LOTRO: Life as a Warg Part 1

In Lord of the Rings Online Monster Play, I spend most of my time as a warg. A warg is a wolf like creature who's most important trait is stealth. I also have the ability to sprint for a short time every 5-10 minutes. Other than that, theres some attack skills and a slow, nothing very impressive though. My defensive stats are pretty dismal, even though I have equipped traits that improved them a bit.

Running around that map would be very tedious, so one of the first things I did was work on getting maps to various locations. You get these by doing quests (10 for the first grade of map, Crude). The Crude map will take you near your destination and is on a 30 minute timer. All of the crude maps are linked to the same timer. As a warg I can travel relatively safely, so walking to a location isn't a big deal. Other creep classes do not have that luxury and often get jumped by freeps trying to get places. I am currently working on the oor level of maps, which will get me closer to my destination, shorter cooldown and be on their own timer.

Our opponents, freeps, are allowed to bring their horses into the zone, so they can just ride quickly from place to place. This is a pretty big advantage considering the effort we have to through to get our maps. They can be knocked off their horse, but it doesn't stun them as I think it should. But oh well, maybe some day.

Due to our speed and stealth, we wargs are a hit and run class. Generally we approach in stealth and get behind the enemy. Directional damage is enabled, so attacking from the rear is better. Pounce is usually the first attack used, as it will stun the enemy for 5 seconds. If you enemy is a burglar, pounce may do more harm than good. Burglars have an skill that when stunned, they gain health and a big evade bonus. While stunned it is a good idea to claw and apply Crippling Bite (which will slow them).

TerraNova: Death to Snow Crash

Death to Snow Crash


Mike Sellers wrote an interesting piece on the vision of 'virtual worlds' by some sci-fi authors. The vision is usually pretty fantastical and no where near our reality. Our Virtual Worlds of today are mostly the WWW and MMORPG's, which fall quite short of the grand visions.

The main problem with Virtual Worlds comes down to the interface. Our primary ways of interfacing with technology are keyboards and mice. Touch-screens are becoming more common, but is nothing revolutionary. With these interfaces, there are only so many efficient ways to manipulate information. that is what Virtual worlds are about, Information (communication is information). Until better interfaces are developed, we will not have true Virtual Worlds.

Bioshock Demo Impressions

There is a demo on XBox Live for Bioshock and I must say it is pretty impressive. I am not a fan of creepy games and this most certainly is one of those types of game. Fist off, the graphics are the best I have seen and worth downloading just for that. The water is amazing looking as you will find out early.

The theme and art in this game is extremely well done. It is very immersing and provides plenty to look at. It sets the tone for the story perfectly. The artists did an amazing job, you really have to see for yourself. The sound and voice acting is top notch as well.

Gameplay wise, it is a FPS, with some added features. You get the ability to shoot lighting and start fires in the demo. The lightning is quite useful with all of the water. You also get a pipe, revolver and machine gun to play around with. Another neat aspect is you can 'hack' or bribe security robots to help you fight. If you are going to 'hack' it, you are entered into a little mini-game to determine success.

I will be buying this even though i do not like creepy games. The quality is just too high to turn down. This should be out in a week or two!

Eve Online: Aer's Arrival

(This is an existing character I had, but wasn't too far along, so i figured he would make for a good start).

So here I am, far away from home in a small tin-can of a room orbiting an unfamiliar moon. My trip here in the Caldari Shuttle was uncomfortable but pretty uneventful. Those ships were certainly not meant for long journey's, but it is all I could afford at the time. There was no need to come in anything too big or armed, as we are traveled through high-security space.

I am staying at the Budget Moonsuites on the Caldari Navy station orbiting Sobaseki X. Theres a good amount of activity here, a lot of navy types and civilians. I have walked down to the Dock Lounge a few times to watch all sorts of ships arrive and depart. Everything from massive freighters to small fast shuttles. I wonder where they are headed, I wonder where I am headed come to think of it.

It has been about a month since I received notice from an attorney here on the station. I was pretty surprised to receive a message from way out here, as I barely ever left home. It turns a relative of mine passed away and I was the beneficiary. I never really knew him, but I guess he knew me. I spent weeks figuring out what to do and I almost did not come. Friends told me just to sell it all and forget about it. Obviously since I am here, I could not do that. Now I am not sure what to do.

Apparently, Xure (my relative) had assets spread out all over the region. Everything from ships and probes to blueprints. Seems like he did a little bit of everything. In actual isk, he left me 3.5 million. That should keep me afloat while I figure out what to do. In terms of ships I have an IBIS, Caldari Shuttle, Bantam, Kestrel Missile Frigate and a Cormorant Destroyer.

I just have to figure out what to do now. I saw some posters about joining up with the Navy to hunt pirates. I could also go into trading or mining. When I was sitting in the Dock Lounge, I overheard some people talking about salvaging ships. I just don't know, but I guess I better figure it out soon.

Eve Online: Intro

Eve Online is a Sci-Fi base MMORPG and is quite different than LOTRO and WoW. In Eve, there is only one server (or shard), so everyone plays in the same universe. There are usually 20-30 thousand people on at a time. It is quite a large universe with numerous systems, planets and starbases. I really have no idea how many since it is so huge. There are different factions spread across the galaxy, each has their own advantages.

When you create a character you are given a basic space ship. You are your ship, so you don't walk around or anything. There are some story based missions to get you familiar with how things work. After that is is up to you to do what you want. Here are some things you can do: Missions (quests), Mine minerals in asteroid belts, hunt NPC pirates, hunt player pirates (as a bounty hunter), Explore for hidden instance areas, Haul freight for players using a contract system, Build nearly anything seen in the game, trade commodities on the galactic market, join player empires and war over player run space stations, become a pirate and hunt player traders, build ships and sell them and more!

Don't worry about all the pirate talk, space systems have a security rating. So if it is a high security system your mostly safe from other players. Low security systems have more risk, but more reward. Many people play their entire time in one or the other.

In the following series of posts I will tell the story of my character there and his journey to make a lot of isk (money in Eve).

LOTRO: PVP Intro

Lord of the Rings Online is primarily a Pve game, but they do provide a mechanism for player vs player combat. There is a region/map called the Ettermoons where PvP takes place. Lotro calls it Monster vs Player. When your character reaches level 40, they are able to enter the Ettermoons. Also, when your character reaches level 10, they have the option of creating a Monster to play in the Ettermoons. This Monster (called creeps) starts out at Level 50, so you can somewhat compete with the players (called freeps). There are 5 different Monster classes:

Warg: Wolf, able to stealth and have bursts of speed
Warleader: Able to Heal and Rez people, but also a fighter
Blackarrow: Ranged bow and arrow attacker
Weaver: Spider, ranged poison attacks and able to web (root)
Reaver: Your pure fighter class, gets in close

The Ettermoons is a persistent region with several castles and areas for either side to capture. It is also filled with NPC animals and soldiers from each side for you to fight. So if you leave with your side owning the map, you may come back and find you lost it.

Once you create a monster, you need to advance him in rank in order to unlock new skills and improvements. Rank is increased by getting Infamy and Infamy is gained by killing a freep. Character skills and improvements are purchased with Destiny Points (DP). You earn DP by completing various quests and killing NPC's in the Ettermoons.

Destiny Points can also be used on your player character to buy temporary buff (i.e. rested XP). This and loot are two reasons why player characters choose to enter the Ettermoons.

I find the PvP pretty interesting and play it a lot now, so more articles will follow.

Tabula Rasa Pre-Order and Beta

Tabula Rasa, a new Sci-Fi MMO, has a Pre-Order on sale today. Right now it is Digital only. One feature it mentions is you get Beta Access. The Pre-Order is pretty cheap and counts towards the full purchase. One question I have is when do you get beta Access, it doesn't really say. The game is by NCSoft, so you can check it out here.

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Does genre matter?

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Does genre matter?

I think the genre of the MMO does matter to me. I play WoW once in a while and LOTRO, both of which are fantasy games. They are ok, but lately I have been really wanting to play a SciFi game. I don't mean Eve, which I consider a different breed than the WoW type games. For me, it comes down to the fact that I like futuristic settings and weapons more so than fantasy themed. I have more fun when I choose different kinds of laser weapons rather than bows. There really isn't much of a difference, but it makes it more enjoyable to me.

Tabula Rasa looks like it has promise. I tried Anarchy Online, but it just didn't work for me. I have been tempted to give SWG a try, but I could not get the free trial to even install. I agree with Tobold and hope a good, polished SciFi MMO gains some ground and market share.

Lord of the Rings Online - Intro Part 2

In the first post on LOTRO I gave some background on the game and some of the quests you will be called upon to complete. Deeds are separate from quests and don't have to be completed, although you probably should as they can give some nice benefits. Deeds come in several varieties, exploration and killing lots of something are two examples. They are sometimes triggered as you do things. For instance, I was walking around the Shire as my Hobbit burglar when I was attacked by a wolf. When the wolf was dispatched I saw that I had opened up a new deed, wolf slayer. In order to complete the deed I had to kill 30 more wolves. Upon completion I received a trait.

Traits provide improvements to your character, often in the form of adjusting stats on your character. Some traits provide new skills and improvements on skills. So while you are trying to get somewhere and aggro'ing everything along the way, deeds should provide at least some purpose for the trouble. Your character can only equip a limited amount of traits and it costs money to equip/change them. Some traits are very hard to come by, especially Legendary traits, which your character can only equip one. In the end it turns out to be just a different kind of grind. The traits do provide a good amount of variety between characters, which is a good thing.

Bioshock Video and Interviews

The guys at Gametrailers put up a video for the upcoming XBox360/Ps3 game Bioshock. If you haven't seen much about this game yet, it is basically a FPS that is very story driven. The video shows a lot of gameplay footage and is spliced with developer interviews.

This video dealt more with the AI than previous, which looks very interesting. Bioshock is a little more creepy/dark than I usually like, but I have it pre-ordered none the less. It is due out on the 360 in late August (this month!) and for the PS3 some time after. The HD video can be found at http://www.gametrailers.com/player/23296.html



You can Pre-order at the link below.

Lord of the Rings Online - Intro Part I

I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) for a little over a month. So far I think it is a pretty decent game. However it does suffer from the same drawbacks of games like World of Warcraft (WoW). There are some areas that it has improved on though.

LOTRO has a great story/lore to work from. There is a huge amount of source material to draw from, which should allow them to keep adding content for a long time. In a MMORPG, content is one of the most important aspects of the game, so they do have that going for it. Since the game is pretty new still, there is not a huge amount yet. Turbine, the people who made the game, recently released Book 9 (Books are their updates) which added a new area and quests. I was pretty impressed who soon after release the new content came, hopefully they keep it up.

Since they have all of this content to draw from, they introduced an epic quest line. It is important to note that you do not play a hero like Frodo and the rest of the fellowship. You are a mostly normal character just trying to help out. The epic quests will have you involved in their adventures. I like these, since it gives you a felling of being apart of something larger and your not just grinding. Besides the epic quests, there are numerous side quests.

Some of the side quests are not your normal 'kill 10 wolves' types. For example, in the Shire you are tasked to deliver mail without being seen by 'nosey' hobbits. There are other like that too, which make for a nice change of pace. Most of the quests seem to be kill/gather types though.

Part 2 will cover traits, deeds and more...

Mini-Review: Underworld - Evolution

Movie: Underworld - Evolution
Format: Encore HD
Player: Motorola HD cable box
Audio: 7.1 (ProLogic IIx)

I enjoyed the original Underworld for what it was, a monster movie with vampires, werewolves and guns. This sequel did not live up to the previous entry.

Picture/Sound: This movie looked great in HD, even on cable. There was a lot to look at with all of the monsters, fighting and Kate Beckinsale. This movie also used my surround sound alot. Much of the weather was stormy, which I could hear all around me.

Cheese Factor: This is where movies tend to lose it for me. I know there is an unwritten law that in a vampire movie, a vampire MUST give their blood to save someone or help them in some way. I can accept that, but they went to that well THREE times in the movie. Bleh. This movie also suffers from the wussification of the bad guys as time goes on. They were pretty mean and powerful, but by the end they were dispatched relatively easily. The one cool character that I hoped would take care of it did not. I wont say who as I am trying not to post spoilers.

Violence: Lots of blood and numerous different ways of getting killed. I'm not too much into gore and there was plenty.

Overall: If you were a fan of the first, you might like this. If its on TV and you want to watch an HD film, its worth it. I personally would not pay money to pick it up though.

Plot Question: Maybe someone out there knows... What was all the talk about the head vampires getting killed causing the descendant to die? It was mentioned several times.

Mini-Review: 300

This is the first of my mini-reviews. They are mini because I generally do not want to read a long review that may give away some of the movie. Movie reviews also don't really cover the aspects I consider important, so here goes:

Movie: 300
Format: HD-DVD
Player: Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon
Audio: 7.1 (ProLogic IIx)

Picture/Sound: Top notch. There were several scenes that looked 3D which led to some surreal moments. The style of the movie looked great in High Definition. The sound was very immersing, even using DD5.1 over an optical cable.

Cheese Factor: There were some over dramatic moments, but they did not detract from the movie too much.

Violence: Lots of it. I'm not sure what the body count for this movie was, but it was very high. There was a fair bit of slow motion/speed up involved, but it worked for me. It was pretty gory in places as blood was splattering and limbs flying.

Overall: This is not a historical documentary. It is based off of Frank Miller's graphic novel. So I thought of this as more of a comic-book movie than something serious. If your looking for a fun popcorn flick, or one to test out your home theater, this is a good one.

Note: The version of the movie below will work in a HD-DVD player and a regular DVD player.