Mines of Canada Elemental

Two more days till Mines of Moria expansion release for Lord of the Rings Online. I'm somewhat excited; excited because of the new Moria content but heavily dampered by nerfs and bad class redesign. Expect to hear a lot about it in my next post. Also, this next weekend my gaming cohorts will gather and play some more Chronicles of Ramlar and Arkham Horror.

In good and interesting news, Stardock has finally announced their fantasy strategy game in development. You can see an early promo picture to the right for the game. I'll be following this game with much interest till it is released. The release isn't slated until winter of 2010, but as with other Stardock games if you pre-order you automatically get into being able to beta test and can play the pre-release versions of the game. The game looks like it will be the only true spiritual successor to Master of Magic and I have little doubt that it can top the old classic as well. It will be a true 4X game no doubt, but with duel research paths of technology and magic and a lot of interesting dynamics are being discussed that involve trading your power for different kinds of advantages and achieving different kinds of victories. The only disappointment so far is that they're only planning on two playable civilization races for release at this point and I think the game could easily gain from having a couple more. It shouldn't be too hard to do so without falling into the typical elves, orcs, dwarves fantasy trope.

Now the biggest and best news is saved for last and about VOR. I grab local bioplazm forum gamer Scott (left) and went up to Canada to meet "Skuzz" (wave 'hi' Skuzz!) who I caught in the below unprepared picture amid revealing juicy details of Vor 2.0 So I've got the spoilers, sneak peeks, and news about Vor 2.0... unfortunately Skuzz long ago got the promise of secrecy from me so there isn't much I can reveal. I can confirm seeing concept doodles for a new masher unit, and that other work towards the new release is proceeding. My opinions however are not under NDA and I can tell you that I'm very excited and eager for the release of what is in store with Vor 2.0 Old time fans like myself will not be merely pleased with a re-release of VOR but I think you'll be beside yourselves with excitement for the some of the game changes and story advancements. I don't think it will be difficult for VOR 2.0 to make a huge number of new fans as well.

In other VOR news, the next unofficial Golden Growler contest is complete. Head to wargame forums and vote! (and not necessarily for me).

- Sallust/Rishkith over and out!

What is an Expansion?

I start a new job on monday, yay me! This means less time and more money for gaming of course. I was hoping to have pictures of the Golden Growler up, but the contest hasn't had pictures posted yet let alone judged. When it is expect to see my most recent creation as my new mascot and avatar all of the place.

So I've pre-ordered the Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. Sadly, I'm not too enthused about it at the moment. Partially because my kinship is having a lot of drama and I suspect on the verge of falling apart, but mostly just because for most classes the expansion doesn't seem like one. Turbine is behaving more like Funcom, upsetting class balance badly, giving a lot more to certain playstyles that already have plenty while ignoring what the customer base really wants while the marketing folks and community go ... oh we'll get around to fixing it this year.

All computer game developers have to understand, customers expect things to work properly right out of the box. Patches after the fact aren't shouldn't be used for fixing content, it should be used for adding content. That said I'll be there on patch day seeing how good or bad it is for myself.

Sadly I've not been able to get any games of Anima: Tactics in. The support for it at my local game store has pretty much died. I'm not sure what is going on there, a change in management it seems as one of the owners has seemingly lost interest in being involved or something.

We had our second session of Ramlar last night. I had a lot more fun GMing the game than I expected. This was partially do to the fun layout and intrigue for the Card Sharp adventure. This adventure makes a great beginning adventure for Ramlar, though they really need a better "first time" adventure for the game to introduce players to basic mechanics and such. The Card Sharp adventure I feel though is giving my two players a good feel for the setting, the races, and cultures of the world of Ramlar. I eagerly look forward to the next session of the game.