tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59228576799807406302024-03-16T02:10:01.468+01:00RavalationRavanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comBlogger423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-84276829828801514032018-03-24T19:55:00.000+01:002018-04-17T14:50:50.763+02:00Pokémon GO community day: real life pugging for dratini<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aij8LmMHOLU/WradLlCpW6I/AAAAAAAAGH4/VrxWgnEueWEAdtqG2G8CwiGkZDnkrFFKQCKgBGAs/s1600/Dratini%2Bcatching%2Bcut%2Bout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="1228" height="520" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aij8LmMHOLU/WradLlCpW6I/AAAAAAAAGH4/VrxWgnEueWEAdtqG2G8CwiGkZDnkrFFKQCKgBGAs/s640/Dratini%2Bcatching%2Bcut%2Bout.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Tomorrow Pokémon GO celebrates Bulbasaur Community Day. For the first time I'm actually planning to participate, and that has a lot to do with how much fun I had the last time around, catching dratini.</div>
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<a name='more'></a>Community day is a monthly Pokémon GO event that features massive amounts of a specific pokémon that can be caught in the wild for a couple of hours. The first community day that I was aware of featured pikachu with surf. It was on a rainy Saturday and I was completely exhausted. So when I looked at the nearby tracker in Pokémon GO and saw there was a pikachu nearby, I thought "I'll catch it later today, when I'm rested". I didn't realize that community day only lasts for three hours. I totally missed out on the pikachu with surf, but didn't mind very much. I have tons of pikachu and I never use them in battle (they're cute but not very strong).</div>
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Fast forward a month, to February's Dratini Community Day. It was sunny weather, but cold and windy. I was visiting a neighbouring town to hand in the gaming laptop for repairs (in vain, as it turned out later). Walking through a park on my way back to the bus stop, I took down a pokémon gym and placed my blissey in it. I was just about to go out of the park when someone greeted me. "Hey!" he said, and walked towards me. "How's it going? You're here for the event, right?" A young man in his late 20s, maybe begin 30s stood before me. I recognized his face from a pokémon raid in my home town. He and his gaming friends had come to the park in the hope to catch some dratini.</div>
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It was a few minutes before the start of the event, and the earlier deserted park was gradually filling with groups of people with mobile phones. A year and a half after release the game doesn't attract huge mobs anymore, but I was still positively surprised at how many people turned up. The town centre was quiet when I arrived, but now there were groups of people walking about everywhere.</div>
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We counted down aloud to the event start time and then they were there: dratini were popping up everywhere! We walked through the park and talked about pokémon, cheered for each other when we caught a good one or playfully cursed the other when they found a rare shiny dratini (a pink version rather than the normal blue version) first. After we had seen the whole park, we walked to the local castle garden. This is where it was my turn to catch a shiny dratini, a really powerful one boosted by the windy weather (level 35, 8000 stardust to power up).</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/lyRbd2O.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="800" height="378" src="https://i.imgur.com/lyRbd2O.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With 6% left on my phone battery, I caught this shiny level 35 dratini (middle), which I evolved to the shiny green dragonite (right). Finally, my first dragonite! Back at home, I was super lucky and caught two subsequent shiny dratini (left), allowing me to get all its forms shiny: dratini, dragonair and dragonite.</div>
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After catching dratini for an hour, my phone battery was almost empty and I was getting pretty frozen by the cold. I said goodbye and caught the bus home. Comparing my experience to MMO gaming, it was like one of those rare events that you stumble upon a random pickup group (pug) and end up having an amazing time. I wasn't planning on strolling through parks with random strangers, but it happened and it was the best thing that could have. I don't generally think of catching the same pokémon over and over as fun, but the company is what makes community day the success it is. There's something special about meeting random people who are just as enthusiastic about pokémon as you.</div>
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Tomorrow, I'm heading to that same park with my brother to hunt for a shiny bulbasaur. Wish me luck!</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-30495094335991746862018-03-21T20:14:00.000+01:002018-03-21T21:35:06.926+01:00Drawing diary: Insta-Inktober<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I haven't written in a while, but don't worry, that doesn't mean anything is wrong. Out of <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/08/studying-and-keeping-blogging-schedule.html">my two main reasons for blogging less</a>, it's the more positive one: I'm just really busy with studying right now. I've taken on a big project that's also going to be my master's thesis and it sucks up almost all my energy. Graduating is <i>way </i>more important to me than writing blog posts, so that's just how it is for now.<br />
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However, I've had this drawing diary post sitting in my drafts folder for ages; I may as well publish it, so you have <i>something </i>to read! If you'd rather read about gaming, check out my latest article <a href="https://www.mmobro.com/love-dumb-things-mmos/"><i>Why we love doing dumb things in MMOs</i></a> over at MMO Bro.<br />
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Instagram and Inktober</h2>
In my <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/10/drawing-diary-july-september.html">previous drawing diary</a>, I wrote about participating in Inktober: a well known internet challenge to draw something with ink every day in October. While I was certain I wouldn't make every day, I gave it a heroic attempt. And I actually managed to draw a lot more than usual! In this post, I will share those drawings with you.</div>
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Part of the challenge was to post your drawings on social media. Because I didn't want to bother my gamer followers on Twitter with my daily drawings, nor spam my offline life Facebook friends, I created an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/insta.griffon/">Instagram account</a> for them. It seemed fitting: Instagram is all about posting pictures, so people can't exactly complain when pictures show up.</div>
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Wait... what are you saying, Rav? <i>Instagram</i>, that medium for self absorbed attention seeking selfie posters?! Uh, well, yes, although that's not how I hope to use it. (Disclaimer: if you were hoping for Rav selfies, you'll be disappointed.) I'm probably using Instagram all wrong and I don't care.) But if you do like to see my drawings and photos before I finally get around to blogging them, you're welcome to follow me.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/HpRVohO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="800" height="500" src="https://i.imgur.com/HpRVohO.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Inktober list and water colour self portrait</div>
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When I started reading about Inktober, every article told me that I needed a list with subjects to follow, or I'd give up halfway, not knowing what to draw anymore. Coming up with things to draw is usually not a problem; lists that I need to follow usually annoy the crap out of me. Nevertheless, I was a good girl and made a list with topics - with the intention of not feeling obliged to follow it.</div>
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I think at the end of the month I had drawn about 30% of the list. For what else I managed to draw, I just went with whatever I felt like.</div>
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The first thing I drew was a self portrait. This probably sounds stupid, but I really don't like staring at my own face intensively for some reason. And that's exactly what you need to do when drawing yourself. Because of this, this is the first self portrait I ever made. I felt very uncomfortable drawing it, but I'm pretty OK with the end result.<br />
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/uPwxDAG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://i.imgur.com/uPwxDAG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Meadow saffrans (<i>herfsttijloos</i>)</div>
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The next day was busy, and it was already late in the evening when I got around to Inktober. I decided to quickly draw the flowers that were standing in the gaming room. They belonged to a bulb of meadow saffrans (<i>herfsttijloos</i>) that my mother gifted me. It felt a bit forced to just draw for the sake of it rather than drawing something that I felt very enthusiastic about.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/nCdsySM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://i.imgur.com/nCdsySM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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View from the Binnengasthuis</div>
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Later, I went to Amsterdam for some study appointments. When waiting in the university building, I looked outside and saw this typically Amsterdam city centre view. All of a sudden, I noticed how beautiful it was, all those 17th and 18th century houses cramped together, and I wanted to draw it.</div>
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Gebed Zonder End and an Amsterdam canal in the autumn</div>
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I love the area around my university, so I drew more there.</div>
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The left drawing shows an alley I passed when walking to the tram. It's called Gebed Zonder End ("Prayer Without Ending") because of all the monasteries that used to be there in the Middle Ages. I tried to make the drawing less static by drawing less neatly and using different pen sizes.</div>
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The second (right) drawing is of the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in autumn colours. It was my first drawing using my new ecoline brush pens from Talens. I totally didn't do reality justice, because the actual view looked mesmerising.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/SShlgon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="800" height="336" src="https://i.imgur.com/SShlgon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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October mushrooms</div>
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October was also the month of mushrooms. I don't remember the last time there were so many of them, and I definitely have to write about my mushroom hunts in a separate blog post. Either way, the drawing shows three mushroom species I found in my home town (from left to right): <i>Armillaria mellea </i>(<i>honingzwam</i>), <i>Geastrum triplex</i> (<i>gekraagde aardster</i>) and <i>Tricholoma sulphureum</i> (<i>narcisridderzwam</i>). The latter smells strongly of tar and I got a giant headache from drawing it.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/oe7IfAY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="800" height="222" src="https://i.imgur.com/oe7IfAY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Alpaca, tigers and a ring-tailed lemur</div>
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I also wanted to practice drawing animals, because I somehow never do that. I drew the lemur as a card for a friend, the tiger as a birthday card for Conrad and the alpaca for myself. Oh my, I do love alpacas.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/2bVs4vA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="800" height="522" src="https://i.imgur.com/2bVs4vA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Corridor in the attic and Window of the gaming room</div>
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These two drawings - made with a black ecoline brushpen - were an unexpected hit on Instagram. They're of the corridor and a corner of the gaming room of our attic apartment, so I now you know a bit what my home looks like.</div>
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Dying birch tree with mushrooms (twice)</div>
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I saw this dying birch tree during a forest hike. White mushrooms called "birch killer" (<i>berkendoder</i>) in Dutch, speed up its demise. It was tragic, but also a beautiful tree, and I ended up drawing it twice, in different styles.<br />
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Train station Amersfoort, on my way to Drachten</div>
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Intermezzo: sightseeing in Drachten </h2>
I usually like to put some offline life adventures in my Drawing Diaries, and this one is no different. But first, watch out: huge drawing incoming (I couldn't come up with a good pairing)!<br />
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Book shop Van der Velde</div>
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One weekend in October, I visited a friend in Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands. She works in a lovely book shop and while she was finishing her shift, I sketched the coffee corner (see above).</div>
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I convinced my friend to go full tourist mode, and we cycled around the town of Drachten. Among other things, we rode past some houses that were built in the well known De Stijl art movement.</div>
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I really loved this old school building. The colours are so pretty together.</div>
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These houses are hardcore De Stijl, with accents in the three primary colours. The whole neighbourhood has them.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/XSymGHi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="800" height="452" src="https://i.imgur.com/XSymGHi.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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When they were just built, people really hated the colours! But nowadays, it is clear that people are really proud of their houses. Some houses featured mailboxes or other home made attributes in De Stijl style (err, that sounds weird).</div>
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That's enough sightseeing and art lessons, though, let's proceed with the last Inktober drawings.</div>
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Back to the drawings</h2>
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We've arrived at the end of the month, and at this point I just wanted to draw something simple. I never draw items, so this was as good of an excuse as any to give that some practice.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/9NN3e0t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="800" height="500" src="https://i.imgur.com/9NN3e0t.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The yellow pumps are my favourite shoes. And the phone is actually brand new. It's the first time in my life that I bought a good phone for myself, and I'm so happy with it: it can even play Pokémon GO and not crash! Finally, I drew the cat after a funny cat GIF. It's about to go crazy about something with huge dilated eyes.</div>
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That's all for Inktober. I didn't draw all 31 days, but I did end up drawing a lot more than usual, so that's a win for me. I'm actually really happy with most of my Inktober drawings, so I guess I was on a roll. But it's nice to be not feeling obliged to use ink in all my drawings anymore, too, now it's over. </div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-61505476092268626532017-12-19T18:54:00.000+01:002017-12-19T18:54:32.112+01:00Ravalation's 2017 holiday card swap<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s-IEuoFq37Y/WjlQSqaOjwI/AAAAAAAAGE0/lvWqXjkEg5cc8UAB_6QwmhXnqP4ziXJsQCKgBGAs/s1600/Ravalation%2527s%2Byearly%2Bcard%2Bswap%2Bbanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s-IEuoFq37Y/WjlQSqaOjwI/AAAAAAAAGE0/lvWqXjkEg5cc8UAB_6QwmhXnqP4ziXJsQCKgBGAs/s640/Ravalation%2527s%2Byearly%2Bcard%2Bswap%2Bbanner.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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You know that you're late with your annual card swap when... a Christmas card from a blogger friend arrives in the mail before they even could sign up on your blog. Oops.</div>
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Previous years I absolutely loved swapping cards with you guys, so I'd like to do it again! How does it work? It's really simple: if you'd like to receive a hand made postcard, fill in the form below. Note: if you'd like to send a card to me in return, make sure to tick the box "I'd like to send a card in return" and I will send the details your way. (It doesn't matter whether it's a Christmas card, a New Year's card or something random: it's all in good fun.)</div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="500" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc3SAnbbitRR4Gs_Cok2_7O9IfQQlkR1mmHSc7EQ8zuWs3auw/viewform?embedded=true" width="680">Loading...</iframe>
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Anyone can participate in the swap. If you're curious at what it entails, check out Ravalation's <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2015/12/ravalations-2015-holiday-card-swap.html">2015</a> and <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/12/ravalations-2016-holiday-card-swap.html">2016 card swap events</a>, or last year's "the making of" <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/01/drawing-diary-december.html">New Year's card drawing diary</a>.<br />
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Practical information</h2>
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<li>The card swap is open internationally; my address is in the Netherlands.</li>
<li>You can expect Ravalation's New Year's card to arrive in January. </li>
<li>I will only use your information for sending the card and will delete it afterwards. </li>
<li>The form will close at the end of the year, or when the max. of 15 entries has been reached.</li>
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If you participated last year and want to again: I'd love that! Please
do fill in your address in the form even if you already did so in earlier years. I will be traveling abroad and this is the only way I'll have access to your addresses. <br />
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Finally, I know that sending physical cards isn't everyone's cup of tea, so don't feel obliged. But if you do think this is fun: see you in the mail!<br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-87442561250692309472017-12-01T23:30:00.000+01:002017-12-02T01:34:32.614+01:00Fashion Friday: High Elf Warden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xl1z0XvgRwQ/WiGF9ii34XI/AAAAAAAAGCU/8LIOysrceS0Meu5mrQD1dISGd-Fypq8yACKgBGAs/s1600/High%2BElf%2BWarden%2Bmain%2Bpicture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1000" height="370" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xl1z0XvgRwQ/WiGF9ii34XI/AAAAAAAAGCU/8LIOysrceS0Meu5mrQD1dISGd-Fypq8yACKgBGAs/s640/High%2BElf%2BWarden%2Bmain%2Bpicture.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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You may remember the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/07/lotros-mordor-expansion-pre-order-deals.html">commotion about Lord of the Rings Online's Mordor expansion</a> earlier this year. One of the gripes about its pricing was that the new High Elf race was only available if you'd buy the deluxe edition for $80,-, or the legendary edition for even more. Other players would have to wait until "winter" and buy it in the in-game store. Well, last week the time was finally there: the High Elf race was available for LOTRO points! And I bought one.</div>
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Then a difficult decision had to be made: what class should my High Elf be? I <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/User:Ravanel">already had all ten different classes</a>. Only burglar and warden were still below level 50. Burglar is not available for High Elves (and wouldn't make much sense lore-wise), so warden it was. And since I also had an Aria of the Valar from the Mordor base edition (an item that instantly levels up your character to 105), my new warden, Ravalas, was near level cap right away.<br />
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The first thing that I noticed, is that High Elves are taller and more masculine than regular Elves. Even their faces look stronger. This makes sense from a lore perspective: in Tolkien's lore, generally speaking, the older the race, the more powerful it was. Because of the High Elves' superiority, I wanted a perfect looking one, with golden hair and shining armour. I knew right away which armour I wanted to use, as it had been in the back of my mind from the moment I set foot in Mordor.<br />
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Another interesting fact about the High Elf race is that there are small, but noticeable details that distinguish High Elves from regular Elves. For instance, High Elves sit differently on their horses, as if they're holding reins (unfortunately you don't see any reins, though, so it looks silly if you're paying attention). When High Elves fall from a height, they roll over. They also have a special Elven cry for skills that play a shout sound effect. It sounds really cool.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="408" scrolling="no" src="https://gfycat.com/ifr/UnsightlyWaryHummingbird" width="680"></iframe><br />
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/dance3</div>
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But most of all, High Elves are famous for their special racial dance. There was a lot of buzz about this gracious, ballet like dance when the race was just released. Everyone loves it. It certainly fits the look-at-me-I'm-so-perfect air of the High Elf like a glove.</div>
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Outfit</h2>
<a href="https://i.imgur.com/7GkjiFu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 2em;"><img align="right" border="0" src="https://i.imgur.com/7GkjiFu.jpg" style="width: 350px;" /></a>
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Warden Ravalas to the right is wearing the following:
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<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item%3AMemory_of_the_West_Hat">Memory of the West Hat</a> </b>(lore-master item from skirmish camps, originally from Ost Dunhoth) </li>
<li><a href="item:Conquerer's Camail V1" style="font-weight: bold;">Conquerer's Camail</a>, dyed steel blue (Mordor gear)</li>
<li><b>Expeditionary's Reinforced Hauberk</b>, dyed steel blue (Mordor gear)</li>
<li><b>Invader's Mighty Gages</b>, dyed steel blue<b> </b>(Mordor gear)</li>
<li><b>Expeditionary Boots</b>, dyed steel blue (Mordor gear)</li>
<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item%3ACloak_of_the_Slain_Hunter">Cloak of the Slain Hunter</a>, </b>dyed steel blue (Great River <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Quest:Neighbours_Meet">quest reward</a>)</li>
<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Infiltrator">Infiltrator</a></b> (<a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/The_Rift_of_N%C3%BBrz_Gh%C3%A2shu">The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu</a>)</li>
<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Elven_Soldier%27s_Light_Shield">Elven Soldier's Light Shield</a></b> (metalsmith crafting tier 5)</li>
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The pieces of the Mordor armour set come as selectable medium armour quest rewards for various quests. There are many quests that reward then, so don't worry if you can't find the specific one mentioned here. You can also barter them for ash.</div>
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An alternative for the shiny golden spear is the spear <b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Fight_Against_the_Darkness">Fight Against the Darkness</a></b> or the javelin <b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Strike_Against_the_Darkness">Strike Against the Darkness</a></b>, both selectable rewards from the level 30 warden class quest. They are dark blue with gold, so they are a perfect fit for this outfit. It's a shame you have to pick between them, because I'd love to have both!</div>
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Did you buy the High Elf race? And if so, is yours wearing shining armour as well?<br />
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<i>Many thanks go to Conrad, for helping out with the animated GIF and for his invaluable fashion advice. I don't thank him nearly enough for his invisible contributions to this blog from behind the scenes.</i><br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-71974100283857096332017-11-29T23:28:00.000+01:002017-11-29T23:46:27.586+01:00Disappointment on Umbara. A SWTOR review<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-94B6mUx3f3U/Wh8veAtoxSI/AAAAAAAAGBk/Lh2UeoaZOPQrJfG9lILjwDP2Kr7SlOLwwCKgBGAs/s1600/Lana%2Band%2Bcommander%2Bfighting%2Bhuge%2Bdroid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1600" height="350" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-94B6mUx3f3U/Wh8veAtoxSI/AAAAAAAAGBk/Lh2UeoaZOPQrJfG9lILjwDP2Kr7SlOLwwCKgBGAs/s640/Lana%2Band%2Bcommander%2Bfighting%2Bhuge%2Bdroid.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's no secret that I've been enjoying drawing more than gaming lately. And when I did play the past weeks, it was mostly Lord of the Rings Online's Mordor expansion. Nevertheless, I did fire up Star Wars: the Old Republic eventually, and decided it was about time to take on the Crisis on Umbara storyline on my main character. Which brought me straight to the Umbara flashpoint.</div>
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Some warnings are in order. This (overdue) review contains huge spoilers about the storyline, and also some crazy theories (that I, of course, believe are completely plausible). I recommend saving it for later if you're yet to play through the Umbara story.</div>
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Right from the very first moment, things seemed a bit off; it was all too rushed. Theron comes to you with a report, saying something along the lines of "we have a lead on the traitor, we have to go to Umbara, NOW!" - and that raised some questions. As a commander, I wouldn't just jump into a spaceship without a clue what's going on. But somehow, my character was satisfied with the promise that things would be explained underway. There was no conversation option to protest.</div>
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Sure, walking on the roof of a train is much more efficient than having to squeeze yourself in between the passengers down below.</div>
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Next thing I know, we jump out of a shuttle craft, on top of a moving train. Wtf? There is no convincing explanation as to why this is a good idea, but my character acts as if it's business as usual. I mean, I get that it looks cool and stuff, but wouldn't it be a lot less dangerous to arrest the traitor when the train makes a stop? I've seen this happen several times myself when a drunkard or aggressive person was harassing people. It's clean and efficient, and when it's handled professionally, most people don't even notice anything is going on. But apparently boarding the train the regular way is a no go since people on Umbara for some reason hate the Alliance.</div>
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So with the thought "this is all a bit random and unbelievable" in the back of my mind, I proceeded to explore the train, which apparently had to happen via the roof. </div>
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I enjoyed the puzzle elements of trying to find my way around, jumping over things, evading illuminated floor panels (of course, every train is booby trapped...). Unfortunately, the ride was heavily guarded and I was forced to take out many random people that I had no quarrel with; I had no idea who they were and who they're allied with. Theron wasn't very helpful in this regard.</div>
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Theron looks guilty as he makes his contribution to this chapter's cliche lines</div>
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When we got to the front of the train, Theron locks my character and Lana up and makes the train crash, sodding off while making up some lame excuse, "the Alliance doesn't do enough for peace". Lana and I manage to escape the train alive and look at each other. So Theron is the traitor. Rather than the "OOooooooomg, mindfuck!!" effect that's undoubtedly sought after by the writers, I sigh to myself while I'm fighting through the Umbara jungle. It feels like a cheap writing trick to go with the least likely character as the traitor.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/WdPfbQI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/WdPfbQI.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On another note, the Umbara landscape is fairly pretty, though a bit odd</div>
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After battling through a lot of aggressive natives, we finally make it off Umbara. My character offers Theron a chance to talk - extremely reasonable seeing the circumstances - but he refuses, repeating his lame excuse. It's just so out of character that it's unbelievable. Perhaps if you're the dictator like leader type that rules the Alliance with an iron fist it might be believable, but for my peace driven jedi it is not.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/RriB145.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="800" height="352" src="https://i.imgur.com/RriB145.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Me being my extremely reasonable self</div>
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At the end of the chapter, in a sort of epilogue, a scene appears that I had been half expecting: a teaser that might explain Theron's extreme out-of-character behaviour. Theron speaks to a cloaked figure. The theatrical way to 'dump the commander' was apparently a test to see if Theron would be fit to join his mysterious order (or whatever "we" stands for). I guess we're supposed to wonder who this hooded figure is next. Instead I wonder if it's all just a ruse and Theron will come back later to say "sorry, but this was the only way I could get into this super secret order and I needed to find out what they were up to because they are influential behind the scenes". It would be the only way I can think of that makes sense of it all - especially since the train crash is a bit of a half assed attempt on the commander's life. From up close (as Theron was), he could have chosen a much more effective, immediate method. The whole Umbara thing seemed mostly theatrical - which would make sense if you'd want to impress your secret figure without actually harming the commander.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/It8clqS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="800" height="306" src="https://i.imgur.com/It8clqS.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Theron wants to be recruited by this weirdo</div>
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Or it turns out he just actually betrayed you, and that doesn't make any sense at all if you're a peaceful commander. Unless you're a dick commander, of course, then he <i>should</i> betray you, or choices don't matter at all.</div>
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Overall, I must say I am a bit disappointed by this chapter, and it's all because of the writing. The Umbara events are simply not believable. I feel detached as I watch the major characters speak their cliche lines. This will only make sense if all gets resolved more or less as described above, but then it's too predictable. More than excitement, the chapter makes me experience boredom and annoyance, and that's disappointing indeed.</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-73129080832705490852017-10-25T12:27:00.000+02:002017-10-25T12:27:21.079+02:00Drawing diary: July - September<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t9IfHOjJ-Kc/WfBmh9W2EaI/AAAAAAAAGAY/JfGTTJDICTIwSmik4qprMqwGu-zMjIBAgCKgBGAs/s1600/Drawing%2Bdiary%2BJuly%2B-%2BSeptember.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="860" height="380" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t9IfHOjJ-Kc/WfBmh9W2EaI/AAAAAAAAGAY/JfGTTJDICTIwSmik4qprMqwGu-zMjIBAgCKgBGAs/s640/Drawing%2Bdiary%2BJuly%2B-%2BSeptember.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Hi guys! It's been a couple of weeks since my last entry and I have good and bad news. The good news: I'm doing Inktober! The bad news: I'm doing Inktober.</div>
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In between explaining the good and bad of Inktober, I'll post some drawings from July, August and September, to (sort of) stay on topic... and to probably make you super confused (sorry, side effect).</div>
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<i>In July, after a break of a year, I picked up drawing faces again. I found some extremely cheap (and extremely bad) markers for doodling and drew one face a day, trying out various styles, mostly inspired by people's Twitter icons. After twenty days, I felt more comfortable drawing people (my weak spot). The most puzzling thing was that it felt like I had made progress, even though I hadn't drawn any people for about a year! The project started out when I made a water colour Moana birthday card for my Disney fan friend.</i><br />
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/3DOyX60.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="800" height="452" src="https://i.imgur.com/3DOyX60.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Then I read Moon's Meadow's <a href="http://moonsmeadow.blogspot.com/2017/08/drawing-diary-for-july.html">July drawing diary</a> and wanted to make some black and white drawings myself. I especially like how the cardigan to the left turned out. It's my mother's; she's had it as long as I can remember, but I sort of claimed it when I moved back home (in fact, I'm wearing it as I'm writing this). The patterns make me kind of dizzy when staring at it.</i></div>
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Inktober is a personal challenge to draw one thing with ink each day of October, and publish it online somewhere. Right now, drawing is something that really enthuses me, so I decided to participate. Because things are not great at the moment, I'm not expecting to make the target (I don't want to get stressed out), but I'm giving it a heroic try! If you like to see what I've been drawing, you can check out my <a href="https://www.instagram.com/insta.griffon/">brand new Instagram account</a> (handle: insta.griffon). Warning: there's also a lot of mushroom pictures, because it's been such amazing autumn weather over here with <i>tons</i> of fungi. If you decide to give me a follow, let me know in the comments, so I can follow back.<br />
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/MdyTxup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="800" height="460" src="https://i.imgur.com/MdyTxup.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>I've also been spending a lot of time making drawings and paintings for a Super Secret project that has to do with dunes (okay, for those who know me well, it's now probably not so secret anymore). The baby dunes above didn't make it (*insert tragic music*). I'll post the more successful drawings I made for this project in December.</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7HhY67woXso/We266Ey-yqI/AAAAAAAAF_0/xeYAp2wGgR88BKv-j4HsoAcBDi_v_TASgCKgBGAs/s1600/Rekenend%2Bmeisje%2Bmet%2B2%2Blegendary%2Bbirds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="1261" height="362" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7HhY67woXso/We266Ey-yqI/AAAAAAAAF_0/xeYAp2wGgR88BKv-j4HsoAcBDi_v_TASgCKgBGAs/s640/Rekenend%2Bmeisje%2Bmet%2B2%2Blegendary%2Bbirds.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>In September, I made this illustration for my extremely nerdy (math alert!) article <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/09/my-pokemon-go-legendary-bird-catch-rates.html">Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos and Lugia: calculating legendary bird catch rates in Pokémon Go</a>. </i><br />
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The bad news is that with all the drawing (and mushroom hunting) going on, I don't have time to blog. This is something that usually makes me feel really bad. However, I decided to just let go for this month. I also would love to update my blog's layout, which is something I never get around to when I'm also trying to make my writing targets. So if I have any leftover time, that's how I'll be spending it.<br />
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<i>One day, I returned home and saw these quinces lying on an outdoor table. My mother had collected them from the quince tree in the back garden. It has been a bad quince year: few fruits compared to last year and many of them were partly rotten. Although this means we'll have less quince compote, it also saves hours of peeling, which is a real chore.</i><br />
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The bottom line is: don't worry, I'll be back! ...unless Inktober makes me so happy that I decide to participate in Dinovember as well (draw a dinosaur every day of the month). Super temping, because, you know, <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2015/07/creatively-double-liebsterized.html">DINOSAURS</a>!<br />
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*audience ragequits*<br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-48051048659140081342017-09-27T23:37:00.000+02:002017-09-27T23:39:54.292+02:00Drawing diary: June<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAM3v2NLF8fsZUoe80DBfVo_TOrWQjoEuxQCv28ckPO26zkyksGzS3HdZQfLD-OFe1YeJ0sAovK3pgE_WOR0HDKdMbBjMGOESnHUIoPP9k1fS8SpiVHMNsH4dFbZVg-YUYGBQ5YCFh8Q/s1600/Drawing+diary+-+June.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1099" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAM3v2NLF8fsZUoe80DBfVo_TOrWQjoEuxQCv28ckPO26zkyksGzS3HdZQfLD-OFe1YeJ0sAovK3pgE_WOR0HDKdMbBjMGOESnHUIoPP9k1fS8SpiVHMNsH4dFbZVg-YUYGBQ5YCFh8Q/s640/Drawing+diary+-+June.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With me utterly failing to catch up on my drawing diaries, I might have to settle for skipping some months. Indeed, lately my thoughts haven't been with blogging so much. Setting up my last rMA research and thesis plus managing my health have absolute priority, and take up almost all of my time. </div>
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That said, I would like to share some drawings I made during my trip to Switzerland this summer. It wasn't just a holiday; I went for the PhD defense of <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/11/drawing-diary-october.html">yet another friend</a> (yes, my friends are too smart!), this time in Zürich. It was amazing! Since you don't know my friends, I won't bore you with the details, but here are some sketches and (crappy phone) photos I made while traveling.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/HQZ1dJd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="576" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/HQZ1dJd.jpg" width="460" /></a></div>
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Switzerland impressions, with markers and fineliner (0.1 mm)</div>
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At the day of our arrival, our friend recommended eating at Frau Gerold. This was a great idea! In an outskirt of the city with an industrial atmosphere, one alley turned out to be filled with tents, plants and buzzing with people. It was full of Switzer hipsters (if there is such a thing) and had a great festival vibe. Containers were stacked and improvised into shops.</div>
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That same evening, near Frau Gerold, we saw people surfing in the city. Coming from the Netherlands - a country with lots of water and waves in the North Sea - it seemed pretty surreal to see people surf in an artificial environment. But I guess you get pretty desperate if you're a surfer and your country is situated so far from the sea!</div>
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A couple of days later, we met near the lake to hang out and relax. I practised drawing people (I still suck, ugh). It was such a nice day, though. We swam in the lake and looked at the boats and the Swiss mountains afar. Most of all, though, so many friends and acquaintances living all over the place coming together was something really special. I can still close my eyes and feel the happiness of that day.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/qItT18x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="800" height="344" src="https://i.imgur.com/qItT18x.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The last full day in Switzerland was my birthday! To celebrate, my PhD friend took us to the Ibergeregg for a hike. I used to hike in the Swiss mountains with my family on holiday, so this made me extremely nostalgic. My friends are all plant nerds, too, so we delighted at all the cool orchids and other alpic species. While the others looked for more exciting plants and birds, I sat down to draw the mountains. I also drew <i>Neotinea ustulata</i> (burnt-tip orchid, <i>Brand-Knabenkraut</i> or <i>aangebrande orchis</i>), which I had never seen before.</div>
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Even though I was only in Zürich for a short time, I have many fond memories of my trip. I'm happy that I have the drawings hang on my bedroom wall to remind me of those days.</div>
<br />Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-63539852351370615452017-09-15T21:22:00.003+02:002017-09-15T21:22:51.549+02:00LOTRO's Dulgabeth teaser: one trailer to save it all<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6EWoOjgFLl4/Wbwjbd7TDkI/AAAAAAAAF-I/GMLu24AM_I4xmkZEX6zyDVRuayRe2DP3gCKgBGAs/s1600/Black%2Bgate%2Bof%2BMordor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6EWoOjgFLl4/Wbwjbd7TDkI/AAAAAAAAF-I/GMLu24AM_I4xmkZEX6zyDVRuayRe2DP3gCKgBGAs/s640/Black%2Bgate%2Bof%2BMordor.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Remember that <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/08/lotros-mordor-trailer-reaction.html">truly awful Mordor trailer</a>? You know, the one that made Lord of the Rings Online the laughingstock of the MMO scape and that everybody, including Standing Stone Games, is trying really hard to forget about? (Right, I'm not helping, eh? Sorry about that.) Back then I wrote that the only thing SSG could do to fix it would be to make a better one. Turns out they have! Scroll down and watch LOTRO's latest trailer with me.</div>
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Mordor: After the Fall - Dulgabeth (<a href="https://youtu.be/6REZDo20vdY">Source</a>)</div>
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It's more a teaser than a full trailer, really. It also isn't mind blowing: rather, it's the style we are used from LOTRO (not counting the Mordor trailer). Somehow watching it gives off some oldschool Angmar vibes - it must be the dark setting. That same setting doesn't do the overall look of the trailer any favours. Unsurprisingly, LOTRO's graphics are outdated: the game is <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/05/ten-years-of-lotro-in-depth-history-of.html">ten years old</a>. The strength of its landscapes that still hold up, lies in its skies, weather system, trees and foliage; in Mordor you just see that ugly brown-blackish stone texture. It also looks like the in-game footage is recorded on low resolution - which is puzzling. On high graphics settings, the game looks much better! But - age notwithstanding - the Dulgabeth trailer does its job and provides some background to people who aren't familiar with the Mordor expansion. The tone is set by Chance Thomas' soundtrack that subtlely weaves
LOTRO's hope filled login theme through the despairing dissonances of
Mordor. Most of all, I feel extremely relieved that the developers still know what a trailer is.</div>
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Of interest is the choice of narrator. It is one of the bad guys: Dulgabeth, second in command to Sauron. This brings me to one of my favourite things about the expansion: the creative way the developers have solved the problem that there isn't all that much to Mordor after the One Ring is destroyed - at least, according to the book. In <i>The Return of the King</i>, the story focuses on the heroes: Frodo and Sam get saved by the Eagles, Aragorn becomes king in Minas Tirith, the Elves leave Middle-earth, the hobbits return to the Shire etc. Not much attention is given to what happens <i>in Mordor</i> after Sauron's defeat. Yet the place is filled with orcs that don't just magically drop dead. This is the point at which LOTRO players enter the region.</div>
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In LOTRO's Mordor expansion, players get to 'clean up' Mordor, and that isn't as easy as it may sound. After all, the orcs are no stranger to power play, and new candidates for the throne are rapidly emerging. Questing in Mordor gives you a unique look into the social structure of the forces of evil, one that is surprisingly convincing. I will save further thoughts on this for a Mordor review (I really should write one!), but this trailer does a decent job of giving players a peek behind the Black Gate.</div>
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What do you think of the Dulgabeth trailer?</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-19079243110102623522017-09-06T21:18:00.000+02:002017-09-07T11:25:55.602+02:00Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos and Lugia: calculating legendary bird catch rates in Pokémon Go<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IWGM3Ih3tLA/WbA4RfTyJII/AAAAAAAAF9I/bx6HlL_AIbIU3ZacbDAb0sAYBf0efwA4gCKgBGAs/s1600/Rekenend%2Bmeisje%2Bmet%2B2%2Blegendary%2Bbirds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="1261" height="362" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IWGM3Ih3tLA/WbA4RfTyJII/AAAAAAAAF9I/bx6HlL_AIbIU3ZacbDAb0sAYBf0efwA4gCKgBGAs/s640/Rekenend%2Bmeisje%2Bmet%2B2%2Blegendary%2Bbirds.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Last week Pokemon Go's legendary birds (Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos and Lugia) departed to make room for generation 2's legendary dogs Entei, Raikou and Suicune. The past weeks, I've been passionately hunting down these birds with other pokémon enthusiasts in my town - and with success. I now own all legendary birds; of most I even have multiple copies. During this period, I've kept track of the raids I attended and the times I managed to actually catch them. All so I can now calculate how I did. Have I been lucky with catching them, or unlucky? Let's take a look.</div>
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First a fair warning: while I love math (especially using it with data and getting cool results), I also quite suck at it. I've tried to make sense out of my humble data the best I could, but if I did make a mistake, feel free to point it out in the comments. I've also tried to make it insightful for non math inclined people, but if I fail to explain something, let me know and I'll try to do better.</div>
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<h2>
Expected catch rates of legendary birds</h2>
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Just like all pokémon, the legendary birds have a base catch rate. For Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos the base catch rate is 3%; for Lugia it's 2% (so Lugia's the hardest bird to catch). You can increase your chance at catching them by feeding berries, by accumulating type medals and by throwing a certain way.</div>
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The graphs below show how the catch rate increases with all these factors.</div>
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Expected catch rate for Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos (3% base catch rate)</div>
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Expected catch rate for Lugia (2% base catch rate)</div>
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Credit for the graphs go to redditor Epimetheos, who posted them on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/6pnvfo/update_beyond_the_math_for_legendaries_catch_rate/">Silph Road reddit</a>. <span style="text-align: justify;">Note that for the points that represent the quality of throws (normal, nice, great, excellent), the average multiplier has been used. (In reality, the exact size of the catch circle affects the multiplier, but you can't see by how much in-game.)</span></div>
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If you want to know more about the math these graphs are based upon, check out GamePress' article about <a href="https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/catch-mechanics">Pokemon Go catch mechanics</a>. It contains a nifty formula for pokémon catch chances based lots of player data.<br />
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Ravanel and Molly the Moltres in action</div>
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My Pokémon Go legendary bird catch rates</h2>
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So now I want to compare these rates to how I've been doing in reality. The graphs show the chance to catch the legendary birds <i>per throw</i>; however, I didn't record how I did for every single throw - that would've been a lot of work. Instead, I simply wrote down whether or not I managed to catch a bird or not <i>per encounter</i>. An encounter consists of roughly 8 - 14 throws, depending on how many balls you receive after the fight to throw with.</div>
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In order to find out the probability of my catch rates, I will go with hypothetical <i>encounters</i> of 10 great throws with golden razz berry and curve balls.<br />
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Reasoning (optional read): </div>
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<small>
<b>Team bonus</b>:
I'm in team Mystic (blue), the largest team in my region. When doing
legendary raids, I often get extra balls to throw at the bird for team
contribution. I'm a patient player and the majority of my throws hit. I
will take an average amount of 10 attempts into account for this thought
experiment. </small></div>
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<small>
<b>Throwing strategy</b>:
I always throw curve balls.
Unfortunately, I'm not amazing enough to throw excellent curve balls
every time, but I consistently hit great. So I will assume great curve
ball throws for this experiment.</small></div>
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<small>
<b>Feeding</b>: I use a golden razzberry for every throw.</small> </div>
</blockquote>
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<small><b>Medals</b>:
I have a gold medal for both flying and psychic (+3), silver medals for
fire and electric (+2) and a bronze medal for ice (+1). The legendary birds have double typings (for instance Articuno is both flying and ice type). When pokemon have double typings, the average
medal bonus gets applied (see the Gamepress article).</small></div>
</blockquote>
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With the information above and the throw chance graphs, we can determine my personal likelihood of catching a legendary bird per encounter (all numbers have been rounded):</div>
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<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" dir="ltr" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; font-family: arial,sans,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; table-layout: fixed; width: 0px;"><colgroup><col width="90"></col><col width="120"></col><col width="139"></col><col width="135"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 44px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Legendary bird"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Legendary bird</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Catch chance per throw"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Catch chance per throw</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Catch chance per encounter"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Catch chance per encounter</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Calculation for encounter"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Calculation for encounter</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Articuno"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Articuno</td><td data-sheets-numberformat="{"1":3,"2":"0%","3":1}" data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.17}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">17%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"84,5%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">84,5%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"83^10 = 0.155"}" style="background-color: white; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">0,83<span style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">10</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">≈</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> 0,155</span></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Moltres"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Moltres</td><td data-sheets-numberformat="{"1":3,"2":"0%","3":1}" data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.18}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">18%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"86,3%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">86,3%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"82^10 = 0.137"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">0,82<span style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">10</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">≈</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> 0,137</span></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Zapdos"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Zapdos</td><td data-sheets-numberformat="{"1":3,"2":"0%","3":1}" data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.18}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">18%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"86,3%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">86,3%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"82^10 = 0.137"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">0,82<span style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">10</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">≈</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> 0,137</span></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Lugia"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Lugia</td><td data-sheets-numberformat="{"1":3,"2":"0%","3":1}" data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.13}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">13%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"75,2%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">75,2%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"87^10 = 0.248"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">0,87<span style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">10</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">≈</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> 0,248</span></td></tr>
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As you can see, even though the chance of catching a legendary bird <i>per throw</i> is not very high, I was pretty likely to catch it <i>per encounter</i> (when throwing as suggested).<br />
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(Fun fact, using the same presumptions, I have a chance of: 12% per throw; 72,1% per encounter to catch the current legendary beast Entei.)<br />
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Now let's look at my encounter data, showing how I actually did.</div>
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<a href="https://i.imgur.com/lAVG4vO.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="800" height="220" src="https://i.imgur.com/lAVG4vO.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<u>Legenda</u><br />
✓ = caught<br />
✖ = did not catch<br />
⚡ = error (crash or did not defeat pokémon)<br />
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<i>(The
little numbers in the bottom right corners are not relevant in this
case. They indicate the number of raids I have done. This includes non
legendary raids, which are not shown here.)</i></div>
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As
you can see, I've done 18 legendary bird raids in total. Most of them were successful. Obviously,
with such a small sample size, this has no real statistical value; it's
just for fun.<br />
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Now things get a bit more tricky: how likely was I to get this result?<br />
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<tr style="height: 44px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Legendary bird"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Legendary bird</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Success rate"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">My success rate</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Chance to get this result"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Chance to get this result</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Calculation for encounter"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: normal; word-wrap: break-word; wrap-strategy: 4;">Calculation</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Articuno"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Articuno</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"3 out of 4"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">3 out of 4</td><td data-sheets-numberformat="{"1":3,"2":"0.0%","3":1}" data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"37,4%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">37,4%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"4 * (0,155 * 0,845^3) "}" style="background-color: white; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">4(0,155 <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b></span> 0,845<span style="text-align: justify; vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">3</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">)</span></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Moltres"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Moltres</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"3 out of 6"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">3 out of 6</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"3,3%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">3,3%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"20 * (0,137^2 * 0,863^2 * 0,137 * 0,863)"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">20(0,137<span style="text-align: justify; vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> 0,863</span><sup><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span></sup><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> 0,137 </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> 0,863)</span></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Zapdos"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Zapdos</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"3 out of 4"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">3 out of 4</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"35,2%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">35,2%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"4 * (0,863^2 * 0,137 * 0,863)"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">4(0,863<sup><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span></sup> <b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b> 0,137 <b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b> 0,863)</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Lugia"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Lugia</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"1 out of 3*"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1 out of 3*</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"13,9%"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">13,9%</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"3 * (0,752 * 0,248^2)"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">3(0,752 <b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-size: small;">∙</span></b> 0,248<sup><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span></sup>)</td></tr>
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*not counting the encounter when my phone crashed before the catching sequence<br />
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So what does this percentage mean? To illustrate, these are the chances of all possible success rates for Articuno (4 encounters): <br />
4 catches: 51%<br />
3 catches 1 fail: 37,4%<br />
2 catches 2 fails: 10,3%<br />
1 catch 3 fails: 1,3%<br />
4 fails: 0,06%<br />
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This post is getting way too long if I write down all the possible combinations for all four birds, but this should give an idea.<br />
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Zahir the Zapdos, Artemis the Articuno and Lucy the Lugia</div>
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<h2>
Conclusions</h2>
One guy in my raid group had gone through ten Zapdos raids before he finally manage to catch one. As you can see, the chances of that happening while throwing well are astronomically small. But it does happen; that's just the nature of statistics.<br />
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For me, the outliers are Moltres (3,3%) and Lugia (13,9%): I definitely did worse on them than expected. For Moltres, I'm pretty sure I sucked at throwing and missed more often than on the others. There's something about the way Moltres moves and deflects the premium ball that throws me off. For Lugia I'm not sure; that could also just have been bad luck. Generally, I don't think I actually manage 10 great curveball throws on each encounter, but I try!<br />
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There's also another factor other than bad luck and throwing worse than accounted for that could negatively influence the outcome: the curveball bug. Pokémon Go doesn't always count the catch bonuses of curve balls. If you look at the catch rate graphs, you see how problematic that is. Curveballs about double your chance of catching per throw! Niantic has stated they are aware of the bug, so hopefully it gets fixed soon. <br />
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I hope I haven't scared you off with all the math: it's not something I do often, but from time to time I really do like to mess around with data. If you like to know more about the probability formulae used in this article, the <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/math/precalculus/prob-comb#basic-prob-precalc">Khan academy</a> has an excellent explanation.<br />
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Did you do well at catching the legendary birds?<br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-42761291928627316542017-08-28T09:56:00.001+02:002017-08-28T10:04:47.097+02:00LOTRO's first character update: humans & Elves<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Lord of the Rings Online's recent Mordor expansion didn't just add a good chunk of depressing landscape architecture to the virtual world, it also introduced something for all residents: a character overhaul. Okay - correction - it only adds something for players that own Elven and human characters; hobbits and dwarves will follow in the future. Being a ten year old game, LOTRO could really use an update of its avatars - or so many players seem to think. It is telling that I spent my first couple of hours after launch fiddling around with my characters' new looks rather than venture into Mordor.</div>
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I wasn't the only one. The Prancing Pony (Bree) looked like this. Players were continuously spawning in and changing their looks.<br />
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Never before this barber felt so popular</div>
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Initially, I felt slightly disappointed. I think this was partly because I'm visually inclined and set the bar high. I would've loved more sliders, (even) more hairstyles and more facial complexion. It was also disappointing to find out that long hair still clips through the shoulders, especially if you're wearing a cloak (cloaks in LOTRO put two blobs on your shoulders that I refer to as the "shoulder flaps"). I think the other part of it was that I'm very accustomed to my characters' looks after having played them for ten years. The game automatically 'translates' your characters' old features into the new model and the result isn't always flattering. It usually pays off to fiddle around with the features a bit at the in-game barber to make your character feel right again. Hence why it was so busy at the barber in Bree.<br />
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The in-game interface to change your character's appearance, found at a barber NPC<br />
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My boyfriend, on the other hand, didn't have that much trouble adapted to the new looks at all. He enthusiastically logged all his characters and had them all changed in no time. After that he offered his second opinion to my still struggling self, which was very helpful.</div>
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While I was working on them, I recorded the process with screenshots, so you can get some insight into the changes and form your own opinion. Note that "auto" stands for the automatically generated look, and "new" for the final look after I changed things around at the barber. Let's first look at the elves. </div>
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From top to bottom: 1. Ravanel; 2. Ravalinde; 3. Ravereth; 4. Ravenwë.</div>
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The hardest to do was my main character, Ravanel (1). I really disliked the way her hair clips on one side at the height of her chin (see "auto"), so I changed her hairstyle. Problem is I loved that hairstyle so much and the character is dear to me, so I'm a bit sad about not having the old hairstyle anymore. I'm not getting my hopes up, but if a developer would fix this glitch, it would make my day.</div>
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Ravereth (3) I absolutely love with the new look. She just looks extremely Elf-like and feminine. A real improvement. <span style="text-align: center;">Ravenwë (4) and Ravalinde (2) I am fine with, too. Ravalinde's face looks a tad too bulky for an Elf, but there was no other way with that hairstyle.</span></div>
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Now let's look at changes to the human character model.<br />
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From top to bottom: 1. Ravenwyn; 2. Ravalyn; 3. Laceleaf; 4. Haradwen.</div>
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One of the first things that I noticed is that female human faces look a bit chubby after the update. The "baby face" effect, if you will. They all do, no matter what face you pick. For Ravenwyn (1) it doesn't matter, because she's (meant to be) young and naive. Her new look is just perfect! I really love it. Laceleaf (3) looks great, too. She is staunch and stubborn, and looks like it. </div>
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I'm less happy about Haradwen (4). She's supposed to be one of my older characters, above 40, but she looks very young. I never liked LOTRO's option for wrinkles (too exessive and artificial), and without them pulling off an middle age woman character with the new look is tough. Also, some hairstyles, like Ravalyn's long hair (2), strengthen the baby face effect, which is a shame.</div>
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This would be the perfect blog post if I would continue with the male character models. Unfortunately, however, I don't play any male characters, so I don't have the same amount of visual material. Boo, Rav. I know, sorry to disappoint.</div>
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Luckily, my boyfriend was able to help me out with some screenshots, although he didn't have many of his old characters stored. Here goes.</div>
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Conrad's character Fingolw<span style="text-align: center;">ë</span></div>
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Just wow. Male Elves look so much hotter nowadays! My boyfriend only has one, because they used to look so bad that he couldn't bear rolling more, but now they look like something you might actually want to play. Ravanel is totally hitting on this Elf, just saying.</div>
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The only thing I could criticize the new male Elf look for is that they perhaps look a bit <i>too </i>manly. But compared to what they looked like before, it's a huge improvement.</div>
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The new looks of: 1. Aikanar (man), 2. Thorfaer (man), 3. Eleril (man) and 4. Fingolw<span style="text-align: center;">ë (Elf)</span></div>
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I don't have screenshots of pre-update male human characters, so you'll have to take my word for it, but men also show a definite improvement. The new men look like, well, actual <i>men</i>, and I would even go so far that they show character. Do beware of the "creeper look" as shown by Aikanar (1), though (my boyfriend is going to kill me when he reads this!): if a man would look at me like that I wouldn't feel comfortable. I do like Eleril's semi melancholic gaze, though, and Thorfaer nails the grizzled ranger look.</div>
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Changes that I haven't covered here but do want to quickly mention are some <b>extra character customization options</b> at the barber and character animations. As for the barber: 1) existing hairstyles have been improved and it seems a few have been added. 2) Before, eye colour and body shape could only be changed at the character creation screen, but now they can be changed at the barber, like other features. (I guess they weren't eligible for in-game changing before because of lore reasons, but it's darn convenient like this.) 3) The body shape slider has expanded, allowing your character to display a broader range of body types. Women can now be made to look more muscular.</div>
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Elves and men also got <b>new running and walking animations</b>. Most of them look pretty neat. The one I'm not sure about is the running animation of female Elves. They tip-toe and bounce a lot (you notice this best when looking at your character from the side). I get what the developers were going for, but it looks a bit odd.</div>
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Conclusions</h2>
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Although I have been critical in this article about some details, I generally feel the character update is a huge upgrade and a great addition to the game for LOTRO players. If you are like me and have trouble adapting to a new look of your characters, give it some time and fiddle around with things at the barber - the automatic look almost never does it right. If you still don't like what you're seeing, you can always turn the update off; there's an option to do so under <b>Options > Adv Graphics > Avatar Update Visible</b> or you can just untick the "Avatar Update Visible" box at the character selection screen when logging in (it's to the left bottom of your selected character's pedestal). </div>
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What do you think of LOTRO's new human and Elven looks?<br />
<br />Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-30899592714091670312017-08-21T10:14:00.000+02:002017-09-06T21:26:09.584+02:00Pokémon Go day trip to the Amstelveen Safari Zone<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Last weekend was the last opportunity to visit one of Europe's so called Pokémon Go Safari Zones. For three weekends in a row, in various shopping centres that partnered with Niantic, kangaskhan (normally only available in Australia) could be found. In addition, an increased spawn rate of the unknown letters forming E-U-R-O-P-E was in effect in these areas. You didn't have to pay anything in order to participate in the event; you just had to be there and look for those pokémon.</div>
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I do love catching myself some cool pokémon. And while I don't usually travel beyond my municipality for pokémon and shopping isn't exactly my greatest hobby, it seemed silly to let the opportunity go. Especially so when I found out that the closest Safari Zone, in Stadshart Amstelveen (the Netherlands), was less than an hour drive away.</div>
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I was prepared to spend some time on my own, maybe drop by the Cobra Museum (modern art) if I got bored of the shopping centre, but then I found out my brother and his girlfriend wanted to go as well. So past Saturday, all three of us got in the car early to catch us some pokémon.</div>
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We found our first kangaskhan already when we were in the parking lot, just getting out of the car. "Okay, now we can go home again!", we jokingly said. We soon found out that kangaskhan spawned regularly all over the place, often even with multiple at a time, so everyone who visited the Safari Zone was going to have a successful day.</div>
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As expected, the scene was crawling with pokémon, pokéstops and gyms. All the pokéstops had lures active; most of them even seemed donated by generous other players, judging by the variety of names that had activated them. </div>
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The shopping centre was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It was huge and totally covered to shelter visitors from the weather. In the middle, a boulevard with a <a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenboogpad">rainbow pedestrian crossing</a> (see top picture) brought a smile to my face. I knew these existed but had never seen one myself. A variation to the white crossings ("zebrapaden") usually found in the Netherlands, these paths voice a statement of equality and acceptance in general, and to the LGBT community specifically. But I digress.</div>
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This power bank that I bought at the Action the previous day came in super handy </div>
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My phone is quite old and it just about manages to play Pokémon Go, if you're patient and give it time to load things. However, it was horror in the Safari Zone because of all the mobile data being used. I could barely move my viewing angle in-game and got kicked out of the Lugia raid five times. Luckily, my company had newer phones that didn't suffer so much. After 20 minutes of fruitlessly trying to enter the raid, I borrowed my brother's phone to login to my account and finish the Lugia raid. It would've been a shame to have spent that raid pass without being able to take part in the fight at all.</div>
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I didn't manage to catch lugia (don't worry, I did already catch one a couple a weeks ago in my home town, so I'll survive), but it was fun to hook up with random strangers and fight. In my semi-rural home town, there aren't enough players around for raids to just happen organically. It wasn't extremely busy in the shopping centre, but you could see people playing Pokémon Go everywhere, which was a fun experience! Normally I feel like a bit of a dork when I'm hanging out somewhere alone, trying to take out a gym or tier 1 raid boss.</div>
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While fighting lugia, I heard from a fellow raider that this Safari Zone had been very busy the previous weekends. Apparently back then it was so crowded that it was hard to move around. I don't know if it was because of the poor weather or because most players had already gotten their kangaskhans by now, but it wasn't like that during my visit. I'm not particularly fond of crowded places, so this was a good thing in my book - not to mention how my phone would've behaved with so many people around.</div>
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I had expected a pretty much generic shopping centre with logs of huge well-known brands. Of course, all the big brands were indeed there. But there were also plenty of fun small shops present, like this cheese store (picture above) that literally had their cheeses stacked up until the ceiling. Unsurprisingly (being Dutch), I love cheese, so I really enjoy shops like this.</div>
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Around lunch time, I discovered that my favourite brand of hummus (Maza) apparently has whole cafes with delicious falafel as well (or perhaps it is the other way around). This falafel café was heaven! Everything was freshly made, reasonably priced and so delicious. </div>
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While kangaskhan was extremely easy to catch, the unowns were more of a challenge. There weren't as many of them, and when they did appear it was sometimes hard to target them because they were so small and were covered by other pokémon or pokéstops. My phone was overheating, so I basically shut it off, until one of the others shouted "unown!" and I'd quickly start up the game, hoping I could catch it. The unowns despawned quickly (I think they were only around for about 5 minutes), so it was tricky. Of course we wanted to catch all five available letters (E, U, R, O and P)!</div>
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Unsurprisingly, my legs didn't want to carry me anymore when it was afternoon, so I seated myself in a cute cake cafe while the others continued exploring. The cupcakes were exquisite and tasted less chemical than they looked! I couldn't resist ordering one, even though I wasn't very hungry because of the falafel.</div>
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At the end of the day we returned home with several kangaskhan, all different unknowns, and then some. I'd been too busy to visit the Cobra Museum, so I guess I'll have to go to Amstelveen again someday. I miss the pokémon madness already.</div>
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When we were heading towards the car, my brother suddenly noticed a wild snorlax nearby. Off we ran, and each of us managed to catch it. Mine was extremely low level with poor stats, but I don't mind, as I already have an awesome one. The others got a better one and were overflowing with joy.</div>
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Overall, it was a memorable day, and a way more fun experience than I could have anticipated. Niantic definitely hit the target here. With the shopping centre being free to enter for everyone, the area big enough for people to spread themselves out and phone service working fine (at least for the people that didn't have to operate an ancient phone), this low key version of the originally planned event was good fun - probably even more so than a paid huge event would be for me.</div>
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<i>As usual, all photos in this article are made by me. The pokémon have been digitally added back at home. As for my phone: don't take my complaints about it too seriously! I got my phone secondhand from a friend and I'm very thankful for it: without it, I wouldn't have been able to play Pokémon Go at all. When I state its age, it's merely to make clear that my experience doesn't reflect that of the majority of players present.</i></div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-32752927277415696872017-08-09T23:02:00.000+02:002017-08-11T00:17:16.734+02:00Drawing diary: May<div style="text-align: justify;">
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If I keep up this pace, I'll be catching up on my drawing diaries forever! I really should try to get them out more quickly. What's putting it off is that the scanning is a lot of work. But I enjoy sharing my drawings and adventures with you guys, so that's no excuse. Here is my entry for May!</div>
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I spent plenty of hours painting in May, especially when I was in Sweden with my family for two weeks. However, the month started out on a sad note.</div>
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A goodbye to Saartje the stealth poodle</h2>
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In the beginning of May, just a few days before we went on holiday, we had to say goodbye to our most beloved four pedal family member. Saartje had reached the respectable poodle age of 15 as healthy as can be, but suddenly got really ill, probably a brain tumor. For half of my life she was there, and it is hard to explain how much comfort this small family member gave us. I don't want to go into too much detail here, but she is sorely missed.</div>
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Being black, Saartje looked really bad on pictures (black hole effect), so the drawing of her I made last year in Sweden is extra precious to me.</div>
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Early May drawing and painting</h2>
This is probably not news to you, but one thing that can really ease my mind is drawing and painting. So that's what I did.<br />
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Three things I made</div>
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<b>Black-gray feather</b> (above, right) - Remember how I dramatically failed at colour blending <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/07/drawing-diary-april.html">my succulent plant drawings</a> the previous month? Well, I failed spectacularly, again! I was trying to make the gray teints change gradually, but it doesn't look like that at all. I'm giving up on it for now, because I've tried everything that I can think of. I will just find other creative solutions when dealing with gradual colours in marker drawings.</div>
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On the plus side, I do like what the feather actually looks like, even if the effect was not quite what was intended.</div>
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<b>Tulip in green vase (above, middle)</b> - I used two different watercolour brands for this one, just because of the colours that they had available. Well, I won't do that again! I did the red flower with Winsor & Newton, and the rest with Talens water colour. As you can see, the Talens has less colour and looks look-through. The pigment quality and amount of the brand is just much lower. I hadn't realized this until I used both in the same painting.<br />
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<b>Red tulips (above, left)</b> - I really love how this one turned out! It's by far the best watercolour painting I've ever made. My mum really loved it as well, so I gifted it to her for Mother's Day.<br />
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If you don't recognize the flowers as tulips, don't worry! I waited too long with drawing them, so they were almost withered... <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/drawing-diary-march.html">again</a>.<br />
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Then it was time to depart for Sweden, in a strangely empty car.</div>
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What's in my suitcase</div>
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Holiday in Sweden</h2>
The first thing I did was draw all my clothes that I was going to take with me. This seemed like a fun way to start practicing my water colours, and it also forced me to get my stuff packed in time (I really dislike packing for some reason)! I got the idea from <a href="http://www.myopensketchbook.com/travel-journal-prep/">Kay over at My Open Sketchbook</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/lq4SSsDWG6U">Fran Meneses' YouTube channel</a>. Be sure to check those out if you haven't already, because their illustrations are super inspiring.<br />
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My family was a bit puzzled by that I was drawing clothes, but whatever!<br />
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I love drawing and painting when I'm on holiday. It's relaxing, and it forces you to look around for beautiful things. This time, I decided to work on my watercolour skills. I bought a small journal with watercolour paper to take along.<br />
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Watercolour journal: Sweden</div>
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I'm not used to painting in a journal, but it was actually quite nice. The journal barely takes any space at all when travelling, and the paper was great for watercolour, almost as good as an official watercolour block. The pages only slightly curl around the edges, and you can use both sides without the other side shining through.</div>
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Now it's time for some Sweden pictures and nature nerding.</div>
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One thing I love about being abroad are the supermarkets! There are always so many products that you can't find at home. Above you see some icecream and sweets we bought when passing through Denmark.<br />
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When passing through Malmö (Sweden), we bought this huge bread at <a href="https://www.malmosaluhall.se/en/handlare/st-jakobs-stenugnsbageri-2/">St. Jakobs Stenugnsbageri</a>. I really loved the place. All bread was handmade and you could see the bakers at work, folding and kneading the dough. And there was so much of it! The shop was stacked with all kinds of bread. There was also a cafe attached, which was a lovely place to sit down and draw.<br />
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Our cottage was in the same spot in Skåne as <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/07/drawing-diary-june.html">last year</a>: at the edge of a nature reserve. I love the landscape, and found many cool plants. (For instance the blooming <i>Equisetum sylvaticum</i> or <i>bospaardestaart</i>/<i>skogsfräken </i>above.) Because we were earlier than last year, the orchids were still around and we saw many bright yellow fields with blooming <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed">rapeseed</a> or <i>koolzaad </i>/ <i>raps</i> (<i>Brassica napus</i>).<br />
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One such field was right next to our cottage. I couldn't remember this from last year, because by then it must've already ceased blooming. Rapeseed flowers are extremely bright: looking at them almost hurts your eyes. I was lucky to find a teint of yellow that did just that at an art supply shop in Ystad.<br />
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Now I had bought my first cube of watercolour (the rest of my watercolour set I inherited from my grandfather; I'll post a picture of it at some point), I needed to try it out. I soon found out that painting watercolour landscapes is really hard! The picture to the right took me three afternoons of painting, and it's really quite small.<br />
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I think landscapes are hard because you need to work with perspective and need to add lots of depth, and for that you need many, many layers. Shadows are something that I haven't figured out how to do yet. /Sigh<br />
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I see a lot of illustrators using watercolour in a kind of 'drawing' way: to paint small objects and people. Personally, I've found that much, much easier to pull off. (So if you're just starting with water colour, starting with objects is definitely a tip.) I hear it takes years of practice to get good at painting landscapes - I'm not surprised by that at all.<br />
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Here I found a really cool plant I'd never seen before: <i>fältsippa </i>(<i>Pulsatilla pratensis</i>). It doesn't grow in the Netherlands, and I had only seen its nephew <i>Pulsatilla vulgaris</i> (<i>wildemanskruid</i>) once.<br />
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Our cottage in Sweden wasn't far from the Baltic Sea. You could collect the most beautiful stones at the beach. The boys were more interested in throwing them at the sea, bouncing them on the surface as often as they could.<br />
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One of our day trips was to national park Stenshuvud. This place strongly appealed to my inner archaeologist and botanist. On top of the cliffs, the remains of a huge prehistoric hillfort were barely visible. It was easy to understand why it was built just there, because you had a magnificent view of both the sea and the hinterland.<br />
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I had also never seen so many different biotopes in one place, and because of it, we saw a huge variation in plant and wildlife.<br />
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The tree to the right was completely covered in huge ivy branches. It looked really cool. The tree itself, however, was most likely less delighted by its company.<br />
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I've run out of pictures! I hope you've enjoyed this lengthy account (sorry). Messing around with water colours wasn't easy - I'm still not sure if I have the patience for it - but I'm mostly happy with what I made and it was definitely good practice. And Sweden itself was just really amazing, as always. Since I also speak the language a bit, every time I return strangely feels a bit like coming home.<br />
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<i>Credit of the photos of me and the one of the huge bread goes to my brother. I'm thankful I could borrow his camera again, so you don't have to suffer through my crappy phone pictures!</i><br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-32329750668966237152017-08-05T22:24:00.001+02:002017-08-05T22:26:27.850+02:00LOTRO's Mordor trailer: a reaction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's expansion time in Lord of the Rings Online, so get ready for some dark and depressing images on Ravalation. Sauron has done a great job of branding his homeland such that nobody ever wants to visit (SSG arguably even helped a bit with their <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/07/lotros-mordor-expansion-pre-order-deals.html">widely discussed pre-order prices</a>), yet many players chose to (wo)man up and venture through the Black Gate this past Wednesday. I was among them. Since I haven't played enough to write a review yet, let's discuss something else: the Mordor trailer.</div>
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I don't usually dedicate whole blog posts to MMO trailers - I don't think they're <i>that</i> interesting - but, as you will see, this is a very special trailer. More precisely, this is probably (hopefully) the worst MMO trailer you've seen this year, perhaps ever. If you haven't seen it yet, give it a go.</div>
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Official trailer for LOTRO's Mordor expansion (<a href="https://youtu.be/JX7Wm29hts8">source</a>)</div>
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It's hard to find words that can describe the amount of cringe I feel when watching this trailer. It looks like it was put together a couple of hours before launch - in fact, it probably was.</div>
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The trailer in context</h2>
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LOTRO has a tradition of rushed expansions, and Mordor is no exception. Despite beta testers urging the developers to wait with release until finished, the expansion was announced to go live as planned on August the first. However, less than 12 hours before the servers were supposed to go offline, a major bug was found and Mordor was delayed by two days. During this two day period, the trailer was released. To be honest, I hadn't even realized that there hadn't been a trailer so far: news of the highly anticipated addition of Mordor to the game had done its job all by itself.</div>
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Let's look at <a href="https://youtu.be/A1dYG_5681o">LOTRO's Helm's Deep trailer</a> (the previous expansion). I <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2013/09/lotro-should-you-pre-order-helms-deep.html">wasn't a huge fan of that trailer</a> back in the day, but say what you will, it does manage to capture that Middle-earth feeling. For me, the Mordor trailer did nothing of the sorts. And it's not just that the graphics are somewhat outdated: to me the <span style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOdTeT1xUQQ">Warcraft III trailer</a> from <i>1999 </i>(almost 20 years ago!) evokes more emotion than the Mordor one... and I don't even like the Warcraft world. More closer to home, <a href="https://youtu.be/chDxPIQwj3A">LOTRO's original opening cinematic</a> from 2007 was actually pretty cool. I wish my in-game elven characters could actually look like that elf chick (but more on that in an upcoming post about LOTRO's character overhaul).</span></div>
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Finally, for a more contemporary comparison we can look at Guild Wars 2's upcoming expansion: Path of Fire and its <a href="https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/path-of-fire/">accompanying trailer</a>. Now that's a trailer that enthuses one about a game! And then I haven't even talked about Star Wars: the Old Republic's trailer for the <a href="https://youtu.be/LbpDxrew4A0">Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion</a> (2016): the best one I've ever seen for an MMO. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.</div>
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Community reception</h2>
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Players have expressed their feelings of horror online, for instance in the comment section of <a href="http://massivelyop.com/2017/08/02/lord-of-the-rings-onlines-mordor-expansion-is-officially-live-with-a-launch-trailer/">Massively OP's news article</a> and in a LOTRO forum post unambiguously called <a href="https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?656635-SSG-please-take-down-the-official-Mordor-trailer"><i>SSG, please take down the official Mordor trailer</i></a>. Some players thought at first glance that the trailer was satire or a fan video. Others point at the damage it does to the game.</div>
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"<i>If I was a prospective player, I would see that and not even try the game. Even as a veteran player, that trailer did nothing to excite me.</i>" <br />
- Player Kanoma on the <a href="https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?656635-SSG-please-take-down-the-official-Mordor-trailer&p=7755666#post7755666">LOTRO forum</a></blockquote>
In the same thread, player "bobbylobs" observes a trend of SSG <a href="https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?656635-SSG-please-take-down-the-official-Mordor-trailer&p=7755666#post7755666">becoming the laughing stock</a> in the MMO gamer community:<br />
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"<i>SSG do yourselves a huge favour and do as the OP suggests - take it down - it's a laughing stock right now, I'm not joking I've logged on to two other games tonight and players there are literally laughing at this, people are searching the internet to see it and no-one, absolutely no-one has anything complimentary to say about it, I am supremely confident it isn't generating any customers but it is definitely turning people away.</i>" </blockquote>
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The above pretty much sums up what was being discussed in my kinship's Discord channel (consisting of mostly veteran LOTRO players of the first hour). We had a lot of fun joking at how bad the trailer was; deep down, of course, we were a bit sad too, because we all love(d) the game and it deserves better. </div>
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Finally, you know when something truly went awfully wrong when <a href="https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?656635-SSG-please-take-down-the-official-Mordor-trailer&p=7755655#post7755655"><i>even self proclaimed LOTRO fanboys</i></a> are embarrassed:</div>
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"<i>Well I'd probably be classed as hopeless fanboi as I've bought the expansion, have no problem with the launch delay, disagreed with all the moaners about the delay, happily had my tea and watched some TV whilst the update downloaded and am really looking forward to Mordor, BUT that trailer is truly awful. On second viewing it's even worse, I really don't understand the thought process behind it. It makes LOTRO look terrible, the trailer has no plus points</i>."</blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?656635-SSG-please-take-down-the-official-Mordor-trailer&p=7756967#post7756967">Reportedly</a>, community manager Cordovan addressed the matter on the official LOTRO stream, saying the trailer would be "de-emphasized." I didn't watch the stream myself, but that sounds awfully much like "we keep it up, pretend it doesn't exist and hopefully people will forget about it". The latter would definitely be the best for the game.<i><br /></i></div>
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<h2>
Conclusions</h2>
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Standing Stone Games (SSG) is in an unusual position. In an 'expected' game studio's lifecycle, it would start out small, getting more successful and growing bigger with the release of good games. Think of CD Projekt Red with their Witcher games. In LOTRO, we see the opposite happening. If some small game would've made a trailer like this, nobody would've noticed. But LOTRO started out as a potential "WoW killer" (back in 2007 when that was still a thing) and that legacy brings certain expectations. I would be lying if I didn't feel for the developer that made the trailer because of its reception. Not that I want to explain away the quality of this trailer: it's truly awful, and the criticism is justified. If anyone at SSG has the ability to work on their introspection skill, now's the time.</div>
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I have a final note, though. Yes, the trailer is bad, and I can't really blame people from thinking "wow, this game went to shit, glad I didn't buy Mordor". But there's one thing I need to say: I've been tremendously enjoying the expansion so far! It's actually pretty good. New space to explore, new levels, new actual content rather than gear grind (in fact, less grind for the new essences and even some efforts to reduce power creep) and an interesting new light of Eärendil mechanic. There is that special kind of community buzz that seems reserved for expansions. Everyone is sincerely excited - I mean, the game actually made it to Mordor! - so it truly feels like an expansion. If you're not playing Mordor because of the trailer, you're missing out on something.</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-64270764829219912652017-07-28T21:56:00.000+02:002017-07-28T21:56:31.389+02:00Fashion Friday: Sunflower-picking hobbit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LEhdzLml6io/WXuWuhB6l0I/AAAAAAAAF2w/EIogNkIpINoBG-sh14-NknFWRz2-McakACKgBGAs/s1600/Cicely%2Bon%2Bpony%2Briding%2Bbackwards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="1565" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LEhdzLml6io/WXuWuhB6l0I/AAAAAAAAF2w/EIogNkIpINoBG-sh14-NknFWRz2-McakACKgBGAs/s640/Cicely%2Bon%2Bpony%2Briding%2Bbackwards.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With all the exciting news in Lord of the Rings Online and Star Wars: the Old Republic (<a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/07/lotro-scavenger-hunt-review.html">Scavenger hunt</a>, <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/07/manaan-stronghold-review.html">Manaan stronghold</a>, <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/07/lotros-mordor-expansion-pre-order-deals.html">Mordor pre-order deals</a> etc), I didn't find the time to write about this year's Summer Festival in LOTRO. Content-wise, my 2016 <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/08/lotros-summer-festival-2016-in-pictures.html">Summer Festival review</a> still holds true: it's the same festival with the broad varied offer of cute quests. Of course there are some new cosmetics, though; my sunflower-picking hobbit will show you in this LOTRO fashion post.</div>
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This year's big eyecatchers were the <b>Short-sleeved Sunflower Tunic and Trousers</b> and the <b>Sunflower Steed</b>. I used to not get very excited by tunics, because they don't look great on Ravanel, my female elf main character (that I played exclusively for years). Then, however, I found out that they look great on hobbits! So it shouldn't be a surprise that I went with a hobbit for the Sunflower outfit photoshoot. That said, if you do like it on your character of another race, be my guest!</div>
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I like the tunic's default colour (evendim blue) the most on its own. However, it doesn't look all that great together with the Sunflower Steed, because they have few colours in common (I nitpick about these things). When dyed forest green, the tunic looks much better with the pony. Below you can compare both versions.</div>
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The Sunflower outfit looks great in bright basic colours, such as forest green (above, left) and the default colour, evendim blue (above, right). If red looks better on your character: that colour works well, too.</div>
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/zcs2BV7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 2em;"><img align="right" border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/zcs2BV7.jpg" style="width: 300px;" /></a>
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Sunflower outfit</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:White_Rose_Circlet">White Rose Circlet</a></li>
<li><a href="http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Padded_Mantle_of_the_Dunland_Soothsayer">Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer</a> (forest green dye)</li>
<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Hammer-mark_Cloak">Hammer-mark Cloak</a> (forest green dye)</li>
<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Short-sleeved_Sunflower_Tunic_and_Trousers">Short-sleeved Sunflower Tunic and Trousers</a> (forest green dye)</li>
<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Sunflower_Steed">Sunflower Steed</a></li>
<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Sunny_Summer_Kite">Sunny Summer Kite</a></li>
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I was super happy that I could use my recently acquired <b>Hammer-mark Cloak</b> for this outfit. This cloak drops from the Rift raid, and so far, it's always been someone else who won it. However, when I duo'd the Rift with Conrad for the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/07/lotro-scavenger-hunt-review.html">Scavenger Hunt</a>, he already had it, so it's finally mine! The cloak dyes really well, and the remaining yellow corresponds with the yellow of the sunflowers. The <b>Padded Mantle</b> (from Dunland quests) is always a favourite of mine, because it attaches the mantle more realistically than the weird shoulder flaps that come with LOTRO's cloaks.</div>
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Cicely, in the picture above - right, is wearing the green version that fits well with the pony. On my second hobbit, Ravil, I went for the default colour of the tunic, which resembles evendim blue. I equipped the <b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Circlet_of_Fresh-picked_Flowers">Circlet of Fresh-picked Flowers</a></b> and dyed it evendim blue, just like the cloak and mantle, to match it.</div>
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Above, you can see what the forest green tunic looks like in combination with the Sunflower Steed. The tunic's green corresponds with the sunflower leaves' green on the pony's apparel and back.</div>
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Since all classes have access to pets nowadays, I try to incorporate them in my outfits when I can. The best match that was available at the festival was the Sunny Summer Kite (see below). (Note that while kites are obviously not pets, they are coded as such.)</div>
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/sJ2gi0J.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/sJ2gi0J.jpg" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
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There's another kite that would look even better: the <b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Sunflower_Kite">Sunflower Kite</a></b>. This kite is blue with a sunflower and would've been so perfect! Alas it currently costs 495 LOTRO Points in the Store, which I'm not willing to pay. I'm disappointed that the kite that's obviously meant to compliment this year's Summer Festival steed and tunic isn't available through the festival itself; at least the Sunny Summer Kite is an affordable alternative. On the plus side, it doesn't have the blue, so it matches perfectly with the green version of the tunic.</div>
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Do you like tunics on hobbits as much as I do? And did you get yourself any of the Summer festival goodies?</div>
<br />Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-70661924836157098612017-07-21T19:22:00.002+02:002017-07-21T22:00:03.677+02:00Manaan stronghold review<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zxl8-2teyEU/WXHSJEg8aXI/AAAAAAAAF1w/FefqK0pneCECRAkI9NtN-Cf0ImGh6IP5wCKgBGAs/s1600/Ravanel%2Breviewing%2Bstronghold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="865" data-original-width="1600" height="346" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zxl8-2teyEU/WXHSJEg8aXI/AAAAAAAAF1w/FefqK0pneCECRAkI9NtN-Cf0ImGh6IP5wCKgBGAs/s640/Ravanel%2Breviewing%2Bstronghold.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Last week, a lot of my gaming time was spent in LOTRO, trying to finish the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/07/lotro-scavenger-hunt-review.html">Scavenger hunt</a> and the Summer festival in time. But when SWTOR's update 5.3 went live Tuesday last week, I just had to login to check out the Manaan stronghold. As I had been rooting for a Rishi stronghold instead and was occupied in LOTRO, I had totally forgotten how online decorating excites me. Apparently my guildies know me better, though, because two of them were already there, waiting for me to purchase the stronghold so they could look around. Their reactions were mixed, just like those of my fellow bloggers and people on Twitter.</div>
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Things I love</h2>
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Let's talk about the good stuff first: it's Manaan. Although I'm more of a Rishi kinda gal myself, <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2015/02/daydreaming-about-our-new-strongholds.html">Manaan has been requested (and predicted)</a> as a stronghold location ever <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2014/03/swtor-whats-this-stronghold-stuff.html">since strongholds were introduced</a>. Similarly to Tatooine, there's a nice intro video when you travel to the stronghold - although, frankly, I wish there was an option to turn it off, since it comes up every time and most people just spacebar through it by now.<br />
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The characteristic Manaan music from KOTOR is present, setting the correct tranquil atmosphere. From outside, it looks exactly as you would expect from Manaan in KOTOR (see above).<br />
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The Makeb gazebo looks like the remains of an ancient civilization in underwater Manaan</div>
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You can place things under water in the under water part of the stronghold, which is a nice touch. I'm happy that the underwater outdoor hooks hold centrepieces, because most strongholds don't have that many centrepiece hooks. Through the years, I've ended up with more cool centrepiece decorations than I have space to put down. The hook typing also makes sense stylistically, since if you'd place anything that's not a centrepiece, it would look quite small from that distance.<br />
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Inside, a glass plate on the floor allows you to see the coral and fish underneath, while a huge Firaxen shark can be seen in the distance, circling around the stronghold.<br />
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/pDSmWms.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/pDSmWms.png" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="800" height="342" width="640" /></a></div>
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Fun fact: the Manaan stronghold doors remind me of HK! Now I've seen it, I can't 'un-think' it anymore and I greet them with "Good morning, meatbags" every time I pass.</div>
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Despite these cool things, many disappointed voices can be heard in the community. This sentiment stems from two concerns: the hook system and missed opportunities. In the rest of this post, I will look into more detail into this criticism. I will also review the Deepwater Essentials decorations that were released with the Manaan stronghold in mind.</div>
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Hook system</h2>
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Out of all available strongholds, the hook placement of the Manaan stronghold is by far the worst. Like many MMOs, SWTOR has a pre-set hook system with decorations and hooks being tied to certain sizes (small, medium, large, centrepiece and starship etc). There are some options to change hooks to smaller hook combinations, but you cannot set them to larger types than preset. Floor decorations can be moved horizontally (usually not by very much), but not vertically.</div>
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In the outdoor part of the stronghold, the hooks are spread out and few, so the place will look empty, no matter how much stuff you place there.<br />
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Welcome to Manaan! -xxx- Your neighbour's army of naked companions (bug)</div>
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The two long rows of small hooks along the route to the stronghold interior are a strange choice: you can only put small decorations, like NPCs or small plants there (see above). Other logical decorations to place there, like benches that one can sit on and enjoy the fountains, cannot be placed because they require at least a medium narrow hook. A row of medium or medium narrow hooks would've been much more useful, because they can always be changed into two small hooks when needed (while pre-set small hooks cannot be changed into larger hooks).<br />
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Another minor annoyance is that the rug hooks are so far apart that you can never connect the rugs to each other.<br />
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The observatory completely lacks large hooks, ruining my plans for a cantina</div>
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Many places in the Manaan stronghold suffer from the same mistake: pre-determined small & medium hooks at spots where large(r) hooks would've been appropriate severely limit the possibilities of decorators. It looks like they were designed with specific decorations in mind, which leaves little room for creativity.</div>
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Another example of this is the interior part of the Rooftop Garden level. Only allowing for medium hooks and smaller on the sides, many cool decorations are barred from being used.<br />
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The opposite is the case for the siderooms of the underwater interior: here a centrepiece hook is placed. It's a strange place for a hook of that type, because most decorations that require a centrepiece hook are quite tall and clip through the ceiling. This specific hook seems to be intended for the new Manaan: Lounge Set decoration that requires a centrepiece hook.<br />
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It's a bit silly that this decoration needs a centrepiece hook, though, because it's quite small. As you can see, placing the Manaan Lounge Set leaves a huge space undecorated in this room. You can't even put a rug in front of it to cheer up the place, because there is no hook for it at that spot.<br />
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For decorating purposes, four or more large hook tiles (each with 9 small ones attached) would've been a lot more useful.<br />
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Generator Ceiling Lights</div>
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There are more oddities. For instance, it bugs me that the middle ceiling lamp in the central underwater room cannot be changed; it comes with the stronghold. I guess it has something to do with the optimal lighting for the glass floor below. Speaking of which, it actually does a poor job of lighting the surface floor. I wish the reflection of the glass was a bit less so you could see better what's swimming down below.<br />
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It's downright weird that the underwater siderooms have small hooks for the ceiling lights. The Huttese Wall Sconces are the best looking on this spot, but if you don't want your room to be green or orange, you're out of luck. There's basically just the Basic Junker's Light to go with, and that barely emits any light at all. Regardless of what small light you put up there, the rooms will stay badly lit.<br />
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Perhaps the developers really like the thought of the rooms being very dark for some reason, but I would have preferred to have a choice in this. As is, I went with luminescent decorations so you can at least see <i>something</i>.<br />
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The hook system in SWTOR is always a challenge when you're trying to realize decorating plans, but it seems particularly bad on Manaan. Overall, I get the impression not much testing was done before assigning the hooks of this stronghold.<br />
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The Fountain of Tranquility</div>
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<h2>
Deepwater Essentials bundle</h2>
Okay, so there are a couple of wonky things about this stronghold and you're allergic to the word "hook" by now. Let's have an intermezzo and look at the things that came with the Deepwater Essentials Bundle before we go straight on to Missed opportunities. (As a stronghold addict, I couldn't stop myself from buying one to see what's inside.)<br />
<br />
First off, there's the Fountain of Tranquility, a pretty gold statue that requires a centrepiece hook (see above). The spot above is the only place that makes sense and I must admit that it does look magnificent.<br />
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Another item from the bundle that I adore is the Manaan Floorlamp. Sadly, you only get one per bundle, so these inevitably end up being rare and sought after on the GTN. The developers seem clueless when it comes to what types of decorations are needed in which quantities. It's telling when lamps and trash cans are among the most expensive items on the in-game market.<br />
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Manaan Lounge Set</div>
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The aforementioned Manaan Lounge Set looks best outside, where the enormous space in front of it looks more intentional, pretty much like a square. The lights don't make a lot of sense that way, but, ah well. It would be a shame to let the decoration go to waste since I've already consumed it.<br />
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The Manaan Office Set is another decoration with strange hook assignment. It needs a large hook, whereas the old CZ-198 Arrangement: Executive's Desk is an almost exact copy that can go on a medium tile (see the right picture below). With the Manaan Office Set, my underwater rooms looked empty (the conversion from centrepiece hook had me pick between either 4 large hooks or 1 large hook and 8 medium hooks). So I ended up selling mine on the GTN to fill it with several Executive's Desks instead.<br />
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Aquarium: Laa/Faa Scalefish (left) and Large Aquarium (right)</div>
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I was pretty excited about the aquarium decorations. Unfortunately, the lighting in the fish tanks is done poorly: you barely see that there are any fish in there at all. The small ones look a bit better on the picture above, but that's just because I put them in front of a (built in) wall light.<br />
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I do enjoy the Manaan Patio Set (below) and the fact that they fit on a medium narrow hook. I wish they came with more than one per bundle.<br />
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The Firaxen Shark (left) and the Manaan Patio Set (right)</div>
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<h2>
Missed opportunities</h2>
Although I generally like what I see, my friends and I concluded that there are many missed opportunities, most of them in the underwater area. As mentioned earlier, the ocean below the glass floor in the Underwater Observatory is dark, so you can't see what's below very well. It's nice that there's that little extra realism with the reflection of the glass, but in my opinion it's a bit much: you can barely look outside now, even if the bottom of the ocean would be well lit. Surely that isn't the intention!<br />
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I must admit that I had hoped the ocean floor to look a bit more impressive, with cool fish and plants. It's a bit bland as is. That said, perhaps it's more realistic like this.<br />
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However, what's a real shame is that the windows to look outside aren't that big. I'd have loved to have a real underwater observatory, with rooms of which the walls and ceiling are completely made of glass. Think of something along the lines of the <a href="https://tord.mmo-fashion.com/odessen-command-center/">Odessen Command Centre</a> decoration. I also wouldn't mind the pretty water reflection that can be seen at the edges of the underwater rooms (see above) cover the entire side rooms. Now that would be something!<br />
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While we're at it, why not allow us to go outside in one of those funny underwater spacesuits from KOTOR to inspect those decorations we've put down? #Pipedreams<br />
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Aerial view of the Manaan stronghold (check <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2015/03/swtor-aerial-photography.html">here</a><i> </i>how to make these)</div>
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Other complaints involve people saying that the stronghold isn't big enough for its price. A Manaan stronghold costs 2,5 million credits, whereas the much larger Tatooine stronghold (I jokingly call it my Tatooine village) costs 2,8 million credits: not all that much more for a much larger amount of space.<br />
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There's something to say for that, although I don't mind the price that much (I realise I fit in the category "stronghold addict: will pay anything for SWTOR housing", though). There is a lot of space in the outside area, although it's not all that exciting to decorate. Mox, on the latest CRR show, theorized that the luxurious Manaan being more expensive per square metre makes sense, because everybody would want to live there; naturally, nobody wants to live on a backwater planet like Tatooine! That gave me a good chuckle.<br />
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It's also a bit of a shame that you cannot get to your ship - in fact, it took me a while to find the starship hook, as it's not on a very obvious spot (if you are with your back to the statue, facing towards the stronghold, it's to your right on top of a building). It's just a minor detail, but if I'd roleplay I would be sad.<br />
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To end on a positive note: the outdoors part of the Rooftop Garden is done exactly right. I finally found the perfect spot for my spa decoration. As you can see above, Ravanel approves (+10 influence).<br />
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<h2>
Conclusion</h2>
Manaan is a cool planet, and I'm happy to have a new project that allows me to obsess over decorating. However, it's clear that there is some missed potential: the hook system could be implemented in a less obnoxious way, and the stronghold overall - the underwater area in particular - could have looked a lot cooler. For SWTOR housing addicts, this stronghold is a must have, but others might be content visiting their friend's place instead.<br />
<br /></div>
Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-52339374411017777222017-07-17T16:51:00.001+02:002017-07-17T23:33:40.064+02:00One year of drawing diaries<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjmhCtBg8vI/WWydK9Tj0CI/AAAAAAAAF04/kZUHoLFL_LwBMkHraJPIJvLnNdE-eAsDgCKgBGAs/s1600/One%2Byear%2Bof%2Bdrawing%2Bdiaries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="1000" height="508" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjmhCtBg8vI/WWydK9Tj0CI/AAAAAAAAF04/kZUHoLFL_LwBMkHraJPIJvLnNdE-eAsDgCKgBGAs/s640/One%2Byear%2Bof%2Bdrawing%2Bdiaries.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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A picture for each month, starting May 2016 (top left)</div>
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When I was working on my drawing diary of May, I got a déjà-vu. It suddenly occurred to me that I've been documenting my drawings on this blog for a whole year! Time for a Reflective Moment.<br />
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When I started with these diaries, it was scary to post my drawings online. Doing it anyway and getting positive responses on them really has made me care less about that. And that's a good thing! Because when I look back at my posts, it's clear that I've never drawn this much in a year before.<br />
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<h2>
Materials, techniques and motivation</h2>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've been scrolling through my past posts to see what material and techniques I've used most: fineliners (3), pencils (4), waterpaint (8), white pencil on a grey background (9), conté crayons & charchoal (16) and markers (20). Pencils and waterpaint are my usual go to techniques, so I was surprised to find that I've been using new materials for the majority of the time! I think that letting go of the fear that things don't turn out well has really helped me being open to freely experiment with them.</div>
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Generally speaking, I draw to improve and enjoy myself. It's the best feeling when you have created something and it's better than you could've hoped. The more time I spend drawing and the better I get, the more satisfying it has become. But if I look back at the past year, there were also more practical reasons for drawing:</div>
<ul>
<li>Experimenting with new materials & techniques (using cont<span style="text-align: justify;">é</span> crayons, markers; white pencil on dark background)</li>
<li>Illustrations for blog posts (I did this a lot more than I realized)</li>
<ul>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/07/pokemon-mobile-phones-and-hype.html">Pokémon, mobile phones and hype resistance</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/08/playing-pokemon-go-when-chronically-ill.html">Playing Pokémon Go while chronically ill</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/08/studying-and-keeping-blogging-schedule.html">Studying and keeping a blogging schedule</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/11/pokemon-gos-halloween-event.html">Pokémon Go's Halloween event</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/02/the-power-of-memories-quest-for-essence.html">The power of memories</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/03/the-solution-to-command-crate-schematic.html">The solution to command crate OCD</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/02/geeky-expressions-only-my-friends.html">Geeky expressions only my friends will understand</a></i></li>
</ul>
<li>Participating in challenges (Draw with Fae week; Kay's Botanical challenge)</li>
<li>Giving away (birthday cards; new year's card; archaeological drawings)</li>
<li>Practicing a particular skill (drawing faces; blending markers)</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
</ul>
<h2>
Drawing diaries so far</h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Drawing is something very personal to me. So when I look back at my drawings of the past year, memories resurface. Sometimes it feels like I've achieved nothing, but when I read back, I realize that it isn't the case; lots of things were going on, and I'm usually too hard on myself. This is what I've written the past year:</div>
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/06/drawing-diary-may.html">Drawing diary: May</a> (Fandom drawings)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/07/drawing-diary-june.html">Drawing diary: June</a> (Drawing with markers on holiday in Sweden)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/08/drawing-diary-july.html">Drawing diary: July</a> (A little bit of everything)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/09/drawing-diary-august.html">Drawing diary: August</a> (Drawing faces)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/10/drawing-diary-september.html">Drawing diary: September</a> (Nostalgia & exhaustion, pencil drawings)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/11/drawing-diary-october.html">Drawing diary: October</a> (Autumn drawings in Uppsala, Sweden)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/12/drawing-diary-november.html">Drawing diary: November</a> (Pok<span style="text-align: justify;">é</span>mon and wild mushrooms)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/01/drawing-diary-december.html">Drawing diary: December</a> (New year's card design)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/02/drawing-diary-january.html">Drawing diary: January</a> (Botanical drawings)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/03/drawing-diary-february.html">Drawing diary: February</a> (First attempt of abstract drawing)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/drawing-diary-march.html">Drawing diary: March</a> (Abstractified feather drawings with cont<span style="text-align: justify;">é</span> crayons)</li>
<li><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/07/drawing-diary-april.html">Drawing diary: April</a> (Family egg hunt)</li>
</ul>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you've read any of my entries, you know that I don't just post the drawings I'm happy with; this is not supposed to be a "look how amazing I am" show. When you're browsing through drawings by artists you admire, it's easy enough to get discouraged by how out of reach their skill level seems to be. So I try to share my bad drawings as well, and explain what I was trying to do. This feels exposed in a way, so perhaps it's not strange that I don't see many people doing this. If you do know any blogging artists that like to describe their creative process, I'd love to hear of them.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Overall, I'm super happy that I managed to draw so much this past year, and I think the drawing diaries have definitely helped to encourage me. After I became chronically ill in 2012, I've had to give up on so many things I loved to do. Because of that, it's extra precious to have rediscovered something that I can do no matter how I feel. Thanks, dear readers, for sticking with me even when not writing about gaming. I fear you have another year coming up to suffer through!</div>
<br />Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-78708424252871814952017-07-14T22:18:00.002+02:002017-07-26T00:29:01.943+02:00LOTRO's Mordor pre-order deals put in perspective<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZYvNtEDhuGA/WWkkurZTaWI/AAAAAAAAFzY/jMcwS0BMUw8q8rGJAPn4OASaSma3Bvh-wCKgBGAs/s1600/Outskirts%2Bof%2BMordor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZYvNtEDhuGA/WWkkurZTaWI/AAAAAAAAFzY/jMcwS0BMUw8q8rGJAPn4OASaSma3Bvh-wCKgBGAs/s640/Outskirts%2Bof%2BMordor.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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This week, Lord of the Rings Online announced its upcoming Mordor expansion, including its pre-order options. Whereas other MMOs feed the hype before the release of a new expansion, LOTRO stuck to tradition by causing a huge player outrage with its pre-order offers. Just like in 2012 and 2013, it looks like the player base will spend the last weeks before the release of a major expansion discussing its outrageous pricing rather than eagerly anticipating cool new content.</div>
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<h2>
Mordor expansion pre-order pricing</h2>
Let's look at the pricing, and compare it to the previous two expansions:<br />
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; width: 468pt;"><colgroup><col width="*"></col><col width="*"></col><col width="*"></col><col width="*"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Riders of Rohan </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2012)</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helm’s Deep</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2013)</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mordor</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2017)</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Basic</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$40,-</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$40,-</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$40,-</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deluxe</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$50,-</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$60,-</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$80,-</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Legendary</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$130,-</span></div>
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N.B.: you can find all the pre-order bonuses <a href="http://store.turbine.com/store/turbine/en_US/custom/pbpage.lotro-mordor">here</a> on the official LOTRO website. For European players, be prices are <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">€</span>35/<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">£</span>30,- (basic), <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">€</span>75,-/<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">£</span>60,- (deluxe) and <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">€</span>114,-/<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">£</span>100,- (legendary). When pre-ordering, you gain access to the content at August 31st at the latest; if you buy with LOTRO Points (LP), you'll have to wait until "winter". When buying with LP, the basic version will cost 2495 LP; the High Elf race 1000 LP.</div>
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Historically, the amount of content in LOTRO’s expansions has <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/05/ten-years-of-lotro-in-depth-history-of.html">steadily decreased</a>. As we can see, the price of the basic edition, however, has stayed the same. The more expensive editions have considerably gone up in price, with the legendary edition now costing almost twice as much as in 2012.<br />
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A history of mistrust</h2>
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It is not the first time LOTRO's pre-order offers cause a stir in the community. Veteran players may still remember the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2012/06/lotro-pre-ordering-riders-of-rohan.html">Riders of Rohan pre-order costs</a> in 2012. Back then a essential quality-of-life feature, the sixth inventory bag, was originally exclusive to, and gated behind the legendary edition. Only <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2012/06/lotro-riders-of-rohan-store-cost.html">after a huge player outcry</a> did the developers quickly announce that the bag would be available for separate purchase in the Store as well, upon launch. The <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2013/09/lotro-should-you-pre-order-helms-deep.html">pre-order offers for Helm's Deep</a> in 2013 didn't fare much better. So far, each expansion has reinforced the image of the game studio as greedy and out-of-touch with their community. Fast forward five years and nothing has changed.<br />
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It's not even the ridiculous price of the legendary edition that's disgruntling most current players: that's obviously meant for fans that want to support the game in any way they can, and it only grants cosmetic fluff on top of the content of the other editions. However, LOTRO's new High Elf race is exclusive to the deluxe and legendary edition. It is used to to push people into buying the deluxe version in a similar fashion as the sixth bag was in 2012.</div>
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How expansions are handled in the MMO scape</h2>
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As we can see from the table above, LOTRO's expansion costs have always been steep. At the time of the game's launch in the late 2000's, a subscription model and money charged for an expansion were the only sources of income for a game development studio. Because of this, higher expansion costs were deemed acceptable by players. However, much has changed since then in the MMO scape. With the introduction of alternative revenue models, such as free-to-play and buy-to-play, the expansion model has been thrown out of the window by many game studios. The focus has shifted to smaller, free updates. In a way, LOTRO's Mordor expansion pricing model still stems from the late 2000's.</div>
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To understand why many LOTRO players are upset with the pre-order pricing, we should look at how other MMOs have handled recent expansions.</div>
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First off, there's Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR). Although this MMO is strictly speaking free-to-play, it leans heavily on subscriptions. Its last two expansions, Knights of the Fallen Empire (2015) and <a href="http://www.swtor.com/eternal-throne/home">Knights of the Eternal Throne</a> (2016), are unlocked by subscribing in the month of release (or later). They do not cost an additional fee and if you'd want, you could unsubscribe a month later. The price of a one-month subscription is $15,- or <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">€</span>12,50.</div>
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Then there's Guild Wars 2 (GW2). This MMO has one expansion, <a href="http://buy.guildwars2.com/store/gw2/en_IE/html/pbPage.heartofthorns">Heart of Thorns</a> (2015). Similarly to LOTRO, the expansion comes in three editions: a standard edition (<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">€</span>30,-), a deluxe version (<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">€</span>55,-) and an ultimate edition (<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">€</span>80,-). Note, however, that each of these options is cheaper than their LOTRO equivalent. On top of this, GW2 is free-to-play (previously buy-to-play) without the option to subscribe. Because of this, the game studio relies more on the sale of expansions to keep making content; players understand this and are willing to pay more.</div>
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Finally, let's look at the market leader: World of Warcraft (WoW). WoW is not free-to-play and relies on subscribers for income. Its latest expansion, <a href="https://eu.battle.net/shop/en/product/world-of-warcraft-legion">Legion</a> (2016), comes in two editions: the standard edition ($50,-/<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">€</span>45,-) and a deluxe edition ($70,-/<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">€</span>60,-). Costing $10,- more than LOTRO's base package, it's the only MMO that charges more for a base edition. However, it's worth noting that Legion contains way more content than the Mordor expansion: at launch, it came with no less than 9 dungeons and two raids. (LOTRO comes with none.) It also includes a new class, whereas a new race costs LOTRO players $40,- more (deluxe edition). WoW's deluxe edition only adds cosmetic fluff.</div>
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All things considered, it's clear that LOTRO's prices, especially those of the deluxe and legendary edition, are quite high compared to what's customary in the industry.<br />
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It's the thought that counts</h2>
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Even though the LOTRO developers may choose to live in their own virtual Middle-earth bubble, players are aware of the MMO market and its customary prices. You cannot blame players for being displeased by being ripped off. As a LOTRO player myself, I want Standing Stone Games to continue to work on LOTRO and produce more content, but when the prices radiate such greed, I feel less inclined to do so.</div>
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Standing Stone Games (SSG) built up a lot of goodwill by <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2016/12/lotro-moving-to-standing-stone-games.html">going indie earlier this year</a>. Many players felt that past greedy business decisions were forced from 'above' by Warner Bros. or Turbine. Now SSG is its own studio, we know this is not the case: it looks like SSG brought the same tone deaf marketing team along when making the switch.</div>
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Part of LOTRO's playerbase consists of extremely loyal fans that don't play any other games and are willing to pay anything. The Mordor expansion is heavily relying on these people. But the price is high. In doing so, SSG spends some of the goodwill of the community that was carefully built up earlier this year - and karma is easier spent than gained. It's not just the goodies that tempt players to spend money on a pricey expansion: it's also their belief in the game studio and their willingness to support said studio. This is especially the case for an old game that cathers to loyal, veteran players rather than new ones. When charged exorbitant amounts, it's not surprising when players feel insulted and decide to buy the new expansion with saved up LOTRO points rather than spending real money on it.</div>
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Perhaps this is what it costs to keep an indie game studio up and running these days. If that's the case, I'd love to know. I bet people would be way more willing to pay more! Sadly, transparency is underrated. If you're going to charge way more than customary for your content, give some explanation to your players why that is, or it'll only come off as insulting. At the end of the day, the only one SSG hurts with overpricing their expansion, is SSG.</div>
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<i>Since I like to keep myself in the dark, the pictures in this post are not of Mordor. They are, however, taken not far north of the Black Gate and radiate a similar air of despair that we no doubt can expect to enjoy in the expansion.</i><br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-18550366104139571122017-07-10T19:16:00.000+02:002017-07-10T23:50:34.806+02:00LOTRO Scavenger hunt review<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Earlier this year, Lord of the Rings Online hit its ten year mark - a respectable age for an MMO. I wrote a <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/05/ten-years-of-lotro-in-depth-history-of.html">lengthy game review</a> in its honour. In-game the feat was celebrated with the annual anniversary, but this time around, something new was introduced alongside it: the Scavenger hunt. At the time of writing, this event is nearing its end (13th of July, 2017). It's time for a review.</div>
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Reception and criticism</h2>
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Upon release, the Scavenger hunt's reception was mixed. Some players reacted with "is this all?", without specifying what they would've expected instead. Others were disappointed that the hunt involved a lot of pointless clicking and riding around - a complaint that amused me, if truth be told. The aim of the hunt is to look back at the past through reliving past moments. And - let's face it - a lot of LOTRO's gameplay does involve clicking, killing things and riding around. Complaining about this boils down to complaining that LOTRO is LOTRO. For some rose tinted glass wearers, LOTRO's throwback in the past became a bit too real.</div>
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Another complaint was that some of the quests could not be completed by low level characters. On the one hand, I sympathize with this: nobody likes being excluded. On the other hand, I wouldn't want the Scavenger hunt to suffer quality-wise to accommodate everyone. Part of the fun is that it looks back at the <i>entire </i>ten years of content, and the majority of those years was spent adding high level content. Besides, if you'd want a level cap for the quests, at what level would you put it? Regardless of where that would be, some people would be left out.</div>
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One of the places that needs visiting in the Scavenger hunt: the Tower of Ecthelion in Minas Tirith</div>
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It is worth noting that the LOTRO developers addressed this criticism by altering some things, so at least one quest of the early years can now be completed by adventurous low level players (upon which the next year quests can be accepted). In theory, it is possible for all players outside the introduction instance to travel to high level areas, such as the Dead Marshes. Because enemies will have a huge aggro range for low level players, it's probably advisable to bring a high level friend to clear the area, though. </div>
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<br />My experiences</h2>
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When I took my first glance at the ribbons hanging at the Party Tree (granting the Scavenger hunt quests), I was impressed by the extent of the event. Each week, a new "year" was introduced, containing three quests, making for a total of 30 quests. And most of them wouldn't be easy to complete without a guide, and take some time to complete.</div>
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One of the quests for each year is themed around the memories of a LOTR hero. These included cool references to the books; I don't think I'd enjoyed the quests as much if I weren't a Tolkien fan. For example, Year 6, themed "Legolas", asks you to kill 41 orcs in a Helm's Deep epic battle. My boyfriend and I grinned when we found that Year 7 was - as we had predicted - Gimli themed and asked us to kill <i>42</i> orcs in Helm's Deep.<br />
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Another reference was paying a visit to the Writer's Club in the Bird and Baby Inn, based on the group Tolkien was in. The hobbits are named after its members: Ronald Dwale represents Tolkien.</div>
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Typical LOTRO landscape in the Shire</div>
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The travelling thoroughly tested my knowledge of virtual Middle-earth and was a lot of fun. Contrary to most, I don't like to speed things up by using guides; I'd rather take it slow and experience the things as they were intended. This meant that I had to look around and search for things, and, as a result, inevitably spent time taking in LOTRO's beautiful landscapes - which is never a bad thing. Sometimes I even chose to ride my "slow horse" to enjoy the scenery. The fast, "drunk horse" (a.k.a. war-steed) just annoys me, as it lags out and gets stuck behind fences. </div>
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Goats in Rohan, a Bird in Tuckborough and "The Bird" in the Ettenmoors</div>
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Some Years had a truly creative approach. I had two favourites. First off, one that sent us to /pat animals all around Middle-earth. We had to dig deep into our memories to think of where these enemies would be. I proudly remembered that there was a Squirrel on one of the island to the far north of Bree, so off we went. Unfortunately, it seemed the developers themselves hadn't thought of this Squirrel, because the quest didn't update when I patted it. We also had to pat a Bird. What better place to go than to The Bird, the PvMP meme, in the Ettenmoors? Unfortunately, this one didn't count either. My boyfriend saved the day by remembering there was a Bird in Tuckborough, from all the times he did the skirmish Trouble in Tuckborough. This Bird did count. Eventually, we managed to find all animals without outside help.<br />
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I loved the quest, but I was a bit disappointed with the animals that should've counted, but did not. Most people will probably look them up so don't care, but if you do take the time to figure it all out by yourself, it's a bit of a bummer. I've bug reported the missing animals, so hopefully they'll get added for next year's edition.<br />
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The Snowman in Ered Luin</div>
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My second favourite was the Year 9 Trifles quest, that sends you off to find curious places. Most of these I already knew, such as the Crazy Cat Lady's house and the Turtle House in Bree (see below), Goldilock's House in Rohan and the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2012/04/lotro-raiding-rabbits.html">Killer Rabbits</a>. Luckily, my boyfriend remembered the location of the Sandcastle in Evendim. Some places were still a surprise. For instance, I had never seen the Snowman in Ered Luin. We searched for 15 minutes in the northwestern part of the map - it was a great feeling when we finally found it!<br />
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The Turtle house in Bree</div>
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Because the Scavenger hunt is a lot of work, I only did it on one character: lore-master Ravanel, my main character that I created back in 2007. Especially in her early years, I played her as a completionist, finishing every quest I could find for the sake of it. So it was a surprise to bump into one or two quests that I had not done yet. One of them was the turtle soup quest chain (I could be wrong, but I don't think it was in the game when I did the Bree quests originally). I was positively surprised by the cuteness of the quest!<br />
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(Quest spoiler: you need to collect turtles for soup, but the quest gets a twist when the quest giver gets filled with remorse at the sight of the cute little things. He decides to keep them instead, and now his whole house is filled with little turtles, as you can see on the pictures above.)<br />
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1... 2... 3... Bottoms up!</div>
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I also enjoyed the drinking quests, because they were pretty fast and fun in a role-play kinda way. It's funny to go outside and see your surroundings turn into hazy sepia tones. A pro-tip for the tavern crawl in Eriador: while you're at it, buy the special beverage(s) at the inn keeper and drink 'em to complete the hidden deed. <br />
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Other random fun moments:<br />
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Eavesdropping in Bag's End; bowing to Gaffer Gamgee, bringing a beer to Rosie Cotton ("I wish Sam had never left!"). Aww, the feels.</div>
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On my way to the Prancing Pony, a group of seven roleplayers were performing music at the stage. When I passed an hour later, they were still playing. I couldn't help but join in and show off my dance moves. </div>
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Riding through Lothlórien, I accidentally discovered the Garden of Memory and completed the Wanderer of the Golden Wood title - apparently that was the last one I needed.<br />
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<span style="text-align: start;">And then the level 60 bounty quests! I had totally forgotten this was a thing. Back in the day, people used to pick up all the bounty quests in Esteldín and group up with a hunter to earn quick item experience. For a while, you saw people calling out for it in chat every day. It was a nice daily ritual and you could run into a bunch of nice people.</span></div>
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Exploring Carn Dum by warsteed</div>
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One thing I like, is that the event does not require any particular feats of skill. For instance, you don't need to complete any instances on tier 2 challenge mode etc. Mostly, the hunt requires perseverance and patience, because it's a lot of work, and probably a lot of looking up things for players that are not deeply involved with the game. </div>
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The quests that required instances left me with mixed feelings. Not because I want to qq about instances being involved: they are an important aspect of the game and it would be silly to leave them out. However, since <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/01/lotro-changes-id-love-to-see-in-2017.html">instance scaling is done poorly</a> in LOTRO, redoing them did not give a similar experience as it did back in the day. My boyfriend and I simply blasted through them with the two of us - even the raids. (Admittedly, riding on a warsteed through Carn Dum was an interesting new experience.)</div>
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The dragon Draigoch, just before becoming targetable</div>
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The only thing that we couldn't duo that was required were Draigoch and the Ost Dunhoth Fear Wing, and that was only because of mechanics requiring a certain amount of people. It's worth noting that you don't need to be able to defeat these bosses; you just need to target them and use an emote. But in order to get to Durin's Bane (Fear Wing), you need to defeat the Wound Wing, and for that one you need six players to set off the mumak race. Similarly, Draigoch only becomes targetable after the fight is initiated, and for that you need six people to break through the floor.</div>
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Draigoch is peeking through cracks in his cave, looking for a player to roast</div>
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The latter provided for an interesting pugging experience. Some of our pugs were clueless. Of course we had the obligatory player that got caught by Draigoch in the initial part of the encounter every time - at least <i>that's</i> the old time experience. But we did the best we could to talk them through everything, and they were so thankful for having people to guide them. One of them told us afterwards that they had been afraid they wouldn't complete the hunt in time because of the instances. As someone who has cleared all group content in LOTRO (apart from the Pelennor raid on tier 2), it's easy to forget how scary that prospect can be.<br />
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Looking for remembrances in the Eastemnet</div>
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Many quests send you off to look for "remembrances": glowy floating books that are found at meaningful places. I've heard a lot of people complain that these places don't mean anything to them; they miss an in-game explanation of what they're commemorating by going there. I don't mind it myself, because I believe everyone has their own, unique memories of places and one universal explanation couldn't do those justice. Often, a text pops up on your screen when you come near them, and the game lets you fill in the blanks. As I wrote earlier, I like to play actively rather than passively following a guide and clicking, and one of the most fun things of the Scavenger hunt has been to discuss past places and happenings with my boyfriend while traveling through virtual Middle-earth. I wholeheartedly recommend doing the Scavenger hunt with a friend, if possible, because sharing your memories with someone truly enriches the experience.<br />
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Rewards</h2>
My main motivation for doing the Scavenger hunt wasn't the rewards; rather, it was the achievement of completing it in its entirety. That's not to say there weren't any cool rewards, though! I've compiled some of them in this picture.<br />
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Stone of Erech; Little Old man Willow; Bill the Pony; Lore-master with two ravens; Dwarf Well; Caras Galadhon Mirror; Fishing Creel; Dwarf Well from above; Quiet Cow pet.</div>
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I enjoyed the pet rewards, although it was sometimes a bit hard to decide which character to give them to - I don't think I'll ever do the entire thing again, so it's a one time choice. Some of the rewards, like the Caras Galadhon mirror and the cosmetic of Legolas' cloak, were already available in the game. That's a bit of a shame, but I didn't mind it that much. Who knows, perhaps it helped out some people that accidentally destroyed them.<br />
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If you missed this year's (first) edition, fear not: the Scavenger hunt will return next year. Each year, a new Year with three quests will be added to the existing pile. Everyone, regardless of subscription status, is able to pick them up and join the fun, so you will always be able to get the rewards you want.<br />
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Conclusions</h2>
LOTRO's Scavenger hunt is no grand spectacle or loot fest, so if that's what you're looking for, you'll be disappointed. It is, however, a carefully forged opportunity to relive past moments in the game, some of which will surprise you. Overall, I'm happy to have participated in this cute and rich piece of content that fits seamlessly into the spirit of virtual Middle-earth.<br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-55140702696170607162017-07-06T22:32:00.001+02:002017-07-07T00:09:57.582+02:00Drawing diary: April<div style="text-align: justify;">
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During my two holidays, I didn't have the opportunity to blog. And when I was home again, I needed to catch up with my offline life. Hence I'm terribly behind with my drawing diaries! So here's a quick post to catch up.<br />
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This is one of my beloved succulent plants. </div>
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Using the blender marker to mix two colours created a rather odd effect.</div>
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In April, my drawings were more functional than creative. I made some illustrations for my mother, who was working on a scientific article about the friction drum. I made a tulip portrait that I disliked so much that I don't even want to include it in this post. I drew one of my plants and tried to subtly blend colours with a blender marker... and spectacularly failed (see above). I also made a egg hunter's cheat sheet for Easter (see below).<br />
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Friction drum drawings and egg hunter's cheat sheet</div>
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If you have a superb memory, you may remember about my family's egg hunting tradition from my <i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/fashion-friday-egg-hunters-equipment.html">Egg hunter's outfit </a></i>post. With Easter, a friend came over, and I'd asked my mother to hide some eggs I'd bought for us in the front and back yard. There are two things you need to know. One: our garden is somewhat of a jungle.</div>
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Proof</div>
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Two: A large part of the hidden eggs consisted of quail eggs and sugar eggs that were painted in natural chicken egg colours. They were pretty well camouflaged. I expected my mother to take this into account when hiding them. </div>
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I was wrong.</div>
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Mom: "since you are all grown up now, I made sure to hide them exceptionally well! Surely it would be too easy to find them, otherwise." </div>
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Typical egg hiding spot: deep down the foliage, somewhere</div>
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I think we managed to find, give or take, ten eggs. That left twenty more out somewhere there in the garden. We called upon <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/06/running-stealth-poodles-creative.html">Saartje the stealth poodle</a> - as you may or may not know, poodles are hunting dogs with excellent noses. She enthusiastically ventured through the garden, her nose aimed at the ground. There was certainly a lot of smellable unusual activity. Many humans had stridden through the foliage at peculiar spots. But despite her obsession with chocolate, she didn't find us any eggs. I couldn't blame her, as she is only trained to track humans (she is self-taught in rabbits and does) - chocolate eggs are not regular things lying about outside. It probably didn't help that it had just rained, either. We had to look for the rest following up "warm" & "cold" signals by my mum.</div>
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At least my mother was having a grand time watching us wiggle our arms around in the wet foliage.</div>
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Eventually, we managed to find all but two (including a glass tray that was supposed to keep one sugar egg dry). Nobody has a clue where they are. Ah, well. That, too, is tradition. Next year, I'll have to make a cheat sheet for the Easter bunny as well, so they can keep track of hiding spots. This year, at least the many snails we encountered in our search had something of an Easter breakfast as well!</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-66452001372189282302017-06-28T23:31:00.000+02:002017-06-29T23:13:06.874+02:00SWTOR roadmap highlights (summer 2017)<div style="text-align: justify;">
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When I returned from holiday in Sweden a few weeks ago, Mox and Jason of Corellian Run Radio gave me homework. "Let us know what you think of the roadmap", they said - and so I read through <a href="http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20170531">the document</a> and created a page full of notes like a good girl. I figured that, since I'd already written it out, I might as well put together a blogpost. Of course this was two weeks ago and now the roadmap is already old news. But you're going to read this post anyway. *Waves hand*</div>
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Keith and the road map</h2>
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There's a lot of fangirling and -boying going on around SWTOR's new game director, Keith. Xam Xam has a whole <a href="http://www.xamxamsays.com/category/star-wars-the-old-republic/dev-watch/">"Keith Watch" blog series</a> dedicated to him, in which she monitors and evaluates his forum posts. And when I'm scrolling through my Twitter feed, motivational pictures featuring Keith catch my eye.</div>
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One such motivational picture, posted by <a href="https://twitter.com/BrianInHawaii">@BrianInHawaii</a> on June 23rd, 2017</div>
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Before Ben Irving's departure, Keith's presence in this universe was unknown to us. But then the whole "grind your life away for CXP" mentality got thrown out of the window and a new, fresh wind brought us Keith the Saviour, who was going to steer SWTOR in the direction of... an MMO. After the game having focused primarily on story content (2015) and then on an RNG gear treadmilll (2016), that's actually refreshing.</div>
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Strictly speaking, what Keith's doing is not all that revolutionary, but it's clear that a 'back to basics' approach is currently very much appreciated by the SWTOR community. One of the first things he did - in addition to promising more dev communication (and immediately delivering) - is announcing a roadmap. This was a great move, because a roadmap not only shows that you're sincere in communicating more, it's also a nod in the direction of veteran players, who still remember the time when SWTOR used to make such roadmaps.<br />
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As for the content of the map, I enjoyed that it covered both broad long term views and detailed plans with a time indication. The latter is dangerous terrain for MMO developers because of unexpected delays, so this is where Keith's communicative skills might be put to the test.<br />
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News that make me fangirl</h2>
More concretely, here are some things from the roadmap that make my fangirl heart beat faster.<br />
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<li><b>New flashpoint</b>: It felt like the devs were kind of done with flashpoints, after transitioning to tactical flashpoints (a sort of 'flashpoint lite' , faster paced and with fewer cutscenes) and, ultimately, uprisings. I'm happy they are not. While I do like uprisings, I find myself enjoying the old fashioned flashpoints most. And since I do a lot of them each week, something fresh is very welcome.</li>
<li><b>Story update Crisis on Umbara</b>: I must admit that I was a tad disappointed with the War for Iokath story, as it went for the easy option by adding new danger and power struggles rather than explore what's happening in the galaxy on a social and cultural level in these stressful times. That's probably just the archaeologist in me getting a bit bored by the focus on power in Star Wars storytelling, though. Nevertheless, I'm hoping for more answers to my questions and of course visiting a new planet is always cool, too. I expect the new flashpoint to be involved with the story.</li>
<li><b>More operation bosses</b>: Of course we already knew this was coming, but it's something that makes me very happy nonetheless! I really like Tyth's design, so I'm looking forward to the second encounter - a twin boss fight.</li>
<li><b>New stronghold</b> with 'view over the ocean': Everyone is predicting this will be the often-wished-for Manaan. Then again, that's <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2015/02/daydreaming-about-our-new-strongholds.html">what people said in 2015</a>, too - and then it turned out to be Yavin IV. I hope the developers surprise everyone and it's Rishi! I'd love my own tropical island with, indeed, a view over the ocean.</li>
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Finally, there are also things that sound less exciting, but are definitely worth some dev time. One of them is <b>increased companion influence</b> through doing stuff. This is sorely needed after the absence of influence gain from non main story quests (ever since the Makeb expansion) and - more recently - the change from companion affection (max 10) to influence (max 50). Part of this is already live with the addition of influence gained from sending companions on crafting missions. This is not something that you feel the effect of right away, but I'm sure it makes a positive impact long term.<br />
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Y'u-no misses her favourite spot in Civil War</div>
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What's missing</h2>
I'd love to see <b>time to kill</b> go down <b>in PvP</b>. Right now every class has so many defensive abilities that level cap PvP feels like the boring part of 8v8 ranked used to: long stalemates in the middle with the party that manages to cap a node first practically winning the fight. After trying to muddle through for a few weeks in 5.0, I realized I wasn't having fun and gave up on PvP altogether. I have a huge army of PvP characters sitting at the ready with all the roles for all different brackets, but they're not getting used at all.<br />
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Unfortunately, this problem isn't mentioned in the roadmap at all, so either it's just me that doesn't like the situation or the developers aren't aware of it. However, after the announced nerfs to sage heals, this partly may get solved when the other healer classes get adjusted accordingly.<br />
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Overall, I'm happy with the roadmap and the change in direction towards an MMO that's more focused on... well, being an MMO, is a welcome one for me. What do you think?<br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-2293994688818297152017-05-08T15:33:00.000+02:002017-05-10T11:20:17.604+02:00Ten years of LOTRO: a history of virtual Middle-earth<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Lord of the Rings Online is celebrating its ten year anniversary. Time to go back to 2007 and look at everything that has happened since then, I thought. Well, that kind of backfired: it took me two weeks of writing to finish this article. Turns out a <i>lot</i> happened in ten years; more than fits in a blog post! This means I had to be selective. I also had to find a middle ground between my personal experiences and universal developments in virtual Middle-earth. History is always subjective, and by no means did I want this article to be a dry summary of facts. That said, if you experienced an in-game era very differently, I would love to read about it in the comment section.<br />
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This article is meant to reminisce about good and bad times in LOTRO, or to look up what happened in a period you were absent: few people will have been around for the full ten years. I realize that some people may read this that have never played LOTRO, so I have tried to make it comprehensible for everyone. You can drop me a note below if anything isn't clear.<br />
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I hope you'll enjoy this 'longread' of ten years of LOTRO. We start by traveling back in time, to the spring of 2007...</div>
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How I got into LOTRO (2007)</h2>
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I first heard of LOTRO when I was visiting the Elf Fantasy Fair in Haren, the Netherlands, back in 2007. It was an open air fair near a castle with cosplayers and the likes. In one of the stands, people were playing the elf intro in Ered Luin in the soon-to-be-released Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. When the servers were going live, I was told, you could play together with others in a virtual Middle-earth. This sounded
extremely exciting to me as a frantic Tolkien fan. After half an hour of waiting in a stand mostly filled with teenage boys, I was allowed to play for twenty minutes. I honestly wasn't that impressed by the intro: I had no idea where my character was, what was happening and why, but I made it through somehow. But in that moment, my interest in LOTRO was piqued. </div>
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There was just one problem: I didn't have a computer that could run the game. Because of this, I didn't buy it right away. When my father bought a new computer and I could have his old one (a Mac), I partitioned it so I could install the game on the "virtual PC" (this was before there was a Mac client). For the first time in my life, I entered the local video game store - back then predominantly male territory - and proudly bought my LOTRO starter box with installation CD-ROM (cute!). </div>
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I don't have a picture of the original character screen, but this is my current</div>
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Then I was ready to start playing. At launch, LOTRO featured four races (human, elf, hobbit and dwarf) and 7 classes (guardian, minstrel, hunter, champion, burglar, lore-master and captain). After contemplating for a couple of hours whether I should start playing a minstrel, hunter or lore-master, I decided to go with the latter. It was a good choice. For three years, I exclusively played my elf lore-master, Ravanel, determined to become really good at the class. And, boy, was there a lot to learn. It was my first MMO and I knew nobody else who played. When I was level 17 I died for the first time. I was so annoyed when I found out I had almost achieved the title the Undying if I just had been a bit less reckless in the Old Forest!</div>
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The LOTRO of 2007 was a different LOTRO than it is now: it was more '<b>hardcore</b>' in several ways. Classes that had a support role in group content (guardian, captain, lore-master and minstrel) had no DPS mode (trait lines didn't exist yet), so leveling them took a long time. When you died, there was no option to revive at the spot: you had to retreat to a stone circle (or be lucky and be found by a friendly captain, lore-master or minstrel). <b>Traveling</b> took much longer than it does today, with fewer stables and swift travel routes gated behind reputation (and no option unlock them with mithril coins). There was no group finder, so if you wanted to do an instance, everyone had to travel to the physical entrance by themselves. Because of this, hunters and captains were sought after for their porting and summoning capabilities. It was common for players of these classes to kindly lend their quick travel skills to both friends and strangers to help them move around the world.<br />
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Other aspects of virtual Middle-earth have been more consistent since release. The <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/04/the-things-i-love-about-lotro.html">beautiful landscapes</a>, the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2014/03/lotro-day-night-and-lousy-weather.html">weather system</a>, the lore and the cute nature of quests have been there from the beginning. Niches like the unique <b>music system</b>, <b>role-playing</b> and the Ettenmoors (player versus monster player, aka <b>PVMP</b>) attracted players that formed communities with their own unwritten rules and sub culture. Out of game, <b>LOTRO fashion blogs</b> form a niche that is still going strong as of today.<br />
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My oldest LOTRO screenshot: Ravanel runs through the Misty Mountains (Nov 15, 2008)</div>
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LOTRO vs WoW</h2>
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One thing people usually mention when they're talking about LOTRO is how friendly the <b>community </b>is. In reality, the LOTRO community has constantly changed over the years, but I would say that there's always been a strong base of players that is friendly and helpful towards newcomers, more so than in other MMOs I've played. That said, people make it out to be more perfect than it was; general chat never was completely devoid of trolls.<br />
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These first years a recurring theme in general chat was "LOTRO vs WoW". People were constantly comparing the two MMOs. I never really saw the point: why were the "LOTRO is just a WoW clone" people even in LOTRO chat if they'd rather play World of Warcraft? My boyfriend at the time played WoW with his friends and had tried to get me into it, but I didn't like the cartoony graphics and the look of my character. LOTRO's landscapes looked gorgeous compared to those in WoW and made my favourite fantasy world come to life - to me, there never was any contest.</div>
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<h2 style="text-align: justify;">
The Rift</h2>
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Another topic of discussion was the Rift raid, but because I was playing on my own and honestly didn't even know at first that there was such a thing as 'endgame' and 'raiding', I didn't get to experience it firsthand until I was level 60. An interesting characteristic of the typical LOTRO player is that they have extreme nostalgic feelings for this raid. If you'll ask one for their favourite raid, it'll be "the Rift, hands down". When I eventually did get to see the Rift, I thought it was pretty average in terms of fight mechanics and difficulty levels; later raids featured more depth and more demanding and challenging gameplay. I think the fact that it was their first exposure to raiding for many people coloured those memories. (I fully expect to be crucified by loyal LOTRO players now that I've written this down!)</div>
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<h2 style="text-align: justify;">
Lifetime subscription</h2>
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I leveled very slowly, determined to do <i>all the quests</i>
out there. Naturally, I quickly outleveled the regions I was in, so it
took me very long to get to level 50, the original level cap. The
screenshot below, taken at February the 3rd, 2009, shows that I must have reached it after about one and a half year of playing. At this
time, I was still very much in love with LOTRO, and I decided to buy the
lifetime subscription. As a <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Account_Types">founder</a>,
I could buy it for the discounted price of about 200 euros, and from that moment on, I
never had to pay a subscription fee anymore. Back in the day it felt
like a gamble, because nobody knew how long LOTRO would stick around.
It was a lot of money for me, a poor student, but I knew I would keep
playing long enough to earn it back. And even if the servers would shut down earlier, it felt like a good way to
support the studio. Seeing as LOTRO is still around nine years later,
I'm so happy I took the plunge!</div>
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Ravanel in her early level 50's, resting in the Great Delving, Moria</div>
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<h2 style="text-align: justify;">
The Mines of Moria (2008)</h2>
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At November 18, 2008, LOTRO's first expansion launched: the <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Mines_of_Moria">Mines of Moria</a>. Players ventured into Moria to help the dwarves reclaim it from the goblins and worse, and could level up to 60. It was an awesome expansion. The Moria quests felt more engaging than ever before, and it was exciting to see whether the dwarves would succeed. There were lots of well designed group instances and two lair raids: <b>the Watcher</b> and <b>the Turtle</b>. Fighting the Watcher in the Water was a really cool experience: lore wise but also mechanically. It was my first raid and I was rapidly learning to support my group as a lore-master. I had found friends around level 40, joined their kinship and enthusiastically ventured out with them to best those group instances. I had found my place in Middle-earth.</div>
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Moria is also when <b>legendary items</b> were added to the game, allowing players to customize their weapons. Every class received three different <b>trait lines</b>, of which at least one was DPS oriented. This made soloing much less cumbersome for support classes such as captains, minstrels and lore-masters. It also meant that player characters became a lot more powerful; the first major instances of power creep. Two new classes were added with Mines of Moria: the <b>rune-keeper</b> and the <b>warden</b>.</div>
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This was also a time in which a different attitude towards endgame was maintained. During Shadows of Angmar, endgame gear mostly meant hunting specific items that were best in slot for certain classes. With Mines of Moria, players also needed to collect radiance gear. <b>Radiance </b>was a stat that was needed to counteract the huge amount of dread bestowed on the player when fighting the Watcher (and later bosses in Dar Narbugud and Barad Guldur). If you didn't have enough radiance, you'd constantly cower, have decreased health and would miss your attacks because your effective level was lower. To put it simply, you couldn't contribute to the encounter. This meant that all other sources of armour (including crafted armour) were rendered obsolete, because radiance was required. To obtain radiance armour, you needed to run those Moria group instances. The <b>Twenty-first hall</b> was where you would find most level capped players, hanging out with friends or just randomly standing around.</div>
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In the spring of 2009, <b>Lothlórien</b> was added, allowing players to escape the darkness of Moria for a bit. The inner parts of Lórien were only accessible to players with enough reputation with the Galadhrim; the Elves would mercilessly shoot down (one-shot) any players that ventured within the boundaries without permission. This feature was later removed.<br />
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The depressing darkness of Mirkwood</div>
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<h2>
Siege of Mirkwood (2009)</h2>
The next expansion, <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Siege_of_Mirkwood">Siege of Mirkwood</a> (September 4, 2009), raised the level cap from 60 to 65. It added new, well designed group instances, but there was substantially less initial content: fewer group instances and the map was considerably smaller than Moria. <b>Barad Guldur</b> was a well designed raid that I thoroughly enjoyed. Instead of large group instances, development time went to <b>skirmishes</b>: scaleable instances with randomly selected mobs that were meant to keep the experience fresh. Alas, it didn't turn out that way. Skirmishes were reasonably fun and a useful tool to tell the story of the siege of Mirkwood by the Elves, but they felt more shallow. Difficulty could only be increased <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/02/artificial-versus-designed-difficulty.html">artificially</a> through the tier system, and many players (myself included) preferred traditional group content. Nowadays, skirmishes are primarily approached as an alternative way to level.<br />
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I don't know whether it was due to Mirkwood being yet another depressing environment after the dark mines of Moria, or if it was due to the skirmishes and low amount of initial content. Either way, more players started leaving LOTRO during the Siege of Mirkwood than ever before in the history of the game. Especially on my small server, Gilrain, you could really tell that the world was getting quiet. The <b>first silent player exodus</b> had started.<br />
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<h2>
Free-to-play</h2>
It was around this time that LOTRO went free to play with an optional subscription option: a model it retains to this day. Lifetime memberships were no longer sold. Some players think of the introduction of the F2P model as the beginning of the end for LOTRO, because it had a huge effect on the community atmosphere. Indeed, general chat went downhill. Personally, I strongly disliked the free-to-play change, but I figured it was something the game needed to survive. As I could ignore general chat and hang out with my friends, I was more worried about the Store breaking my immersion and constantly testing the boundaries of pay to win.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">After Siege of Mirkwood, LOTRO experienced its first content </span>drought.<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;"> With every prior expansion, the game received an update including group content after about four months. But this time, it was only one landscape region (<b>Enedwaith</b>) and an epic book story. New group content came one year and a half after Siege of Mirkwood, and it took two years for a new expansion to arrive.</span></span><br />
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<h2>
Echoes of the Dead (2011)</h2>
After having besieged Barad Guldur in Mirkwood, players joined up with the Rangers to help them move south, following in their chieftain Aragorn's footsteps. This is where the whole <b>Grey Company</b> storyline started, a storyline that would turn out to continue deep into Gondor (2017). With the influential game update <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Echoes_of_the_Dead">Echoes of the Dead</a> (March 18, 2011), the Ost Dunhoth raid and the In Their Absence instance cluster was added. This is when the game grew up in a sense; the quests felt more fluent and the landscape was more detailed than ever before. <b>Ost Dunhoth</b> and its related group instances showed a break in style: they felt different from older group content. The raid in particular featured new and creative game design. The last boss, Gortheron, was very challenging on tier 2, and I was proud to be part of the first group to down it on our humble server.<br />
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Echoes of the Dead was also when radiance was removed from the game, lowering the barrier of entry for group content. Furthermore, first age legendary items were once more available after having been absent during the Siege of Mirkwood. The map home was changed into a skill, so that players didn't have to carry around a map in their inventory. Finally, the <b>tier system</b> was added for group instances, allowing for the Ost Dunhoth raid to be very challenging on tier 2 without making the experience out of reach for more casual players, that could do it on tier 1.<br />
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In June 2011, <b>Turbine</b> decided to no longer outsource the publishing of LOTRO in Europe to <b>Codemasters</b> and moved all EU servers to Turbine's own data centre in Boston.</div>
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<h2>
Rise of Isengard (2011)</h2>
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LOTRO's third expansion, Rise of Isengard, launched on September 27, 2011. The level cap was raised to 75 and three new regions were added: <b>Dunland</b>, <b>Gap of Rohan</b> and <b>Isengard</b>. Dunland was the largest of the three and explored the allegiance of Dunlending tribes to Saruman. I was very impressed with the way the game developers portrayed the Dunlending people: much less black and white, with more nuance between "good" and "evil", than Tolkien did. This gave questing a great sense of realism, which was strengthened by the use of '<b>dynamic layers</b>': the open world environment would appear differently to you depending on where you were in the story. The main hub during this era was <b>Galtrev</b>, or "Lagtrev", as it was mockingly called by LOTRO players.</div>
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The expansion featured two raids: the <b>Tower of Orthanc</b> and the lair boss <b>Draigoch</b>. Both <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2012/04/lotro-saruman-contemplations.html">struggled with bugs</a>. The Tower of Orthanc had well designed bosses, but felt unfinished upon release. The Fire and Frost tier 2 challenge was literally unbeatable for months because some numbers were messed up in the coding. The last encounter of the raid, Saruman, took very long (half an hour) and if you were unlucky with RNG at the very end, you could start all over again. It was a well designed raid, but balancing issues took some of the fun away. Luckily, the armour sets <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2012/04/lotro-weeks-raiding-worth-fortune.html">looked gorgeous</a>.</div>
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I wrote earlier how Siege of Mirkwood had less group content than the Mines of Moria. This turned out to be a trend: Rise of Isengard had even less group content, while the price for the expansion stayed more or less the same.</div>
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In the spring of 2012, the <b>Great River</b> region was added, featuring players' first encounter with the Rohirrim in the town <b>Stangard</b>. A new feature was that you could actually go inside all the houses of this town, purely for immersive reasons. The daily area the <b>Limlight Gorge</b> was intended to be visited with a small fellowship: I had a <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2012/04/lotro-duoing-limlight-gorges.html">lot of fun duoing it</a> with my boyfriend. One new 6-man was added (Roots of Fangorn).</div>
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<h2>
Riders of Rohan (2012)</h2>
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LOTRO's fourth expansion, <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Riders_of_Rohan">Riders of Rohan</a> (October 2012), was a defining moment in the game's history, as it was the first expansion that released without any group content at all. The burnt down village <b>Hytbold</b> was the 'endgame': players could do a maximum of five dailies across Rohan per day in order to rebuild it. I could enjoy the town <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2013/04/lotro-tourist-guide-to-hythbold.html">from a lore perspective</a>, but it took awfully long to completely rebuild it: 40 days if you did the maximum amount of dailies each day. By now, the in-game cash shop was flirting more enthusiastically with pay-to-win: if you paid real money (on top of already <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2012/06/lotro-riders-of-rohan-store-cost.html">having paid up to $70,-</a> for the expansion itself), you could get the grind down to 15 days. Riders of Rohan also showcases the first example of useless power creep: the final goal of rebuilding was to acquire the Hytbold armour sets, but there was no content in the game that required its better stats. The level cap was raised by ten levels, to 85.</div>
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It is obvious that Riders of Rohan was not a great expansion for endgame players; however, there were also more positive aspects. In virtual square meters, <b>Eastern Rohan</b> was the largest region added in one go thus far, and it looked gorgeous. The quests in Rohan were well done and felt true to the spirit of Tolkien. The game also moved with its time: <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2013/08/swtorlotro-where-are-all-children.html">minorities like children</a> and women played important parts in the expansion's storylines, making the stories 'hit home' more than ever before. <b>LOTRO storytelling</b> had grown up.</div>
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In order to navigate the large areas in Rohan, the <b>war-steed</b> was added. These allowed players to ride much faster than on traditional steeds. Unfortunately, <b>mounted combat</b> was a fiasco. War-steed movement was clunky and laggy, and for many classes the combat didn't feel engaging and fun. <b>Warbands </b>were enemies designed to be defeated by multiple mounted players, but didn't feel like proper group content as not much strategy or team play was required. A nice thing about the war-steed is that it looked great and was customizable. But because customizations (coat colours in particular) were almost exclusively available in the Store and unlocked <i>per character</i> rather than per account when purchased, dressing up horses never became as popular as player character fashion in the game.</div>
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<h2>
The Erebor cluster</h2>
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Eventually, group content did get added: the Erebor cluster. The instances weren't very beloved and definitely sub par in terms of quality compared to existing ones. Totally disillusioned, I wrote a review of the 6-man with the not so subtle title <i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2013/03/lotro-failure-that-is-dale.html">The failure that is Dale</a></i> (March 2013). Three new raid boss fights were released. To many these felt unfinished and badly designed, and top end raiding kinships became inactive. The ultimate low was the encounter Fires of Smaug, in which more than half of the raid group spent the entire 'fight' running around clicking valves rather than engaging in combat.</div>
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Several months later, a small update called <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2012/05/lotro-on-steeds-and-shades-of-past.html">Shadows of the Past</a> introduced the skirmish Storm on Methedras and scaled Fornost to level cap. Just like in the Dale instance, the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2012/05/lotro-update-7-initial-impression.html">difficulty seemed off</a>.</div>
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<h2>
Helm's Deep (2013)</h2>
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November 2013, LOTRO's <b>last expansion</b> as of today was released: update 13, Helm's Deep. The stakes were high. Many players had left after the disappointing endgame content of the Erebor cluster, and small <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2013/09/lotro-should-you-pre-order-helms-deep.html">servers were getting awfully quiet</a> with many players transferring to higher populated servers. The out-of-game world also became quiet, with many fan sites disappearing, among which the popular A Casual Stroll to Mordor.</div>
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With Helm's Deep the level cap increased to 95 and the world was extended to <b>Western Rohan</b>. <b>Skill trees</b> were introduced and a huge <b>class overhaul</b> was implemented, causing uproar in the community. Generally, the total amount of skills per class were reduced, and several classes got 'dumbed down' to appeal to new players. As a result, many classes played very differently than before, and felt clunky and awkward to play (eventually, the latter was addressed).</div>
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No raids were released with Helm's Deep. This was explained with - I paraphrase - "<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "open sans"; font-size: 14.72px;">'</span>well noboby raids anyway, so it isn't a priority... we're just reacting to player trends". (In 2015, a former Turbine employee revealed that the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2015/03/lotros-transformation-from-behind-scenes.html">true reason was insufficient funds</a>.) Instead, <b>epic battles</b> were introduced. These allowed players to join instances of famous Middle-earth events, where they could watch NPCs kill each other while waiting around and occasionally clicking things. Epic battles were almost universally disliked, but players had to play them (and still do up until this day) to grind promotion points (200!) to get points for the skill trees and get first age symbols.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In April 2014, a few months after the expansion, update 13 brought Fangorn and Flooded Isengard to the game, and added the ability to use <b>cosmetic (non combat) pets</b> on all classes. Previously, pets were exclusive to lore-masters.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whether it was because of dislike for the class changes, the absense of raid content or the epic battles (or a combination of those), many people stopped playing with Helm's Deep, making it the <b>second player exodus</b>.</div>
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<h2>
Gondor updates (2014-ongoing)</h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
By now, LOTRO had unmistakingly outworn its stature as triple-A MMO. From 2014 onwards, the game focused on rolling out smaller updates that focused entirely on world building, storylines and landscapes. The first of these was update 14, which added <b>Western Gondor</b> to virtual Middle-earth. Although warbands were still around, Gondor leaned less on mounted combat than Rohan and provided with a more traditional questing experience (but with better looking landscapes and NPCs). Life time subscribers and VIPs automatically gained access to all updates that gradually introduced all regions of Gondor.</div>
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In the footsteps of legendary items, more customization - but also more grind - was added to jewellery and armour with the introduction of the <b>essence system</b>. The level cap was raised to 100 and 'endgame' revolved around doing quests for reputation in <b>Dol Amroth</b> to acquire socketed armour that could be filled with essences.</div>
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With update 15: Gondor Aflame (November 2014), the <b>Beorning </b>class and race was introduced to LOTRO. It was the first class that was exclusive to one race, and it could fill all three primary roles (healer, damage dealer and tank). Unique to the class is that it can transform into bear form when having built up sufficient 'wrath'. Like the rune-keeper, the Beorning was <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2015/08/the-day-i-gave-in-and-created-beorning.html">initially met with mixed feelings</a> because of lore reasons. Unfortunately, the class is not very strong in endgame content, as every role is done significantly better by another class.</div>
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In May 2015, update 16 brought the <b>Osgiliath cluster</b>, unexpectedly bringing new group content to LOTRO after all. Luckily, these instances did not suffer from difficulty tuning problems and were of decent quality. Lorewise, it was pretty cool to explore Osgiliath around the time of its fall. The city was also released as a <b>new PVMP map</b>. In October of that year, <b>Minas Tirith</b> was added (update 17). The city was huge, had an incredible amount of detail and held true to the lore. Players explored it while doing a gigantic number of quests, stumbling upon many lore nuggets. The <b>Battle for Minas Tirith</b> was experienced in two epic battles.</div>
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Up until this point, all 29 original game servers were still around. Historically, much resistance existed against potential <b>server merges</b>. Many servers knew tight communities that felt a sense of shared identity and <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2015/09/goodbye-gilrain.html">server pride</a>. After eight and a half years, however, many servers had become ghost towns, and players were <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2015/08/thoughts-on-lotros-server-closure.html">positive about merges</a>. In August 2015, the number of servers was reduced to 10. The event brought some new life into LOTRO, with old time players checking out their accounts and making a fresh start on a new server.</div>
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In April 2016, the much anticipated update 18 brought the <b>Pelennor cluster</b> to the game, including the first new raid in three years: the Throne of the Dread Terror. After Minas Tirith, virtual Middle-earth expanded eastward, adding the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/11/minas-tirith-after-battle-and-north.html">beautiful and lush <b>North Ithilien</b></a>. More needless power creep was added by introducing essence equipment with better stats than raid rewards for <b>flower picking</b>, first in Ithilien, later in Dagorlad. I was <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/11/picking-flowers-to-gain-best-in-slot.html">upset by the huge grind and dumb nature</a> of clicking things in the landscape, but the type of players that are left in the game are fine with it (judging by the comments, most are upset by me being upset).</div>
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During the course of 2016, Turbine transitioned into a mobile game studio. Following this change of direction, the LOTRO developers banded together with their collegues working on DDO to found a new independent game studio:<b> <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2016/12/lotro-moving-to-standing-stone-games.html">Standing Stone Games</a></b> (December 2016). <b>Daybreak Games</b> became the new publisher.</div>
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LOTRO as of today (2017)</h2>
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As it stands today, players can explore virtual Middle-earth from the Shire and the Blue Mountains in the west to the Black Gate in the east, helping the fellowship from behind the scenes on their errand. But LOTRO will not be over once Frodo fulfills his task: in interviews earlier this year, its developers have revealed that they are already working on what direction players will take after that event. Mordor will not be the end, but rather a new beginning.</div>
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I've always hoped that LOTRO would reach Mordor, but I never imagined it would take ten years! It wasn't an easy decade: the MMO is no longer the popular, potential "WoW killer" it was at launch. Combat struggles with <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.nl/2017/01/lotro-changes-id-love-to-see-in-2017.html">several issues</a> caused by irregular power creep and it isn't easy to get into the game for gamers that are used to modern MMOs. But despite its flaws, LOTRO is still the go to game for Tolkien fans that want to immerse themselves in virtual Middle-earth: a beautiful world full of lore nuggets.</div>
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Happy anniversary, Lord of the Rings Online!</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-35249002188909137912017-04-27T20:47:00.000+02:002017-04-28T01:24:01.882+02:00A modest proposal. Solutions to the grophet overpopulation problem<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtW3_isO7F5ueOtyVwM-CqMNwGFLLH8wUaEPI84MdTVtvBRo-OUslLZLSjcY04n6rb4Bs5NQvuJ3EK7BKk6aBDm9FMskYZ-a0LpzjJeP7KTuks_RassoloYg9uipVhuMjBAj-vpQW-g/s1600/grophets+on+RIshi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtW3_isO7F5ueOtyVwM-CqMNwGFLLH8wUaEPI84MdTVtvBRo-OUslLZLSjcY04n6rb4Bs5NQvuJ3EK7BKk6aBDm9FMskYZ-a0LpzjJeP7KTuks_RassoloYg9uipVhuMjBAj-vpQW-g/s640/grophets+on+RIshi.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On Rishi, players are able to observe what happens when things get out of hand</div>
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Star Wars: the Old Republic's latest update, 5.2, had one nasty surprise in stock: the tier 4 command crates have a chance to drop... fiery grophet pets. It is no secret that I despise these repugnant little creatures. They remind me of handbag dogs that constantly get spoiled with food by their owners "because they're so cute", or - in the best case - of the final destination of guinea pigs during a <a href="http://www.odditycentral.com/travel/the-guinea-pig-festival-of-huacho-has-rodents-on-the-menu.html">Peruvian guinea pig festival</a> (do check out that link if you aren't familiar with this event): on a plate. Indeed, there is a peculiar similarity between the roasted guinea pigs and fiery grophets. Surely this is more than a coincidence; this is fate!</div>
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/SAJZqo9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/SAJZqo9.jpg" height="334" width="640" /></a></div>
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If only cooking was a crafting profession in SWTOR...</div>
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(Picture to the bottom right by Shintar)</div>
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But I don't need to explain the revolting nature of these critters: their hideous appearance speaks for itself. So naturally, when I find a fiery grophet in a command crate, my eyes light up, and with an explosive expression of joy I exclaim: "Oooh yeah! DISINTEGRATE!!" *insert cackling Dalek noise here*</div>
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However, Shintar of Going Commando <a href="http://swtorcommando.blogspot.nl/2017/04/a-tale-of-tier-four.html">has a different approach</a>:<br />
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"I hit disintegrate on a grophet and immediately felt a terrible jolt of guilt. It doesn't really make sense. I don't worry about what an uncomfortable life these creatures must lead, being stashed away between armour pieces and companion gifts inside of crates that mysteriously appear out of thin air. But when you ask me to take action myself, to actively destroy them... I suddenly feel bad."</blockquote>
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Since she cannot get herself to disintegrate them, Shintar is considering opening a Home for Fiery Grophets. And because I'm not totally unreasonable, and such a course would fit my light side V sage better (role-play wise), I can support this thought.<br />
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/HE6yaTU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/HE6yaTU.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
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A possible solution: send your grophets to Shintar!</div>
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Meanwhile, the problem stands: players in tier 4 will get showered with the undoubtedly highly nutricious fiery grophets for eternity. What is your solution to this dilemma? Let me know in a comment or vote in the Twitter poll.</div>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
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What do you do with the grophet (command crate tier 4 reward)? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/swtorfamily?src=hash">#swtorfamily</a></div>
— Ravanel Griffon (@Rav_Griffon) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rav_Griffon/status/857651739532681216">April 27, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-30214736027604916962017-04-21T23:50:00.000+02:002017-04-22T12:54:40.486+02:00Drawing diary: March<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uLBJbz713nw/WPo3aEP9WtI/AAAAAAAAFrs/z2DoDgAvc00s1boJFjScVI26-GrKaEyFwCPcB/s1600/Drawing%2BDiary%2BMarch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="370" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uLBJbz713nw/WPo3aEP9WtI/AAAAAAAAFrs/z2DoDgAvc00s1boJFjScVI26-GrKaEyFwCPcB/s640/Drawing%2BDiary%2BMarch.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Star Wars: the Old Republic launched a new update (including a long expected new operation boss) and Lord of the Rings Online started off its tenth anniversary event this week, so what am I going to write about? Neither, apparently. I have plenty to say about SWTOR's 5.2, but I want to take the time to write it all down. You can expect a post early next week, and of course I'll talk about it on Corellian Run Radio Saturday. With all that's happening, I still need to set foot in LOTRO to try out the anniversary event, but that should happen somewhere next week as well.<br />
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Meanwhile, my drawing diary of March is way overdue, so I'll write that instead. I usually try to write these entries at the start of the month, but back then the Developer Appreciation Week (DAW) took up all of my time. I also may just have put this diary off because there was so much to scan. I made so much!</div>
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In February, I <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/03/drawing-diary-february.html">discovered two things</a>: how to start with abstractifying paintings (inspired by Tara Leaver) and that you can dillute conté crayons with water. In March, I heavily experimented with both. I basically tried to let go of the idea that my drawings needed to look like real things and it was so much fun!<br />
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When I wrote about abstractified painting before, I thought you guys would all go "zzzz...". Luckily this wasn't the case and people were supportive! Redbeard even liked the weird stuff I made and wrote that the work with conté crayons somehow reminded him of native Americans. The crayons have very authentic colours because they are made of natural pigments. When I stumbled upon a photo of a bird of prey's feathers on Twitter, I had to think of that remark and I decided to take it up as a subject.</div>
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/x5NLsE4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/x5NLsE4.jpg" height="394" width="640" /></a></div>
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Feathers: bird of prey</div>
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I used a dry brush for the first time ever (I don't know, it had just never occurred to me before!) and it definitely has a special effect. You could say that the strokes simulate the feather structure somewhat - not that you can probably tell that the above was based on feathers, but that wasn't the point.<br />
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My goal was to draw more regularly. In total, I made eleven abstract miniature paintings with conté crayons and water: two or three per day. Interestingly, I noticed afterwards that each day had its own style and marks.<br />
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/MTafglI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/MTafglI.jpg" height="386" width="640" /></a></div>
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Feathers: dove</div>
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After the bird of prey I tried to go with something inspired by dove feathers, but without a reference picture. I added the dark stain near the end because I felt there wasn't enough happening without it.<br />
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/1Pp8GS8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/1Pp8GS8.jpg" height="354" width="640" /></a></div>
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Feathers: wing pins</div>
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This one started out with a vague idea about feather structure and then became an exercise in form in general. It's very different from what I usually make.<br />
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/nRUwIub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/nRUwIub.jpg" height="384" width="640" /></a></div>
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Feathers: Hoopoe (<i>Upupa epops</i>)</div>
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By now I had discovered the amazing Dutch-English website <a href="http://www.michelklemann.nl/verensite/apus_apus/apapindex.html">Feathers</a>. It features a huge photo collection of wild bird feathers, so people identify what bird a feather belongs to. I was fascinated by it and I learned that you aren't allowed to collect feathers in the Netherlands (even though I live there, I had no clue!) because the website's owner had to get a special permit from the government.<br />
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I struggle a lot with the black conté crayons (they don't give off much pigment), but I really liked how this one turned out. The pitch black background is made with pure charcoal.<br />
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Feathers: Hoopoe (<i>Upupa epops</i>)</div>
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With this one I turned things around: the black conté crayons in the background and charcoal on the feathers. It ended up being one of my favourites!<br />
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Schubert: bass</div>
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By now I started to get bored by feathers. It occurred to me that I was always drawing in complete silence. So this time, I put on a CD of Schubert (<i>Der Tod und das Mädchen</i>) and just started drawing without any prior ideas.<br />
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/PiWzJeq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/PiWzJeq.jpg" height="410" width="640" /></a></div>
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Schubert: drama</div>
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It's very emotional music, so these ended up being somewhat disturbing. The one above looks especially dark. It has some Cthulhu vibes.<br />
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Feathers: common swift (<i>Apus apus</i>)</div>
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While it was fun to experiment, it wasn't really my thing, so I returned to the feathers. However, the next two drawings turned out blunt and hasty, and I'm not happy with them.<br />
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Feathers: northern goshawk (<i>Accipiter gentilis</i>)</div>
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When I finished this one, I couldn't determine whether it looked better like this or upside down - I guess that's when you know for sure you have to try doing something else.<br />
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Runescape 1: Blurite cave</div>
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The last two abstractified conté crayon drawings I did were inspired by a blog post from Amathyx, who recently started playing Runescape 2. I have never played that MMO, but there's something special about those simplistic colourful graphics of its old virtual world.<br />
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Runescape 2: Snow</div>
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You can find the screenshots I used as a reference in <i><a href="http://armathyx.blogspot.com/2017/03/leaving-no-stone-unturned.html">Leaving no stone unturned</a></i> on Amathyx does Gaming. I gave myself a couple of seconds to sketch and then closed the blog post, so I had to do the rest with my imagination.<br />
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It's funny how different my drawings look from the originals. The snowy landscape looks like it has a face and the blurite mine has all these odd shapes and dimensions (as if there's something wrong with the space time continuum) that give me an uncanny feeling. I don't think I'll ever dare to mine blurite in Runescape.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BRz86eAavOY/WMby_34C8zI/AAAAAAAAFko/xIGJhmBU0bcUTbeuUK5BcjLOvniiud5swCPcB/s1600/DISINTEGRATE%2B800px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BRz86eAavOY/WMby_34C8zI/AAAAAAAAFko/xIGJhmBU0bcUTbeuUK5BcjLOvniiud5swCPcB/s640/DISINTEGRATE%2B800px.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Furthermore, I made this illustration of T7 disintegrating a command crate for my SWTOR post <i><a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-solution-to-command-crate-schematic.html">The solution to command crate schematic OCD</a></i>. It's crude and quickly made, so I'm not all that happy with it, but it does its job. I still get dalek vibes whenever I get crappy things in my command crates (although it has hugely improved with update 5.2).<br />
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Decaying tulips</div>
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It felt like my abstractified drawings were just getting worse and worse, so instead I started painting the tulips that were standing on my desk using water colour paint. I'm actually super proud of this one! It's the first time I used water paint for something this big (A4) and although it has many flaws, I learned a lot from it. Somehow the colours got a bit lost in the scan: in reality they are more intense and it looks better.<br />
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Before I wrap things up, I'd like to give a shoutout to Cfcallier of Moon's Meadow, who has also been trying out conté crayons for her <a href="http://moonsmeadow.blogspot.nl/2017/04/drawing-diary-for-march.html">March drawing diary</a>. It is a funny thought that we may have sat down at the same time at different sides of the world, both trying to do something with these crayons. Cfcallier also has a post up describing <a href="http://moonsmeadow.blogspot.com/2017/03/playing-with-conte-crayons.html">how she works with conté crayons</a> in detail. Her drawings are very different from mine, because she did aim for realism. Naturally, there are also a lot more horses.<br />
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I hope you guys weren't too bored because of all the abstract drawings. For me, this month was amazing: it was so much fun to drop down everything I usually do and experiment freely! It isn't something I'm going to do forever, though: this month's drawings are very different already. You'll see in a couple of weeks.<br />
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-62243459074461721932017-04-14T23:53:00.002+02:002017-04-15T00:51:47.299+02:00Fashion Friday: Egg hunter's outfit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--TNRONJASRw/WPEja11mPEI/AAAAAAAAFqo/1V2cyCFpej4G6whedu20n9muRe0Mzl9xwCPcB/s1600/Doing%2Bthe%2Bcloak%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bcluck%2Bthing%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="370" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--TNRONJASRw/WPEja11mPEI/AAAAAAAAFqo/1V2cyCFpej4G6whedu20n9muRe0Mzl9xwCPcB/s640/Doing%2Bthe%2Bcloak%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bcluck%2Bthing%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's Easter this weekend, and I'm already looking forward to our egg hunt. Okay, okay, I'm grown up... but what's wrong with some fun? I've been looking for eggs with my family since I was old enough to identify one, so it's a nostalgia thing for me. Also, if I'd be a hobbit I'd still be a tween, so... totally legit.
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This is my burglar, Ravil. She is my only true roleplay character. I don't roleplay much - I created her in 2010 or so and she's still level 25, so you can probably tell. But this weekend I'm totally in the Easter mood. Lord of the Rings Online doesn't have an Easter festival or something of the sorts, but I do love creating outfits. So that's how the egg hunter's outfit was born.</div>
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Looking for eggs is fun, but it does make a hobbit hungry. That's why we need some help in the form of a loyal dog with a good nose. Faroth is helping Ravil find those extra hard eggs that you'd otherwise find in the winter three years later or so. Can't leave any eggs behind to rot!</div>
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Outfit</h2>
Ravil to the right is ready for some egg hunting! She is wearing the following:<br />
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<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Circlet_of_Fresh-picked_Flowers"><b>Circlet of Fresh-picked Flowers</b></a>, dyed sea blue (Farmer's Faire)</li>
<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Padded_Mantle_of_the_Dunland_Soothsayer"><b>Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer</b></a>, dyed gold (L69 quest reward)</li>
<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Cloak_of_the_Cluck">Cloak of the Cluck</a></b> (L6 quest reward)</li>
<li><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:The_Ancient_Master%27s_Robe"><b>The Ancient Master's Robe</b></a>, dyed sea blue (lore-master set bonus piece, Nan Curunir)</li>
<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Basket_of_Colourful_Eggs">Basket of Colourful Eggs</a></b> (Farmer's Faire)</li>
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<a href="http://i.imgur.com/p89NyMp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 2em;"><img align="right" border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/p89NyMp.jpg" style="width: 350px;" /></a>
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Pet</h2>
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<li><b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Faroth">Faroth</a></b> (L105 quest reward)</li>
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I always wanted an outfit that would include the Cloak of the Cluck, but never found a good colour match. The eggs in the egg basket have pretty much all colours, though, so for this one it was most important that it was colourful. I usually don't like sea blue as much because it can really hurt your eyes, but I think it works quite well on the Ancient Master's Robe. I also love that there are daisies on the basket and in her hair. And the Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer looks as if it is part of the cloak dyed gold.</div>
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Alternatives</h2>
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If you don't have the patience to make it through all chicken session play quests (required for the <b>Cloak of the Cluck</b>), you can play Hobnanigans instead and acquire the <b><a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item%3ABlue_Chicken_Cloak">Blue Chicken Cloak.</a></b> This cloak looks similar, but is dyed bright blue. But the cool thing about the Cloak of the Cluck is that it makes your character do an animation when clicked (top picture).<br />
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The <b>Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer</b> is a great piece to go with cloaks, because it camouflages the 'shoulder flaps' cloaks have in LOTRO (I'm not a fan) and it looks as if it fastens the cloak, as you would in reality. There are multiple shoulder pieces with this cosmetic from the Dunland area (follow the link to the Lotro-wiki to find out about some alternatives).</div>
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The dog <b>Faroth </b>is acquired through a quest of the latest update (update 20, The Black Gate). Note that the tome that grants the skill to summon him is not bound on acquire: you can send it over to a low level alt. You might also be able to find Faroth on the auction house (the poor thing).</div>
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If you're not into dogs, a <b>chicken pet</b> would also fit this outfit well. You can win or barter for <a href="https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Cosmetic_Pets">various chicken pets</a> during the Hobnanigans event.</div>
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But really, how can you not be into Faroth? Who's a good boy...<br />
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I hope you guys will have a great Easter weekend!<br />
<br />Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-45794133480536900852017-04-12T23:16:00.000+02:002017-04-13T11:52:23.898+02:00DAW 2017 wrap up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been a few days since the <a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/developer-appreciation-week-2017.html">eighth annual Developer Appreciation Week (DAW)</a> ended, so it's time for the wrap up post!</div>
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This year, a total of nine different blogs participated, writing a stunning total of 22 dev appreciating posts! The devs of the MMO Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR) had the most dedicated to them, with three entries. Others receiving multiple messages of commendation were the LOTRO dev team, Daybreak Game Company and Concerned Ape of Stardew Valley. New this year were players thanking devs on Twitter with the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23DAW8&src=typd">#DAW8</a>, spreading some extra dev positivity.</div>
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DAW posts of 2017</h2>
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Here is a full list with all the blog posts that were written for DAW 2017. They're sorted by date of the first DAW post appearance per blog.</div>
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<b>Armathyx does Gaming </b><br />
<a href="http://armathyx.blogspot.com/2017/04/developer-appreciation-week-old-school.html">DAW: The Old School Team</a>: The Oldschool Team (Runescape 2)<br />
<a href="http://armathyx.blogspot.com/2017/04/daw-skelux-super-mario-star-road.html">DAW: Skelux (Super Mario Star Road)</a>: Skelux (Super Mario Star Road) <br />
<b>I Have Touched the Sky</b><br />
<a href="http://ihavetouchedthesky.blogspot.com/2017/04/developer-appreciation-week-2017.html">Developer Appreciation Week 2017 - WildStar Soundtrack</a>: Jeff Kurtenacker (Wildstar)<br />
<a href="http://ihavetouchedthesky.blogspot.com/2017/04/secret-world-legends-first-devstream.html">Secret World Legends First Devstream</a>: (TSW:L)<br />
<b>Shadowz Abstract Gaming Blog</b><br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/752">Developer Appreciation Week</a>: Coldgames (Subsistance)<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/758">Day 2 of DAW</a>: TFP (7DTD)<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/765">Day 3 of DAW</a>: Reversed Interactive (Tyler: Model 005)<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/771">Day 4 of DAW</a>: (The Forest)<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/785">Day 5 of DAW</a>: SCS Software (Euro Truck Simulator 2 & American Truck Simulator)<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/817">Day 6 DAW</a>: CD Projekt (The Witcher)<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/836">Day 7 DAW</a>: General<br />
<a href="http://shadowmmorpg.sadesignz.org/archives/839">The Final, Final Wrap Up Post DAW 2017</a>: BEAM Team Games (The Stranded Deep)<br />
<b>Inventory Full</b><br />
<a href="http://bhagpuss.blogspot.com/2017/04/small-is-beautiful-developer.html">Small is Beautiful: Developer Appreciation Week</a>: Daybreak Game Company (EverQuest, EQ2, Vanguard and more) & SmokymonkeyS (Ninelives)<br />
<b>Parallel Context</b><br />
<a href="https://parallelcontext.blogspot.com/2017/04/in-praise-of-code-jockey.html">In Praise of the Code Jockey</a>: General & The original SWTOR team (SWTOR)<br />
<b>Going Commando</b><br />
<a href="http://swtorcommando.blogspot.com/2017/04/developer-appreciation-week-how-work.html">Developer Appreciation Week: How Work Has Made Me More Understanding of MMO Devs</a> - General (& SWTOR)<br />
<b>Ravalation</b><br />
<a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-heart-and-soul-of-stardew-valley.html">The heart and soul of Stardew Valley</a>: Concerned Ape (Stardew Valley)<br />
<a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/standing-firm-in-wake-of-progress.html">Standing firm in the wake of progress: a tribute to Standing Stone Games</a>: SSG (LOTRO & DDO)<br />
<a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/all-feels-of-life-is-strange.html">All the feels of Life Is Strange: how a video game helped me cope with life</a>: (Life Is Strange) <br />
<a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/love-for-swtor-stream-dream-team.html">Love for the SWTOR Stream Dream Team</a>: The "Stream Dream Team" (SWTOR)<br />
<a href="http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2017/04/managing-ten-year-old-mmo-thumbs-up-to.html">Managing a ten year old MMO: thumbs up to the LOTRO devs</a>: (LOTRO)<br />
<b>Moon's Meadow</b><br />
<a href="http://moonsmeadow.blogspot.com/2017/04/appreciating-developers-daw-2017.html">Appreciating the Developers: DAW 2017</a>: (GW2, LOTRO, Tyto Ecology, Stardew Valley & more)<br />
<b>Gaming SF</b><br />
<a href="https://gamingsf.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/developer-appreciation-week-2017/">Developer appreciation week 2017</a>: Daybreak Game Company, Zenimax Online Studios<br />
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I'm totally blown away by all these posts. I mean, look at that list, it's huge! I hope we have made some developers smile - and if we didn't, at least we made the internet a somewhat happier place. </div>
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There were posts introducing me to games I had never heard of before, and intriguing tales of the people behind game studios (often small ones) that thus far had only seemed like a random combination of letters to me. Some posts took a general approach and gave a peek behind the scenes, giving insight into the complex process of creating a game. All I can say is that you guys did an amazing job at making the people behind the gaming industry visible. Thank you, everyone, for participating and making DAW 2017 happen!</div>
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I don't know about you, but I was so busy with writing, reading and promoting people's DAW posts that I didn't have much time to comment on them. So that's what I'm going to do this week. I invite you to do the same; who knows, you might even discover a gaming blog you didn't know of or a new game to try out.</div>
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Ravanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.com13