North downs and traps

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong tried to find any activity. Kinship organized Pelagir run, I was succesfull. A pity, side quest to save slaves was bugged, one slave was nowhere to be found, quest failed. I performed good, no problems with that. Rewards were – 2 trash essences (tier 7? really?) and 1 worthless earring. Will sell to vendor.

There were no other activity for me. Logged Xantipe.

Huntress started to do slayer and exploration deeds.  Finished killing Wargs, advanced with ghosts and even some Goblins. Explored villages of Earth-Kin (had to ride to Angmar for one), some strongholds. One stronghold remains, at the far end, heavily guarded, full fellowship quests there.
Finding some locations was problematic. One has to employ “reverse logic” there: if target is to the North, go only South and take a path that seems to be most unlikely.

Managed to act as taxi service: teleported one lvl.55 Minstrel to Esteldin. Turns out, I have to be near fellowship to teleport all. First such service…but not last.

Server community seemed to be … kind of cold. I asked about one deed, nobody answered and it is one of basic Hunter class deeds. Was no high lvl Hunter online? Probably was. If I was complete noob, it won’t make nice impression on me.

The day has ended, I earned some Lotro points (have >4000), had some activity and no serious things to do in Lotro.

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Meeting Officers and Dwarf lands

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong participated in Kinship officer meeting. Our beautiful house in Belfalas housing area decorated with such taste you would really want to wander for a day. All Officers, Kin leader. Exchange of ideas, problems, solutions, thoughts. No waste of time – exchanging thoughts, our leader writing down ideas to discuss their implementation. I too was given a task of organizing. Would be my first time, but there I would have support from fellow Officers. A pity had to leave prematurely – real life called.

After strong persuasion by one kinnie – not sure which time in a row (5? 10?) – visited Dwarf lands. Landscape – kind of normal, nothing too exciting. Many dwarves, some of them look like statues, one even mounted (“Messenger from Erebor” with grey ring above head). Some structure I could not enter: decoration only? 3 or 4 quest givers. Background did not impress me: nothing Dwarven-majestic. Monsters: standard rat is around 65.000 hp, wolf is same 65.000, Lynx is some 85.000 and them some fat Hill something – over 100.000 hp. Killed one Wolf, took me 3 hits. Then rode to Mirkwood, kill local wolf, took me 2 hits.

Note: a selective thinking of me. I forgot that Boar in Mirkwood was >80.000 hp and wolf about 62.000. Thought they were lot lower. And no, there was no “me killed with two hits/not able to kill”. Perhabs slaying wolves is easy here. Not sure how about more advanced enemies.

Preliminary thought: could be interesting, yet no wish to purchase. At its best – wait untill discount and all bugs fixed. So far it is not “wow, I have to buy this” region. We discuss these things with kinnie, he reminds me how grumpily I looked at Mordor and now i do enjoy. Yes, my mistake. How grumpily I looked at Mirkwood (but I think most players hated grumpy, dark Elven part) – yes, I had some logic behind that…but was my mistake. He tells me frankly I may enjoy new region.

Xantipe: ran into dead end. Questing in Lonelands, soon ran into Garth Agarwen (hardly escaped elite with 5000 health). Moved to North Downs, many monsters were green – easier – yet soon ran into quests to kill elites. No chance to solo even if I am 6-8 levels higher. The only activity was to kill enemies and grind deeds.

Xantipe also entered Woodworkers’ guild now crafting small and medium patterns, using them. Reputation items and quests brought me to Kindred with rangers of Esteldin. Egalin reputation has to wait. One wise kinnie adviced to level up and return only when I could solo North Downs/Lone Lands.

Stormsong was really happy to aid one Champion in Lonelands. Garth Agarwen, local elites – one shotted. We did some instances, some local quests, Champion survived – and later asked to run some more quests. Alas, I was busy with Officer meeting.

And so weekend has ended, quite good in Lotro.

Patching: patches and faith

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong had nothing to do: log in, take Hobbit presents, rant in chats, ask inf anyone needs help (nobody does), log off. Chats were silent, only few groups for new region instances. One kinnie told me to start Ironfold region – of course, I refused.

After patch players are complaining (except 1 or 2) about monsters. They do hit very hard, normal hit is some 150.000 hp, some classes are just hopeless to stau alive. I think it is intentional, to make players feel more miserable and maybe encourage to purchase something from the store. Which I told with a bit of ranting – “Of course, it will be fixed. We have wise devs. Monsters will hit with 300k”.

Yesterday we saw “patch 23.1.1” telling that monsters hit will be change to “what intended” (i.e. could be even half million…), health be reduced (by 20 or entire 100 health points?) as well as some insignificant changes.

I no longer believe in our developers. Have no faith in their good intentions. They don’t play the game, have no idea how simple player feels, what he loves and what he dislikes, what he wants, they have no reliable data – and thus are doomed to make wrong decisions.

Harvestmath festival has new area, new quests and deeds. All really long and complicated, boring with almost zero rewards (some 1 hour for 3 tokens when steed costs 60 tokens? SSG, you should be kidding).Finally, I filtered out quest for this worthless festival.

Xantipe ran into problems.  First time was killed, at lvl.30, soon killed again…no luck. Yes, it’s Agamaur, forced fellowship area…yet I see no player around to group with. I did not even try to enter part, guided my elites (5000 hp each). Hardly survived duel with one, would have little chance with 3.

I hunted. Hunting goes very well, all thanks to ability to detect enemies. Lurker slayer deeds goes superb. I learned my lessons: kill every single deedable monster in sight.  Spiders, orcs – done, Goblins – close to completion, Wargs need some work, wighs too, troll slaying just started.

Later I understood there is little I can solo in Lone lands. Quests almost ended. Asked for a kind soul to teleport me to Esteldin, entered Woodworkers’ guild, crafted first two recipes and began my journey in crafting Guild.Took one Hunter quest which I liked: go, tell Hobbitses to hide, then locate some Wargs, kill them all…quest done. Got nice bow and new deed tier (tier 5).

And then took North Downs quests. Was happy with territory where “Fellowship reccomended” and I managed to solo…even if that meant runninf grom group of monsters. Now I must level up, just slay things to level up and be ready for these Lone lands.

The day has ended – full of activity on Xantipe and kind if grumpyness on lvl.115 toons. No content to run, no activity to participate, no player to help. And no more faith in our developers.
task for myself: find any positive activity in Lotro.

Update 23.1

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online.

We have new patch. In short: monsters got significantly more attack strenght, even best tanks would have problems with bare survival; 4 Bree touring quests being replaced with one “No Tour” (visit 3 NPSs, get 1200 Bree reputation); new resource instances and (formally) loot increased in tier 2 runs; Strider and Gandalf rooms now have clues who is where. There are some other minor changes.
Result: all players in World report high increase of monsters’ damage, light armour classes have almost no chance to survive, only 2 persons were satisfied with this, others were angry. Would SSG pay attention? No.

I chatted in /World, nobody needed help, there were no runs. Logged in, logged out…then logged Xantipe.

At last some activity. Finished Orc slayer (adv.), then Bor lurker slayer, advanced Warg slayer/Emnity of Wargs. Finally, rushed to Agamaur, killed some red ghosts (“glooming grimwaters”), local wighs, some Hillmen. Even managed to kill one elite with 5000 health. Fight was almost lost, I won it by accident. And to thing I kave to get through lots of them alive… However, I managed to finish some of quests, turn them in, receive new.

Oh yes, we have Harvest festival. Maze is once again new, new quests, “Trick or Treat” now involves dressing in some weird robe and looking for sweets in housing areas. Kind of stupid, but it does not bother me, I do not do Harvest festival. It’s short, non-effective.

And so the day has ended, it was grey and of little inspiration for me in Lotro.

Reputations

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online

I logged my toons to deposit some reputation items to Shared vault. Then Stormsong hunted for Wardens of Annuminas reputation items. Soon I had some 150 items, each +700 reputation worth.

Xantipe logged, teleported to home, used taskboard items for Thorins Hall, then equipped with better armour and use almost all reputation items. Hurray, kindred with Wardens of Annuminas, then advanced with Trollshaws elves. Finally, there are only 5 levels to Thorins hall reputation.

And then, some trolling in World chat aside, had a talk with one kinnie. Long talk, he listens to me for a long time. Listening. Understanding. Not judging. Sometimes adding his own impressions, like “Dwarf region is easy”.  For me it’s hard to believe, hard to find anything positive there. Maybe I need more talking, even more listening and, of course, bug fixing + discount for that grumpy region. Maybe.

The day has ended. Nobody to help, almost nothing to do. Yet – no grumpyness, which is main achievement.

Hunter – Minstrel – Hunter

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong was the only active. As usually, nothing to, just stand in Bree, talk in chat. First of all – developers locked new region’s (I don’t care if it has actual name) instances. Probably fixing bugs. That’s what happens when you launch almost non-tested product.

World chat was not very active. Zero Seregost runs. Some discussion about embers/motes and getting them.

I was able to aid one player. A Hunter, lvl.18 – initially some killing in Barrows, then we moved to Lone lands. Explained him to aggro as much as possible so that I can nuke. It did not work as intended, but we were succesfull to do as many quests as possible within, say, 1 hour. I killed every goblin/craban/orc/warg in sight. Hunter managed to get to some lvl.22, boosting about quests that give huge xp. Not sure why rush though. We finished with burning killed Eglain and destroying some spiders’ stuff as well as escorting 1 NPC to safety. It was easy for me to nuke anything, kill one named Goblin with one weak shot – in short, fun.

It was a relaxing time. Just run, nuke all you can see, cast protective bauble every few minutes, then nuke again.

This run reminded me my own Huntress, Xantipe. She is lvl.30 (I guess) now and still in Lone lands, enjoying slow levelling (dear SSG, what about store item that halves xp?). I need to return there, get some quality equipment and try to quest in already dangerous Agamaur.

And so the day has ended – short, yet bright one in Lotro.

Hunting optimism

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Lord of the rings online

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong logged in to chat, take Hobbit presents and help those in need. Not so many players needing help – too many levelling groups and negative feedback on new content.

I helped various people, be it lvl.18 Minstrel in Rath Teraig or just a Guardian struggling to finish Great Barrows.

Xantipe, my Huntress, was the only really active. Hunting in Lone lands. Killing every Craban in sight, starting to kill every Orc in sight and, of course, Bog Prowler in sight.  Some slayer deeds (advanced) already done, some are yet to be finished.

The only problem is my survavability. I have no heals, still cannot master attacks and usually end in melee, sometimes with few enemies at once. Yes, it means I am bad Hunter. Equipment is heavily outdated, so had to sue several Universal ingredient packs to craft lvl.30 Guild medium armour. Received some nice Agility items from quests.

Right now I went into first forced fellowship content. Let us hope I will find a group to survive. Grimbark is not easy on level, after all.

Bright side: levelling is somewhat slow and I am wiser to kill almost all deedable enemy, to strike with deedable skills.

Kinnies are optimistic on new content, encouraging me, like “go, kill some monster, then see what happens”. I am still afraid to be owned, as I say – “two-shotted”. And the price is way too high, they should sell quest pack and raid separately.

My life in Lotro is simple: except Xantipe, there is nothing more to do, no need to level up or run Mordor book quests. I stand before closed doors with no option to go back or forward, with no power to break/hack/open doors. Not so good feeling, no optimism (unlike kinnies).

6 years and hunting

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Lord of the rings online, Update 23

Lord of the rings online

Today WordPress congratulated me: it is my sixth year (!) here. Wow. Six years of almost every day impressions how it was to adventure.

Meanwhile in Lotro: all my big toons have absolutely nothing to do. There was nobody to help, only one person asked maybe I needed aid qith questing to become strong lvl.120. I told – “Surprisingly – no”. There is no need to be lvl.116 or 120 except for vanity.

World chat was full of comments on new territories, so far – no positive feedback, only reports on nerfed statuses, nerfed heals, bugged quests. Someone joked about “level 420 update and joints”. Here it began, talks about joints, weeds, mine “no more Kill 100 orcs deeds – instead, Smoke 100 Weed”…At least some fun. One player asked if I finally found good mood. No, I did not, I am still in bad mood, alone, grumpy, sad.

There it began, a long talk about game, my Huntress, Hunter skill. Some players assure me “New territory is easy”, I cannot understand how. It just seems not logic. Our statuses are nerfed, heals are nerfed, equipment is outdated. No official info on nerfing monsters, except that health for some of them was a bit lowered…yet all mitigations, masteries remain. Monsters are stronger than us and yet easy to kill. Not logic.

And then again about my Huntress, reccomendations to go for red tree (well…kinnies reccomended blue one). It turns out, I have a Hunter pocket item.

Which was clear when I logged Xantipe. She got mail, there it was: class items, some oils and other usefull things. Made my life bit easier. It turns out, my own Scholar (Stormsong) can craft those oils and class items. Superb news, finally would have something to do. Tailor (Ahelissa), on the other hand, could craft quality Guild armour at lvl.30.

Xantipe (the only active toon) was active, hunted in Lone lands, did every quests, several times was on the verge of defeat, but still survived. Got first quest for “Guide to Ost Guruth” – go, find some Woman. FOund her, received that and some oils. Now I do understand the privilege of Hunter – it’s fast taxi itself. Right now: Ost Guruth, Michel Delving, Thorins Hall, quick travel with no cooldown and payment.

Situation in Lotro is kind of grim: there is nothing for my lvl.107-115 toons to do. Just stand, chat, open Hobbit presents. Xantipe is the only active toon, able to experience real adventure and grind Lotro points.

I am really happy that other players are kind and encouraging to me, even to my little noobish Huntress. Maybe there is some light in Lotro’s darkness.

Sad and alone

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Lord of the rings online, Update 23

Lord of the rings online

All my toons left Erebor area and are parked in Bree (Storm, Vytautaz) or Thorins Hall (Naktieskarys).

There was nothing to do on Stormsong. I stood, talked a bit with kinnies, asked few times in World chat if anyone needs help (nobody needed). NAll people around me were really busy with new content, asking where to find this or that, details about quests.

I was alone, one who could not find any kind sould to listen to me, to understand my frustrations. Feedback about U23 is still mostly negative, only 2 of our Kinship told they like it.

I was alone with nowhere to go (Mordor mostly done, Mirkwood done, new region would see killed within 2 shots), nothing to do, nobody to talk to, nobody who could listen to me. Sad and alone, I was standing in Bree, riding in Barrows, occasionally healing lower level players. I wish I had a 0,1% of optimism I saw in some kinnies. At least one logical argument why should I even go to new region.

Xantipe quested in Lonelands, but she has really hard time, almost all combat ends in melee, which means I am still bad at Hunter (and since everyone does new content, almost nobody to ask about).

The day has ended – dark and grumpy, probably all days untill Yule would be same: log, take Hobbit present, say hi to kinnies, log Xantipe, quest, log off. Lotro became maze without an exit. I do wish I could hear at least some encouraging words.

Update 23

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Lord of the rings online, Update 23

Lord of the rings online

U23 happened. Game took a bit long to update, then I logged in. Same Thorins hall, letter from Thorin III to visit him. Of course, I did not.

New quest pack costs 2000 Lotro points: a sum I cannot afford. This includes raid, instances and quest pack proper. It would never pay off, why should I pay for content I will never use? Raid – thanks, could live without it. Crafting instances – could live without them too.

Feedback in world chat was almost totally negative. Quests bugged, NPCs almost impossible to find, Lorematers’ pets losing half health, all other people losing their combat statuses and health (although few confirmed increase).

Sturdy keys remain, black keys remain…just won’t drop anymore. Developers even let slivers live. Dailies in Mordor now rewards with 200 motes. We have Ironfold crafting tier which is basically useless. My toon would have no weapons/shields; you can craft certain non-important things. Including Russian-sounding food. Was there ever “kvas” or “pierogi” in Tolkien’s writings?

I was alone. Everyone was doing content, purchasing it, discussing where to find this or that and I was alone, cut off from everything. Wanted one advice from player who was busy with new content.

Once again, alone, with nobody to listen to my long dialogues and understand me. Imagine that you stand in crossroads and every direction you face ends with you being killed, one way or another. Would you be happy then?

There is almost no future for me in Lotro. What I could do, I did: maxed legendary weapons using all available Anfalas scrolls and bound crystals. Mirkwood is mostly done. Mordor is mostly done. Nothing more remains.

I am alone, sad, grumpy and hopeless. The only quality f2p online game slowly turns into nightmare.