AMC is doing their promo blitz for the updated version of ‘The Prisoner’, one of the cool items they sent along was this ‘Prisoner Timeline’ piece. Take a look! And don’t forget to catch ‘The Prisoner’ Sunday, November 15 at 8pm/7c on AMC. When Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner aired in 1967, it was unlike anything else [...]

Viggo Mortensen has been honoured for his work in film. The actor took to the red carpet in Hollywood as the American Film Institute (AFI) held a special evening in his honour as part of the AFI Festival, accompanying a screening of his new movie The Road. “It’s a team sport making movies,” said Viggo, [...]

TORN Pal and author Ethan Gilsdorf has agreed to blog his West coast book tour for us! Take a look at his first blog: One of the joys of traveling across the US on tour for my book FANTASY FREAKS AND GAMING GEEKS: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other [...]

Ian McKellen is going back to drama school, for television. The thesp has signed to star in a half-hour mockumentary series, “The Academy,” that is being shopped to U.K. and U.S. buyers by DLT Entertainment. McKellen would play his fictional brother, Murray McKellen, who heads a run-down drama school, the Clapham Academy of Creative [...]

From english.people.com.cn: U.S. producer-director Peter Jackson is expected to be in China in late November to promote his latest project – “District 9,” which will be released across the country on Nov. 27, the Oriental Morning Post reports. The director of the “Lord of Rings” series will visit Beijing and Shanghai to interact with moviegoers. [...]

Yesterday I was shocked to hear my boyfriend say that Sanjali - his main and a Warden - is his most favorite character ever. I actually had to ask him to repeat himself because what he said didn’t click in my brain!

This was surprising for two reasons.

One, he’s a fairly ancient gamer with at least a decade under his belt… though I’m not sure exactly how far back his gaming goes as I didn’t know him back then. Together we’ve played through numerous online games, though I have not gamed nearly as long as he.

As best as I can tell, he started with MuDs. He was there for the beta of the original EQ, which is how I know it’s been at least a decade, and to this day is a walking encyclopedia of Norrathian lore (I’m not joking about that either - ask him anything pre-Shattering and he’ll know it).

But, my point is that’s a lot of characters over many years and games he’s played through to compare.

The second reason is that anyone who’s played with us for a length of time knows that he’s appeared to have a love/hate relationship with his Warden all along. At points he’s gotten so frustrated that he no longer wanted to play it, but sometimes - like right now - he’s been on a rampage with trying to level it!

I asked him why Sanjali was his favorite ever. I mean, he’s had some *very* accomplished characters in the past, though nowadays age and real life responsibilities has eased the majority of that drive.

The answer? The class is so darn challenging and intensive that it was immensely rewarding when he actually pulled off something crazy!

There is no downtime in any fight, so you can’t turn your attention away for a second. It’s the challenge of getting every gambit off at the perfect time, but also the challenge to get the right gambit off for what’s happening at that fraction of the fight. And yes, he actually keeps a list of gambits taped to his PC.

He’s chuckled at how “easy” combat is on his other alts because they were nowhere near as complicated as Sanjali to him. They are his “vacation” from his Warden.

So here’s to Wardens! Thank you Turbine for providing a class that’s so engrossed a veteran MMO player - which in turn has made his girlfriend very happy.

Also we went through the epic instance, “We Cannot Get Out” for the first time last night. We were so enthralled by the might of Captain Ori that soon after we rerolled a couple low-level alts to create two new Dwarf Champion characters in homage to the memory of him!

Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!

Late last night, a couple of us kinnies were chatting as we did menial things like farming and crafting. It turns out that one of them was also a member of a Captain/Warden duo like I am, so we started comparing trait setups and strat. This sort of evolved into a “Hey! Let’s go try something neither of us have done before!”

So logically, we decided to find Lothlórien though we hadn’t been there yet or really knew the way. Or had any business being there since we hadn’t finished Moria!

Through morroval...

Finding the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm!

The First Hall - and exit!

At the first camp in Lothlórien, where we rested for the night.

Unfortunately it was late & dark both in game and in real life, so we wrapped up here. I look forward to seeing more in the daylight.

Surprisingly I really enjoyed the Captain/Captain duo. We complemented each other well since we could run different buffs and we decided to use the heralds to help beef us up a bit through all the orange con mobs.

I wonder what other classes also do well with each other?

So, another first for me this week: I rolled a Creep and started PvMP!

I chose a Weaver for my first one, both because of the ranged attacks and also just in case I get a chance to participate in the Halloween PvMP events happening on Landroval. I kept a beginner’s guide on my web browser behind my windowed game screen so that I could try to follow the advice as I navigated the new terrain as one of Sauron’s baddies.

As a newbie, or “green”, PvMP toon you are started off with only 4 skills and you need to spend Destiny Points to obtain more. Since I had a stockpile of around 17k points from PvE leveling, I picked up a few more active skills along with one health boost passive skill right away.

I also needed to begin a series of quests to obtain maps for fast traveling between outposts. Creeps do not get access to mounts, so maps are your only source of fast travel in the Moors. I set off to first unfog the entire Moors world map and also to work on my first series of quests to obtain a better map to Gramsfoot (the Creep starting area).

I have to admit that my first excursion into PvMP was not pretty. At all. I was a walking bullseye for Renown-hungry Freeps who rightfully saw a very easy kill in a lonely greenie Creep, and I was toast within two or three shots. Lesson learned there - looks like I need to find a band of friends to go creepin’ with until I gain more experience and survivability!

I did manage to get most of the landmarks opened on my world map, and about half of those first quests done for my first map deed before cocooning for the night.

I now face the depths of Moria in all my noobie glory! For several days we’ve been exploring the shallow end depths of the mines, but I know soon we’ll have to venture deeper, deeper, where the darkest beasts lie in wait. Time now to take up the mantle of hero, become strong in arm and soul, for the long road before us.

Today I finally downloaded and installed CStats, the combat log parser for LoTRO. I knew of its existence early on but had not availed myself of it for a couple reasons: one, I wasn’t too worried about performance as I was leveling, and two, I had just come to this game after playing endgame on my prior one where parsers were a must-have for every play session and your performance was monitored and judged by everyone.

The latter is a partial reason why I left that game, because I felt I could no longer let my hair down and just play. Even on casual group runs someone always had a parser running and spammed group chat with rankings.

LoTRO is different though in that the combat logs don’t generate data for other players, so you can ever only view your own combat data (though I do think it measures incoming healing - not clear on that yet). That’s a good thing for more casual players in my opinion, because it allows people to self opt-in to log parsing and performance evaluation. If you don’t care about it, no one is going to come at you and say “Your DPS is XYZ!”

For myself, this will allow me to make my own judgments on what’s truly best for my character: what works, what doesn’t, what is overhyped, and what’s a load of poo-poo on the forums. If I’m iffy about some concept I can go run my own tests to see how effective (or not) it really is.

I know some people are saying at this point: “Bah! Who cares about that - just play the game!” and for the most part I do, but I have to admit that I’m a wannabe geek.

So, after installing and loading the program, I immediately ran out to kill some mobs and see my results.

Yes, the results suck! I’m not max level or geared with endgame items, I’m traited as a full-on healer, I admit button-mashing, and I am using my starter Legendary from the book quest (so sue me, I’m leveling it to 21 for decon and it’s 19 now). No epeen going on here!

But, I learned something valuable already.

One, since my auto-attack is nearly half my damage output, my weapon damage spread, critical melee chance and stats affecting weapon damage are all very important. That starter legendary has got to go soon.

Also, just using two same-level signature mobs scenarios, I did 8.53 more DPS using a Herald of War rather than the Banner of War. Obviously that’s not a good sample, so I need to test this on one single mob a bit more extensively, but that could be significant information for soloing.

I can also test out legacies as I find more LIs to play with, and judge for myself which ones are more beneficial to me rather than rely on information thrown around on forums. I can also figure out the best skill rotation instead of mashing buttons…

Now, is DPS the be-all-end-all measure for a well-played Captain? Not at all. There’s a lot more to it than pumping out damage and I would surely frustrate some people if I only concentrated on that! I am not advocating giving up my main job in favor of DPS. I need to buff, heal, and hit the panic button when needed with my duo, so that continues to be my main focus.

But as the old adage says, knowledge is power. And so every sliver of it I get only helps this noob break free of noobdom!

I freely admit that I don’t play games purely to roleplay anymore. At one point long, long ago in EQ1, I did roleplay very heavily and was exclusively “in character” - but I don’t think I could do that now, especially with the advent of voice chat that I use nearly every play session.

Today, as I was scrolling through the plethora of kinship ads on the forums and seeing more than half are for roleplaying kinships, it came to me. I don’t roleplay nearly as much because of two reasons:

1. I created characters that are very difficult for me to maintain RPly in their environment
2. I generally shy away from melodramatic situations/people

Looking back, characters I’ve successfully roleplayed over the years had quirky personas:

• A kleptomaniac halfling
• An evil necromancer with a lab to carry out experiments
• A mischievous child
• A pirate with a heavy cockney accent
• A mischievous fairy
• A shamanistic tribal outcast who only spoke the common tongue brokenly

That last one was the namesake of my current Dyjia avatar and is what I created my character here around…her name, her looks and cosmetic items, my idea of her background, everything was done in the hope of recreating that persona here, Middle-earth style.

However I’ve done a terrible job of it! I know what she should be, but I just have not allowed her to bloom here.

I’m not wanting to do something against lore - I’m more a purist at heart in every game I play, so I steer clear from vampires/demonspawn/half-gods as much as any other purist. (And good golly do I dislike vampire RP…)

But the truth is that I’m afraid that by having a character who isn’t from a vanilla background I’ll make some pretty hefty mistakes that would set off the lore-alarms. I already had one person comment skeptically on one of my few attempts, so I sort of gave up after that.

And so Dyjia languishes RPly….adventure wise she’s doing fabulous though!

I wanted to say thank you, dear readers, for your visits to my little gaming space of the interwebz, and in particular thank those loyal few who always seem to comment with every new entry I write!

I’ve never been much of a diarist, but this is such a supporting, welcoming little community that I’ve really enjoyed doing so here. Though I don’t always respond individually to every comment left for me, I do read them all and always welcome your own anecdotes on whatever topic is up.

For any potential new bloggers: I encourage you to give it a try! Read some blogs, leave your comments, request friendships with your fellow bloggers whose material you enjoy (we don’t bite, I promise) - it’s really a nice sidelight to our gaming here in Middle-earth.

Now, as promised in my previous post…

Introducing…

Yep, the old Man was chosen and is our brand new LM!

Though the redhead Woman definitely got brownie points for being eyecandy for us, in the end we decided that the entertainment value of Ardulf far exceeded the youthful beauty of the lady model.

Entertainment value, you ask?

Well, it went something like this:

“Wow, he looks like he’s on his last leg!”
“I don’t think he can climb a hill much less travel all over Middle-earth.”
“He should be a Burglar or Guardian, I bet he moves faaaast. (harharhar)”
“You know, we could park him in front of your house and have him yelling at fiesty hooligans to Get off my lawn!’” (His game house is in Falathorn, so those hooligans would be Elves…)

The last one cinched the deal.

[Note that neither my boyfriend nor myself are exactly spring chickens ourselves so it's all in good fun, I promise!]

Have been on blogging hiatus for a couple weeks. A mix of stressful real life stuff has taken a large part of my time lately: my abuelo (grandfather) passed away and I’ve been juggling midterm exams. I’m very lucky to have outstandingly supportive family and friends to help out though!

Also, gamewise, I’ve finally given up Morrowind and all the mods I made for it in favor of starting anew with Oblivion. I’m always such a latecomer…

Good news in Middle-earth, I finally entered Moria and got my first legendaries! I am so excited by this, and despite what anyone says I really like how LoTRO did their “epic weapon” concept. One thing I never was too wild about in past MMOs was that my epic class weapon was the exact same as everyone else of my class, but here I can not only choose how to build it, but also name it!

So my two lovelies are:

Bite of the Serpent, a heavy old halberd whose worn leather grip is engraved with a silvery coiled snake

Insignia of the Ayonic Journey, a small ivory badge carved with a pattern of tiny musical notes

The first is purely an RP invention for my current Dyjia avatar, the second is a nod to her prior incarnation in a universe far away.

I’d love to hear about what you guys used as names for your legendaries!

Also, my boyfriend reactivated his second account and is going to work with me to level a Lore-master on it. We decided it might be nice to have the extra storage, and also a pocket third for future 3-mans when there’s no one around to group with. I created two LMs on it and am going to let him choose which one he likes more: a young pretty redhead Woman with amber eyes or an old Man with a long white flowing beard, all Gandalf-like. Wonder which he’ll pick…. taking bets! lol…. pics with next post.

~

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

~

-J.R.R. Tolkien

With the recent rash of hacks that’s scared the bejebus out of many players, I thought I’d post a security reminder for MyLoTRO readers today because I really hate to see people become victims of internet theft.

I am considering that most of you are fairly net-savvy to begin with if you’re reading blogs, so I apologize if I am preaching to the choir here. Hopefully though a few people will consider some security measures they were not aware of before.

These are some easy, non-techie tips and I encourage you to add some more in the comments if you’d care to!

Keep your antivirus/anti-malware up to date and run scans regularly. I personally also run Spybot Search & Destroy (free to DL and use) at least once a week.

If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, I’d recommend you consider changing to one that has a safer track record, such as Mozilla Firefox - and possibly Google Chrome though I have not used it myself. These browsers are also free to download and use, and come with the option to add plug ins to disable those annoying advertisements and malicious scripts.

Never, ever click on any strange links from people you do not know.

If you are randomly instructed by a “representative” to visit the website and access your account, do not follow the link given to you - it might be a phishing scam. Phishing: where they con you into believing that you are entering the legitimate website, when in fact it’s simply a front just to get your info. Instead go straight to the homepage by typing manually www.lotro.com, then navigate your way to the section you need.

When in doubt, always call the company directly to verify the authenticity of the account request - in fact, if you are ever contacted in a threatening manner (ie, “If you don’t go to this website now we’ll ban your account”) you need to call right away and speak to a live person to get it sorted out. Don’t be bullied into doing something foolish!

It’s obvious but has to be said: when you share your account info with your friends or family you just compromised your security.

Even if you are 100% confident in their trustworthiness - do you really know how safe they keep their computer? Do you know how often they update their antivirus, or if they let their kids go crazy downloading all kinds of stuff off the net?

Never, ever use the same login and password for your game account as you do for your forum/fansite accounts. Many forum admins can retrieve this information and check it to see if it works on your gaming account.

On a related note, never use a password that can be guessed from reading your MySpace page or just by making small talk with you, like using ‘Boston28′ if you live in Boston and you are 28 years old.

Don’t download any third-party programs like bots or purchase gaming services like gold + powerleveling. These are notorious for compromising accounts. Third-party programs can be infected with keyloggers and goldsellers use stolen accounts to fund their business. (You didn’t think they actually paid for their goldfarming accounts did you? When you buy gold you are directly supporting the theft of your fellow players’ accounts.)

And here I am not making a personal judgment but just stating facts: porn sites are also notorious for being cesspools of malicious downloads. If you must indulge, consider other forms of media.

If you’re on a home network with other computers, two things you want to consider.

One, is your network encrypted? By default most networks are not encrypted when they are first set up, but if you followed the installation instructions you should have been able to set up a network key (password). This helps prevent random people from accessing your network connection and monitoring what you’re doing!

Two, do you actually share documents with the other computers on your network? If you don’t, consider going into your Network options and turning off File Sharing. That way, no infected computer on your network can tinker around in your files.

Read up on general internet security practices. If you’re on the internet you really need to take a few minutes to educate yourself, because it’s not the responsibility of companies to ensure your computer’s integrity. Hackers prey on people who have no clue how to protect themselves!

The good news is though, that most hack jobs are not brute force attacks and can easily be prevented with some sound security measures in place. After all, why would they go after the paranoid guy who’s made their goal tougher over the naive guy who clicks everything blissfully unaware?

Sunday night I joined in on the festivities at a party thrown by the Guardians of Vilya! The party games were amusing: there was a fishing scavenger hunt, a circle of death 1v1 contest, an imprompu battle of the bands, a swimming relay race, and pie!

It was great to be surrounded by a bunch of very cool people who were excited to get together in game and just have a good time hanging out. Very gracious folks.

They followed up the party with a “for-fun-only” raid on Helegrod for all us night owls that weren’t yet ready to leave the celebration. It was my very first real LoTRO raid experience.