LotRO: Another Beginning
Lately I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online in between my Allods Online and Plants vs. Zombies gaming.
Tonight I did a little happy dance after completing a few quests that brought me to my first meeting with Aragorn. I'm not a die hard LotR fan but this made my night.
So far I'm enjoying myself. When I first tried out the free trial awhile back I played a Minstrel and couldn't get over playing an instrument to kill things. It felt a little hokey. So this time around I went with the Rune Keeper and had much more fun. After looking around more and reading forums and such I ended up making a Warden. I think I've found my class. I'm having an excellent time and have purchased 3 months of play time. The above picture shows Kilayna (my Warden) at level 15.
Another reason I first gave up on LotRO was the character models. They're terrible. The Elf model is the worst (at least the female one) with the Hobbit model the best. I haven't played a Dwarf so I can't really say about that one. The human model isn't too bad either. What I've come to realize is that you end up not caring about that. The world and environment around you is too beautiful and so detailed that you look around more than at your character.
I love the solo instances that further the story. I love how they did the starter and tutorial zones. I love that it shows you where you are in the story with little movies and such. They make you feel important even though you're not with Frodo or the others.
Gotta get back ... there's so much to do!
Aion: Account Cancelled
A few days ago the next month's Veteran Rewards became available. For me it was month 6 and a free level 40 wing upgrade. Unfortunately it's not enough to keep me playing. I'm a little sad that I've cancelled my account but I just couldn't keep going. I'm not 100% sure why I stopped enjoying the game but I know I wasn't having fun anymore. Not even the great people I've met over the last 6 months could keep me playing. I might return someday (to check out the new content supposed to be added) but we'll just have to wait and see.
Farewell Aion.
Allods Online: More please.
Though I'm still enjoying my time in Allods Online, there are some things I'd like to see added or fixed.
Please add:
- Ability to choose which quests are indicated on the quest log. Not extremely critical but I like grouping my quests from one area and it would make it much easier to track if I could choose which to show. Maybe it's just I don't want the glaring reminder that I haven't finished my bag quest yet ...
- Mail icon/indicator added to the UI somewhere. Currently I can't tell if someone has sent me mail unless I go to a mailbox or Postman.
- Resizable UI. Right now it feels large and clunky.
- An option to lock the action bars. Not critical but I've gotten into a clicking frenzy and accidentally pulled a skill of the bar. Not fun when you're in the middle of a fight.
- Better friend and guild UI.
- Easier and faster way to see level and class. Mousing over a player shows their name and health. The only way to see their class and level is to click on them then right click -> Inspect. Not fun when you have to do that for your entire group or raid to figure out which classes you have. Yes you can just ask but for some reason people get angry that you didn't just look it up for yourself.
- A reply hotkey.
- More chat tabs.
- Chat box to remember what group you were typing in. The chat box only remembers /party. /say is default for anything else. If I'm chatting in /raid please remember that. Having to type /raid before typing each time is annoying.
- Make / take the place of enter when it's hit. Maybe I'm just used to every other game I play that has that functionality. Either way, it's hard to get used to hitting enter before typing anything.
- A 'tabbing' ability in the AH and mail interface. Having to click in each little box when selling something on the AH or sending mail is very time consuming.
Please fix:
- Party members on map. As of now, when you leave a group your old party members are still indicated on the map. If someone dies their marker disappears (as it should) but it then puts that name on someone else's marker so that when the correct marker appears again it's got the wrong name attached to it.
- More accurate quest markers on map. There are a couple quests I've run across (though for the life of me I can't remember their names) that have the markers in the wrong place.
- The base amount of damage or heal in the tooltip. I know that the amount of Faith you have when healing determines how much wound complexity your heals ignore but I've healed myself with no wound complexity and it still doesn't heal for the amount the tooltip says. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but it's still confusing to heal for less than what you expect with no real explanation why.
- Chat window settings remembered.
- Member rank 3 in a guild is supposed to be able to invite. Last time I checked (which I'll admit was awhile ago) I was not able to invite others to the guild and I was rank 3.
I'd like to also take a moment to thank Allods for a couple recent additions. Thank you for clearly marking items that are bound to you. Thank you for adding the spam filter, though I'm not sure if it's working. Keep up the good work and don't let the downers get you ... well, down.
Allods Online: Mining
Though Mining in Allods Online is pretty self-explanatory, getting started may be somewhat frustrating.
One of the first things you should do is take the quest offered by the trainer. If he doesn't show an exclamation mark above his head just talk to him, a quest should show up as a chat option. The quest will bring you to three places. Remember them! Doing the quest should get you to a skill level of 60-ish.
Here's a map of the city with these areas marked:
Here are screenshots of those three areas:
Zone 1
Zone 2
Zone 3
You'll need to raise your skill level before moving from Nezebgrad (for Empire) to the Igsh Military District. The easiest way to do this is to mine Rock Chips directly behind the Mining trainer until you hit skill level 90. You can then move to the second area the quest brought you to. From Bort Quarter head to Boiler Camp. I stopped gaining levels at 101 and moved to the next area. From Bort Quarter head to Hadron Quarter.
Something to keep in mind is you can only be a skill level of 10x your character level. I had to stop at skill level 110 since I was only level 11 at the time. That proved to be a high enough skill level to move on from the city.
At character level 20 (and 30 and 40) go back to the trainer and purchase an upgraded Pick. Supposedly, you will get better quality gathers with the higher quality tools but that's not 100% confirmed. If you have the money you might as well buy them, better safe than sorry.
One thing I've noticed: once you leave the city the nodes do not act the same. In the first three zones, one node (or glowing orb) equaled one gather. Outside those zones 4-8 nodes equals one gather. You CAN fail an attempt at mining and that's when the multiple nodes comes in handy. Only one will disappear if you fail to gather but once you are successful all the rest of the nodes in that one area will disappear.
Mining Nodes
If I find out anything else I'll make sure to update this post.
Hope this helps!
EDIT: As I'm not currently playing, things may have changed since I've written this.
Allods Online: Disassembling
Of the seven professions in Allods Online (Disassembling, Mining, Herbalism, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, and Alchemy) I went with Disassembling. My reasoning? I didn't want to have to run around to find Mining or Herbalism nodes. I can Disassemble straight from my bag as long as I have the required tools. Lazy, I know.
When I first started Disassembling I didn't know there would be so few items I could actually Disassemble. That paired with the fact that the UI doesn't tell you if your skill is too low when you try to Disassemble an item caused some confusion. Looking around the forums I've pretty much got it figured out.
What you CAN Disassemble:
- Chest/Robe
- Legs
- Feet
How do you know if your skill is high enough?
The quickest way is to multiply the item level by 10. For example: for a level 4 item you need a Disassembling skill of 40, for a level 5 item you need skill level 50, etc. That's not entirely accurate though. I've heard someone say you only need to be skill level 31 for a level 4 item, skill level 41 for a level 5 item, etc. I haven't had much chance to experiment with this though. I'll update this when I've got some hard data.
Edit: At skill level 146 I was able to Disassemble a level 15 item (instead of waiting until skill level 150) so it would seem the 10x rule of thumb isn't correct. Neither is the second example I gave.
Does higher quality gear return better or more pieces?
As far as I can tell, no. I've Disassembled grey to green gear and haven't noticed any better returns. There are times when I seem to get a lot more from just one piece, almost like I crit when I broke down the gear. I'm currently testing this and will update when I've gotten more information.
Edit: This is straight from the Disassembling trainer, "You should also remember that as the quality of your tools increase, so will the quality of the materials you receive." Hm. I'll have to keep an eye out for when I can use the better quality tools. So far they're still red to me (currently skill level 110).
Edit: You DO get slightly better results with blue quality gear AND higher quality tools. I consistently get 2 Pieces of Lace and at least one other item instead of just one random item.
-----
The trainer will give you a quest to Disassemble 20 items to jump-start your skill level to 20. After that, he offers kits of clothing you can buy pretty cheap to help you level your skill. The first box will get you 3 items of levels 1-4, the second box will get you 3 items of levels 3-7, and the last box will get you 3 items of levels 6-10. After that it's up to you. Most people will head off to quartermasters (for reputation gear) and buy that to continue leveling. That will get pricey pretty quick. Your best bet? Either have a friend/guildie leveling up Tailoring or Leatherworking at the same time and they can make items, you can Disassemble them, give the materials back, and keep that process going.
One thing I'm not sure of is the use of the other tools the Disassembling trainer sells. Currently I'm using Shoddy Pincers (for leather) and Shoddy Scissors (for cloth). He sells three more types of each but they offer no explanation of why I can't use them. You CAN buy them though so be careful when clicking around as your bag and bank space is seriously limited.
Edit: It seems the Disassembling tools aren't marked correctly. Ever 10 character levels you can purchase the next set of tools. Don't forget to make the trip back at level 20, 30, and 40!
The main gripe I have with Disassembling is extremely low amount of gear you can actually Disassemble. Shirts are not the same as Chest/Robe pieces and the former can't be broken down. Same with Hands, Waist, Wrist, Shoulders, and Head gear. Along with that, the limited bag space will have you selling odd stacks of materials just to make room for the other incoming pieces you get.
Helpful Tips:
- If you click on an item to Disassemble and nothing happens, don't worry, your skill just isn't high enough.
- There are some items you get in the beginning that are useless and can be sold to the vendor. (More to be added when I come across them.)
- Damaged Piece of Cloth
- Irregular Piece of Cloth
- Damaged Cloth Ribbon
- Damaged Scrap of Cloth
- Damaged Leather Ribbon
- Damaged Patch of Leather
- Irregular Patch of Leather
- Flawed Patch of Leather
- Damaged Scrap of Leather
- Irregular Leather Padding
- Flawed Leather Padding
- If you're always running out of space, create an alt to mail things to. It costs a little bit but it's better than losing potential materials.
Since I'm still leveling up Disassembling this piece will be a work-in-progress. Hopefully you can at least find some help with these tidbits for now.
Now get back in there and craft!
EDIT: As I'm currently not playing anymore, things may have changed since this was written.
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