Adarel
Adarel is Emily Bembeneck, a Ph.D student at the University of Michigan, who works on classical epic and video games. She loves piano music, Aimee Mann, fantasy trilogies, sci-fi movies, and cats. Her two young sons like games too, but spend more time building LEGO sets and playing with cars yet. Just wait though! :) Among other games, she plays Lord of the Rings Online on the Landroval server. Her main is a Lore-Master in the friendly raiding kinship , and can often be seen studying old scrolls with kitty by her side - much like in real life! If you'd like to hear more of her exploits and/or studies, follow her on twitter, visit her blog, or become a fan on Facebook.
Homepage: http:/adaplay.wordpress.com
AIM: Adarel
Posts by Adarel
Instance Marks v Boss Drops
Aug 11th
After playing around on beta and thinking about the new design of instances, I have decided that I do not like the way rewards are set up, at least as we currently know them. Dev Diary 2 on Instances explains it well. Basically, we will be able to run instances through the Skirmish interface (now called Instance Join) and we will acquire a similar kind of Mark from each instance. Unique drops will be available from a vendor instead of from bosses, and only a “Legendary Item jackpot” will exist on the end boss, aside from the Marks, of course.
It sounds simple and lovely in concept, but I am really going to miss the pursuit of pieces from a specific boss. Although the gear available from places like Annuminas and Helegrod is beautiful, it is all available through the Classic skirmish vendor. No longer will I be trying again and again for a specific piece and awarded eventually with not only the armor itself, but also a host of memories associated with its acquisition. Instead, I will run whatever instance I run over and over, all of them coalescing into a single grind in my mind, and the gear I acquire at the end of it will be devoid of a connection to individual experiences.
Please click here to read the entire article including my full defense of the boss loot table.
NDA lift – Lore-Master Changes & Addon
Aug 3rd
There are only a few changes coming to the LM class that I’ll mention briefly here, but I’d also like to talk about an add-on that is currently available in beta and will be open to users in live once F2P launches with .lua support.
Lore-Master, Master of Lore?
Jul 6th
I have been thinking a lot lately about the way our characters play us in games like this. “Wait, I think you meant to say that the other way around,” you may say. But no. I mean, how does it change our experience of the world to play a female Hobbit Guardian versus a male Elven Lore-Master? It may be the same person sitting in the chair on Earth, but it’s a completely different character in Middle-Earth.
So, what does it mean to be a Lore-master? More >
To Isengard (Come on, you Ents!)
Jun 16th
LOTRO is going to Isengard and all of us along with it! That’s right, at E3 this week, Kate Paiz, the executive producer said that sometime next year (2011), players will be in Isengard.
We don’t know yet whether this will be a full expansion or a “content pack”. Turbine wants to wait and see player response to the packs before they make a decision. It is unclear whether the content packs will be free/included for full subscribers and/or Lifetime members (though I believe they will be), but free or not, I’m excited to see it!
For an LM twist, I hope we get some perks to our March of the Ents spell and maybe another tree-like ability. Tree-pet, yes please? :D
Let’s prepare to welcome the new LMs!
Jun 6th
Despite my angry post about the F2P changes coming to LOTRO, I do see positive aspects of this change. One of those is naturally the influx of new players the new system will inevitably bring. I must say I’m thrilled about the chance to help extend the Lore-Master community and embrace new rising-star LMs in the coming months.
We have a few months to prepare for this, so I’d like your guys’ input on how you think we at LOTRO Reporter can help, particularly here in the class columns. It’s been ages since I was a new player and the game experience has changed a great deal since then, so I need your help.
What do you think new players will most have questions about?
What is lacking here right now that you see a pressing need for?
What would you like to see more of in the future?
I apologize for not being more active the last few weeks. Real life came down hard and work was insane, but that is tapering off now and I’m excited to get things ready for the launch of F2P. Help me out! And as reward, enjoy this delightful comic set in Bree from KeenandGraev.com.
And…LOTRO goes Free-to-Play. Dun.dun.dun…
Jun 4th
Yes, the big news came out that our beloved game is going free-to-play. I must admit my first reaction (which you can see on my Twitter feed) was “lame”. So, ok, I paid for a lifetime subscription to a game that I assumed would be developed for a good many years. By developed, I mean there would be regular content updates, sizeable expansions, progression, etc. What do I get now?
Well, as it turns out, we lifetime subscribers get “VIP” access which amounts to…. the game we paid for and 500 Turbine points to buy needless sparkly stuff in the new LOTRO store. I admit I’m being somewhat negative but with the recent flood of sparkly crap that has come out of WoW and EQ2, I don’t have high hopes for much different from this “store”. Honestly, if I wanted sequin dresses and My Little Ponies, I would go to the mall. In the real world.
Do I care that other people want sparkly crap? No. Knock yourself out. But when your ability and desire to buy this stuff changes design direction for a game that I paid for, yes, I care.
Companies make games to make money. Except that now, companies make item shops to make money. Where is the incentive to improve game mechanics, to add features, to make life better for the people who pay-to-play? When profit comes from sparkly crap, that is where developer resources are going to go.
Not only am I concerned about the coming direction of design, I am concerned about the fact that as I play a game I paid to play for its life, I am going to feel pressured to buy sparkly crap or “cosmetic” items. I resist that on principle. I don’t like being nickel-and-dimed. I don’t like feeling like I have to buy things because “it’s a good deal”. I don’t like feeling uncool because my horse is the one it took actual play through like quests and stuff (crazy, right?) to acquire, but yours looks so much better because it cost x-number of Turbine points.
Further, exactly what determines if something is “cosmetic”? If I play the game to dress up like a wizard or a southern Tolkien belle or an adventuring miner, that is my game. It might be a “cosmetic” aspect of the game, but it is part of the game. Why should I have to pay extra to play this game in a way in which it was intended to be played? It’s a role-playing game, but now I have to pay extra (yes, it’s extra when I already paid for lifetime) to express my role-play through “cosmetic” items? [For the record, I'm a raider as most of you know, but I feel for the people who aren't and that is from where this argument stems.]
Now I’m not going to delete all my LOTRO files and go cry and rant more than I am right now. I’ll still play. I’ll check it out. But it will never be the same, and I’m worried that in this case, different isn’t better.
Lore-master Trailer
May 18th
Check out this terrific trailer showing the awesomeness of the Lore-master class!
The Lord of the Rings – Online “Loremaster Trailer” from EveNArtworkS on Vimeo.
[Lore-Master] The myth of LM healing
May 15th
Not a Lore-Master
When I first started playing the Lore-Master, I was under the impression that I would be able to do support healing. In my hopeful mind, this meant that I could do a sizeable amount of healing, even though I would never be asked to main heal a group for some place hard. I tend to think of myself as a good healer so I assumed that I’d be able to heal many things, just not the most difficult. This meant, I could both play a hybrid class and not fear that I would constantly pushed into a healing role.
The sad truth is, though, that I can’t heal for beans. I have a pathetic channeled self-heal, a 10-minute cd morale refresh, and a single-target heal, also on cooldown, a heal that crits max for 2k (1/4 of a tank’s health). Sure, I can support heal if by support, one means, basically do nothing except put a bandaid on a gaping wound that quickly gets soaked with blood.
This makes me sad. I think of the LM has a support class in general. We debuff to help the full dps, we CC to maintain order, and we give power to keep the fight going. Why don’t we give health as well? Even if it were a health drain mechanic, similar to power sharing, where we shared some morale to others. This would require another ability, namely to drain morale over time from mobs, but I would LOVE this.
Would it fit with the class? It seems that we should have some knowledge of enough lore to where we could sap the morale of others, if necessary. It sounds a little sneaky, but then we can drain power. Are not the two conceptually connected in some way?
I realize this would have the potential to make us even more a battery in raids, but I think I would like that. Right now, I take care of debuffs, I share power when necessary, though it doesn’t seem needed that much, not nearly as much as it used to. I cast my pathetic heal out once in awhile and it does help, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nowhere near as dependable or supportive as I would like.
Am I the only LM who’d like to be able to heal more? If you respond with, you just need a different class, maybe that’s valid. The problem is, there really isn’t another class that is a range caster-type who debuffs and power shares. One response would be that I’m asking for too much and the class would then be too powerful. I do not really PvP at all so I’m not sure if that would be a valid complaint. If the morale-drain spell were dispellable and the morale cost of sharing morale were sizeable, I think it could be balanced very nicely. Further, a morale-sharing ability would not be able to be cast on one’s self so it wouldn’t make solo’ing even more trivial than it already is.
If they redo the LM traits in any way and/or add new abilities this year (God, I hope so), I’d really love to see some morale-sharing/draining. You?
[Lore-Master] Bare is 4 tank?
Apr 15th
With a nod to dear Alamo, I begin this next post on pets. The first which looked at the raven should have taken you up to level 14. At this level, you will get your next pet – the bear! His summoning skill is called Friend of Bears.
On first appearance, one thinks he is a tank. Solid, sturdy fellow with more morale than a raven and he has a nice Taunt ability (Roaring Challenge). Unfortunately, dear bear is not 4 tank. At least not for very long. His aggro-holding skills are mostly non-existent so as soon as you hit the mob with a spell or hit yourself or Mr. Bear with a heal, the mob will run over to attack you.
So if he is not, in fact, 4 tank, what is he 4?
A solid question with a solid answer. More >
[Lore-Master] Wizard’s Fire: Killing You Softly
Mar 27th
I recently came to the realization that our Sign of Battle: Wizard’s Fire spell is useful for more than just the Flanked self-heal. It does damage too! Now certainly I knew this before, but had never really paid much attention. It turns out that when traited properly, it can be a noticeable addition to our damage output.
When not traited MoNF, Wizard’s Fire does only ~65 damage on hit and per tick, but in MoNF (with Improved Sign of Battle: Wizardry), this amount is nearly doubled. In this spec (with ~6k Tact Offense), it changes to a ~125 hit and tick every 5 seconds for up to 40 seconds with only a 79 power cost. If you run with Knowledge of the Past traited, you have a 20% chance to restore 2/3 of this power on cast as well. More >
