Whirly: good to go

We dinged 30 in LotRO on Friday, so Saturday we did all the stuff required to start skirmishing, and headed into our first skirmish instance. We died a few times learning the ropes, but won eventually. OK, maybe we don’t know the ropes yet. It’s hectic in there.

Our biggest complaint with LotRO is nothing to do for our small group. Three person skirmishes seems to be targeted just for us. There isn’t a large range of skirmish choices though. Maybe that will change, or maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about. At least it’s another play option.

I gave Borderlands another shot. The last time I installed it, my skype started to act up, the program I use to run two computers with one keyboard/mouse ‘Synergy’ stopped working, and Borderlands was very unstable, crashing after a few minutes play. I thought it was going to be my reason to switch to Windows 7 from XP, but I was able to recover by un-installing Borderlands and using System Restore.

This time I created a pre-borderlands restore point in System Restore, something I’ve never used before, and installed. I did not have Synergy running during install or while playing. This install’s results were the same as last time except I didn’t play long enough to know if the game was unstable.

I successfully removed Borderlands and used System Restore to return to my pre install state. First person shooters are not my favorite game style, so I’m not all that unhappy. I got sucked into the hype about the game knowing full well it probably wasn’t for me. I’m done.

I really like the crafting system in LotRO. I was able to created usable armor my very first try. I’ve been filling in the holes in our armor as we progress. It’s very rewarding to put in the effort. I can’t recall another game with a more usable crafting system.

We all dinged 16 last night. One thing I don’t like in LotRO is it seems to be a single player game at this level. We are able to kill mobs easily, or we are probably going to die. There is no middle ground. No sweet spot of fights that are challenging yet survivable. We get two or three good fights a night. Mark says things get better at 25, so we move forward.

I ran my class quest this morning. I received the Hunter’s Bear hat. Damn that’s an ugly hat. We’ve got an unwritten rule in games with ugly hats. No hiding your hat. Show what you wear. So I’m stuck till something better comes along.

I got sucked into Facebook. I’ve had an account for a long time, but I’ve ignored it completely. I think I signed up just to see what the buzz was about, or to look at a game. I was listening to the ‘This Week in Tech’ podcast and they mentioned ‘FarmVille’ on Facebook. I had to check it out.

FarmVille is simple, but I like the style enough to give it a day. Well, Facebook never leaves well enough alone. They are always trying to get you to hook up your friends – I’m not interested. In fact, I’ve ignored the few people who have found me till now. So they are flashing pictures of people I might want to add as friends. They keep showing people who went to my High School, and darn if I don’t know some of those people. I guess I was in a weakened state cause I invited a couple of them. Now I’m getting requests from people who know people I know and it looks like it will never end. I hate pick-up groups.

I purchased Borderlands yesterday. It’s not been a fun ride, but things seem better since I uninstalled it.

I found it to be very unstable. It would lock up while loading, or play for a while then lock. It also screwed up Synergy, which I use to control two computers with one keyboard/mouse. Of course I turned off Synergy while playing. Since install, when I use Synergy, it would connect/disconnect ever few seconds.

I was able to play a little after I found a note on the web about turning off display scaling, but it still locked up regularly.

I installed updated video drivers.

I installed updated Synergy on my Mac and PC.

I uninstalled Borderlands / rebooted = solved all problems.

$52 shot to hell.

We were very rusty playing LotRO, but we finished a few, quite a few, quests and reached level 13. I’ve created my Hunter a full set of leather armor. It’s nice that a newbie crafter can make usable things.

We took three tries to get through the first part of the epic that starts inside the inn in Bree. Finally, we got the hang of it. We completed a couple more of the quest chain before running out of time. Some nice equipment upgrades were had by all.

I had in-game email which included 200 silver from somebody I never met. He said he was leaving the game and was giving his cash to random folks. I sent him a thank you reply. Today, he sent me another 1 gold 529 silver 36 copper. He said, of the ten people he’d given money to, I was the only one who thanked him. It seems inappropriate to put his game-name here. I thank him anyway. If you ever run into Ittybittys tell him I said hi. Of course, I don’t know if he is a he or a she. My cash problems are solved for the time being.

We were still poking along in EQ II, level 55, when I screwed up. We have now moved back to LotRO. Mark signed up for the life time LotRO deal when it first came out, and has been talking about it often recently. I suggested we might consider moving and bam. We’ve all got a spanking new level 8 toon outside the inn in Bree.

We decided to start new instead of running our old toons so we could change the group structure. Mike will be our Healer, as a Rune-keeper. I forget what kind of tank Mark is. And, I’m playing a Hunter for DPS.

I don’t know how it’s going to work out. Friday will be our first grouping. To tell the truth, this is my third try at LotRO, and I wasn’t all that impressed the first two times. A month or two won’t kill me. I hope.

This time we killed the boss in the Overlord’s Throne Room in Runnyeye. Was it the Overlord? I forgot to look. Afterwards, we failed just past the Goblin Dining Room, two large groups. Oh well. Enough of this. We headed off to check out the Obelisk of Lost Souls again. It’s about the same as last time. We weren’t able to actually get in the tower. “You aren’t powerful enough,” or something. We circled the tower doing whatever. We killed the dragon easily enough. I picked up a new shield and shoulders. A good night. Not very exciting.

It wasn’t easy, but we made it into Overlord’s Throne Room in Runnyeye. There were a few deaths as we learned how to clear rooms. I’m the puller. I’m the one who needed to learn. The biggest trick is patience. I have a tendency to push it. Of course, you need to move along so you don’t get caught by re-spawn.

We had no idea what we’d find in Overlord’s Throne Room. The key, needed to open the door inside, we found on a guy in a side room. Once inside, we faced waves of guys. The last one, I’m guessing, killed us and we revived back on the dock in the Enchanted Lands. It was too late to fight our way back into Runnyeye so we went for a walk.

There were places in The Enchanted Lands I wanted to check out. By chance, we found the Obelisk of Lost Souls. I’m still not sure exactly what it is. It might be an instance, maybe a dungeon. The mobs inside were hard but doable. Well, at least till we got a double pull. It was a screwup, but not mine. We screwed up again and got separated at re-spawn. A good time to call it quits. It was a very successful night constructed of many failures. Good times.

I thought it’d be fun to travel through Feerrott to take a look at Temple of Cazic Thule. I was wrong. Damn, there are a lot of mobs in Feerrott. Turns out most of them want to kill us. We were making our way across, slowly, when a few of them did kill us. Darn, we’ll probably have to start over again. Nope. The re spawn spot was right next to the temple. Saved a long walk.

We are on the low side for Cazic Thule, too low probably, though we were able to do some work before dieing again. We beat on it for a while then headed outside to fight nearby mobs till camp time. Next – back to Runnyeye Citadel.