Kalamaf Drackonsbane » LOTRO

New (used) video card

kalamaf — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:34:11 +0000

I’ve been using a Radeon X1950 PRO video card for about 4 years now. It was good when I got it and it was on sale for $199, so it was pretty cheap too. Only had 256mb RAM though so even though it would play most new games you just couldn’t crank up the graphics too much. It would still run WoW maxed out though so that was nice.

Tonight I picked up a used computer that had a pretty nice card in it. It’s a few years old but not quite as old as the x1950 and it’s got 512mb RAM on it too so that’s also good. It a GeForce 8800 GTS 512, I just installed it and ran 3Dmark05 and was quite surprised when it scored almost double what my old card did. 20605 compared to 10790! It’s a keeper, for now anyway, I was planning on picking up an ATi 5770 1gb card for Christmas/birthday but this one should do me for a while since I don’t really play a lot of PC games anyway.

I fired up LOTRO and went to the video options to re-click ‘detect optimal settings’ and after a few seconds of choppiness while it reloaded textures and stuff it’s running nice and smooth and looking prettier than before. I expect some dark circles under eyes tomorrow morning ’cause tonight I might be up a little later than I should be, testing out my games all over again.

Lord of the Rings Online

kalamaf — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:38:41 +0000

So even though I’m still ‘active’ in EQ2, my sub runs out in about 3 weeks, I haven’t really felt like playing it. Kind of a waste of monthly fees this time around and I think part of it is that as an Inquisitor, combat is just so damn slow and boring.

I know a couple people who just started up new accounts in LOTRO and since they had a copy of Mines of Moria on sale for $9.98 nearby I figured I’d give it a whirl. Even if I only play for the free month it will have only cost me $10 so no big deal. So far it’s pretty fun and the levels go by fast. I’ve only played a few hours and am up to level 10 already. I’ve played around a tiny bit with crafting, it seems to be a little more involved than WoW but less effort than EQ2. Quests so far are the standard “kill some of these” and “bring this to that guy over yonder”.

Player housing is something I’ll get around to checking out later, I expect it’s not something easily affordable for a dwarf with a grand total of 40 silver in his pocket, but eventually it’d be nice to have a little place to call home. A cave with walk in tubs and a forge to hammer out swords on. Oh wait, I chose tailor, guess I need a sewing table and loom instead.

Gaming Updates

kalamaf — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:38:00 +0000

Over the last few days I’ve been making some progress in my current 3 games.

LOTRO Trial, now level 14 and have been running around the Shire, helping hobbits. Still having fun with it, and the challenge level has gone up a little bit. Not much though, but I have died a couple of times when 3 or 4 critters gang up on me. I need better potions.

Legend of Morgan, I was briefly in 3rd place.. which if I could hold that position would mean winning $100 US at the end of the round. However, after attempting to steal some more cattle I was reported to the authorities and then someone decided to claim the reward on my head so I lost a full day in jail and fell to 5th place by the time I was out.

Last Scenario, things are picking up in this one as well and I’m still only a couple hours in roughly. Just joined the army and went through another castle/boss fight.

More LOTRO

kalamaf — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:27:00 +0000

Dinggg 10. Ok so it’s a minor ding, but I’m having fun and enjoying this great game while I can. If I come into some extra money (is there really any such thing?) over the next few days I just might have to pick up a copy. Otherwise, once my 10 days is up, it’ll be back to WoW til my time card expires and then who knows. May stick with Anarchy Online for a bit longer, or may reactivate my EverQuest 2 account and see what’s new in Norrath.

Anyway, back to LOTRO, tonight I’ve decided to try a minstrel. Yeah yeah, I don’t like bard types, but I really wanted to see how they play, and also see if they too are practically invincible. So far the fights have been easy, like they were with the Champion, although they do take a bit longer since my melee skills suck. Level 3 already with my Human dude from Rohan.

Of course I’m a dwarf

kalamaf — Wed, 23 May 2007 04:11:00 +0000

First impressions, LOTRO is pretty good. Runs fairly smooth at 1600×1200 on High settings, would be better if I had a faster CPU I’m sure, and more RAM. Task manager has LOTRO using 416mb currently with total system load being around 1209mb (I only have 1gb so it’s doing a fair bit of swapping as it is).

Enough about my crapfest computer, back to the game. Yes, I’m a dwarven Champion. I normally play a cleric/priest class, but in this game the main healer class appears to be a Minstrel, and since I’ve never been a fan of bard classes, I decided to try a slaughterhouse type in stead for my trial run.

The game is easy so far, too easy. I haven’t even been half dead yet from any of the things I’ve fought so far. Compared to Vanguard, where even the first few level 1 monsters I ran into had me nearly dead, this is a cakewalk. I hope the challenge builds up as I go otherwise this could turn rather boring.

The quest journal and map system seems rather well done, but the inventory management could become a pain (no ‘open all bags’ hotkey???) And so far I’ve yet to run across a crafting trainer so I don’t know what the tradeskills are going to be like.

Overall though, it’s holding my interest fairly well for the first 2 hours and may be something I’ll need to save my pennies for since WoW is running out of steam in the end game (for my non-raiding play style).

LOTRO

kalamaf — Wed, 23 May 2007 00:50:00 +0000

Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Long ass name for a game, about to see how it stacks up. Some friends have started playing it recently so I snagged a buddy key (10 day free trial) from one of them and borrowed his discs. Installing it now and will try it out later once the lil’ monster is asleep.