Soloing 40 - 60

The last solo-questing guide from Turbine was released yesterday and covers the remaining 20 levels. Primarily an outline of the quest hubs and some of the quests to be found at each hub. The mentioned quests all link to the official Lorebook if you're interested in more detail.

Eregion was not mentioned at all in the guide which I find odd because Eregion is almost primarily a solo zone within the level range. The quest progression here is fairly straight forward. Head out from Rivendell south along the Bruinen and up the east side of the gorge when you get past Echad Candaith. Here you start at Gwingris, move out to Echad Eregion, then Echad Dunnan, and finally Mirobel (here you'll find a series of small fellowship [3] quests in addition to some solo quests).

Like the guide said, in order to gain access to Moria you need to complete Book 1 of Volume 2 which is a solo instance opening the Doors of Durin. You can find this questline beginning at Echad Dunnan.

Moria Patch 3

It's coming tomorrow and resolves an issue with the class I play, the Captain. Apparently using Noble mark while also having the trait Master of War slotted would cause escort NPCs to attack you as well as generate 40 times the amount of threat as intended. This seems like a straight forward fix of a couple bugs but of course there are Captains out there who want that much threat and aren't happy. There's always somebody who isn't happy about a patch, even one as small as this one.

Official Patch Notes

Get To Know Your Man

I play a Man Captain in LOTRO. From my experience, the Race of Men are actually played less in the game than the other races, except for Hobbit. Elf is probably most popular, then Dwarf. That's probably because Men are boring. They're the same thing as you, so why would you want to just play you? (See how I just called you boring?)

Anyway, I fell in love with the Captain so I don't really care he's a man. But I should. Men have a very interesting history in Middle-Earth. And a very interesting future. Check out Massively's latest addition to their Know Your LOTRO Lore column... this time obviously about the Race of Man.

Am I Too Nice?

I didn't ask this as a question in kinchat yesterday, but rather just said I'm too nice. But today I thought I'd talk about it. See, I grouped with this other player in a PUG when I was doing the Library and School quests in Tham Mirain, in Eregion. Nothing special happened necessarily except that he/she was a nice player. Well, they weren't mean, but like I said it wasn't like I just met my new best friend.

Anyhow, he sends me a tell a few days later asking for a summon. Cool, I'm in position to do that, certainly. Then yesterday he asks for summon, this time for a friend of his he's power leveling. Probably to play together. That's cool. But I'm in Moria and this person can't be summoned to Moria because they're too low level (required level of 35). So I need to go out of Moria and to a zone that's lower - in this case I ended up in Rivendell. But that required I take considerably more time out of my own adventuring to assist this person I haven't even met yet at the request of somebody I've quested with once.

But I did go ahead and help them out because I wasn't in the middle of anything at the time of the request. I told myself well, if I was I would have probably said no. But I hate saying "no" to helping people out. And that's where today's question comes in... there's got to be a moment where one can be too nice and never get anything done. Certainly I'm probably not going to become the summon service of Middle-Earth any time soon (sorry hunters, that's you) but there's a point where you're going too far out of your way. So, I asked myself, with the realization that I cannot always fulfill requests like this, am I being too nice?

Well, in jest one of my kinmates said "yes" to my statement of I'm too nice, but he might have just as well been serious.

Tooting the Horn

I've never put much weight in user-rated awards. The awards over at MMOrpg.com aren't an exception. But, for what it's worth, LOTRO and Turbine has won a couple of them. This could mean that us LOTRO players (and fanbois) turned out strongly, or that people just wanted WoW to stop winning, or many gamers legitmately like the game. Any one of these could be true, or it could be something completely different.

Of course Turbine is going to "toot the horn" about it all. Grats Turbine. You already have me. Hopefully you'll get more fans from the awards.

Soloing 20 - 40

The next article regarding soling in LOTRO has been released by Turbine. Once again I have to call it fairly basic, mainly going over basic systems, but ones you encounter farther into the leveling curve, such as the reputation or gaining a personal horse. The outline of quest hubs is nice, but you can find more detailed information from player created guides and such on third party sites or the Lorebook.

My advice for this is to jump back and forth between the Lone-Lands, the Northdowns, and Evendim. Sure, you're traveling a lot, but that's somewhat necessary to find quests soloable and that will net you experience to advance your character.

Fellow LOTRO Blog Posts

I thought I'd take a moment to shout out to my fellow LOTRO bloggers. The Ancient Gaming Noob has just reached level 20 with his captain. 20 of course is a significant milestone where the captain can now wear heavy armor. It's amazing what a bit more armor will do for you at those levels. Speaking of armor, I really need to update mine. I'm still wearing mostly the level 47 crit crafted gear. It's hard to find any of the middle-level 50-60 crafted gear on the AH. I'll see what it looks like when I get to the top tier again.

The Common Sense Gamer is still enjoying his time in LOTRO amongst other games. He's recently hit 30 with his Warden. He raves about the epic book quests. I rave about them too. The most immersed I've ever felt in this game (aside from simply wandering around the Shire) is when I've participated in the epic quests. The writing is superb in the game as a whole, but the epic storyline takes the cake. Don't ever miss these quests.

Lastly, Van Hemlock is stoked that he's actually playing the same game as everybody else for once. I'm stoked too seeing nearly all the bloggers I read enjoying the same game I've been enjoying for the last couple of years. Hemlock is particularly impressed with the deed system in LOTRO. I've come to take it for granted at this point, but the flexibility is indeed one of the great aspects of the mechanic. That and for someone whose second letter in their Bartle profile is A for achievement, deeds go a long way for me.

Soloing and Grouping

Turbine has put up a feature article talking about soloing from level 1 to 20. A majority of the article talks about basic strategy that's good to heed in both solo and fellowship situations, as well as brief overviews of game mechanics. The experienced player will undoubtedly know everything in this article already but for the first time player, it's definitely a boon to keep these things in mind. I'd refer a new player to this guide myself.

I'd like to take a moment and talk a bit about the soloing game in general. I primarily solo. However, I've done most of the group quests up to my level as well. That's just the nature of someone who plays for completing all the quests (aside from raids, at this point). LOTRO definitely has a wealth of solo content which is really the best play style for me. There's been many a time where I found myself unmotivated to try and find a group for a certain quest. The only time I found a lack of solo content was when I was at the previous level cap of 50 and had completed all the solo quests in the game. But playing at the level cap is a post for another day.

This of course opens the Pandora's Box of solo versus group play. I think that dead horse has been beaten enough in game forums over the years. For LOTRO, I think the ratio of group to solo quests is satisfactory. I'm not going to say perfect because I don't know if I'd like more group quests or not. But I am happy with the state of soloing in this game. Angmar, my least favorite region is probably the king of group quests. I'd say half of that region's quests are group quests. Do I dislike Angmar because of the group quests? Well, it's not so much group quests as the type and time commitment of those group quests. Many of them, particularly the quests to go out into Carn Dum and Urugarth, take a considerable amount of time to complete.

I think the final quest in the Book 15 quest line - the culmination of the Shadows of Angmar story - epitomizes group quests I don't like. In this case, it's a difficulty that doesn't only challenge your skill as a player. That I have no problem with. I like a challenge, especially overcoming a challenge with other people. But throwing in random luck and a mechanic that is so touchy you can do everything right and still fail really grates at me. I don't think there is much group content like this. The quest for killing Heart-Rot, the wood troll in Evendim, approaches this. Overcoming that, however, gave me a great deal of satisfaction in my accomplishment. Maybe I just need to stick with it when it comes to group content like this. I might just be a little pansyish about the whole thing.

In anycase, LOTRO is built with the idea that you can solo the game and still get as much reward out of it as any other playstyle or activity. I think they've achieved this on the solo and group content. There's still PvMP, raiding, crafting, and the social part of the game that I have yet to evaluate. Mostly because I haven't delved into that content nearly as much. Perhaps in the future, once I complete the Mines of Moria content.

Get to Know the Dwarves

Massively's Know Your Lore column has been recently updated to include an entry about the dwarves. If you're at all interested in where these stern but merry (when drunk) race of short folk come from, check out the article.

One think I greatly appreciate about this column is how it delves into the histories of Middle-Earth found in the Silmarillion and beyond. Many people haven't read any of the books beyond the trilogy and/or the Hobbit. And many players of LOTRO haven't read the books at all. There is a whole wealth of lore surrounding this universe just waiting to be explored. Now, you have to have a tollerance for some dry reading at times, but if you're interested in any of it, I highly recommend checking out the books besides LOTR.

Cleaning Up Eregion

I finished the last quest(s) in Eregion this evening, which were seven quests in Tham Mirdain. Both the school and the library instances. I'm glad to see them out of my tracker, because I was at 41/45 quests. I can't say I'm completely done with Eregion yet because I have a whole slew of deeds to complete, the most annoying ones being more killing in Tham Mirdain, which means going back into those bloody instances. They're fun the first or second time around, and after that, well, not so much. I guess that's typical of deed grinding.

I'm not a fan of the long deeds that require a group to do. Getting a group together for quests takes long enough, but just for deeds means there are even fewer people available. It's the same thing with the Carn Dum and Urugarth quests in Angmar. I'll probably never finish those until there's a couple expansions down the road to get me to a much higher level where I can solo 3 elite trolls or orcs etc at once. I know it's unlikely my kinship would be willing to help. They're busy doing more productive things than helping me on my futile quest for completionism. So, it'll be a while. And the deeds will sit.

I'm having fun with Moria so far. I haven't left the Great Delving (the first "room" in Moria) yet. I'm at that point though, which I thought as a good breaking point to go finish up the Eregion quests. I wanted them out of my tracker, because, like I said, it was too full.

Latest Ringcast is Out

It's been a month, but Lady Sinaea is back with a short podcast talking about some of the high level Moria instances, Tier 6 crafting, and the Moria reputation. Seeing as how I've not done anything that Sinaea talks about, I'm not going to comment on this episode. I'm currently half-way through level 54 and only at the Dolven view in Moria. That's mainly because I took a lot of time going through Eregion, which I have to call pretty traditional content. Nothing really special about that zone except for following the fellowship.

Ringcast

Scalability Beyond Moria

What I mean by scalability is extending the current systems into multiple expansions and an increased level cap. The question I want to raise is how these systems will perform as the game is scaled.

We've already seen Turbine overhaul a system due to a level cap increase. This was the combat system. As I understand it, the previous system used direct percentages whilst the new system uses an index rating. After looking at the mouse-over tool tips on my stats, these indexes seem to correspond to an underlying percentage anyway, so I'm not sure how this new system changes anything except for burying the information deeper into the user interface. I'm trusting what I cannot see here will make the combat more scalable as the levels increase with new expansions.

What I can see is that certain other systems will be a problem, most notably in its use of superlatives, which are adjectives denoting a hierarchy. With the new tier of crafting, instead of a grand-master crafter, I'm now a supreme master crafter. The problem is that superlatives are limited in number. We're going to run out of them, and fairly quickly. So what do you then call the next best tier or crafting item (such as hides)?

Another scalability issue was briefly touched on in my last post about the deeds and associated virtues. There's a finite number of virtues and an ever-expanding list of deeds. Not having gone through most of the Moria content, I'm only guessing, but I'd say it's highly likely that every virtue can be leveled to the tenth and final tier, making additional deeds that reward that virtue useless for all but any title they might also reward. The advanced portion of the slayer deeds are completely unnecessary, so players will pick and choose completing the easiest deeds for their virtues and ignoring the rest. And ignored content, to me, points to a problem - this one being scalability.

How does one solve these problems? For the superlatives, I'd just switch the whole thing over to numbers, unnamed tiers of crafting and material. It's not nearly as pretty as words, but I don't see how it can continue much farther down the road. This is by far the easiest thing to do.

But what about the deeds and virtues? Sure, some of them like the explorer deeds that reward a title have a reward that doesn't cause a problem, but there are far more that have an associated virtue upgrade. We might be able to tack on more virtue tiers for a while, but this is only a bandaid. Like the combat system before it, the virtues will become too powerful. A diferent reward for deeds would be the easiest way to reinvigorate the deed system at this point, however they need to be just as compelling as virtue rewards. What that might be, I don't know. Titles are pretty compelling for me, but I'm a title and content whore.

We'll just have to wait and see what Turbine comes up with. There are a lot more people and smarter people working on this problem than me.

Solo IXP Quests

I took my first step into one of the solo instances for item xp gain. I can't remember the name off-hand but you find it in the Dolven View. You're supposed to clear the area and find an anvil. Okay, seemed easy enough. Word of advice: don't pull the "boss" mob until you've cleared the rest of the dungeon or they all come at you at once. I didn't survive. C'est la vie. I'll try it again at a later date. Maybe one level higher.

These quests seem like a great and quick way to get item experience and/or a damage type change. Nice short instance. I'll probably post something brief about it again when I actually finish one.

Do Virtues Really Help?

This question popped into my mind as I diverted my attention from Moria briefly. I have great difficulty moving onto another area of the world when I know there are activities within the previous area that are incomplete. It I really followed this philosophy, I'd still be sitting in Angmar or the Misty Mountains trying to finish Carn Dum, Urugarth, or Goblin Town amongst the countless deeds out there. Moria would be a long way off with Eregion inbetween.

So, I don't really do that, but every time I look through my deed long, I have this little nagging voice inside my head saying, get those done. It's especially "loud" when I see deeds active that I know improve virtues I have slotted.

That brings me to my point, which is do virtues really help improve your character that much? I think one needs to look at that question from two perspectives: subjectively and objectively. In absolute numbers (objectively) the virtues do improve your character. How much? Well, that depends on what tier your virtue is at. Take a tier 10 virtue and it's almost as good as a piece of equipment in terms of stat boosts. However, from tier to tier, the improvements are fairly small and unnoticeable (subjective).

I think it's a valid pursuit to complete deeds for virtue improvements you know you will use. For me, the one who likes to complete every deed, even the advanced ones that give me virtue upgrades I won't use, maybe not so much. I'm a title whore and completionist though. At the very least, the deeds give a modicum of character differentiation.

Happy New Year!

At long last the holidays are over. My temp work for UPS is finished so I'm actually home again for something other than sleeping. I hope everybody had an awesome set of holidays. I know mine were a nice break from everything. I didn't work on Christmas, thank goodness, but I didn't log in either. Well, briefly to say "merry Christmas" to the kinship, check my mail and pay my rent. Then I was out.

I have to admit I used some of my Christmas money to cheat on LOTRO. I bought Mass Effect. So it wasn't as bad as becoming a WoW convert (hehe) but I must say I became downright obsessed over this game. I absolutely love the story and got completely caught up in it. But I beat that game yesterday afternoon. Lucky me it's a finite single player experience (can't wait for the sequal though).

But now I should be back into LOTRO and regularly posting. Unlike a lot of bloggers out there, I'm not going to be posting any 2009 predictions etc. For one, I only follow MMO gaming casually and via third-parties. Furthermore, I only play one MMO, and that's LOTRO. Maybe I should do some LOTRO predictions, but I can only think of 2: We'll see two new major landscape additions to the game and one new expansion within the next year.

I do hope to see a great year for LOTRO in 2009 and I believe it will be.