Creeping...

I'm very excited. I'm almost halfway to the level cap! I can already start working on Return to Rivendell by killing 150 Orc. Sad part is that shouldn't be too terribly tough since they're friggin everywhere.

Now Artisan Metalsmith... *sheesh*! Metalsmith is a pain to level. I've been mostly making tools for the Auction House. They don't sell super well but they also don't cost an arm, a leg, or half a lifetime to produce. There's a whole set of armour at the Expert level that I just haven't bothered producing because not only would I need to get the tailoring elements (because I haven't bothered leveling my Tailoring at all), but I'd also need to get polished rubies from a Jeweler AND scour the wilderness for mobs that drop Ruby Shards. While I'd prefer to make some nice heavy armour for the Kinsmen that can wear it, I'm pretty much stuck to making tools. I have purchased decently prices Saphire Shards at the Auction House to produce Forge-Crafted gear. The sad part is that a good portion of folks in the Kin already have better gear than the Forge-Crafted gear and I'm not skilled enough to make the super gear at that level yet. That and getting special components and hoping to get a critical super product when you're making an item from a one time use recipe and using rare drop components is probably a lot like praying for rain in the desert.

At least though I am up to making Steel crafting tools and I've purchased or picked up a few recipes. Last night I produced and distributed some of the tools to Kin members. There still some Kin members I didn't get tools out to, but hopefully I'll be able to collect a little ore tonight and plug away at the list. Why am I doing this you ask? Because I can! The folks in my Kin have been very helpful to me and I'd like to be able to return the favor in any way I can. Since I can't really afford to craft uber armour right now, that's sort of out, but I can make tools. Steel tools in particular increase the chances of producing +stat items (or crit crafted items) when crafting. With my Steel Smithing Hammer, I've got a 65% crit chance on Tier 1 items. That's not to say that I've actually produced anything that's crit as of yet (aside from the random Bronze Ingot), but I'm ever hopeful.

The Book 8 Crafting changes also made Crit Crafting a LOT easier. Instead of getting a drop that says "this item can be used for crafting" and just vendoring it because it's taking up space in my bags, I can now mine the Crit Crafting ingredients as I'm mining for ore and it says right on the item which profession can use it. Now I just have to remember to start sending the Crit Crafting ingredients I can't use to Kin members instead of vendoring them like an idiot.

As for my Rune-Keeper side I'm also running around fully Traited for healing. *giggles* Typically when leveling healers, I NEVER want to set myself up for healing until further along in the game. Healers usually can heal really well, but can't kill anything and tend to be squished pretty quickly. So really unless I know I'm going to be running in groups for the most part, I set up my healy types as hybrid DPS/healers or as full DPS and then switch over closer to end game. The downside is that I do play later than most folks and I don't always get a chance to quest with others. I could just answer every "looking for fellowship" call I see and gain experience that way, but there's sometimes that I just want to run around on my own, collecting goodies and killing anything that moves. :D  So last night I figured I'd run around and do a little mining. I'd killed some critters too close to the nodes and noticed they dropped quest items, and next thing I know I'm running across the countryside gathering and slaughtering. Heh, it was quite nice. I'm really happy to see that I CAN solo even though I'm set up for healing.

Keep in mind though, I also have some decent gear. I make and carry a Rune-Keeper Chisel, and 3 of the 4 Virtues I have equipped are already at level 2. I think these things boost my abilities just enough that I'm able to perfom to expectations. Well at least up to my expectations.

I was asked by a Kin member if I'd prefer DPS over healing. Since for me healing is instinctual, I know I'm going to try to heal whenever I'm in a group. That pretty much made the question a no contest for me. I'm enjoying healing as a Rune-Keeper and I want to keep doing it. Sure I could set up Geistig to do all kinds of damage, but then as soon as I'm in an instance, I wouldn't be able to do what I really WANT to do which is heal. Don't get me wrong, I know that I COULD heal even if set up for DPS, it'd be technically possible. The thing is that I wouldn't be able to heal as efficiently or effectively as I can when I'm all traited up for healing. What I'd noticed when running as a hybrid is that my heals weren't strong enough to keep one person going as I moved on to heal the next person. I also noticed that I ran out of Power VERY quickly. No Power means no heals and no heals can mean a dead group. That just doesn't work for me. If I'm going to assume the role of healer, then I really feel like I should have the tools I need to heal effectively. Granted I still need some more experience, but I really feel like I'm getting a handle on what I need to do AND I feel like I'm able to keep a group going. I still get pretty panicky because I don't have a ton of experience (and hence) confidence in myself yet, BUT at least I've tried to make things a little easier on myself. I'm traited out to reduce threat, increase the power of my heals, and decrease the Power required to cast my heals. But that's all a topic for another day.

Safe to say I'm still happy that I switched over to Rune-Keeper and I'm looking forward to seeing just what they're capable of. :D

Well LotRO Book 8 was released today for the US servers so now my system is doing the download thing. Chances are I won't be able to login tonight. Then again a nice night relaxing at home and watching some movies doesn't sound too bad.

On a positive note, I couldn't sleep last night so I completed a few quests getting Geistig to 25. So hopefully when I log in I'll be able to start working on 26. I feel like I'm falling behind the other Kin members a bit.  It's been cool to be able to keep up with them this far, but it'd be nice to be able to be roughly the same level. Not sure when/how I'll catch up, but hey you never know. 

 

So last night after taking Weathertop for a second time and getting halfway to 25, it was time to return to Bree and get in some serious crafting. Ok so AFTER getting into some serious crafting I decided to do some running around Bree. I'd seen a hunter running around on the roof tops and I really wanted to get up there. If nothing else it'd make for some great screenshots. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to get up there (though I tried lemme tell you) but I did find a door that I hadn't noticed before. 

So despite the little voices that say "this could get you killed idiot" I opened the door and walked on in. At first I didn't notice the name of the room, I just noticed that it was FULL of cats. I joked with Savvy that I'd found the Crazy Cat Lady's house as I made my way out of the house and back out to complete my rooftop mission. Savvy of course said "Screenshot!", so I ran back in to get a screenshot. This time I noticed the location text that actually said "The Crazy Cat Lady's House". 

While the house failed to be full of monsters that could nom on my head, I did almost meet my end by dying of laughter.  >.<

So here's one of the better screenshots of the room FULL of cats. 

Pretty much the evening left me with two questions, why is it that a lot of games seem to have a crazy cat lady's house somehwere in the game, and second, why is it the Hunters get to have all the fun (ie, the guy on the roof that I never managed to replicate)?

Talk about a fun weekend! So on Friday Night I trailed behind the Kin as we grouped up in a Fellowship to complete some of the Epic Quest line (aka the Book Quests). Safe to say it was pretty interesting stuff. Both the quests themselves, the members of the Kin roleplaying a bit as we went, and yep kicking butt once we got there. Here's the crew working on one of the quests. I'm of course at teh back with my happy healing rock trying to draw as little attention to myself as possble, while still making the group glow nice and green:

We have a couple folks in the Kinship that have played LotRO and other games at a more Hard Core pace so they know when it's time to start pounding on things and just how to do it. We had some solid strategy behind us as we cut through book 2 and the Kin members made their way into book 3. I'm lagging a little behind in that I spent a good part of the week working on crafting as opposed to leveling. I was able to keep up healing even though we were getting into content a little too big for my britches. Fortunately we did have a Minstrel with us because by the time we got to the end of the book 2 quests I was stretched pretty thin, even with a healing talent loaded and a lot of stat bumping traits equipped. Phew those are tough.

Though as the weekend bore on I was glad to see that as I level healing even became stronger. I'm really happy about that. 

So here's the thing I love about my new Kin. So one thing I've always enjoyed about playing MMO's is getting into the next zone ahead of schedule, even running through deadly mobs to get there. Well an almost all Kin Fellowship I was in on Saturday decided to make a run for Rivendell. In the Movie the Lord of the Rings, this is where they took Frodo after he'd been stabbed by one of the Ring Wraiths, (those nasty all black riders in the beginning of the movie). 

Getting there however was not a walk in the park. A bunch of us even died at one point when we'd garnered too much attention from the local wildlife. It was SO worth the trip though. The zone is beautiful. Me and Savvy probably spent a good hour just running around and taking screenshots. *giggle* Since Geistig is an Elf, she'll end up with a port here after I do some work and she hits 35 or so, it'll be nice to head back here regularly just to fish and enjoy the scenery. Too bad there's no houses here, but meh, the zone where there are Elf houses are quite nice. 

On other news I did manage to get a website set up for the new guild and several guild members are helping me get it set up and ready to go. Safe to say I'm really excited to be a part of this guild. 

So I got a chance to get into one of the first LotRO instances tonight "The Great Barrows". I approve of it, yeppers good and spoooky (extra o's for emphasis). I was also lucky enough to be part of an all guild run. Though we did run into some trouble here and there, overall we did really well. Though we had a Minstrel in the group I defaulted to heals as soon as I saw folks taking damage. It's like a knee jerk reaction for me. Fortunately we had a tank and a lot of DPS so having me working as back up heals went over really well. 

Healing as a Rune-Keeper is actually really fun because it's quite a challenging. Really, it is, even with only 4 healing spells. How you might ask? well because as a Rune-Keeper I'm a HOT (heal over time) healer.This can be kind of intimidating at first because I don't have a heal that fills up any one of the health bars and I don't get a group heal until I hit 22. Using a HOT system means that I have to be a proactive and strategic healer. So I throw one of my lesser hots on the tank and melee DPS and throw down a Rune of Restoration as the battle starts. I try to throw down the Rune of Restoration BEFORE the battle starts, but only if I'm sure that it won't pull aggro from any close mobs. Since it heals and has a low hit pool it draws more aggro than me running up and calling the mob's mom a dirty name. On the upside though, if one of the mobs does decide to break away from the tank or one of the other heavy armored DPS players, the mobs go for my rock first and not me. This means that my fellow group members have a chance to nab the loose critters while I keep healing. If the mobs destroy the stone, I just drop a new one. 

The biggest problem I had was running out of Power (or mana etc) on the longer boss fights. Since I did upgrade my equipment in the Barrows I should be in a better position now that I was previously. I also earned and equipped the trait "Memorable Prose". This trait boost the hit pool of my healing target AND reduces the Power cost of one of my healing spells by 15%. That's going to come in REALLY handy let me tell you. 

Ok well tomorrow is the guild's EPIC run night, so I should get my butt in bed so I'm well rested to do what I do best. OK so really what I do best is running around after the party like a chicken with it's head cut off and pumping out heals like they're going out of style. /sigh  I'm hoping I get more eloquent at it as time wears on, but who knows hehe.

~Creep

So yeah, while I still spend the bulk of my time running with Savvy (which is the what I prefer regardless), I managed to get us both into a guild. It's not a big guild, and it's still pretty new, but it's a guild with promise. So far the guild Leader and the Guild officers have taken a personal approach to recruiting via actually walking up to people that look promising and asking if they want to join a guild. Since my first guild invite was via an anonymous whisper, it was a little refreshing to have someone standing in front of me recruiting as opposed to a disembodied voice that'd noticed I'd picked a healing class via the /who settings.

At first I was a little worried about how well me and Savvy would fit in the guild. We're not active role players, we just managed to roll on LotRO's unofficial role playing server. I'd rolled there because Scary, Evil, and Nox my WoW guildies, had rolled there. So when I'd made Edhelgeist to test out the game (months ago) I naturally picked that server. Since I haven't seen any of them online, it's just been me and Savvy. Honestly, I'd probably would have stopped playing quite some time ago otherwise. It's fun to have someone to run with that likes running up to check out some sweet views or do some cliff diving (*giggles*). Heh, so as you can imagine we aren't typical hard core players, and we aren't really role players either. I was sort of waiting for things to turn out like they did for Oforf in "The Noob Comic" when he joined his first guild (Link). Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the guild isn't as heavy on the role playing as some of the guilds I'd looked into. So far the members are also really helpful, trading out recipes they can't use and running with other guild-mates to complete quests. We even have a guild run set for Friday, which I should even be able to attend (with my night owl type scheduling).

I did ask if the guild had a website and since the answer was no, I volunteered to help get one set up. I figure if nothing else it'll be a good way for each of us to post up our trade-skills and give us the opportunity to help each other out by crafting upgrades for one another as opposed to buying the stuff off the Auction House. Heh, maybe it'll help us all save up for mounts a little faster. 

That and I also wanted to give the guild a place to post some info about the guild. Since it is on a role playing server, there is an element of lore to the name of the guild and a theme. I kind of like it, being the sap for fiction that I am. So the guild is called Smaug's Legacy. Well Smaug was that great big Dragon at the end of "The Hobbit" that Bilbo had torqued by stealing a pretty goblet. What, he's a Hobbit, it's a Hobbity thing to do. The downside though is that the Smaug attacked a nearby village and was only stopped when a soldier (aided by a tip from Gandalf), had launched an arrow at the only vulnerable part of the dragon. Smaug of course had the last laugh however by destroying the village on impact and sinking it and his corpse to the bottom of the surrounding lake. Talk about going out with a bang. 

While the Guild isn't in support of Smaug, the idea is that the guild is a bit of a remeberance to those attacked by or who lived in fear of the great Smaug. It's a rather unique approach and I approve of anything unique. 

Well I'm off to work, but for now I'll leave you with this. Is is better to break into a big guild when getting started, or, is it sometimes worth taking a chance on a smaller guild in which everyone grows together?

~Creep 

So yeah, no leveling to report tonight (even though I did finally complete the Lahlia quest, which is an uber pain in the booty). Instead I'd changed out my tradeskills from Woodsman (or woodsWoman in this case) to Armourer. Really I did this to pick up the ability to craft better crafting tools (which seems a bit silly when I say it out loud) and so that I can mine up goodies that my other toon Edhelgeist, can use to make gear dye. So far the mining isn't a big deal. There's a ton of places that folks avoid like the plague that have all kinds of happy ore deposits just waiting for me to hack and slash my way out to. 

Yes I'm always filled with a fantasy vibe when I know my poor character is trudging around in chest deep mud, muck, and creepy crawlies. Yeah not exactly the most fun evening in the world I assure you.

The upside is though that I've got Geistig up to Journeyman Metalsmithing and Prospecting, which means that tomorrow I'll be able to head back out to the questing zones and be able to get in some adventuring while still able to gather along the way. I've seen a TON of mining nodes hanging around untapped lately so I figured, hey I'll take advantage of this situation, snag a pick axe, and see if I can't put together enough coin to get a house.

I know I SHOULD be working on my mount. Gah, I never thought 4 gold would be such a pain in the butt to make. Really it isn't I'm just not being a very smart about my professions. Really I SHOULD just be hitting up gathering skills and then putting everything I find on the Auction House, just barely undercutting the current bids. Yeah I know this stuff, and somehow I never seem to follow it. 

But then again Savriel, my running buddy (aka Savvy) has been working on tailoring to get me into some good armor, so I'm returning the favor by boosting my Metalworking so I can start producing some good heavy armor for Savvy. I've already been able to make the both of us a better set of crafting tools. Why? Well mostly because it's really flipping annoying to have to run back into town every 5 minutes because the "Inferior" starting tools have already been worn to a nub and now need to be repaired. Oh yeah my poor pick axe was smoking a few times this evening. I did however craft a modest surplus of these helpful crafting tools that I was able to throw on the Auction House. 

Now of course... I wait. Bleh!

With a good stint of crafting under my belt though, I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to run around and get some play time in tomorrow, and actually get some questing done. I'm looking forward to hitting 21, ok I'm looking forward to hitting 60, but 21 is a more reasonable goal for right now. I'm thinking baby steps.

Ok now that the sleep deprivation is leveling on ME, I probably ought to hit the hay.

~Creep

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Woo Hoo! Level 20! OK so I still don't have a house and I'm 15 levels away from a mount, but hey, I'm having a blast and I feel like I'm leveling pretty fast. Well faster than I thought I'd level. I blame my game buddy really. I wasn't planning on hitting 20 this weekend, but we were trying on getting around to a named mob to farm for some crafting items and well, we didn't get around to the mob. We did however get me close enough to 20 that we figured "what they hey" and polished that off.

We ended killing off so many spiders in the process that we both ended up with the "Spider-Bane" title in the process. The best part though is announcing "hey I just got a title for killing off the spiders and I like the sound of it". Only to hear in return "yeah I know, I did too and I'd just turned it on."

Safe to say, much laughter was to be had by all.

I also ended up landing us both in a guild after getting approached by a Hobbit looking to add well me to the guild. Since he seemed like a sensible fellow (and was willing to take on myself and my friend) it was a win/win situation. So far the guild seems like a good fit. They aren't pushing to level super quickly and neither are we. Since I've been pushing Geistig's levels to catch up with my level buddy, (who's 22) it's felt like a push, and I've been doing everything I can to put on levels as quickly as possible (including putting myself in zones a little *ahem* ahead of schedule in order to get some levels put on a bit faster). Downside is that the mobs resist a little more. The upside is that the leveling is a little more challenging. Honestly, knocking mobs out in one blow just doesn't do it for me. I kind of like the thrill of wondering whether this spider I just aggroed is going to send me to the graveyard. I know, crazy isn't it?

The best part is running with my buddy, seeing a level 26 spider "is it elite" I ask, "don't think so" is the response, so of course I drop a healing run and charge on with "well then, let's pwn it!" Once again, much laughter was to be had by all.

I don't think I've had this much fun in a game in a long time. Yeah I had a blast in Free Realms, I even had a blast in WoW once in a while, but hey there's something to just running around in a world that seems so tightly restricted, but in reality has so many funny underlying currents. Not to mention the fact that I still giggle every time I see "Pig" and "Cow". *giggles*

So for now I'm sticking with Rune-Keeper. Honestly the pendulum effect of only being able to heal effectively when using healing spells and damaging effectively when using damage spells, CAN be severely limiting. On the plus side though, I think I'm getting to the point where I know when to use which. Safe to say, it's not the easiest choice. Also since it looks like the healing side of things is going to be in demand in the future, I probably need to make sure that I've got a handle on that dynamic. Sure it's fun running about in a tandem blasting like crazy and healing as need be, but full on group encounter heals can be a different beast entirely. What do I mean CAN be, gah. Oh well.

Honestly though, I think I picked a class that works for me, and I don't really feel tempted to try out the other classes. I really just want to see more of the game and play out the story line. This really is kind of a first for me. Usually I'm going back and trying out other classes left and right to see if I'd enjoy another class more. Then again now I actually have a leveling buddy AND I'm in a guild with other folks at about the same level. I've got some pretty good reasons to press on, and I'm not playing by myself, but running into other players every once and again. It's a cool experience and for now I'm just enjoying myself. How long will it last? Who knows. For now though it's friggin' awesome. 

OK off to sleep.

~Creep

Geistig is now up to 17, right where I left off as a Minstrel. I'm really enjoying the Rune-Keeper class because they're able to take care of themselves. No this isn't really a class where I can blast away, heal, heal, blast away (hence making myself invincible). The tricky part about the class is that you you can either use your blasting skills OR your healing skills at any one time, AND the more of either type of skills you use the harder you hit/more you can heal. It takes a little getting used to, but I like this 'pendulum' style method to healing a damage. Especially since it means that I can actually do some friggin' damage for once and still play a class that can do a little healing!

As for my adventures, yesterday was a long and busy day! It started out with hitting up an in game event hosted by one of the server's role playing guilds "The Common Folk". It was a farmer's market roleplay event and for the most part I just wandered over to check out Michael Delving (one of the big landmarks from the Lord of the Rings Books) and to see just how one of these events went down. It was interesting, for the most part I enjoyed the music and listening to the folks pretending to hock some fruits veggies and fish.

Speaking of fish, after getting in a few levels my friend and I decided to train up and get some fishing in. It's actually a pretty well implemented game feature (a lot more fun than clicking on a bobber). It also gives one plenty of time to yack about nothing, fish up some interesting items, and comment on the common channel antics. One of which of course involves "Dwarfs on Roller Skates". Heh, you probably had to be there, but regardless, still a funny concept.

All in all, it was a busy day. I probably ought to get my butt back in game and get a few more levels on before the week starts up. Here's one for the road: 

Love the handstand e-mote.

~Creep

So on a quick note I logged on to Geistig the Rune-Keeper this evening instead of going strait to my Minstrel. So really, I don't know when I'll log back on to the Minstrel except to play around with the music features, and to maybe level her high enough to play the bagpipes.

I want to go into it in more detail in a full post but safe to say I just really enjoy the Rune-Keeper class a lot more. There's less hassle with respect to waiting for abilities to become available, there are more instant cast quests which mitigates cast interrupt issues, and there's more healing options available to a Rune-Keeper which allows them to stay alive a wee bit longer even though they're clothies (or as I like to think about it, rockin' cardboard armor).

Well gotta get some sleep. 

~Creep