What are you working on?

[Tarami]

Heh, if only it were the final.  Horses don't like big caves.

Yeah. It's a shame they took Tolkien's cues on horses rather than the real world's. Real horses do not mind being underground any more than humans, maybe less even.

[Yegolev]

Playing Fatwing (lv21 guardian) for now, working on metalworking primarily and tailoring as a support for armorcraft, but of course I need a large load of medium hides.  Got tired of Shire/Breeland deed-work and decided to do some west-LL quests (skipping GB madness) with her to get up to east-LL snuff (maybe do some North Downs stuff in there), and after that get to Rivendell and then head to Evendim.  Maybe.

[Hawkbit]

Don't forget now. You can't just buy your horse and enjoy it after grinding for 35 levels and saving desperately so you can afford it. Oh no.  You also have to face a skill testing challenge!

I helped camp Raster in EQ for well over 100 hours.  
I spawn camped rare pets in WoW numerous times for hours at end.  
I played Warhammer Online.  

All of them combined pale in comparison to the tedium involved in getting a horse in this game.  I'm nearing nerd rage.  

[Mrbloodworth]

WHAT??!?!? 

[Reg]

There's a reason that I played to 35, got my horse and then quit for a year. I do like the game - it has redeeming features but whoever is in charge still doesn't quite understand what people expect of mainstream MMOGs in the age of WoW.

[Hawkbit]

WHAT??!?!? 

It was pretty lame to have made it to 35 *and* had the 4.22 gold in my pocket, only to have to do four fedex quests just to buy the damn horse.  By the time they asked me to travel to the third spot, I almost quit. 

It was an unnecessary roadblock to fun that took almost an hour.  It served no purpose that I am aware of. 

[Yegolev]

/paulhogan
That's not tedium...


Seriously, though, do you just not do any of the 'kill 120 wargs' deeds?  I think the dumbass horse quests are less ragequity, although they still look very much like they were designed by the guy who wanted "everyone to run everywhere, by cracky!"

At least you weren't like my wife and I who discovered how much a horse cost after we did the second quest.

[Stormwaltz]

Seriously, though, do you just not do any of the 'kill 120 wargs' deeds?

My main has most of those kill traits, but my alts don't. If they get them while playing, great, but I don't have the patience to do the grind-grind-grind again for alts. I don't think either of my 30s have any trait above 3.

[Mrbloodworth]

Seriously, though, do you just not do any of the 'kill 120 wargs' deeds?

My main has most of those kill traits, but my alts don't. If they get them while playing, great, but I don't have the patience to do the grind-grind-grind again for alts. I don't think either of my 30s have any trait above 3.

It would be cool if they did a trickle down thing, as in, your mains (or most "complete") passively contribute to lesson the requirement for other Toons on the account, if your main (or other toons) have already done the deed. Kill deeds only.

[Soln]

WHAT??!?!? 

It was pretty lame to have made it to 35 *and* had the 4.22 gold in my pocket, only to have to do four fedex quests just to buy the damn horse.  By the time they asked me to travel to the third spot, I almost quit. 

It was an unnecessary roadblock to fun that took almost an hour.  It served no purpose that I am aware of. 

I have to agree -- that run to Othrikar was worthless (didn't add anything to me, not immersive) and enraging when I died and had to start the run again from Trestlebridge.  Needs to be changed.

[Yegolev]

It's even less immersive when you hunter-travel back to Bree after each delivery.

[Yegolev]

Got my horse, yay.  Now to get onto those Evendim quests.

[Bandit]

Got my horse, yay.  Now to get onto those Evendim quests.

What you really need in Evendim is a boat, not a horse.  Painful amount of swimming, beautiful but painful.

[rattran]

I'm just going to skip pretty much all the across the water stuff in Evendim from now on. Pretty zone, but too many pathing issues on the hills, and hitting autorun and going to make a sandwich is not my idea of good travel in a zone.

[Mrbloodworth]

So, the other night me and the lady were questing in the north east part of angmaur. Where we stumbled across 3 repeatable group sized battles instances. I was highly intrigued that there were flags sitting next to the NPC bestower, the first read "attempted 48 times" the second said 8, and the last said none. I assumed this was attempts across the server.

We winded up putting together a kinship group with me, issa, rattran a few others from kinship, and a few pickups. The battle itself consisted an instanced area in the angmar southern region, but this time it was different, there were battlements and 4 gates, with NPC guards that you could not let fall, but assisted in the battle. Seemingly at random times, one of the 4 gates would fall under attack (announced to all), meaning the group had to be somewhat agile, dynamically groups of mobs would spawn and attempt to enter the gates. Each group consisted of normals, elites and elite masters, some with some rather interesting abilities and maneuvers. We attempted the encounter three times, each time it was different, and each time we got a little closer to winning the encounter. Ultimately, we did not complete it due to time, and sting of death. Everyone agreed it was a good time though, and thankfully all rewards are done in the form of barter items that drop, and are granted from quest completion.

I have considered making a kinship night that focuses on the encounters, could be a good time.

The Battle for Aughaire

[Bandit]

Yeah, that was the first attempts at that type of instance.  They are now used for numerous quests (Vol 2, Book 5 being the most notable).  There are also battle instances in Lothlorien (haven't done those ones yet).  Entertaining and quick paced, sometimes they add in too much randomness (different spawns) that make them seem impossible.

[Yegolev]

I'm just going to skip pretty much all the across the water stuff in Evendim from now on. Pretty zone, but too many pathing issues on the hills, and hitting autorun and going to make a sandwich is not my idea of good travel in a zone.

I'm finding pathing problems on the east side of the Brandywine which caused us much grief as the anti-exploit mechanism kicked in for tomb-robbers which we were standing on top of, inevitably all waking up at the same time and bum-rushing us.  I'm hoping it's not a general area problem, but at least I'm done with that particular ruin's quests.  I think.  If I run into it again, I'm going to start logging bug reports on it.

[Mrbloodworth]

I hear the anti-exploit issues are due to "you" entering and exiting water. For some reason, coming out of water (no matter when that was) is somehow related to triggering the exploit bug. But, its being actively worked on.

[Yegolev]

Well... put in a bridge?

Edit: maybe if I log of/on on the east side of the river, it would fix things?

[Mrbloodworth]

Well... put in a bridge?

Edit: maybe if I log of/on on the east side of the river, it would fix things?

Evidence, and dev postings say yes.

I think they need boats there, and epic boat encounters! (and to fix the issue)

[Hawkbit]

Hit 36 on my Guardian last night.  Finished the Aragorn Rivendell quests and some of the western Trollshaws quests.  Then I headed off to Evendim which I have nearly everything open, easily 20+ quests in my log for that zone right at blue or white.  Should be a fun couple of days. 

[rattran]

Well... put in a bridge?

Edit: maybe if I log of/on on the east side of the river, it would fix things?

Evidence, and dev postings say yes.

I think they need boats there, and epic boat encounters! (and to fix the issue)

It does NOT fix it. There are pathing issues in several areas, Evendim being the worst. I tried everything suggested in various threads when I was trying to do the Guaredan quests, nothing worked. Pathing/anti-exploit is just broken in some areas.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I read about the 'defend' instances, reminds me of guild wars. I hope we'll be able to do one of them, but interest in LOTRO is waning fast across the guild.. :/

Evendim [and several other zones] have horrible problems with mob pathing, especially on the islands and the gauradan area at the NW corner of the zone. This was especially bad for me as a 'beast-mastery' spec LM, since I depend on my lynx to kill things, and there are many invisible spots where either the mob bugs out and becomes unattackable, or my pet does; in the latter case the mob will immediately go into anti-exploit mode. The only way I was even able to complete quests was by opening up with an alpha strike that'd kill the mob before it either had the opportunity to get stuck in the geometry and go into anti-exploit mode, or before my pet would get aggro and do the same. And then there are fun times when the pet get stuck and I have to dismiss/resummon it constantly... (can't do it in combat, so getting ambushed really hurts)


Edit: This problem always happened when entering/exiting water, but that wasn't a big problem -- the REAL problem areas are the salamander and brigand islands along with the gauradan place. I think there was also a coastline where this happened a lot, but it wasn't as bad as those areas.


-- Z.

[Yegolev]

Fantastic.  I'm still going to log bugs on it.

[rattran]

This is the first game in awhile where I've hit the level cap and not felt the the lack of non-raid content suck the life out of it. I was surprised at just how much stuff there is to do in Moria and Lorien, even the rep grinds don't feel like grinds, just things to do with rewards and +rep. Plus maybe I'll get around to finishing Book 7+ in Volume 1 and Book 4+ in Volume 2.

<edit> Not enough coffee causes typos. Be warned.

[Soln]

wife and I are taking a break.  But I'm not looking forward to any expansions.  There's enough in there already.

[Lianka]

wife and I are taking a break.  But I'm not looking forward to any expansions.  There's enough in there already.

 

To Necro the deed tedium discussion, if you wait until they're grey, and find an area of high concentration, you can do it in mere minutes.  I guess I'll be doing that more now that my healer is taking a break.   

[Mrbloodworth]

Well. We know who wears the heavy armor in that couple! 

[Yegolev]

If I do the slayer deeds before they are grey, I can also make a dent in the Class skill deeds which don't increment on grey mobs.

The above is sort of fresh in my mind as I have started playing Fatwing a bit more due to my wife's, uh, dismay that I was playing Fallia without her.  Nevermind that she plays without me... apparently if I'm online and she's doing a quest without me, it doesn't count.   Anyway, Fatwing is a Guardian and let me tell you, after playing a Hunter to lv37 it's a pleasant surprise to find that I'm just not dying.  Sure, things just move more slowly in Guardian Town, but it's nice to be able to fight off three yellow orcs at one time.

Fatwing is also a Metalworker/Tailor/Prospector (whatever that profession is) and I'm sending hides off to Fallia for boiling.  Also I can see that I'm going to be able to easily blow a large chunk of cash on recipes, especially if I want to have a matching armor set that isn't basic.  Also, needing six shards instead of one for one-time recipes is bothersome... well, if I have the recipes in the first place.

[Megrim]

Don't bother levelling Armoursmithing. It is a giant, painful, waste of time. Or at best, cap out at tier 3/4, then just sell critted mid-range pieces on the AH, and make a killing. The end-game stuff you get out of it is crap.

[Yegolev]

I'm already wearing some lv15 quest-pants at lv21 that I can't beat, so I'm keeping things real with lowered expectations.  Then again, I'll be buying my heavy armor off of the AH otherwise.

What about crafting tools?

[rattran]

I've worked metalsmith up to Supreme on Creothyn, so any tools you need just drop a line. I've even got nearly a full set of blueprints for the triple-tools at level 55.

But yeah, other than a few pieces, the top end crafted armor is pretty 

[Tannhauser]

Well I canceled for two reasons. First I'm level capped and second the game tends to make my video card overheat and shut down my laptop. :(
But I'll be back for  the next content patch.

[Stormwaltz]

Still haven't managed to get on Brandywine at the same time as Bloodworth, but -- any particular craft vocation the kinship is lacking? Saerthir hasn't chosen hers yet.

[Mrbloodworth]

i was just on. I play wed nights after 6pm EST.