T w e n t y S i d e d
The problems with the Shire Post are explained.
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
Stop Asking Me to Play Dark Souls!
An unhinged rant where I maybe slightly over-reacted to the water torture of Souls evangelism.
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
Black Desert Online
This Korean title would be the greatest MMO ever made if not for the horrendous monetization system. And the embarrassing translation. And the terrible progression. And the developer's general apathy towards its western audience.
Steam Summer Blues
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
This is your third straight “Go watch something I made” post.
Which is cool! This used to be something of a two-bit deal. Now Shamus Young needs a portal site. Exciting =D
Unless I’m mistaken, there is no post pointing to the last “Experienced Points” column. Even Shamus is losing track. :)
PS: “As long as I don’t need to send any letters I should be fine.”
I laughed after reading that one.
What? I missed one? Blast it, I like having just one feed to keep up with all the Shamusey goodness.
About 10 years ago I was working as a land surveyor in Chicago when I happened upon dozens of stamped, UNDELIVERED mail laying in a ditch next to a road. I gathered all of it up and took it to the nearest mailbox.
Apparently Lulzy’s shenanigans are not limited to the Shire…
Leslee
Yeah…. Chicago’s postal system are notorious for that kind of thing. Which is a REMARKABLE contrast to Milwaukee, which has fast and reliable service and even a post office that’s open something like 120 hours a week.
that’s really disturbing in a way. One of these may have been a letter to a long-lost friend..
That’s exactly what I thought, Galad. That’s why I picked all of them up. I was really disturbed by it.
Leslee
Could have been all vicious death threats, though…
Death threats against the postal system.
wait a second..Now what are the chances that it was indeed an employee in this same nearest mailbox that ditched the mails? I don’t suppose you could do the mailman’s work, like lulzy volunteers? And since you’d get no speed bonus, you’d actually do it instead of dumping the bag somewhere? =P
I think this is one of your funnier LOTRO updates for a while. The postal delivery thing is a really good example of rpg nonsense and I love that people just use it for fast transit.
Hope Lulzy can deliver enough letters to buy her colour-coordinated dress next time. :D
I’m in agreement with this, I’ve enjoyed the previous 8 but this one definitely had me giggling at regular intervals. It even inspired me to create a Digg account for the singular purpose of “digging” it.
Another funny installment, thanks, Shamus!
The 20% speed boost for mail (and possibly pies as well) was added a year or two into the game to make those quests (much) easier. I wonder if the devs ever considered the unintended consequence of turning the Shire into “speed zone.” 20% is faster than all but the most legendary hunters can run on foot, and is getting pretty close to the speed of a slow horse.
There is also a gossip-proof mail satchel you can get if you build enough reputation with the Mathom House. Of course, by the time you can get it you are 20+ levels beyond the mail quests so it’s really just there for completists or high-level players going back to grind virtue deeds.
Yep, the speed boost applies to pies as well. (Apparently carrying a hot pie is motivation to run faster.)
Something that always bothered me about the pie quest is that you’re trying to collect the pies so that nobody eats them.
But you fail if you drop the pie in the river.
Or if you just throw it away.
Nope, you have to bring it back to Holly Hornblower in Hobbiton.
The logic fail is mind-boggling.
Don’t you just love the law of unintended consequences?
How many more instalments of the Shamus Plays LOTRO?
Still undecided. Several more, at least. I have several places / quests / plot points I want to hit. We’ll see how long it takes.
That was a really good one Shamus. I laughed long and hard at the conversations with the postmasters.
I can’t get to the site, some strange error message.
page looks down for me as well.
[edit] sure, now it works. [/edit]
Same here. They might have shifted the link about, or maybe the site’s just hiccuping.
Have to add to the pile here — I found this one hilarious. Nice job, Shamus.
Will postage have to be increased to pay for Lulzy to deliver the mail so she can get new clothes?
Lulzy said she’d be fine if she didnt have to mail any letters, and yet our weekly song is in the mail. Things that make you go HMMMMmmmm….
EDIT: Oh yeah, and awesome Triumph reference too! :)
Not that Lulzy’s shenanigans around the Shire aren’t hilarious (they are), but will she ever head off into the wilderness to fight trolls or orcs or something? Probably more silver out there…. Just sayin’.
I pointed.
I laughed.
Am I the only one with an overwhelming desire to day nice things about Seamus’s St. Patty’s day update to the theme?
But yeah, nice things.
Thank you. Yeah. I was wondering if people just didn’t notice.
I was wondering what that was for, actually.
I thought it was just a new skin you were trying =P
St. Patty’s day is celebrated by few people where I’m at..
I noticed, but I didn’t have anything nice to say about the St. Patrick’s theme update: I felt that the color of the top image (overwhelmingly green) did not mesh well with the rest of the theme (gray and blue).
Another factor is that St. Patrick’s day does not hold any emotional value for me (I’m french, so that could explain that) – so I was not inclined to praise the effort that went into that. So, thank you for the effort Shamus, even though I didn’t quite like the final result.
I noticed, and liked it, but I didn’t know where to comment about it. I hate going terribly off-topic, and since I didn’t have any meaningful contribution to the LOTRO post, I couldn’t even say “, and by the way, I really like the St. Patty’s Day theme!”. So I’m glad someone else brought it up.
I’m glad you noticed the oddness of the Nosy Hobbits being able to stop you. Why can’t you just say No to the hobbits who try to bother you? But then again, the whole Shire is filled with Hobbits who act under the assumption(unfortunately true) that you can’t axe murder them for being jerks to you. Wasn’t it Odo Leafblower who deliberately tricks you into running dangerous errands under false pretenses and then basically tells you to “scram”?
At least with the pie deliveries, I believe it was explained that a hungry hobbit might catch the whiff of your pie and go bother the pie maker in the midst of all of her busyness, which is why you are trying to avoid them.
Nice. The Shire was probably my favourite area of the game. Hilariously, for all the time I’ve spent there, I had to find out from you that it’s possible to actually enter Bilbo’s old home.
You can enter Bilbo’s home?
Who knew?
Agreed. The whole thing with the mayor made me laugh. Brilliant.
I’ve always enjoyed your “adventures through MMOs” pieces, Shamus, but this one is deserving of special commendation. The ending was particularly splendid. ;)
Where’s the song, Shamus, I’m still waiting for my mail!!!