Mostly Eye Candy

     

     Last night a friend and I popped onto Rift for a little bit of a change of pace after very frustrating LFRs in WoW. Daethrys was able to buy her a horse and we went off and shut down a rift before curiosity got the better of Daethrys and he went off to do a quest he'd been given with part of the Unicornalia event that's going on. (Oh how I covet those unicorns! Sadly I know I'll never manage it this year.)
     The beauty of Rift continually surprises me. Every time I log in I find something beautiful to screenshot and things that capture my imagination. Daethrys spent the day in the Highlands today (unexpectedly) working on a quest that I think ties in with the latest content. It's very good xp anyhow and the zone is just gorgeous. I wish I'd taken more screenshots than I did and think I'll have to revisit it even if it's for no other purpose than to screenshot everything.

Loved the look of this lovely but slightly forbidding bit of forest... all full of very cranky fae.

On a rise overlooking the house from the first picture.

     I wish I'd taken shots of the storm that was going when I arrived or the high rope bridges he crossed for the quest, but the zone was busy with holiday stuff today. Maybe next time.

     I spent a little time in LOTRO today too. Sadrondir has acquired all the holiday mounts he can get without me putting out some real money so you'd think I would be done. But he decided he wanted some prettier clothes than his crafted gear so he earned the leaves for that today and learned a couple of dances while he was at it.

     The new clothes suit my image of him a bit better, though he's sort of surprised me by turning out a bit different than I thought he'd be as a character, still, pretty clothes suit  him. (And I still love this harp.)

     The alts did a bit too. Curongalad finished the tutorial and took up making armor (and promptly made himself a new set. Mistelir worked the leather Sadrondir had sent him and then sent it off to Curongalad along with a club he made for him and Curongalad promptly made him a new set of clothes. They'll only be doing minimal questing and processing what they can of what Sadrondir sends them for the moment. 

     And then before I logged Sadrondir insisted on the circlet to go with his outfit.

     He wears flower wreath far better than I expected and this shot, taken in the split second when the Milestone action is finished but he hasn't vanished yet shows off the new tunic and circlet really well. And some of the other things that LOTRO did surprisingly well. The characters may be less attractive than some but the animations for some things are spot on. And he's a lovely springtime minstrel. Now I just have to talk Curongalad out of needing a fancy horse for himself...

More LOTRO

     Playing a little more LOTRO this week. After my post last week I discovered that if I went into the graphics options and optimized the settings the game got much prettier. I feel very silly for not having considered this earlier. And though the character models still aren't as impressive as Aion or Rift's... well with views like the one above I can't say it's not a gorgeous game.
     I've had a busy week. Broke down and decided I wanted alts and wanted to use the Auction House so I dropped a bit of cash for the Samwise Gamgee Starter Pack that gives all the alts riding and a horse and upgrades the account to premium to get rid of currency limits and suchlike. It also gave me a third slot on each server which was promptly filled but there will be a post on that later. The first thing I did after that was level Mistelir (the original hunter. I've decided he's Sadrondir's little brother) the rest of the way through the tutorial and decide on a profession for him.

     And one of the people in my Kinship gave me some gold and a quick tour of housing and festival grounds. (How are people so wonderfully kind in this game? It's not that there aren't nice people in other games but I've never had quite so much welcome and affection in any other game.) The Spring festival hit the next day and my Rift plans went out the window as Sadrondir ran around hastily saving up holiday currency for horses. Because what else would one spend it on, really? Though now he's picked out an outfit he wants too. More leaf gathering tomorrow.
     He has been able to acquire the two holiday horses that take leaves to get and the one that requires flowers (and hasn't been screenshotted yet.) And then finally I gave in yesterday and let him buy a house! 6 Haven Way, Celeth Gelais.

     Here he is one of the new horses in front of the house. It's got a few decorations inside but I'll want to do more as I can. It's not quite as customizable as I'd hoped, not quite like Rift's Dimensions are, but I can put in music and that was the first thing I did. :D

     And on the second spring horse, galloping off to pick flowers to buy the third. And since he's decided on an outfit for sure it looks like I'll be playing the festival at least one more day before it's done. He wants to learn dances too after all.
     But horse and houses aside one of the most exciting things that happened was when today in the hedge maze I saw Danania ! I'd just added her blog to my blog roll and then I saw her. I waved in passing and she was nice enough to whisper and chat with me and then wave again as we passed each other in the process of getting lost. She was nice, of course. I haven't run into anybody in game yet who wasn't.