10 Days of Moria

Kill Ten Rats has recently finished their 10 Days of the Mines of Moria, a series of blog posts talking about their experiences with the expansion. Certainly by this point there are already a plethora of impressions about the Mines of Moria and those of you reading have more than likely formed your own opinion. If you're like me though, I'm always interested in hearing what others have to say about the game. Here's the archive:

Day 1: Same Thing, Bigger Numbers
Day 2: Travel Agent of the Realm
Day 3: At the Gates
Day 4: Cleanup
Day 5: More Cleanup
Day 6: Soaking in Novelty
Day 7: Craft Festival
Day 8: Three-Man
Day 9: Rune-Keeper
Day 10: The Wandering Years

Day 1 Reaction

Zubon, the one going through the expansion for Kill Ten Rats, starts out in Eregion, like I did. While he doesn't really complain about the quests in Eregion, the point is that they're more of the same. Same mobs, same kill stuff, gather stuff, talk to people. He's absolutely right. Eregion is hardly memorable for me in the same vein as the Lone-Lands and the North Downs. The only notable interest was the shadow of the fellowship quests, which Zubon didn't mention here. Could Eregion have been something more? Probably, but with Moria on the horizon, Eregion didn't need to be. You can really skip the whole zone without losing out, though I'd recommend doing the aforementioned shadow of the fellowship quests. That's my name, not Turbine's and I don't recall the proper quests names.

Zubon also mentions the change in the combat system/stats. He sees it merely as a nerf in order to be able to expand the game to a level 60 cap. That way the character's power isn't game breaking. I'm curious to know how well this will work post 60. For the moment, it is effectively a nerf to your stats that your rebuild to 60. In all honesty, I didn't notice much of a difference between pre and post Moria on my combat effectiveness. Absolutely numbers, sure, a difference, but my perception was that it didn't make a huge dent in my ability to fight.

Day 2 Reaction

Zubon takes on Book 15 in this post. He's unimpressed, mostly because of the endless travel. Epic it is not, he says. He has a good point, but the epicness is the story in this case, not so much the doing things. Except for the last instance battle (which I haven't finished, by the way, because we kept wiping). Other books are definitely more epic than Book 15, aside from that last chapter.

Day 3 Reaction

Zubon is much more positive in this day's post. He got through the first book of Volume 2 to open up the legendary item 10 level grind to gain admittance to Moria itself. He's not too adverse to doing similar content with a couple new gameplay mechanics. It certainly might seem insane to have to level a weapon to get into Moria, but they way Turbine put it into context, it's not that bad. And 10 levels doesn't take that long.

His point about the layout of Eregion visa-vi Volume 2 is good. That is, you should skip the Eregion content until after you finish Book 1 of Volume 2 because you need to grind your first legendary to 10. But the problem is Book 1 starts in the southeast of Eregion and the player theoretically enters in the northwest - on the opposite side of the zone. So, the vector quests have you go through Eregion first but it's better if you don't. I had a kinmate tell me this and I don't think it's intuitive. There might be a vector quest after Book 15, but I haven't finished that one, like I said. And if I find a vector quest that skips me over content, I'll do the inbetween content before finishing my vector quest anyway so...

I'm glad to see Zubon had a better time on Day 3.

Day 4 Reaction

Zubon finally finishes Book 15 in this post. And he talks about how hard it is. I'm glad I'm not the only one that had problems, although his group only wiped once while mine never got through it. At least, not while I was playing. Most of my kinship later got through it but that was when I was working 13-14 hour days and didn't have the time or energy to log in. I'll get there eventually. But there are higher priorities, like getting my radiance gear set.

He also talked a bit about how you as the player character are rarely the hero of the story, even the epic quests. We're there to enable the real heroes, in the form of NPCs, to win the fight, etc. Sometimes we do heroic things, but on the whole, we help out. That's fine with me. I like being an enabler. Just being a part of something grand, if not center stage, is fine. Others don't like it that way. That's fine too. I think Zubon is cool with this way, although he doesn't really say. He seems to be having much more fun now that he's gotten into the newer content (rather than the iterative Eregion stuff).

Day 5 Reaction

Nothing of note happened in this day. Finished Eregion as far as I could tell. He'll need to hurry up if he wants to get into Moria within his 10 days.

Day 6 Reation

Zubon finally gets to Moria and he's impressed by it's size, granduer, and variety. While noting that the combat doesn't change much except in the case of "smarter" mobs with their equivelent of "stances". Basically they have a set of skills they'll use on themselves or you depending on their stance.

Zubon does emphasize that he's not really a visual person. I am. So my favorite part of the Moria expansion is not the new mechanics (although I love the lengendary weapon system) or mobs, but rather the world itself. I'm obsessed with this world. I love the visuals of it. I should use that to keep me going in my post 60 slump. Exploration. At least until I run out of places to explore.

Day 7 Reaction

Zubon spent his time crafting here. He's a cook, like me, with the character he was running through Moria. He brings up a good point about the tier 6 naming. Why is it after we do things like Feasts of Rohan, the "better than that" food is Bread and Jam? It's a little nonsensical. See my superlative post for more comments long these lines.

Day 8 Reaction

Zubon takes on the Library and the School just outside Mirobel. He thinks they're excellently designed quests with a suitable challenge level. I'm inclined to agree. I got lucky and went with groups that knew what they were doing (or at least one of the people knew what they were doing) so we didn't wipe. Not that I remember. This content goes to show the tallent behind LOTRO. I wish all of the game could be this intimately designed, but that takes time. Some stuff just doesn't have that priority. Like many parts of Eregion. Basic stuff there. But there are gems, like these instances.

Day 9 Reaction

Zubon agrees. The Rune-Keeper doesn't seem to belong in LOTRO. I don't have much to add because I've already talked about this on this blog.

Day 10 Reaction

The key point of this last post is that Moria is Big, with a capital B. Or even BIG. Or BIG. Or BIG. It's so big that I'm at 60 without having experienced half the content. That's an estimate based solely on the number of zones I've yet to visit in Moria. And then there's Lothlorien. I'm immensely pleased about the size and quantity and quality of content in this expansion. I have to admit I have no game as a basis of comparison, so I can't say how Turbine did compared to the rest of the MMO industry, but I can at least venture to say they did well. Most people have praised Moria as an outstanding MMO expansion. They've even won awards so...