Grender bender

Last night didn’t quite turn out how I’d expected. I had built myself up to a frenzy of anticipation during the day [Really? Frenzy? – Ed], ready to sort out my graphics problems and finally get LOTRO running without crashes. But as these things usually do, I decided being a lazy ass watching TV with Ema was a much better prospect. We watched ‘Danny Dyers Toughest Towns’ or whatever it is called followed by a few episodes of ‘Worlds most amazing videos’ type of programs. Nothing ground breaking, but nice relaxing fun. Part of the reason aside from the riveting TV, was that I needed to supervise the drying of my motorbike leathers by the fire. It’s been raining here pretty much solidly for 3 days and of course I ride to work on my motorbike, so each day sees me drying out leathers, failing, then the next morning wincing as I put on damp leathers. It’s all very pleasant.

After TV last night I spent a couple of hours playing Blacke seeing as EQ2 doesn’t seem to freeze at the moment. I had great fun investigating the menace known as the ‘Grender’. I haven’t even seen the thing yet but the way the dialogue is building this creature up, I expect it to rival the best Hollywood monster creation. I had better be crying with fear when I see the thing (if I ever get to). I actually think it is just going to be a large Goblin. I guess we’ll see later on.

Levelling Blacke is going wonderfully slowly with my bar set to 75% AA / 25% EXP and I currently have 3 or 4 AAs and am only 33% into level 11. I have a feeling this slow levelling may get a bit tedious after a while, but as I am enjoying it especially as it means I am not out levelling quests all the time, there is plenty to do and I really get the feeling that I am exploring the content thoroughly. It’s creating a feeling of achievement and satisfaction I haven’t had for a while in EQ2, aside from the harder raid content of course.

One thing I have noticed, is the amount of toons I see wandering around that are green to me, then in a heartbeat they wander past in fully fabled T8. Ok, well that’s an exaggeration but I think you know what I mean. I’m not letting that sway me to level faster though. I’m enjoying the pace and actually have a bit of an evil side as I watch their twinked souls running around. When I see folks like that I quietly tell myself that at level 80 with 120AAs they are going to struggle. I know that because I have been there plenty of times myself. That’s why doing it this way is a bit of a novel idea for me, but really enjoyable and it should pay off handsomely in the end.

I’ll be back tomorrow to give you an update on my ‘mazing computer mendy skillage [You really are a dork. I bet you a fiver that you mess it up even more – Ed] and then hopefully give you some insight in to my journey in to Middle Earth. Hopefully my buddy Jahf [SHOUT OUT to Jahf - Ed] may be joining me in LOTRO, although he's on the other side of the pond and LOTRO has different client for US and EU players. Hopefully we'll be able to sort something out. Until then,

Be well.