Lord of the rings online

After a long sleep – Vytautaz is back to the game (my main once…now just an alt). This time he went on foot – riding skill for him not purchased – to sunny and green Evendim. I took every quest I could, selling almost all quest awards.

First steps – of course, that maze-farm in Ort Barton, where farmers need to plant scarecrows, fight some rats, mud the pigs, carry chickens and other usefull things. Since it almost bloodless quests (only few times did I need to kill some evil creatures) – it’s ok. And experience is ok too, I made one level by sorting weed and mudding pigs.

Fighting outside farm was a good one. Sometimes I was 2-3 levels above my social enemies. Used bracing attacks, “sudden defense” a lot of times – these are Champion’s best friends. Killing Tomb robbers was really a good thing: first 120 kills requires very little attempt. You just do quests, kill and defend – and at the end you have like 30 Tomb robbers to kill. They were kind enough to drop Mathoms and Tomb-raider sachels (+30 to reputation with the Wardens of Annuminas).

Quests were doing great, Evendim is a very good place for questing. And so was Turbine points flow. Evendim quest pack now starts to pay dividends for investment I made once. I can make 80 Turbine points without trouble. Way more than that if I invest some time and patience.

Some quests (“ride to Esteldin”, ‘go to Angmar”, “visit Trollshaws”) were rejected: these would be good for the end, when all other quests are finished. Used Arnorian coins to get some stuff for Vytautaz: new cloak and leggings, if I get enough coins – breastplate too. “Nothern star” armor gives +strenght if player has at 2 or 3 pieces of this armour equpped.

Overall I had a very good time, have some 476 Turbine points right now and need some 220 TPs: some would be from Vytautaz (especially reputation with Annuminas), some would be from WoneF (maybe Shire/Ered Luin deeds).

I started to look for a new Kinship. What I really need is some not too big, but old Kinship that has a friendly atmosphere and could help me a bit with Angmar and Moria.

And so the day has ended, life was good and shiny. More Evendim adventures await…and then up to Eregion!

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/lotro-dividends/

Lord of the rings online

NaktiesKarys rode through grumpy Moria and ended his journey in some Lothlorien camp. It’s finished with Moria. Epic quest book will not be finished due to stupid “session play” which is impossible to finish. “Kill 2 mobs out of 20 attacking you at one time” is doable only with IDDQD.

There were some debates on Lotro forums concerning this. Most users in forum were against, some – for “session play”, yet developers found “vast majority” for. I interfered too: please, give player a choice. Let us say: if you choose “session play”, you will be Gandalf’s chicken and will be forced to go to spie on Sauron…but if you make it alive, you get 1 million xp for you, 1 million xp for legendary item and “Eternal Hero” title. However, current “session play’ is a pain and I would avoid it at any costs.

Observation: Turbine did some great job with UI. Now, in “House–>maintenance” you have a slider bar and can pay for 19 weeks in advance. I do like it very much. Very good job, Turbine, it’s really helpfull and I hope most player would enjoy it. My rich grinding toons paid for all 19 weeks in advance. Of course, you can pay with mithril coins (i.e. real life cash) too.

WoneF went to Archet to grind for some TPs. Things were going good: spider slayer (adv.) finished, Brigand slayer finished, Bree-land adventurer (15 quests) – finished. To make things better, WoneF paid for house maintenance (1 week) and DunedanMule – for 19 weeks. WoneF trolled a bit. Player asked about kinship, if some would like him. I trolled – “what’s the use of kinship?”. Player answered it was about groups and another one IMed me – like it was about quality armour, jewellery, support. I re-trolled: armour, jewellery can be bought in Auction House, information is in wiki/google and for groups we have LFF chat. What’s the use for kinship then? Answer was: friends. I replied: yes, but friends may be outside kinship…

When logged as DunedanMule – noticed my toon was demoted from Officer to Kinswoman. Weird. She was supposed to serve as a mule: bringing Kinship things to our House chests, giving them to kinnies and serve as walking vault for Kinship.

Despite of this – day went good. NaktiesKarys had all chats turned off, so there would be no complaints like “I feel ignored”. WoneF earned TPs and I need some 390 Turbine points to Lothlorien quest pack. Yes, it won’t pay off (only ~100 TPs in return), but still some fun.

And so the day has ended. I am leaving Moria behind: done with all doable quests, have to wait untill Lothlorien. Things are just…mediocre…with Lotro.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/leaving-moria/

Discussion about Hobbits’ presents is still going on with some new thoughts, like “if Turbine sees mithril coin sale is not up, they will abandon wheel of fortune”. Some players are suggesting not so intrusive game, even according to the Tolkien. I do hope Turbine will listen to these – I call them wise – suggestions and make something monetizing and non-intrusive.

NaktiesKarys was Desperado in Moria. Initially thought of doing slayer deeds – yeah, I have a good spot full of Morrovals! Arrived to that spot: well, not so many of them: one outpost with 3 morrovals, then after some travelling – 2 of them and on the other end – 2 of them. Wait a second, I have to kill some 300 (240 for advanced deed and 60 for simple deed completion)? Then how much would it take? Retreated. Tried to look at quests, but had nothing good left. Water-wheel where I must go through sewers, fighting local worms and finding seemingly non-existent spare part. Questing in Foundations of Stone where having map is worse than non having and most passages are full of social enemies – no, thanks, it’s too hard to find even the simpliest things there.

I had no options left. Asked Kinship – almost no answers. Asked in regional chat – silence. Asked in Advice chat – silence. There were tens of players around an still nobody wanted to speak. I bought some book of CHampion, read it, received 20 TP and rode my goat. Many kinnies were around, yet no offer of help from them. Some were doing quests which I have already done.

Switched to WoneF, did one deed, earned 10 Turbine points; then went to Silverlode, paid for house upkeep, tried Hobbit present and logged off.

Day was a very dull one. No help from others, almost no reliable advice, all chats dead – there was nothing I could do. There were tens, if not hundreds, TPs waiting for me as Slayer deeds…but they were so grindy, especially dragonets, gredbyrg ones. No place where I could just stand and kill. And almost no fun: all that was good ended.

I left a bit grumpy and dissatiesfied. I do want to consume content…but there was none, Kin was of no help and I had nowhere to go to. Time to grind TPs on alts

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/morias-end-v-2-0/

Lord of the rings online

Day started with simple option to resize alerts and especially Hobbits’ present.  This “wheel of fortune” is something I do dislike. Lotro experts can call it lore-breaking. Maybe Turbine will do something about this.

Naktieskarys quested in Moria, sometimes having hard times. Finished Martial Champion trait (had to go to Thorins hall). Epic quest was doing good…untill first “Session play”. This was something too hard: I hard to play for other NPC, have no quality armor, potions, only few usable skills…and of course, stay alive. One session play was to survive Orc assault and I found myself in a tiny room, surrounded by some 20 Orcs. Of course, they killed me, session failed. One quest involved “get without being seen” option and then, when the road is clear, to make NPC get to you unnoticed. At least something fresh and good.

I know I had no chance of survival. Used all I had to stop named monster and even killed his two bodyguards…but to fight 20 Orcs with half-dead Dwarf was impossible. Kinship offered no help with this except “try harder” advices. Overall, I am having some hard times with getting help from Kinship. There are many times that my calls for advice are left ignored.

I refused to take many quests – they seem too hard for me. Once again I have no doable quests, only grindy deeds (like kill 240 monsters). If I find suitable place, I will grind for TPs…and then switch to alts.

However, all these problems do not make me ragequit. I can see some Turbine/game problems, I can see how passive community is, but this can be corrected. Turbine will make conclusions from negative feedback and maybe will c hange Hobbit presents. And maybe my Kinship would aid me somehow someday.

Things are not that bad in Lotro.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/ragequits-and-presents/

Lord of the rings online

Finally, an update. It took some time to wait and then – voila, updating, upgrading, playing.

Update. Launcher has been updated – I think, it was simplyfied and I did not like this. Required download of some Miscrosoft program (not a problem) and took less time to update than I anticipated.

Hobbit presents are introduced: each day a player can turn “wheel of fortune” to receive some presents. Most of them are low-level things, usable for vendors only. Unfortunately, no option to decline such present or sign off. User interference changed – messages about loot, mail, Legendary items level up became bigger and more cartoonish. I did not like these two things.

Housing has been revamped and now, after some months, inactive houses will be abandoned so that new players could use them. Finally, “ghost towns” will cease to exist and new, live, towns will start to live. Very good and usefull update.

Some armour things had their names changed. SInce it’s cosmetic, it’s ok.Some legendary weapons were considered to have “too high DPS”, so they removed and compensated with experience points. My opinion: it was not needed, since it is legendary weapon, it should be more powerfull. One quest in Bree-land was lowered to help newbies: maybe it was not neccesery. There are some quests player should think: I too was killed many many times when trying to kill Midgewater Queen…but finally I did it without being killed.

Turbine increased use of Mithril coins: now more services are available for them. Maybe it is their long-term tactic: to make user purchase Turbine Points or Mithril coins…and then purchase anything for mithril. You want open golden Hobbit present if not VIP? No problem, 8 mithril coins. Want to revive soon – it’s ok, if you have mithril.

Laila’s market opened in Bree and it would sell dyes (if I understood developers correctly). Somehow -presence of mannequins- I suspect it would be one more “mithril coins only” shop. Since I do not use dyes – I care little about this. Some folks on forum complain about it as complete Lore-breaker.

New content is introduced, some mount Legendary items are updated as well as high-level content. This is something I can’t say a thing, but new content is always good and wellcome.

Forums are alive once again, players are discussing Hobbits’ presents: one part is strongly against spinning wheel, another part thinks free stuff is good at any cost. I wish Turbine made 2 options: 1) get old UI back and 2) sign off Hobbit presents. reason:personally I do not need them at all.

Playing Lotro: NaktiesKarys cursed Foundations of Stone: very hard to navigate, as usual nobody to aid. Map of no use. Quests are doable, not too hard, killed only one time when had to fight some 5 lvl.60 enemies at once…but inability to navigate is bad. Result: do not taking quests from there any more.

Went to do epic quests, received some stuff, some xp and the quests were not very hard, sometimes an annoyance, like “search all nests and in one someday find something you will”. Later found a ‘golden vein’ – Iron Garrison outpost that gives tasks, rewarding with their own tokens. Finish repeatable quest, receive token. And 5 tokens mean “Sturdy iron key” to open lootboxes. I am going to grind there untill I open at least one box to see what was inside.

My toon is still lvl.63 and still in Moria. WIll have to do all the epic quests here and maybe finish some local ones. Then – it would be high time to grind for TPs with my clones. Lothlorien quest pack awaits!

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/lotro-11treachery-of-a-white-hand/

Lord of the rins online

Main news: Lotro is preparing for Update 11. Promising to introduce Hobbits presents, new stuff for VIPs, revised mounted combat and other usefull things. Today game would be on a loooong maintenance.

NaktiesKarys fought in Moria. Quests were going great, there are many of them and experience I received was enough to grow to lvl.63 even when I outlevelled any enemy by 2-3 levels. Received lots of Legendary item experience too.

Quests were very different: to collect goat droppings (Gandalf, if it is your command, I promise I would make you clean every dropping in all Middle Earth without your magic!) and receive reward – Petrified Goat Dropping to lighting alarm fires or fighting huge trolls. I had to hunt spiders, worms, repair Water wheel and even to realise how beautifull is the river outside Moria. I did enjoy these quests. I also enjoyed the fact I am Kindred with all Iron Garrison factions.

To be honest – I do wish to finish every quest in Moria both for experience and fun. Of course, sometimes Moria reminds me our mutual…dislike. Some territories are designed to be very hard in navigation, some are more user-friendly. My Kinship was surprised with me in Moria at the begining…now they are surprised if I leave it.

Now I am questing in Foundations of Stone – big maze full of angry mobs. Legendary quest took me directly to Mirkwood: too early, I suppose, I have some other things to do.

However, I am levelling too fast. I’m level 63 and it is quite good for Lothlorien and Enedwaith – also, normal for Mirkwood. Even if I had that much TPs, I would outgrow any region too soon.  I do need to grind Turbine points (have >200 right now, need at least some 500) and purchase Lothlorien quest pack. No, it won’t pay off, but at least it would offer some fun.

Things are going great for me in Lotro, once again I am addicted to this game and love it.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/great-lotro-preparing-for-update-11/

Lord of the rings online

The day was spent in Moria, 2 of its regions. One region was entirely about Morroval: kill them, destroy their nests, challenge their Queen, slay their slingers, then go and finally kill her Queen + her guards. Action took place in mountains, so it was too easy to take the wrong path (which I did several times).

Second region was Waterfalls, I just got stuck there with unedning quests and rewards. Kill toads, kill spiders, test the water, kill some Globnagas, then their leader, find Water-wheel…It was instant running forwards and backwards. Few times I ran into dangerous situation and hardly managed to escape.

But experience flew like a river. I made it to level 60. My Legendary weapon got fully upgraded – had to go and barter for a new one. It was some kinf of new experience: destroy previous weapon, get xp back and use all xp on a new weapon. Added some tier 2 add-ons to weapon: hope it will serve longer and act way better.

Later I returned to 21st hall just to relax…well, and only to find I had more quests there. Did some of them. Was a bit sad to do quest where one brave and rational Dwarf got killed by Orcs. He was avenged, but who will replace the brave Dwarf?

Overall it was a very positive, immerisng day in Lotro. I managed to do things alone. When in need, I got a kinnie who helped me to kill one big Orc with 13.000 hp. I did not feel lone, abandoned and lost. And the experience – it’s just everywhere, come and take it.

I’m quite happy with the way things are now. Soon, I will have to purchase Lothlorien quest pack (and well, grind, grind grind for TPs…). Things are going well with Lotro.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/lost-in-quests/

Lord of the rings online

Mines of Moria, this half-grumpy blueish maze again. NaktiesKarys continued his adventures there. I ran through the quests from one territory to another, discovering surprising enviroments and stables. Got killed one time, but maybe it was a bad idea to run into horde of enemies with little health?

There were plenty of quests, from “honour fallen Dwarves with the Story of the ancient battle” or “collect Dwarven music-sheet” to “defeat Orc-taskmasters” and “destroy Morroval nests”. Some deeds were auto-completing without doing any extra job. Drops and tasks resulted that I was ally (or kindred?) reputation with one of the factions – can’t remember which one.

Even the map was not that evil: I could navigate there alone. One time got lost in some mountains, thought about killing myself…but fortunately, escaped. Experience was flowing, had to reforge my Legendary weapon once and am some 50% enroute to lvl.60. I’m levelling quite fast, even if I fight lvl.53 monsters. The worst of them (so far) being Orc Berserkers that can heal themselves: very bad surprise…

Kinship, however, encouraged me for travelling in Moria. Almost everybody enjoyed that fact. Some support, at last.

I ended my day, full of questing and running, with some >100 Turbine points. If things would go as they should, I may earn some 300 TPs more and then invest very little for green and golden fields of Lothlorien. No, I’m not into Moria fanclub – it’s big maze, but with some company it’s doable and maybe even worth the job.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/mines-of-moriareturn-of-a-dwarf/

Lord of the rings online

The day started with my colleague – Dwarf’s question if I wanted to quest in Moria. Of course, I accepted and we went for some fun. There were three of us: lvl.49 Champion, lvl.58 Champion (me) and lvl.56 Guardian (main battle tank). We went through the basic quests with almost zero trouble. Then proceded with the quests I once failed several times in a row.

Yes, it was possible to find the area, it was easy to locate:all I needed was an advice like “go 20 meters west and take first turn”. Things went easy there…anbd then we started the run. Took any quest, found one NPC, escorted him, received xp and good loot.

It was just great: Moria was acceptable for a group. My colleague grew to lvl.50; I grew up to lvl.59, got many Legendary item xp points. Of course, Moria’s mazes sometimes did their evil job with us getting stuck for a while – but everyone except me was able to navigate.

Questing ended with the neariest lag. It was late, I had to go to sleep…but went to sleep feeling satisfied. At last I have found someone who really wished to fight side by side in Moria! I have received xp, legendary items xp, advanced to new level and gained valuable Turbine points.

Things are getting better with Moria – well, at least as long as I have this group.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/moria-again/

Lord of the rings online

NaktiesKarys succesfully retired from officers: quit Kinship, then rejoined as Kinsman. It’s over then. Some players were asking why and I answered to one of them. Gave detailed list what was happening. He said it was not good – obviously, it was not good, if player leaves Officer ranks, something is not good with the player, Kinship or game.

To my rejoicement that player organized one skirmish and one raid in Moria. he is lvl.64, I’m lvl.58, soon we had a tank – lvl.50s Guardian. We went, we killed and looted. I tried to stay alive and do all I could, damage monsters as hard as I could. It was a bit hard to top level  monsters since they were immune to stun and my attacks did some 7-22 damage. But still, it’s better than nothing: we won 2 times in a row, I finished several Moria deeds, received reputation, advanced Legendary weapons by two levels, looted one piece of Jewellery for lvl.61 and was quite happy with the raids. Unfortunately, was killed as teleported to Bree: raiding was over.

However, I returned to Moria alone. While in instance, looted item I had to show to one Dwarf in Moria. Dwarf was satisfied and gave some 5000 legendary item experience points. Then, one player asked if anybody “was in Moria/Eregion”. I answered – who better than me knows how hard is it to hear eternal silence?

Player – brave lvl.46 Dwarf – wanted to do quests in Eregion and I helped him. We rode together, two Dwarves, sometimes joking about monsters. Calling named monsters – noobs, like “noob owned. what’s next?” and the death of the last was commented – “Another self-confident noob owned”. I was happy with it: we both loved Eregion, sunny and green. We both were Dwarves and he even called me a brother, brother of Khazad. Together we smashed any enemy we encountered, together we did all the quests we could (except fellowship one) and together we had no need to fear anything in battlefield. I think we finished 2 regions in one run. This player is very enthusiastic about Dwarves, loves everything Dwarven-related and rushes to enter Moria. He will either love it or hate it, there’s no in between about Moria. And maybe we could do quests together, he and me – if he could navigate there. I could do the fighting, he could do navigating.

Unfortunately, had to log off: it was time to sleep. I understood I dislike Moria, even hated to look at the map, knowing I would be lost there without help (and there was no help, local chat had one message only).

And so the day has ended. I felt kind of satisfied. Maybe life in Lotro is becoming easier once again.

http://mmoblogg.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/brothers-of-khazad/