LOTRO Goings On

Hunters are a lot of fun, and very handy with their transportation skills.

Lore-Masters can be tricky to learn, beyond the pets. Their fire spells are great main attacks and they're excellent at controlling aggro with their stuns. I think it's either at level 39 or 40 they gain the ability to equip a sword for a little more DPS. In fellowships their main role is debuffing, usually.

I think one of the things that kills this game is that they neutered xp from monster kills. You have to quest to get anywhere and that can get more tedious with endless back-and-forth running than killing rats, spiders and wolves. I just found the game got bland on the whole very quickly.

I have yet to try skirmishes and some of the newer features. The class revamps intrigue me. Has anything else changed?

fangblackbone wrote:

I think one of the things that kills this game is that they neutered xp from monster kills. You have to quest to get anywhere and that can get more tedious with endless back-and-forth running than killing rats, spiders and wolves. I just found the game got bland on the whole very quickly.

I have yet to try skirmishes and some of the newer features. The class revamps intrigue me. Has anything else changed?

Crafting now grants XP - you won't have a problem levelling in this game, though if questing is a problem for you, I'm not sure how else you were proposing to advance.

Monster XP is still pretty good as long as you're concentrating on your level or higher mobs; lower than than and yes it tails off very quickly.

Leveling is hardly a problem in LOTRO anymore. I typically outlevel an area before I even finish the story and/or quest chains.

Andon wrote:

Leveling is hardly a problem in LOTRO anymore. I typically outlevel an area before I even finish the story and/or quest chains.

This. I even had to buy the XP Disabler for my Warden after I left Moria; by the time I wrapped up Lothlorien, I had already out-leveled Mirkwood before I even got there! I had a similar situation when I got to Enedwaith, too. So yeah, if you're worrying about leveling, fangblackbone, just do the solo content as you come across it and you'll be fine.

Character update: My hunter is THE BESTEST THING EVER. Seriously. I love the run & gun playstyle of the Huntsman line, and the Trapper line is great for larger groups and elite mobs that need crowd control. My Warden is now retired to the quiet farmlands of the Shire where he can farm, cook, and tailor armor to his heart's content. My old Dwarf guardian is selling off all his worldly possessions and giving everything away to my hunter in preparation for his journey to the Undying Lands. My Lore Master? I'm keeping him, as he's definitely fun and will be a good character to jump into every now and then just for something different.

I can't wait to get home and get back to adventuring across the Lone Lands!

After a long hiatus, I have finally come back to LOTRO. I'm playing with my 14 year old son. And we're having a blast. I insisted that we start with hobbits, simply because that opening zone is so good. He went with a Hunter, I chose a Minstrel. We've been playing for weeks and we just hit 65 and finished off the Moria book quest line.

The content has been of little challenge, but it's been fun. Part of that has been because we're a duo and LOTRO is *very* friendly to running quests in tandem. Quests, skirmishes and even many of the "solo" books have been easier with two. The other part of that is my Minstrel is extremely powerful. I'm putting his Hunter to shame. I have an old RuneKeeper from years ago and gave that a try and my Minnie feels so much more powerful. Everything is instant cast and I have enough big damage shouts to really take a big whack off the ole' morale bar of mobs. It didn't hurt that I found a level 54 Legendary with almost perfect abilities on it. After leveling it up, +30% to my main shout, +30% damage to my AOE abilities and +20% to my minor shouts allows me to hit like a truck. Considering I played a Minnie to 45 even after the War-Speech fix, it's just night and day. This Minnie feels almost overpowered, except that I can die pretty easily if overwhelmed. Finding a good class has always been my biggest challenge in LOTRO, but I feel really comfortable with this one now. It's the first time in my life where I can say that my "healer" actually feels powerful.

I like so many of the changes since it went Free to Play. Getting reputation seems so much easier. I had to work on the men in Forochel because I didn't quest there, but that was the only horrific grind (4 hours). Rivendell wasn't easy because the trinkets don't drop that well from Goblintown. But the dwarves, Bree, Mathom, Eglain, Rangers of Annum...all were very easy. Lothlorien took about a day - we ran all the quests one day and came back for a half a dozen daily quests the next. Questing in many zones was so much better. The Lone-Lands was the typical quest-and-hub system and worked well. Angmar was still a bit of a pain, but that was the only zone we didn't care for. Evendim was so much better and we were done with that zone before we ever hit Ost Forod. Moria was a massive surprise. I remember spending weeks there, but the time and the zones just flew by.

Our questing has been Shire > Lone Lands > Evendim > Angmar > Eregion > Moria > Lothlorien. We've done skirmishes along the way, but entirely skipped Bree, North Downs, Misty Mountains, Trollshaws, Forochel and many of the zones in Moria (Redhorn, Water-Works, Flaming Deeps, Foundations of Stone, etc.) beyond the book quests in those zones. We could literally level again and never do the same zone twice. Of course, we're both subscribers so we can see all of the content without dealing with Turbine points. But I purchased the last 3 expansions all with TB points I had on my account. Very nice.

Now since I've already seen all this content before, but it just seems more fun this time. We're off to Dunland and Isengard (we're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!!!) and then to Rohan. I thought I was burnt out on MMOs, but I'm having a blast this time. We're not even guilded...just two lonely Hobbits wandering Middle Earth.

Some other tidbits:

Money has been easy to come by, especially as a miner. I have 140 gold at level 65. My son doesn't sell much and he's still at 50. Too bad we can't buy a guild house.

Really, the only thing we can't do are the 3 man instances. The mobs hit us too hard if we try to duo those, even if we're +5 or even +10 levels.

Love the Hobbit gifts. It's kind of cool to log on and see that you got a freebie.

Some of the items on the store are overpriced. I shouldn't have to pay 500 TB to disable leveling (but I finally did). But they also accumulate pretty fast if you're doing rep quests. I'll probably have enough to pay for the next expansion when it comes out (which is Gondor).

I have coincidentally reinstalled LOTRO after a long vacation. I have a lifetime membership so I don't understand why I just don't keep a permanent place on my hard drive for it. My house is most likely gone (I never spent any time in it anyway). Just such a good game, very solo friendly (which is how I prefer my MMOs). The graphics are dated but still pretty. Just such a well put-together game. I'm just so surprised it is not even more successful than it is.

I've just come back as well - played since beta but not yet played about with the specs system for characters. Time to get another hunter going I think.

Now's a good time to get back into it. They're going an anniversary festival thing until the 29th.

Sounds like some time in 2014 they're going to add a new class: Beorning. They're going to be a light armor class that can turn into a giant friggin bear.

So a druid?

Pretty much, yeah.

I immediately thought of Cernd from Baldur's Gate 2 when I heard them describe the Beorning class. I'm sticking with my dwarf hunter (who's now well into Moria) for the foreseeable future, but it could be fun to try out.

Jumped back into this again. Working through my elf lore master.

Wait, what? There's a Beorning class now?

*Checks internet*

Whelp, I'm back in.

I have a lifetime membership to this game, and it's a travesty I don't play it more. It's free for me at this point.

Yup. I don't know when it's coming out, but it sounds interesting. They had originally planned on it starting as a level 50 class, which totally turned me off, but now it seems it'll start at 1 and progress like all the other classes, save that it won't have a unique starter zone. That turned me back on to it, as I really, really enjoy the beginning zones in that game. There's something sublime about questing in the Shire or Bree-Land.

Finally got to Dunland the other day with my dwarf hunter. It's Isengard or bust at this point; I'm gonna get at least one class there if it kills me. =P After that, I'm either gonna pony up and get the Rohan expansion, or play my level 14 human hunter I've been warming up.

I am trucking along. I got my Elf Loremaster to Level 15 and I'm still wrapping stuff up in EredLuin, but I then went back and progressed my Elf Hunter to Level 10 and I have been playing with my Son who is working on an Elf Champion. We are on Landroval if anyone is interested in grouping up. This is by far the longest I have stuck with this game and I think my recent rereading of the LoTR and Simarillion. Havn't paid any money yet but I will. Just not sure how to. There are so many options to buy stuff in the store I am not sure how to approach it. I figure I will play until I feel need to spend the money.

I hopped back in for a while, see how it goes. Two of my characters have their warhorses, so my next goal is catching up the 30 or so levels to the current content.

Rooney, isn't worth tossing the devs *some* money for their efforts?

So, i haven't played this since well before it went FTP. But after getting some starter pack thing on the Humble Bundle a while ago I thought I'd try it out again.

Is there anything unusual I should bear in mind, or is the whole experience pretty standard? I think i may start with a Lore Master.

Everyone still on Landroval?

MrDeVil909 wrote:

So, i haven't played this since well before it went FTP. But after getting some starter pack thing on the Humble Bundle a while ago I thought I'd try it out again.

Is there anything unusual I should bear in mind, or is the whole experience pretty standard? I think i may start with a Lore Master.

Everyone still on Landroval?

Unusual? Not that I'm aware of. Though this is really the only MMO I spend any significant time in, so "unusual" might be normal for me.

Lore Master is a really powerful class right now. Spec down the Keeper of Animals and watch your pet wreak havok on everything.

And yeah, I think most of us are on Landroval.

Any special events coming up?

Not sure if there are any coming up, but there are only a couple of bonus days on at the moment.