actually looked a heck of a lot more appropriate and actually quite pretty.

It was a fun diversion and indulgence for a bit.

Unfortunate clipping

Danania snuck in a picture of some rather unfortunate clipping in Lotro in her latest entry and it reminded me of some shots I captured in Dragon Age 2.  One of my poor party members seemed to have issues with her shield…

You’re doing it wrong Aveline!  A shield is supposed to protect you, not hurt you.

And geez, I’d forgotten how gory DA could be.. and I even had persistent gore turned off! Nothing worse than watching a cut scene with your character splattered with blood. *ick* Still it’s not as bad as what I’ve been seeing in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations as Spaix has been playing that.

 

Orrian Rainbow

… well sorta.  I happened to notice the lovely colours of the sky whilst swimming in Malchor’s Leap.

In many ways Orr is quite ugly.  It’s filled with Risen (aka Zombies), there’s no greenery.. it’s a wholly inhospitable place.  But just like some areas in Angmar in Lotro, I can’t help but see beauty poking through every now and again, just like when Sam briefly saw a star in Mordor:

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for awhile. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” – J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Yule War Steed

Today was my 10th day of the Yule Festival which meant I finally finished tier 3 of the festival deed and was able to purchase the war steed cosmetics.  I think this is one of the prettier horses that Turbine has designed.

I think it would look even better with a rich dark brown colour, but that’s a few too many TP for me to spend.

I’m not thrilled with what it took to get these cosmetics (more about that in a later post I think), but I’m happy to have them and definitely appreciate the work that went into creating the look.

Happy Holidays!

So anyone else take so many screenshots and have a few too many blog ideas that they overwhelm themselves and do nothing out of fear that it won’t be good enough? *crickets chirping*  Errr yeah, me neither…

Anyway, Happy Holidays all!