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| Tweet Topic Started: 11 Sep 2011, 07:21 PM (5,065 Views) | |
| Drake | 16 Aug 2012, 02:05 PM Post #91 |
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I second what Paw said here. I would love for you to play LotRO with us, but if you feel this way you don't have to.
about this, I feel I just have to say: playing with others and them getting in the way and ruining your plans; yes that happens a lot. there are a lot of players out there who are ignorant and don't cooperate well, but even with the ones that do, things can still go wrong. what you have to do is work with them, and in time when everyone is able to cooperate and communicate well and become more familiar their skills and strategies, you can become nearly unbeatable. it's part of the fun of the game, learning to work with others and becoming a strong fellowship. you can't expect everything to go right for you at the start, that would just make things simple and boring. I have my main character in a kinship, we're currently doing a lot of raids, me and a group have been doing them for a while now. at first, basically we got our asses kicked all the time. but we have made a lot of progress, and right now things are going a lot smoother, and we're nearly unstoppable. I'm not saying things will work out with everyone you play with, there are some who just never learn, and even more who are complete asses and choose to ruin things for you. but you don't have to play with other people, you could just play with us if you wanted. Also you don't even have to do these things if you don't wish. as Paw said, we could just have fun exploring the world. heck, even goof off and get into some shenanigans. You can have fun with this game in multiple ways. Anyway, we're nowhere near "rolling in money" here either, we never have been, we have a lot of issues with money and bills to pay. I know I have been spending a bit lately, this just happens to be one of those times where we have a little bit of extra money. but we are still struggling. not as bad as you IBeat, but we still go through a lot. (also me having a computer of my own, we happened to get extra money on our tax return two years ago. me and my parents came to an agreement to get me one. mostly because all of us need to use a computer a lot, and it was becoming really a hassle to have to take turns. any other time we would not have been able to do this. as of now, we would not be able to buy another computer right off, if either were to die right now, there's not much we could do to get another.) Edited by Drake, 16 Aug 2012, 02:39 PM.
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| Seffoo | 16 Aug 2012, 03:36 PM Post #92 |
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@ Paw, Drake: Slow down, I didn't intend any offense, or target anyone specifically. I did have a bit of a rant, though. I gues what I was trying to say is, I'm still not 100% sold on LotRO. I want to give it a try -- and a big heaving try, at that -- but as usual, I'm paranoid. It takes me a long time to learn to trust a new interactivity, and I haven't played online since 2009. The last games I played online were Warhawk and the Uncharted 2 beta, and back then I was on a crappy connection. That, and the only PC game I've played in the last seven years is Sims (2 and 3). Add to that some trouble with Steam after a temporary purchase of Portal, and that leaves me in a very alien world. This leaves me extremely edgy and uneasy, as I have little to no idea what I'd be getting into. This compounds on top of a brand new world of generous internet access, a new computer and all the pressure I'm feeling elsewhere. I actually have no idea what I'm going into, beyond what I've learned passively from you guys. I don't have any real knowledge of the game's systems. I love the unknown, but it makes me extremely nervous at the same time. It's the same reason I still haven't gotten around to reading ASoIaF. I'm really impressed with many elements of LotRO -- not at the least including the game size, demonstrated below in this Game Worlds size comparison: Spoiler: click to toggle The second image is a continuation of the first, showing EVEN BIGGER worlds. Oblivion, one of my favourite games ever, has a world size of 16 square miles. LotRO, not including addons? 30,000 square miles. Oh my god! Leading off of that? Middle-Earth! One of the biggest drawcards is exploring the world I love thoroughly through books and film, and guys, you're some of the best guides I could have. I don't want to creepily stalk some random. The 'rolling in money' comment was aimed at the world at large, no one in particular -- I'm fully aware that most people, and I'm pretty sure everyone registered on CA, are struggling too. It gets frustrating, though. Hell, we just spent our savings for the year ($2,000) on a car that's less than thirty years old (it's a 2001 -- unthinkable! lol) and it has cupholders. Cupholders! We feel spoiled right now. We finally have a decent car, haha. My household's been in a pretty bad place for the last ten years, but I won't mention that further here. I don't think LotRO's a bother. I just think it's going to be hard to fit into my already-crowded days (and nights, depending). As much as I'd want to play reguarly, I can't see it happening; at least, not yet. It's going to take a lot of easing-into, and in that sense I'm kind of like a kid taking their first swim in a deep pool; I need encouragement and a push. Take one of my most recent gaming endeavours; Fallout: New Vegas. I hated it, until I gave it more than an hour of gameplay. I forced myself. Then I started to love the game, and now I play it many times a week. I just had to get used to it and look past what I first percieved as downfalls. Drake and Paw, you two talked me into LotRO, as I never had any interest in it before. I want to play with you, even though I have no idea what's going to happen. Basically, to sum up the above; I'm really nervous (sometimes leading to aggression) and unsure about LotRO and how much I'll be able to play. I actually think I'm getting a bit of cold feet at the moment, just four* days out from the hookup. *Yes, four -- this monday, the 20th. I said 24th because I was planning on sneaking on and making my character so I could surprise you guys if you waited to make yours! <3 I want to explore all that world as part of a Fellowship with everyone (six strong, was it?), and would love to join in and play, but I guess I worry that I won't be able to keep up, or will hold the group back. At this stage, I can only see myself playing when someone else is on -- I doubt I'll team up with total strangers at all. One of the reasons I'm making Anoriel a bit of an introverted wanderer. I'm just sceptical, because this is all new and foreign -- an entirely new genre and platform. And in my last post, it seems I needed to vent off some pent-up steam. Edit: Holy shit this became a whopper. No wonder it took almost two hours to write. Edited by Seffoo, 16 Aug 2012, 03:36 PM.
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| Drake | 16 Aug 2012, 04:15 PM Post #93 |
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I'm sorry, I shouldn't have taken offense. and I see your point. I was actually pretty much the same way when I started. it was all new to me, I have never played an MMO, never interacted with others in games besides my siblings at home, I was really nervous. wasn't quite sure if I would even play it for very long. but yeah, I got used to it, just gotta give it time~ I'm really glad to hear you're wanting to play it and give it a chance, makes me very happy. and don't worry, you won't be holding us back, our priority is to help each other out. me and Paw have been playing for some time, so we have good experience and will be happy to help you. and we'll give you that encouragement and push you need. <3 Also, 4 days!? :D *jumps around with excitement* Edited by Drake, 17 Aug 2012, 05:22 PM.
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| Paw | 16 Aug 2012, 04:30 PM Post #94 |
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Well I'm sorry for getting all offended. I went to bed in a bad mood and I think it stuck. Did some work around the house and I'm in a clearer mind. Sorry. Anyways, perfectly understandable worries when it comes to LotRO. I'm glad you're not going to start ahead without us because we would probably never figure it out until you told us, anyway. Also, unless you want the head start, it's generally best if we maintain the same levels or around that. I think Vaan intends to play with us. He's made his character. Paddy....well, I haven't seen much of him lately. Hopefully he'll try it out, though. In any case, I don't think he'll stick with it and I'm guessing Vaan will probably only play when we're all playing. Drake and I have other characters, so we won't go on ahead. In fact, we're making new characters just so that we won't be enormously powerful and take the fun out of things. So for at least Drake and I, we're good holding our characters for when you're on. We won't go speeding ahead. If you want to play when no one's on, there's plenty one can do single-player. I play mostly by myself (except in Angmar ASGASFJSHAGF). One thing. We only have one computer that can run LotRO and my mom uses it a lot. When she is working, it's usually from 3pm to 11:30pm my time, so I can be on then. Then she gets on and I can be on again at usually after 2am my time. It is a big world, and what I like more than Oblivion also is the variety of locations. Ered Luin = contains a major elf city and a major dwarf city. The Shire = contains most of the towns mentioned in the books, including Michel Delving, Hobbiton, and Bywater. You can go in Bag End! Bree-land = huge city of Bree. Small towns of Archet, Combe, and Staddle. Chetwood forest is nice. Cery much like Cyrodiil around there. Lone-lands = Mostly ruins of either Cardolan or Rhudaur, forget which. This is where Weathertop is. Trollshaws = Beautiful forest with a lot of cliffs and gullies. Includes a beautiful Rivendell. Misty Mountains = QUite what you'd expect. You can go to Goblin-town and Gollum's pool. Eregion = lots of elf ruins, lol North Downs = beautiful location with hidden colonies of elves, men, and dwarves. Largely populated by Dúnedain. Evendim = Beautiful lake and surrounding wilderness. Annúminas sits there like a monument alone on the lake. Forochel = apparently similar to a place in Skyrim, it's icy, aurora-y, and populated by people with a kind of Finnish influence Angmar = dead, ugly, amazing. I haven't explored half of it yet (you can't until higher levels, and I'm beginning to do so) Moria = Haven't been there yet, but I hear it's cool. Dunland = Haven't been there Isengard = Haven't been there, but Drake says Orthanc is awesome Lothlórien = is apparently beautiful and Drake has me dying to see it Mirkwood = I think you can't go to the Elvenking's halls in the north. So far just in the south around Dol Guldur and soon = Rohan, which will be sweeping plains where you can take part in mounted combat <3 I might have missed stuff. Level 47 and still so much to see! You can spend ages in a single area. Gameplay I use mainly the mouse and arrow keys (actually I use WASD, but either works). Camera is controlled by moving the mouse (holding a right click moves your character with it, holding a left click moves the camera around you) Holding nothing and moving the mouse moves a cursor around so you can select stuff. You can move with the arrow keys or holding right and left click. You can also press numlock and that will make you autorun. Pressing insert toggles walking/running. Combat: You select a target by clicking them (or some hotkey works too) and then you automatically attack. You can select skills to use from the bottom of the screen, which you can arrange to different hotkeys. I just click the skills, though. I think the finer details depend on the class, but in the case of the hunter, you have to build focus. You get focus by using certain skills. Other skills cost focus. There is a skill that pumps up your focus to maximum at the start and that's handy. Also, health is called Morale and skills cost power. These both regenerate over time and the speed of each depends on I believe Fate and some other stat xD Also your equipment and class give boosts to these. race might have a slight boost, too. You can also use salves and potions for morale and power, but it's like a 2 minute wait to use another and they usually don't do good enough of a job. Regardless my inventory's filling up with them. Enemies have a range of vision (and I think it depends on its level in relation to yours). You can tell how strong it is by the color of its name (which floats above it). Purple means it's way above your level and you probably won't even be able to hit it. Red means that you likely can't kill it. Orange means it's a higher level, but killable if you're careful Great to grind on these guys. Yellow means it's a level or two above you and easily killable. White means it's your level. Blue means it's a little under you. Light blue means a little more. Green means a lot under you. These guys will probably not even chase you if they see you, as long as you get away. Grey names mean they're a very low level in comparison. They will not even notice you and the only way to fight them is if you initiate the attack. There are also 'elite' enemies that are meant to be taken dow with a fellowship. They'll be your level, but they will be stronger than normal. If you get in an enemy's circle of vision, it will chase and attack you for a certain distance. This can be kind of fun in high level areas as you will want to skirt between them, just out of their sight. You come to be able to gauge this fairly accurately. There are also what I call danger zones. Under the map, the name of the location goes red. Here, enemies have a very high range of vision and will chase you almost indefinitely. First of these places you'll likely encounter is Trollshaws. I had a pack of bears chasing me all the way to Bruinen. I got lost on my way to Rivendell and kept getting killed. At level 20, it ceased being a danger zone although the enemies were still very high leveled. When you die, you get a little message with a count down. If you have a person who can revive you, they may do so as long as you haven't chosen to do anything. Otherwise you have two options. You can retreat to the nearest 'revive-y circle-thing' lol, which gives you Dread for a few minutes. Dread lowers your Morale a bit and I believe it also affects your attack and defense. if you're in a difficult area, it's best to wait for this to wear off. You can also Revive, which respawns you in the same place that you died. You then must wait for two hours until you have the option to Revive again. if you die in the meantime, you can only retreat. If you Revive where there are still enemies, they will attack you before your Morale gets all the way back up and you will die, so it's best to wait. Reviving also gives you Dread. Anyway, this was not intended to be a big long summary of game mechanics, but there you go ^^; ANOTHER EDIT I think I know a good hangout for us. There are a couple back rooms in the Prancing Pony with five chairs around a table. If one is taken, we take the other one! If that one is taken (unlikely, they'e usually both empty) there's always my house or Drake's house (Drake's is bigger, mine is cozier (imo)) Or we can squat in an empty kin house xD. Don't need no decoration xD Edited by Paw, 16 Aug 2012, 06:15 PM.
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| Paw | 24 Aug 2012, 09:57 PM Post #95 |
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Just gonna say...that size comparisons thing is full of shit. LotRO is not NEARLY that massive. I can't find how big it actually is, but it's certainly not that. I'm really bad at gauging things, myself, so I can't even make my own estimate. It's bigger than Oblivion, though, I think x3 Here's an image of the currently playable parts of the world (satellite-ish picture) layed out over the map. Warning, it's huge: http://www.visionsofthering.com/images/lorebook_map4.jpg |
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| BananaFaceGF | 26 Aug 2012, 05:56 AM Post #96 |
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Dracky
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I finished Darksiders & got the plat. It was OK. The second playthrough was a lot more tolerable. It bugged me how it seemed to nick things from other games left, right and centre. They should have done more with certain abilities. There was one original(?) thought that they had, an interesting ability you get right at the end. But yeah...it's right at the end. Currently playing Blazblue: Continuum Shift. Gonna try and get the platinum before my copy of Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend gets here. Chances of that happening are low, but you never know! |
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| Padraic | 26 Aug 2012, 11:05 PM Post #97 |
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My boyfriend got that and he's been slowly progressing in it, and I've had to help him a few times so I've seen a good portion of it. There's so many rip offs, and they don't even have the shame to hide it. Like the "Void Walker" it's a Portal gun. Orange and blue portals and everything. Oh and you get the hookshot! You also get to turn into a Demon after running around/fighting enough. So what, that's three games already: Portal, Devil May Cry (You also get a neat little pistol), and Legend of Zelda. Also, to stay on topic, as soon as I got home from my dad's I busted out my old SNES and was playing Mario Bros and Kirby Super Star Saga, so much fun <3 |
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| BananaFaceGF | 27 Aug 2012, 05:03 AM Post #98 |
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Dracky
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omg sexy GF, you cheatin on me again. :(((( But yeah. Even the portals that the special demons appear out of look like something from Devil May Cry. Seriously, they couldn't even come up with their own way of doing that? xD Oh yeah, on topic *cough* been thinking of playing Vagrant Story, so maybe I'll do that. |
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| Padraic | 27 Aug 2012, 09:32 AM Post #99 |
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LOVE IS NOT A FINITE RESOURCE, I MUST SHARE IT WITH ALL. And the monsters don't even look original. (And here's a reason for Pasta to hate it: Liam O'Brien does the voice for the main character.) |
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| Seffoo | 29 Aug 2012, 07:53 PM Post #100 |
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WHOA. Everything I read tells me Oblivion's worldmap is 25 square kms (16 square miles). Skyrim's is about the same (feels smaller because you can sprint), but I'm DAMN SURE LotRO's at least four times that size. Just Cause 2 has one of the most amazingly huge worlds I've seen in a game, despite it being full of the same resources (same 6 trees in forest areas, for example). It actually looks and feels big. Too bad the game is crap EVERYWHERE else. picture Currently playing: MHFU. I just got past a minor milestone (again) and am now hunting a bunch of Lao Shan Lungs, trying out some other elder dragons and generally just trying to get my confidence up to fight a Rathalos heaps of times in a row to get two Heavenly Scales. Edited by Seffoo, 29 Aug 2012, 08:00 PM.
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