The next expansion for LotRO - will have some crossover to regions in TOR (and will include some Mounted Combat, too!!! Looking forward to.

Check out this article which talks about the inclusion of the Great River area in the next expansion.


LOTRO RIDES INTO ROHAN

*sigh*

I just haven't been able to get back into LotRO. I had a great time with my Warden (my only character) up to 65, stopped, and now it seems so intimidating to go back. All the gambits and relearning them. Relearning how weapons work and how they've changed.

I'm really looking forward to this!!!

My warden is by far my favorite. I love the challenge of learning/knowing the gambit combos and utilizing them not only in the correct order, but WHEN it's most appropriate. I don't macro anything when I play - I see people who do and for me that's not interacting with the game at all. I find the warden very engaging as a result. I recently gained access to legendary weapons, too - another quite complicated system, but I love figuring it all out and using them. Quite a nice addition to the game.

I love the guardian too simply cuz I have always been a love of sword and board - totally rocked tanks of defense. Paladins who defend others for instance have always been my favorite D&D character type.


I don't think the re-learning curve would be too rough. And you now have 10 more levels you can advance him/her; and soon to be 20 levels with a whole bunch more content.

I started with Free-to-Play (Fall 2010), and my main hasn't even entered Moria yet.** I don't know when I'm ever going to find time to go through Dunland and Rohan. But I'm still really excited about the announcement.

I'm on Gladden, and my main is Rovvena (yeah, "Rowena" was obviously taken already), in case anyone wants to look me up.

** This is mostly because I don't have long hours to play AND I want to do everything in chronological order. For example, I don't want to enter Moria and then head back to Rivendell to find Legolas still standing around waiting for me to complete my class training quests. So I'm grinding away in skirmishes to get enough marks to buy the class quest items, so I can finish those quest interactions with Legolas, and THEN finally head into Moria. I probably won't do this with my alts, but I wanted to try it my first time through.

But, it's so hard to do the quests chronologically. As part of one quest, I vividly recall watching the Fellowship leave Rivendell and then going back at a later time to go through a Hunter class quest with Legolas that was, you guessed it, waiting in Rivendell for me.

It still doesn't stop me from playing though. It's my guilty pleasure. I usually play on Friday nights (during Friday Night Magic at my store), on Sunday afternoons (during World of Warcraft TCG Battlegrounds at my store), and Monday nights (at home while doing my laundry). I am fortunate that I can get those hours in TO play, though.

I too play in order on the storyline - at least for my main. My other characters I'm not as picky on those.

So the Legolas "class quests" you speak of......are those the 42ish level quests where you help him kill the wood trolls near Rivendell/Echad Candellath? Those are part of the Epic Book quests. If so you still have a LONG way to get to Moria. '

Im not sure I know what the "class quest" items are that you need skirmish marks to purchase are....

I too started FTP in winter 2010; and after a couple months I was hooked and now buy VIP for one year at a time and have purchased all expansions.

That being said - with kids, wife, and full-time job, AND playing Pen&Paper RPGs every week on Fridays, my time on the MMO is still limited. In 15 months, my main character is still only 59th level.

And hear this: You haven't seen ANYTHING till you get to Moria. That place is absolutely jaw-dropping awesome. The art and the way lay-out is unbelievable.

Ditto.

My ONLY complaint about Moria is the huge number of quests that require a Fellowship to tackle. My preferred play style is solo. I really only like to play in a Fellowship with people I know. Hence my transferring my first, 65th level Hunter character to Crickhollow (at a cost of $30) so that I can play with a kinship that is more active ... I tested the waters with a character, got into an active kinship, and liked it enough to want to switch servers. On my old server (Elendilmir), most of my current kinship are playing the Star Wars MMORPG instead (SPLITTERS!), so I have no help there. I hope, too, to link up with you, SirKicley, if given the chance. I ended up dropping over 35 quests in Moria as I had noone to go on them with ... I'd love to have some companionship on them so I can see even MORE of the realm. It IS SPECTACULAR!!!

oh NOW I know what class quests you speak of; a Hunter class I take it. And I'm guessing you're talking about all the creature drops that you require "bat talons" and "bubbling acid blood" etc.

Why go through skirmishes though? Why not just go to the locales and kill the critters? that's what we did. Course Carn Dum is a real sticky wicket to endure i will admit. You gotta have a healthy group of players and/or Kinship to assist or you'll never succeed there.

(Carn Dum is the third round of quests you're sent on; the first two rounds are just creatures throughout Misty Mountains, Forochel, or Angmar for the most part.)

Also be sure to get all your pages for your legendary skills, too. Usually the critters you need to kill to get those are similar in scope and region to the class skill drops you're talking about.


For the most part I've done the book quest all in order and only doing non book quest in the area that the current book quests are taking me too; but Thorsgold is right - it's impossible to be completely in order.

I meant these quests:
http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Quest:A_Lesson_from_Legolas

[Edit: ninja'ed by the people I'm replying to! ]

Because I'm almost always playing solo, I don't have the opportunity to group up and defeat Helchgam to get his "putrid slime", for example. So I'm building up skirmish marks to buy it from the Curiosities vendor in the skirmish camps instead.

I'm pretty close to finishing both of the subquests in "A Lesson from Legolas", and then I'll be done with everything I wanted to finish in Volume 1, and ready to enter Moria. I'm pretty close to hitting level 57, so I'm not too scared...yet.

Also: I'm in the same situation with family and other responsibilities limiting my LOTRO time. Which is probably a good thing overall. There was a recent thread on the LOTRO forums asking people how much time they spent playing, and whether they regarded themselves as "casual" or "hardcore" players. There's page after page of people on that thread saying they play 30+ hours a week and regard themselves as casual. Wow.

The very quests to which I referred, too!

I also did not know you could purchase those items from the Curiosities vendor. Good to know!!!

BTW, you're more than ready to start Moria at level 57 ... I started at level 50 and managed okay ... and my character was a Hunter, too.

Which server are you on?

Oh we are SO there!

What kinship are you looking to take part in? My "Pathfinders of the Rohirrim" (a shout out to both my favorite RPG prior to finding TOR and the Rohirrim which is my fav culture of LotR) is a small but well established kinship.

I think we're level 8 Kin; kin house is located in Shire Homesteads. And get this - my personal house flanks the kinhouse on one side, and my wife's personal house is on the other side; so we own the whole street! :-)


Like you - I prefer soloing and/or running with "friends". Luckily my wife and I are almost always on together - we have paired characters for each of our characters, and my 7 year old son has 4 characters including a 50 level Guardian that can run in Moria now with my highest character or with my guardian who is also 50th, and he has a 40th Warden that can run with a few of my lesser characters. Regardless we usually run in a pack -- but we're all family. :-)

What we CANT do we are learning are: anything in Carn Dum, or any of the Rift of (something in Angmar) which is all raids full of Elite Masters. Those places SUCK! Id don't even know how to begin trying those LOL. But a fellowship of us four would totally be able to rock most or all of Moria.

My signature line has more details, but ... Isenhelm is my first Crickhollow character ... the "test" character. He's a 20th level Champion and he's in the kinship "Paragon". Isenhewer is the character that I'm in the process of transferring ... he's a 65th level Hunter. Once he is transferred, I'll send a message.

Groovy! Also to note i have a Supreme Master in every vocational craft except Scholar - which my wife has that. And we're at maxed out rep in our respective Craft Guilds too - so we have access to just about all crafting except the newly added Westfold level.

So if you need something once you're there, just let me know.

As for 50th level class quests we've referred to - I've given up on trying to finish them (for now) because I just can't deal with Carn Dum for those drops. It was easy to abandon them for now cuz the rewards for that quest are honestly not even as good as the gear I was already wearing. So other than just aesthetic feel-good braggin rights that I finished it, they don't seem worth it at this point - not worth the agony to doing them.

I may visit the skirmish route however. I knew they were available, i'm just usually not into doing a lot of skirmishes. My wife doesn't like them at all (which of course means I don't like them either) :-) LOL

Kewl!

Isenhelm is just scratching the surface in the Weaponsmith vocation (Journeyman, I think). Isenhewer is maxed out with the Tailor's Guild and still working on his Westfold skills, too.

I did the Carn Dum ones ... my old kinship was still thriving at that point. Drops in that one were great ... got everything in one run through, I think.

Yeah, things that players make are usually always better than what the game drops.

I'm not a big skirmish fan, either. I never seemed to be able to survive them all in one piece ... in other words, I seem to recall getting whacked nearly everytime I did a skirmish. BUT, I'll certainly do 'em with you. The skirmish marks are good for bulk crafting skill recipes.

true dat. I never seem to worry too much about those though. I usually just smelt or chop hundreds at a time at a time that I have to do other things and put the game in the background while I read email or cook dinner or whatever.

What i'm looking forward to most in the game now is finally getting to Mirkwood and other regions east of Misty Mountains and places that were added for the Rise of Isengard expansion - which I haven't ever even visited before.

I haven't done any of the Isengard expansion, yet. Did a lot in Mirkwood, but not as far east as Dol Guldur. I'm in Enedwaith, at present.

Haven't gone there yet either. Been having too much fun in Moria to consider going elsewhere.

It was frustration with Fellowship quests in Moria that drove me there. Will be glad to get back!

Alright - so let me know when you're on Crickhollow then. I'm in PST zone (living near SF, California), and I'm usually on Saturdays or Sundays, and I'm off work every other Friday (this week being my working Friday) so I'm on usually late the Thursday evening/night prior to my Friday off (which would be next week Thursday night), and the Friday day that I am off - especially when the kids are at school, and i don't feel like my gaming online is getting in the way of being us being parents and those responsibilities.

If you wish to email me off board, feel free anyone.

my email is the user name i have on this board then its at yahoo and the dot com of course.

The Warden is another character class to get a overhaul, so every warden going to have to learn to redo stuff a little.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1...developer-diary

It looks like that developer diary is from the Rise of Isengard update - which took place last Sept, which would mean I'm already utilizing these changes, and I never noticed anything majorly different.

There are unfortunately no dates on that blog.

Managed to find a more recent dev diary from the 1st of Feb.

http://my.lotro.com/user-55/2012/02/01/war...pdate-6-blog-3/

So it seems the changes will occur in update 6, which I think is the Great River content update sometime in the spring.

Okay I do see some overhaul being done. Most of the gambits are being increased in power. They aren't changing too much in what they do or how to do it - just the benefit of doing them will be better.

Mitigations however will still be underwhelming since wardens take so much aggro and still can defend like a tank (Champion/guardian) can.

My biggest concern is how Legendary Items will be affected by moving around some of the gambit skills. Some players spend a lot of time and money on their legendary item to create the perfect min/maxed item; only to see it go wonky and no longer synergizing with their other abilities.

Reading these notes has at least prepared me to what is in store for changes, and I'll be sure not to spend any Legendary Item points in abilities that are going away or moving to a higher level or being changed completely.

Thanks for sharing.

I must admit, a lot of what I read simply went beyond my attention span. I really am more of a learn by doing sort ... so, I'll have my one Warden do just that. Fortunately, I haven't gotten up to Legendary Items with him, yet ... a mere 41st level.

But, yes, thank you for sharing, Mono X!!!

Im exactly the same way - I tackled the Warden just by doing and I know there's a good 30% of it I still don't know and probably would never know.

Unfortunately some of the 70% I have learned - will have to be re-learned.


That's always my biggest beef with change. I wasn't one of those screaming for changes/updates for wardens - i loved it the way it is now. But I'll have to endure the overhaul. Same thing when interface for Yahoo or IE, or my DirecTV or whatever - now it doesn't work the same way it used to so I have to relearn to interact with it. Never had a complaint before. Stop fixing what isn't broken I say! Stop changing for the sake of change.

Most changes can come down to one overarching business decision:

"We have to find a way and reason to spend the money we have been allocated so as to warrant funding next time, and prevent lay-offs of persons who have nothing to do. Lets put together a project team to see what kind of useless and unnecessary changes we can install so as to have continued need of funding, resources, and manpower. Make sure there's a lot of errors and bugs in it too - so that gives us another year of justified money and employment while we work out the wrinkles. This should assist our Customer Service and complaints dept as well as their call volume has dwindled. It's counter-productive people to make a long-lasting perfect product!"

I'm pretty certain that all XP for legendary weapons will be refunded and relics will be un-slotted, I think that this was the case when they made changes in the past. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

I play a hunter and FWIW, I think all the changes they made for hunters made more like what the they're 'meant' to be.

Don't get me wrong - I have a lot of faith with that company and changes they make will most likely be for the better and well-done.

That doesn't however change the fact that I was happy with the way things were/are, and never really complained; and will in fact have to spend time re-learning things.

Furthermore as with most things that I mentioned that change (i.e. the layout interface with ISPs or homepages, or DirecTV home screen etc......) in the end I rarely say to mayself "WOW - this is so much better." So usually all I really notice is the hassle and frustration with things not working the way they use to.


One change LotRO made recently that I absolutely loathe - is now the reputation drops are just clicked on instead of needing to visit the faction representative to turn them in. To me this is a very gamist thing they did and anyone of any level can now be kindred in reputation meant for higher level persons. I feel that this stole a lot of the flavor and life out of the system. Where you use to have to work hard and EARN the right to start getting rep in Lossoth or Elves of Rivendell for instance, now your 'older' characters can just farm the drops and give them to your 10th level newbie character and let them already be kindred, and the fact that you now just click on them in your inventory means it removes part of the journey in travelling back to the factions main center to turn them in is removed. It's just too gamisty convenient - and unflavorful now. It really makes it hard for me to immerse myself into the story and the world when I do it this way now. IMO as it is now, they should just remove all the clickable rep drops and just factor REP rewards with each kill; at least that would still make sure your character is of appropriate level to earn the rep again.

But that just me. I like to follow the quests in order too. But I know that doesn't mean all players do.

He has been successfully transferred!!!

I used to LOTRO, back in the day. I'm too out of touch to contribute much, but I wanted to say hi.

I get pangs about LOTRO all the time, but they're redoubled every time I see you guys' sig files. I got in within a couple of months of the main launch (not in at beta or anything), and it was my main outlet for a fantastic couple of years...

It was as hardcore as I could be to rack up maybe 12 hours a week, split between soloing "Kvasir Alewise" a Dwarf Hunter to the cap at 60th and duoing "Osric Dwarrowine" a Mannish Loremaster with my best mate playing a gung ho Dwarf Guardian (!) to 59th. I also dabbled in a couple of hobbits, "Scooter" the Burglar to about 33rd and "Orfeo" the Minstrel to about 21st. (All this on the English-speaking European server, Laurelin.)

I languished about two years ago, as I was reaching the end of Moria (barring the hardcore Elite quests, like you say). I have a lifetime membership so I could install on my newer PC and come back some time -- I guess my boys still exist there in Laurelin, though Scooter's smial will long since have been repossessed! -- but: 12 hours a week! I never quit LOTRO, I just found after a little hiatus of about 2 months that I already just didn't have any time to spend there. And somewhere in the year after I stopped pulling late-nighters on LOTRO we got in the family way. Pure coincidence, I'm sure.

Anyhow, that's enough nostalgia. Thanks for listening to an old traveller rambling on about his younger days. :-)

Cheers,
--Os.

Not that I mean to add to the pangs, Os, nor making light of it - but Thorsgold found me in Moria yestereve and we played about an hour on a couple of quests. I had a real good time; and I look forward to hooking up a few times in the future.

@Thors: looking to get my mic working, too! :-) Hope your kin raid was fun! I'm not against the idea of joining for one, btw.

It wasn't. I should've stayed with you, your wife and son ... it was a 12-man raid and BOY did my system lag whenever we got into a combat! The timer icons for maneuvers never changed, so I just kept hitting buttons! Too, when I'd try to move, I was acting like a blink-dog. Several others complained of the same thing happening, though ... so, it wasn't just me. NOT fun. Too, I died 5 times (my repair bill was over 250 silver) ... there were critters in there that had 644,000 morale, too! Yes, things ... PLURAL. But, I've never done a raid before ... now I know. I'll just stick with Instances as the biggest thing I'll tackle. Small Fellowships are the way to go it seems.

Perhaps we can do some of the Fellowship Quests (at the biggest) or Small Fellowship Quests (as an optimum).

As I understand it, hardware wise, the Cutting Edge is not sharp enough for the larger Fellowship activities. I believe it is generally recommended that you lower several settings as well. Less disk churning, CPU and GPU cycles. These changes increase the throughput of the client, making lag less of an issue.

Perhaps the best possible hardware changes, in order of bang for your buck, are: SSD, CPU, RAM, faster ISP connection, GPU. (GPU is last because LotRO has issues with DX10 & DX11 so a newer card may be a mixed blessing. Some folks have reverted to DX9 to avoid the problems.)

Sorry to hear about the woes. We had a good time, and I prefer the 3-6 man fellowships myself.

Usually with my wife (Carissa) and my son (Morgan-7) make up a pretty good threesome fellowship right there and depending on the level of the skirmish, my daughter (Kristalyn-11) could play too - she doesn't play LOTRO very often so her character is still about level 26 or so; but we have gone in with all four of us before on level-appropriate instances - when she's feeling like playing that is.

She DOES however play TOR with us (when she's allowed - lately she's been restricted from it as a means to encourage more and better homework done in school. She knows - no RPGs unless her homework and grades are good; so she's working on getting that privilege restored) which is good cuz I'd rather her choose the pen and paper RPGs over computer gaming any day. LotRO for me is just a way to do some fantasy RPGing when my face to face buddies are not available.

Regardless, us three plus you make for a very hefty small fellowship indeed. Moria happens to be my wife's favorite place thus far in the game so she's frequently wanting to explore it further. I keep wanting to try out our younger characters and build up their Virtues etc from past deeds etc that we haven't yet completed; so you caught me at a perfect time yestereve. I have a feeling, she'll want to do more Moria ASAP - probably tonight in fact.

One day I would love to have a 6-man fellowship help me tackle Carn Dum with a good group of 50+ levelers to join my threesome. I have yet to really experience that - as it's so darn hard.

Question: What raid did you go do? Dol Goldur by chance?

One of the Dol Guldur ones, yes ... Barad Guldur. Everyone was saying "BG", but I eventually caught the full name.

Somehow I missed your post, Garn!

I have to run DX9 ... my screen is blank on two different PCs with 10 and I've never tried 11. Running Windows 7 on both, so I thought that was the issue.

I was playing (on the evening described) on my laptop ... a Dual Core. I didn't think to tweak my settings beforehand ... may try that and give it a go ... one ... more ... time. Did you "get" that ... I was trying to emulate the slow PC response?

My desktop PC is better ... Quad Core, higher memory, faster processor, better graphics. I will try another raid on this PC, just to see what happens.

Generally a desktop will out perform a laptop. While the components may be comparable, a desktop does not get as much abuse and has much better air-flow. It also helps that desktops have fewer custom designed parts - which allows standardized components with extensive testing/usage.

BTW, lowering the game options is also recommended in PvMP situations also, I believe.

(Color me confused: You responded to my only post in this thread.)