Green inspired screenshots from virtual Middle-earth

The Shire

It's Five Fandom Friday, and that means another geeky post! This week's topic was the Green Photo Challenge, and the participants were stimulated to share 5 green inspired photos in honour of St. Patrick's Day. In what is by now Ravalation tradition, I decided to go with screenshots instead, and Lord of the Rings Online was the first game that came to my mind.

LOTRO is my go-to game when I want to immerse myself in beautiful landscapes. Even though it's a pretty old MMO by now that has been overtaken graphics wise by new games, there's something about its landscapes that makes it feel more lively and 'real' than any game world I've visited. Perhaps it's the beautiful skies and weather mechanics. Or I'm just biased because I'm a huge Tolkien fan. Either way, here are five pretty green screenies from virtual Middle-earth.

LOTRO Update 19 review: Minas Tirith after the battle and North Ithilien

I don't like to rush through content to get to the end of it; rather, I try to enjoy the road there. This is especially the case in Lord of the Rings Online. Conrad and I have enjoyed our quiet evenings together playing through LOTRO's latest update that added North Ithilien. Because the MMO has old fashioned quest text to read through rather than voiced cut scenes, we've been making things more lively by reading the quests out to each other. Turns out this slows down things a lot, and hence I am unfashionably late with this update 19 review.

I decided to post this anyway, because, well, North Ithilien is pretty! If I did it right, this post will give a solid impression of the region both to LOTRO players that aren't high enough level to enter yet, and Tolkien fans that do not play the game.

Exploring Zakuul from dazzling heights

A week ago, I wrote in my Zakuul sightseeing post: "The Zakuulan skyline is (...) a beauty to behold. It is unfortunate that you can't get high up yourself to admire it outside story chapters and cutscenes." But then I remembered: my character may not be able to ascend, but my camera can.

Yes, you're reading it right, I found an excuse to fiddle around with SWTOR's max zoom distance again! I was very curious myself to get a grasp of how the city of Zakuul fits together, because you really can't tell when you're just running around using normal character view. I felt this child like sensation of excitement because I was about to enter an unexplored realm of potential beauty. Here are the results.

An expedition through LOTRO's frills: before and after

With Lord of the Rings Online's latest big update, three things were added to the game: interior housing hooks, frills and a new raid. The topic of most discussion? Frills. These improved grass polls, flowers and shrubberies are meant to make the in-game world more lively and realistic. Indeed, they were already implemented in all post-Mirkwood regions upon creation, and now they've been added to vanilla areas as well.

But LOTRO wouldn't be an MMO if a part of its population wouldn't dislike these changes to their familiar regions. I was curious myself how much had actually changed and started an investigation. It took some effort, but I managed to dig up old screenshots of five regions and revisited each in-game. I'm posting the before picture first, then the after one, so you can easily compare them. Go ahead and judge for yourself!

The quest for a home: the Lund edition - part 1

Huh, Lund? What game is that? Surprise: it's not a game (although we can pretend it is), but a real town in the physical land of Sweden (gasp). I moved there some weeks ago to study archaeology for a semester. As some people have asked what I've been up to, I thought it might be fun to report on this blog every now and then. I briefly considered making a separate blog for my Sweden adventures, but that's a lot of work and I'm pretty sure one would suffer over the other.

So if you only want to read about gaming on this blog, move on to the next post. If you're curious at my "real life exploration" adventures in Sweden, though, do read further! I apologize in advance for any obscure gaming references I might make that are probably lost on the non-gamers.

Guildless in Guild Wars

It's the strangest thing. When you're playing a game called Guild Wars, one would expect to spend a lot of time in that game playing with a guild. Yet somehow Guild Wars 2 has quickly developed into my favourite duo game. I barely have contact with anyone in the game save the people that I occasionally bump into while exploring - and that contact is usually superficial.

The big Ziost review

Ziost has been released for over a week now, so why has it been so silent on Ravalation? Don't worry, I haven't quit; I have been busy playing through the story on both Imperial and Republic characters. I've also had the chance to play around with the world bosses. So here is my long-awaited all-inclusive Ziost review, featuring both pre- and post-May the 4th content.

Griffons!

Today in griffon-related news. The good news: Guild Wars 2 has griffons! The bad news: they want me for breakfast...

Exploring in Guild Wars - part 2

Last time in part 1, I talked about the cooperative nature of exploring in Guild Wars. This week in part 2, I want to zoom in on the explorative features the game offers: leveling, underwater exploration, vistas, crafting and strength in details. What makes exploration is this game so immersive?

Exploring in Guild Wars - part 1

I'm new to the world of Guild Wars. I've never played Guild Wars 1 (I had my hands full playing Lord of the Rings Online at the time) and I know next to nothing about the lore. I'm just enjoying the game and let new things come on my path.

Womp rats > droids

At least when we're talking about ballet. Do you remember those womp rats doing synchronized dancing? Well, it seems these droids on Ilum were jealous of all the attention they were getting on this blog and did their own synchronization attempt. Or they were merely trying to study the womp rat behaviour and imitate it, after good Gree custom. Who knows.

Aerial photography in the Old Republic

I have a friend that uses drones to map dunes, which results in pretty pictures to dissect for science. I think her favourite pet in-game is a drone too. Unfortunately, you can't really make pictures with a drone in Star Wars. But did you know you can create the same views by zooming out really far?

Womp rat ballet

I was tanking the Rakata Prime flashpoint on hardmode and was trying to reset the bonus boss by running away. Of he course he didn't feel like it and sent more and more womp rats after me. Luckily our three sages could quake them down within seconds. It was only then that I noticed how the rats had positioned themselves around me as if it were a form of synchronized dancing.

My five favourite SWTOR bugs

Reading Shintar's screenshot challenge about bugs made me think of bugs in Star Wars: the Old Republic in general. I only recognized a small portion of the (sometimes hilarious) bugs she mentioned. I could think of so many more... which made me feel like it's a wonder the game is still playable. That said, most bugs are innocent. These are my five 'favourite':

LOTRO: Day, night and lousy weather

 Okay, maybe this wasn't the best day to go out and take a ride...

In Day/Night cycles for a chance of sunset MMO Gypsy praises MMOs in which the developers took the effort to program day and night cycles into their games. I'm right with her on this one.

I miss this extra sense of realism in Star Wars. When I ride through LotRO and the rain suddenly falls onto my face, I remember what's so awesome about this game again. That's another thing that LotRO sets apart from other games: it has weather changes.

I sought my library of screenshots for some examples to illustrate how much influence the weather can have on the atmosphere of an area. You might recognize some of the pictures from earlier blog posts. My library is pretty extensive, though, so you've been warned.

Screenshots incoming!

A rainy day in Eastern Rohan.

The same region of Eastern Rohan during a bright day.

Even in the snowy region of Wildermore there's diversity. The region is forever cold due to a wizard's spell, but that doesn't mean it always looks the same.

Here's Wildermore again, this time without snow falling down. All of a sudden, the bleak winter sun makes the edges of Fangorn look as if they're ripped from a book of fairy tales.

And even in Wildermore, the area looks different during a foggy dawn.

Late afternoon in the Wold, Eastern Rohan. The light comes from a low angle: you can see the day is nearing its end.

This is how Fingolwë and Ravanel saw Edoras from afar at dawn.

And this is the sky when they arrived at its entrance a few (in-game) hours later.

I like how the Shire sky has this slightly deeper blue teint. Just sets it apart a little.

Deep in the night in Enedwaith the world might look a bit scarier. And heroes might look a bit more like heroes when they light up in the dark.

I really liked the contrast between the waving yellow grass of Enedwaith and the early night's king's blue sky. Shame I was on my crappy computer, so the quality of the screenshot isn't amazing.

I could add another dozen images or so, but I think you get the idea.

It seems like new MMOs tend to save money when it comes to 'fluff' like this, with Wildstar as a positive exception to the rule (as it at least seems to have day and night cycles). (Out of curiosity: does anyone know another MMO besides LotRO that has both day/night cycles and alternating weather?) I think this development in games is a shame, because it really adds a deeper level of immersion and quality to a game.

LOTRO: The beauty of simbelmynë

Contrary to the feeling you might have gotten when reading the latest post on the topic, I'm not totally done with LotRO. Yet.

Actually, I have been enjoying some Rohan exploration lately. After months without login in, I just felt that LotRO feeling itching again. Surprisingly, when I asked Tiger if he would mind me starting the new content on my own, he offered to explore it together with me. Surprisingly, because he seemed to be pretty busy impersonating a dark thundercloud every time someone mentioned the word "LotRO" before. Maybe he was now carefully getting over that. Or maybe he just doesn't want to unleash me unattended in-game. Either way, I blackmailed him into promising me not to become gloomy, naturally.

Aaaaanyway, this seems like a good moment for a beautiful screenshot.

"Oohhhh! Ahhhhh!"

We both bought the Helm's Deep expansion with Turbine Points. Luckily I was able to afford it, I think I had about 2000 left (of which I immediately spent half on extra storage space). Tiger logged in and found that he had like... 10.000 TP left or something? So if you need any, you don't need to beg me for them... (Okay, I'm so going to die now.)

The epic quest made us ride directly to Edoras and I was all like "Ohhhhh! Ahhh!" when I saw it from afar. I had to stop to make a screenshot.

Before we entered the city we came through the burial mounts of the kings of Rohan and I thought it was very impressive. I just had to jump into my princess dress and take a 'selfie' amid the simbelmynë.

Geesh, Rav, you're such an attention seeker.

Selfie with simbelmynë

LOTRO: The Balewood

Help, I'm surrounded by Ents!

I wasn't disappointed when Tiger and I ventured into the Balewood: it was full of Ents. In fact, we seemed to be surrounded by them!

A good wood

Har har, that rhymes! I really love the look of this wood. It has a pastel green-blueish teint that is very pretty, and the trees are done in a manner which makes you really feel like you are walking through a wood. I don't know if you remember the first large wood that the developers made, the Old Forest? It is still my favourite wood up until this day, and it created the illusion of being one big maze very well (I always got lost in there, but I did not mind), but Balewood is in all ways its superior. Here there are no impenetrable "walls of trees", a cheap way of filling the forest up, but every single tree is there. It truly feels like walking through a real forest, with dense and less dense parts, although it's sometimes a bit heavy on the computer and trees may appear right in front of you at the last moment. 

My heart broke at the Ent's tale of the bringing down of one of the oldest trees of the Balewood by orcs. The tree fought back and many orcs died because of it, but eventually it was brought down. It was such a terrible thing to have to look at.

This conflicted and helpless feeling only became worse when I had to do a Nurzum session play and actually had to play the monster, having to kill Ents left and right. But but... I don't want to kill Ents! Yet I had to, to continue the story. I also felt a bit sorry for Nurzum, because he had only three skills in total. It must be such a boring existence, you're bound to get frustrated and violent like that, right? I guess it's all to mentally prepare us for our 'challenging' skill trees with Helm's Deep. /sarcasm

We finished all the quests in Balewood, and I must say that I found this the most awesome part of Wildermore. The quests were fun and the wood itself with all the Ent tales felt very immersive. A good ending of the long and very elaborate Wildermore region.

SWTOR: Beware the aliens

This traffic sign on Corellia made me wonder. What would it mean? "Beware the aliens?" You would hope the whole Taris thing was buried well under the ground by now*, but I could imagine my twi'lek Y-u'no being perplexed as she halted her tauntaun to look at the sign.

On second thought, the aliens don't resemble twi'lek at all. They are more of the E.T.-phone-home type, but then the mobile version. They also look more like the archetype of evil aliens (think: Alien vs Predator) that we are to believe want to invade Earth. Or maybe I'm looking at this for too long and it just means: "watch out for people crossing the street" (with some imagination the figures represent a daddy alien with two children).

Either way, Y-u'no moved on, in search of more datacrons.

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* Before the devastating bombardment, Taris was racially divided in different levels with humans living in the luxury top apartments and aliens in the cheap lower grounds. Play Knights of the Old Republic to find out more (and if you haven't played it yet, this classic is absolutely worth it!).

LOTRO: Into the woods

It was time for Tiger and I to start the last area of Wildermore: the Balewood. These woods to the northwest are usually shunned by the people from Wildermore, for spooky tales surround them. Still, some fled into it after running away from Núrzum and the orcs, and we were to find them back. 

As usual, I was a bit disoriented after just having logged in and mounting my warsteed, so I decided to just mindlessly follow the green arrow on the mini-map where Tiger had disappeared. I wasn't looking very much at the surroundings, in fact, I was looking so little at them that I just managed to halt my steed before I would have fallen down a deep cliff. There lay the Balewood, and my, was it beautiful!

We of course know that this wood is one of the outer parts of Fangorn, and it looked just as magical and fairy-tale like as I imagined. Only I imagined it as being very green, but here, it was winter.

Now we got excited thinking about the Ents and other creatures that may or may not be hiding in this forest. I will write more about that in my next LotRO post.

SWTOR: The Corellia run

I got this shot when I was hunting for datacrons with Tiger's slinger Lyell. Somehow I really like it. My twi'lek is just walking away on this strange tilted platform, but seems to hesitate when good-looking Lyell comes running towards her from the opposite side. "Wait!"

There's this tension as if a story is just about to unfold. Or probably that's just my overactive imagination.