Back to Azeroth

Well, friends, gamers and anonymous visitors to the site, I have some news to share, whether that is good or bad who knows, but let me get on with it.  I decided to go ahead and get resurrected in the World of Warcraft.  A friend of mine sent me a scroll and I accepted and installed the game and downloaded the Burning Crusade, saved me from having the install it using the 4 CD’s since I didn’t get the DVD version.
The updating process actually was taking a while once I logged in so I went and found the file online, I think the 2.3 patch was around 692mb and took me about 45 minutes to download.  Compared to Lord of the Rings Online the game files seem to be a bit quicker to update, perhaps because Blizzard has had plenty of experience with updates or who knows…but the total process of installing, downloading, updating took somewhere around 2 hours maybe.
Of course, I can’t play WoW without a good UI mod, the trusted compilation I used forever was from LedMirage.net.  So, I went ahead and logged on the site and downloaded the latest version and installed that.  Now, I think I am ready to fire it up.
I login to the game and decided to start with my level 70 hunter, at first the mods were all default and there were all kinds of things on my screen, the quest minion was taking up a big part of the screen, so I found the setting to turn that off.  Then of course, the hotbars needed tweaking, the addon that does that is fubar, much easier to use then the previous program, which I don’t remember the name of it right now.  So, I do all the initial setting up and go to Ironforge and check my bank, I forgot how much crap I had collected…some of it useful, most of it I don’t know, but half of my bags are full of quest related items…jeez.
I use my hearthstone and go to Shattrath and remember how much fun it is having a flying mount…weeee!  I checked my friends list and there was actually a friend who was online that I remember, I sent a message and got a warm reply asking where I had been…hehe  It has been since March now and this person still remembers me, that is always nice.  I also remember being in a guild, I checked the guild tab and see that they haven’t disbanded but they have made a new guild, I went ahead and /gquit anyway, time for a fresh start.  The only thing that I really recall when I left was trying to level my pig I got from the eastern plaguelands.  So I went out and grinded on some beasts just getting a feel for my skills and remembering how to play until that old, so I decided to logon to my old friend, Tabeyus, my druid.
I login and the very first thing I see is a night elf rogue dancing wearing nothing but skivvies and of course I have to laugh, then she asks, “Do I have cameltoe?”.  I have no response…it is kind of strange, being gone for months and coming back to see that staring at you…surreal I would say.
I was still an officer in the old lost guild, Absolution, but once again, I am starting over new here, so /gquit.  The first thing I am trying to do is remember all of these quests I have started and where I need to go to do them.  So a quick trip to Thottbot.com helps out a lot.  Tab was level 61 and had just recently respecced from healing to feral.  I really enjoy the feral aspect of being a druid, going from either being a DPS dealing cat to a tanking bear is really fun.  After running around a little while in Hellfire Peninsula doing quests, (and making about 70 gold in a few hours) I went to the auction hall to see if I could upgrade a few items for cheap.  The gear I was wearing came mostly from drops in either Scholomance or Blackrock Depths, I ended up replacing about half of my gear for under 40 gold.  I also remember getting a lot of upgrades from questing in the Burning Crusade, so I don’t want to go all out wasting my money.
I found a level 61 hunter who was doing a group quest there in Hellfire and we ended up making friends, I am assuming it is a she, she said she was female and I have no way of proving that or not, so I will call her she for now…Over the span of the couple days I spent questing we did quite a bit of them either together or with a group.  I managed to pull of two ramparts runs and I got a nice new mace out of that.  I was the main tank for a blood furnace run and I now remember why I dislike PuG’s so much.  The group itself as a whole was fine, it was just the amount of time it took for us to get a complete group and actually start the run, the rogue we started with was AFK from the very beginning and would show up long enough to kill a single group of mobs just to leave for another 20 minutes…that went on up until the first boss, then he was booted.  We got by the first boss and took a break, total time invested in the run at that point was about an hour and a half.  We got another level 62 feral druid, he had about 8k health points compared to my mere 6600 hp.  But because the leader of the group thought I could use the “learning” I remained main tank and that was fine with me.  Then, after another 30 minutes go by we are halfway to the second boss and our healer, a paladin leaves abruptly.  We took another break and got a really good level 66 healing paladin, he was really good and knew what he was doing.  We burned through the second boss and finally made our way down to the last, forgive me for not recalling names, I don’t have a photographic memory, but right before the fight our fearless leader asks the paladin to remove the added shadow damage magic from us or we could die…the paladin said he has never done it before and that we would be fine, the leader simply states, Just do it.  The paladin replies saying, “You think I don’t know how to play this boss?”.  That was the last thing said, and so the fight begins, I charge in and take on the agro and the boss says, come closer, we all run for it, and he spews out this massive aoe cloud of stuff, we end up owning him and we are done…whatever dropped I didn’t need, it was a 2 handed axe, but at least I completed the exploration of the blood furnace quest.
I had to take a break after that almost 4 hour escapade into the bowels of hell…no it wasn’t that bad.
Oh yeah, I ended up joining my hunter friends guild, Pug repellant.  I thought that was a pretty funny name and she seems nice enough.  I am so happy to see a guild bank, that was really neat, there is a set amount of gold you can withdrawal daily for whatever you need and you can take out items so many times.  I deposited 20 gold in there since I am generous and don’t have a big need for it right now.
One really funny thing, and this one caught me off guard, was I was online last night doing a few quests in the marsh and I get a tell from someone in the guild asking if I was in the guild Absolution and I replied, yes, thinking that was odd, and he replied saying it was Tedrian, he was a druid in the guild and we were both level 60’s with the same gear and everything, I said wow, that is cool…what are the odds of that?  The character in the guild is his daughters, I asked if he was all decked in epic gear, he said yeah, he has been playing raiding and all that since last year.  It is funny how small the world really can be, you never know who you will run into out there.  I was thinking also, what if I hadn’t taken a break from WoW?  Would I be in a raiding guild?  Well, I don’t regret anything; I had a lot of fun in Middle Earth and made some good friends, after all that is an important part of playing MMO’s I think.

LotRO Log 2 Jun 07

I had the opportunity so to speak to take some time off, so of course I did just that. Giving my ample time to dedicate toward some adventures in the Lord of the Rings Online. My main character Abellio is now level 38 and loving his new horse he bought at level 35 just a few days ago. I have to admit I had a friend of mine ask if you could play the game solo all the way through. Now that I look back on most of the quests I have been doing since I reached level 30 I would say No.
Well, of course you could just be a grinding machine and kill stuff for each level, but in this game that just doesn’t make sense. I would say at least 75% of the quests I do these days are fellowship / group type quests and even if you wait to do them a couple levels above the prerequisite you would need a partner to complete. I myself prefer to split my time up in the game between fellowship and solo play. I have noticed in this game I have a lot more friends, this is surely because of the fact I have been playing it a lot lately and people need to group a lot more for quests. I know everyone likes to do their own thing a lot of the time, but in order to reach higher levels it is imperative you learn your role in a fellowship and make friends quick. I have met a lot of good players and really cool people along my journeys and at any given moment I would say there are about 3 to 5 people logged on in my friends list, this makes it quite nice when forming a group for quests. Also, the main grouping party in my kinship is averages around level 40 so I get to be included in a lot of things I otherwise would not. I have to say Turbine put thousands of hours into thought and presentation for the quests, I am not even close to being bored with them yet and every new area I venture into leaves me breathless at times.

Upon learning my racial skill return to rivendell I quickly took a trip back to the homeland. I have found my sanctuary to rest and enjoy the scenery. Also, you can meet Frodo, Samwise, and just about everyone else here as well.

I got to take a walk with Frodo for a quest to ease his mind, I was so taken in by it I started having a conversation with him.

Also a few days prior to that I found out there was a raid happening in the North Downs so I was invited and was curious what was happening. I followed the crowd which seemed to be led by a GM, only reason they say he was is because he had a + sign after his name. He would call the raid to an area and then all of a sudden all these high level beasts, orcs, trolls would spawn and it was chaos. The lag was terrible at times, I ended up turning off the floaty names to help out some. Here are some shots…

In the end it only lasted around 25 minutes, the server was suffering I think and it was just one of those rare occasions you hear about, I feel lucky to have been there for it.

LotRO Log 24 May 07

Abellio the loremaster has reached level 27 as of last night. He managed to finish quite a few quests in the lone lands and is now making friends and ending lives up in the North Downs. I had the chance to join a very solid pick up fellowship and kill a lot of elite orcs in nan wathren while completing the black fire chest quest. We ended up reaching the southwestern encampment and one of our adventurers fell off the side of the cliff…it was most unfortunate because even though the person was a burglar she couldn’t sneak back to our location for whatever reason, I thought to myself that maybe she needed some refresher training on how to sneak, since I successfully made it through many highly populated areas undetected while playing my burglar. So, after 5 minutes of waiting, we decided as a group to go fetch her. But, due to no action on my part as we crossed the bridge one of our members aggravated a group of three orcs who proceeded to defeat our champion, then it was like watching dominoes fall one after another, next was the minstrel then another, then myself…Once you die in that area you are sent to the revival area in kingsfell, making it quite a long jog back to our fighting grounds. But, after much killing we finally made our way back to the final location and finished the quest.

After this I partnered with none other than the novice burglar who come to find out is actually very good at performing as a competent burglar, as far as being a guide for completing quests that is another story. I ended up using all of the available enhanced experience points gain I could via the destiny points, come to find out the system allows you to use it a maximum of 5 times at one time, then it regains charges one every 24 hours.

On a side note, I have become increasing more proficient at managing my movement in the world with my pets, I try to find a path that my pet can follow me by and perhaps with level gain my bear actually gains some intelligence.

I decided to level up my crafting skills and bought a lot of barrow iron ore and made ingots, reached expert level in prospecting and I picked up the quest for jewelcrafting and need to get some mould down in the lone lands from an evil dwarf, sounds kind of suspicious to me. Sounds more like a wild goose chase than a quest, but who am I to question their judgment? I am finding the auction hall more useful as I gain levels. Abellio is quite well outfitted with light armor from various quests he has done, but sometimes Abellio is left lacking with suitable armor for certain parts of his body, I try not to buyout an item unless I really like the stats on it, so the majority of the items I win are from making one bid on it. Being miserly in my actions has afforded Abellio to acquire 2 gold in his pockets, halfway to the 4 gold cost of a horse once he reaches level 35. I don’t think it will be a problem to get that much gold by that level, the quests rewards combined with the silver given for each one has steadily been rising in conjunction with the level and difficulty for each one.

I have been trying to catch up with my friend, Dagfinnr, who is now level 34, but at the same time I am trying to not rush up in levels too fast and enjoy my time in the game as much as I can. It is a careful balance between grinding and having fun, sometimes the grind is all I can focus on and reaching that next level is all that matters, but then I will stop and see I need to slow down a bit. That is when I map back to bree, work on some crafting, go to the auction hall, sell my undesirables, repair my dented up equipment and snack on roasted pig left over from the last fight I was in. I do really like burning the evidence of my last kill, I usually finish my fights with a pile of burning embers to completely cook and dispose of any essence of evil. The remaining pile of burnt ground is the only sign there was a murder, which I am sure fades in time like all things do.

LotRO Log 15 May 2007

Logged in a bit last night spent most of the time fellowed with my kin. I was escorted, appropriately by my Guardian friend, Dagfinnr, from Bree up to Thestlebridge and all the way over to the North Downs. I only completed a couple quests, but fellowed with a group in this high level area left Abellio a bit on edge most of the time. The wargs and earthkin in the area ranged from level 30 to 32, although he never retreated I know there were a few times when dread was rearing its’ ugly head and if it weren’t for my trusting kinship brothers tackling all of the evil I surely would have been nothing more than an afterthought.

I have some mixed feelings about tagging along for some experience points while in a higher level fellowship. On one hand I am very grateful for the time and devotion given to keeping me protected and safe, than on the other hand I feel like I am being robbed of my slow but steady style of tackling quests one area at a time in a methodical manner, taking it all in on my own time and enjoying each new vista and road with the kid in a candy store awe and wonder. Understand that the fellowship has been a tightknit group who have been playing together since beta and I do enjoy the company, but because I am on average 10 levels below everyone else I have the feeling of being the kinship twink, not really by getting cash or items given to me, but the push to reach a higher level so I am closer to the rest of the group.

I expressed my gratuity to my friend and told him I would prefer to stick around in areas where I have more of a chance to take out mob’s more my level, and I would like to accomplish the fellowship quests I still have left to do around bree-land and in the lone-lands. He understood and informed me we would take our adventures down to the lone-lands. I told him not to feel obligated to support me and if he wants to continue questing at his level don’t let me be a barrier in the way.

It is a careful balance of finding what everyone is comfortable with doing. Afterall it is just a game, and the only reason I play it is to enjoy myself. If it isn’t fun, then what’s the point?

I look forward to tackling the lone-lands this evening and possibly reaching level 22.

LotRO Log 14 May 07

The weekend was busy for me, didn’t get much time logged in the game, but that’s alright. I reached level 20 yesterday in the lonelands. I find myself being overly careful at times playing Abellio my loremaster. I have died more times since arriving in the lonelands than I care to mention almost always to do poor execution on my part. I know my weaknesses more and am realizing the full potential of my class. It is imperative I keep my bear alive or else when surrounded by 3 or more mob’s I will go down. Although I am defensively weak character my pet and firepower are very capable of handling 3 mob’s at one time.

I finally took the time to find a new skin for my UI. It is called the Spirit of Elfwood and can be found HERE. I really like the way it is put together, almost minimal in appearance, but very functional at the same time. Here are some screenshots:

I also was invited into the kinship Strength In Numbers by my friend Dagfinnr. I am looking forward to the adventures that lay ahead of us. I am the only Loremaster in the kinship at this time, which makes me feel kind of special…heh

The quests I am doing now in the lonelands are new to me, and I am getting back that since of adventure again that I had lost before. I can’t wait to team up with some kinmates and finish a lot of fellowship quests. One I am really looking forward to is taking back Weathertop.

I found myself climbing the giant hill and I stopped and noticed the sunrise early Saturday morning…

Very nice, I had to pause for a moment and just enjoy the peacefulness I felt. I sensed that my bear, JoeMama, was trying to communicate with me somehow, maybe it’s the link we share not Master and pet, but brothers in this wartorn land just trying to find our way through it alive. I heard the words in my head, they simply said, seek friend and you will find…I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but I think time will help me understand what this beast has to offer me.