Silence...

Not much interesting going on lately. Mostly just goofing around on Rift, with occasional visits to LotRO or WoW. My rogue on Rift is 45 now, only 5 more levels til I can start seeing what the endgame content is like. And, ya know, start on my next alt. >.>

I've had some interesting things going on in my head, RP-wise. Such as Kal getting a new (and rather impressive) scar, and some back-story stuff for a few LotR characters. The only problem is getting everything sorted out enough to write out. There may be some Storytime posts in the future, but I don't want to make any definite promises. Because I have a bad habit of failing them. :(

One interesting (to me, at least) thing I've been doing is taking screenshots. Enjoy!

Some of these animals in Rift just can't get along...










Moonshade Highlands may be the prettiest zone in the game...


Iron Pine Peaks is second (although the constant snowfall makes me lag)...


Kelesaria the rogue got a new buddy, courtesy of the FaeYule holiday event (and lots and lots of dailies)...


The Defiant capitol, Meridian...



My champion Aravann got himself a fancy horse, and I spoiled him with a /mountrearup emote as well...


My hunter Kelvren in Evendim, another gorgeous zone...


Another shot of Evendim...


And I think that's enough for now. :P
Thanksgiving went pretty good for me. Having the whole weekend off, except for coming in to help another department Saturday night (fun and easy compared to what I usually do), helped a lot. Just have to make it through Christmas and New Year's now. It never stops surprising me how rude and impatient people can get during holidays. Angry people in the check-out lines, drivers in the parking lot acting like they're on the friggin' freeway, it's enough to make me want to hide at home until the season is over. I lost track of how many times some driver came within inches (literally!) of hitting me, whenever I'm bringing the shopping carts back inside. Come on, people, aren't holidays supposed to be happy? What's the huge rush for? Geez... /endrant

Anyways, hope all the (few) people that read this had a good Thanksgiving, and have a good (and safe!) rest of the holidays. /Waves

Meet Khaltagg

Woof.

Lord of the Rings has a version of PvP, called PvMP (Player vs. Monster Player). Once you have a character at or above level 10, you can begin Monster Play. You can play as one of several different classes of orcs, as well as a spider, and a warg. Each monster is a counterpart to a Free Peoples class, with fighters, healers, and an archer. The warg is the baddies' version of a burglar.

Khaltagg is loads of fun. Monster Play starts you off right at max level, so you can head straight out into the Ettenmoors and start beating up Freeps (jargon for the good guys, us bad guys are called Creeps). There are also daily quests everywhere, and they all give destiny points (currency for training traits and skills) and most give infamy (sort of a cross between honor points and rep). Raising your infamy high enough gives you new ranks, which in turn raises your stats and gives access to more skills. So far, Khaltagg is rank 1, with only some limited play time in the evenings, when I'm bored but not sleepy enough to go to bed.

I'm planning a more or less IC post with Khaltagg in the (hopefully) near future. He may become something of a 'silly post' character, being a not-too-bright warg surrounded by not-much-brighter orcs, trolls, and goblins. We'll see how this goes. :D


Something I just found today, was a band in LotR, actually on the Laurelin server, that writes their own music and plays in public events. The band is called The Shades, and right here is an example of what talented people can do with LotR's music system.

And on that note, my minstrel Kyrreth is almost 28. Must go get a ding before this dang cold I'm getting makes me conk out.
... Well, at least getting sick might help my insomnia? :\
Anyways,... /waves

Ah, accomplishment

On one hand, holidays usually mean that work is crazy and everyone is stressed out and cranky. But on the other hand, yay holidays!

Warcraft has been rather neglected lately, while I work on Lord of the Rings holiday stuff, and World Event stuff on Rift. My main character on Rift, Kelesaria the rogue, has been collecting the current event items to trade in for a pretty neat mount. Earlier today, after doing as many dailies as I can stand on my alts (yay for BoA items), her new raptor mount was 'leveled up' enough to use.

Yes, that is supposed to be a raptor. I have no idea what the idea behind the feathers and stuff is, but I still think it looks cool.

Lord of the Rings is having their Harvestmath celebrations, complete with a haunted burrow in the Shire. I have spent so much time inside that place, I don't even get lost anymore. I've been doing dailies on most of my characters there, too, to collect tokens for cosmetic items, as well as getting some pretty horses for several alts. In fact, for my burglar Daeren, I actually got both of the special holiday mounts. And I managed to do it mostly in one day! (That was a lot of tokens.) I haven't taken a lot of screenshots yet, but here's my minstrel Kyrreth, on Silver, and my champion Arrwyn, on Sable, both on the RP server, Laurelin.




I will admit that the festival has been frustrating at times. There are deeds (like achievements in WoW) to use a bunch of items with annoying effects during the holiday, and people have been abusing them left and right, without bothering themselves about whether their victims want their character to randomly faint, or cower in fear, or get mobbed by swarms of bugs/crows. It really isn't a huge deal, but when someone runs up to you without warning, and starts spamming the 'tricks' at you, it gets old really fast. The only reprieve is the fact that the items don't effect people on mounts, so my toons have all been sitting on their horses whenever I have to be around crowds of holiday-frenzied morons.

On WoW, Kel finally got her 'Hallowed' title this year. It only took 2 years for her to get that blasted squashling for her achievement. >.< She got the kitty familiar pet, too, but I couldn't make myself farm the dailies/candy buckets long enough to get her the mini wickerman. :( Oh well, maybe next year...

That's pretty much it for now. Time to make myself get some sleep before I have to face the craziness at work tomorrow. /Waves

On a serious note...

So, I was poking around on blogs while trying to get sleepy enough to go to bed. I probably shouldn't be making a post when it's this late, but I really want to point out this right here.

Having been raised in a Christian home, and hearing the 'gay people are wrong' sermons, reading that post (and most of the comments) gives me some hope. Maybe not a lot, but some.

I'm going to make this short tonight, though I might maybe have some more in-depth thoughts later, when I'm awake and not in the beginning stages of a cold. For now, I'll just finish with this:



/Waves

The Last One (for now)

So, remember when I mentioned in my last post, that I wouldn't mind having a go at taming Deth'tilac? Well, my trusty pet-finder (a.k.a. sis) finally spotted him today. See for yourselves:




On one hand, my arachnophobia is going crazy. *shudder* On the other hand, I actually sorta like this guy. He's not going to spend much time out with Kel, though. Probably just for PVP (gogo mounts for achievement) and to show off. I'm not sure if he's keeping the name either. I just haven't been able to think of a good one yet, so he's named after Kel's silithid, who he's replacing. Kel has a rename scroll in her bank, if I ever think up something better.

It was a surprisingly easy tame, to be honest. Sis came to help with Pitch, and she just kept Deth rooted as I sent in my trash pet for the Deth Strikes. Tamed him while still rooted, and then bam, new pet. This seriously is her last new pet, too, since I had to put her cat Damien in her very last stable slot to make space to tame Deth. Unless I do some stable-cleaning, which isn't very likely, since I'm pretty attached to all the pets she has now. That's okay though, Rajji still has room in his stables. And I am eventually getting Maxwill and Shadepaw leveled up. >.>

I'm still spending most of my game time on LotRO. On the RP server, Laurelin, my champion (and sis's guardian) are over level 20 now, and my minstrel just hit 23. My burgular on Crickhollow is almost 15, and my hunter 'main' on Windfola, the server we both originally started on, is 32. I actually spent some time today working on some of his older deeds. I think I've figured out my problem with playing on that server, as well, just by looking at the OOC chat channel. On Laurelin, it's usually quiet, with only a few guild/event advertisements, or a couple people goofing around. On Windfola today, the channel was full of trolls, arguing and name-calling, and just generally being disrespectful. It kind of reminds me of why I switched my WoW characters from Gilneas to Feathermoon. RP servers are just have nicer atmospheres, or something. I'm thinking of looking into how to transfer some of my characters, if it's possible and not too pricey.

And now, how about some screenies to finish:

My champ Arrwyn (playing her lute), with sis's guard Raedbor.




My burgular Daeren with sis's character (which I can't remember, because she hasn't been on him in ages :P) on their holiday mounts. I really love the horses in this game. :)


Outside the south gate of Bree. I just thought it looked pretty. >.>

And now, it's late and I must go sleep. /Waves goodnight

I don't even.....

While tinkering around on LotRO, I was reminded that today was the last day for Brewfest. I hopped over to WoW to give all my available toons a Direbrew run, for fun and one last chance for easy shinies. Kalenedral wound up getting the kodo mount, which I was mostly 'eh' about, because she most likely won't ever use it. She also got one of the tanking trinkets 'stolen' by a mage. *grumble* Poor Jahira didn't get anything, and then it was Kel's turn. She got a tankard in her keg, my only character to get it this year (still no ram, though), and then on a whim I decided to go out to Hyjal and check for Magria. I really wasn't expecting anything, because it was around peak time for the server, so if one of the kitties had spawned, they would've been tamed/killed already. At least, that's what I was thinking as I flew Kel over to the spawn/patrolling route. Well, guess what?









And after the tame was finished, and my little blue kitty stepped to his place by Kel's side, I spent several minutes quietly hyperventilating over my keyboard.

Kel now has 8 spirit beasts. If I remember correctly, the only one she's missing is Ghostcrawler, who, as I've said before, I have no interest in. I can't ever describe the feeling when I saw the glowing shape on my screen and Silver Dragon blared out who it was. I was shaking so bad it seemed to take forever to actually get clear of the elementals, get Magria tagged, and wait for the cast bar to slowly tick down. Magria was a bit harder to convince than Ankha was, and for the last second or two of the tame I was wondering if Kel was going to live. But she made it, and now I officially want no more pets for her. Although, if I ever see Deth'tilac undisturbed, it will be very tempting. >.>

Kel and Sky had some bonding time while Kel did her Molten Front dailies, where I got to find a 'new friend'. A Belf hunter was doing the Shadow Wardens dailies, and she pulled her own version of Magria out to show off. There was a lot of emoting for a minute or two before we each got back to finishing our quests. And then to top it off, I saw another blue spirit kitty while killing spiders afterwards. It was really nice to see other people with that pet and not have to suppress any jealousy. :P

I'm not sure when my head is going to come down out of the clouds after this. Seems like lately, just when RL stuff starts getting me worn down and depressed, something happens that makes it all alright again. Not sure exactly how long my in-game luck is going to last, but man I'm enjoying it as long as I can. My only problem now is which spirit beasts Kel will have with her. Poor, poor Loq, he has so much competition now. Between him, Sky, and Icestorm, I don't know how much 'out' time anyone else will have. At least it might be easier to make myself keep grinding through dailies and heroics with her now. Although LotR is still taking most of my attention.

Aaaand I should probably go make myself try to sleep, it's getting late and I have work again in the morning. Dang I wish I could get my old schedule of afternoon/evening shifts back. I am so not a morning person. :P
...*stares and squees at Sky some more*
/Waves

Catching Up

Okay, starting with WoW-

Jorren my death knight on Arthas is now Jhorren on Nesingwary. (His name was already taken on the server, and I'm getting tired of putting funky letters in my character's names. :P) I'm sort of unintentionally taking a break from him, but the next thing I'm planning for him is to start collecting a couple heirlooms. That means gearing up will take longer, but I really have been having more fun leveling my alts than grinding gear on my max-levels, so I'll deal with it.

Kel has yet another spirit beast in her menagerie. I took her up to Grizzly Hills and parked by Arcuris' spawn point. Another hunter was already there, so I logged her out there, so I wouldn't disturb the person that had gotten there first. Well, I logged on her again later, the hunter was gone, and guess who was just sitting down there waiting for me?


He's not going to be taking Loq's and Icestorm's spots as favorites, but I really like this guy. Yay glowbear!

So after all that excitement, I actually haven't even been on WoW for the last couple days. I've been getting back into Lord of the Rings Online. They just had their newest big update, and they changed/added a lot of stuff. Also, sis has been on with me a lot, and we've been trying to get into a little of the RP there. We made new characters on an RP server, Laurelin, and we each have one that we're trying to level together. Sis made a guardian, and I have a champion. I also made a couple alts to play with when sis is on WoW or at work, a minstrel and a runekeeper. Holy cow, did they change minstrels! I had one a couple years ago, when LotRO still required a subscription, and it wasn't nearly this fun. I've really missed the music-playing system LotRO has, too. The only thing slowing down my minstrel's leveling has been my habit of parking somewhere in Bree and playing her lute for the random people passing by.

(Have a random screenshot of Bree)


And... that's all I can think of for now, as far as games. Real life hasn't been all that interesting (or fun) lately. My job continues to tire me out, and the changing weather isn't helping. I think I would enjoy fall a little more if it wasn't for the fact that winter will be coming after. Though at least the next couple days are supposed to be warmer, so my achy joints won't be as bad.
/Waves