Tobold's Blog
Thursday, April 26, 2007
 
LotRO Journal - 26-April-2007

I'll probably regret not power-farming now one day, but instead I went adventuring yesterday and made level 15. That is an important step, because at level 15 you get your first class quest from your trainer. Very, very nice, the class quest mostly consisted of an instanced solo encounter, and gave some very good results. In my case, minstrel, I got a nice club, and the ability to wear medium armor. Okay, this medium armor ability came as a class trait, not as skill, and so I had to use the only class trait slot I have at level 15 to equip it. (Translation into WoW-speak: I had to choose it as a talent, thus couldn't chose some other interesting talents.) But wearing medium armor instead of light armor is rather important for my survival, especially when soloing. So I consider it a big bonus.

Nevertheless I'm still running around in light armor. The reason for that is my tailoring skill. Although I'm blocked at journeyman, I was able to get some interesting recipes for level 16 medium armor, called "superb leather armor". The interesting thing here is that these recipes are single-use. So I won't be able to produce several of them for alts or for sale, unless I buy several sets of expensive recipes. But I can make a rather nice set of magical level 16 medium armor. As this is now less than half a level away, I'm not investing in any other medium armor right now. The light armor I'm wearing, self-tailored heavy quilted armor, isn't that bad. I only replaced the helmet, but the heavy quilted one made me look suspiciously like a garden gnome.

Overall I noticed that LotRO has a wider variety of armor *shapes* than World of Warcraft. I mean, my WoW priest ran around in the same shape of robe, just with different textures, from level 1 to 70. My LotRO minstrel already wore several different shaped pieces of chest armor, from things looking like padded armor to something looking like a leather coat. And the hats! Every time I get a new piece of head armor, it has a completely new shape, which does a lot to change the look of my character. In comparison my WoW warrior had helmet display turned off until level 70, because all the helmets he found looked like cooking pots, and didn't fit at all on the head of a troll (same helmets on a human or dwarf looked better).

Besides the class quest, I pursued some quests that incidentally lead to me acquiring more traits. I already mentioned my first racial trait, throwing a stone, which quite frankly sucked for a class that already has lots of good ranged spells. So I was quite happy when by killing a lot of spiders I got a second racial trait, hobbit stature, which increased my might by 20 points, nearly doubling it. I also got lots of different normal traits now, I'll have to sort through them and optimize the selection of those that I want to equip.

I also advanced a little bit on the epic quest line that everyone has. Well, every race has a different quest line, I assume, although I'm not sure whether they all come together at the higher level. I'm still in the epilogue, killing goblins in the greenfields.

In role-playing I got my hobbit guardian alt invited into my guild, and started the storyline of the guardian being the adventurous son of the more conservative minstrel / farmer. But I'm still in the Archet newbie zone with the guardian. There are so many things to do in this game, I barely know where to start. Isn't that great?
Comments:
Of course LOTRO is going to be a blast until you hit max, then what happens.

Now, for me, that's no big deal. I'd just quit, but I wouldn't count on the LOTRO end game being any better than the WoW end game, but is it possible that more players are simply giving up on the end game, anyway.

Who cares about treadmills, anymore. There's always a new game to play. I think we might be seeing the beginnings of what I'll call "end game fatigue", so let's hope that mmorpg developers do something daring, and actually give players the option of doing a final end game quest, and then retiring their character - for good.
 
Watch out for a level 3 hunter (yes I like being original hehe) on your RPG server Tobold, Lunedust is here !

PS.: When do I get to use a surf/board for transportation muahaha ?
 
With LotR:O I joined for the first time in a MMORPG a role play server, the reason to get away from the huge population of idiots that frequent the "normal" servers. Before doing so I did think if I would be comfortable within that environment, but you know what its been great so far. If people around you role play, you don't feel so stupid doing it yourself either, its also made the game more atmospheric because of it. Imagine if you were playing a single player rpg and the NPCs in the game wandered about talking Leet speak any atmosphere that could have been there would be instantly lost and that inversly works on a roleplay server where all the players talk in character.
 
Oops I put my comments against the wrong post !
 
i'm enjoying reading about LOTRO. I played in beta some but it didn't grab me. I quit wow back in March burnt out at 70 in Kharazan, best guild on server but it was borring. Anyway, I've thought about dabling in LOTRO and a RP would be neat and keep me away from the grind. Unfortunately I just dont have the time right now as since I quit wow I've devoted all that time to other fun activities. So I'll just keep coming here and reading up on your adventures Tobold. Have an pics of your character you can share, I"m interested in these different looks you mention above.
 
I'm totally right there with you, Tobold. Last night I spent an hour in game finishing up some quests and teaming with a Burglar (Fellowship Maneuvers are a BLAST), and by the time I was forced to log off by the notion of sleep, I had completed 6 quests sure... but I had gathered about a dozen more. Now I know why they have a 40 quest limit on their log as opposed to 20 or 25.

It's amazing to me just how many different things you can work on though, aside from quests. I haven't crafted in weeks because I've been too busy running around trying to accomplish exploring deeds and finish up quest chains.

The up side is, I have stacks of 100 ores to use for my jewellry when I finally take some time to go at it. :)
 
I am there with as well Tobold. Myself and my guild of 6 people (perfect for a fellowship with a nice distribution of classes) have been all doing something new every night. One night we even got bored and ground on some high level mobs (23ish) just to see what dropped and we picked up several 1 time use recipes for some weapons. I play a burglar which is amazing in group settings. Finding deeds, exploring the world, and doing some of the instance stuff (we got up through chapter 11 with only 4 of us and it has been a blast). I like the armor but wish it was a bit more visually attractive. Only heavy stuff so far has really grabbed my eye and that is if it is dyed red or black, umber isn't bad either.
 
I turn off helmets in LOTRO too except for my guardian. I hate the helmets. I am not fond of the crafted armor look, dropped armor often looks decent though.

I want to get the title after getting /kiss ed 200 times so I've been giving away dye to female characters who will /kiss my minstrel. :) He is a scoundrel.
 
You can get a special title after getting /kissed 200 times??

Now all of a sudden I want to play this game!

;-)
 
LotRO titles include:

the Adorable - Recieve 100 /hug emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Alluring - Receive 100 /flirt emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Befuddling - Receive 100 /confused emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Beloved - Receive 100 /kiss emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Dull - Receive 100 /bored emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Harassed - Receive 100 /beg emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Helpful - Receive 100 /thank emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Infuriating - Receive 100 /angry emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Insulted - Receive 200 /rude emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Intimidating - Receive 40 /cower emotes. This can only be incremented 2 times per day.
the Naughty - Receive 100 /scold emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Ridiculed - Receive 100 /mock emotes. This can only be incremented 5 times per day.
the Victorious - Receive 40 /surrender emotes. This can only be incremented 2 times per day.
 
Stoop for a stone is such a clever joke, iirc the next racial is pretty good though. Hobbit stature is bugged for me and a few other people I know, interesting that it works for you.

FYI testing seems to indicate that armor mitigation means very, very little at these low levels, though the stat boosts are important.

But yeah, I've had the "kid in a candy store" thing going on this week, though I rarely want to play more than about two hours in a night. We'll see if the endgame is at all interesting, but the next three months are going to be fun.

I wonder if you've started the epic questline, I just finished book 1 up last night and it was a blast.

More story-based 30 minute instances please!
 
More story-based 30 minute instances please!

Agreed. The final instance in Chapter 11 was a blast.
 
Athough the recipies for the tough leather medium armor are expensive, they are worth every penny of it. If you are able to get a few huron roots from trees in the old forest, the critical for these recipes is better then anything I have yet found, and I am goin on level 22. So if you have the money I would suggest buying the recipes.
 
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