Lord of the rings online

Had some stuff to do in real life (donate some food to cat shelter), so had less time to play. Stormsong quested in Mordor, then understood I had to enter Barad Gur and face numerous too powerfull enemies.

Nope, I’d better do Black book quests. There was one interesting moment: Mouth of Sauron offered peace to Aragorn. Terms were interesting: Mordor is given to Mouth of Sauron, subject to Aragorn (except internal matters), in exchange of eliminating few enemies. Aragorn refused: victory is at hand, why negotiate?

Well, in Aragorn’s place I won’t negotiate with magicians. Any simple Orc that has no cue about sorcery should be given command of some region, supervised by some Gondorian commander. Let them rule, let them fight amongst themselves. Of course, Aragorn thinks on war only. No peace. A pity.

Then, I made one little mistake: took 2 quests that redirected me to 2 regions: one with Spiders (Atli quest line) and one to Naebrand. I had to fight many powerfull monsters, started some deeds, was killed many  times. Lag was heavy, died thanks to it at least one time.

Then, Naebrand. I fought/sneaked my way…and then two guards, too hard for me, me killed. One kinnie volunteered to help, we fought (i.e. he nuked everything, I just followed)…and then eveeyrhting froze.

Fight was lost, “Connection to server lost”. I left angry on lag and my mistake to go inside that Naebrand. I am too weak, Shadow is heavy, my equipment – lousy. Kinnie (Minstrel too) nuked everything easily, I – had many problems.

I know I must not give up. My Tailor can craft Shadowed essences. Naktieskarys theoretically could craft them too. So, when the time comes, I would have enough essences for quality armour. Right now I should be able to use any Dark/Empowered essence I have in my vault. All I need is just one explanation what to use…and maybe I am good to go.

Today we have maintenance. Maybe it would be about game/site/forum lags too.

And so the day has ended – interesting, yet too laggy in Lotro.

Lord of the rings online

Had little time to play – managed to log Stormsong and do Mordor quests. Finding some stuff was (almost) easy, mining last 2 obsidian nodes – too. Things done, returned to local Dwarves. Then rode to local Gondorian camp, told one captive, received note that I thwarted some plans, no further redirection.

Received direction to enter local Barad Dur fortress. Again. Fortress is already good defended, lots of Carguls, Numenorians, trolls inside. Enter again? Well, would do. Only for deeds.

Yes, I am not fascinated by this region. There are some nice things, like famous Order of the Eye, then – local Dwarves, trying to be free from Sauron’s rule and of course, the best of all – Shadowed Pages, they alone are worth this region.

And in Kinship it seems, we have one tradition: should somebody need help, especially in equipment, race against time begins, like “who would aid first?”. One person told – Storm, you need to change equipment. I replied I was low on ash (fact), low on Tokens of Service (fact). Result – within few minutes received a mail with 3 armour pieces. Right after that, another Kinship officer – oh, I can craft… I wish I could repay somehow and wish I knew how.

My life in Lotro is bit selfish (no time to help others), but overall – interesting. Mordor is worth questing, even if ash is very rare.

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong quested in Mordor’s second region. Have really many quests, all interesting. Kill Black Numenorians (The Order of the Eye, yes!), kill their expedition leaders, retrieve letters. Met one Sentry – new autobestowed quest to kill 8 sentries. Some Orcs nearby – new quest to kill 15 orcs. Of course, traditional quests to loot rubble, burn Orcish tents – all done.

Found one outpost full of fell spirits and Cargul. Quest to kill these, I waited and finally killed.

And then – local Fortress. My task was simple: enter and look for some creature. It was challenging – many Numenorians, Carguls, Trolls, sometimes in groups. My DPS were sometimes not enough, so heals were often used. At the end, I found that creature – talk to it first, then talk second time, kill…and look at the Abyss. Quest done, I started to retreat home.
Fortress was impressive. Full of enemies (Numenorian slayer deed was advancing greatly…), of challenges, no “run inside, aggro everything, nuke everything” thing, you have to think twice before attacking…or maybe better to hide and avoid? I found several Dark pages with their impressive stories of Mordor history. Especially liked ones about Nazguls, these were brilliant.

I enjoyed questing. Quests are interesting, some deeds really easy to achieve (Numenorians, partially – beasts), some harder (Orcs). Number of Carguls is impressive, I do enjoy fighting these screamers.  Yes, I would have to face ill-famous Fushaum Tur with various groups – you friend with one – you enemy to another.

Of course, Light of Earendil is a problem for me, I need some 200, need armour with these essences, so would have to work. Almost no time to help others.

And so the day has ended – good and interesting one in Mordor.

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong’s adventures in Mordor continues. There are many quests and I do my best to finish them + slayer deeds. Exploration deeds does not go so fast and well.

I found signal flags, then some more signal flags, finally even more signal flags. Got tired, so did not read the quest text (it was about great many signal flags, I guess…). Then – repair some mechanisms, after that got attacked by Goats, then got deed to shoo goats and take care of some (goat) master.  Most interesting thing – to shoo goats. We collected goat droppings, now we shoo them (not droppings).

“Go and take” quests were not that interesting. The only one that fascinates me is Lost Lore of Udun. I pick up some page and then I hear audio story about certain event, like “The great Grond was made there” or “Sauron ordered to open many smithies”. That’s nice and inviting. Managed to find all 4 stones in Forges of Uudn, then went to kill one Fire grim.

Rest of the story: was redirected to one fortress. Starting was a bit standard – kill these, find that, destroy those. Then I witnessed story of the fall of that fortress how defenders valiantly fought…and failed, surrendering to Sauron and being killed. Story was captivating and interesting.

Then, one twist – I had to help one slave, do stuff for Easterlings, and to find one monster killed with evil Dwarves nearby. Dwarves swore it was not them. yeah yeah, convince me …

Met one lvl.106 Minstrel, asked if she needed help. “Better in company” – she replied, but unfortunately, we had no common quests. Had to leave her.

Questing in that fortress was interesting. Fortress full of monsters: simple orcs, ranged orcs, sorcerers etc.  Then, got some inside quests…and understood it was a fellowship area. Grouped with two, apparently Russian, players, but they just farmed monsters with little doing of quests. One moment I was defeated and left fellowship.

In short -things are interesting in Udun. Content is mostly doable. Forced fellowship content visible. Bad side: no time for helping others, no time for Wildermore and one day I would have to start Alliance quests.

And so the day has ended – good one in Mordor.

Lord of the rings online

We have new letter from Developers! In short: Mordor for Lotro points is at 2018, before that – new Raid; after first Mordor we move to Nothern Mirkwood. Then, working on avatar updates, soe minor improvements, including somethign new for festivals.

I am really disappointed. First: it is obvious we are getting Mordor for Lotro point at December 2018 at its best. Then – all gear we worked at would become obsolete, since shadows of Mordor works only at Mordor. Wellcome to new grind: new armour, new essences (and who cares about Mordor?). Of course, new factions to grind reputation with, new lootboxes, new keys…

Nothing exciting, I would have really little reasons to log into game for a year. Log, do lower level dailies, offer help, log off – that’s all what developers have for me.  Crafting becomes something…banal. You get stuff, craft best gear, fill with best essences…only to discover few motnhs later that you crafted rubbish, wellcome to another system that requires more time to get stuff, craft best gear, get best essences – and yeah, few months later it’s rubbish again.

My Stormsong had almost nothing to do: same borign things, even no will to grind LPs. Life is disappointment in Lotro: untill Yule, nothing to do, after Yule nothing to do. Just great.

Lord of the rings online

Stormsong spent a long weekend in Lotro. One day – off, because of personal life. Other time – Lotro, Lotro and one more time Lotro.

Wildermore survivors’ reputation grind goes slowly and boring, there is nothing exciting in doing same thing 100 times in a row.

The exciting thign was: I was needed by community. One player needed help with Garth Agarwen, where we did landscape things, accidentaly ran into 2 instances and finally completed almost everything. Player died only 1 time, many times instances’ side quests were completed. Then, aided another player in Forochel with local exploration and slayer.
When got tired – I went to Barrows and killed monsters. After return there were always give aways of crafting stuff. As always, most popular are Scholar materials, jeweller ones are of zero demand.

Few times I could not aid everyone who needed it – I group with person A, then person B and C ask for help. Also, had to explain to one kinnie that Kinship does not look positively at powerlevelling. One has to know his/her class.

Decided to do some ninja-stuff. Typically I go to Barrows, look for lower level players fighting local monsters and heal players. Sometimes monsters tried to attack me. Not sure if that was helpfull or not.

I was happy: community needed me, I was of some aid to others, especially lower levels. Was advicing one, aiding other player, giving stuff to another. It felt really good.

Community started new fashion: giving away gold. Typically to lower levels, amount of some 0,5-3 gold. Out of nothing. I (just why me, lvl.115?) received 3,5 gold in a mail. Why? Not sure. Anyway, this fashion is really nice and helpfull to lower level players.

Community joked, last rant was about “Fifty shades of Gandalf the Grey”. We joked hard, had a good laugh ending with -“of course, Christopher Tolkien would approve this”…

On the contrary, Lotro forums are of entirely bad things. Ash is going to be impossible to get – only option is tier 2 raid with long time-lock on chests. So, while in Mordor, no quality armour. Suicidal, unwise move by developers. But hey, they don’t play, don’t listen and don’t care. Bad feedback? oh, not to worry, we’ll ban every non fan boy from forums and get everything throuigh rose glasses.

And so weeekend has ended, quite good in Lotro.

Other news

ASTA: ceased operating for the second time. No pity for them.
Secret World legends:did not miss at all. Sorry.
Guild wars 2:sometimes thinking of returning, but really little wish.

Lord of the rings online

A short day for Stormsong. Wildermore dailies: clean Uruk filth, kill Uruk riders, return to Forlaw; kill Warg pack leaders/members, collect their tales, return to Foralw; kill 15 Goblin riders, return to Forlaw. Nothing interesting.

Other than that – no activity. I am waiting for Mordor, though it looks like developers would almost kill that zone for free players. Zero ash drop from landscape, zero black keys acquiring via landscape/quests and they introduce armour set worth of some 60,000 ash. Oh yes, and cap of ash is 10,000.

Our developers are not wise. Dedicated – yes. Wise – no. Willing to hear community – no. Some are active on forums (Cordovan, MadeOfLions). None is playing game as free/premium players, none has idea of levelling and completing deeds. And those who make decisions, do not listen to any feedback, except fanboys (“Whatever SSG does is right and nice”).

And so the day has ended – not very optimistic for me. Yet I must wait for Mordor and then see how it fares. or – if Mordor comes for LP aty the end of 2019, 2020 or 2027 – wait for Yule.