Lazy Weekend Edition

Welcome to Blaugust Day 29, and at 15 posts this month, I'm only half outta my mind!

I've been a bit scramble-minded as to a topic I'd like to pursue, so I think I'll roll with one of them fancy multi-musings post today. At least I'll be able to surpass 140 characters an entry on this one, and get a couple odds-and-ends out of the way. I'll begin with a bit of Trove chat, move onto a tad on my LOTRO transfer experiences thus far, and finish up with a tidbit on my future F2P endeavors.

Trove Trekking 
I've been out of town for about a week now, slowly helping to organize my grandmother's apartment in preparation for cleaning things out. The extent of her computer gaming was essentially Facebook games, including several casino choices and Candy Crush/Criminal Case (she sure loved those C-titled games!). As such, her machine and Internet was never designed to be all that capable of much, let alone the time it'd take to download multiple gig titles (LOTRO is like 13g, plus the patch times).

I settled on setting up Glyph (Trion's loader) and Trove, as I figured it's not a huge download, plus the game runs pretty well on a lower-end machine. This was indeed a good idea, as I've been rather enjoying playing more of this game over the course of a month or so during my last couple trips here.

The new "/epicpose" command lets you catch some...interesting shots

After receiving a tip that they were offering a free class token awhile back, I aptly set up the game and chose the Ice Sage (ranged magic, staff user). Since then, I finally spent some of my Cubits (earnable store currency) and picked up the Shadow Hunter (bow user) and just recently, the Candy Barbarian. This latest addition plays much like the Knight, though he wields his sword dual style with a bit of frenzied sugar-coated sprinkles on top. By having a range of weapon types and characters leveling at once, I've been able to build my overall Mastery up to 37 or so, which unlocks some nice passive bonuses and goodies along the way. Trove is not really a game you have to take too seriously, as can be seen by many of the themes displayed in the biomes, so there's really no stress required here.

LOTRO Transfers
Though I haven't been able to be in game for a week or so, I've kept up best I can on the LOTRO transfer news as they work to consolidate servers by roughly the end of the year. I'm fine with letting Turbine take their time to iron out the hardware and services - gotta do what you gotta do to de-borkivize the stuffs. No sense getting in a huffy when we have no clear control of the timeline - it's something that's new for both players and developers.

I took a little time to physically write down all my characters' information on slips of paper, and made myself a table for where I'd like to make my moves to the remaining servers. My big move will be transporting my characters from my main kin on Riddermark (closing) to Landroval. I'll also be moving my couple of toons from Windfola (closing) to Arkenstone. However, I'd like to first move my Landy hunter to Gladden, and I'm thinking my Arken hunter to either Brandywine or Crickhollow. I'd be making these moves to try and avoid multiple classes and duplicate names on one given server.

I have a couple of other characters I'll be shuffling to other servers where my retinue is low, to spread things around a bit better. It'll take while to go through each character and make sure they are ready for their new respective home, but hopefully all is well in the end. It'll be exciting to maybe delve a bit more into group play, as I move to ultimately more populated worlds. This is a good move for the game as a whole, and should not be seen as one step closer to its death. I know all games eventually have to come to an end, but this is just another branch along LOTRO's long journey it has had, and should be an exciting one.

Free-to-play Hullabaloo
As a F2Paholic, I'm happy to hear about the recent option of free accounts in Guild Wars 2. From what I have seen, the restrictions seem fair to me and expected of what free accounts usually offer in such a case. Hopefully ArenaNet can do well to pull plenty of new players in, and excite them enough with the offerings to possibly become future paying accounts (and join in the fun with expansion Heart of Thorns).

I also look forward to what Wildstar F2P brings. From what I saw when the game was being hyped up for the original launch, it looks like a fun, quirky title, that loosely matches a RIFT style, but with a bit more action flair to combat. If it is offered for free players, the explorer path appeals to my sense of landscape probing, and was really the first thing I noticed when looking at an early article. It should hopefully fit nicely in my MMO stash, and I probably won't do much reading into it and just jump into the game like a blind lemming.

Have any thoughts on any of these mini topics, or just want to shoot the breeze? Share below!