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 :P)

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. 😉

Venetian Carnival

I was wandering around Divinity’s Reach to complete the exploration achievement when I  came to a really impressive area at night.  Whilst looking around I noticed its colours and torches combined nicely with my outfit and made me think of a Venetian Carnival.

I’m still in awe of how pretty this game is.

I was also looking through the dungeon armour sets and found the outfit I want badly!  Though I’m unsure about the shoulders.  They might be a wee bit over the top. 😛  I’m usually not into fairy stuff, but this feels like a high fantasy, Midsummer’s Night Dream Titania look that I think is gorgeous.  I’m sure it would look even better in a silvery colour but unfortunately the preview window only displays your current armour colour and doesn’t allow you to mess around with colours like Lotro’s preview does.

I also found… this…..

That’s.. just.. *no words* 😛  I may end up wanting to get it as it has good stats.  Thank goodness I’ll be able to combine it with the other set to have good looks and good stats!   We’ll see if I’ll be up for farming that though.

Bonnie and Clyde

The boyfriend (who I’ll call by his screen name, Spaix, from now on) and I have been having lots of fun since we got into Guild Wars on Saturday.  It’s not been without its hiccups:  log in problems,  guild problems,  and overflow problems.  But ArenaNet has done a good job keeping up communication with its customers so I can cut them some slack.  It’s been great being able to explore a new world and get lost in it (oh jumping puzzles, how I both loathe and love you!)  I’ve also been enjoying GW’s version of quest hubs, which are called hearts, as they all have varying things to do.  I’ve done things such as watering crops, feeding cows, cleaning up graffiti, taste testing ale collecting stolen goods, and your normal killing the bad guys to name a few.  I actually feel sad when I’ve missed out on proper heart completion whenever an event takes place and ends up completing the heart for me through the killing of the attacking mobs.  The only thing I’m lacking is an overarching story, something that connects all these different areas. Sure you have your personal story but as of right now it seems completely unconnected.

One particular heart had us training with weapons: gun, sword and shield.  Here are Spaix and I doing some target practice:

This screenshot made me think of Bonnie and Clyde :P:

I was a total fail at the shield training.  I just couldn’t get the timing right, never blocked and was constantly knocked down.  Spaix had a grand ol’ time laughing at me. *rolls eyes*

So far the outfits I’ve had in the game are pretty enough and I’m really enjoying the dye system.  Once you’ve unlocked a dye you have it forever.  You can continually dye your armour as much as you want for no cost.  I’ve changed colours several times already!  I crafted myself a set of gear which was pretty though as is so common with females in games, completely inappropriate for combat!

I dunno about the genie pants.. but hey, they’re pretty modest for GW’s standards. 😛

I’ve been going screenshot crazy in this game.  I’m already building up a backlog, just like Lotro. ^^

Lotro Summer Fest

The Summer Festival began yesterday in Lotro.  Not a lot has changed this year which is a bit disappointing as this is now the one festival that’s remained mostly unchanged in a few years I think.  Though with the added Anniversary and Farmers festivals, we can’t complain too much.  What has changed is the pie and keg races have now been moved into their own instanced area.  The pie race area is quite lovely, but due to a bug with the stable horse to the keg races, I’ve not been able to see that area yet.  Also a consolation box has been added in so that you receive a few tokens instead of walking away empty handed if you bet for the wrong hobbit or dwarf to win.  Gathering tokens is really paltry compared to the Farmers festival but I remember this being the case last year as well.  The only way to get a decent amount of tokens is from the races, but of course that’s completely luck based.  A combination of Lotro burnout and excitement for Guild Wars has left me feeling not so festive, so I’m thankful I got all my deeds done last year!  I’ve also decided to stop being a completionist and only go after things I want and there’s not really anything in this festival that I do.

I think the horse is actually quite pretty though they chose not to give it a proper saddle for some reason.  Turbine has made festival horses redundant for me due to the fact that they aren’t as fast.  62% vs 68% speed doesn’t sound like a big difference, but it’s noticeable.  Though I do wonder, can festival horse skins be put on our warhorses?  I think I’ll perhaps go after this steed just in case:

The new festival cosmetics had potential:

But as you can see in the next picture only the light area can be dyed.  The problem is, not much goes with green.  I tried lots of different dyes and I wasn’t happy with many of them.  I’m not a fan of this deep green colour so I think I’ll give the dress a pass.  My vaults have no room for cosmetics I’m likely not to use. :p

I thought the tunic might be interesting on my hobbit but once I previewed it, I decided against it.  I dunno what it is.. maybe the neckline?  But the hat!  What is up with that hat!? 😛  For some reason Lotro devs love their silly hats and helms! 😛

Returning to my hunter

I decided to start playing my hunter again and level her up to 75.  I’m not really sure why I wanted to start playing the class again, especially as I was completely clueless about it now.

The last time I played my hunter was back in Sammath Gul days.  I stopped right before the first major changes and the good Helegrod set came out.  Since then there’s been even more changes.  This left me feeling somewhat nubby and experiencing a few facepalm moments. 😛  It also didn’t help that my skillbars were a mess, a leftover relic from the days I clicked on skills instead of using mainly keys.  It was not a key-friendly UI at. all.

So I sorted the skillbars as best I could and with the help of a kinnie I have things mostly figured out again.  It’s so weird that fleetness is actually good and something you want running all the time.   I’ve been having fun questing now that I understand the class again.  My only gripe is the long induction to initially build focus.  It’s already gotten old again.  I was really hoping it would be reduced with the improved skill but no such luck. (Totally separate topic but I would love it if Turbine got rid of stand-still inductions, in combat and out.  It ends up feeling like so much exists to slow you down.)

I don’t know if I’ll actually group with this hunter.  I find the class to be fun on it’s own, but in the past it was really boring in groups to me.  Hunter used to be my main but I dropped it in favour of the more complex loremaster as using more than 4 keys is fun. 😉   I think with the changes, it could possibly be interesting enough again, on par with a fire rk, though even that class gets boring to me after a while.  Loremaster has spoiled me, though sometimes mindless dps is a relaxing change.

Of course the first thing I did before even arranging my skillbars was to update my character’s outfit.  Even if she was going to be a noob skillwise, she should at least look good whilst doing so!

Out take: photobombed by a bull!

August Update

So what’s been happening in the world of Lothirieth?  Well, I’ve been renovating a house, finally moving into said house (yay for something newer and more space), went on a holiday to France (oh the lovely sun!) and will be wrapping up my second Dutch language course (maar ik kan nog steeds geen goed Nederlands spreken.    Het is heel moeilijk voor mij.  Maar ik begrijp meer en dat is goed!)

Oh wait, you mean what’s been going on with game stuff? 😉  Well, the backlog of screenshots continues to grow due to some busy months, so I figured I’d do a concise update of some things I’ve won or obtained.  Other than that, I’ve not been playing Lotro all that much.  The combination of bugs, lag, Turbine blatantly displaying its greed and not feeling at all excited about the new expansion has left me with not so much interest.  I’m logging in for raids and a bit for the current festival, but that’s really it.  I feel I mainly want to rant about the state of the game, but I’d rather not have my blog contain mainly that.  So I’m taking the approach of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” I guess!

Anyway, stuff! Stuff that’s been going on! Well, I found one super ugly staff!  It just looks a bit too evil…

My warden won the Steed of Bright Days, which means I’m rarely going to see it as I have no intention on playing warden anytime soon. 😛  It lives up to its name of being quite bright, but I like it. 🙂

My loremaster won the loremaster steed.  It’s nice I actually won the class mount for my main, but I have mixed feelings about it.  When I first saw the preview pictures, my thoughts were “Yuck! That’s hideous.”  I wasn’t alone.  It’s been entertaining to read some of the comments on the official forums.  I quite enjoyed something Catburg said:

I can’t decide whether it looks like it’s wearing old lady’s bloomers, busty barmaid’s blouse, or a babygro.

I laughed when I saw I’d won it in a lottery as it seemed so ugly, but it’s not so bad ingame.  The sheer number of scrolls is a bit over the top, the books have poor graphics and your cloak clips with all the stuff on the back (which you can see in the next picture)… but I don’t know.  It’s okay.  I’ll ride it around for a bit, if only for all the stares I get. 😛  It’s entertaining to be sat in Galtrev and see people stop, stare and walk around you. 😀  Oh, you can also see I have a new snazzy cloak. 😉  I got a broken cloak clasp a little while ago but was torn about what to do with it.  The necklaces are clearly the better upgrade, but I’ve gotten the clasp so late ingame that the necklace would be obsolete soon.  The cloak offers a small upgrade but a cool cosmetic that lasts until they pull the plug on the servers.  But my need for my character to be the best it can be is strong.  I finally bit the bullet and just got the darned cloak, even though I feel the need to explain to everyone that yes, I do realise the necklace is better!

Fuzzy books and cloak clippage

I joined an impromptu Barad Guldur run and somehow lucked out and won the chest and leg pieces which happily are now bound to account rather than character.  I’ve lusted after the minstrel armour in the past so went and got that, then immediately slapped it on my runekeeper!

Lastly, I finally got a chestpiece I’ve been looking for!  It dropped in a T1 Saruman and everyone got a chuckle when I had to yell out for the raid leader to just not distribute all the junk as it wasn’t all junk!  My hobbit loves his new outfit.  I think he looks quite dashing! (Though I forgot to put on the matching gloves I have when I took these screenshots. Doh!)

Girly Girl

This is something I’m not.  I don’t really do flowery clothing and certainly not pink!  But this year’s spring cosmetics are strangely an exception. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really like the new circlet.  I was never a fan of the previous flower circlet.  It just looked like a clump of flowers on your forehead. 😛  This one is elegant, delicate and beautiful.

Another variation with the hood from the store:

Spring Festival 2012

Turbine finally released the spring festival, so I decided to have a look at the new horse, see if the last maps for the Cartographile deed were there and see if there are any new cosmetics.  I was pleasantly surprised by the cosmetics!  I’ve been on a Lotro hiatus due to dissatisfaction with aspects of the game, but this will be enough to draw me back for a bit. 🙂

They’ve come out with aSimbelmynë theme, which is appropriate as we head towards Rohan.  I’m a bit ambivalent about the horse but am pleased to see a proper saddle back.  The detailing is also quite nice.  Luckily I had some leftover leaf tokens so was able to buy the dress right away:

They also made a new flower circlet which I like quite a bit more than the old one.  I had to use Lotro’s standard dressing room to get a screenshot so the quality isn’t very good. (I really ought to stop being lazy and get a plug in for a larger dressing room window!)  Though taking screenies of cosmetics always makes me want a better computer and a bigger monitor as others out there get some really sharp pictures ingame. 😛  There’s also a matching tunic, cloak and floppy sun hat plus last year’s spring cosmetics.

The final maps are there, so the Eriador Cartographile deed will finally come to an end, yay.  i’ve yet to check out any of the quests and see if there is anything new.  The shrew stomping has returned as well and I shall be spending a fair bit of time there, finishing out my deed.  There do not appear to be any new consumables thankfully so none of those to grind out!

Visiting Old Places

My RK recently reached 75 so I’ve been working on getting her geared up.  The LIs were certainly a challenge but I mostly got lucky with my reforges.  This is the one aspect that I dislike when a character hits the level cap, especially with Turbine still not having any way to remove relics without TP (anyone heard of these mythical relic removal scrolls dropping ingame? Any more stat tomes either? Yeah, I thought not) and the exorbitant cost of getting the relics you want through shards and gold.  The amount I spent in both of those currencies sorting my RK’s four LIs (dps stone/bag, healing stone/bag) out was a bit astonishing.  It made me thankful that the other classes I have at endgame aren’t near as difficult.  I suppose champ could be if I decided I wanted to tank, but that is never going to happen. 😉 

I was lucky enough to be able to take my RK to a T1 Tower of Orthanc run and have plenty of seals in the wallet so that the day after she hit 75 she had 4/6 of the raid fire set.  Our alliance did an alt run since we’d finished T2 wing raiding early that week.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to get Saruman down as we were a bit too squishy.  The fight illustrated the importance of virtues for me.  She had most around 7-8, a few higher, but not the important ones.  Whilst my RK has nearly the morale of my LM, the attacks from Saruman and the poison/shadow clouds he put down hurt A LOT. 

So off to deed I go!

It took me to Mirkwood and allowed me to enjoy the sights there.  Gotta find an upside to deeds right? Turbine Points and pretty sights?  I don’t think many people liked the region but I actually did.  I found the quests to be pretty mediocre but I felt Turbine got the look and atmosphere spot on.  Whilst deeding there, I ran into some lovely light and surroundings (if you can call a dead, creepy forest lovely.. all in the eye of the beholder and how you choose to look at it I suppose!) and finally took some time to take some screenies of the outfit I recently got my RK.

When I first laid eyes on the ToO T1 RK robe, I knew I had to get it.  It was one of my incentives for leveling up. 😉 That and sweet RK fire dps (which is so very, very fun!) So I splurged, spent the seals, got the robe and it’s definitely been worth it!  I have to resist putting it on all my characters. 😛

In the Ashenslades, not long after dawn:
-Chest: Robe of Cleansing Fire (ToO t1 rk set)
-Shoulders: Disused Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer (Dunland quest reward)
-Gloves: Lore-Keepers Gloves (Barad Guldur LM raid set)
-Shoes: Memory of the West Shoes (Ost Dunoth LM raid set) You can’t see these, but I found them to be good boots that didn’t clip with the robe.

 

I look forward to finishing up her virtues and getting her some Limlight jewelry as I’d much rather take her to raids than my champ.  I definitely prefer a caster class but I also really enjoy aoe destruction. 😛  Champ is great for the aoe, but it generally has to get in more dangerous spots, tends to have to offtank, but its dps isn’t as good as RK’s and the power consumption has become annoying.  My raiding alliance always seems to want more ranged classes (especially for stuff like Shadow Wing as we’re trying to crack the challenge) and dps and I’ve felt my champ isn’t the best contribution to that.  Of course my LM is my main, but we have several in the alliance so we have to rotate.  RK would keep the caster in me satisfied yet also lets me burn stuff down and who knows, maybe one day heal. 😛

 

I also couldn’t resist taking some RK action shots in the spider cave in the Scuttledells.  The light was too nice and RK’s have some really picture-worthy skills.

Falling apart

Lotro has returned to nice looking raid armour after the mehness of Ost Dunhoth armour.  There are some exceptions here and there but it was the first time I felt no need to win armour on multiple toons mostly because it looked pretty.  Of course stats are nice too. 😉  I quite like most of the Isenguard armour though I wish it would have had more variation between the classes like the Dar Narbugud or Barad Guldur armour did.  I’ve earned 5 pieces on loremaster and champ now, but I discovered a somewhat disturbing bug when my champ finally donned all of her armour.  It’s literally turning her into pieces!

When I display the chest armour a large gash appears under her jaw:

Then when I display the trousers, a gap appears on her waist:

This is one of those things that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. 😛  It’s a pity as I was really looking forward to wearing this armour.

In regards to other things falling apart, the past weeks have been a bit tumultuous in Lotro for my boyfriend and I.  We’ve found ourselves in a new kin.  Whilst we didn’t want to leave our old kin, we’re grateful to be in our new one and surrounded by kind and fun people (who we were already raiding with anyway as our former kin went kaput in regards to raiding).  I suppose not a lot is different for us as the kin was so dead and we were doing the majority of our grouping up with people outside of kin. But it’s not easy to chat with some former kinnies anymore which is sad as I know we’ll slowly lose touch without the ease of kin chat. But, to reference a quote I read a little while ago: “Destruction breeds creation. If something falls apart, that leaves room for a new beginning.”  So this is my mindset.  🙂  Instead of dwelling in anger and frustration, I’ll focus on the new friends I’ve made and the fun we’ve had, like completing the server 1st kill of Shadow Wing t2 a few weeks ago! woot!