October 29, 2010

World Boss: Amboriar

Goofing around on Spiral and feeling kinda cocky, I decided to go check out the new world boss, Amboriar. (What an effed up name, I have to say. I would have just called him Big Metal Gadget.)

So I trotted confidently into the instance, which is located in the far back of the Tomb in Southern Janost Forest, and glanced around, fireballs at the ready. "Well," I thought, "These aren't even elites!" They were just plain ol' level 60s. I took aim and fired and a few of them popped into nothingness.

Striding even more boldly into the fray, I very quickly realized that squishy little mages have no business walking around thinking they're hot stuff, other than the fact that their hands are on fire most of the time, cuz I got one-shotted by a level 60 elite without it even breaking a sweat...or spilling oil...or whatever it is robots do when exerting themselves. I think I was thrown off by the fact that he was a PINK robot. Perhaps pink is the new color of destruction?? (If so, little girls everywhere deserve to be feared!)

At any rate, I was smart enough to rez out and get my rogue side on, boo-yeah, and I traipsed back in again. Snuck around and took some screenshots and stared suspiciously at things like the Ancient Magnork Instruments and High Density Energy Crystals. All the mobs seemed to be named things like No. 43 Punisher and No. 16 Punisher. Robots have no imagination.

Of course, I pondered the big boss, Amboriar, for quite a long time, watching him drifting up and down in the sky. Kinda looked like something you'd buy from The Shopping Network.
"Only available through this special offer! Slices, dices, folds your laundry and calls your mother-in-law! Comes with its own handy faux leather carrying case. Act now and receive these great bonus gifts! All yours for only $2,999.99! Call NOW!"

Figured I had wasted enough time looking at something I could never kill, and turned around to head out. Except, um, which way is out?? I was lost! Too funny!
I started giggling as I crept through masses of evil robots. I had been so absorbed in taking screenshots for the blog that I got turned around. Relying on my Great Canadian Lost-in-the-Bush training, I picked an edge and kept circling until I found a portal. It wasn't the same one I came in on, but I didn't care. It took me out to the Tomb Researchers camp where I breathed a sigh of relief. Another successful exploration complete!

P.S. Couldn't find a video of anyone taking this guy down, but did find this video of someone exploring the zone just like me...only he was nuts enough to engage in combat.

October 28, 2010

Alts Everywhere!

So this post will continue with my current theme of sowing my wild oats, spreading the seeds of love, playing the field, finding more fish in the sea, taste-testing many ice creams...okay, I made that last one up!
I've been playing through all my numerous alts to find one that I might enjoy leveling up as much as I have enjoyed Spiral. Now you may remember that I have something like 15 alts, so this process has taken a few days now.
I'm actually quite an organized person when it comes to my alts. I have a grid chart with the X and Y axes showing each of the 8 classes in RoM and then each grid square showing the name of the character. So I can easily see which class combos I've never done, just in case I want to try something new. The only classes I haven't tried are P/K, R/S, M/Wr and M/Wd. Everything else I've played at least to level 10 just to try them out.
So after all that testing, I've discovered that the character I like to play the most after Spiral is....drum roll please...this saucy red-haired Mage/Scout!
Her name is Vixyn. She's level 30/30 which I think I must have accomplished way back when they had glorious double XP weekends. (Those were the days...)
Vixyn is a member of the guild Redrum. She joined up with them way back when they were small and openly recruiting for members to help in siege. I have sieged with them on occasion and enjoyed it very much. Can't say much else about the guild since I haven't interacted with them much other than that, but we'll see how it works out as I play more on Vix.

Pondering why I would choose Vix as my new "main", I guess it must be my love of ranged attacks. I guess I'm just a chicken-heart! I love to keep my distance from the smelly, evil mobs and just fire away until they are safely face down on the floor. All that in-yo-face fighting that melee and tanks do is too...I dunno...visceral. Although I did realize the other day that I was so scared of tanking cuz I still had a squishy mage mindset that if I got hit I would die rather quickly. As a tank, playing on Medi's toon, I soon realized that I was darn freaking TOUGH and I could take some hits and that's when it became more fun.

But the other thing about my love of mages is that I don't have to be the leader in a party. That's not to say that I can't lead, but I just find it less stressful if I can just follow and play and have fun and not have to worry about the party. I guess I'm not much of a team player. Well, anyone who knows me in real life would say, "DUH! You're just figuring that out now??"  :)

October 25, 2010

MMO Slut

I have a confession. I have been sowing my wild oats over the past week. Yes, I have been playing other games besides ROM.  ~gasp!~

Ok, so here's the thing: level 60 is a grind. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it was getting boring. I didn't have good enough gear to get into the harder instances, and the only way to get better gear was to grind out dailies and mentos raids and farm DOD first boss.
Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't all THAT bored. I was leveling my crafting, exploring the nooks & crannies of the zones, chatting with guildies, and enjoying siege (minus crashes). But a few us got to talking on TS and we all felt we needed a little vacation from ROM to go try something new.

Medi and I started out on EQII Extended. It's a free version of Everquest with some limitations regarding classes and races. It was fun enough, although I found the graphics to be disappointing and the combat too easy.
Next Medi, Heka, Maj and I tried out Warhammer. Now that game is fun! There is always so much going on: public events, RvR, scenarios, plus all the regular quests. But the free trial is severely limited. You can only reach level 10. And it's a subscription game, which I've never wanted to do.
I also tried out Guild Wars, cuz a few people in our guild had mentioned they used to play. It was boring and confusing. Once you leave town, you are on your own. You only interact with other players in cities or in your group outside of cities. Blah.
However, Guild Wars 2 is scheduled to come out sometime in the next 100 years, and I'd like to try that and see if it lives up to the hype.

So after exploring my MMO preferences, here are all the reasons I love ROM and still consider it the best free MMO out there!
1. Beautiful to look at.
2. Easy to learn.
3. Lots to explore.
4. Free play includes all classes, races, trades, etc.
5. Fun events.
6. Dual classes.
7. Great community.

So thanks Runes of Magic for being a great MMO that keeps me coming back for more. :)

October 22, 2010

The Pumpkin Festival

The lovely Belle Rossly says, "Are you enjoying the Pumpkin Festival? This is my favorite holiday of all -- you get to dress up like a monster, and the whole town feels all cool and creepy!" I couldn't agree with you more, Belle! I just love Hallowe'en!

Outside Dalanis, I found Belle and took the quest she offered, Pumpkin Pranksters. The Spooky Pumpkins appear every half hour in the city and you have to catch them. The first time they showed up, I only got two cuz other players were grabbing them. It actually seemed as if there were only five in total, and you need five to complete the quest, so that's a little difficult when everyone is taking them. But I will eventually complete this just to see what the prizes are.  :)

As far as I can tell, there is only one other new quest that wasn't here last year. It's one offered by a big dude with a pumpkin head name (quite appropriately if not originally) Pumpkinhead. Right now, all he'll tell me is that his event starts on the hour every two hours, so I guess I've have to wait to find out what it is.

The other events are the same one I played obsessively last year: Monster Parade at Varanas Bridge, and the very frustrating Kaz Madness at Oblivion Shrine. There is also collecting sugar canes to hand in at Varanas Central for titles, and getting candy from the Highlander family in Varanas East to give to Little Annie to get potions and stuff. (Whew complicated chain of events!)

My favorite prizes during the Pumpkin Festival are always the great costumes. I actually played so much last year that still have some wicked sweet outfits from last year...pumpkin heads and frankenstien heads and cool boots, robes and masks. I also saw someone riding a pumpkin/witch broom, which would be a very cool prize to get.

If all else fails, they are selling some very interesting costumes in the Item Shop for the week. I like how they look as is...but also am plotting how I could color them and mix-match them to make an even more awesome outfit! Unfortunately, poor Spiral is poor as dirt right now and won't be buying anything. I'll just have to plug away at these events to get the prizes I want.

I really love how all the cities are "dressed up" for Halloween with pumpkins, ghosts, witches and candy scattered everywhere. It really sets the mood and makes it exciting to be in Taborea. The events are the same thing...I won't lie, it can get kinda boring in RoM at level 60. But having events to do keeps me interested in logging in.

Spiral Dressed as Mr. Pumpkinhead

October 20, 2010

Honor Party & Spirit Points

Yesterday Medi and I tested out the new Help-A-Noob thingamajig that's given by Lehman in Varanas Class Hall. So the gist of it is you get a quest and he gives you one free ticket that allows you to start an Honor Party for 3 hours. Then you go and find some noobs and help them out with "certain quests" and you get spirit points.

So Medi was on a low level alt and I was on Medi (wink wink), and we killed a bunch of mobs. Nothing. Killed Amias. Zilch. Then we went into FA and did an entire run. Nada. I didn't notice any changes or messages or things dropping into my backpack. Did some googling and couldn't find much info about it so we were getting a bit frustrated.

Then Medi asked me to check out my screens to see if the points just showed up somewhere. Turned out to be a brilliant idea! On the C screen, under the stat listings on the left hand side it says how many Spirit Points you have. Turns out Medi had gotten one but we don't really know where from.

So I talked to Lehman again and found out how totally lame this thing is. You need to get 3 Spirit Points to trade for ONE stat point, like one point of Stam. Pffft. Not worth the time. You can only run FA so many times before you feel like lying down in one of the coffins and letting the zombies eat what's left of your brain!

I don't know if I think it's a great idea anyway. There are already lots of high levels who enjoy helping noobs without being rewarded, and that kind of selflessness is something I really like about RoM. I was helped by high levels when I was a lowbie, and I paid it forward as I "grew up".
But....instances at low levels are supposed to teach players how to group and use their skills and not just be a hand-holding exercise. Encouraging more high levels to help lowbies go through instances is not going to make better players. New players are going to be totally incompetant in groups. Kinda like what happens when people power level. The point of the game is to PLAY it!
Now go forth and be successful with it!

October 19, 2010

Rh'anka Village Day Spa

After a long day adventuring, nothing beats the feeling of a steaming hot bath.
Here at Rh'anka Village Day Spa you will receive all the pampering you could ever desire while luxuriating in the famous Softclaws Hot Spring, an amazing natural geological feature.
The hot spring is a comfortable 102 degrees Farenheit and fits 17 humans or elves, or 3 Rhinofolk.
The limestone-infused water is perfect for soothing fatigued warrior muscles. Knights can take advantage of our free armor polishing service while they soak away their aches and pains.

Other services at RVDS include:
Green Mud Body Wraps by famed elven aesthetician, Jirinki Zhee, two-time winner of the Jyr'nathon Holistic Provider of the Year award.
Manicures and Pedicures. Wardens receive a free mani for their Oak Walker when they buy a mani/pedi combo for themselves.
Massages by a skilled team of registered massage therapists. Casters and scouts receive a 10% discount on hand massages. Try our exclusive patented Dimstar Thornapple Ointment for those pesky burns and blisters.
Your privacy is important to us! We are proud of our new VIP entrance for rogues and PvP players. Come and go at RVDS without anyone knowing.

Plenty of free parking for your mount, so come visit Rh'anka Village Day Spa today!
Pamper yourself. You deserve it.

October 17, 2010

Medi's Back!

Medi just came back from vacation and I got in troubles!!
First of all, I put him in a lovely pale purple dress. He didn't like that. Pewp on him.
Secondly, I gave the wrong stat for his Pdef. He says, "66568. Get it right or you're fired."
So there!

October 16, 2010

Overkill?

Had a blast in siege tonight, playing on Medi as Scout. Our team did a fantastic job holding off our opponent, Morningstar of Reni.
Do you think we went a little teensy bit overboard on the defenses?  NO WAY!

P.S. DING! Got Medi's scout side to level 60 today.

October 14, 2010

Me TANK!

My incredibly trusting virtual-husband, Meditank, has gone on a much-needed vacation for a few days and has left me his toon to play with. Medi is a level 60/59 K/S with god knows how many HP and Pdef. I know you hardcore players out there care about those numbers so I will go look them up. One sec...44440 HP unbuffed and 40768 Pdef. There. Happy?  :)

He was kind enough to leave me some instructions on how to tank and how not to die and I have vowed not to let him down. So far, so good! I played pretty much all day today on Medi and didn't die and only killed, well, a few people in my party. Okay a lot of people. But it wasn't my fault!
You see, I tanked the Ant Queen as my first venture into being a Knight. I didn't mean to. I just noticed that Medi hadn't finished that quest yet and there was a shout-out for a raid, so I joined. Turns out there were only two tanks, and the other one insisted that I do it. Eek!
Lucky for me, Heka answered my cry for help and moral support and joined the raid to ensure I wouldn't end up face down getting teabagged. The fight itself was a blur. I came out alive, but according to Heka, the fight was FAIL. Oh well.

Next I tanked first boss of DoD with the guild a few times. Scary! I've seen Medi tank it a thousand times but in reality is was freaking nerve-wracking. He makes it look so easy... when I couldn't even get the party through the hallway to the boss room without one of them dying.
The worst part was that during the boss fight I couldn't see a thing! That is so not cool cuz that boss loves to jump on people's heads. But we survived so I guess that's considered a PASS. 

The rest of my day on my Rent-a-Tank was spent completing the bajillion quests that he hasn't done. Medi isn't fond of questing, while I love it, so I figured I'd help him out. I was actually waaaaay back in Varanas doing level 14 quests. Kinda funny.
Stayed up late to do the daily resets in NJF and tallied up an impressive total of XP for the day. Medi is now 21,089,891 out of 32,350,000 to level 60 on his scout side. That's like over 20 mill XP I made in one day. Woot!

And last but not least...I had to play a joke on Medi. I bought some Illusory Hair Chests for a few rubies and opened them up. Here are the before and after pix. An improvement? Or not? You decide!

October 12, 2010

Introducing a New Team

I got a llama!!
I didn't actually have any diamonds of my own, so I went and did some -- ok, a LOT -- of the free surveys that are offered by Peanut Labs to get enough free diamonds to buy him.

I bought the chocolate colored llama cuz I'm a girl and I love chocolate. Perhaps I will call him Vanilla, just to be silly.
He is a stealth llama, just like Waggles, Sister Agatha's donkey, so he makes no noise when running or rearing. He sniffs the ground for food and chews it. The pissed off expression on his face only adds to his ever-so-charming demeanor. Don't mess with this fuzzy beast...he's spit in your eye and call you estúpido.

Sitting on Vanilla is Blueblade, my newest alt. She is R/P 20/20. Kind of an interesting combo. Been rogue on Spiral for ages so I'm pretty used to that but learning to be a priest is difficult. Too used to popping pots...I keep forgetting about the spells. 
I'm thinking about installing an addon called Healbot that is supposed to be great for making sure no one dies. Right now I'm hesitating cuz it kinda feels like cheating to have a program do things for you, but maybe it's not that bad. And besides, I really don't enjoy getting people killed. Okay, maybe it's funny to see Medi take a dirt nap now and then, but only him.
(Kidding, my hubby. You wouldn't die so much if you stopped trying to save my crazy squishy mage ass!)

Anyway, I'm off to ride the ranges on my fearless furry friend. Ándale, Vanilla!

October 11, 2010

Alpacas Are The Cutest!

Llama or Alpaca?
OMG they are selling permanent alpaca mounts this week!
And guess what? I have no diamonds. :(

Alpaca & Baby
But that's okay cuz I have Spazzy, the strangest, hyper-est, unique-est mount in the game. I couldn't give him up.

Although an alpaca mount is very, very tempting. Cuteness cubed! Freaking adorable. The past three years I have gone to the local alpaca show to see them and to buy uber-warm socks. Alpacas are adorable and useful.

I did notice that on one page is says that they are llamas and the other page it says alpacas. They two are related, but not the same. Llamas are much larger and uglier, IMO, and they are more agressive too. Alpacas have much softer fur and they are smaller, smarter and friendlier.

Actually taking a look at the pix of the mounts, they look more like llamas than alpacas. I'll convince myself that's true so that I don't feel so bummed out about not having a pet alpaca of my own!

October 9, 2010

Animal Planet: Taborea

Medi and I were hanging out late last night and decided to explore around the Rh'anka Village in NJF. We jumped up to the top of a mud building and found a perfect little penthouse with a perfect little door and perfect little leaf roof. So cute! Couldn't find a for sale sign though so I guess I won't be moving in any time soon.  :)

Watching the little Rh'ankas below made me wonder: they're armadillos, aren't they? Or are they aardvarks? Perhaps a mix? Not quite sure.

But it's like that with a lot of the cool creatures in this game, which as a zoologist I find very fascinating. They look so similar to animals from real life, but just a smidge different.
Like those hippos near Kandor that have frogs on their heads. Or the flying ferrets of Ystra, which the game actually makes fun of in one of the quests, if I remember correctly.
I just love that feeling that I'm exploring a whole new world. (Cue Aladdin music.)
I get to see wooly mammoths, flying monkeys, walking alligators, mermen and maids, centaurs, cat people and minotaurs. Mythological Anubi lurk next to cute little bunnies. Giant butterflies flap past angry Nagas. Ghosts and demons and flame elementals share the land with snakes and cattle and bugs. Trees walk, rhinos talk, and mushrooms object to being eaten by stabbing you in the knee.
A very cool world indeed.

Ancient Treasures Minigame

Slapped together a quick video of the minigame and posted it on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOc-_d083dw

Might think about making it look prettier later, but for now I hope it helps those asking about how to play the game and win cool stuff.

October 8, 2010

Stoopid Dummie Hed

Made a very dumb mistake yesterday and I thought I'd share my brain-dead moment.
I was looking on the AH for a Hero Cape, a level 60 purple crafted cloak. I've always wanted to prance around the rooftops of Taborea shouting, "Here I come to save the day!!" and I think this cloak is just the thing to give me the gumption to do it.
So I found one for sale by a person named Astragor but the stats were not good for a mage. I decided to write to him and ask him to craft me a new one and I would either collect the mats or pay extra for them to do it from scratch. I composed a polite message and pressed Send.
Then I noticed a message on my chat window saying, "You have paid 1 million gold."
WHAT???
I checked my gold balance and sure enough I had sent lucky Astragor a million smackeroos by mistake.
I immediately wrote another letter and suggested that he had two options: Keep the gold and laugh all the way to the bank, OR craft me the item. Of course, a million gold is about double the asking price for this cape, but I don't care that much.

I was thinking about how I could have accidentally sent a million gold. I had been writing a letter previous to that one and was going to send a million gold to buy an item, then cancelled the mail. I guess it never cancelled the gold amount.

Click to see a larger image.
So to all of you who have experienced a facepalm moment like this: you are not alone! I, too, have experienced Empty-Headed Syndrome and lived to tell the tale, albeit as a much, much poorer toon.

EPILOGUE: Astagor was an honest person and took a third option and returned the gold to me. Thank you!!!
So then I farmed DoD until I got 350 mentos to buy this Savage Mind Cape instead. A happy ending to a silly mistake.

October 7, 2010

I Think I'm Losing It

Watch this video I took.

Are you as confused as I am?
Should I be taking less drugs? Or more?

October 6, 2010

Wardens Anonymous

I am proud as a peacock (peahen?) to announce that my friend and misfit hero, Majyst, has created his own blog called Wardens Anonymous. He's just started it, only two posts, but already I can see his intelligence, kindness and humour shining through.
Have fun with your blog, Maj! I will be reading for sure.  :)

October 5, 2010

Silliest Crafting Project Ever

Ok, I must be the silliest person who plays this game. I get obsessed with some dumb little thing and I'm never satisfied until I accomplish it.

Take this monstrosity pictured here --->

WTF is that, you ask?
It is my crafting project!
Does't it kinda look like something I made out of cereal boxes, twist ties, glitter and delicious paste?
I freaking love it!

You see, I got this purple tailoring recipe, Blackhorn Back Ornament, and because it was so unique I got it into my empty head to craft one. Ever since then I have been obsessively farming Blackhorn Dorglas in Paspers to try to get the darn goat to drop her Damaged Fan. Silly stubborn farm animal just never dropped it! I must have killed her a hundred times or more over the past weeks.

So the other day, having eaten a half a bottle of Flintstone vitamins and therefore perhaps thinking more clearly than I have in a while, I decided to check the AH. Lo and behold, there was a Damaged Fan for only 200k.
Feeling triumphant and retarded at the same time, (a tough thing to do), I bought the thing and then proceeded to gather all the insane mats I needed to finish the recipe, and then finanly crafted the item.
And wow does it ever look...interesting. But I'm darn proud of it!
And I will NEVER craft another again. :)

The best part of this whole story is that it is actually a piece of guild castle furniture. So I get to share my amazing creation with all my lucky guildies. You're welcome!

October 4, 2010

Siege Fail

So KoG has been doing really well in guild seige lately and our score has been creeping upward. We're proud of our increased teamwork and ability to kick butt, but we've been thinking for a while now that some night soon we'd be up against a guild that is far superior to us.
Well, a few nights ago we found them...Dawn Treaders!
It was quite apparent that we were out of league when they took all our towers in the first 10 minutes. Another good indication of our lack of ubernocity was the stunning one-shot kills we all experienced at the hands of their scouts, mages, knights, warriors, priests...well, you get the idea! Everyone in Dawn Treaders is worthy of worship. :)
So I personally decided to just head down to the fight and get my butt killed, and then lay there and chatted it up with our formidable foe.
And I got a fun surprise!
As I was laying there, all cool and corpse-like, a lovely toon named Elesis said to me, "Spiral, do you have a blog?" I laughed and said, "Yes." She said something like: "It's you! You're famous!"
Wow, if a toon could blush, I would have turned red from my nose to my toes! I thanked Elesis for reading my blog and chatted with her for a bit while her guild tore down our gate. In the screenshot, you can see me asking her if I can blog about her guild whooping our ass!

So this blog post is dedicated to the victorious, honourable and friendly Dawn Treaders...I salute you! May we meet again on the battlefield to enjoy another fine siege.

P.S. They also run a cool page on their website of the Top 50 Guilds in Siege. Very nice!