So, TBS, hi. I haven't logged on for over three months (burnout and busy real life), but yesterday I had a sudden urge to play LOTRO. It turns out I forgot to unsubscribe from my three months plan, and I was still paying Turbine for not playing. So, after some patching, Jagoda was back on Landroval. Man, I missed the game....
Weird feeling though. I forgot how to play my minstrel, and what my skills do. But when I started some low level skirmish for practice, my fingers knew correct DPS rotation and what skills to use. I wasn't sure what I was doing, just what button to press. Very weird feeling.
Exact same thing happened for me with my Warden. I started fresh on Andorval, and my fingers kept pressing 1, 4, 5 despite that not really doing anything. After a few levels and 3 gambits opened up, it became my goto solo equal level mob attack. I was like, ho-lee shit!
Really digging this game with the new quests & XP and such. Just makes it fun. I quit at this level a year ago, cause I was 28 with no quests and was told to grind to 30. I said fuck off! I came back, I'm now 28 with about 20 quests, 6 of which are done and just need to be turned in and should get me to 28.5! Good times!
P.S. This is Celticrieul(Warden) / Celticjinx (LM).
So, TBS, hi. I haven't logged on for over three months (burnout and busy real life), but yesterday I had a sudden urge to play LOTRO. It turns out I forgot to unsubscribe from my three months plan, and I was still paying Turbine for not playing. So, after some patching, Jagoda was back on Landroval. Man, I missed the game....
Weird feeling though. I forgot how to play my minstrel, and what my skills do. But when I started some low level skirmish for practice, my fingers knew correct DPS rotation and what skills to use. I wasn't sure what I was doing, just what button to press. Very weird feeling.
Exact same thing happened for me with my Warden. I started fresh on Andorval, and my fingers kept pressing 1, 4, 5 despite that not really doing anything. After a few levels and 3 gambits opened up, it became my goto solo equal level mob attack. I was like, ho-lee shit!
Really digging this game with the new quests & XP and such. Just makes it fun. I quit at this level a year ago, cause I was 28 with no quests and was told to grind to 30. I said fuck off! I came back, I'm now 28 with about 20 quests, 6 of which are done and just need to be turned in and should get me to 28.5! Good times!
P.S. This is Celticrieul(Warden) / Celticjinx (LM).
Grinding in LOTRO is generally the worst idea, because all the best content is on the way to the level cap, generally not at the level cap. I mean the mirkwood stuff is great, but again most of that stuff is getting you from 60 to 65.
So I re-upped for a month (for now) and I'm a 59 (and 1/2) Champion on Landroval lookin for love. Name is Raius and I would love to be questing with ya.
Stevo 22 on
"It's do or die." "Hey, I've died twice."
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Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
So I re-upped for a month (for now) and I'm a 59 (and 1/2) Champion on Landroval lookin for love. Name is Raius and I would love to be questing with ya.
I've seen you on via my friends list. Good to see you back, dude.
Also, you guys...I submit that it is not how drunk the *hobbit* is that matters...but how drunk the guy *controlling* the hobbit is.
So, just for some perspective, you guys are (most likely) running through Mirkwood with full rested xp bars. I was unemployed when Mirkwood came out, so I just went right at it as soon as it came out. I was pretty much most of the way through with the quests out of Gathburz when I dinged 65. Although, to be fair, I managed to miss the quest hub in Eastern Taur Morvith, right up next to the Ashenslades.
To me, that seems pretty ideal. Sans rest xp, you can skip a few quests here and there and still make it to 65 without having to grind. Make the leveling slower, and you find yourself either needing group quests to progress (and having played through the old days where that was the case across most of the game, I think the downside of the solo-friendly version are far outweighed by the upside) or being forced to make heavy use of rest xp/mob grinding; make leveling quicker, and you end up with a situation like we have now where you can pretty much skip the entirety of the North Downs.
Hopefully they'll fix that last part when they get around to redoing that area.
I like Evendim, but oh god the swimming. I was so pissed when the boat routes were added just after I finished the zone.
I'm pissed it's just a teleport, I would have loved if it was a proper boat trip and you could jump out when you were close to your stop. Just imagine how sweet it would be to be able to take a quiet trip around the lake.
Holy cow, Warden + Inspired Greatness = insanity. I just did the instance at the end of book 10, and I quite literally pulled the enitre instance, up to the Elite Master troll guarding the gate, and never saw my morale drop more than 1k from full.
Is this game still a thing? I read the OP but i still have questions that id like answered by people playing right now.
Why would someone like me join this game, other than the given "it's not wow?"
I didn't see anything that particularly jumped out at me looking at the resources.
Hows leveling? If I started now, will I always be behind everyone else unless i commit loads of time to it?
Whats the PVP like, really? I get the whole you fight as a monster thing. Which doesn't strike me as something id get the game for, but it could be fun I suppose.
Sorta shopping around for new games. I don't want to join something without a good community, and PA'ers are the best. What do you guys think?
Well when it comes to the PA community, we're sparse, very much so. However the overall community on Landroval has been excellent in my opinion.
I really can't offer much when it comes to the PvM part of the game, though it has a system that is similar to Warhammer in that a side has to kill a 'keep lord' boss in order to take over an area. Mind you that LotRo had this before Warhammer even came out.
If you have ever enjoyed the setting in other media, there is likely something for you within the game when it comes to exploration and story. When it comes to gameplay it has a combat that is fairly like every MMO in existence, but there's not much one can do about that in the end.
Class-wise they are decently varied, you've got the guardian who is the usual heavily armored tank, Minstrel whom is the 'main' healer type, but has plenty of offensive potention along with buffs. Rune Keepers can be healers or DPS quite easily, Hunters are long ranged power houses, Lore Masters are debuffers, crowd control, but also offer good damage along with it. Champion is the Guardian's counterpart, able to tank but has much better DPS potentional. Burglar is not the melee DPS powerhouse you'd assume, but they apparently do quite well, and are more about debuffing the enemy to hell really. Warden's are medium armored tanks, who work off it a four main ability system that has three things, a melee attack, a shield attack and a 'fist' attack to create gambits which build up into different abilities. Very, very strong solo cause of their heavy self-heals.
What remains is... Captain, I think. Heavy Armor, two-handers, shields and one handers too. Not really a tank, more minor DPS/healer/heavy buffer.
You'll enjoy the quests, everything generally weaves together quite easily and you should have no trouble in actually leveling up. I've been at it for about a week or so now and am Level 31, and that is without really trying too hard. As you get higher you also get access to different features, Skirmishes at Level 30 which are from solo all the way to raid instances you can do from anywhere. You earn marks and such to get gear, items, and to upgrade your soldier npc you use while inside. Even higher, late 40's I think? You get access to Legendary Weapons and items, which is equipment that can be leveled up.
Crafting is fun as well, you'll go through the first normal bit to advance to the next tier, but you can continue through that last tier in order to master it and be able to crit on the items you make.
Leveling is easy and because this game is not tailored towards the raiding addicts there is not that much difference between someone who plays 8 hours per day and someone who plays 8 hours per week, personal skill and taking proper care of your traits and equipment are considered far more important than how many achievements you have scored or how many tier umphteen equipment you have.
Aldo on
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Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
Is this game still a thing? I read the OP but i still have questions that id like answered by people playing right now.
Why would someone like me join this game, other than the given "it's not wow?"
I didn't see anything that particularly jumped out at me looking at the resources.
Hows leveling? If I started now, will I always be behind everyone else unless i commit loads of time to it?
Whats the PVP like, really? I get the whole you fight as a monster thing. Which doesn't strike me as something id get the game for, but it could be fun I suppose.
Sorta shopping around for new games. I don't want to join something without a good community, and PA'ers are the best. What do you guys think?
If you've ever enjoyed LOTR, be it the movies or the books, there'll be lots for you to enjoy here.
You rarely feel left behind in this game. Leveling happens relatively quickly, and you won't find it necessary to dedicate 24 hours a day to playing. The entirety of volume 1 (the original Shadows of Angmar game pre-expansions) is soloable now, so you won't find yourself lagging behind looking for groups. You should be able to make it to the currently popular content (i.e. Moria and Mirkwood) pretty easily.
PVP is meh. Then again, I might not be the best guy to ask about PVP in an MMO. Lots of people swear by PvMP, but personally I don't enjoy it. This is more of a game for those who are looking for a solid, epic MMORPG experience. Story plays a huge factor in LOTRO, and as was previously mentioned, your skill and how much attention you pay to your toon will make a much bigger difference than whether or not you play for 12 hours straight every day.
Also, if I may say so, LOTRO has the best crafting system I've ever seen in a game. The required materials coincide extremely well with your level, meaning the area you're in at a given level will mostly have the mats you need for your current tier.
I say, try the free trial. You've got nothing to lose, and you might end up finding a game you truly love.
I just couldn't handle the grind any more past r5 on creep side. Playing on the same map for months on end with CC & numbers > all typical mmo pvp got really boring.
Like the others have said though, the story is by far the best part of LOTRO and it really shines. The world is amazingly detailed and you feel like you are part of Middle Earth. The classes are all fun as well and aside from maybe the captain, none are "gimped" per se.
Avynte on
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Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Talking about the world...it's easily the most well-designed game world I've ever seen in any game. You never find yourself wondering stuff like "...why would a tree ever grow there", or "that's a really random place for a giant boulder" or anything of that ilk. They really put a lot of time into creating a beautiful world for us to explore.
Yeah everything really feels like... an actual place. With history behind it. I'm talking about everything from the flooded ruins of palaces over in Evendim (basically what happened to Hyrule in Wind Waker is what happened to Evendim) all the way over to that one little abandoned village in Mirkwood where it's all just ruins except for this one inn and there are creepy spirits on the other side of the bridge, and there's a small quest line to find out what actually happened there.
Yeah everything really feels like... an actual place. With history behind it. I'm talking about everything from the flooded ruins of palaces over in Evendim (basically what happened to Hyrule in Wind Waker is what happened to Evendim) all the way over to that one little abandoned village in Mirkwood where it's all just ruins except for this one inn and there are creepy spirits on the other side of the bridge, and there's a small quest line to find out what actually happened there.
Evendim's storyline is pretty awesome, such a shame that is stuck away behind a huge and annoying quest line.
Aldo on
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GlorntI'm the Bob Ross of Wombats.And I just had a "happy accident"... in my pants!Registered Userregular
Talking about the world...it's easily the most well-designed game world I've ever seen in any game. You never find yourself wondering stuff like "...why would a tree ever grow there", or "that's a really random place for a giant boulder" or anything of that ilk. They really put a lot of time into creating a beautiful world for us to explore.
And if you do ever see something that you're wondering why it's there, chances are there's a quest waiting for you that will answer the question (sometimes depending on your class or vocation). If something/someone has a name, it's pretty certain that some (if not all) players will have a chance to interact with it.
For example, an overturned cart in the bog area southeast of Ost Gurth... when my RK got his quest to open up superior scholar facilities, one of the four books he had to find was right next to it. Non-scholars might think it's just a random bit of junk in the landscape, but it really isn't.
I finally got back on with my Burglar and got him up to 28. You know, even though I still consider that my least favorite character, I don't actually dislike him -- he may even be gaining on Champ/LM/Cap. Meanwhile, Minstrel and Champ joined RK at 30, with the other 5 still at 29. While I'm still on a roll with the Burglar, I think I might get him up to 29 before moving on to the Warden. There really isn't much of a grind so far, just running quests with blue xp bar sometimes dings you by surprise if you're not watching the bar.
Yeah everything really feels like... an actual place. With history behind it. I'm talking about everything from the flooded ruins of palaces over in Evendim (basically what happened to Hyrule in Wind Waker is what happened to Evendim) all the way over to that one little abandoned village in Mirkwood where it's all just ruins except for this one inn and there are creepy spirits on the other side of the bridge, and there's a small quest line to find out what actually happened there.
Evendim's storyline is pretty awesome, such a shame that is stuck away behind a huge and annoying quest line.
I didn't find anything annoying about Evendim, to be perfectly honest about it. I didn't even mind the endless swimming all that much. It was a nice break from the action and provided a chance to take in some stunningly well-done scenery.
And yeah, the story behind what Evendim is/was is pretty amazing. It was the first kingdom settled by the Numenoreans in Middle-Earth. Elendil's tomb is there, ffs. Awesome stuff.
To fellate Evendim a little bit more: It leads to another amazingly fun and good-looking zone in Forochel. God, I love this game. It's really the perfect MMO to me, in that it's as close to perfect as any MMO is ever going to get. That's not to say it isn't far from perfect, but...you get what I mean. LOTRO ftmfw.
the scenery in evendim is nice. the questgivers are the real problem. Mostly jerks, obssessed with protecting the tombs of long-dead tyrants, rather than concentrating on, i don't know, fighting the war to save middle-earth. Their obssession with the tombs has driven the citizens of Evendim to side with Angmar; not the best strategy imho.
dojango on
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Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
So who wants to do some skirmishes later tonight?
Triple B on
Steam/XBL/PSN: FiveAgainst1
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Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Okay so I've had my fill of skirmishes for today, but...I kinda want to get a turtle run going. Anyone want in? I'm going to need real badasses for this one.
Speaking of Skirmishes, I seem to crash, a lot, while in them. Like enough to make the system put me off. Of course I also crash at random times during normal play, so I'm not sure if they are connected at all.
Admittedly I've yet to tinker with things, perhaps simply turning DirectX 10 off will help.
I noticed something new about skirmishes. It is now possible (at least I've never seen it before), to exchange marks from solo skirmishes for marks from 6-12man skirmishes. It costs A LOT, like 2.5k skirmish marks, but you can get the large group skirmish marks. The large group skirmish marks can be exchanged for some nice gear, so I should finally be able to upgrade my really old helmet.
Of course, I first need 6.5K marks, so I can see myself skirmishing a lot in the next few days
Also, the new rift skirmish has some nice cosmetic gear. I'll take some screenshots and post it here.
the scenery in evendim is nice. the questgivers are the real problem. Mostly jerks, obssessed with protecting the tombs of long-dead tyrants, rather than concentrating on, i don't know, fighting the war to save middle-earth. Their obssession with the tombs has driven the citizens of Evendim to side with Angmar; not the best strategy imho.
Also, given that I'm constantly looting the dead, and would be looting the tombs myself if the Rangers weren't being so uptight about it, it's hard to really see the tomb raiders as being all that bad.
I noticed something new about skirmishes. It is now possible (at least I've never seen it before), to exchange marks from solo skirmishes for marks from 6-12man skirmishes. It costs A LOT, like 2.5k skirmish marks, but you can get the large group skirmish marks. The large group skirmish marks can be exchanged for some nice gear, so I should finally be able to upgrade my really old helmet.
Of course, I first need 6.5K marks, so I can see myself skirmishing a lot in the next few days
Also, the new rift skirmish has some nice cosmetic gear. I'll take some screenshots and post it here.
Did they add new normal gear for skirmishes? I remember the gear being pretty mediocre compared to stuff you can get by running SH or old Moria stuff.
Cobell on
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Triple BBastard of the NorthMARegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Skirmish reward gear is actually intended to be for people who aren't yet at the level cap. Therefore, if you have the highest-level crafted armor available (critted versions, that is), or even radiance gear, you won't find much to get excited about in terms of skirmish reward gear. There are some awesome non-armor items though.
Johan: just run SH or the other instances a few times and you'll get the third best helmet in game (only dwarfed by the stuff you get from the raid instances).
I am interested in spending a lot of time in skirmishes, by the way. My kin sees the whole system as a side-system not worth investing time in, but there's a lot of content to go through, with exciting fights all over the place. Why shouldn't you want to explore that? I imagine Turbine will continue releasing more content for it with every new patch.
Plus, getting your soldier to the max would be awesome, mine is currently just a lv65 herbalist geared towards giving my warden power, but it would be pretty interesting to have all his skills completely maxed out and everything.
yeah, i have zero characters at level cap, skirmishes are pretty handy for keeping the boys geared as they level up. Every three levels you can get a couple new pieces of purple gear or a purple weapon.
Just keep the soldier upgraded as you level. At 45 you can start getting super-skills from the skirmish captain.
Johan: just run SH or the other instances a few times and you'll get the third best helmet in game (only dwarfed by the stuff you get from the raid instances).
I have the full +120 set. I just really like the helmet from skirmish vendor. It has lots of Fate and it will be an upgrade for me.
Incidentally, I also noticed that you can now get +10 rad helm and shoulders by bartering normal Moria tokens from 3 and 6 mans (non-raid). I'm pretty sure that it wasn't so in December when Simon organized Moria instances tour for the TBS. I'll have to look into getting those, even if they are not that much of an upgrade (hint to anyone in TBS who would like to run some Moria instances.....:winky:).
so, uh, what are the levels for the moria instances? And for turtle? RK is at 56 now and stuck in the moria morass. Might be nice to try an instance, think i've gone on 2 with him so far.
so, uh, what are the levels for the moria instances? And for turtle? RK is at 56 now and stuck in the moria morass. Might be nice to try an instance, think i've gone on 2 with him so far.
Forgotten Treasury should be the right level for you, unfortunately it's not very popular what with it not giving radiance gear.
Grand Stairs with the rest of the group being higher level should be possible.
Jubal on Landroval. New guy as I never really got past 20 and was testing what class I wanted to be back when the game initially came out but my computer just couldnt handle it. So Jubal the Hobbit Gaurdian, your laughter fuels my apathy, is created!
Posts
I'm going to go up to level 20 and then make the decision to stay or go back into WoW.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
Exact same thing happened for me with my Warden. I started fresh on Andorval, and my fingers kept pressing 1, 4, 5 despite that not really doing anything. After a few levels and 3 gambits opened up, it became my goto solo equal level mob attack. I was like, ho-lee shit!
Really digging this game with the new quests & XP and such. Just makes it fun. I quit at this level a year ago, cause I was 28 with no quests and was told to grind to 30. I said fuck off! I came back, I'm now 28 with about 20 quests, 6 of which are done and just need to be turned in and should get me to 28.5! Good times!
P.S. This is Celticrieul(Warden) / Celticjinx (LM).
When you log in to your account on the turbine account management site, it's under the main info.
Grinding in LOTRO is generally the worst idea, because all the best content is on the way to the level cap, generally not at the level cap. I mean the mirkwood stuff is great, but again most of that stuff is getting you from 60 to 65.
It really seems that way to me, too. I just started actually getting deep into Mirkwood in the last week or so, and I'm almost to 64.
I've seen you on via my friends list. Good to see you back, dude.
Also, you guys...I submit that it is not how drunk the *hobbit* is that matters...but how drunk the guy *controlling* the hobbit is.
To me, that seems pretty ideal. Sans rest xp, you can skip a few quests here and there and still make it to 65 without having to grind. Make the leveling slower, and you find yourself either needing group quests to progress (and having played through the old days where that was the case across most of the game, I think the downside of the solo-friendly version are far outweighed by the upside) or being forced to make heavy use of rest xp/mob grinding; make leveling quicker, and you end up with a situation like we have now where you can pretty much skip the entirety of the North Downs.
Hopefully they'll fix that last part when they get around to redoing that area.
Goddamn, that was a lot of running around, but it was worth it for that instance in Forochel and the Rift skirmish. Can't wait for book 2!
I kinda want to try it with a champ.
Why would someone like me join this game, other than the given "it's not wow?"
I didn't see anything that particularly jumped out at me looking at the resources.
Hows leveling? If I started now, will I always be behind everyone else unless i commit loads of time to it?
Whats the PVP like, really? I get the whole you fight as a monster thing. Which doesn't strike me as something id get the game for, but it could be fun I suppose.
Sorta shopping around for new games. I don't want to join something without a good community, and PA'ers are the best. What do you guys think?
I really can't offer much when it comes to the PvM part of the game, though it has a system that is similar to Warhammer in that a side has to kill a 'keep lord' boss in order to take over an area. Mind you that LotRo had this before Warhammer even came out.
If you have ever enjoyed the setting in other media, there is likely something for you within the game when it comes to exploration and story. When it comes to gameplay it has a combat that is fairly like every MMO in existence, but there's not much one can do about that in the end.
Class-wise they are decently varied, you've got the guardian who is the usual heavily armored tank, Minstrel whom is the 'main' healer type, but has plenty of offensive potention along with buffs. Rune Keepers can be healers or DPS quite easily, Hunters are long ranged power houses, Lore Masters are debuffers, crowd control, but also offer good damage along with it. Champion is the Guardian's counterpart, able to tank but has much better DPS potentional. Burglar is not the melee DPS powerhouse you'd assume, but they apparently do quite well, and are more about debuffing the enemy to hell really. Warden's are medium armored tanks, who work off it a four main ability system that has three things, a melee attack, a shield attack and a 'fist' attack to create gambits which build up into different abilities. Very, very strong solo cause of their heavy self-heals.
What remains is... Captain, I think. Heavy Armor, two-handers, shields and one handers too. Not really a tank, more minor DPS/healer/heavy buffer.
You'll enjoy the quests, everything generally weaves together quite easily and you should have no trouble in actually leveling up. I've been at it for about a week or so now and am Level 31, and that is without really trying too hard. As you get higher you also get access to different features, Skirmishes at Level 30 which are from solo all the way to raid instances you can do from anywhere. You earn marks and such to get gear, items, and to upgrade your soldier npc you use while inside. Even higher, late 40's I think? You get access to Legendary Weapons and items, which is equipment that can be leveled up.
Crafting is fun as well, you'll go through the first normal bit to advance to the next tier, but you can continue through that last tier in order to master it and be able to crit on the items you make.
If you've ever enjoyed LOTR, be it the movies or the books, there'll be lots for you to enjoy here.
You rarely feel left behind in this game. Leveling happens relatively quickly, and you won't find it necessary to dedicate 24 hours a day to playing. The entirety of volume 1 (the original Shadows of Angmar game pre-expansions) is soloable now, so you won't find yourself lagging behind looking for groups. You should be able to make it to the currently popular content (i.e. Moria and Mirkwood) pretty easily.
PVP is meh. Then again, I might not be the best guy to ask about PVP in an MMO. Lots of people swear by PvMP, but personally I don't enjoy it. This is more of a game for those who are looking for a solid, epic MMORPG experience. Story plays a huge factor in LOTRO, and as was previously mentioned, your skill and how much attention you pay to your toon will make a much bigger difference than whether or not you play for 12 hours straight every day.
Also, if I may say so, LOTRO has the best crafting system I've ever seen in a game. The required materials coincide extremely well with your level, meaning the area you're in at a given level will mostly have the mats you need for your current tier.
I say, try the free trial. You've got nothing to lose, and you might end up finding a game you truly love.
I just couldn't handle the grind any more past r5 on creep side. Playing on the same map for months on end with CC & numbers > all typical mmo pvp got really boring.
Like the others have said though, the story is by far the best part of LOTRO and it really shines. The world is amazingly detailed and you feel like you are part of Middle Earth. The classes are all fun as well and aside from maybe the captain, none are "gimped" per se.
For example, an overturned cart in the bog area southeast of Ost Gurth... when my RK got his quest to open up superior scholar facilities, one of the four books he had to find was right next to it. Non-scholars might think it's just a random bit of junk in the landscape, but it really isn't.
I finally got back on with my Burglar and got him up to 28. You know, even though I still consider that my least favorite character, I don't actually dislike him -- he may even be gaining on Champ/LM/Cap. Meanwhile, Minstrel and Champ joined RK at 30, with the other 5 still at 29. While I'm still on a roll with the Burglar, I think I might get him up to 29 before moving on to the Warden. There really isn't much of a grind so far, just running quests with blue xp bar sometimes dings you by surprise if you're not watching the bar.
Glorntisms
I didn't find anything annoying about Evendim, to be perfectly honest about it. I didn't even mind the endless swimming all that much. It was a nice break from the action and provided a chance to take in some stunningly well-done scenery.
And yeah, the story behind what Evendim is/was is pretty amazing. It was the first kingdom settled by the Numenoreans in Middle-Earth. Elendil's tomb is there, ffs. Awesome stuff.
To fellate Evendim a little bit more: It leads to another amazingly fun and good-looking zone in Forochel. God, I love this game. It's really the perfect MMO to me, in that it's as close to perfect as any MMO is ever going to get. That's not to say it isn't far from perfect, but...you get what I mean. LOTRO ftmfw.
Admittedly I've yet to tinker with things, perhaps simply turning DirectX 10 off will help.
Of course, I first need 6.5K marks, so I can see myself skirmishing a lot in the next few days
Also, the new rift skirmish has some nice cosmetic gear. I'll take some screenshots and post it here.
Also, given that I'm constantly looting the dead, and would be looting the tombs myself if the Rangers weren't being so uptight about it, it's hard to really see the tomb raiders as being all that bad.
Did they add new normal gear for skirmishes? I remember the gear being pretty mediocre compared to stuff you can get by running SH or old Moria stuff.
I am interested in spending a lot of time in skirmishes, by the way. My kin sees the whole system as a side-system not worth investing time in, but there's a lot of content to go through, with exciting fights all over the place. Why shouldn't you want to explore that? I imagine Turbine will continue releasing more content for it with every new patch.
Plus, getting your soldier to the max would be awesome, mine is currently just a lv65 herbalist geared towards giving my warden power, but it would be pretty interesting to have all his skills completely maxed out and everything.
Just keep the soldier upgraded as you level. At 45 you can start getting super-skills from the skirmish captain.
I have the full +120 set. I just really like the helmet from skirmish vendor. It has lots of Fate and it will be an upgrade for me.
Incidentally, I also noticed that you can now get +10 rad helm and shoulders by bartering normal Moria tokens from 3 and 6 mans (non-raid). I'm pretty sure that it wasn't so in December when Simon organized Moria instances tour for the TBS. I'll have to look into getting those, even if they are not that much of an upgrade (hint to anyone in TBS who would like to run some Moria instances.....:winky:).
Grand Stairs with the rest of the group being higher level should be possible.
Besides that, uh not much.