f13.net

I just want to get the fuck out of Bree-land. The goddamned Old Forest is some sort of sadistic torture den. I went through and finished all the quests in it just so I could tell it to go fuck itself in my head. They got the atmosphere right, but the mazy cockblocking bullshit is just crap. I think I got as far as Lone-Lands in beta, so I am looking forward to everything beyond.

I acually like the old forest.  Key is, use your map.

Gosh, you would have hated the original version, I personally loved it.

My max character is level 48, haven't been to Moria.  No, I have been "grinding" quests and deeds and festivals.  Recently been poking at the auctions.  Crafting a bit lately, got to Tier 6 Scholar a week ago.  I had to force myself to do only even-level quests to get my guardian Fatwing to level 30 yesterday, which just gave me another thing to do (skirmishes).  There is a huge amount of stuff to do and collect in this game that has nothing to do with end-game.  Just most people don't remember that, I guess.  Also I was being a bit hyperbolic.  I enjoy the world, I am not rushing to level, but I don't ever just sit around and chew the fat.  That's what bars are for.

The old Old Forest used to move around.

I just recently figured this out as well. I don't know exactly when they added the map, but it's awesome.

Another protip: they also changed things up in the Barrow Downs, so that now there are a couple of quest hubs, instead of you having to run back and forth to Bree and Adso's Camp and wherever the hell else, to gather up the quests. When you enter the Downs from the north, there's a corpse on the ground. (He's labeled Unfortunate Traveler, or something along those lines, so as to distinguish him from a loot bag.) He gives you a bread crumb to the first quest hub, and then once you've done the quests at that hub, you get a bread crumb to the second hub.

Alternatively, the first quest hub is in the passage between Bombadil's house and the Barrow Downs, so if you're coming from that way, you can start right in.

I thought I remembered that from beta. Once I used the map I could eventually get out, but it was still a fucking nightmare at night. Can't see anything at all, which makes it tough to tell when to make the turn your map tells you is coming up. And oh, the goddamned trash mobs (Barrows is bad for that too). Light blue to green cons swarming me if I try to travel past them. Argh.

As for Barrows quests, I have run all over that place and there was still a couple I didn't have- was with Furiously and he was getting drops I wasn't, and he finally shared the quests. There is almost an overwhelming amount to do all over, which is actually pretty nice. Some spots are really tough to solo at even con or even a bit below, but there are plenty of other quests to do solo that aren't as tough.

I am really getting a crafting itch. God I wish I had more bag storage and more bank storage. I am having fun finding stuff that sells on the AH too. Maybe I managed to stay away from DIKU long enough, because I am definitely having more fun than I thought I would. One exception- WTF, cooking? I have probably 15-20 recipes, and have not had the full ingredients for any of them. EVER. I am storing foodstuffs in the bank; eventually I am going to sit down and start cooking. Hopefully I can find at least a couple of recipes I can fulfill by then.

Buy a house and learn farming.  Noob.

Is there any database I can check for items ala Thottbot for WoW? Knowing what is actually rare and what is purple but drops (or is crafted) everywhere would save me a lot of time in game, and give me something to do at work  :grin:

Also- I am starting to remember why I didn't bother with crafting in beta. The interdependence that requires 2 or more characters to produce one item is just such a cockblock. Jeweler is nice since I can gather everything myself.

The Lorebook (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Lorebook_home)

Or

Lord of the Rings Online Database (http://lotro.mmodb.com/)

Also, dont forget to enter the lotteries over at mylotro.

The Vocations (the profession bundles of 3) are set up like that, on purpose I think.

The Tinker vocation has Jeweller and Prospector, so you can provide your own raw mats for jewelling. But you also get Cook, and you can't supply a Cook without a Farmer.

The Yeoman has Cooking and Farming, so that person can farm up their own stuff and then cook it. But the Yeoman also has Tailoring, which gets hung out to dry because the Yeoman can't make his own leather.

And so on. I'd have preferred by far a system where I could pick one (or two) of the crafting professions, and then also be allowed to take the gathering professions for each one. Or just have the gathering professions come bundled. You could still have a viable raw materials economy -- there are always going to be people too lazy to gather their own timber, etc.

Explorer = Forester (wood/leather) + Prospector (ores) + Tailor
Gather hides from beasts, turn into leather; gather wood, refine; mine ore, refine.  As a bonus, can make capes and rugs.

They did reduce the materials required and the dependencies across the board recently.

I know they said that they reduced the dependencies, but I haven't been able to determine how.

If you're not super serious about crafting, I recommend Explorer (especially if you play a light/medium armor char). You can harvest and process 3.5 (the .5 are the gems from mining) different kinds of resources, sell everything you mine on the AH for decent cash [it helped pay for my horse back then], and you can use the hides to level up your tailoring as you go if you want. If you don't want to mess with that, you can just sell the hides along with the wood and metals/gems that you harvest.

If you DO level tailoring, the only catch seems to be around the exceptional hide level... it is for a fairly small level range and you'll need a *lot* of it to master that tailoring tier.

edit: man I should've looked at page 3, I totally got ninja posted! /sadface

Neither one of the links previously seem to show average or past AH prices; I imagine that is because Turbine doesn't allow any 3rd party software to interact with the client, yes?

Edit- Also would like to see what mobs drop which items...always fun to check the random drops for whatever zone I am playing in to see what kind of goodies might drop.

IIRCC, numbers of items was reduced, and especially in low level stuff, dependency items were removed all together (and of course a ton of stuff can be bought off the venders).


That is correct AFAIK, there isn't anything that's going to tell you AH prices but the AH. I think that second link I posted does indeed tell you what drops off what, though its not that friendly. I think there is also a wiki i used before for such things, though, no idea if its up to date, especially with the upcoming changes. I'll dig up a link.

Split everything not related to the Roll Call thread off to its own topic to make it more readable for future n00bs looking to see who is playing.

Link I promised. (http://lotro.allakhazam.com/db/itemlist.html?itemslot=Ingredient)

Just keep in mind, with all the recent revamps and stuff it may not be 100% up to date.

Thanks! I couldn't remember allakhazam for the life of me. I remember them from DAOC days, but my links were all gone.

So- level 30 now. Someone tell me what the deal is with skirmishes. About done with Lone Lands- what is the fastest path to get me ready for Moria?

I went to North Downs, found some even-level quests in Othrikar.  If you are brave you can go to Oatbarton and work your way up to Tinnudir, but that's orange/red up there.

http://www.massively.com/2009/12/04/getting-started-with-the-lotro-skirmish-system/

Old, but good.

Check the level thread.  Do Skirms.  Pick herbalist as a pet.

Got my new LM to 33 - very interesting and different class.  Anyone have advice on LM?  I am thinking of specializing in the + Fire damage tree.

I do not play like most LM's I see around.  I currently use Raven as my main pet and seem to handle myself pretty well.

Been sick as a dog for about 2 weeks, so I have rarely felt like playing anything. Just as I was getting better, the BC2 patch finally dropped, so I have been playing that. I have a metric shitton of quests and rest XP to grind through, so I should be leveling like mad when I get back.

Whenever I read "BC2" I think BattleCruiser 2.

So heard and saw screenies that from the Beta you can buy Radiance gear with skirmish marks.  Is that live in the game now?  Also, you can buy 2nd age symbols with skirmish marks.

That's not in yet, that's coming with the new dungeon finder thing.

So I finished what I had thought was the whole Book 1 quest today and got my LIGHT FROM THE SHADOW title, only to get dumped into a Book 9! Looks like I may not be heading into Moria yet after all. Level 49 now, so I guess I have a little while before I can do stuff in there anyway.

Are you saying that because you have a compulsion to do all the books in order?  I ask because you can be working on getting into Moria right now with no problem.  Volume 2 doesn't require you to have completed Volume 1.

I do have a compulsion to do them in order, yes. I did do the start of book 2 out of order though so I could start working on my legendary whatnot.

In that case, I have some bad news for you.  Volume one has fifteen books.

Bad news, or awesome news  :awesome_for_real:

^^^^

:awesome_for_real:

Well, bad if you were excited about entering Moria any time soon.  Otherwise, good, because book quests are fun.

They're pretty much my favorite thing about the game other than just wandering around looking at shit (although I like skirmishes too.)

I am under the impression that Book II stuff is not soloable all the way through anyway, so there's another reason not to go tromping off to Moria just yet.

Moria is better post 50.  I do recommend knocking out starter quest and getting your first Legendary, though.

I did, shame the starter champ sword is so fugly. I was surprised to discover that legendary whatnot drops off 50+ stuff even in Angmar and such.

Four friends of mine have jumped back into LOTRO and I was happy to jump with them.  Just did a 4hr straight run and got lots of goodies, xp etc.  We are focusing on doing those group and book quests we never did before so some new content there.  Plus my Burglar is lots of fun. 

I hope they last at least to Moria, grouping has made this game fun again, soooo tired of solo.  Oh and liking the crafting changes so far.

Moria in due time.  Why the rush?

We are all a bunch of LOTR nerds and I want them to see so much more of Middle Earth than they do.  Last time after we cleared the Barrows they all bailed.  I want to go "Look!  Moria!  Look!  Lothlorien!" 

I am taking it somewhat easy though; I spent 1.5 hrs this morning learning how to craft beer.  I can make beer, pipeweed and pies, life is good!

Found a spot in Book X that is giving me a little trouble, perhaps it is time to go on a skirmish binge and get my gear back up to level.

For some reason I thought I could trot into Eregion and pick up a legendary weapon but now I realize that I have to actually follow the epic quests.  Well, I think I can get Vol 2 intro in Rivendell and that will lead me to it.  Wondering if I want to break sequence on the epics.  Hmmm.

I did it, and I think it was worth it, even though I am otherwise being a stickler for doing it in order. Just for that one chapter. Having a legendary weapon helps a lot in some parts of Book 1 and it will level up a fair amount in the process.

The first chapter of that book is "Legendary Items and You: A Tutorial". But they called it something else, and wrapped it up in some lore.

You have to finish it to get into Moria.

As Ingmar mentioned, you will level up your weapon some. In fact, one of the epic quest steps is to level it up to 10 and then go get it reforged.
Leveling it up outside of Moria/Lorien means killing monsters. I don't think ordinary quest xp counts.

I'm jealous.  I'd love to play this game with people that didn't drive me nuts.  Sadly, my gaming friends all gave up on MMOs after WAR tanked.

You're welcome to make an alt an join us on Arkenstone.  My burg's name is Berrydoc (26th) and my cappie's name is Theodram (42).  I have others but those are my actives. 

We're not super organized, just some guys who like to kill shit and take its stuff.

I'm in the same boat really. WAR got them good.

'Is this like WAR?'

'Yeah, most MMO are similar, so it can't be that differe-...'

'No.'

 :oh_i_see:

Moria and some overenthusiastic friends have sucked all of my enthusiasm out. The slow grindiness of the game and excessive travel has also been getting to me, along with the overwhelming amount of inventory management and trash drops.

Played some WoW today for the first time in a very long time, and it was almost entirely fun and dungeons and a real feeling of progression. Felt much more fun than LotRO, which I've been casually playing for about 8 months..  :uhrr: Some would obviously be the new shiny and everything old is new again, but I was surprised at how much more fun it was over LotRO.  :ye_gods:

WoW is great until you hit the point when you've done it all.  Then, not so much.

That wasn't a problem I had with LotRO because I never felt like I had done it all. 

Made level 28 last night on my Burglar.  Each level I find myself getting more and more disillusioned with the game.  The landscape is beautiful, the epic ques line is engaging (minus the stupid kill X quests), and the character models are easy on the eyes.  All of this is ruined by pointless running, odd mob distribution, and poorly paced content.  I'm going to try and make it past 35 but I can see already that it will be tough.

I convinced the wife and we skipped ahead to Vol2 and I now have my starter legendary weapon for Dwuli.  I am excited about this while my wife is irritated that she has more shit to manage.  I suggested she might like WoW.

The Legendary weapon system added some new fun for a while. I particularly liked doing the daily quests to level them up. Unfortunately, like everything else in Lotro it eventually turned into a boring, awful, painful grind. Maybe if I pay 99 cents at the store I can skip it.

I did find two IXP items containing 1000 each.  I'd assume you could buy these in a few days.

I'm a big fan of LOTRO but not the LI system. 
-LI's take up precious backpack space, including the four you are leveling but not wielding.
-Third Age LI's are 99% junk with legacies you don't want to spend points on.
-Second Age LI's are almost as bad.  I haven't yet found one that boosts more than one or two of my core skills.
-First Age LI's are ultra-rare and are too expensive on the AH for an honest minstrel like me.
-It takes way too many relics to combine to get up in Tier.  And those high tier relics aren't worth the trouble, their bonuses aren't that amazing for the effort.

Here's a Tier 5 relic example, my current highest Tier:

Sapphire Gem of the Sage    5    +216 Tactical Critical Rating, +72 in-Combat Power Regen, +15 Fate

+216 is not even +2% crit chance and +15 Fate? Kind of lame for all the relics I combined to get to it.

I do admit the system is kind of fun.  Fun to identify items, deconstruct etc.  But overall it's not worth my effort. 

I did read somewhere they are bringing back the IXP daily, forget where, but the ones that grant the huge chunk of IXP for the quest completion, where you can snag 6 or so and hop around with a hunter to do them relatively quickly.

Also, the new head whatever, said her main focuses for the year would be the legendary item revamp, and a MPvP revamp. Two welcome changes for sure, I admit myself, legendary item system is brilliant, but it comes with he downside of being kind of grindy if you let it. The last set of changes made it better (less randomness more restraints on legacy stats and bonus ETC) but the whole things turns into sort of a "long haul" even if some things allow for some really interesting enhancements to things (like one of my swords grants a self heal % ability to one of my melee attacks).

They really should give you a "legendary bag" or something to put all that crap in. Id buy that for a dollar.

The idea of spending extra money to make up the badly designed and unpleasant parts of the game that were ultimately responsible for the low subscriber count that's making them desperate to get extra revenues in other ways fills me with rage.

Dumb question: What is with the mobs that have a fancy border on their icon?  I assume that they are some kind of elite mob but wonder why the devs felt the need to add them to the game.  Also, why is it that when I mez a caster and kill his pet first that he immediately insta casts a new pet when I break the mez?  It's annoying as hell.

As for the caster/pet, depends on the mob I think.

Thanks MrB.

I'm just wondering why I keep getting "solo" quests that ask me to kill signature and elite mobs that have adds.  Sure, they were easy on my warden but my burglar is having a tough time on some of the high hp mobs.  Seems like they would be better handled by a duo or a twinked solo... which I am not.

You coming back to play any time soon?  The Kin seems to be active again.  I logged on last night and there were like 6 people on.  Granted, none of them were saying anything in Kin chat but at least they were there.

Out of curiosity, are you fighting the gauntmen in the lonelands? (signatures required for one of the epic quests; some of them also summon adds) Those are a pain, especially since a lot of the pulls have two of them. There are maybe two spots in the entire keep where you can pull just one... make sure you drag it away from where it stands however, as a patrol path for other mobs also goes through that spot. After killing one, I just went to do other quests, and returned every 15 minutes or so to kill it again when it respawned.

As for the actual killing -- I had the most luck doing an all-out assault on the signature mob itself while stunning / mezzing / ignoring the adds and interrupting their big heal (!! very important). Killing the adds was no good since they could heal them and resummon at least one other add. After the signature dies, loot and scoot.

Yeah we should be online tomorrow night. I can't recall if I have a toon your level range though. But id be more than happy to snag my hunter and unclog anything you are stuck at for whatever reason.

If you are a hobbit burglar, I recommended getting "stoop for a stone", works great for pulling mobs.

Fake EDIT: I agree with Zetor, burglar in this game has much more CC stuff than you may accustomed to/realizing this includes consumables. My girl plays one as a main, she may have some tips/tricks.

EDIT: its also good to know some things about the mob race/type too, as the base races also have some quirks about them, such as damage types ETC... (http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2010/02/know-your-enemy-understanding-mob.html)

Have it.  I find it to be pretty limited in use as you are normally in aggro range by the time you're in range to toss a stone. 

As for cc, I think that I use it pretty well.  There's a mez and 3 different stuns that I use regularly.  I also use the evade ability and cycle that crit ability when it's up.  I just find that, with my crap gear, that when my gambles fail on tough pulls that I get in trouble fast.  This is especially true when adds come.

Well, if you did that to me, that's what I would do. :why_so_serious:

I did give you a "Yep" in kin chat when you commented on the full house.  Next time if I'm not in the middle of something maybe I will tell you about my day or whatnot. :grin:

EDIT: Actually my wife has a ton of questions for you regarding SSRIs and leg pain, so if you see us on and want to chat that would be the perfect icebreaker.  We usually devote Sunday to LotRO, approx 10am-7pm.

BTW if you are like me and cannot keep track of which ring around the mob portrait means which thing, just hover your mouse over the mob, the tooltip will say "signature" or "elite dickwolf" or whatever in plain text.

really OH

Yes.  They are annoying. 

I did find a single spawn, but he doesn't seem to drop the thing that I need.  I'll kill him a few more times tonight.  That undead castle gives me fits with adds.  I think I need better gear.  I've been saving for a faster horse instead of buying crafted. 

Yeah, honestly that entire area was just a huge pain. Much more manageable on my warden and captain than my LM, but still, ugh. Also, getting an extra level or two makes a lot of difference in my experience.

There are actually two epic quests that go there, do you have the "collect 5 emblems from gauntmen" quest or the other one? Also, you will only get credit if you kill ones within the keep subzone (learned this the hard way -- one or two of the guys were past the subzone-line and wouldn't give credit, wewt). My 'mob of choice' was the one standing at the bottom of some stairs (you do need to clear a few double-normal-mob spawns around him though).

fake edit: Hmm actually, stealth might work. I -seem- to remember some easier spawns deeper in, but also a lot of the tougher level 31-32 ones as well.

That's the one.  I'm going to play around in another zone for a level or two and head back.  I think it will help a lot.  I just want to hit 30 for a faster mount and some skirmish action.  I really want to see if I can keep playing one toon past 35.  This may just be it.

I think finding the right class is key.  I never tried a burglar, never play that type in MMO's but hoo boy do I love mine now.  Conversely, I thought the LM was right up my alley but I'm frustrated and stalled with him at 37.   

Nebu, you are in a shit area doing a shit task.  Maybe the sights of Evendim are what you need.

I may head there. 

Odd thing happened.  I hit 30 and got the quest to report to a skirmish camp.  The skirmish captain won't let me turn in the quest.  It's making me cry.

Yeah, I pretty much gave up on the GA region of Lone-Lands.  Most of the quests either involve Normals mixed in with Elites or have a small handful of spawns.  Really, once you're into the mid-late 30s, a lot of keeping your sanity is knowing which quests to not bother with by yourself.

Known bug.  I had this happen twice, as did the wife.  The one you can't complete, you will just have to delete it.  Would be nice if Turbine would file off that rough edge in the next major update, frankly it's damn embarrassing for the intro to a feature that they talk about so much.

While I do like Trollshaws, it might not be enough of a change from fighting gaunt men in eastern Lone Lands.  Plus it's very elfy.  Evendim is different enough visually to wash out the taste faster, and is dominated by Dunedain.  As indicated, start in Oatbarton which is north of Brockenborings.

To add to cal's post, I pretty much skip any of the instance dungeons due to the :uhrr: factor of trying to do anything in them.  Garth Agarwen is almost as bad as the Great Barrow.

The whole "kill a bunch of orcs and do paperwork" thing before unlocking skirmishes will be gone come the 10th, also, skirmishes will now start at 20. So there is that. Issa and I are trying to get some levels on a set of 20's we have so we can tag along with Nebu.

I like to do the instances, and the whole Garth Agarwen set has a really cool storyline and some great rewards. In September they are breaking it up I think, into three wings so thats helpful.

Does that mean that I should just run around and kill orcs with the hope of advancing the quest or should I just forget about doing skirmishes until the 10th? 

I'll check the forums.

I have no clue about that bug or whatever you are facing. I just know most of the "unlock" stuff for skirmishes (that I think was added to slow the flood of people into skirmishes around launch day) will be gone.

Regarding instances: Great Barrow was meh, Garth Agarwen used to be semi-ok with severe pacing / layout / respawn issues, I haven't run it since the revamp (have they turned it into a 3-man winged dungeon yet, or is that coming with the f2p patch?).

The most important dungeon-related advice I can give (until the F2P update, which is supposed to have some instance revamps as well) is to stay away from Fornost. Friends don't let friends run Fornost. Fornost is the only instance in the game that can kill people IRL by annoying them to death. One does not simply walk into Fornost. (etc etc.)

Edit: There was one instance at the end of a looooooooooooooooooooooooong epic questline in Evendim (starts in Rivendell) that had a neat end boss, but it was very hard to find a group to do it and it was kinda long; also, many of the quests in the questline were timewaster-y to the effect of 'swim for 10 RL minutes across the zone, frob a glowie quest item, then swim for another 10 minutes'. I think it is usually refered to as the 'Tomb of Elendil'. That one might be worth doing, if you can find a group for it!

Already done, still not something I can duo.  Scaling may help as long as they don't suffer the same problem skirmishes do with duos.

Is that in the epic line?  I do know that we did not even bother with the final dungeon in that one but I'm pretty sure I completed the epic.

It wasn't in the epic books... I was more using it as an adjective. That questline is like 30+ quests long!

I completed my 45/50 class quest last night. I had not done enough prior research on just how many skirmish points I would need.  2600+1300+1300+1300. I ended up buying three of the items for two and a half gold off the auction house.

I did the access quest to moria and wandered around inside for a bit. Pretty impressive.

Now I realize I am like a tier behind on my crafting. Grrr.

Nebu: you need to delete the quest that told you to go visit the Skirmish Captain.
But, you should still go visit the Captain.
Once you've deleted the quest, the Captain will offer you a different quest, to gather the war orders.
It's a two-part quest by the way, you have to gather 10 war orders off of humanoids (i.e. orcs etc). Once you have those, the quest text changes to gather one more thing. Basically, you get 11 drops from the orcs, and then return to the Skirmish Captain.

I agree that it's kind of a black eye for Turbine that this thing is still broken like this. When I encountered it, I got so flustered by it that I actually travelled to two different camps, just in case the Captain at the first one had been bugged. Then, I put in a ticket for it, and had a GM respond to me almost immediately, to tell me to delete the quest. The support staff must see that one a LOT.

I did this EXACT same thing.  I've done skirmishes on other characters and never had this happen.  I'm not sure what I did to encounter it.

Thanks for the tip.  Thanks A LOT!   :awesome_for_real:

Gah!  After pretty much blowing most of my marks on gear at 40, I looked up what I'd need for my class quest items.  5070 Skirmish Marks :ye_gods:.  Really though, since I'm sitting at a bit over 3g right now, just buying the items seems like a better option.

Item price also depends on server. If you're a hunter, a captain or a LM, you'll be lucky if you see the Putrid Slime of H-whatever on the AH at all on Silverlode, and it will likely cost 14 gold at least; other items are not as extreme, but still hard to find. Hunters are doubly screwed since the other item they need costs just as much. I have a LM and a Captain whose class quests / legendary traits are pretty much mandatory for grouping, so I had to grind out a whole lot of skirmishes. I'm not bitter... ok, maybe a little.  :awesome_for_real:

HOWEVER, you can wait until F2P launches and hope they changed the system (so that the dungeons that drop these items are actually run by groups, therefore providing some supply).

For the set of Burglar items on Brandywine it's 11g as of a few minutes ago. :sad_panda:

I think I got about half of mine buy running the required dungeons, and I used skirmish marks for the rest.

Nobody actually runs those dungeons anymore (on Silverlode at least). Only chance is to go there with a kin group, but we got burned on Fornost and Goblintown enough to not do that.  :grin:

However, with the revamps and the new dungeon finder thing, I think people will be running those places again.

I bought all mine with cash other than a few of the outdoor drops that I had lying around anyway. It probably cost me 15g or so, champ items seem to run high. I bought a house too, and still had like 6 or 7 gold left over - this was at level 45 or so. Using skirmish marks for gear and just auctioning everything that I picked up on the way up meant I was basically rolling in money, I've never had a problem in LotRO with cash.

I weighed my options and I'm going to try my luck getting barghest paws the old fashioned way.  The corrosive ooze will be easy enough, but I haven't been in Fornost so not sure how that will work out.  If it sucks I'll try Haudh Icarith for paws.  Not that I have too many options, I didn't find any rotted barghest paws on the AH yesterday.

I ran a Fornost today and maybe 5-6 paws dropped.  If you have the key I imagine you can skip most of the trash and go straight after the undead bosses (and dogs).  (Oh, and that 5k was just for the dungeon drops.  With big sets of items it's like 15k.)

We used to stock pile that stuff in the kinhall, before we got robbed, the second time.

Second time? :uhrr:

The funny thing is that I have several stacks of class items for various classes, but zero paws.  As mentioned, haven't been in Fornost or anywhere else with lv45+ barghests.  Barghests in Angmar would be NICE.

Well, due to not inviting randoms anymore, its safe to put stuff in the chests if you have items you don't need. Probably a good idea to start putting class items overflow in there again.

The other option for barghest paws is killing the elites in the Bree rep dungeon in the barrows... not really worth it imo, even when compared to Fornost.

For my captain, I ended up buying the single boss drops from level 50 dungeons via skirmish marks (none of them were available on the AH over a month+ except for the 970 skirmish mark item on sale for 25 gold... haha, no), cost me around 6k marks or so. I had a few barghest paws left over from when my guild did Fornost runs (ugh), bought the last one one from the AH. Collected the Angmar trash mob drops myself.

For my LM it was similar, except that some of the stuff was actually on the AH, so I could buy it from there.

Yea, Haudh Icarith.  There is one barghest near the entrance but he's backed by two elite gaunt men and I haven't been assed to go down the middle path since I was able to get plenty of scholar ingredients in the two non-elite wings.  I assumed this place was not an option.  I might think differently after Fornost.


I'll think about it... need a sign posted "XX Days Without Robbery".

There are barghests in Angmar, in Imlad Balchorth (the part in the middle with all the wights).

Those guys don't drop the rotted barghest paws, however (iirc).

Oh, boo. Yeah it looks like they drop the Champ/Warden barghest bits only. That's kind of random.

Pain in the ass is what it is.  Well, even with that botherment, at least I'm still a RK. :why_so_serious:

About to hit 39 and still enjoying the game.  I have to thank all of you for helping me keep advancing.  The chat in Kin and Ched's kindness are keeping the game enjoyable.  I may actually make it to the endgame this time. 

Skirmishes have improved this game in ways that I can't even put into words.  Love me some skirmishes. 

Won't be on this WED, RL calls.

Today's extended maintenance makes me sad.  Legu Universe makes it all better, though.

Year after year I return to this hoping to like it more than I do.

My latest effort (approx 4 mos) has impressed me how the 1-20 journey has been supremely improved.  21-40, though, is still just  :ye_gods:

I'm not trying to rush through content at all, but I find myself cursing the time I spend running over hill and over dale to talk to different people to advance quests.

Trying to hit all the Epic quests, I was particularly disappointed with Vol I, Book 4 (I think) where it had me running from Rivendell to Throenhad to participate in the Epic story of:

Aragorn: I am perplexed, go to Elladan
Elladan: I too am perplexed, find me a squab
Elladan: This is perplexing squab, best go back to Aragorn
Aragorn: Hmmn, I share Elladan's perplexity; go back to him and ask him what he thinks we should do with this perplexing squab.
Elladan: Perhaps we should show this to my father, Elrond... he is knowledgeable in the squabbish ways...
...at which you mutter, but I was _just at_ Rivendell you twit.

Perhaps that book is just an aberration... the earlier books seemed much better; but there is still something DAoC'ish about the questing... as if riding on my horse over long distances between quests somehow makes the quest feel epic.  I can understand if they don't want the WoW amusement park feel, but so far it seems to me like the lesson they learned was to cut the rides but keep the long lines.  I hope the F2P pass they are making over the entire game improves a number of these tedious aspects.

Tell me I'm just stuck in the land of by-passed content and that they pick up the ball again at Level XX.

I should be on quite a bit for the next week, Oscar is happy to sleep on my desk and drool in between feedings/meds.

And, second Burglary? Was the culprit at least caught this time?

Not as far as I know. I don't know if Turbine will tell you that sort of thing, although surely they could find out from logs or something.

I cannot wait until next week.  PLUS - they are doing a refund for all marks spent on skirm warriors.  This is huge for those of us who catassed multiple warriors until we found one that suited us.

Oh nice. I mean, I only have the one, and I think I'd spend the points MOSTLY the same, but it is nice to have the respec option.

Book 4 sucks for a handful or reasons, mainly because of Trollshaws (terrain, quest hubs in different time zones, the sheer abundance of full fellowship quests).  Really, I'd get out of Trollshaws as fast as possible (~40) and just go to Angmar.  If you're still in your mid-high 30s, Evendim works too and has a nice long quest chain (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Quest_Arc:The_Blade_That_Was_Broken) that ties the upper part of the zone together... and ends in a horrible instance that you'll probably never get a group for anyway.

In general though, LotRO does have a certain roughness to its zone and quest design.  It also has a lot of group quests throughout the leveling process and doesn't deliver them in useful chunks like WoW does (see: Dragonblight).

When it's done well, I like the chance of pace from taking on groups of normals to 1v1'ing Signatures to running into someone who needs the same Elite dead.  When it's "Go back to the place I just sent you to for one more thing." it makes me stabby.

You've GOT to do the Aughire (Angmar) quest hub.  Packed with quests, including armor and jewelry sets.  I got bored though after this and went to Forochel and have been really investing in it.  Actually decent, not as horrible as I remember the first time where I skimmed thru a bit.  But lots of riding around the icy tundra, lots and lots of it.  It feels like a massive zone, although I wonder if it's the same size as North Downs.

But yeah, the books are pretty bad about riding your ass around, I just did that Thorenhad/Rivendell dance and was all  :ye_gods:

There is so much to do in this game it's silly.  If you dedicate yourself this game rewards you with hours of interesting stuff to do.  Heck, I even played my 63 minstrel tonight because I wanted to try the Ford of Bruinen skirmish (rocks).

In a way I wish I had just one character instead of 3 actives and 4 non-actives.  It's just a massive time investment to quest, craft, AH and deed for three.  But man is it fun.

Thanks... I'll keep plugging along.  There are lot's of things I like about LoTRO, I just wish there were fewer things that annoyed me.

I've rolled into Evendim as part of the Narsil quest and it offers a lot... I haven't found Angmar yet - well, I've _found_ it but didn't know that's where I'm supposed to be at 40 - so I'll check that out too.

I went to Evendim today for the rich iron, with Fatwing (34 guard).  Also found some ass kicking.  Those tomb robbers swarm like bees.

With the release of the Dev Diary, I started to think more about attempting crafting. 

Question: I've never done crafting in game... funny since I've played off and on since beta.  I'm interested in getting started and wondered if you all could recommend a profession that is a) useful or b) fun in a comsmetic/housing sort of way. 


Thanks.

I can only suggest you avoid Scholar and either smithing. :grin:  Although with the new system you should be able to store a variety of heavy armors as cosmetic, so I guess you could go either way on metalworking.  Tailoring has the cosmetic stuff like dresses and suits, and capes which are also statted equipment.  Woodworking seems to have some furniture items.

Useful, though, I think Farming/Cook (Yeoman?) is pretty good and you can get Farming to Tier 6 without leaving the Shire.  Cook, on the other hand, is the usual finished-goods job where you have to do dumb things like travel and kill things.  Still it's useful for the food.  Scholar is useful for potions and fire/light oil which your hunter and warden buddies will like.  Scholar materials are a bit hard to find as compared to, say, wood and metal.

if you level Cook with Farmer make sure you do it in the Shire (MD) -- the Cook's guild is there and you can level faster via Guild recipes (and unlock Guild recipes via rep in the process).

Cooking/farming is a good combo and quite useful. Explorer means you can grab up all that wood and ore that's just lying around though.

Tailor does the bulk of the crafted Cosmetic/Housing items as well as Light and Medium armors and class items for Burglars and Rune-Keepers.  Forester's the serious prerequisite since it turns looted Hides into Leather.  You also will occasionally need polished gems from a Jeweler, which is annoying, but unless you're making fancy items it's not a big deal.

Tailor's off on its own in both Yeoman (with Cook/Farmer) and Armourer (with Metalsmith/Prospector), but I wouldn't suggest either of those if you want to work on Tailoring because there's really no way to keep Forestry at level on an alt with just Hides.

That leaves Explorer with Tailor/Forester/Prospector which gives you:

• Tailoring;
• the Leather you need for Tailoring;
• the Gems to give to your Jeweler friend/alt to cut for you for rare/high-level Tailoring;
• the Fibers that let you crit (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Crafting#Mastery) Tailoring recipes;
• and Wood and Ore to sell or send to alts.

In terms of "usefulness" I'd side with a Cook over a Tailor because crafted gear, at the level you can farm the materials for it, sucks.  Cook is also super easy to level if you have a Farmer (either on that character or an alt, doesn't matter).

Patched.  In the queue, five by five.

219 minutes.

When does the actual early-free-time start, midnight? All I have heard is "Sept 8th".

I'm on Brandywine right now. :awesome_for_real:

Less then 2 minute delay to login.  Damn server is gonna melt when goes f2p. 

Can you hit the store to spend your free points yet though?

This... is.... AWESOME.   :heart:

Good - Do not know where to start.  Refund on skirm marks, easier access to skirms, improvement on skirm pets.  YES.  New quests across the board.  Vault.  Map improvements (check out Archet map if you get a chance).  New area (have not entered yet, but still gets a check +).  Improved combat (I swear it was improved, waiting on proof). 

Bad.  Log-in took 2 minutes.  Turbine store unavail most the night.  New Destiny options, incredibly expensive.

Ugly.  No TP's, Turbine store took a shit and was mostly unavail.  Devs say its known and are working on it.  Some got some, most did not.

No wait to login
Still takes forever to actually load the world when you login
No Turbine points (what was the point about early access than?)
Store window can't be resized
It wants me to pay to unlock the first wardrobe space - WTF? - fake edit - I do indeed have a wardrobe, but the store wants to sell me "the first wardrobe space". hrm.
10 more shared storage spaces (and the Wardrobe) are more expensive than expected - $7.00ea
No extra bank bags available
No mounts available
Instance Join and Online help are added to where the bags are in your hotkeys, and at a glance look like more bags.
Seems a little laggier/slower. I think I saw some glitching. Not sure.
LOTS of maps/guides for sale in the store. I think I see why they have gated the fast travel to subscribers only.
Port skills (hunter) for sale as well. Was there ever a group hunter port to East Angmar (Gath Forthnir) or Forochel (Suri-Kyla)? The shop says they're level 40 req. There's also 21st Hall in Moria. Isn't that the one behind the shitty rep grind? (and how much of a rep grind is it?)
Opening the bank is slower than shit - like 30 seconds to open.

I'm not too excited at this stage.

I was on last  night briefly and noticed that my deeds all have turbine point awards associated with them - even the ones I've already completed. Will I be getting those points retroactively?

When I logged in, I got a bunch of rep spam, along with "you've earned 5/10/15/20 Turbine Points"
I checked the store. It said I have 55TPs.
I added up the spam. I should have 170TPs from deeds. Took a screenie. Didn't notice that shit when I logged on with my wife's account. They also want $10 for the Moria Goat.


I wonder if this big TP fuckup is "accidently-on-purpose", so that those with low patience and wallets to spare will buy all the immediate shit (bank space, wardrobe, etc) with their real cash instead of the TP that they said we'd get when they released this?

The Turbine Store was having some issues. No big conspiracy or anything, just not working 100%. As a subscriber I started getting my TPs in dribs and drabs. Folks in Enedwaith were talking about how some folks had their 5k or whatever, some still only had 100.

That'll only happen the first time you open it up on each character.

Really though, in terms of quality-of-life stuff, it really is a great patch.  The changes to drops are huge.  I can move across 2-3 areas in Angmar, looting everything, and getting tons of class quest items, and only fill up 2+ bags.  The lower aggro range is almost comical compared to how it was before as well.  Accepting and turning in quests is a lot nicer too.

There's some annoying things, and yes, it does throw "You can buy stuff." reminders in a lot of places, but it's such a nicer game to play.

Now if only they would fix the Skirmish Daily if you're outside the old level range, that'd be great.

This.

Allow me to point you to the defrag tool. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19610.0)

I picked that up several weeks ago. Didn't help much, unfortuately. Barely at all in fact. Thanks, though.

Bummer, improved my load times greatly, but I have a really really old install thats seen many many patches.

General error accessing your
account information. Try again later,
and contact tech support if the
problem persists.



never had that one before... :oh_i_see:

Bought the shared storage, love it!  Three of us went into The Maze wing of GB instance.  Pretty cool but very short.  We all really like the scaling. 

I would, if they would give me my TPs. From the 170 the spam said I should have had but 55 displayed, I had 40 when I logged on today. They're just doing so well with all of this. :oh_i_see:

My wife wanted me to come in here and bitch about how Turbine ruined her beloved game.  Mostly about performance, how hard the store is to navigate, how shitty the map ring highlighting is, how hard it is for her to read the font on the XP bar, and the shitty performance.  While she was on the phone telling me this, she was lagged out and killed by a warg in Angmar.

She doesn't have her three months of TP either.  Coupled with news of the short-term price hike, I'm kinda pissed.  Wonder if Turbine would care if I canceled?

they need to get their shit together

A.  They are in the middle of fixing the performance issues.  Currently there is a server limit as a stopgap measure.
B.  3 months of TP will not reflect until 9/17.  No idea why they delayed it, but there ya go.
C.  There was no price hike.  Some items were on sale for a couple days, then went to normal prices.  Do not be surprised if they are lowered in cost (a ton of people were pissed about this - myself included).


edit.  Have her email an executive.   I can probably dig up a direct email.

Turns out that performance went back to normal when Turbine disabled the Store.

Not that I can play right now.

I read some stuff today that seemed to indicate I would possibly get my TP on my billing anniversary.  We will see.  I don't even know what day that is.

I've slowly been losing interest in lotro over the past few months. Largely due to the grind and also because of some overenthusiastic friends. I'd hoped that the F2P changes would revitalise my interest, but their implementation has unfortunately done quite the opposite.
 :|

I'm trying to focus on the positive changes, which are numerous (depending on who you ask).  Sometimes it's hard, though.  I'll give it some time to settle down.

Yeah, I'm sure there are some. My friends and I started off playing it as a replacement for Friday Night Titan Quest (which was also fun but started to drag after awhile) with the original philosophy of playing it only when we're all on, a la old-school PNP roleplaying as we used to do, but the EQ/WoW mentality took over on them (one in particular) and they started plowing ahead, and bitching that my wife and I weren't playing enough "Don't play Bad Company 2 after work or 360 on the weekend - just do a few skirmishes instead!! It's totally the same!!" and "We should have a mega session for a whole day and just grind out a bunch of levels to get to cap ASAP!!!" which just made me want to play it all the more, especially since this was during the time we were getting on occasionally to do the Trollshaws book quest of perplexity and onto Moria, which doesn't appeal to me, aesthetically or design-wise. So we hit the big stall at 55.

My sob story aside, I expected the F2P to be made of awesome all around and hoped it would counterbalance my growing detatchment from the game. It unfortunately hasn't managed to do that (as my friend charged on and hit 65 yesterday and was going on about joining a guild and raidgrinding out a full set of radiance gear in a couple of days and so forth...)  :uhrr:

I think your friend is doing it wrong.  Does he know about EVE? :why_so_serious:

I'm having a good time so far.  I started with a hunter who puts out a pretty competent amount of pain, but didn't really feel very exciting.

Then I fired up the Moria expansion and made a Warden.

Holy fuck.

He kills people by screaming at them until they die.

He kills bears by screaming at them until they die.

He kills undead by screaming at them until they die.

He is clearly Chuck Norris in disguise.  And if anyone disagrees, he's stabbing them in the face with a spear, god damn.  Don't make him scream at you.

And unlike the hunter who looks like a homeless guy in his random scruffy gear, wardens were apparently chosen to look PIMP in very swank matching blue armor from their starter quests.  I added a pimp hat, dyed it blue to match the armor, and kept all of it as a cosmetic set.  Stuff I've found since was much better statwise, but all looked like trash.

Four of us had fun in Lone Lands last night.  We went on a killing spree thru Mithrenost mowing down evil dwarves and orcs.  Two Guardians, a RK and a Hunter (me).  Lots of fun, lots of xp.  I kept pulling more and more mobs to see how many we could handle. 

It's so nice to play this game with newbies.  They don't have the three years of LOTRO baggage so it's great to hear "Hey look, Weathertop!"

Since I'm at max level with my main, I don't worry about my alts, I just roam around and do whatever I feel like that night, be it questing, crafting, skirmishing, etc.  The game is  just relaxing and fun now.

Woohoo I have TP!!!   :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:

Does anyone know of a good site for a 3D map of Moria?

That area is messing with my mind to the point that I have been avoiding some areas and skirmishing more.  While I love the expanse and art, the maze-like nature of it is driving me batty.  There are so many times that I'm close to where I need to be for a quest by distance, but in reality I need to completely circle the zone just to be 5 more feet to the west.  It's making me stabby.

So, what do we think of having a "/joinchannel F13" chat? This way the non-Riders can join in, and I won't get bitched out for using horrible curse words like 'hell' by the tight-ass non-f13 fuckers in the kin.
Not like any of the non-f13 people ever groups with us. EVER.

How about reforming a new kin?  I about fell out of my chair laughing last night when someone complained about the use of "hell" in kin chat.  Can't they use a word filter?

Do what?  :awesome_for_real:

I know we have a priest that plays, but hes never complained before, nice guy. I have reservations about leaving kin. To many good people in it for me.


EDIT: Now that I think about it, we do have a few children playing (we have a few family units that play) and i half suspect who ever it was , was a young-in.

It was after 12am CST and the person could type relatively quickly.  I think they are just the thin-skinned variety.

Name?

Haldlyn? and Vress I think. But it's not like it's the first time I've been bitched at for language. And what good people? Rein and Marwen only group together, Rudi chats some, everyone else is pretty well silent.

They were very nice.  I just thought it was a bit odd.  Seemed more like someone complaining as a power struggle than because it really offended them.  Made me wonder if some of the non-f13 people are starting to resent our presence now that the server is more lively.  

Well, I have three years with those people, thats all I am saying.


I have no idea who that is.

Make it happen folks.

F13 guilds never work out.  It won't be around in 2011.

I was a little surprised that it didn't go down thus:

So who the hell are you?
Someone who doesn't appreciate cursing.
Oh, well you're in the wrong place then, ass. /gkick

Dude just got invited into the kin and was giving the officer who invited him crap about language in the first minute he was there?  It's not like rattran was writing haiku about shitting dicknipples in a public channel.  I don't even consider hell to be inappropriate language in the first place, as mild a curse as it is.

If I weren't sparkly-new, I'd've gone out of my way to mess with the guy, but I didn't want to make any waves in a group where I don't know a lot of the people.

Waite, they were a random invite?

I'd like to limit random invites due to thievery.  Also jerks that don't like bad language.

As long as they are not promoted they can't use the chests.

I'm not getting a full picture here. However if this person is a random, boot them. I made F13 people officers for a reason, however Marween does have last rights in all matters. If its a original kiners alt, thats a different story. I find it hard to believe though, anyone in that kin gives a crap about the word "hell", or if they did would give anyone grief about it outside of BS.

They were apparently old-time kin members, Malayn? asked me to invite them. Claimed they used to group with Marween, Grimst and Issa.

Pseudo-randoms I would have merely said 'fuck off' and kicked, but it's not my kin, so I merely didn't promote them. And I've been given shit about innocuous language several times in the past.

I don't know what to say then, its uncommon. I have never known anyone to give a rats ass about the shit I say in kinchat, lol. If I know one of the kids are on ill behave though.
I just don't know, seems the chat for "adult speak" lol, is the best idea. Perhaps I can tell them to calm down. Because this all seems silly to me. Especially if anyone is felling uncomfortable.

I still don't recall the names.


Seems best, alternatively, ill ask a friend if we can use his temspeak.

If anyone (including Rein) give you shit let me know.  They know better.

I have broken out the pimp hand in the past and will in the future.  NO ONE SCOLDS RATTY BUT ME.

RE: Making the aggro range shorter...... Um, wow? It used to be dangerous out there in the world, now boars let you pet them. Did they go a bit overboard there? Then again, I was rather surprised with my relative ease in juking mobs in Wow, perhaps they have moved to some "standard".

I like the shorter aggro range, particularly in Moria.  Having to run a million miles through a maze gets worse when you have to a) move at a snail's pace using stealth or b) fight your way through. 

I know, perhaps I'm conditioned though, I can accept that.

Yeah, the huge aggro radius was occasionally fun (trying to dodge elites... soloing to kill the signature bear in the middle of a zone filled with elites in misty mountains at level 48 was a pretty exhilirating experience), often annoying (getting knocked off my horse by trash mobs and wasting a lot of time fighting them off), and sometimes made me stabby (moria, even though I did the quests with a static group... also some of the 40-50 zones were notorious for constant adds).

I think them lowering the aggro radius is a very good thing overall... maybe I'm too much of a WOWtard?  :awesome_for_real:

They should introduce EQ1-style xp loss for a death penalty and naked corpse runs. That'll make the world feel dangerous.  :why_so_serious:

If anyone is going to send a message to Turbine about anything, please tell them that a "hotfix" does not mean you take the servers down.  I mean, by comparison what would they call a coldfix?

About aggro range, I'm more used to EQ and other games from Ye Olde Days so I never thought the range was big in LotRO.  Apparently WoW is easy-peasy, I honestly don't remember since I was on a PvP server and the mobs were the least of my problems.  Player aggro range is HUGE. :awesome_for_real:

I don't mind a reduction but I feel like they went too far in the other direction. It's pretty absurd to be ten feet from a mob, have it look right at you and wander away.

That's what I was trying to express with my monkey like mastery of the typed word. Its not a game breaker, it was just surprising.

I don't notice it too much on my Burg when I'm actually fighting mobs since the linking range still seems about the same as before (especially in Skirmishes).

That said, I really love being able to gather materials in areas around my level without having HiPS constantly on cooldown.

I think it makes the game too easy, frankly. LotTO spawns were - in most places - fairly sparse, and the general aggro range was a reasonable 10m or so.

I think as an acid test, I should try to make the Rivendell run.

Too easy? 

1) Go back to Moria. 

2) Travel between 2 or 3 hubs without a mount

3) Count the number of mobs that would aggro on the way.

It's absurd. 

I think a smart compromise would have been to adjust aggro range to con of the mob. (i.e. grey = no aggro, green = short aggro, blue = larger aggro, etc)  though I think this is already pretty much the way it is.

On that subject, patch notes (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Volume_3_Book_2_Hotfix_(09/16/2010)_Official):


Edit:

So, more info on wait times (which are hilariously off although that may be an artifact of them just coming up):

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40252/new_lotro_patcher.jpg)

Also, if you get something like this and your launcher crashes, it worked fine for me when I started it up again :awesome_for_real::

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40252/lotro-new_patcher_error.jpg)

AFAIK, "hotfix" means "we didn't wait until the next scheduled patch to push the fix to the servers." It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether the servers stay up or not.

I predict 1000 Maze groups.

Not if the servers can't stay up :oh_i_see:.

They've adjusted the aggro range? Holy shit, maybe this means I can play again without my head blowing up from unvented rage.

There were several areas with very fast spawn, coupled with the large aggro range and baf meant unending fights.

Which was great for grinding some deed mobs with a captain, but a pita most of the time. I like the new spawn range, getting jumped by every rabid weasel pig in Lothlorien was annoying at best.

They need to just say "barely tested fix", then. :oh_i_see:

I will completely agree there were weird spots where mobs would respawn waaaaaayyyy too fast.

Maybe they only had to restart the services and not reboot the machine, like a Microsoft 'hotfix'.  :awesome_for_real:

I think I am thinking of Annuminas here.  That or some other place with an incredibly fast respawn where my wife and I were looking for a class item.


Oh, I see.  Hot for them and cold for us?  I can dig it.

Got 2150 TP today when I checked.  +20 wardrobe slots!

So Turbine has permanently dropped the prices on several items.  Interesting. I wonder what happened; is it a big success or is no one paying $3.50 for Justice +1?
My own theory is that the store has actually hurt Turbine's rep with some of the outrageous prices.  That and their server status.  Can't get on right now.


"The LOTRO Store team has just implemented new lower prices on many items in the following categories. Prices have been lowered by 17-35%! Enjoy the permanent price breaks!
• Stats & Buffs >> Buffs, Equipment/Repair
• Stats & Buffs >> Enhancements >> Movement
• Travel >> Travel Maps & Skills
• Healing & Recovery >> Morale, Power, Dread"

I hope they get this shit worked out, really been enjoying the game with my friends.

Niiiice.   :awesome_for_real:

Finally figured it out. Those two are brother and sister, very young, but the whole family plays together.  Fathers name is, Melekbryt I think?

Damn eula breakers. 18 to play!

Don't say "damn". This is a family website.

The behavior's a lot more understandable if it was a kid.

They must be pretty young in that case. Have you heard what 11 and 12 year-olds typically sound like? Nevermind "and up".

I know what my friends sounded like when I was 12.

About the price drops, I saw it coming.  It's not like the "items" they are "selling" have any real "value" outside of the context of the game.  As usual, the price of a thing is whatever people are willing to pay for it.

I think you hit the nail on the head.  They weren't getting the income they expected so they dropped the prices.

Servers were down primetime Friday night and now Saturday night.  I'm a fan of Turbine, but my patience is wearing thin.

The prices on the double kill for slayer deeds seems to be right in the sweet spot. I've used two 15 minute ones already.

Edit.  Just got on finally.

It's been a while, so about time I gave this another try.

Seeing as the f2p is still delayed in Europe I started a new burglar on the US servers on Brandywine.  Plus this way I don't have to buy any quest packs right off the bat and can subscribe later if I feel like it.

Questing in the Shire reminds me why I keep coming back to the game, there's just something about the whole leisurely approach to questing and the general atmosphere in the zone that keeps me coming back.  It's also something I find a tad missing later on in the North Downs etc.

I find I get distracted a lot, which is by no means a bad thing.  In my first session yesterday I thought I'd use the temporary free horse to unlock some of the stables in the area, but ended up getting horribly side tracked and attempting to find the ship captain for the pirate event.  At level 7 I thought it would be fairly straight forward seeing as it was marked as a level 10 quest, but a near death experience with a level 31 salamander made me think that swimming up the middle of the river out of the (huge) aggro range was probably the best approach.

Lessons learned from this include the fact that swimming up the Brandywine takes rather a long time, and also that level 7 hobbits don't have much business being in Evendim.  Anyway it was a lot of fun and I did manage not to die in the end which was a bonus  :awesome_for_real:

The character name is Ymp, so wave if you see me!

Life as a young hobbit is a stark contrast to the rest of the world, as it should be. I always give them points for this.

I have to confess that I've been enjoying an otherwise annoying mechanic. 

I find myself working VERY hard to avoid death.  I hate the dread penalty and the long runs through aggro-infested Moria halls to return to finish a quest.  I enjoy this.  I enjoy feeling like death matters.  I enjoy that dying is something that I actively work to avoid.  In WoW, I used death as a free teleport.  Not so much in this game. 

Thanks Turbine!

So is anyone else stuck on I:13:6 in the epic? The 'go into a mine full of dwarves and yeti things to get a history book' step of the Forochel chapter. I think I have finally hit something I can't solo.

I couldn't duo 1.13.6 before the Vol.1 changes, so it still may indeed be tough.


So I've noticed that if you don't "own" SoM as a premium player etc. that your deeds won't increment.  Kill deeds at least.  Anyone else see this?

I was able to deal with one of the 4 pulls but it took all my 30 minute cooldowns to do, and I couldn't handle the next one. Assuming I was even in the right part of the mine.  :why_so_serious:

There are craft able items and others in game that can negate the dread from death. Not to spoil your fun or anything.

I would love about 100 of these!

10 or 15 minute timer - but otherwise will help offset death penalty.  Remind me tonight and I can craft you some candles.

Who makes these candles?

Yes, do tell. Please tell me tailors so I can feel good about having that as one of my trade skills.  :awesome_for_real:

Sounds scholar-y to me.

Isn't he referring to Edhelharn tokens? That's jewellers.

It's not scholar, I have a Supreme one of those.  Also Edelharn tokens are for Hope+.

Jeweller.  There is a robust market for them, actuallly.  Basically they add up to +5 hope; this is not only useful to offset death but also when facing undead or areas with dread by default.

Barter item:
(http://lotro.allakhazam.com/Im/width=189/169823.jpg)

Crafted:
(http://common.allakhazam.com/images/c/b/cb63f9269e3e3ab491da4f446a2b924d.jpg)

Glorious Edhelharn Token (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Item:Glorious_Edhelharn_Token)

The scented candles were pre-order and some times downtime gifts, there is a horn too but i think it gives radiance and was a pre-order item.. I thought there was more +hope stuff. With the removal of radiance (not yet) I expect all that stuff to be hope bonuses. Radiance was also changed just before moria:


With that, I may be slightly confused right now as to whats left to counter dread. Anyway.

I have a horn from a preorder thing that gives +1 hope for 15 minutes, on a 15 minute cooldown. Does not stack with Edhelarn tokens, and I usually already had it up when I died so it doesn't help much for offsetting after-death dread usually (unless I forgot to refresh it at some point).

Yeah, I think that got changed with Mirkwood. I think it was +10 radiance before, but now radiance doesn't give hope, and only matters to raiders.

Yeah, they changed a few things like that.  The horn and the rare-quality Bounder's cap are the two that immediately spring to mind.

Gameplay update.
Fatwing has ~2300 marks, less than 300 more to get that Rune of Winged Dominance.  Also Fatwing is now lv39, having gained eight levels just from skirmish grinding, and I realized I need to upgrade the armor from the lv31 crafted (stupid Big Fright killed me once, lucky bastard), so I had her take a break and harvest 150 dwarven iron ore... turns out I need just a bit more rich iron so I can master Expert, so back to Lone Lands I guess so I can also try to work on Enmity of the Wargs II and get that Bree-town teleport.

This new surge in population means finding shit to kill can be a challenge.  And yet, I don't find ANY pristine leather braces on the AH.  I'll try again later, maybe I made a typo.

Pristine leather has been selling for ungodly amounts, last few stacks I sold were 1.5gold per 50. So many people seem to be grinding crafting right now, mats and components are scarce

It did occur to me to turn around and sell raw materials.  I also spent some time farming to get dye ingredients and Hobbitton was filled with likeminded players.  Got some violet and turquoise materials, though I actually expect I'll use the first batch or two instead of selling it.

does anyone who is Premium know about deeds in Eriador?

It seems like you can increase deeds, but only those that you already started before turning Premium.  Is that correct?

For example, I finished the first half of a kill deed in Angmar tonight, but I then couldn't start the next half to actually get the reward.  I am assuming it's because I don't own this content anymore etc.

My account is VIP because I had a 3 month sub when it went F2P, but not 100% sure on the deeds thing. I see on their matrix that Eriador "Quest Packs" are only supposed to be available to VIP accounts, so it looks like you may be right. You can keep your existing stuff, but won't get more unless you subscribe.

Friends came over last night so we played for a bit. It was okay. We ground out a kill deed of those bat-people in moria, which was okay since we've got a shitload of rested and they were orange cons to my wife and I. Wasn't I impressed when instead of 10k bonus xp for finishing the deed we got 5 Turbine points instead. And then another 10 (or 15?) for the second half of it.
A massive 20 cent value instead of 20k xp.  :uhrr:

Oh, I got an ad in my email today, suggesting that I buy the shit from their store to "Enhance your Experience! - With less grind!" Those guys sure know how to advertise the strong points of their game.  :facepalm:


...It's like even when I try to be positive about the game they turn around and kick myself and themselves in the balls again.

Dude, every post you make is negative.  Isn't it time to put the game away for a while?

This.  Even before you started playing, you were consistently negative about this game.  Then when you said you had started playing it, I was  :uhrr:.  It seems pretty obvious that this game is not doing it for you, yet you keep playing, and keep complaining about it.  I'm not saying you need to love the game unquestioningly and refrain from ALL negativity, but fuck, you seem to hate every. single. aspect. of LotRO.  Why put yourself through this?

Dude, you're harshing my mellow.

I did decide to stop playing for awhile, and essentially have done so. I have some friends who pretty much only want to play it, so when they come over I'll play it with them as a social thing. As I said, I thought it was okay, but the 10k xp->5 TP thing was a total WTF? moment. Including for my friends who are exceedingly positive about the game.

Also, "before I started playing"? When? In 2009? I was hoping that the F2P thing would fix the issues with the game and improve it, but they've decided to monetise the sucky things instead of remove them. Which is a damn shame. Up until then I was telling people to grab the game left and right, while occasionally bitching about the shitty parts as many others here have done.

But while, yes, you are correct that I should take a break, I would hope that you do find an ad from them to please spend$$$ for "less grind" to be a bit tasteless/tacky/transparent.


edit-
I should add, probably here, that LOTRO does get a whole bunch of things right. My recent negativity is bourne from disappointment - Or to put it another way: "I got my hopes up" about which changes they would make, and how they'd implement F2P. Also while it's probably silly to expec them not to fuck with the item prices from beta to live, seeing things like the goat double from $5 (which I'd have paid instantly) to $10 (which I simply won't pay) didn't help. As a paying customer/VIP as opposed to a free player, I'm disappointed in many of the changes. If I weren't paying for it, and just starting fresh I'd probably think it was great all over.

On the positive side, the environments look beautiful, the /follow range is generous, the appearance tab(s), clothing dyes and now the Wardrobe is a fantastic idea, well implemented. And I /facepalm everytime Blizzard make some nonsensical bullshit argument about why it just wouldn't work in their game. These are things that were in and haven't changed.

Need some input:

I'm trying to keep a running selection of things to do at the level cap.  So far, here is my prioritized list.

1) Finish all the Book quests.  I enjoy these for content, story, and flow. 

2) Grind deeds in the traits I wish to use.

3) Get a set of good legendary items.  I have decent third age but need to research 2nd age.  Do they drop?

4) Get Kindred with the cooking guild.  I did a crafting quest in Myrkwood last night (collecting spider silk) and got some book thing as a quest reward (I chose the book because it seemed different and more unique than the other rewards, but I have no idea what it's for.  Is it a barter item?)

5) Skirmish

6) Dabble in monster play

7) Get to kindred with Myrkwood and Garrison Miners. 

Anything else you'd suggest?

1&2 are good plans.

3) 2nd ages do not drop, but must be crafted by someone kindred in the corresponding crafting guild, using a Symbol of Celebrimbor that drops in Dol Guldur (or perhaps SG too) they can also be purchased for 1030 skirmish marks and 6 Superior 3rd Marks, that drop from the fullo fellowship level 65 instances and skirms. Symbols sell for between 14G and 25G on Brandywine, but it's been slowly dropping as the drop more frequently since the last patch. 2nd Ages sell for 5-150G each, depending on class and how well they come out.

4) The Compendium Vol 2 is for making crafted relics for that 4th relic slot on LIs, there should be 3 legendary recipes at your craft guild vendor at Kindred. One uses that Vol2 for a +390 to 2 different crits/defenses relic.

For me, Skirmishes are fun to a degree, Monster Play and PvMP suck pretty hard, and other than the Mirkwood Horse, Malledhrim Kindred doesn't offer much. Nor do the Miners iirc. I'd suggest heading to Elrond and doing the Vol3 books 1&2, that takes you to Enedwaith where you can start earning Grey Company and Algraig rep, get some upgraded gear, and have a new area to explore. There's a set of 4 daily quests there against leet Giants and Dragonlings that are fun, and it's a nicely laid out area.

once at cap you can run instances and raid regularly as well.  Raiding still sort of sucks in LotRO, but the eventual removal of radiance and the addition of the Instance panel has made things brighter.  The instances are great content and should be tried.  You also unlock deeds for each.

Edit: and like Rattran said, try some unused areas.  Goblin Town, for instance, is quite large and fun to go through (at least once). Similarly, I've done only maybe 1/4 of the end game Angmar content.  Besides the Rift there's lots to see and do there.

 :thumbs_up:

I'm a little stuck on the "totally soloable" epic right now so I started doing a little bit of the regular questing content in Moria. They really did a nice job with the look and feel in there, but man the big map is pretty useless.

Yea - Moria's map is horrid.

Moria is a very interesting area, I just wish the map were more useful.  Those cases where you're 5 feet from a quest objective and you have to circumnavigate the zone to get there can be a bit maddening.

There were a few times when I just suicided in Moria to get to the closer town to be on the right side of a wall vs a 10 minute walk.

Have I mentioned that me+my guildies used the well as a main source of transportation in Moria?  :awesome_for_real:

(there is a well at the crossroads; if you jump into it, you end up at the waterworks. You also die and take durability damage... it's STILL worthwhile to use, imo!)

Yeah, I'm finding this out. I spent all of lunch playing without ever getting to the one goddamn quest objective I wanted to do, died more than once simply because I couldn't figure out how to get where the fuck I needed to get to. Goddamn place is a nightmare, and is really starting to edge into "too frustrating" territory.

Silvertime Lodes and Foundations of Stone are the two worst zones in this regard by a mile.  Every other zone in Moria is either relatively straight-forward or has a slight learning curve as to moving around it.

The sigh of relief that you feel upon leaving the mines at 58 more than makes up for it.  Lothlorian and Myrkwood go VERY smoothly.

I have to say, that despite the overeager friends and their too-long play sessions and too-much enthusiasm turning me off the game a bit, Moria was also a big factor. I really quite enjoyed the last zone out the front, and the quests to open up Moria, but the place itself after a play session of "wow I'm in Moria" quickly turned me off. A lot. Like Trollshaws and that stage of the epic "there and back again, and then back there and back here again with Elrond and Glorfindel" did.

Good to hear that it's nicer once you get past it.

Looks like I may not be on for a while...

I tried to zone into the crafting hall in the Twenty First Hall last night and had a crash to desktop.  Now, every time I try to log Nebu on I crash the game.  I'm submitting a ticket, but this isn't good. 

Have you tried logging in one of your other characters?
Assuming you have any.
And then logging back in to your stuck toon?

I have no idea if this will work. I am only thinking of it because that's how I got through a similar situation in WoW one time.

I'll definitely give it a shot. 


Awesome.  :ye_gods:

There has been some iffy exit placements as of late after zoneing.

Looks like I can log on any toon except my Burglar.  Guess that's Turbine's way of telling me to take a break.

No, its a sign from God to play your Warden.

Well I logged in and discovered I have a 23 Warden and a 21 Hunter. Haven't tried the Hunter but checked out the Warden and managed to accidentally drop fellowship (I was confused.) Who do I bug for a re-invite to RoME?

Proof that He is a cruel god.

I thought about leveling a RK, but don't think I can bear the trip through Moria again. 

With the way they have been adding alternate zones for that level band, I suspect it will become optional at some point (EPIC quest line the exception, but its optional itself), they still have the red pass to open. Once you get out, Moria is somewhat like a giant hub for dungeons (it has many) and Legendary item resources. Similarly, Lothlórien, is mostly and optional rep-grind, if you don't need the recipes or other novel items they sell (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Galadhrim#Gaining_Reputation), there isn't much of a point in doing that rep.

There's certainly enough content to get to 54 before entering moria, and should be an easy couple levels on fast quests, then head to outside moria at 56. +3/4 mobs should be doable on an RK, and I helped a pug of 54/55/56s in Nanduhirion before I left, they all had the quests but were having trouble with the mobs so I ran from camp to camp with them grabbing up mobs and dragging them away from objectives. Big puppy pile was pretty good at killing things I had pulled. A few deaths when someone boomed too hard.

So I think Moria is almost entirely skippable.

[edit] I just can't face the 18-28 bit, that's where things always seem to bog down for me. Will likely try leveling up the Mini more in a couple weeks if anyone wants to help. And Cheddar is always good for a reroll.

You still need to spend some time in Moria I think.  You can push Eregion up to 54 or so and bring down Lothlorien to 58 without much hassle.

Those four levels can easily be spent in the "good" zones of Great Delving, Durin's Way, Water Works, Redhorn Lodes, and possibly Flaming Deeps (although that may be a bit high at 57) especially if you mix in skirmishes and the odd Forgotten Treasury/Grand Stairs.

My RK's gone from 20-28 almost entirely through GB/Skirmishes, mostly before the skirmish dailies were fixed.

Anecdote: My guildies were complaining about Moria (especially silvertine lodes... friends don't let friends quest in silvertine lodes) a lot, but in the end it was the introduction to Lothlorien quests that broke the camel's back. Ask me about the quest design for the 4 orc camps just outside Moria.  :why_so_serious:

However, you always have the option to skirmish it up instead of doing regular questing (or just to switch things up), which is really nice.

I've also been considering giving LOTRO a whirl again (solo this time, with a bunch of TP stored up) -- how often are dungeons pugged? Is it feasible to pug them on a smaller server like Silverlode at say, level 49 (captain) or 60 (LM)? Thanks!

I found those orc camps to be brutal solo on my undergeared burglar.  If it weren't for all of the escape tricks, I would have repeatedly died to all the adds in those camps.

I also enjoyed leveling and rep grinding in Lothlorien.  I got some wonderful food recipes and a white horsie!

I have just completed (almost) the lv41 Westernesse heavy armor set for Fatwing.  I forgot about the shield, though, so I made that instead and I'm short an adamant shard and some dwarf iron to make the shoulders.

By the way, that's ten levels of almost nothing but skirmishes.  Currently in South Trollshaws digging up more dwarf iron ore.

God made skirms and maze runs to fly past those levels.

Sorry to double post.  I have shards if you need them, just let me know in game.  They tend to gather dust in my house.

this just in: Vol. Chp 13 Bk 10 (?) Icereave Mines in Forochel (where you have to get a book through an instance, then another instance) is still impossible to solo.  Film at 11.

I am stuck on that step, we could probably duo it some time.

love too if I was on Brandywine.  Ridiculously hard even at 55 with great gear.

Skirms get old fast.

Just saying.

Whoops, somehow missed this. There's been officers on most of the time for the last few weeks, and you can search in the /who on guild name reliably now. Otherwise I'm mostly on Eeso and Bressig, or bug Chedd on Ardelo.

As for stuck login on a toon, each time I've got stuck logging, alt-f4 and reattempting has gotten me right in.

If you're on at night, Nebu can also invite.  

Rhyme time!

Cool, will do. I'll be on Sat/Sun so will look for these or bug in /who guild.

What does alt+f4 do? 

Closes an application.

Or the WoW trade channel description: "Alt F4 will bring up the option for a free timerless port to Dalaran".  :awesome_for_real:

I guess I do things the hard way.  I use the task manager to stop the game and then relog.  In my case, that didn't help at all. 

My toon had zoned onto a bad sector.  When the game tried to find my toon, it was located in a place that didn't exist and caused some type of crash loop.  I had to follow a sequence of instructions to get my toon out of that loop.

Yeah, this is an issue. What I enjoyed about the game when I was actively playing was doing quests in, you know, Middle Earth. Skirmishes are a nice side dish, but the quests are what made this game fun for me. Level cap doesn't really hold a lot of interest for me, either. It seems similar to WoW's in some sense, but with less to do.

Evendim, Lone-Lands and North Downs 75% off, today only. (http://www.lotro.com/lotrostoresale/856-24-hour-sale)

Money drops have skyrocketed compared to my memories, particularly on the Barrows. I'm just a bit over 26 on my new character, and I have 1.3 gold. That's after dropping 500s on a horse, and without selling a single blessed thing on BreeBay.

EDIT: I suspect the ability to stack craploads of drop trophies has helped quite a bit.

lol breebay.  :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, good one.

If people are still on the fence about this game, the next month may be a fun time to give it another look.  The Fall festival event is going on and it's a lot of fun.  The quest that has you do the Shire pub crawl is worth the laughs alone.

There is also a new item, haunted house thing in the shire.

The Haunted House is a fun maze... don't go into it unless you have time to kill.

Update: Game is starting to feel like WoW's endgame to me, at least from the perspective of a solo player.  I log on, do dailies, a skirm or two, and decide if I want to do some deed/rep grinding.  I contemplate rolling an alt, but am filled with dread at the notion of grinding the same rep/deed stuff that I hated doing the first time. 

I'm going to hold on until enough people are around to start running through instances.  I think that might be entertaining enough to hold my interest until the next content update.  Are there even enough people at or near endgame in the kin to give me hope that dungeon runs might take place?

A friend/co-worker of mine started playing LotRO earlier this year, and played for a while, and then mostly quit. I asked him what was up, and he told me that he'd gotten burned out trying to finish off his deed list. And I had one of those "doh!" moments, because I could have told him not to do that :)

What deeds I've finished on my toons have been just those I've acquired through normal exploring and questing. If I manage to kill X orcs in Y zone, it's because they were between me and the mcguffin, or I had a quest to defeat them directly, or something along those lines. Grinding deeds ranks up there with rep grinds as some of the most dick-punching bad-MMO aspects of LotRO, in my opinion.

I generally only grind deeds on my "main", and only if I feel like it.  For Fatwing, I realized I had to kill a lot of wargs to gain the Man/Bree Teleport and so I did that, but it was tedious.  She's really anemic on the deeds but I can't say I have noticed the loss in most cases.  With Dwuli being my second, he's not 100% on some things just because of the been-there-done-that factor.  I still don't notice the missing bits.  The only one I think is really and truly necessary is the home-town teleport.

If you grind deeds/traits on alts you are doing it wrong.  Or you are Rein.  I just rolled a new guard - we could be alt buddies!

Well I am active. I have finally figured out guardian and running GB is really fun. The minnie ran ga (at 31) for the first time and i found mysellf resting for a half an hour untill my pulse rate went down. Im runing guardian, warden (great solo), captian, Rune keeper and minnie with an out of guild champion which is supring fiun to play. All in all great game but figuring out how to hold aggro in group runs has made the whole exp much more fun.

Game shines with groups.  GA is one of those instances designed to test you... there are a few like it.  Champ is definitely fun - its all about whirling blades of DEATH.

Glad you are enjoying yourself!

Agree.  Went into GA over the weekend and had lots of group fun.  We wore GB out, the dungeon scaling is huge!  Do whatever you can to get a group, lots of fun there.

The Haunted Burrow is completely awesome.

They would make the skeletal horse a random drop wouldn't they. /shakes fist to the sky

Lots of cool cosmetics in this years celebration however.

Hmmm so what drops the horse?

Apparently its sometimes in that chest in the basement (the one with the 24 hour timer).

Ah, the one with fifty people standing around it at all times. :awesome_for_real:

Thats the one! lol.

Until we have more 65's logging on, that chest is my primary motivation to play daily. 

Oh! I was wondering why people were always just hanging there. Time to login and check out the chest. :)

Lack of time lately or Fatwing would be in her fifties by now.  Have patience.

If you want them to come (the 60 - 65) Please schedule an event and thread. Best way to herd casual cats IMO. I'm all for this kind of thing, just needs to be set up beforehand I think.

Myself and the miss are good for most Wednesday nights, and week ends.

(As a bonus I can put it in the MOTD as well)

If I knew when I could play more than 6h in advance, I would.  I expect that's the case for many here. 

If we have a few people on, great.  If not, I'll just log or do a skirm or something.

Nebu, you have a pm.

Sorry, I know you'll see this here :)

Go LOTRO! Woooo!

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/george_clinton_what.jpg)

Anyone else find this weird bug:  ungrouped, if I tag a mob someone has already attacked or vice versa I no longer can use my hotbar.  All my skills on that bar (in this case all melee skills) are frozen.  I have to completely relog.  This has happened a few times since F2P launched.

Never had that happen.

No sir.  Will give it a try when I get a chance.

Skeletal horse triggers my lore rage.

You shut your mouth!

Besides, its just paint.

I have to confess that I don't think I'd even use the skeleton horse if I got it.  I like the 200 hp that my gray warden horse has. 

This festival is eating up my wardrobe slots.  I had to buy 10 from the TP vendor. 

Even disregarding the crappier cosmetics, I'm looking at getting a few for permanent use.  The falling leaf cloak is hot.

Yes. Yes, its is. I got the raven helm and cloak today for my Burglar to look 10 shades of burgling awesomeness. That leaf cloak is next along with a few other trinkets. Getting a little burned out on the haunted burrow though... well, the spiders that web you, at least.

so going F2P and having more players in the game also seems to help the economy.   Amazingly enough.

Im selling all my lowbie drops and lowbie crafted gear.  Always.

Cosmetic items. o.O

On my hunter, I ran the horse races over the past few days, and acquired enough of the tokens you need to buy both of the Harvestmath horses.

Then I started exploring the haunted cellar. It took me less than a day to acquire enough tokens to buy the leaf and raven cloaks. With the apple-bob and the mystery wing treasure chests on one-hour timers, it feels like big rock candy mountain time.
I only actually finished one cellar quest.

If you like masks, don't forget to do the quests in the dwarf and elf starting areas as well.  Elf mask is a bunny and the dwarf bucket head mask is pretty fun.  

If you pick and choose the quests you like, check the chests behind the mystery door every hour, and bob for an apple on the hour, you'll have all the stuff from the festival in a few days.  I think I've gotten 8 haunted trees as drops from the chests.  Shame because it looks awful in my yard.

I see one of the regular LotRO contributors on Massively is joining the Community team (http://www.massively.com/2010/10/27/anti-aliased-end-of-line).  Not sure how I feel about this, inasmuch as I don't have huge expectations from advertising driven portals but it still feels like... collusion? self-promotion?  Her posts were always pretty much cheerleading everything Turbine, which didn't help a year ago when we were all waiting on updates and fixes (like LM debuffs on boss mobs, etc.). 

I came across her blog a while ago, didn't know she wrote for Massively. Being a community rep doesn't seem to be what she wants to do though, judging from her output. I mean, she wrote a three part article series on how Mortal Online is a buggy piece of shit. Seriously, who does such a thing?

All game journalists want to be game designers.  Just ask Lum.

Hearing that it is just a painted horse has talked me off the ledge.

I love your nerdrages.

 :Love_Letters:

Did everyone quit?  The last few nights the kin has been a ghost town.

Occupied.

I usually play on Sunday or late in the evening.  Have not had evening sessions lately, even though I would very much like more fall festival junk.

Doing some work and shooting super mutants myself, I'll be back soonish. Unless they keep sending me the constant 'Buy shit in our store! 20% off! 10% off! Buy points!' And yes, I have email preferences set to 'just the newsletter' Still get several emails a week about in-game store shit.

Sale emails seem to be about weekly for me, but if you find them annoying they're pretty easy to filter out.

They've all had an additional boilerplate that they don't share with the say, the Harvestmath or F2P launch announcements.  If you use Gmail and the Filter import/export Lab, you can download and import this filter I whipped up just now (http://percentsign20.com/files/lotro/lotro-sale-gmail-filter.xml).

If you don't want to bother with that, just create a filter in your email client of choice with:

Still around - been too beat to play.  I know - too tired to play? CRAZY TALK!

Figured you left to play UO and canceled my sub.  I'll be around until November 9th and then will have to reevaluate.

Naw, I still love LoTRO.  Something about the journey always keeps me going.  I have just been busy with work, and by the time I get home so wore out all I want to do is read a few chapters in a book and go to bed early.

I am getting old.

I've been Fallouting.  It's the curse of free MMOGs; the lack of 'oh shit I'd better play to get my money's worth!' makes it easier for people to be distracted by shiny objects.  But the upside of free MMOGs is the lack of 'oh shit this game is wasting my money, I must leave forever!', so I'll be back once I've burgled every building in New Vegas.

The very next email they sent (pimping turbine point cards at Target) didn't have that text. I swear, they read this board to do wish-fulfillment for Yegolev, and to torment me.

Still playing. I've just been working a lot in the evenings and exhausted by the time I'm done, so been doing what Cheddar said... read a bit and then off to dream land.

Still getting spammed by Turbine to buy shit. Even unsubscribing my email address didn't stop the inevitable 'Buy Shit from the store at 20% off!!!1one!!1" email.

I wonder how much Founders accounts are selling for these days.

Thanks to today's sale, I now have 50 shared slots.  Not a terribly slow progression on only subscriber TP.  I have not purchased anything else, though.