Thursday 26 January 2012

LOTRO Riders of Rohan announced!

Basically 4 months since Rise of Isengard got released, and Turbine announces the next expansion for Lord of the Rings Online, Riders of Rohan, for fall 2012.



Can read the info here.

So far the features announced are, of course, adventuring through the Plains of Rohan, the new mounted combat and an level increase to 85.

Now my rant... 85? Really? I mean the game just got to 75 and we gonna have yet another increase of 10 levels. Is this really necessary? As far as i can tell, from all the mmo games i play, LOTRO is the one the seems to take longer from 1 to level cap, and yet another level increase makes it even longer. But i guess those that are 75 might be happy with it. I'm not really sure it's a good idea...

Also before expansion, Update 6: The Great River will be released. As far as i know will bring a new zone and an update to the current instance finder. Hopefully will feature more instances, but of that i don't know.

Friday 13 January 2012

Finally level 50!

Took me nearly a month but i finally got there!


After running around all planets exploring them, doing tons of quests, killing thousand of baddies and getting shot at the process, level 50 is now reality. I might have taken longer cause i had days that i literally didn't do a thing, but during this week i did a little effort and manage to get it done. Personally i liked the questing, but i do agree that at times questing is boring. What really saves the game from becoming a more tedious experience from 1 to 50, are the storylines within each planet, plus the players questline and the companions questline. Otherwise i do believe some people would be seriously bored halfway (remember WoW with the tedious questline?). 

Next step in line is, start doing heroic flashpoints (or dungeons), operations (raids) with guild, a bit of pvp, and dailies. Yeah i know, same old routine as in WoW, but i guess not playing WoW for more then one year, makes me feel more ok with it then some. :)

Overall, I'm enjoying the game, and that's what matters!

Saturday 7 January 2012

Everquest 2 Age of Discovery - What I've "discovered"

It's been like a month since Age of Discovery got released. I could have done this sooner (reviewing it), due to the small amount of content, but with Christmas, New Years and the new Star Wars game, i guess time just flew.



But, Age of Discovery. Well for once, it doesn't boost any real discovery for the explorers out there. It doesn't bring any new outdoor zones or any new instances (unless you want to count the player dungeon zones as new instances). What it brings is (the highlights basically) , a new class - the overpowered Beastlord -, the dungeon maker, reforging, AA increase, tradeskill apprentices and mercenaries.


So let's start with a small view of the Beastlord. Players been asking for this class for a very long time now. Mostly Everquest 1 players that had found memories of the class. I guess after so much time SOE saying no to Beastlord, they found the perfect opportunity to release it. The class is considered scout archtype, but from what i know it offers many utilities, can work as tank (not as fighter but still), or heal a bit or be a beast on dps. I've played with a few and i can say they are putting some scouts or even other classes in their pockets when it comes to dps. I think the class at the moment is somewhat overpowered and i believe a nerf would be essencial to put it up the line with all the other class. Another funy thing, was when the expansion was released, my server would have like half the players creating beastlords. Heck one of my guilds, in the first week or two, only recruited basically beastlords. But it's always good to have a new class to play with. So i guess the Beastlord is a plus on this expansion.

The dungeon maker. Well the idea sounds good on paper, but the way it's done now doesn't feel that great. On paper the idea was to give players the ability to design their own dungeons, with enough challenges to keep one busy. But the way it's implemented leaves dungeon maker very short on actual interest for replayability or even for a player to create a dungeon. Basically creating a dungeon at the moment, feels more like a house decoration then actually anything else. First off, you pick up an existing layout (already a minus sign), place a few items, a set of mobs you want to and it's done. Playing it, it's even worse. All dungeons have the same objective, find the red portal to exit it. Only thing between it and you, is the distance and the amount of mobs the creator placed in. No other objective, no puzzles to solve, nothing. Also the only reward you get from doing these dungeons, is some tokens you can trade for some gear (not that great for level 90), some consumables, some items to use on dungeons and in my opinion the best you can get there, a flying mount (which is only good for the appearance). In my opinion they need to add some sort of incentive to make it actually interesting. Like maybe allow dynamic events, objectives in dungeons or even some sort of drop. At the moment it just feels too short.




Another feature, are the Mercenaries. Resuming it, they are hired npcs that will join you for adventuring. There are several types of mercenaries, one can get healer, tank, dps or buffer. I think this is the second best thing this expansion has. Maybe even the best. Mercenaries are just great for any soloer out there. They are that good. Or at least the evil healer mercenary, the inquisitor is. They work much like a second player with you, and they are very handy to have. With a mercenary inquisitor i'm able to easily solo most raid zones for plat, like Protector's Realm or the first 3 names of Shard of Hate. Heck, he even is better healing then some in-game friends! If you enjoy soloing stuff, mercenaries is for you!



The Tradeskill Apprentices, is for all you tradeskill fans out there. Boosting the best gear for the game (except raid) a player can get, the tradeskill apprentice are a house npc that will train any given type of gear (depending on the players tradeskill) for the player. The recipe for that gear takes 15 days in research, but a tradeskiller can reduce the time by every day do the crafting quest given by the npc or boost the progression of it a bit. But besides the research, when finally you get the recipe, you need to find a special component to be able to craft it. It can come either from doing dungeons (the level 90 component only drops of the hardest zones) or with luck for one of those crafting quests. At 90 that component is extremely rare and expensive at the moment. It's an ok feature i guess. Just a bit time consuming.


Finally, Reforging and AA increase. The idea of reforging is to, change some piece of gear, by reducing a given stat, to another one of your choice. You can't pick any stat you want, just a certain type of stat, but overall it proves to be a good feature for a min-maxer player. So for instance, if you feel you need casting speed on your character, and you have a stat that you don't need much, you can always go to the reforger and drop the one you don't need for something to suit your needs. It's good feature.
The AA increase, in my opinion is minimal. Only 20 more AAs to spend. And no new AA trees or anything. You get those 20 to spend on the old trees. So now you can spend 100 AAs on archtype tree, 100 on class tree, 70 on shadows tree and 50 on heroic tree. I feel the new AAs to be very short and don't bring anything really new to my characters. I just guess they did it to try to make more copy sells...




Overall i feel this feature expansion to be short for desired content. I only haven't tried a Beastlord myself but the rest is more then seen, and doesn't offer any lifespan to the game. So if SOE really hopes to keep Everquest 2 going, they need to come with content soon or else people will eventually get bored (for those who aren't by now), and start leaving. If i would give any score i would say, 59% (and that's a good one for what it brings).





Monday 2 January 2012

Anonymous declares war on Sony

I guess EQ2 will be going down again soon. :p


Anonymous delcared war on Sony, for Sony support over SOPA. More details over Massively.
I dunno, SOE should get prepared...