One of the things I liked most of the NBI 2015 was Murf's Screenshot Safari. I had a lot of fun checking out everyone's entries during the course of the event. And I wasn't the only one: Murf counted an overwhelming total of 105 entries from 35 different blogs! Check out his post with all the facts and numbers here if you haven't done so yet. I enjoyed reading it a lot.
I would like to thank Murf for his enthusiasm and efforts hosting the event. I can only try to imagine what a tremendous amount of work it must have been to keep up with so many entries.
The rest of this post is totally self-serving, because I wanted an overview of the Safari entries for the games I play. Just something to look back at later when reminiscing about this NBI (I admit everything, I'm a sucker for nostalgia!). As a bonus, it gives an overview of which NBI blogs are actively posting about my favourite games. Time to work on that blogroll!
Star Wars: the Old Republic
All the SWTOR screenshots, sorted by category.
Selfie
 Zerneblog |
 Gamerlady |
 Ravalation |
Hero or Villain
 In Character |
 Zerneblog |
 Ravalation |
| Epic Achievement | Landscape | The Scariest Place |
 The Legacies in SW:TOR |
 Waiting for Rez |
 In Character |
Guild Wars 2
All the Guild Wars 2 screenshots, sorted by category.
Selfie
 Why I Game |
 Clean Casuals |
 Waiting For Rez |
| Landscape | Epic Achievement | The Scariest Place |
 Knifesedge Adventures in MMOs |
 JVT Workshop |
 Missy's Mojo |
| Heroes or Villains | High Fantasy |
 Why I Game |
 Waiting For Rez |
 Ravalation |
Lord of the Rings Online
All the LOTRO screenshots, sorted by category.
Selfie
 Pleasant Gamer |
 Avaruusuo |
 TweakLOTRO |
| Selfie | Landscape |
 Thinking Play |
 Thinking Play |
 The Iron Dagger |
Landscape
 Avaruusuo |
 TweakLOTRO |
 Starshadow |
High Fantasy
 The Iron Dagger |
 Avaruusuo |
 Starshadow |
The Scariest Place
 The Iron Dagger |
 TweakLOTRO |
 Ravalation |
| The Scariest Place | Heroes or Villains |
 Pleasant Gamer |
 Avaruusuo |
(Hopefully I'll figure out how to make the gallery look more tidy at some point - it's such a pain in Blogger!)
I'm quite surprised at the amount of LOTRO entries, because most LOTRO players I know of play the game extremely casually. I guess it looks amazingly good for a seven year old game - I still love its beautiful landscapes. I submitted a LOTRO screenshot myself, too, simply because the game is still dear to my heart.
If you like some of the screenshots above, make sure to vote! Voting is still open, but should close in a few days. I'm super proud that my screenshots have been nominated for five categories. That said, I had a tough time picking favourites when voting myself. It's a cliché, but there really are just that many good ones.
Blogroll
On a final note, I've removed the Class of 2015 blogroll from my blog, since the NBI is over. I've added a bunch of new NBI blogs I've visited frequently to my normal blogroll. If you're a newbie, I invite you to do the same. Blogrolls are a great way to show your appreciation and to keep in contact with fellow bloggers you've met. If you're lucky, they might even add you back.That was it for today. I'm already looking forward to the (hopefully to come) next edition of the Safari!
Thank you so much for the kind words. This post is formatted beautifully!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you don't mind!
DeleteI don't know why I would!
Deleteit's strange isn't it - I haven't played LOTRO in quite a while but it was the first game I thought of for most of my entries! I ended up making myself look at different game folders for at least a couple of the entries - It is old but it's still absolutely gorgeous - I think they managed something very special with the lighting which really makes their landscapes shine... my theory anyway :)
ReplyDeletenice to see the shots in one place too :)
I don't know what it is, either, but I generally like the landscapes in LOTRO more than those in other games. I even think they look better than in SWTOR, which is so much newer and has a good overall quality (with much more character details than in LOTRO, for instance). You might be onto something with the lightning. I never seem to know where it comes from in SWTOR (or I do, but it doesn't make much sense). Other than that, I feel the LOTRO designers that are responsible for the landscapes have always just put a lot of effort into their job. It especially shows in the newer areas of the game.
DeleteIf I would have to pick a game with similar landscape quality I would say Skyrim... but only with the proper mods installed.
People took some amazing screenshots for that event and you did a pretty good job of showcasing your picks. :)
DeleteAs for LotRO looking so good, I'd say it is the developers trying to stick as close as humanly possible to the world Tolkien created. Tolkien himself made sure that the places the Fellowship visited felt like... well, actual places. So the Shire wasn't just some place with lots of hills and houses built inside them. It felt like an actual countryside-ish, simple-folk-ish, somewhat whimsical and happy, place in the books. While places like that dwarf-place-I-completed-forgot-the-name-about had a feel of a massive, long forgotten and even dangerous place. These are the kind of feelings I think the artists at Turbine did a pretty good job at capturing. :)
The only other game I can think of that can evoke such strong feelings for me would be Morrowind. To me going back to Morrowind never feels like going back to a game as much as going back to a place. Although I admit it hasn't aged so well and people trying to get into nowadays may find it hard.
I did try Morrowind back when Oblivion was the newest Elder Scrolls game, but I never managed to really get into it. I don't know why that was. Maybe because I didn't really like the graphics, even though I know that's a stupid reason. But I recognize the way you feel about that game from what older gamers around me say. It's one of those things that make me feel like I may have missed out on something really cool just because I got into gaming later.
DeleteI totally agree on you with LotRO being very immersive. I've recently started levelling a fresh level 1 guardian in LotRO and it is so much fun to revisit the low level questing areas! I think Bree-land (with the Old Forest!) is my favourite so far.
It isn't that stupid of a reason. Morrowind is from a time where there were still giant leaps made in 3D graphics. Those older 3D graphics just don't age too well. It doesn't help that even for the time the characters were pretty ugly. Or that the game had some clunky mechanics like the combat or run speed.
DeleteDespite all that the game tried something very ambitious for the time (and I have yet to see anyone to beat it, even Bethesda. Witcher 3 might have done it but I haven't played it yet) which was to make a very big world 3D, all handcrafted. Plus every part the game embraced the idea that the player would take their time exploring this world. There wasn't a story with a "ZOMG! You are the chosen one and if you don't hurry and defeat Lord Big Bad Evil Unpronunciable Name we are all going to die! AAAAH!". This made it feel more like an actual world and less of a game. After it though Bethesda went more and more towards a gamist approach to their games. Not something necessarily wrong but I do with there were more attempts at making games like Morrowind.
Same. Every time I attempt at playing LoTRO it feels so nice to visit the different newbie areas. They feel like more real towns than a lot of the games (single player and MMO) that I've played over the years.
The blogosphere is all about their blogrolls post-NBI it seems! I love perusing different blogrolls incase of blogs I might have missed out on for one reason or another and as such I really try hard to keep mine as up-to-date as possible. Glad there's a few of us with this thinking! Shall comb through yours for new reads soonish. ;)
ReplyDeleteI also love this idea of categorising the Safari.
I decided to mention it, because now seems the perfect time and I saw a lot of newbies not using blogrolls at all. For me blogrolls were really one of the revelations of the NBI 2012: so much easier to keep up with all the cool people I had met. ^^
Delete