f13.net

I just played 2 days at Brandywine with my Captain, Farkov. Had to re-learn the areas a bit since the beta trial was slightly different.
Considering I have 8 days left on Trial before subbing, should I aim for mastering my crafting skills? Seems awesome to be able to make weapons at low level, the greatswords at Lv 7, 14, and 16 being slightly above or on par with quest rewards ( I really HATE missing )

Also, since I've got no mail access, that means no auction as well, will it make it harder for me to skill up?

So my aim during Trial is:
1. Getting a mount Lv 20 - How much cash do I need?
2. At least Journeyman Weaponsmith to powergear myself past L20

Comments and recommendations would be appreciated. Is trial account open for kinship invite?

The level 20 mount costs 200 or 220 silver, something like that. Easily affordable at that level.

Let me know how it's going.  I've been toying with the idea of renewing my sub with the $30 for 3 month deal. I'm just not sure I can make it past level 35. 

I did manage to hit Lv 10 easily after finishing Archet on my first play session.
The amount of running back n forth in Staddle bored me a bit though, but by that time I was already level 14 and took on the epic quest chain to fast-jump to 15. I took it slow at that point and start working on my gear once 3 brigands whooped my ass in South Bree-land. Two chunks of barrow-iron later, and I'm back in business with an iron greatsword. 

Tomorrow I'll start my 3rd play session. We'll see how it goes.

hope this helps anyone past 25:  http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=18665.0

Just finished my 3rd session. Around 3 hours.

Hit Lv 17. A level 65 plays hide and seek over region chat and promised a purple axe, Wind Raker. Found him in 10 seconds, pity trial accounts can't trade, told him to mail it and I'll open it up once I'm subbed.

Finished all Staddle quest, but man, the backtracking frequency is a soul-killer. I think I'm making good progress. Master Apprentice Metalsmith and now moving on to Barrow Irons and Silvers. Just emptied my bag of vendor trash and got 100 silvers. Wow.

Simply making this F2P is not going to get rid of the crushing boredom that is involved. 

I played for about an hour last night.  The game is beautiful.  There are plenty of things to do.  The atmosphere is engaging.  I love the housing and the appearance tab. 

All of this couldn't make up for the fact that the game ran me all over hell for no apparent reason.  I didn't feel like the hero of the story but rather a UPS truck driver. 

I'll go back when my rested xp bar fills up.

Somewhat agree with this. One jarring quest is located near a Bree farmland where you play matchmaking between 2 hobbit farm owners. I literally had to run back n forth between the two - FIVE TIMES - often just to right click and deliver a message. Completely shattered my enthusiasm and had to take a break before resuming.

I hit level 18 a while ago and planning to power through to 20 by doing Old Forest quests, any idea where to buy the L20 mount so I can just ride it once I hit the right level?

It reaches a point (level 35-40 maybe) where that only makes the game somewhat tolerable.

The quests and the deeds and the grind gets a bit much for me.  I liked the first fifteen to twenty levels, but good god the grind for deeds is insane.  My favorite so far is having to kill 240 flame salamanders, and that only got me one level or thereabouts.  Geez. 

I was wondering if I could level just by doing deeds.  I can handle killing a 1,000,000 mobs.  It's the mindless running around that drives me insane.

I notice killing stuff 1-2 levels above me nets pretty good xp rewards, so maybe, yeah, can farm animal hides while at it. I was making 5-10% EXP after 15 minutes running across level 20 bears / boars during questing at level 17.

Can someone tell me anything abt the grp dungeons post 20? I kept hearing people LFG in Barrow Downs but have no idea what it means.

Turbine is slowly addressing the running around and back and forth quests.  The Elven starting area, Bree/Barrow Downs, Lone Lands, and Angmar have all been redone since launch and are much better quest areas now.  Also coming with FTP is a complete overhaul of all the n00b areas.  I'm sure Turbine will continue to redo some of the other older areas (North Downs plz) to flow much better.  The other thing they are doing is lowering the introduction to Skirmishes to level 20 (currently level 30 on live).  Skirmishes are great to do when you get tired of questing.  They're great XP and there's a daily quest tied to each one that gives even more XP.

I couldn't get past 36. Eventually all the running around the geographical cockblocks got to me.

Yeah, that one is a complete pain in the ass, but that's really the only one like that in Bree.

As for instances, at around 20 you'll want to do Great Barrows (GB), it's down at the bottom of the Barrow Downs.  Between quests from there and drops, you'll get weapons you won't likely replace until 30-something.

Also, next time you're in Bree head to the Prancing Pony Inn and pick up a few Traveling Rations (~10) from the barkeep.  You'll need those to summon and to be summoned so having a few in your bag will let you get summoned down to the instance instead of being mauled by undead while your group's waiting :awesome_for_real:.

Eh, that quest is a cute little story that I think would lose something if it DIDN'T make you go 'argh what is wrong with you two'.

The easy tip for avoiding that sort of thing though is just 'don't take quests from hobbits'.

Done with another session. Level 21. Damn weaponcrafting expertise is cockblocked by a raid mob quest drop? What the hell?

I'm going to try doing GB tomorrow. Going to push to lvl 22 and then sub to put on that epic great axe in the mail box.

Gotta say though, the travelling time starts to get ridiculous, with all the Old Forest mob aggroing on sight. Tried mount riding out of Barrow Downs and almost got killed when I got dismounted by 3 rats and 2 wight archers. Wondering if I'm doing things wrong by going by Ardo's camp, passing through Bombadil's house before hitting Barrows area to farm Wights for Human Race deed.

It won't be a raid mob. It's been awhile for me and weaponsmithing, but I think there might be one or two elites (group mob) but most of those drop tasks come from standard mobs of whatever type in some zone or another. If you can group with someone higher, they can probably kick it to death for you and you can loot it if grouped. I'd do it for you (and help you out with some other stuff), but I'm not on Brandywine with the majority of f13.

I think the main thing that has made LotRO enjoyable/bearable for me has been playing it pretty much entirely duoing with my wife or in the group of 4 with our friends. My "solo" character got up to level 7 before the tediousness made me quit the character. WoW was fun to play the levelling game in, even solo. LotRO isn't like that.

Which servers you play at? Maybe I'll make another class to test things out.
Which one's better solo? Runekeeper or Loremaster?

I'm on Elendilmir. I've got no experience with Runekeeper, but a friend of mine has a Loremaster and seems able to solo very ably, especially with his charm, pets, mez and so on. RK is apparently able to be very good at healing and DPS, just not both at once.

PM me for my char name if you do start on Elendilmir. It's the unofficial Aussie server, so lots on during non-peak times as well as the usual peak. No f13, though. I can set you up with a decent casual Kin.

I'm on Brandywine playing Nebu - Level 8 Burglar. 

I should be on today if you want to chat.

OK. Reason is because I play GMT +8 hours, Singapore here, but I work on nightshifts. I don't think Aussie time would be great for groupings and stuff.
I met a good crowd during my regular 2-3 hour sessions in Brandywine, I'll see what happens when I go Elendilmir on Monday.

If you're on this quest (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Quest:The_Strength_of_the_Smith,_Part_II), then I guess that you're talking about the Ruined Elven Blade.
If so, that drops from ordinary Half-Orcs in the Lone Lands. They're right around level 21.
Just go east from the Forsaken Inn, along the road, until you're south of Weathertop.
There are half-orcs hanging around south and southeast of weathertop, both north and south of the road. You can usually spot them from the road. When I did this quest with my Weaponsmith, the first Half-orc I fought dropped the quest item.

I think at worst the crafting quest mobs are signatures, which should be soloable by most things.

Awesome. Lonely Lands here I come! Just have to finish off some Barrow quests etc.

I have been reading the comments here about the back and forth, they have reduced this by a great deal in the lower levels. But, having just played 2 early game toons in Wow recently, I have to say wow is worse than LOTRO with the back and forth quest stuff, like, REALLY bad, Tarren mill is a nightmare for it I think I had to visit that farm and kill the things I already killed about 5-6 times, while also watching out for level 80's  :awesome_for_real:. I don't believe we will see this gone from any MMORPG soon, but this contrast made me really appreciate the work they have put into the lower levels here. It also burned me out on MMORPGS for a bit too i think.

I played Alliance and didn't really feel that way. Lowbie Stormwind area all the way to Stranglethorn was pretty tight and enjoyable.
I'm currently parked at Lonely Inn at Lvl 24 and just realized I need to max out apprentice smithy before I could master journeyman.  :uhrr:  sigh.

The whole server isn't running on Aussie time. it's like Proudmoore or Blackrock on WoW - the usual US population during peak times, so it's the same as any other server, but instead of shrinking to near-nothing when the American playerbase goes to bed, there's still people on from the +8 +12 timezones , so it's more of a 24 hour server. If you're in Singapore, it's probably an overall better choice, unless you want to play with f13 people - in which case definately go Brandywine.

I play on Silverlode, but it's kind of dead -- you should definitely play on Brandywine or Elendilmir.

Loremasters are extremely capable soloists, but they kill stuff slower than RKs; they also can't switch to healing if you enjoy that sort of thing. However, the various stuns/mezes/debuffs allow you to kite basically everything to death, including most elites for outdoor quests. Wardens are also excellent soloers, but they do that by tanking stuff down instead of kiting. Captains aren't half bad, but since you're lacking a reliable self-heal (unless you grind out the muster courage deed and go with a banner instead of a herald, which is a Bad Idea at lower levels), you have to be careful not to overextend yourself and manage aggro well with your herald.

I've leveled multiple characters through the low and mid levels of both lotro and wow (all racial starting areas in both games, post-update). I'll just... respectfully disagree on the 'wow makes you run around more than lotro' thing. It's much better than it was before the update, but then you hit north downs and the horse quest. :p

edit: just one example off the top of my head of "you gotta return to this quest zone over and over": the first quest line in Lothlorien where you have to clear out four orc camps. After you clear them out, you get new quests to go back and destroy some stuff in them. Then you get new quests to go back and collect stuff and kill some other mobs in the camp. Then you get new quests to go back and kill the bosses. THEN you get a repeatable from the other camp (~5-6 mins of riding downtime) to go back to the orc camps and kill more orcs / burn filth in the middle of the camps. Our group quit shortly after hitting that questline, though it lead to some amusing commentary on vent ("ok, next time we're asked to go to the orc camp, we're taking a pickup truck with us and just loading everything onto it that isn't nailed down!" :grin:)

Nod. Having played several characters to the higher end in WoW, and a couple in LotRO, I'll also say that LotRO is far, far, FAR worse than WoW in terms of running back and forth and back and fucking forth. LotRO also makes you run around like a tool more, and more often, and more slowly.

And then back to Elrond or Calenglad or those damn people in their cave in Angmar with the horse route you can't use unless you grind their faction.  :angryfist:

EDIT: And don't get me started on the Forochel epic book that I am doing now, it is severely testing my quest/lore love.  :uhrr:

OK. Will keep that in mind, I think I'll start a new class sometime soon, the crafting grind is starting to bore me.

Speaking as someone who is doing the crafting grind with several characters, I can say at the rate you seem to be levelling - skip it entirely and just get some higher level friends to make you some gear now and then.

Come back to it later if you so choose... Take "Explorer" now so you can loot wood and ore deposits, then worry about actual crafting later on...

Yeah, unless you really dig crafting, don't worry too much about leveling it up.  Once you hit 30 you'll have super easy access to filler gear via Skirmishes.

Played about 4 hours this weekend and got my burglar to level 16.  Doing deeds helped break up the boredom a bit. 

The kin is a ghost town. 

It ebs and flows.  My laptop AC Adapter went Tango Uniform last friday, I should be back later this week.

I was messing about in Lonelands. It was great at first, then you start going further and further away from the quest givers.
What frustrated me the most was hunting for a dozen stealthed wolves. And too many spiders, not enough wargs.

I hit level 28 and cooled off.

Question: Just how much hit bonus is a sword?

There's a ruin, south of the Forsaken Inn, where you'll find more stealthed wolves than you'll know what to do with. They hang out near the Arnorian relics that you have to pick up for a different quest.

I share your frustration about the wargs. Turbine could have done a better job of distributing the spawns.

I have no idea about the sword hit bonus. I tend to let the dps and bonus stats determine which weapons my melee toons use.

Yeah that spot. I was on a mining trip, mounted and all, when suddenly three wolves just pop out of stealth and start tearing the horse up AFTER I turned in their kill quest. FFS. I don't know, something about this long-distrance travel and mob placement seems off. It's almost as if the devs are trying their best to slow us down and when this thought occured, a little voice in my head is telling me not to give them my sub money and just wait for f2p to go live.

It gets worse before it gets better.  I can make it to 30 and then it starts to really drag.  I usually grit my teeth, but can't seem to get past 35.  I've made it to 35 on 3 toons now and lose the will to keep going. 

This gives me an idea: What is there to do after level 40 that makes the game worth grinding past 40 for?  I doubt that I'll ever run in a pug, so keep that in mind.  Is there a reason to level past 35 or is this another case like CoH/CoV where you've pretty much seen the solo game once you hit the ability to skirmish?

If I could change one gameplay element in LotRO, it would be to un-stealth the stealthed mobs. Or else make them very, very rare. Getting "surprised" like that can have its uses and be fun. But if there's a variety of stealthed wolf, lynx, bog monster, or whatever lurking in some part of every single zone, then it's being overused. And it's too annoying to overuse.

Legendary Items. Although it's debatable whether they're actually worthwhile, since it's such a lottery as to whether you get an item with traits on it that you like, and it's a massive grind/lottery to get good relics/gems/etc to put in the sockets.

I think you have to be 45+ to start the quest chain that leads to LIs. You might have to have the Mines of Moria expansion too.

In terms of gameplay, the LI's are the only thing you need to level that high for. You need to get to 50+ to meaningfully quest and/or explore in Moria and Lorien/Mirkwood, but those are settings as opposed to gameplay.

Other 40+ zones include Angmar, the Misty Mountains, and Forochel, if you're looking to see more of the world.

Edit to add: also at 35, you can go do that horrible time-eating quest to be granted the privilege to spend 4 gold on a real horse. I consider the time and money to be worth it because a fast horse makes getting around a lot nicer. Seriously it's so much better once you get that horse. (maybe you can read "better" as "less tedious", but you get the idea)

It might be very well worth your time to grind up/buy items for the following factions if you are planning to go through the entire epic:

Elves of Rivendell, for the 1 hr cooldown port back to Rivendell
Council of the North, so you can use their @#$#$%$ horse route
Wardens of Annuminas, same reason as Council of the North

I'm on the step in Forochel now but I don't seem to need to farm their faction up, instead one of their horse routes is gated by a quest that goes ALL OVER THE HUGE MAP.

As for reasons to level, if you enjoy skirmishes, the higher level you are, the more choices you have, you get access to another new skirmish every 5 levels or so.

I hit level 20 last night.  It went pretty smoothly as I was chatting with a friend on skype while playing.  I noticed that the trip to level 20 was much faster than it was in the past.  I think they may have boosted xp a bit.  I bought my noobie horse and picked up the quests for Barrow Downs.  We'll see how the next 10 levels go.

I've been sticking with Breeland so far, almost finished with Lonelands.

Do the Elves & Dwarves share a common quest zone or what? Cause I haven't done a single one of them at Lvl 29

Elves and Dwarves start in Ered Luin, and have their initial quest chains there. Roughly equivalent to Combe and Staddle for Men, and the Shire for Hobbits.

Topped off to Lvl 31. Skirmish is pretty rapid gains and nice gear to barter for. It felt much better to have mobs coming after you instead. I might do it again at Lvl 33 to gear up.
Had to play Captain Healer today doing an elite quest. Loremaster & Hunter play DPS while I heal-bot. Last-stand a couple of times because I don't have self-heals. Intense.

Yeah, self-heals are the captain 'achilles heel'. You can use the herald heal (or the trait that makes muster courage restore hp, but that bars you from using a herald, so not a good idea for leveling) and revealing mark (heals you for x% of damage done), that's about it. Rest is praying for crits on dev strike / pressing attack so you can get a rallying cry up; in skirmishes it's worth it to go for the weakest mobs first so you can open up with your defeat responses right off (some bosses are always the #1 target though). Another strategy is to kite away from the baddies and let the other party members get aggro back (you get some 'withdraw' skills later on that reduce your aggro too).

Later you can trait Defiance, which allows you to sit in last stand for a significant amount of time (25 sec?), and after it wears off you get a small heal. Follow that up with a potion, herald heal, big-damage skills and damage-taken debuffs (so you get bigger heals via revealing mark) and you're back in business! Not as good as a WOW paladin bubble-heal, but it's decent.

I'm liking the Captain's class a lot. It's right up what I expected it to be. It could hurt a little seeing that Runekeeper just melting faces in 2-3 seconds, but switching heals while whacking things up feels good, without the tanking responsibility. Although sometimes I'm too scared to DPS without that Withdraw skill yet. I let my Herald of Hope tank.

And to comment on Heralds -

WTF is that class trait that boost Might & Agility standards by 5 for?! That's just a pathetic waste of slot.

Between the three of them (War, Hope & Victory), I'm guessing Hope is probably the best of them all. 200 HP is a life saver with diseases that reduces Vitality to 1(!) and in-combat regen ticks. They all do the same damage across the board, so I'm not seeing any advantage in having +30 STR & AGI while soloing. I can't parry or evade for nuts, and 30 STR seems so meager compared to 200 HP.

Heralds: I use Hope almost exclusively for soloing. War is ok when you're solofarming low level mobs (for craft drops, deeds or whatever) and if your group has no survivability / power management issues. Victory is very good in groups, the healers and some other classes will love you for it. It's also nice for reducing downtime when soloing against not-too-hard mobs. (edit: however, just using food is enough to almost eliminate downtime)

Also keep in mind that they're revamping heralds when F2P comes; the war herald will do more damage, for instance.

In a group, Victory is great, more power = more skills for many classes. ICPR is great, just ask a Champ. Though for soloing, I use a crit Banner of War for the boosted damage. I think my Captain is at 58 or so.