Love Stories in Video Games

When Patch 4.2 Rage of the Firelands released and I did the Elemental Bonds quest for the first time I cried every time Aggra lost Thrall to another elemental aspect.  I felt her pain, her love, her anguish at the mere suggestion that Thrall had been lost forever.  The writers of this particular quest line did a fantastic job in capturing the deep seated emotion that is true love between two souls. 

I did that quest again this morning on my warrior and once again I cried at every stop on the elemental tour.  I’m blessed to love, and be loved by, my best friend.  He is the completion of me and if I were somehow thrust into Aggra’s position I would have the exact same reaction.  It would be impossible for me to accept that the other part of my soul were lost forever and I would be just as pissed off as Aggra. 

Once I got done crying this morning, I got to thinking what other love stories are there in video games and which of those stories are good?   Yesterday morning I completed the majority of quests in Twilight Highlands on my priest including the resulting marriage between Fanny Thundermar and Keegan Firebeard.  Fanny Firebeard cracks me up, she agrees to marry Keegan because he has a fine ass.  You have to love a character like that!

I’m sure there are other grand love stories in video games that are producer created but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.  Anyone know of any?

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft. WOW,Thrall,Aggra

LOTRO: Summer Festival

Lord of the Rings Online Summer Festival has started.  It runs from August 23rd thru September 10th.   I logged Cilantro on, pictured above, and realized I had no desire to play LOTRO.  It’s a combination of several things, first and foremost is that I have no real love of, or attachment to, the story or books.  I couldn’t get into them as a child and while reading The Hobbit several years ago was a rewarding experience and clued me in on a lot of hidden gems in the other games I play, the overall story doesn’t hold my attention.  The second reason is much more fundamental, gameplay.  It feels slow and methodical to me.  I’m not sure why that is, it may be the difference between the fast paced action in games like Rift and Guild Wars 2, or it may be the lack of interest in the story.

I will follow the cosmetic blogs with interest but I just can’t see myself logging in to run festivals to dress characters I feel  blah about.  Doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind in a couple of months, I reserve that right after all I’m a woman!   The chances are great I’ll poke my head in for Winter Festival.  And pictures from the cosmetic blogs, and like the one above, serve as great reminders at just how beautiful the LOTRO world can be.

 

Technorati Tags: Lord of the Rings Online,LOTRO,Summer Festival,Winter Festival,Cilantro,Rift,Guild Wars 2

Catrin: Laughing and Sleeping thru her 40’s

This is Catrin, my drawf shaman, from WOW.  She turned 46 yesterday and changed her primary spec to healing after five, yes five, failed attempts to successfully complete Stratholme: Main Gate.  Apparently, it’s HARD to heal easily.  Wait what?  Yeah I know, stop laughing.  Seriously, five separate groups fell apart in less than three minutes each because the healer couldn’t keep up or let all the dps die because they decided they only heal tanks.  Now mind you, once I switched over to healing I had no trouble healing the whole party and managing to have time to nod off between pulls. 

But my overall favorite moment yesterday, was the priest in Dire Maul who had to bitch at the group because I off-healed her and everyone else when she was at less than 10% health and about to die.  She seriously thought I should have let the group wipe rather than heal.  I about died laughing and the group did too.  She got so offended when the tank asked me to continue doing exactly what I was doing that she rage quit.  That group was the highlight of my day.  We laughed the entire rest of the instance, which was finished without further healer drama.

Blizzard did restore my deleted druid at my request yesterday morning.  She is level 76 and I cannot tell you what a relief it is not to hear that incessant sniffing when I log into her.   Blizzard was even kind enough to restore some sold bags which was appreciated.  For all their faults, Blizzard is pretty damn good about character restoration after you do something stupid like deleting a character.

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft,WOW,Blizzard,Catrin,druid

World of Warcraft: Meet Catrin

Aww my wee Shaman, Catrin, is pictured above.  She is now 31 and zipping through levels very quickly.  Heirlooms make such a huge difference.  It is  equal parts annoying and productive so I am going to continue to use the heirlooms.  I don’t miss the gear grind for low level weapons and chest pieces to be perfect honest.  I just wish there was an option to turn off the experience bonus on heirloom pieces.

I have two available character slots on our primary server, one for a rogue and a death knight.  When I purchase the expansion that will give me the eleventh slot for my monk character.  Question is two-fold: do I want another death knight and what race do I make my monk and rogue?

I’m having fun in WOW.  DH played Rift today and I could hear his glee with each PvP win he racked up, which was a good thing because he had a hell of a week at work.  I might join him in Rift tomorrow, depends on my mood.  I enjoy the PvP in Rift and am looking forward to player housing with the expansion, but I get a little frustrated when my questing is constantly interrupted by, well rifts.  LOL

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft,WOW,Rift

World of Warcraft: How Has WOW Changed My Life?

Thanks to WOW Insider for leading me to this blog posting and the friendly folks over at Blog Azeroth.  WOW changed my life quite dramatically, I went from a non-gamer to a gamer on my own terms. *This posting is a repost from my main blog at Gaming Couples.*

The Beginning

We meet, fell in love, and got married rather late in life, late 30’s.  I wasn’t a gamer by any definition.  I played Pac Man way back when but that’s pretty much it.  I, however, married a gamer.  In fact, shortly after we got married (less than a month to be precise), WOW was released.  I didn’t understand what he was doing in the basement for hours on end and I certainly couldn’t understand why those people and a “raid” was more important than me, the new wife.  I slow gave up trying to understand and gave up trying to pry him away from the computer.

The Middle

Four years later, we’ve moved to Arizona and I’ve retired.  My brilliant hubby decides to buy me a copy of Guild Wars with my new laptop.  I was bored with Oblivion after hundreds of hours spent in Tamriel.  I had no clue what I was doing in Guild Wars and he hated it but I stuck with it for a couple of months.  And then on the sly on night when I couldn’t sleep, I downloaded the trial of WOW.  I created a Gnome Mage and I died A LOT.  Seriously, I sucked horribly.  I remember getting a recipe for Beer Basted Boar Ribs and thought it was super important. 

Didn’t take hubby long to catch on that I had stayed up all night playing WOW.  The next day I had my very own copy, he reactivated his subscription, and Refer-A-Friend active and thus began my adventures in Azeroth with hubby.  I rolled a Night Elf Hunter named Penelopa.  Looking back, I don’t know how we didn’t spend more time corpse running.  I had no clue about threat, shinnies were uber attractive, and I was terrified of PvP and dungeons. 

Today

We both play other games.  WOW is in my rotation frequently.  In fact, I just reactivated my subscription this week.  About a week and a half ago I saw a picture of the new druid travel form and it peaked my interest.  A little poking here, a little dabbling there and wouldn’t you know it I’ve got the WOW bug again.

My game play has improved dramatically since 2008.  I know what I’m comfortable playing and I know when I need a WOW break.  I may not love our server, but it is the server hubby has played on since 2004.  He hasn’t re-subscribed this time and I’m fine with that.  He’s happy when I’m happy and right now, playing WOW makes me happy.  I’m leveling my “baby” toons and looking forward to the release of Patch 5.0.4.

So, WOW changed my life, and hubby’s by extension, when it turned me into a gamer.  I play other MMO’s but WOW was my first true MMO and thus has a special place in the memory bank.

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft,WOW,Blizzard,Oblivion,Guild Wars 2

World of Warcraft: Sucked in Again

Life in Arizona has been great, so why did life in Azeroth resurrect itself?  It’s not because of a lack of things to do in gaming, but more because I’m interested in the forth coming changes to WOW.  Yeah, yeah I know they sucked me in last time they released an expansion and I was disappointed big time and I’m not expecting this expansion to rock my world in any meaningful way to be honest.  I resubbed this morning after watching the released opening cinematic for Mists.

The cinematic blew me away.  It offered far more than just “here’s a sneak peak at the boss at the end of the expansion”.  Instead it focused on Horde and Alliance interaction and the first encounter with a Pandarian monk.  There was just something about that video that spoke to me, unlike the opening cinematics for Wrath and Cataclysm.  I wasn’t that interested in the expansion when it was announced or for the last several months as open beta news as been released.  In the last week however, that has changed and I know what sparked my interest.  This picture:

Now, admittedly I can’t explain to you why being a stag instead of cheetah in travel form is such a game changer for me but it just is.  It makes a huge difference and you’d better believe it is one of the first glyphs my Alliance and Horde druids will be receiving.  There are also several other glyphs which are druid relevant, include the Glyph of Chameleon, Glyph of the Orca, Glyph of Treant, and Glyph of Cheetah.  The upcoming cosmetic changes to druid are truly what sparked my interest to play again.

I logged on this morning and all my old characters were there and waiting for me.  I played a couple of levels on my baby shaman and had fun.  WOW isn’t going to be my full time game ever again, but it will be the go to game when other games are quiet or I need a place to hang out and get lost for a while.

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft,WOW,Blizzard,shaman,druid,Mists of Pandaria

LOTRO Events this weekend

 

This weekend is the last weekend to celebrate the five year anniversary of LOTRO.  If you haven’t gotten your goodies yet, now is the perfect time to stop by and experience the celebration.  The celebration comes to an official close on May 9th.  My characters need to try and get at least one mount each, that 68% speed buff and 250 morale on the horses is extremely nice.

Also this weekend, on Landroval, come join us for:

Screenshot courtesy the Windy Acres Ranch

This annual event, hosted by Windy Acres Ranch kinship, has a plethora of prizes and should be a lot of fun.  In conjunction with the event, ALL LOTRO store exclusive mounts are being offered this weekend in the store.  So now is the perfect opportunity to grab that mount you might be missing and enter a race.

LOTRO and the Dwarf Conundrum

I know there is only one female Dwarf mentioned in the works by Tolkien, Dis the sister of Thorin.  However, this presents quite the dilemma for those of us wanting to play a female dwarf in the online version of the game.  When I first started playing LOTRO I had just quite WOW after Cataclysm released.  I’ve always had a female dwarf character that healed and now suddenly I couldn’t.  Needless to say, I was frustrated and so DH suggested I make a Dwarf and play him as a girl.  I tried it, just didn’t feel right.

I’ve recently been playing a lot of LOTRO, and will continue to do so even when The Secret World releases, and the whole female dwarf issue was rumbling around the back of my brain.  After looking at CurvedSteel blog, I was excited to try and play a female dwarf.

  This is the screenshot of Storum the Ministrel I created this morning.  I tried to make the character look as feminine as possible.    


I played until level 6 when I had access to my shared wardrobe.  






The end results did not satisfy me and thus I am going to be giving up my dream of a female dwarf.  I’d rather give up the dream then be in a constant state of flux and frustration with a character

WOW Dalliance Over

 

I’ve returned to my senses and my dalliance in the realm of Azeroth is over, pretty sure for good this time.  My darling DH recently upgraded my pc and now there is nothing out there that I want to play that my machine doesn’t run perfectly.  Which means, WOW has ceased to hold any interest for me.

So, what I am now playing you might be wondering?  I’m waiting patiently,  read with baited breath, for The Secret World (TSW) to release on June 19th.  Until then I’m back to playing LOTRO and I must say with a computer that no longer stutters in Bree I’m truly having an excellent time.  More LOTRO adventures to come today however.

First beta weekend for TSW begins May 11th and this morning they announced the parameters for the beta weekend.  The tears and angst has begun in earnest on the forums and I’ll admit I’m getting a good laugh out of it.  I’m sure a lot of people played the Facebook game or bought a pre-purchase pack to try it and then cancel the order.  And now they are learning that their anticipated open sand box is much more like a playpen and they have to play within the rules set down by Funcom.  

A couple of new characters

Jamie Shepard: the Engineer in Mass Effect.  I started over with a completely new character.  I had forgotten how different all three games are from a UI stand point.  Mass Effect 1 is the least polished but the story more than makes up for what the UI lacks.

Boxxi: the Goblin Hunter in WOW.  She hit level 21 this morning.  I am surprised I’m leveling another hunter but she is cracking me up, her flopping braids when she runs just make me smile.

Jezzbecka: the Troll Druid in WOW.  Probably my favorite class to level right now but getting weapons and armor for her has been a problem on Windrunner.  I’m letting Boxxi do the heavy lifting right in terms of making gold and sharing.

Penelopa, the Hunter & Pippa, the Priest

My first ever (non-trial account) WOW character and still my first love.  And if I’m honest, she is one of the reasons I keep coming back.  Her faithful companion, Bess: a turtle from Southshore, are like old friends.  Truth be told, Bess rarely comes out these days but she is still very near and dear to Pen’s heart.

Pippa, my drawven priest with twirling braids, is my character I always come back to WOW for.  There is just something about her that always feels unfinished and waiting for me to complete.   I am planning of trying to take her solo through Karazhan for the Mongoose recipe.  I’m not a big raider, read I have fun when I raid but hate raiding as a concept, so attempting a solo raid is a big deal for me especially as a priest.

My first ever (non-trial account) WOW character and still my first love.  And if I’m honest, she is one of the reasons I keep coming back.  Her faithful companion, Bess: a turtle from Southshore, are like old friends.  Truth be told, Bess rarely comes out these days but she is still very near and dear to Pen’s heart.

WoW and other games

I  resubbed to WOW a little over a week ago now.  I’m not actively playing everyday but I am enjoying my play time.  I do realize however that playing WOW exclusively will not work for me.  I am going to slightly change the blog’s focus from strictly WOW to all the games that get played here. 

WOW first:

Once I logged in again, I first checked all my toons and verified that all the cash and guild cash was all present and accounted for.  That task completed, I logged onto my Horde server, Windrunner.  I’ve always been a true-blue Alliance player but this time I want to play the Horde storyline.  I have several toons on that are sitting there patiently waiting for me to level them and in one case, delete the toon once I no longer need her bank space.   I got my goblin priest to 20 and the goblin shaman to 25 but realized I don’t want to play my priest and a goblin shaman is just makes no sense.  Those two toons are parked for now.  My goblin hunter and warlock are also waiting, neither interests me so I decided to level my troll druid.  She was level 10 and when I logged off yesterday  afternoon she was level 23. 

My biggest WOW complaint … leveling is too damn fast.  I wish one of the announcements from the expansion press tour last week was the decision to implement the Everquest 2 feature which allows you to turn off the experience of your choice, from within your UI.  If I could turn off combat experience but leave on quest experience I would be so thrilled!  I would love to actually not out level a zone and miss story line.

Mass Effect 3

Hubby played it over the last week and a half, I still haven’t finished the second installment in the trilogy.  As a spectator the good and the bad are from an observation viewpoint, I didn’t know I would need a damn box of tissue when he started the game up.  Seriously, I can’t remember another video game I’ve cried so much about.  Bioware did a great job in wrapping up the story but they truly just didn’t give a crap about the ending.  I’m not talking about the color of explosions, but about the choice you make before the explosion occurs.  Seriously, all three choices just pissed me off.  Hubby was far more irritated, hell pissed off, about the final scene data pad pimping the coming DLC.   I swear I heard his teeth grinding off enamel when that came on the screen. 

I will give Bioware this much credit, their ending(s) is something everyone is talking about.  That generates buzz but does it generate good buzz?  Chances are if you played Mass Effect 3 when it released, you’ve played the previous two games.   The outcry over the ending possibilities may detour many potential new gamers from ever enjoying the Mass Effect universe.  That universe is one that is rich in detail, characters, and stories to be told but negative buzz may result in the Mass Effect universe never telling another story.

I am going to play the trilogy straight through instead of concluding 2 and moving onto 3.  For me, the first game is by far the most gripping and enjoyable and so I’m going back.  It will also give me some distance from hubby’s game so it won’t all be fresh in my mind as I’m playing, which is the only drawback to watching him play through a game we will both play.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

I’ve almost finished this game.  I am so very impressed with the rich and detailed world.  The first DLC is out today and it will be downloaded and consumed greedily by me.  The world is rich in lore and quests.  Plus it makes a nice change from Mass Effect and my horrible first person shooting skills. 

Just can’t stay away

I’m beginning to lose track of how many times I’ve actually quit WOW and swore that I was never going back.  I am still currently unsubbed but truth is I will be resubbing this weekend most likely.  Last time I left and came back I started playing my way and ignoring the crappy community on my server.  I will do the same thing when I go back.  I enjoy the questing and lore and I don’t enjoy the negativity. 

I have a couple of tones that still aren’t level 85 yet so I am going to get them to 85.  I have two toons that are well below level 85 but they will be deleted.  I used heirlooms with them and thus missed far too much of the story line for my satisfaction.  

I am not making promises that I won’t be tempted away by Guild Wars 2 when it finally releases.  It seems like I’ve been waiting for that game to release forever.  I also admit that I actively enjoy Lord of the Rings Online.