Endgame Viable

I just wanted to announce that my Hunter made it to level 58 in Moria. Gaining another level in LotRO (when you’re not subscribed or anything) is a major accomplishment. I am not really sure what is going on with the epic story here. I am on Volume II, Book 4, Chapter 3 as of this writing. The dwarves are just sort of rooting around looking for chambers and relics and books and stuff. I’m not paying that much attention because none of the characters have much personality. Dwarves are all the same-loud, bombastic, and either Scottish or Russian. :) It’s really difficult to capture the scale of how massive the Mines of Moria is. (137 words.)

This morning I tried the Path of Fire demo again, and it went much better. Thanks for the encouraging comments on my last whiny post. :) In fact, the second time through, I got all the way through the burning village and killed the two Veteran Forged Warhounds without dying. Then … the client disconnected. That was disappointing, to say the least. So I had to go through it a third time. I got through it all again without dying. I put out all the fires in the village, got the Raptor mount, met what’s-her-name and what’s-his-name, and got out into the city. (I actually saw the city before, because if you rage-quit the episode like I did yesterday, it drops you into the city.) (397 words.)

I’m going to try really hard not to sound bitter, angry, and resentful as I write this. :) I’m home today so I logged into GW2 to try out this Path of Fire demo thing. At first I had no idea how to even participate. I logged into my Necro, who I had left in Orr outside of the Zhaitan dungeon. Last time I played, I tried to do that last personal story mission to kill Zhaitan. Hoo boy what a mistake that was, but that’s another story. The point is that when I logged in, I was in the middle of one of those Orr events where everything in the area is trying to murder you and I got killed over and over and over again before I could even run far enough away to teleport away from it. So that was a great start. (867 words.)

You can always count on my blog to bring you the latest, greatest news and commentary… so here’s another forgotten post from my Drafts folder. It is was E3 time again, and for a change, I actually watched some of the presentations, something I have never done before. I watched part of a Sony event on Saturday [June 10th], part of a Microsoft event on Sunday, and part of an Ubisoft event on Monday. (536 words.)

I was having some fun in the Mordor expansion, bopping up to the Black Gate, talking to Gandalf … pardon me, Mithrandir … meeting those four “adventurers” with different personalities. It seemed like they were setting up those four folks as characters we might see again throughout Mordor, following their adventures so to speak, and it seemed like a good story idea. They all had their different reasons for going into Mordor, and it was the hook I needed to get interested in the zone. I wanted to see how they fared. (324 words.)

Here are just a few thoughts about the announcement of The Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, because I wanted to schedule a post for today, my first day back at work (yuck), and this was the only text I had available. I don’t have a problem with a female The Doctor. Whittaker was very good in Broadchurch. And that’s about the extent of my thoughts about the announcement. I’ve never looked up to The Doctor as a male role model, and can’t even conceive of anyone who has, or what it might be like to be a man who believes they’ve lost their favorite male sci-fi role model. (682 words.)

I did indeed buy the $40 edition of the Mordor Expansion, and boosted a Hobbit Minstrel from level 24 to level 105 so I could actually play said expansion. (Folks on Twitter seemed to think Minstrel was a good solo class to play.) Once again the gear you are given looks awful, like a suit of white underwear. I guess they really want people who use level boosts to look like total newbies compared to the people have been playing all along, which I suppose isn’t entirely inappropriate. At least this time they gave me a neat-looking pony, though it is literally only like 5% faster than the blond sorrel pony I had at level 24. (914 words.)

So Tuesday afternoon I went out to my garage to get some tools, and a very friendly cat popped out from beneath my car and meowed. I meowed back and the cat went on to explain with a long series of meows that he was very hungry and he further asked if I might have some extra food please? Now I’ve seen probably a half dozen different cats wandering around the vicinity of my house in the last year, not to mention packs of stray cats hanging around the cul-de-sac where I last lived (I am pretty sure a neighbor across the road fed them). Not one of these cats has ever walked up and started a conversation with me. They’ve always run away, like outdoor cats usually do. (730 words.)

I haven’t yet bought the Mordor expansion (I probably will, despite the hype-destroying trailer), but it dawned on me that LotRO is one of those rare MMORPGs where you can actually explore the world without having to unlock zones by completing quests. So I decided that I wanted to run my 95 Runekeeper as close to Mordor as I could get. I made it all the way to the Black Gate. (217 words.)

I didn’t know much about Dark and Light except that I had a vague sense that it was a PvP-style MMORPG that had been cancelled and then salvaged. Yesterday I saw a screenshot of the game float through my Twitter feed that looked amazing, so I totally broke my own rules and impulsively went to Steam to buy the Early Access version for $25 (on sale). Dark and Light - Today's Minor Patch Paves Way for Larger One Coming Soon https://t.co/BS0kW8ZRuu #Gaming #News pic.twitter.com/FJ0d7CM6N0 (598 words.)