Landscapes Real and Imagined

I've told a few of you I would be posting screenshots from Lord of the Rings Online, and here they are! Yes, I'm copping out today with many pics and little text, but we has lots to do, precious, lots to do, yessss. [Click to view larger sizes, you silly hobbitses]


Laiane in Thorin's Gate


Waterfall and Sunrise Near Duillond



Coming in to Thorin's Gate


Another View of Erud Luin

But lest you believe it's all elvish singing under the springtime sky here at Chez Crabgrass, I did come home with artemisia, a Beauty of Livermore oriental poppy, two South Seas daylilies, a "Twilight" echinacea, four varieties of hot peppers (banana, red chili, jalapeno, and Thai dragon), and a small catnip plant (the catnip near the birdbath didn't come up this year;I put down some seeds, but they were pretty ancient and I'm not confident they'll come up). All of these need to get in the ground in the next day or so. There's also a 40-pound bag of peat sitting out there with my name on it. I did have one impulse purchase at the nursery -- a hanging basket of strawflowers. All I had to do on that was peel off the price sticker.

And here's a hopefully improved picture of Boris the Spiderwort:

A Not-so-Brief and Somewhat Sordid History of Laiane Wolfsong, Ranger of the Storm Lord (Part One)

[Note to my readers -- There's a lot of "gamer" jargon here, and I can't define all of it without going off on some very long, digressive tangents. I try not be purposely obscure -- It really is a whole 'nuther reality with its own language.]

Yesterday, I received my copy of The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. I got to thinking -- this will be Laiane's fourth MMORPG incarnation, and her sixth gaming incarnation. EverQuest; TES III: Morrowind; EverQuest II; TES IV: Oblivion; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; and now, Lord of the Rings. I've been Laiane, or she has been me, for 6 or 7 years. I think a history is in order.

My online gaming obsession started shortly after I met The Husband. We were still living in our respective apartments in Ann Arbor when he bought me a copy of EverQuest (and a copy for himself shortly thereafter). I went through a variety of characters. For a while, I thought I had found the "perfect" class for my play style -- the Necromancer -- and I harried the world of Norrath as the Dark Elven Aamaterasu Solreaver, who summoned the undead to do her evil bidding.

Then I went to see a movie.

[Insert foreshadowing-type music here]

It was the first of The Lord of the Rings movies directed by Peter Jackson. When the initial scene of the Last Battle of Elves and Men was on the screen, I started crying (I tell you, I cry at anything sometimes). Someone had finally gotten it right. Someone -- someone who obviously loved Middle Earth -- took the time to do the movie properly, the Way It Should Be Done. (1)

In any event, when I saw the character of Legolas Greenleaf, Archer of the Woodland Realm, I thought -- in addition to "that's a hunka burnin' Elf luv" -- I want a character who can do THAT. "THAT" being defined as uber l33t archery skillz.

There are those who love the tank classes, the knights in shining armor defending their party from the foe. There are those who love the role of the healers, the clerics/druids/shamans who are always welcome and needed in groups. (2) Other players are drawn to the fire-power of a wizard, the versatality of the bard, or the subtleness of an enchanter.


Photo courtesy of Meme Cats

Then there are those of us who want to kill stuff quickly, from a distance, and have it drop dead before it has a chance to get in one good whack of its own. Add some tracking, foraging, stealth movement, and serious close-combat DPS (3), and you've got yourself a Ranger.

When I created Laiane (4) , that long, long time ago, I didn't know I would love the Ranger class so much. She was just another character slot that I was experimenting with; but Laiane reached 55th level in EverQuest before I retired her, far surpassing Aamaterasu (who was abandoned somewhere in the mid-30's and, as far as I know, is still camped at the gnome pirate outpost on Velious, hunting snow cougars).

I was a Ranger when Rangers weren't cool. Rangers were the "paper tanks." We died a lot. There were a multitude of Ranger jokes about the ease with which we Took The Big Dirt Nap ("A Ranger walks into a bar... LOADING. PLEASE WAIT"). The people who played the class didn't play to become powerful characters, for the most part, but because we had an affinity for the Predator-Hunter archetype.

I'm disappointed that I can't find a screenshot of my EverQuest 1 Laiane. All I had were some forum signature blocks The Husband helped put together for me.

[Oh, yes, I remember the day when I really, truly made GrandMaster Fletcher (250), and got my trophy. /sigh]

I stopped with EverQuest 1 shortly after the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion. It was at that point when I realized that I couldn't progress much further in the game without devoting an extraordinary amount of time acquiring AA's (5) -- and when I realized you couldn't get a group without 100+ AA's to your name, and that if I wanted to progress I would HAVE TO group.

I have many opinions about enforced grouping, and none of them are good. For anyone who cares to make the utterly specious argument about "Why play a MMORPG if you don't care to group?" argument, I'll tell you right now that you're a moron. There are many players who love to interact in a large, dynamic, persistent online world with hundreds (if not thousands) of others, and not necessarily group, and we tend to be much smarter than the likes of you.

[To be continued at some point in the future. One game down, five to go!]

********************
(1) Those of us of a certain age shudder to remember the animated Lord of The Rings film that came out in the late 1970's. Ralph Bakshi? It was like a combination nightmare of all the bad fantasy ever written and H. R. Pufnstuf.

(2) I'm having an EQ2 /guildchat flashback, from Crystalmind, "I'm a Libra with no one to heal!"

(3) DPS = Damage Per Second. Numerical shorthand for "How quickly you can kill the pixalated orc before it kills you."

(4) "Laiane" -- rhymes with "rain" -- is a variation of the name "Lain" from, of course, Serial Experiments: Lain. I find it amusing that the anime Lain exists in "The Wired," another name for the global (computer) communication network, aka "the Internet." There's a lot more philosophical, nature-of-reality, separation-or-lack-thereof between the Wired and Reality weirdness in the anime. Go read the Wiki article.

(5) Achievement points, I can't for the life of me recall exactly what AA stands for anymore, but it was an alternative leveling system IN ADDITION to regular leveling. You could put EXP into levels or AA's, and buy special abilities with your AA's. When I left EQ1, I had six, count 'em, SIX, AA's. In order to get to the magical 100+ level of AA's, I would have had to do EXP grinding groups every night for 6+ hours for a month or more. No. Thank. You.

Sicker Than a Dog, and Another Cat Picture

There should be some Rule of the Universe that allows do-over days when you're sick on your vacation. Those body aches on Tuesday weren't from schlepping my books around, but were the onset of a terrible cold. I've been feeling like crap since Wednesday afternoon (and it's now Saturday morning). Someone somewhere owes me those three days back.

But, ever the optimist, I have today and tomorrow to get healthy and get rested and return to the office on Monday with a Smile on my Face and a Song in my Heart. I have the expansion to Oblivion (Shivering Isles), a 7th level Ranger on Florendyl (the Vanguard RP-preferred server) that needs some tradeskilling and diplomacy attention, and it's time for me to convince the Telvanni to name me Hortator in Morrowind. Lots to do that doesn't involve moving around, much, unless you count coughing up a lung as moving around.

As to the cat picture, that's my Gregor KafkaCat, post-sink. I haven't been the the bathroom by myself in ten years.

Three Threes

Three Things I Do Well

1. Fill out forms. Federal income tax forms. Probate Court forms. Questionnaires of all types. I'm currently filling out forms to open education savings accounts for one of the firm's clients. Now, while I balk at doing this sort of menial labor for coddled rich people, I do find a certain enjoyment in telling them that every box and line must be completed, and there's no getting away with this "using a business address or P.O. Box as their residence address" nonsense. My own special brand of passive-aggressiveness – just another service I provide.

2. Word games. Scrabble, crossword puzzles, that sort of stuff. I have no skills whatsoever in the visual or performing arts, but I know and love my words. It's a very strange place I inhabit, and I'll have to write more about it one of these days. For the moment, I'll leave the description of my internal landscape alone.

3. Procrastinate. At this I excel.

Three Things at Which I Absolutely Suck

1. Sports, especially team sports. I was always one of those kids picked last for the team in gym class.

2. Math. The math part of my brain reached it's limit my junior year in high school in Algebra 2 with Mr. Bomeli. I got an "A" the first semester, and a "C" the second (with a "D" on the final exam). My little head just couldn't hold any more than that and just gave up, I suppose.

3. Keeping up with High Maintenance Hair. I keep my hair short for a reason. All those clips, combs, braids, up-do's, ribbons, mousses, gels, and sprays simply don't work for me. My only styling product is water. I think that any woman who spends more than 10 minutes on her hair in the morning (including drying time) is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. That time could be used on many other productive activities. Sleeping, for example.

Three Things I'm Trying to do Better.

1. Develop a "poker face." My role model for this is Bud Cort in Harold and Maude. I'm setting the bar pretty high. I want to develop the perfectly affectless look. I do pretty well at not laughing at the absurdities I hear almost daily at work. There was quite the pot-kettle-black thing going on at lunch the other day, but no details here. Who knows who reads my blog? (/wave at Queen Frostine).

2. Stick to a budget. I decided that it was high time I brought down my credit card debt. I'm not going to say exactly what that amount IS, but let's just say I'm above the average amount reported in the news stories cropping up these days about Americans' problems with credit. I've got an above average FICO score too -- 800+. [I've always had to be above average. /sigh ] In any event, I copied the budget spreadsheet from Crazy Aunt Pearl's website, and plugged in my own amounts and categories. I like to think that I'm the only person in the world (well, the only person in my immediate neighborhood) who has a budget with line items for "comic books," "yarn," and "Sweetwaters' coffee cards." The simple fact that I have a budget is already limiting my spending. It's like keeping a food diary when you're dieting. If you have to write down every bite you put in your mouth, you don't eat as much. If I have to record every spontaneous purchase, I don't spend as much. I spent many years without credit cards and bought everything with cash, including a trip to Paris. If I stick to my budget, I can get rid of all my credit card debt in two and a half years.

3. Design mods for Morrowind. Like I said somewhere up above, I have no "artistic" type skills, so I'm not doing new meshes and textures; I'm not designing armor or creatures or weapons. I can, however, write dialog and journal entries and quests and similar things. The strange top-down dialog trees make sense to me (most limited entries first down to the most generic). I can't remember which modder in the online community -- one I respected highly for her excellent visual mods (armor, housing, texture replacers) -- wrote that dialog intimidated her. I was stunned. It seems so easy to me, but I know I can improve. I want to finish the "Cats of Ulthar" while I'm on vacation next week. I have one more quest to go. I finally found a texture for Carter's silver key.

Just More Morrowind Screenshots; Nothing to See Here, Ma'am

Oh, to hell with the idea of blogging any post with any type of SUBSTANCE to it, cats and kittens, let's just post some pretty pics of Vvardenfell, m'kay?

This first one is of me on the Bitter Coast near the Sixth House Base Illinubi, fairly early on in the Main Quest. I'm still wearing the Dark Brotherhood cuirass lifted from one of the assassins sent after me from Mournhold (Tribunal). Mods in the screenie include Vibrant Morrowind, the Domina mesh for the female cuirass, Westly's Wood Elf head pack, Rin's hair, and I can't remember who's armor for the female falconer leather pants. Some people complain that the Dark Brotherhood armor is game unbalancing since it's so "uber" for a lower level character, or you get far too much gold for it if you sell it. Bull. Do you know how expensive enchanting, training, spells, weapon repair, etc., etc., is in Vvardenfell? Through the roof. The armor early on helps pay the bills, I will tell you that.

The Bitter Coast is one of my favorite areas in the game. Soggy, swampy, rainy, but downright gorgeous in its own melancholy way. The Ascadian Isles would be a close second, which includes Vivec, the City I Love to Hate.

It's huge. You have to run everywhere. When you're at a level in the single digits, this is a true PITA since you barely have enough endurance to run more than 30 seconds at a stretch without plowing through all your fatigue points.

On the upside -- It's huge. There are a ton of quests. It's the home of the Morag Tong, one of my all-time favorite guilds, and Uncle Crassius Curio, the House Hlaalu pervert with a love of underwriting terrible stage productions (Dance of the Three Legged Guar is supposed to be a big hit, though.). I doubt any of the other Great Houses have someone as..."colorful"...as Uncle Crassius. Yes, the Telvanni have Mistress Therana, but she's just an insane, old Dunmer who lives in a giant fungus tower. Blech, don't get me started on the Telvanni. Nutters, slave owners, finger-wrigglers. Once I'm Nerevarine, I think I just may need to remove, or at least decimate, a certain rival House. The only good Telvanni sorceror is a dead Telvanni sorceror.

Why so much time on Morrowind? Real Life is dull. It's allergy season. Work is uninspiring. I have far too much spring cleaning to do. I can't seem to get motivated to get back on a healthier eating or exercise program (Pilates once a week and Cadbury Creme Eggs are about where I'm at right now). Pain. Insomnia. In Real Life, I'm a probate and estate planning legal secretary. At night, I'm Laiane Wolfsong, ranger, opportunist, and somewhat-lovable rogue. I never have a bad hair day, a zit, or intestinal... um...distress. Who wouldn't rather be in Vvardenfell?

AWOL once again, this time in Vvardenfell

I've been burying myself in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind once again. You know that despite all these years of my owning it, I have never once finished the main quest in either the initial game, Tribunal, or Bloodmoon? I seem to recall at one point that I had a level 40-something character, too, and I hadn't even started looking for Dagoth Ur (the main quest bad guy who needed his comeuppance).


I treasure this game. There is so much depth to it, and it's so open ended. Contrast this with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the latter game is sorely, sorely lacking. I've looked over a few posts on the forums for the upcoming expansion to Oblivion, and if you wade through enough of the X-box-overdosed, 13-year-old, fanboi comments, there might be a few reasons for me to get the expansion. Well, (1) it's set in the realm of the mad Daedric prince, Sheogorath, which should make for a lot of giggles, and (2) I can see if the devs have listened to any of us "old guard" Morrowind players who were so disappointed by the depth, or lack thereof, of Oblivion. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

It's Important That a Girl Expand Her Horizons

Laiane has made it over to Qalia; just a few more pretty pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Sunset over the Qalian planes. These remind me a little bit of Kenya (but the trees aren't quite right; we need thorn trees or baobobs).



Qalian Moonset:


And, just because my jaw dropped again in the face of my uber-deadlyishness:

3,093 points with a single arrow. Good Gravy.

EDIT: Well, apparently, cats and kittens, we have a lot more to come with this Rangering experience. I had a 4,870 crit later that same evening.

The Collector

[The "Ten for Tuesday" blog meme list, and I can't get this bloody thing to format properly. Trust me; it's driving me nuts.]

I think what a person surrounds herself with can be quite telling about her personality. I realize that I'm reaching on some of this to make them fit into the definition of a "collection." Deal with it. My blog, my rules.

1. Comic books. This started around 1995 (or 1996), when I walked into Vault of Midnight and met one Curtis Sullivan (and his wife Liz, and friend Steve). I've since fallen off in my reading to an embarrassing extent, but I'm quite proud of my messy, in-desperate-need-of-sorting collection. The highlights include Neil Gaiman's Sandman (the FIRST printings, thankyouverymuch) and original artwork from Transmetropolitan (on loan to The Vault).

2. "Real" books. See recent blog post below.

3. Maneki nekos. Japanese "lucky cats." Most of my collection is from eBay, but one of the attorneys visited Japan a while ago and brought me back an authentic neko. I have about 40 of them in various sizes and colors.

[Items 4 and 5 are side effects from working in the "death care industry."]

4. Grim reapers. I suppose this is a memento mori thing. I have a pewter figurine, a small wind-up walking toy, a rubber stamp, and a fully poseable plush (with plush scythe) at my desk at work.

5. Funeral home paraphernalia. Nothing too sick, although I know I have a mouth former somewhere in one of my boxes in the basement (this keeps the mouth of the corpse from collapsing/receding). No trocars or embalming equipment, but I do have a metal box (circa 1940's) for the decedent's personal effects (A.P. Acquavella Funeral Home, Brooklyn, New York); several ballpoint pens (in need of refills) from mortuaries and embalming services in Springfield, Missouri; a metal coffin-shaped key chain from the Batesville Casket Company; and a coffee mug from the United Casket Company ("Dedicated to Quality and Service").

6. Stuffed animals (tigers and cats). I'm 12 years old on the inside. Really.

7. Yarn a/k/a The Yarn Stash. Knitters are strange creatures. They collect vast amounts of yarn that has no immediate discernable purpose. "Ooooo, that's pretty. Let's buy a few skeins and knit up….something." I read somewhere that Tracy Ullman has a room of her home dedicated to holding The Stash. My own stash is quite small in comparison. Along with that beautiful cotton chenille from City Knits (see blog post of January 7th), I have:

* 6 skeins of Noro Big Kureyon, brown-cream-gray-orange colorway (A20), bulky

* 2 skeins of fluffy Peruvian cotton, sport/DK (for washcloths) orange and yellow, and ½ skein hot pink

* 4 or 5 skeins of assorted eyelash yarns shades of turquoise and blue

* 2 skeins of Paton's Chunky Shetland, bulky (like the gray basketweave scarf)

* 1 skein Lion Brand chenille, bulky, dark blue

* 2 skeins Peruvian wool, worsted, hot pink (Kitty Pi Version 1)

* 2 skeins Australian Corriedale wool, super bulky, peacock (Kitty Pi Version 2)

* 1 skein Mango Moon viscose, red-orange-yellow-magenta colorway and matching textured twist, rayon

* 1 cone, approx 400 yards, of undefined origin, navy worsted wool

* 1 cone, yardage unknown, light blue/grayish cotton chenille, sport/DK or lighter

8. Husbands. This doesn't quite count as a collection; it's more of a series. Let's just say third time's a charm and I'm happy with the current one.

9. Knowing how to order beer in a foreign language. German, Czech, and Swahili. One never knows.

10. Ranger characters. It's actually the same Ranger character, just different games. Laiane Wolfsong was born in the first Everquest. Then there was Morrowind, EverQuest 2, Oblivion, and now Vanguard. I don't like characters that can't sneak, hide, and cause obscene amounts of damage from a distance. "Security" features (in the Elder Scrolls series), tracking, and animal companions are definite pluses. There are downsides, though. I remember in the original EQ all that time in Jaggedpine Forest doing the root and shoot (with the snakes) and the snare and scare (with the griffons/griffawns). Most of my high 40's to lower 50's were a long, agonizing line of griffon butts.

I Need to be Nerfed; and "A Single Serving of Kitty Pi"

Yes, that's a critical hit for a little over 1,700 damage. A yep. I have about 1,050 hit points myself at 15th level, and this was just one WHACK at a mob.

One thousand, seven hundred in damage. Holy frijoles.


The Kitty Pi (the quite small kitty pi) as modeled by Thomas:

"What I Did on my [Winter] Vacation" or AWOL in Kojan

I will be the first to admit that I have been sucked into the universe of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This is my third MMORPG experience, and this is by far the most complex, interwoven game I've seen, and I've yet to delve into the lore of Telon (the world in which this game is set). The gameplay itself is still extremely rough in spots and some significant elements are missing (Rangers' tracking ability, for example); but still, it's just stinking gorgeous.

I know that one of my screen shots is very dark, but click to enlarge. The first two are from the area I was hunting last night - Maji's Hold - which is between the half elf and the wood elf starting cities. Tigers! Bamboo! Weird oriental-inspired music! More orcs than you can shake a stick at! The last one is just outside Wailing Winds Asylum (the inmates are loose - go whack a dozen of them for a quest reward!), also between those two cities. There's a phenomenal amount of area between the two, and these are just the lower level areas (Levels 1-12).




Laiane Wolfsong is almost to 13th level. The level progression has slowed down quite a bit from when I started, which is good, in my opinion. The level cap is 50, but I'm in no big hurry to get there. Well, that's not entirely true.

This place is NEW and HUGE and part of me wants to run out right away and discover places and learn to craft and do diplomacy and uncover all the quests and and and and, and part of me says, "Stop and smell the roses, Laiane."

Sweet Jesus and All That is Holy....

I cannot even begin to describe the beauty of this game. I'm just going to post some screenies now and let you folks be the judge of whether I'm completely off my rocker wanting to spend time in this world (as opposed to the "Real World").

Click on the screen shots to enlarge.

I Blame the Cat

Alright, so I've been AWOL awhile; not that I was actually very far from my computer, but I've been a tad... distracted. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes open beta. Nope. Not a thing. I blame the cat. I can clearly demonstrate in Photographic Exhibit A that Thomas is hogging the mouse and is preventing me from customizing my half-elven version of Laiane Wolfsong, Ranger Grrrl extraordinaire.

Actually, Laiane is going to wind up as a Wood Elf in Vanguard. The half elves, once again, got a glossing over as far as any unique lore/culture/society/history/whatever is concerned, and they had some bizarro Asian-themed thing going on in the newbie zone. When you can take this stone from my hand, Grasshopper. Yeah, right. I'm putting my money on the Wood Elves for this one, even if it does mean wearing twigs in my hair. I'll post screenies in a few days.

The Husband spent most of last night upgrading my comp, and it is absolutely screaming fast now. Vanguard goes live tomorrow. Rock and Roll, Cats and Kittens, I'm going MMORPG-ing, again.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I still don't think it counts as "accumulation" because you can still see the grass (near the bushes -- click on the photo to enlarge). The photo doesn't do it justice; all the trees in the city are encased in ice with a light dusting of snow. The roads themselves weren't bad this morning, but there were a lot of limbs down in the roadways.

Sorry for another boring post. I warned you all early on in this blog that my life was rather dull. The wild, rockin' plans for this evening? Some knitting, some reading, some eating, and some work on the Morrowind mod. I wish I had a better quest for the cat "Carter." It's just another ho-hum FedEx quest, but what else is there? An NPC asks you to do something. You go do it. You come back to the NPC and get a reward. I am making Carter's quest contingent on completing the other three cats' quests, so that should be some challenging dialog filters.

I find it interesting that there are so many modders out there who concentrate on meshes and textures, but who are uncomfortable with dialog. For any non-modders out there, a mesh is the shape or form of an object and the texture is the visual stuff that wraps around it. A modder can make one mesh of a bottle, but have ten different textures to make it look like a blue bottle, or a red one, or a green one, u.s.w. Many modders make a lot of "pretty stuff" like shiny armor and sexy dresses and cool weapons and furniture and animals, but they don't put them in the world, or the mods are simple shops where you can buy the shiny armor and sexy dresses and cool weapons, u.s.w.

Then there are the people like me who couldn't do any three-dimensional rendering to save my life, but I can write dialog with complicated contingencies like no one's business.

So, tonight I flesh out some of H.P's dialog, beef up Joshi's lost book of poetry, and try to figure out where to put that blasted NPC. I'm thinkin' Pelagiad, or one of the Imperial forts (perhaps Buckmoth, since it's right by Ald-ruhn). Hmmm.....

WWLWD?

I've never been reticent about my depression; it's something I'm hardwired for -- being depressed, that is, not being not reticent. If you're a Smart, Well-Read, Somewhat Observant Person in this day and age, how can you NOT be depressed? But I digress. This isn't about explaining or defending myself. I'm prone to the demon of depression. It's a given in my world.

I felt it sneaking up on me this afternoon. It never comes all in a rush, but incrementally, slowly. Sometimes I can see it, and sometimes I can't. I had a bad case of the "I Don't Wanna's"(1) at work today, that feeling of not being able to identify anything that could help you feel better. Chocolate? No. Caffeine? No. Knitting? Cats? Bath? No, no, and no. For some unfathomable reason, this thought came to me -- "What Would Laiane Wolfsong Do?" -- and I had to smile.

Laiane has been my gaming alter ego for years now. EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Morrowind, and Oblivion, and Vanguard (when it comes out). A smart-alecky, stealthy half elven ranger who's absolutely deadly with a bow. Some people play fighters, some play mages, but I am always drawn to those that hide in the shadows and use their wits and guile (and an uber bow, d00d) as weapons.

So what would Laiane do? She would one-shot(2) that demon and have it drop in its tracks is what Laiane would do.

Laiane needs to come out and play. I'm thinking a good, long Morrowind session is in order tonight.

**********************
(1) The "I Don't Wanna's." That particular mood when you don't want to do anything at the office, i.e., I don't wanna do that filing, I don't wanna call that difficult client, I don't wanna assemble a corporate record book, u.s.w. Severe lack of motivation.

(2) One-shot. In gaming parlance, to kill an enemy/monster from a distance with a ranged weapon using one arrow/cross bow bolt/throwing knife, u.s.w., as opposed to the "root and shoot" or the "snare and scare" approaches to mob hunting.

I prefer life in Vvardenfell

Well, the first pic isn't Vvardenfell. It's the sewers underneath the Imperial City in Cyrodiil, but it's still in The Elder Scrolls universe. TES IV: Oblivion was fun while it lasted. I went through it -- and I certainly didn't get through all the content -- in about 6 months. Boredom then set in. Fiercely. I began to think more and more of TES III: Morrowind, so I returned to Vvardenfell.

The second pic is me in Balmora, the "starting city" in Morrowind. Laiane has undergone many metamorphoses over time (EverQuest, Morrowind, EverQuest 2, Oblivion, back to Morrowind, and, hopefully in the future, Vanguard). When I returned to Vvardenfell, I decided a change of hair color was in order. I'm a redhead in Real Life(tm); I can be a brunette elsewhere.

I returned to Morrowind after spending six months in Oblivion. Now, I must say I did enjoy Oblivion, but it was an exceptionally shallow game in terms of roleplaying content. Yes, it was pretty and had nice graphics and all that, but it was soulless.

I had awesome hair, though.