Great Barrow Downs

It’s been a few days. Not unproductive ones, as I haven’t had time to post. I’ve managed to get to 22. Still miss ‘the Undying’. I managed to get into a GB fellowship. I knocked out all the quests there (except the Into the West quest chain). Also, I completed Book 1. Was a lot easier than I remember it being on my main.

I rolled this character thinking that all I had to do was announce I was a Minstrel looking for a fellowship to do instances or quests and I’d have to use a stick to beat people away. Well, this was a grossly inaccurate assumption. Aside from the GB instance fellow, I’ve had to beg, plead, cajole and eventually get a buddy to ‘run me thru’. This is in violation of my original goals/rules.

I’ve put out feelers for a kinship. I got approached by the ever present kin-channel spammers. They promise the world but all they really want is to pump their kinship member list. The kin I’m looking at has a well done website and I’ve seen them around in the game. Trying to arrange an interview when I’m on next. I tried one night, but all their officers were in the Rift. I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s hella annoying to be doing something like a Raid Instance or a PVP activity and have someone want to chit chat with you. Mention of my hesitation, via their forums, to contact them while they were busy seems to have gained me some cache. We’ll see…

I have to admit, once I lost ‘the Undying’ and hit 20 (now 22), I lost a little zing for the character. Probably take a few days off, play my main (he’s INCREDIBLY fun to play in general) and see what happens.

Oops…

I’m a complete moron. I lost ‘the Undying’ out of pure stupidity and unchecked arrogance. I’d been breezing thru things so easily, I assumed I was 10 foot tall and bullet-proof. I went to the Brigand Camp in Bree to do the ‘A Blade for A Life’ escort quest. I got positively pwned. The thing that’s really galling is, I was going to be helped by someone. I just needed to wait. But, being the idiot I am, I decided to risk it. I’d solo’d the quest on my other minstrel (just before deleting him) and done ok. I did it at the same level and one of the more enjoyable things about this minstrel has been how much tougher and more resilient he’s been.

However, things went bad quickly. I took the first wave ok. The second wave spawns the elite, Blake, and rather than take down the two non-elites, I tried to take him out first. Perhaps that was my biggest mistake. Then again, if I’d tried to heal more rather than try to run, I might have made it. When I tried to run, I got stuck on a logpile and then ran past 3-4 adds. I tried to turn around a high fence and terrain exploit to stay alive, but I didn’t make. I was SOOOOO close that I remain convinced that if I’d stopped to heal myself once or twice (I’d already burned a pot) I’d have made it.

It’s annoying, but it’s not enough to make me start over. I love this toon. I just won’t have ‘the Undying’ as a title.

The Unscathed

Achieved Level 17 and ‘the Unscathed’ title. Doing a lot of grey and green quests as well as a bunch of deeds is mind numbing sometimes. However, I have to again stress playing a Minstrel has its rewards. I did “Shadow of the White Hand” solo, which I’ve never been able to do. It’s a hard quest in the middle of a long chain that’s otherwise pretty easy. It involves a rendevous with an ‘informant’ under the cover of darkness. You have to keep him alive when the other bandits realize he’s squealing on them. Incredibly easy as a minstrel.

Tonite I’ll be on my main, hopefully achieving some stuff I’ve wanted to achieve for a long time, but I should be able to hit 20 by the end of the weekend.

The Indomitable

Hit Level 15, completed the class quest (the one for Minstrels is INSANELY easy). I’m down to two ‘elite’ quests in Ered Luin. I need to do some more deeds and the Elf exploration deed, but I just didn’t have the heart. One thing I’ve noticed about Minstrel; the epic/escort quests are imminently soloable by minstrels. By turning on skill forwarding and target of target in the Combat options, I’ve had great luck targetting the NPC and letting him be the ‘Main Assist’ almost. I do dmg to his target and I heal him. It’s working quite well. These were a LOT harder on my main, who has NO healing ability whatsoever.

I am a bit discouraged. I’m running into some of the same ‘unable to find groups’ thing. I’ve found groups, but I can’t get some of my quests done. Perhaps other people are just not doing the quests. I’m one of those people that has a mental hangup. If there’s a quest, I want to do it. You never know when one quest, seeming unrelated to another quest) is actually a pre-requisite of sorts. However, this was in Ered Luin and I know most people get out of there and to to Bree-land as soon as possible. Sure enough, once I went to Bree-land, I started doing grey quests in Combe and then Staddle. Most of the quests in Staddle were green, and I actually got in a fellow with a Captain named Xenogan. Knocked out Falco’s Folly and that quest about killing the thieves at night. I again have lots of deeds to finish in Bree-land (spider killing, brigand killing, neeker-breeker killing, fly killing, ruin exploration and Dunadain lore). Also need to finish off the swamp quests, but those should be pretty easy. Ready to head over the Adso Haybanks camp and do those quests as well as the dreaded ‘Old Forest’ quests. I’m delaying doing Book 1 because I REALLY want to get ‘the Undying’ and it’s in my head that if I run a risk of losing a shot at it, it’ll be in Barrows portions of that storyline.

Before leaving Ered Luin, I did manage to finish the two dwarf racials, the one for the Head-butt attack (kinda weak IMO. The human ‘Uppercut’ is better) and the +20 Fate one. I only have one slot available at this point, so I socketed the Head-Butt. It cost 22s, which is very high for a lev15 char. I wish I’d socketed the +20 fate. Managed to secure some good gear. Had some crazy lucky drops when I moved to Bree-land.

More later…

Slower going…

Almost to 14. The servers were down on Thursday for the Book 13 patch, so I couldn’t play all day. Didn’t really get a chance to play until tonite. Did play my main the other day, to cruise the new area. God, it was crowded.

Just a tip, but if you’re going to blindly fellow a minstrel, don’t ignore his requests to also do some of the quests or deeds he needs. Or, if you do, don’t whine when he maliciously decides not to heal you a critical spot and you lose your chance to ‘the Undying’. Dumbass hunter.

Doom of the Last-king

Book 13 is here! Patch notes found here. Some exciting stuff there. New area, new armor sets, new cosmetic outfits, fishing, etc.

The Wary and the Undefeated

And so the journey begins….

Ah… To be a low level character again. It’s interesting to me how different the two ‘beginning’ areas are. The quests, for the most part, in Ered Luin are easily soloable. Bree-land, however, has some non-elite quests that are actually pretty darn hard, like the hole Blackwold storyline.

 

Tagetarl was able to hit ‘the Wary’ and ‘the Undefeated’ without any significant difficulty. If memory serves, another title at 14/15 and then at 17/19. At 20 or 21, I’ll achieve the minor bragging right of ‘the Undying’. Not too many people make it without significant help. I’ve already caved a little on my plans. When I created this char, I deleted another Minstrel, a man, who I had taken to lev20. I transferred some little things like the lowbie health potions, some food, and some of the items needed for the first couple ‘Crafting’ quests. That actually sped up the levelling a tiny bit. I was going to link the skills I achieved during the gaming sessions, but then I realized, I could just trust you to look at the LOTRO Resources links if you cared all that much.

Some additional background while I’m thinking about it… The reason I’m doing this is because I’ve levelled another char to 50 and am in what can be charitably described as a non-raid focused kinship. Now, that’s not as damning a complaint as it sounds. I played WoW for a couple years and seemed to bounce between the two extremes of either not being able to accomplish anything because the guild I was in was populated with lazy or unintelligent people, or the other extreme of a hyper structured, active raiding guild. Ultimately, it’s what drove me from WoW. I couldn’t get anything done in either circumstances. In the first, I couldn’t get people to do the things that needed to be done either because they didn’t understand why or because they stubbornly refused to accept my suggestions or experiences. In the second, the raid oriented guilds were so demanding on exactly WHEN you had to be on, HOW OFTEN you had to play and HOW you had to play your character that it was suffocating.

The kinship in LOTRO that my main is in is populated by nice, well meaning people. They just can’t seem to get organized. They want to do Helegrod despite not having the appropriate numbers or balance of classes. The real irony is, Helegrod is pretty much a dead instance. You can get much better gear out of The Rift with only half the raid. But, if they want to do Helegrod, all fine and dandy here… just help your lowbies or those close to hitting the level max hurry on and get there. Aha! This is where this kinship starts falling apart. The leadership and officers are very aloof. They actively recruit lowbies, make a token effort to help and then ignore their requests for assistance in kin-chat. While it’s all well and good to make people work for it and learn how to play, at some point, you’ve got to give in and go spend some time helping people. It’s the only way you’re going to put together a well rounded guild. This is further complicated by the ‘I got mine’ attitude that I’m suspicious is starting to creep in. There is something I need on my main. I’m willing to go help others get theirs. They get theres and suddenly, they can’t be bothered to go back to the place I helped them last week or so to help me TODAY get mine.

It’s frustrating and it kinda makes me understand why in WoW people are so self-centered when it comes to similar issues. Although, I will say that, even though LOTRO is far and away a superior game to WoW in almost every aspect, LOTRO idiotically starts putting instance timers on high level instances too soon. In WoW, that’s only done on the BIG raid instances, the 20-40 mans. 10 mans and below, you can run til your eyes and fingers bleed. And, they’re more interesting instances. LOTRO has a lot to learn from WoW in that regard. The regular LOTRO quests are better than the regular WoW quests and the Book related quests in LOTRO just kick serious ass. Regular instances and the Raid instances I’ve been in are pure crap. In every aspect: difficulty, strategies, look, atmostphere, rewards, etc.

Anyway… Tagetarl made lev10. I won’t have a chance to play again until Thursday. I’m going to a concert tommorrow night. Going to see only the greatest band in Rock history. This’ll be my…… sixth time seeing them? Something like that. I’m taking Thursday off to recuperate and hopefully, Tagetarl can be levelled to 15 during that time. That’ll unlock the Surname registration. Still not sure what last name I want to give him. Will have to think about it awhile.

Took some screenshots of the 1-10 session. Will post them sometime in the next day or two when I familiarize myself with how WordPress.com handles file uploads and whatnot. I think I get 3gb space on this regular, free account, so I might do some cropping or otherwise cut down on  the amount of pictures.

Bye.

 

Coepto Denuo

Hopefully, my Latin is not as rusty as I think it might be. Mayhaps someone will correct me. But…

To begin again, anew. This blog is to record my journeys as a Minstrel in Middle Earth. Specifically, as a Dwarven Minstrel named Tagetarl on the server ‘Elendilmir’ in Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online. My hope is that I’ll either rediscover the game, or at least experience it in a different manner. I’ve just created the character and will shortly log in with him for the first time.

I intend to share this blog with a few select friends who will know both my real life identity and my ‘main’ identity within the game. But the real goal is to be anonymous. To achieve without relying on my existing network of friends and assets. I shall not use my other characters to ‘make life easier’. I won’t entirely role-play, but there’ll be some of that too, I think. I intend to do every quest, every deed, every instance and achieve every accomplishment available to my race and class.

Screenshots, stories, humor, logs of my travels and travails, and maybe even some music and movies of my exploits. Depending on how accomodating I find WordPress.com, that is.