So just yesterday I was down about LOTRO but all fired up and excited for Dragon Age. Those are pretty much flipped, although I’m actually playing DA:O today and not LOTRO as I need the ability to pause which LOTRO doesn’t quite give me. Anyway, what happened you ask?
I’ll start with Dragon Age. Today was supposed to be the day their first DLC was released as my post from yesterday talks about. However, at about 4pm-ish yesterday Bioware announces the DLC will not be released on any platform and that’s it. No time-frame, no reason, no nothing. There’s now roughly a 150-page thread on their boards about this issue with ZERO response from Bioware. I don’t need exact specifics or timeframes but ANYTHING would be nice. I realize in the software industry things happen, but at least give us something. And then the kicker for me is they pick today of all days to announce the release of the upcoming expansion! Now don’t get me wrong, the Awakening sounds REALLY cool as we get a chance to continue the story with our characters from DA:O if we want, start a new character, and grow past level 20 with new abilities, items, etc. And I also realize the press releases were most likely planned ahead of time and went out automagically – but seriously, you have enough resources to put out all this info, change your web-site, etc and you can’t give us a “Ostagar will be out next week” post on the forums?? To top off this wonderful day, this expansion pack will cost $40! I’m not sure I follow the math as it isn’t as big as the original (rumored at 15 hours vs 30+ with DA:O) and it is the same price as DA:O (not the special edition). I will most likely still buy it as I’m really into this story line but decisions and service like this is really making me less likely to play SW:TOR and more happy I’m a lifetime subscriber to LOTRO!
(edit – update as I’m still waiting on YouTube – Chris Priestly has posted 3 updates basically saying we’ll get it when we get it. Now his first post was 20 hours after the slip announcement and 3 hours AFTER he announced the xpack. I know it is tough for them, but this is all rather frustrating and potentially an indication of things to come. They could have had some other rep announce the xpack – kinda makes them look like they really don’t care about the DLC)
Ok, my rant is over. I was stalling this post for 2 reasons today – 1) hoping Bioware would do something and 2) waiting for my videos to upload onto YouTube (over 2GB worth). But, YouTube beat Bioware 🙂
The good part of yesterday was a great day for my warden in LOTRO. I ended up not logging in until late but managed to log in just as my kin was looking to get a group together for Sammuth Gul (new Mirkwood 6-man instance) and I joined in. We were just planning on doing easy mode as it was pretty late, and that was fine by me. Now I didn’t end up tanking it as our main tank was joining us too. However, for my first run I was more then happy to not have the added stress of having to main tank as I had a chance to learn what was going on and understand how things should be done. So we made our way up to the first boss and had a couple of un-fortunate issues with our RK and minnie, so it was down to me (warden), guard, and champ to finish off the last 30K or so of the boss. The champ as they usually do since they’re real squishy dies next and the guard and I finish him off. Here’s the video of it for your viewing pleasure.
The next 2 bosses went relatively smoothly as did the trash, needless to say I was happy to run with this group as they had it pretty well down pat. Here are the videos of those fights as well.
And then to top it off, after that the champ, guard, and I ran Sword Halls – again on easy mode. Pretty fun to run an instance without a healer 😉 Another video as well:
So with those instances, I was able to get enough tokens for my first piece of both the 25 and 15 radiance sets. Nothing huge, but a step in the right direction for sure.
Oh, and I finally got enough marks to get the ranger mask – as you’ll notice from the videos.