Blaugust Day 24 MMO Pet hates

MMO rant time, my pet hates.

Min maxers – While I take no issue with people that choose to squeeze every last point to get the best possible dps, I do object to people expecting me to do the same. I play a game to have fun, not to study builds and spreadsheets. I used to play board games and tabletop war games with someone like this and it annoyed the hell out of me while he pored through rule books during his turn to find some obscure rule he could exploit.

Players doing slayer deeds and not acknowledging you – Mob grinding is the same in most MMO’s but in Lotro, unless you get a hit on a creature or are grouped, you won’t get credit for that kill. If I see someone killing multiple mobs in an area, I always offer to group so we are not stealing each other’s kills. It’s a simple courtesy to at least respond. When they don’t, I see red. (Especially when they then make more of an effort to AOE tag every mob before I can get a single hit in.)

Ore ninja whingers – In Lotro, Ore nodes are on a first come first served basis. If I get there first, don’t message me calling me rude. Your Rune is not etched into the stone! Same goes for the Treasure Hunt. If I get there before you, bad luck.

Trolls in world chat/ being accused of trolling – I learned the hard way not to poke the Trolls in World chat but if someone offends me in some way, I will speak out and I have been called a troll for doing so!

Drama in kinships – This I cannot abide and I’ve been on the wrong side of it too many times, usually resulting in me leaving the Kin. Keep your RL issues out of my game and don’t ask me to pick a side, as most likely it won’t be yours.

Do you have any pet MMO hates?

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Day 23 – Returning to The Shire

On the most recent Burton and Scrooge Podcast, Roger mentioned how occasionally returning to Lotro for new content and partly because of an emotional connection to the game. He spoke of riding up Weathertop and having a brief memory of how he felt when doing it for the first time.

This inspired me to return to The Shire. My Captain is currently deeding for Virtues and one of them involves a number of quests in the home of the Hobbits. As I’ve not yet touched the area with Diaspora, I decided to start from Michel Delving and work my way through. When I first started playing the game several years ago, my first character, Jestro, was a hobbit, so The Shire was my first experience of the game and I’ve barely been back since. Those memories came flooding back. The music, the scenery, the characters and who doesn’t love carrying pies and mail from A to B? When I first pleyed through the area I was on foot (in those days, you didn’t get a mount til later in the game), so it feels a lot easier on horseback.

I tied this in with catching up on the Bingo quests, the new weekly content that Turbine are adding to the game and this gave some unfamiliar amusement to break up the content I’ve seen before. And it was great to see old Farmer Maggot again!

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Day 22 – I’d like to make more videos

Day 22 of Blaugust and looking through Anook page of my fellow Blaugustians, I see many people struggling with writer’s block. I wholeheartedly recommend looking through the writing prompts and of course adding one of your own (as I’m running out of ideas too!)

Today I once again have to thanks Void of A Green Mushroom blog.

If you were to create content for a different medium what would you choose? Videos, Streaming, Podcast, Something Else? What about that medium appeals to you as a content creator?

Video would be my choice, and or streaming. I have tried to stream on Twitch but have struggled with my poor internet connection. While I have great download speeds, my upload speeds are seemingly not sufficient. Guild Wars 2 crashes, Lotro sometimes works but stutters. I will endeavour to keep trying and may try to record videos instead though they do seem to take too much work, more time than I like to commit to non-gaming activities.

I’m not stranger to Vlogging. I was there in the early days of Youtube, and later Vloggerheads, in my own little corner, making vlogs complaining about London issues along with book reviews but I never put too much energy into it. Part of me regrets that, seeing how much today’s Youtube celebrities are making, but I’m not a natural performer. They still linger there at the back of my Youtube account along with some more recent poorly made gaming videos.

The medium appeals as with gaming it’s easy to show and tell to give tips or show viewers how a game plays. That’s something I’d like to do more of (having only recently acquired a mic connected to the PC) so lookout for some of that content in the future!

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Day 16 – My favourite class

Today I’m going back to last years writing prompts. As these were collated by Belghast, I can’t credit who originally wrote it, but here it is.

What is your favorite class? Do you play a new type each game that comes out or is there always one type of class that you tend to favor?

Jestro the Hobbit Hunter (Lotro)

Ultimately, any class that is ranged DPS is my class of choice. In my first MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, my very first character was a hunter, pewing pewing with a bow, staying as far back as possible and I prided myself on using traps and crowd control to wipe out any enemies before they reached me. Since switching servers and playing a warden, even that I play as a ranged class, preferring Javelin over spear but the hunter will always be my favourite.

Jestro the Asura Ranger  (Guild Wars 2)

In Guild Wars 2, naturally Ranger is my main and following the short race I so love in LOTRO, that the Asura was a natural choice. Despite Longbow being the favoured weapon among most players, I always preferred short bow so have to get a bit closer but it feels a lot faster to me, and the bleeds are awesome!

The Punisher (Marvel Heroes)

The third MMO that I’ve spent more time than others is Marvel Heroes and naturally I looked for a ranged class. Hawkeye would be the most likely canditate but I absolutely hate the character in the Avenger’s movies (Give me Green Arrow any day, but sadly DC are not welcome in the Marvel Universe for some reason) So, going a little more modern, I tried out the Punisher. I’ve always been a fan of the character and it suits me down to the ground. Pew Pew with big explosions – what more could a guy want?

Elbereth the Elven Ranger (Neverwinter)

It’s been a while since I played, but Neverwinter was once my game of choice and when I first played, there was no ranger class. I played a Rogue for some time which I recall had some ranged skills, but when the Ranger class came out I jumped on board. Sadly I stopped playing not long after that, so never gave the class a fair crack, but maybe one day I’ll jump back in, the Ranger will be my main.

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Day 10 – Gaming to do list

On his first post for Blaugust, Izlain of the Me Vs Myself and I blog and the excellent Couch Podtatoes Podcast, posted a Gaming To Do List. As I’ve been away for much of this month so far, I’ve not done anything related to this, but with my vacation drawing to a close, I’ll be back gaming again and frankly can’t wait. so here’s my gaming to do list for the rest of Blaugust and beyond.

Here are the ground rules he laid down.

Some Guidelines:

• Don’t add new items to the list until a previous item is removed.
• Try to write about something that gets checked off the list as soon as you complete it so details are fresh in your mind.
• Make your to-do list a reasonable size. I found a list around ten items in length is a nice round number. It also keeps you focused on core games.
• Keep your entries semi-specific. “Leveling to 80″ is a long term goal (unless you’re close). “Clearing this zone” is more reasonable, and completable within the month (though this concept can carry on beyond Blaugust).

1) Get my Lotro Captain, Diaspora up to level 90. She recently reached Edoras so working through the rest of Rohan should make this fairly easy. My excitement for Lotro is back and focussing on this one character has fuelled that.

2) Deal with the Lotro Server transfers, as and when Windfola is ready to transfer from. This will involved getting new slots as intend to take them all to. Landroval, sorting banks and wardrobes, setting up a new house, picking new name if necessary and deciding who goes to which kinship. I suspect this may be a fair bit of work.

3) in Marvel Heroes, get Punisher to 60 and earn enough splinters to let my daughter pick her own character to level up

4) Check back in on H1Z1 and build a new base to see the changes that have made since I played over a month ago.

5) Try out Alien:Isolation, which has been sitting in my Steam library for some time, as yet unplaced. I’ve heard good things about this game. I was excited for Colonial Marines for ages and was very disappointed so hopefully this will scratch that Ripley shaped itch.

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Day 8 Q and A via Comics and Cookies blog

In response to a writing prompt from Ariellaphabet of Comicsandccokies.com…. A few questions and my answers

1.) Favourite console?

I Currently have both PS3 and XBox 360, but the PS3 wins out as my favourite

2.) If you could live in video game universe, what would it be and why?

Middle Earth of Lord of the Rings online, more specifically, The Shire.

3.) When you’re not gaming, what else do you do?

Cook, grow vegetables, brew beer, run RPGs by email, edit reviews for the British Fantasy Society, write about games, write about what I do when not gaming (how meta)

4.) What’s your perfect day?

Coffee, bacon, games, nap, more games

5.) What was the first game you ever played?

Most likely Pong on a Grandstand console in the mid to late 70’s

6.) What was the weirdest game you ever played?

The ET game on the Atari was pretty bizarre but much has been written about that oddity.

7.) Who’s your favourite bad guy (in anything- TV, film, games, comics etc) and why?

HAL 9000 in 2001. Maybe it was faulty circuits or he was programmed to act the way he did, but that voice and red light portrayed more menace than 100 Darth Vaders

8.) Good or evil?

Good, all the time.

9.) What’s your most prized possession?

My glasses. Without them I can’t do my favourite things (apart from eating bacon)

10.) Healer, tank or DPS?

DPS, preferably ranged. Who wants to get up close when you can pew pew in safety? 

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Preamble

So it’s August again (or will be in 7 hours or so in the UK) and with it comes Blaugust, a challenge from Belghast of the Tales of the Aggronaut blog. The event brings together a community of bloggers to post every day through August (or at least post 31 times). If you blog occasionally and would love the impetus to blog more often or would like to start a new blog give it a go!

Last year I came in part way through the month so didn’t hit the goal so I’m excited to challenge myself this year, starting tomorrow. As I have submitted my consolidated site as the blog, http://www.knifesedge.net, my posts will very likely stray from gaming but I endeavour to have something out on a daily basis.

 Here are the guidelines as laid out by Belghast.

• Write a new blog post of no less than ten sentences in length.  This is essentially two large paragraphs and is a good solid minimum size.  If you are doing a screenshot/photo blog just make sure your description explaining what the image is all about fits this constraint.
• Include a link back to the 2015 Blaugust Initiative Page.  My hope is that this will allow other people to join in the challenge and play catch up.
• Advertise the post on the Blaugust Nook.  When you join the nook I will be elevating everyone to “Blogger” access to do this.  This is extremely key this year, because this is going to be how I log all posts, and if you do not do this you are not going to get proper credit.
• Either in the title of your post or the first heading inside of your actual post.. please denote which day this post is for.  Something like “Blaugust Day 21” just to make sure that I am giving everyone credit for the correct day, and this should help to stop the oddities of folks in vastly different time zones getting dumped into the wrong slot.
• If you advertise the post on social media, please include the #Blaugust hashtag.  Again we are trying to help spread the word and get folks to join in process… and at very least get folks reading the posts.
• Over the course of the month, write 31 posts.
• ????
• Profit!

For the full rules, head to the official announcement. 

Also,  Anook is getting involved this year to add further encouragement.

Let the insanity begin!