January 30, 2010

Playing on an Alt

I went online tonight...or last night? It's 1:30 am now, Saturday morning, but I started playing at around 10pm Friday night. Anyway, I went on RoM and played on an alt for a while, just to ease myself back into the game after a week of being away.
My alt's name is Sister Agatha. She is a Priest/Scout and a Cook. She is also an old woman.
You don't see many old looking characters running around Taborea. Even the occasional toon with white hair usually still is youthful looking and the white hair is more of a fashion statement than an indication of age.
Sister Agatha is truly old though. It makes me smile.
She has steel grey hair tied up in a very practical bun. Her face is worn and wrinkled, with sun spots on her cheeks. Her arms are skinny, her butt is big, her breasts are small, and she has a pot belly.
Of course building a toon with those proportions doesn't always present a pretty picture. It's quite obvious that most of the RoM costumes were created for players with, shall we say, more alluring physiques.
Take a look at the picture below...if you dare!
Isn't she lovely?
When I first got this outfit together -- I think it's one of the sets you get for completing FA or something -- when I first put it on her, I was embarassed!  I thought, "I can't leave the house wearing this!" I honest-to-Narfas hesitated to take Sister Agatha through the streets of Varanas! Then I realized I was just being silly and took her out.
Of course, what happens then? I join a party to kill Joblid the Giant Flower (more of him in another post someday) and one of the other party members is wearing the same outfit.
NO!! 
Yeah.
It was awkward. I told her it looked better on her but she didn't answer me. Huh. No buff for you then, Miss Prissy!
At any rate, I had a good time with the ol' Sister tonight, kicking gnoll ass and taking names. Perhaps she'll be my new "main" for a while. Everyone loves a priest. Especially a sexy one.  :D

January 26, 2010

Taking a Break

I’ve been MIA for a little while from RoM. Last Friday I logged on with Spiral and played Malatina’s Survival Game. Then I stared at my screen for a while and thought:
I could try more level 54 quests and see if I get killed again.
I could run another group of lowbies through FA or BG or NoM.
I could farm mats and level up my Tailoring skill.
I could do dailies to get closer to level 55.
I could recruit more members into the guild and chat with them.

~SIGH~

I found myself standing listlessly in Varanas Central watching other players run back and forth from the Auction House to the Mailbox to the Transporter and I realized that I didn’t want to do anything of those things. I just wanted to log off.
So I figured it was time for a little break away from Taborea.

MMOs are highly addictive but there does come a time when the daily grind can get a little tiresome. It happens to the best of us! The smartest thing to do is take a rest, do some stuff in RL (real life) that makes you happy, and then wait for that excited feeling to come back, that feeling that entering Taborea is going to be an adventure, not a chore.

I have been playing almost every day for close to a year now but I know that I am nowhere near ready to quit the game yet. There are more quests to do, places to explore, beasties to kill and adventures to be had. I still want to reach level 55, complete Kalin’s, Pasper’s, TT, HoTo and any other instance I haven’t done, make awesome super-statted gear that looks fantastic too, max out all my skills, and rebuild Medieval to the fantastic guild it used to be.

So I’ll be back soon, friends. Watch for me!

January 21, 2010

Introducing Spazzy

Many words have been used to describe the now infamous Spazzy: tall, hairy, smelly, ungulate. But the most common word is: retarded.

Born in the bitter cold of northern Siberia, Spazzy Kirill Dasherov seemed a normal reindeer at first. But a tragic accident changed the course of his life.
At three years old, little Spazzy the fawn tripped over an ice clump while staring up at the Northern Lights and fell down a steep embankment. He woke up covered in frost and with a huge bump on his head. He immediately trotted home to his frantic mother, Vixen, and reassured her that he was fine except for the persistent white fireflies that kept zooming in front of his eyes.

From then on Spazzy wasn’t quite the same. He had a tendency to stare into nothingness for several minutes at a time and made loud trumpeting sounds at random moments for no reason. Spazzy also developed an intense fascination with bells and parsnips.
As a young buck, Spazzy was never good at backgammon, crokinole or any of the other reindeer games so he was shunned by his peers. He flunked out of Santa School because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fly a straight line and because he told Mrs. Claus she should cut back on the gingerbread cookies.

Never one to be pushed down, Spazzy moved to Paris where he spent several years working as a shoeshine deer. In his spare time he painted large canvases of multi-colored hoofprints that actually sold quite well in the French art galleries.

Then one fateful day, Spazzy saw a poster advertising a contest to win a new owner and become a “dignified mount of Taborea”. He immediately entered the contest and was surprised and delighted when he was chosen. He went eagerly to his new owner, Spiral.

What Spazzy lacks in brains, looks, talent, skill, eyesight and social skills, he makes up for with a whole lot of gumption. Spazzy can run 5% faster than any horse in Taborea and can race neck in neck with even the fiercest WarTiger. His loyalty is unmatched and his courageousness in the face of a pathway clogged with Naga is unbeatable.

I am very happy to have this retarded reindeer as my new permanent mount.
Welcome to Taborea, Spazzy!

January 20, 2010

Turning a Mistake Around

Today I did something stupid. I lost my fancy-awesome-super-statted Reef Bleeder dagger. I don't really know how. I had a mix-up sometime during the day where I accidentally equiped a 2H staff when normally I fight with a wand and a dagger. Then I switched back and forgot to equip the dagger. When I realized what I had done, I went looking for it and it was gone. Not in my backpack, not in my bank, not even in the vender Sell tab. Where did it go?  Is it possible that I could have trashed it?  Is it possible that my brain took a long walk off a short dock?
So after much swearing and gnashing of teeth, I decided that it was high time I switched back to a 2H staff anyway. People are always saying that you can't beat a 2H staff for magic damage, but I tested it and my wand and dagger did way more sizzling. But seeing as brilliant me trashed her dagger, I guess I'll try the staff.
Lucky for me I had just acquired a new Level 54 Blue 2H Staff as a quest reward. I spent some gold, some charges and loads of time and the picture shows the result. Not bad. I'll be replacing it with a level 55 weapon soon so I didn't bother to tier it up too much or worry about the stats.
But I should get some rune slots in there.  Maybe tommorow. It's 2:20 am here in Dum-Dum Land.
Bonus: The patch is coming tonight and hopefully they'll remove all the Snowflake crap.
EDIT: Check out the pic, I even look stupid. Doh!

January 19, 2010

Not a Total Loss

Ok, so Monday turned out to be kinda fun.  I got rid of my XP debt, then died AGAIN.  I guess I just don't learn.  Bought a God's Redemption Ticket and wiped it clear cuz I was just so frustrated.
Then I got in a raid for the Ant Queen.  I think I was one of the lowest HP's there, even though I was not the lowest level. I don't think the leader cared, she was just trying to get as many suckers, er, members as possible. 
So we all gathered and got naked (giggle) and some crazy knight attacked the Queen and spells started flying and giant ants appeared out of nowhere and then I was dead. 
But I looked around from my comfortable spot on the floor and noticed that quite a few people were dead.  I wasn't the only one.  Yay!  I'm not the only loser!
But the Ant Queen was also dead so they told me it was a success.  I had to get rezzed twice in order to sneak close enough to the corpse to loot the stuff for my quests since there were still giant ants there. I guess I was lucky since some people in the raid didn't finish their quests.
The picture over there of the dead bodies.  You can see in the raid listing on the left all the dead people have black bars.  And of course, the bodies lying all over the place give it away too.  :) 
And stop looking at my bum.  Bum-looker.  Cheeky monkey!
So after that madness, I did a recruit message for the guild and captured, er, I mean enrolled a few new guildies. They asked me if we could go through FA and I said sure thing, trying to be the cool high-level, totally nonchalent.
But it actually was a success! (Note my surprise.) I killed all the bosses and the two little priests only died twice cuz of adds, which was my fault cuz I should have asked the knight dude to watch them for me.
At the end, after Ancalon had drunk her fill of my fiery brimstone, I shouted WOOT and said, "I've never done that before!"  Whoops, blew my cool facade!!  :)

January 18, 2010

Mondays Suck

Apparently I shouldn't game on Mondays. Maybe I'm just out of practice after a weekend in the real world, but I died TWICE today. Sigh.
I had cleared away almost all the debt from my first death (some psychotic Naga thought I looked at him the wrong way) when I died again trying to off the Ape King by myself.  He only had 40,000 HP.  I thought I could take him. But as soon as my Lightning Bolt root spell wore off he came over and crushed me with his hairy fists.  Stoopid ape.
So now I am leaving Spiral to study at the library in my super-awesome guild castle while I go make dinner. I have 720,000 XP debt. By my calculation it should take 10 solid hours of studying to erase the debt. Sigh again.

January 15, 2010

Level 54 & Elven Feet

Last night I finally got Spiral to level 54. I should be giving a big WOOT but I really don't feel it. I feel more annoyed than anything. I think it's because you don't really get any rewards for leveling at this point. No gift bag, no new skills. You just get another 60 bazillion XP to do before you hit 55.
Even getting new level 54 gear is not that exciting. I worked so hard on my level 53 gear and spent so much money on it that I don't really want to trade it in for 54 gear that's not statted and plussed. (Are those words?)

So today I left Spiral in her house sipping tea and reading trashy romance novels while I played on one of my alts, a little Warden/Warrior elf named Hazelnut. It was a real switcheroo to play a melee character. As a mage I'm so used to keeping everything at "spell's length". I toss a lightning bolt at the mob, root them, then blast them with fire spells until they croak. When I do it well, they never even lay a hand (or claw or paw or tentacle) on me.
But as a W/W everyone is all up in my face! It's rather uncomfortable to have Silvermane Hounds slobbering on my nice shiny chainmail. It takes a bit of getting used to. I kept checking my action bar for some sort of distance spell. Nope. Run in and kick ass. That's all she wrote.
And on top of that, tiny Hazelnut weilds this giant two-handed sword called the Witch Chopper that I swear has an attack speed of 62. Ok, it's actually 3 but it just seems to take for-EV-er to swing that mo-fo around! It's like a badly choreographed kung fu movie where seven bad guys surround the hero and they all wait their turn to hit each other.

Elves are fascinating to watch as well. The programmers did a good job of making them an entirely new race, not just ears on a human. They run different (kinda fruity), they sit different, and best of all they dance different.  If you haven't seen an elf dance yet, go ask one.  Nicely. Don't just walk up and say, "Dance for me, elf!" They don't like that. At least offer them some donuts or something first. Or offer to water their Oak Walker when they're out of town.


Elves have weird feet too. When you take their boots off, they're wearing high-heeled leaf shoes. Very strange. But much better than the giant pink slabs that are attached to Spiral's feet. She keeps her boots on all the time. No one's perfect. Not even a level 54.

I used to look at the those high level players and think that they had it going on. I thought they knew everything and had everything and could kill everything. But now that I'm level 54, I realize it's all bunk. I don't know squat. Ok, that's an exaggeration, I do know much more than I did when I was a level 1 but I don't feel like I'm a pro at the game yet. There are still things said on the world chat that make no sense to me. And who pays 6 million gold for ANYTHING? Is it made of gilded Naga weiners? Sheesh.
I am determined not to be one of those elitist snobs. I want to help people and answer questions and be a nice high-level. You know, the one time I tried to join a raid for the Ant Queen, they kicked me out cuz my HP was too low. I thought that was kinda rude. If I'm willing to take the risk of getting one-shotted, I should be allowed to!  Maybe they were being nice and protecting me from oh, say, 580000 XP debt but still, it ticked me off.

Anyhoo, it's Friday night and I'm going to spend most of my weekend in the real world where no one can right click me and inspect my equipment. Later, Taboreans!

January 14, 2010

Contest to Win Diamonds

GM Eres is running on contest on her Twitter page. 
This is the message she has up:
Follow @RoMEres & come play Runes of Magic a Free 2 play MMORPG http://bit.ly/Yrl8h!. RT this 2 enter a chance to win 1000 diamonds for RoM.
It took me a sec to realize RT meant retweet cuz I am very new to Twitter.  :)

Boss Warnings

I was running through the lovely green forests of Aslan Valley when a warning came up on my screen. “You are close to Chester Iron Armor. Please be careful!” Iron Armor? Who the heck is that? I’ve been playing the game since March 2009 and I’ve never heard of him. So of course I go check it out. He’s this big-ass anteater with 260,000 HP.  I keelt him.

When I started playing RoM there used to be no boss warnings. It made for a very realistic yet frustrating game. You were constantly scanning your surroundings for crown bosses, which in reality is what would you would do if you really were in a forest where crazy fish-bone wielding psychos were wandering around looking for someone to flatten. It was a relief when they added the warnings so that a little level 22 could pound away on black boars in peace without worrying about Mr. Ironpants coming up behind her and giving her a raping. (sorry, that’s kinda rude but funny!)

I remember the first time I saw a warning, it was Wild Mane, I was slaughtering wolves near the shore when the warning came up. I froze and looked around. Nothing. I took a step and the warning came up again. Quick, into the lake!!! I swam out and looked up. There’s cute, fuzzy, evil Wild Mane on top of the hill. Phew.  Thought he was sniffing my tail the way those warnings kept coming up!
The same thing happens in the Tower of Wailing Wind. As you’re running up the hallways filled with those nasty gargoyles with a respawn time of 30 seconds, you get the warning about the Explosive Trap. It’s actually way down on the ground. Three dimensional stuff confuses the system I think. Like Kal’Turstan and Kal’Turssi, same deal. They're underground but when you run over them it gives the warning.

But seriously, does anyone else think that some of the naming in this game is a bit ridiculous? I understand that it was originally in Korean and then German and then English but you gotta laugh at some of the names. I’m fully expecting to see this message on my screen one day: “You are close to Clumpy Humperlegg. Please be careful!”

I suppose they’re trying to be original. It wouldn’t be all that scary if it said: "You are close to Doug.” :)

Ooh, new idea. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have a warning like that in real life? You are close to the boss, please be careful! You are close to your ex-wife. You are close to a cop who’s having a bad day. That would be most excellent.

January 13, 2010

RoMspeak

An informational post today.  When I started playing RoM I was very confused about all the short forms and acronyms flying around the chat.  A lot of it you can pick up contextually, but sometimes I had to go Google something just to figure out what the hell was going on!  So here is a list of short forms for your perusal.  I hope it's helpful.

afk – away from keyboard
AH – Auction House
alt – alternate character
AOE – area of effect
atm – at the moment
AV – Aotulia Volcano
BG – Bloody Gallery
brb – be right back
Clops – Cyclops Stronghold
CS – Cash Shop (Item Shop)
cya – see you later
DDC – Dust Devil Canyon
DOT – damage over time
DPS – damage per second
FA – Forsaken Abbey
HoTo – Heart of the Ocean
IDK35 – Ice Dwarf Kingdom lvl 35
IDK50 – Ice Dwarf Kingdom lvl 50
idk – I don’t know
kk – for some reason this is the same as OK
leet – elite
LFG – looking for group
LFM – looking for more
lol – Laughing out loud. Rarely does this mean that the person is actually laughing. It’s become an inane way to respond to almost any comment
LOS – line of sight
mat – material, as in wood, herb, ore.
mob – bad guy
NoM – Necropolis of Mirrors
NPC – non-player character
OMG – Oh my God
omw – on my way
OS – Obsidian Stronghold
pm – private message, whisper
pst – whisper
ROFL – Rolling on the floor laughing (how can they type while rolling?)
SOA – Staff of Admiration, some staff that high levels are always oohing about
toon – character
TP – talent points
vent – Ventrilo, an application for voice communication while gaming
WTB – wanting to buy
WTF – What the f**k, as is "WTF I just got killed by a fungus!"
WTS – wanting to sell
WTT – wanting to trade
XP – experience points

Also all classes are shortened to one letter which was all fine and dandy until Wardens came along and messed it up for Warriors! I’m too sure what the standard convention is for the two W’s. I’ve seen Wa, Wr, Wd…who knows?
Dual classes are expressed: P/M (Priest Mage)

Guilds & Cross-dressing

I belong to a wonderful guild called Medieval. I joined kinda randomly, just looking for a guild that wasn't full of kids (it's age 25+ for the most part).  I wasn't even sure if I wanted to join a guild.  I didn't see the point.
But now I love my guild!  At first it was just because of the castle perks...stable, library, forge, field, lumber yard, bank.  I didn't really chat too much and never grouped with guildies.  But as time went on, I kinda got interested in the friendly banter in the Guild Chat window.  Slowly I started opening up to my guildies.  And I found that I liked it.  I'm not much of a social person in real life, but I guess hiding behind a computer screen is different.  You're not judged by how you look or how old you are or what you're wearing; it's by how well you play or how well you're geared or how helpful you are or how much you know about the game.  Or, best of all, how much you can make people LOL!! 
Just recently the Guild Leader, Krastia, appointed me as a Recruiter for the guild.  I was a little worried at first but it's actually been interesting.  It's forced me to be more outspoken and friendly but in return I've got a lot of new ... I don't want to say "friends".  Acquaintances?  People who think I'm nice because I invited them to the guild. 
So more of the guild members initiate conversations with me and ask me questions and now that I'm level 53, I can answer a lot of them.  And I can help lower levels with their bosses!  It's nice to return the favor since many times lvl 55's have helped me kick some poor mob's ass.
At any rate, we were yucking it up tonight and I found out that Kras thought I was a guy!  So strange.  I have a female toon.  Do I type like a dude?  Fight like a man?  Who knows? 
But a lot of guys make female toons.  One of our guild members says it's because he's tired of watching a guy's butt as he runs around!  Too funny! 
Most of the time the guys make their female characters with crazy huge boobs.  You can spot them a mile away.  I don't know of too many girls who would do that, at least not the kinda girls who would play RoM.  So I always assume a female toon with big boobs or wearing only a bikini is a guy.  Especially if he/she is riding a Wartiger Mount.  :)

January 12, 2010

Recording Videos with WeGame

I went browsing on the Internet for a program to record videos of my exploits in Taborea.  I first tried GameCam but that didn't work for me.  So I went to http://www.wegame.com/ and downloaded their client.
It's totally free, which is always good (except for STIs), and it after a few technical difficulties, it worked great.
I made a quick sample video of my character, Spiral, riding her reindeer.  The link is here.
I'm going to try to somehow make a video box on this blog so I can have my latest videos posted for all to see.  It might take a little bit to figure that out but I don't mind.  I know a bit of HTML and learning is always a good thing (except learning that the stove burners stay hot for a long time. Ouch.)

January 11, 2010

Things That Make Me Giggle

I think maybe when you play RoM for long enough, you get a little loopy! I was travelling across the Sea of Snow in Dragonfang Ridge today and a cyclops caught my eye. I started giggling because of the sassy way he was walking across the snow.
I couldn't believe all the junk in his trunk!  And I really wondered who was the programmer who made him walk like that, all strutting and loose in the hips.  It was a little dirty.
The cyclops didn't take too kindly to me snapping screenshots of his butt so he attacked me.  He died.  When it comes to a fight, I'm never distracted by a plump rump!  Ha ha!


January 10, 2010

You Have Died

Grrrrr...I had a crappy game night yesterday. I was playing my alt, a lvl 28/28 P/S namded Sisteragatha and she was just traipsing her merry way through the forest when !!!CRASH!!!
Got kicked out to the login screen. Swore a bit. Logged back in after a few unsuccessful attempts. Loaded up my girl and !!!WTF!!!
"You have died."
I freaking HATE that. My poor toon is laying there on the forest floor with no suspects in sight. Who killed her? Some damn roaming Demonthorn Vine?
It so pisses me off when crap like that happens. You'd think if I was booted from the game that my character would freeze where she is and also get logged off and NOT get killed.
Why isn't that the case?
I ended up playing way longer than I had expected in order to work off that XP debt. Very frustrating.

January 8, 2010

Beginnings

3 Years Old
Let’s start by talking about how I got into Runes of Magic. I guess I’ve always been a geek, nerd, highly intelligent person, whatever you want to call it. So it was pretty easy for me to fall into the group of strange boys that hung out in the music room and played Dungeons & Dragons. They loved having a girl playing with them, even though I remember surprising them with how ruthless I was.

Anyhoo, from D&D I moved on to other RPGs but the only one that sticks out in my mind is Vampire: The Masquerade. I only remember that one because I had an insane crush on the Game Master. I also had a flaw that I killed all plants I came near to, which was quite hilarious when walking through a forest.

In university I played a MUD. Does anyone remember those? It was sooooo geeky yet soooooo cutting edge! There were a few of us that would go to the 24-hour library or computer sciences lab and play all night. But it was fun and I met some great people online.

Fast forward to 2008 when I discovered World of Warcraft. Got a free three month trial and played obsessively. Ob-SESS-ively. My boyfriend got addicted as well and we would trade-off the one computer we had. I would play all night and then sleep while he played all day. Cuh-razy.

Then the free trial expired and I was too stingy – or frugal, that’s a more flattering word – to pay the monthly fee. So I didn’t game for a while and didn’t really miss it. Until I heard about Runes of Magic. A FREE game??? Wha-wha-what???

I logged on immediately and haven’t looked back.

First Post

I couldn't sleep last night so of course I got out of bed and started playing my addiction, Runes of Magic.  RoM is a MMORPG that is very similar to the well-known World of Warcraft (WoW).
Anyway, after my eyes got too sore to play anymore, at about 1:30am, I returned to my cozy bed and pondered how to share my RoM experience with the world.  And that late night madness created this blog.
Like most blogs, I'm just going to ramble.  Unlike most blogs, I hope it will be entertaining or at least informative.  I have many topics already in mind: guilds, gold, mounts, gearing, quests, partying etc. 

One last note: I'd be interested to know who actually reads back through all my posts to the very first one.  If you are from the future and can take time away from your high-tech virtual world game that lets you smell the blood from that Demonthorn Vine's excrutiating death caused by your dagger thrust to its fleshy midsection, please post a comment telling me date you read the very first post of my blog.