LOTRO Goings On

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The Yule Festival is still going on, through the 30th. If any of you have checked it out in the past you might want to have another look as they've added another 4 cosmetic items to the barter vendor.

They've also consolidated all Skirmish currency into three units: marks, medallions and seals. That means stuff that used to cost marks you could only get in level 65 instances can now be purchased with the same currency you get out of level 20 instances (with reasonable prices). Which is very cool for lower level players like me, but also kind of sucks that the level 65 item I bought off the auction house for 3 gold is now worth a couple hundred silver at best. Guess I'd better go farm... Black barley's still a pretty good crop.

I still really enjoy LOTRO! My Warden just hit 40, and I ran out of zones I hadn't purchased. I was able to pick up a 5000 point card online from turbine.com through the holidays and get all the zones from 40-60 for about 3000 points. So now I've pretty much gotten all the major paid content. Now if I can just get some spare time to play!

My highest is a level 37 Champion. I also like my 34 Rune-Keeper but I have one of every class up to at least 20 (and one additional Dwarven minstrel at 15, by the name of Daveyog Diggyhole).

I still play on my 51 hunter & 20ish captain. Buying zone content is the best way to go for me because I play for a week or so then take a long break. Even my stingy brother spent $20 in the Lotro store last week.

There are guides on the internet on how to farm LoTRO points quickly. You can do simple deeds to gain them.

How is the F2P doing? Can one still enjoy this game without a monthly sub? Casually speaking of course. I used to sub, but I play MMO's so casually that I hate spending $15/month. Is it as simple as dropping a few bucks to play various levels?

The story/main quest content is all free. The side quests are pay-per-region. If you subscribe though, you get all regions unlocked until your sub wears out.

The cost of side-quests varies based upon the amount of content included. You could always just grind your levels out by doing deeds and killing mobs and not pay for side-quests. Doing deeds (grinding mobs) does reward with Turbine Points. Then you use the points to unlock side quest areas.

The newer regions you can buy physically and get all of their included content (paid expansions). You can also buy them with points in game from doing deeds.

I mean if you're cool with grinding on mains and alts, you can get the whole game and not pay a dime. If you would like to quest and enjoy the story, you will want to buy a region every now and again with purchasing points. There are frequently sale promotions on points, so you can get a couple thousand for $20 which should unlock an area or two. Each area is good for maybe 5-10 levels.

The really nice thing is once you reach max level and have the top level stuff unlocked, there's no sub fee. Just hop in whenever you want and run the content.

Ok, thanks GoldenDog. Maybe I'll hop back in, and see what's going on.

I'm certainly not opposed to dropping cash on stuff, I just hate paying a monthly fee, because it makes me feel obligated to play.

Still love this game - my Captain is now 72, and has survived a series of trials in Saruman's dungeon having been turned over to him by a load of collaborators. I did wonder what the smell of garlic was, now I know....

Aye,

I have a level 75 Champion and a level 75 Guardian. Although a bit on the short side, I really enjoy'd the Isengard expansion. Purchasing the regions is far better than paying a subscription in my opinion. With a subscription, you loose the content when it expires. If you pay to unlock them, you have them forever and on all of your characters.

When my guardian unlocked a zone, it is account specific, so my champion got the zone content as well and I will never have to pay for the same region twice.

I'm still hooked on the game. My 75 hunter has completed the SP content so far, but I'm still happy running the Galtrev dailies for relics and leveling up my skirmish companion. Once he's maxed, I'm looking to take advantage of the new skirmish currency to round my kit out.

El-Producto wrote:

I'm certainly not opposed to dropping cash on stuff, I just hate paying a monthly fee, because it makes me feel obligated to play.

Yep, same. Here's a chart showing quest areas and point costs. A point is roughly equal to a penny, depending on how many you buy. For good mmo content its a steal, especially if you plan to replay zones with alts.

Of course, I blew all my points the first day on fancy dresses

My wife and I have lifetime subs, and we still find some useful things to burn points on. F2P has done tremendously well for Turbine; LOTRO is now on a 1 per year major release schedule, and DDO is about to get it's first major expansion in SIX years due entirely to F2P revenue...

This is great news because Turbine really does build it's worlds well. Lots of story, lots of stuff to see and do, and reasonable systems. My favorite MMO company.

Riders of Rohan this year, looking forward to seeing how they fill the empty spaces on the map. I've loved Enedwaith and Dunland.

I've been playing a lot of SWTOR lately and it's torn me away from LOTRO. I'm enjoying SWTOR but I keep finding myself wishing I could be back in the LOTRO world. It's such a beautiful look that I miss. Soon, LOTRO, soon I will return.

I've got a lifetime sub to LotRO and am playing a bit these days. All of the Eldain folks have moved on to SWTOR for the moment so my time in lotro is sparse but if anyone needs anything send me a PM here. I have a GM Tailor and Cook. Can make the newest recipes but not crit them.

My Hunter is lvl 70.

edit: Landroval server

The Mithril Edition is coming Feb 21, 2012. Checking out the details, it might be a good deal for some of us.

Here's what you get for $29.99
2000 Turbine points
Exclusive Steed of the Horse-lord mount -for each character, available at level 5 (horses are around 1900 or so points I think)
Quest packs that include:
Trollshaws (normally 595 points)
Eregion (695)
Moria (the quest pack, not the actual expansion pack. It doesn't include the dungeons. Most people who have tried the solo quests would agree they're a necessary chore)
Lothlórien (595 points)
Assorted crappy stuff.

Pre-order bonus: 500 more points.

That's a ton of content for $30 considering there's no monthly fee. Downside, I guess, is that you don't have access to the quest packs til 2/21.

It doesn't include the two new classes (Warden and Rune-Keeper) I think. The classes cost 795 points apiece. You do get a horse but you'll need to either pay 95 points per character or subscribe and get to level 20 before you can ride.

Even just for the mount and the points, $30 is a pretty good price. On the downside, you need to give that $30 to GameStop.

Hey, looks like the Treasure Hunt event is going on. For those of you who are new to the game or oblivious to some things (like me), the Treasure Hunt is a quarterly event you can access through the festival stable in each of the main towns. Neither its coming nor going is well advertised and there's no indication how long it'll be around; the one back in December lasted a single day. The current one was still going on last I checked.

You take an assortment of tools out into a treasure field, where there are a large number of marked dig sites, the contents of which are randomized every round. Using dowsing stones and trained cave claws you can determine which sites contain the largest (and best) treasures, or you can just dig blindly. There are two quests that reset every 15 minutes, each rewarding another 2 treasure-hunter picks (in other words, two more opportunities to dig). One of them requires you to pick berries from 5 bushes, which can be hard to pull off on crowded layers (and they're all really crowded). Each round lasts until a few seconds after someone uncovers the one "Huge Cache," or until 75% of all sites have been excavated. I think there may be a timer on it too.

The chests contain an assortment of goodies, including some unique cosmetic items, furniture, and emotes. The Huge Cache has a chance to contain one of three festival steeds, which seem to be better than other festival steeds and more on par with the paid ones from the Turbine store (68% increased speed and 250 morale). They include:

Jackpot Horse/Pony and Goat - A white animal loaded down with treasure that sheds gold coins in its wake.
Cave Claw Horse/Pony - A horse in a cave claw costume that reminds you how gross and nasty cave claws actually look.

My usual strategy is to find an area with a lot of nearby dig sites (such as directly in front of the NPC up on the hill in the treasure field) and fire off a cave claw as soon as the round begins. If it finds a huge cache, I dig it up. Otherwise I'll usually wait until the next round, just because there's so much competition. At a slow pace like that it's pretty easy to make those 2-4 picks last the 15 minutes before you can go get more, so you never need to switch to an alt to keep playing. I've managed to get four horses that way (still no goats :().

I have a level 30-ish Rune Keeper, but am finding that the thought of playing LOTRO doesn't get me excited. Thinking about why, I think it's because I spend so much time in combat but find the Rune Keeper quite bland and repetitive to play. The rotation of spells is simple and I just find myself doing the same thing to nearly all enemies.

In WoW, I've got a lvl 85 balance Druid and a lvl 60 Warlock, both of which I really enjoy playing. I've also got a lvl 80 Rogue which I've not played in some months.

Could anyone recommend ways in which I can either make my Rune Keeper more fun to play, or perhaps a different class to try out which can offer interesting more complex combat?

tyagi wrote:

I have a level 30-ish Rune Keeper, but am finding that the thought of playing LOTRO doesn't get me excited. Thinking about why, I think it's because I spend so much time in combat but find the Rune Keeper quite bland and repetitive to play. The rotation of spells is simple and I just find myself doing the same thing to nearly all enemies.

In WoW, I've got a lvl 85 balance Druid and a lvl 60 Warlock, both of which I really enjoy playing. I've also got a lvl 80 Rogue which I've not played in some months.

Could anyone recommend ways in which I can either make my Rune Keeper more fun to play, or perhaps a different class to try out which can offer interesting more complex combat?

Have you tried a lore-master? The LM has a lot of different tools, and when I'm not just enjoying exploring the world for its own sake, getting into precarious situations with an LM and using all of those tools to struggle out of the precarious situation can be a lot of fun.

Lore-Master would be a good choice. They're a highly tactical class and need to approach every fight in that kind of mindset (they even have a skill that lets them get detailed information on their target). They also get pets, which can be a lot of fun (I'll occasionally turn on auto-run and go through a populated area shouting, "THERE'S A BEAR AFTER ME!").

What about the RK class appeals to you the most? If you like the ranged combat you might enjoy Hunter. They can be pretty tactical too, especially once you get into setting up traps. If you like engaging combat, take a look at the Burglar. They need to pay attention to everything about their enemy, from its directional facing to how it deals damage and have a lot of layered, conditional attacks.

By the way, I like the Solid Snake prinny.

Thanks. I might try a Lore Master.

From my time with Warlocks and Druids in WoW, I like the mixture of Damage over Time spells and Direct Damage/Area of Effect spells. However, I'm not really getting much enjoyment out of the Lore Master's range of spells. Maybe I just need to get on and level up, but last time I took a look through the spell book there wasn't much which jumped out as being really exciting.

tyagi wrote:

I have a level 30-ish Rune Keeper, but am finding that the thought of playing LOTRO doesn't get me excited. Thinking about why, I think it's because I spend so much time in combat but find the Rune Keeper quite bland and repetitive to play. The rotation of spells is simple and I just find myself doing the same thing to nearly all enemies.

In WoW, I've got a lvl 85 balance Druid and a lvl 60 Warlock, both of which I really enjoy playing. I've also got a lvl 80 Rogue which I've not played in some months.

Could anyone recommend ways in which I can either make my Rune Keeper more fun to play, or perhaps a different class to try out which can offer interesting more complex combat?

Try a minstrel, Loremaster or maybe even a Captain. have fun

If you're after complex combat, I'd highly recommend giving the Warden a try; the gambit system is probably the most complex and innovative combat system I've ever seen in an MMO.

Warden and the gambit system are a lot of fun. One day I will get back to playing that guy.

For no readily apparent reason I installed this last night. Started a human hunter but only got about an hour of play in after the download/install/download/patch cycle finished so I'm still in the tutorial zone.

I'm on Landroval, which I think is the correct server? Anything I should do first?

tanstaafl wrote:

For no readily apparent reason I installed this last night. Started a human hunter but only got about an hour of play in after the download/install/download/patch cycle finished so I'm still in the tutorial zone.

I'm on Landroval, which I think is the correct server? Anything I should do first?

That is the correct server.

First things first, find someone from Eldain to get you into the kinship. What's your character's name?

Look for Mallinel or Tanir, either of them should be able to get you in.

LobsterMobster wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

For no readily apparent reason I installed this last night. Started a human hunter but only got about an hour of play in after the download/install/download/patch cycle finished so I'm still in the tutorial zone.

I'm on Landroval, which I think is the correct server? Anything I should do first?

That is the correct server.

First things first, find someone from Eldain to get you into the kinship. What's your character's name?

Yeah, link your character's name here and I will get a message to Mallinel. Finding her on her alts is next to impossible, so it will be much easier to just tell her to keep an eye out for you.

Here he is Fithoric of Landroval. Not much to him yet.

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