Schedule was a bit off for me this week as well. Monday, Qvaid and I crashed fairly early. Friday, I was a bit out of sorts, and ended up crashing early again to catch up on some rest. Other than those two days, things fell back into normal scheduling for the most part though. Still a great week of gaming, even with the slight hiccups on the schedule mentioned above!
Qvaid and I are making good progress in our 3rd run of Outward under the banner of the Heroic Kingdom of Levant (ie: The Heroic Kingdom of Levant – faction quest line).
Some things of note or at least that I’ve noticed. I’m still not ‘great’ with the bow / hex build I choose, but fortunately Qvaid’s Primal Ritualist Build seems to more than make up for that. Especially if we get time to prep before the battles begin.
Qvaid and I are both pretty happy with the new schedule for our gaming sessions. Monday through Thursday has been working out really well. Given the rest of the gang’s schedule, it’s far less time that I spend gaming alone as well, which has been a win for everyone in my book. Qvaid and I get another day to hop into our PJs, sit at the ole computer desk, and roll through adventures together!
While I do miss the World of Warcraft adventures, I must say that Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria has been an incredible journey so far. I stand by the mention that it seems to be quite a bit like Valheim in terms of game play mechanics. There are some variations of course, but a good bit of the model seems to fall in line with how things work in Valheim. Sadly the game’s dedicated server is not open for public use yet. Although to be fair, I don’t really have the hardware to set it up at this time. Even if I did, it would be a Linux box, and according to their website, to participate in the Alpha Dedicated Server you need a Windows box. Hopefully that changes once it goes live. 🙂
Honorable mentions should go out to Diablo IV, which Aces, DNC, and perhaps even Eldon had a bit of over the weekend (Could be wrong about Eldon in truth. I know several of them play via the Battlenet App, and since I wasn’t playing WoW, I didn’t load it up much. Until I noted an issue I had to work out with it involving some Wine / Proton shenanigans). There was also some Valheim action from Falken and Iron at various points over the weekend as well!
Days played: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Players: Qvaid, Hobbit
Tuesday evening: Yes, that is correct. Qvaid was feeling a bit under the weather on Monday, so she opted to skip our Monday night gaming session after much thought. Initially we were still going to give it a go, but we were already looking at a bit of a late start, and both of us are still in the stages of recovery for the most part.
On Tuesday, we picked back up where we left off in Levant, still waiting on our first assignment from Cyrene as it were. Since we were right at the start of that 3 day wait, we decided to head on over to the Electric Labs and solve the puzzle to get the Ornate Chests in Abrassar activated! After a bit of a struggle remembering how the dungeon we, we did manage to complete it, and defeat the 3 special sword golems guarding the over all access of the mechanism up top. Shortly after we had it activated, and headed out into Abrassar again to reap the rewards of the Ornate chests we unlocked!
We only managed to grab a couple, before we decided we needed to head back to Levant to sale and do some changes to our inventory. We rested for the night once that was complete and headed back out in the morning to finish looting the chests we left. Ironically we must have looted more than we thought the previous night, as at least one or two we came too was already empty. In any case we finished up the cycle, and managed to kill some Jewel Birds and other random critters that either got in our way or attacked us in our travels.
This included the Compass Golem in the Walled Garden when we were fighting a Jewel Bird that ran into the Garden and just so happened to pull him. We made it to the third day and now have our first task from Cyrene. We are to head to Berg and stand guard for Kirouac during a meeting of the Blue Chamber Collective.
Unfortunately, it was getting quite late by this point, so we opted to camp in Levant and we’ll pick back up another night as scheduling allows. We also have a slight situation with inventory as we never did get the house in Levant and we have a bag full of foods, equipment, and other things we need to deal with before leaving… I can’t seem to remember if the bag will be safe in town, without a house to drop it in. My gut tells me probably not, but I’ll try to research that before we play again and see if we are going to have to do some emergency inventory maintenance before we head out to Berg.
Wednesday evening: As we projected, the inventory management we needed to do to prepare to travel was beyond insanity. Qvaid and I ended up just selling off a ton of things we had thrown into the alchemist backpack in our attempts to preserve food. To be fair, since we had not done The Heroic Kingdom Faction, I guess for some reason, we’d just likely be spending more time in the Levant / Abrassar area? We also expected to be able to try to purchase a house a bit sooner in the quest line. That turn did put quite the damper on things.
In any case, we eventually got things settled enough to travel, and stuffed our backpacks to the brim of bursting, selling off anything we didn’t have room for, and just leaving our small base camp in Levant as it was. I mean it will either be there when we return, or it will not at this point! LOL Off to Enmerkar Forest!
The travel went relatively smooth, although Qvaid and I stopped here and there to loot, or combat random foes. We made it to Berg and headed to the Blue Chamber Collective. Per Cyrene’s request.
We spoke with everyone there, leaving Cyrene for last, and she gave us instructions to speak to Kapros. Qvaid and I did just that, and chose to help him with his quest. As it turns out, it was a bit of a setup, as we were to be the patsy for a crime they were about to commit against the Blue Chamber Collective in destroying or attempting to destroy the Ancient Ancestral Memories!? Fortunately, Qvaid and I were able to dispatch the bandits with relative ease, and we read a note that looked like the Burning Outpost might need to be our next stop!
Before heading out, we went to the Inn in Berg and managed to pick up the Blood Under the Sun quest as well. We decided to head back to Abrassar first and effectively got thEnsure the charging cable is not only fitting snug in the device, but also the cable is fitting snug into the charger.
It will take approximately 15-20 minutes with the supplied charger to charge the device to a minimal level to power the device back on.
Do not use the charger connected to a USB Port as the charging rate is much lower and could take a few hours to charge the device to a minimal level.at quest in line with our Faction Quest, thus wrapping up Blood Under the Sun to the point where we also needed to head to the Burning Outpost for that. What a fantastic way to handle these two quests at once!?
We dispatched the bandits waiting there, and also killed the Marsh Captain in Enmerkar forest, before heading back to Berg to nab our supplies, and get ready to travel back to Abrassar / Levant.
The travel back to Abrassar was also smooth, and we headed over to the slums to find the next hint for the Blood Under the Sun. This lead us to go to Cyrene, where we decided to go with her into the Smuggling Tunnels to find the Baron and Prince to bring them to justice! Qvaid and I managed to finish up the Blood Under the Sun quest line, and finished the line by speaking with the King and Queen of Levant, to be rewarded with the Baron’s home. We took our supplies, and moved them to our home where they should not be forever safe from this point forward.
It was a bit beyond time for us to call it, so we left off on The Heroic Kingdom of Levant quest line, needing to speak to Cyrene again to progress it a bit further. What an incredible adventure though!
Thursday evening: Technically speaking we knew we had about 3 days before Cyrene would have a mission ready for us. Qvaid and I decided we we going to try to run a few dungeons in Abrassar and see about tackling the 5 ornate chests activated by the mechanism in the Electric Labs. We did managage to hit a few dungeons but the Ornate chests still had not reset since our last run through Abrasssar.
Eventually, Qvaid and I picked back up and headed over to Cyrene to continue the faction quests for the Heroic Kingdom. We had to gather some information from the Slums, gather more information from an Old Ruin to the south west of Levant, and relay information we’d found to Yzan. I’ll most likely mix up the order and storyline here, but effectively we managed to get Zagis to surrender, choose for the Soroborean ‘Banker’ to double the quantity of food for a quarter of the price because people were starving. We reported back to Cyrene after the victory (and while her and Yzan were keeping the other Old Levantians at bay), and we headed back to Levant.
Qvaid and I finished up with some inventory management, and noted the next quest wouldn’t be available for 3 in game days again. We camped for the night, and decided to call it there as time had already caught up to us again by then on Thursday.
Days played: Saturday, Sunday
Players: Error, Kilen, Hobbit
Saturday: Error, Kilen, and I made some progress through out the day and evening. There were some interruptions and breaks here and there, as to be expected. Over all, we made some decent strides, although there was an interesting bug in the Elven Quarter where the trees were not respawning. We needed the elven wood for several things we were wanting to make, but had to make due without it for the time being. We managed to work our way into Tier 3 weapons and even some armors here and there. Error played until late evening on Saturday, and called it for the night after a short break later on. Kilen and I played until just a bit after midnight.
Sunday: Kilen and I ran some more adventures in RtM, although the vast majority of it was setting up a new base in the Tomb of Kings we found a bit further down the way from a new forge we’d uncovered with Error the night before.
I figured out a way to cause the Elven trees to respawn in the Elven Quarter. Turns out if you spend the night in the area, it can force a respawn. I awoke that morning to a lush set of fresh forest ripe for the taking! I let Kilen know, although at the time, I didn’t harvest any of it myself.
Kilen and I (mostly Kilen) got a grand start on the new base, where we decided to put a floor on the columns in the area labeled ‘Tomb of Kings’. This raised our base above the ground floor, and has us set with the first area with some really nice space since we started. There is still a good bit of work to be done to complete the base, but it’s definitely afforded us a lot of much needed real estate for stations, storage for materials, and areas to make this a bit easier.
Kilen and I worked on the new base, gathering other materials we needed in between spurts of clearing and building until it was a bit later in the evening on Sunday. Not too late per se, but late enough where I decided I should probably call it soon. We decided to call it after a brief discussion as Kilen was going to break to get food and take the dogs out. I needed to take the dogs out and start prep for bed / work Monday morning in any case.
Still a fantastic time in what has turned out to be an extremely good survival game. Don’t get me wrong, there are pros, there are cons, but there is also much fun to be had!
