Return to Skyrim

One thing playing in the TESO beta made me want to do was fire up Skyrim (for reasons I shall elaborate on post NDA hopefully).  I have to say I’ve never stop being in awe of its game world or how beautiful it is.. especially my modded up version! (I highly recommend getting an ENB for the game.) Clicky all for full size.

 

 

I was soon reminded of the too-frequent dragon attacks though, which can be even more tiresome on a melee character as mine is.  I was trying to get to the top of a mountain to take a picture but was interrupted by a dumb dragon who got in the way of a nice sunset. 😛

I’d been meaning to post these next two screenshots for ages.  Paused game plus toggle free camera can capture some awesome moment whilst your character is in combat.  I present: The Dragonborn!

I never have finished the main storyline of the game.  I’ve always been so distracted with all the wonderful bits elsewhere in the game and have tried to space out the main story to make it all last longer.  I really ought to finish it one of these days.

Mad skillz, yo…

Yep, totally did that on purpose.  I was completely and totally under control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*cough*

Moar Paint

A submission by a guildie to the paint thread on our guild’s forums.  All of you who have had a norn or charr in front of you whilst in a jumping puzzle will get this:

 

 

Achievements, Part One

A guildie started a thread called “Show off your MS paint skills” which is a spin off of a thread called ‘WvW in MS Paint’ on our server’s unofficial forums.  He thought it would be funny to see what guildies could come up.

My submission, a commentary on the effect of the WvW Season 1 achievements on the state of WvW. 😛 (click for full size)

I wanted to do more, but I’m so used to any artistic endeavours being undertaken in Photoshop.  I ❤ layers!  They make everything easier.

I have two more ideas I want to draw.   Perhaps I’ll be a bit cheaty with Photoshop.  Or just try a bit harder with paint.  Ally Brosh can come up with some epic stuff with paint  at Hyperbole and a Half (I highly recommend reading through her blog… it’s brilliant), so it’s worth a try. 😛

oooOOOOoooooOOOooo

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. :P)

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. 🙂

 

 

 

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! 🙂

Victory at last!

My raiding alliance Innocent has spent many a night trying to defeat Saruman T2 Challenge Mode. (using the rings is one of my most unfavourite parts of the fight.  I always have to concentrate so hard when watching the order, otherwise my mind will wander off :P)

So many hours of easily getting through phases 1-4 easily only to fail a minute or so into phase 5.  There have been good times when we’ve made progress or beat T2, yet there have been some really low times due to it being such a challenging fight.  It was the only part of the Tower of Orthanc raid that we didn’t beat before the level increase.  But never did our determination to beat the old bastard waver.

We’ve kept on trying after RoR was released whilst people were leveling up.  Our gear wasn’t much better and it was still quite the challenge.  Don’t expect to waltz in at 85 and have ToO to be a cakewalk!  Whilst it’s bitter sweet to have done this post 75, Innocent finally prevailed and got Laurelin server’s first Saruman T2 CM kill!

This meant new horsie time!! Shiiiiiiiny! 😀 (though forgetting to turn graphics up to ultra high.. not so shiny, oops)

Impromptu meeting to show off our horses!  It’s a bit funny, they have synchronised colour changing. 😛

We also got a model of Orthanc (kin homes need more enormous yard slots!!)

It’s pretty huge:

The view from the inside is… interesting:

We were all really pleased and proud to have gotten this done.  Next up:  Original Challenger of Saruman title!

End of Beta Event, Picspam Part 2

After summiting Orthanc, I hopped back down the campfire stairs to the top of Orthanc to join the fighting:

During a lull in the attacks, I noticed some lurking creatures:

Gandalf stopped by to admire all the tables:

At 85 in all crafted gear, I found I was running out of power quite fast as a dps LM.  The crafted gear left me around 500 will short in comparison to what my lvl 75 LM has which meant a reduced power pool, but I’m also guessing the problem was compounded by increased power costs on skills.  At least the drain power skill works better now and I also noticed its looks have been updated.

Oh and there was a giant dwarf…. 😛

The fighting resumed with a GM dropping a level 120 Frodo Baggins with A LOT of morale.  I gotta say, GMs spawning whatever mob they wanted whereever, at the level they choose and are able to change the mob’s morale at a whim.. well, it really makes me wonder why they can’t reset a bugged Draigoch. 😛

I didn’t really want to fight Frodo, nor was it possible as all my skills were missing so I headed back to Bree for the final minutes.  I found my path blocked though:

Thorog was doing his best not to let anyone by!

I kept my distance and worked around him and got some good views.

It was cool to get a good look at him.. though one of my shots is forever spoiled by a shirtless dwarf carrying around some corn! 😛

I got past Thorog…. only to find several more in my way!

I tried to get around them.. but yeah, it didn’t go well.  You know what’s coming!

They had a pretty insane killing range.  So I worked my way back and suddenly, POOF! I was a miniature version of me! 😀

I think I confused a NPC as well. 😉

I worked my way through the back alleys of Bree in hopes that they might provide a safer route to the Prancing Pony.  Once there, it was so laggy as the GMs seemed to have started a Boss Battle Royale!  It meant it was mostly safe to get close as the bosses were fighting each other. There were a few Mistresses of Pestilence, lots of Giants, lots of Tyrants (that were quickly beaten), a few Sarumans, Durin’s Banes, and at least one Thorog all fighting by the Endless Campfire and Table Stair.

It was an epic end to a fun night.  I’m really glad I got to see one of these finally! 🙂

 

End of Beta Event, Picspam part 1

I’ve only ever been in one Lotro beta in the past but I missed all the final, crazy festivities.  Luckily I was able to make it to the Rohan one.  Gotta say, the GMs sure do know how to throw a party!  It was worth getting in to Beta for this at least.  😀

Warning: picture heavy post ahead!  Seems I really liked my screenshot button that night. 😛

I started out in Snowbourn, a major town in Rohan, and a kind captain summoned me to the proper layer in order to see this:

Thaurlach and Durin’s Bane, just hanging out in a field.  The captain accidentally aggroed Durin’s Bane so we took him on!

 

Of course it’s weird enough that I’m fighting Durin’s Bane in Rohan… but it was even weirder to be fighting him from horseback.  The captain was able to keep aggro on it (plus another fellowship warband that decided to chase after him as well) whilst I did figure eights and slowly helped burn it down.

I have to say this was the most fun fight of the evening as it actually took some effort.  In the end we were successful and downed Durin’s Bane plus the warband!.. though this sorta shows you how easy the warbands are going to be. 😛  I mean.. two people.. one nemesis balrog plus a 6-man warband consisting of another elite master mounted orc, plus a few signature mounted goblins… no problem!!

I headed next to Bree as I kept hearing about some ‘endless stair’ in glff.  Well, I found it and it wasn’t at all what I expected.

A GM had made some “stairs” out of campfires and clover tables.  Naturally I had to climb it.

I had some scary moments when lag hit that made me think I was going to fall off, but I made it to the top!

I didn’t get to spend long at the top as I was promptly hit with a nerf bat. 😛 GMs had given people some.. plus another thing called ‘The One Jetpack’ but I never witnessed that phenomenon.  Anyway, off I went, flying over Bree.

I headed back into Bree and now a Saruman and Bukot were attacking people outside of the Prancing Pony:

Of course another Durin’s Bane had to show up with loads of bugans.

I headed towards the centre of Bree where I found Thaurlach bringing terror to the Bree Fountain:

Just a few tyrants showed up as well.

I continued on to the South Gate and was greeted by another Durin’s Bane.

I tried to go outside to get a better look, but that didn’t end up well. 😛

I rode around Bree so that I’d approach from the outside and quickly saw why I died.  There wasn’t just the one balrog hanging out there…

I read in chat that a GM was now building stairs outside of Orthanc.  Another GM was kindly porting people to Orthanc so I caught a port there.  It was an interesting sight seeing people hop their way up crafting tables to slowly scale Orthanc!

I saw some people falling off, but gave it a go!

It kept going..

and going…

and going….

aaaaaand going!!….

It was actually getting a bit scary as it was getting really high.  Any little bit of lag scared me as I did NOT want to fall and have to start over again! 😛  I was also afraid of a random player nerf batting me off.  The GMs had to tell off people for doing that.  At least the view was nice when you got pretty high up!

Getting near the top I could see there were more boss invasions on the top of Orthanc:

Nearly there!

And I made it!  I’m the king, erm queen of the world!!!… uh.. *cough* ..yeah..

I heard of some people getting a title.. Master of Stairs, I think, but I never noticed anything being given to my character.  I don’t think it would have mattered anyway as the Lothirieth you’re seeing in the pictures isn’t my real character as character copy wasn’t available to those on EU servers.

Continued in part 2!

 

Mini stories

or aka Dynamic Events in GW2.  Now there are quite a few bloggers who have illustrated that the events really aren’t all that dynamic and I agree.  You see some of the same ones or could wait around for one.  The centaurs will always attack, sometimes players will repel them, sometimes not.  I’m still enjoying them.  What I most like about some of them is the mini stories, the bits of dialogue that go on with them.  Whilst Lotro has no events, I can think of a few places where there are nice little side conversations, such as the dwarves in the Walls of Moria instances or the hobbit who is having an adventure in Budgeford

I wish Lotro had more of these and less of the inane repeated chatter.  I like little conversations like these and I like how GW2 encourages me to pay attention to what the NPCs are saying around me.  It also encourages people to follow the NPCs after events are finished as you can be rewarded with a funny conversation or another event.  One great example is an event with a pirate (which is doubly awesome as it ties into another event!).  You’d never experience his performance unless you followed him back after the event was over:

It’s amazing someone spent time to write that song! 🙂

The other day, my Norn warrior bumped into a conversation some Norn kids were having.  It was a boy boasting about how tough he was.  I didn’t get there at the beginning but luckily my chat box picked it up as I was running in:

Off he went, actually did punch the grawl, but it didn’t go as intended:

Seems Slagvi got himself into some trouble:

Luckily for him, me and some other adults were around to save him.  That of course didn’t stop him from trying to spin the whole event in his favor!

I love the commentary from the adults once the fight was over! 😀