Bit of Book 15 Trouble

The kin helped me and another member out with Book 14, but before that they did a book 15 instance with some others that needed that chapter. Frankly, this quest is a royal pain in the posterior. We wiped both times we tried it. I mean, it's a long fight, and there's a fair bit you have to pay attention to. I'm rather annoyed by the whole experience. But that's kind of who I am. If something doesn't go successfully the first couple attempts or so, I move onto something else and go back later. Otherwise I'll just continue to be frustrated to the point of anger. Not healthy. So, I moved on. And so did the kin, going to the Book 14 instances.

But, I also feel like I somehow wasn't pulling my weight. Like, the first time I asked "go where?" "Where's that?" "Oh crap, now I'm dead." I felt slow on the uptake, dense, unskilled. I know I'm a decent player. LOTRO isn't particularly heavy on the skill-checks, but in this instance is very much a skill-check. And people thought the session play was difficult. That was cake compared to this. You really have to be on your toes. We even had two minstrels and I play a captain. That's a recipe for success if I've ever seen one. But alas, not the case. I really did feel somewhat helpless to what was going on around me.

We'll have to see how it goes in the future. Right now, I'm not very impressed.

First Look at Moria

I completed Book 1 of the epic quest line for Volume 2 and got my first taste of Moria, Durin's Hall, or Threshold. Can't remember what it was called off the top of my head. I can't wait to explore more, but I'm trying to get Book 15 finished before that.

Durin's Hall 1
Durin's Hall 2
Durin's Hall 3

I must say Turbine has much improved their cutscene sequences after a book completion. It looks freakin' amazing. Blew me away. No more of that in-game fuzzy rendering looking through a ring animation. While still the stylized loading screen thing, it's a pre-redered animation mini-movie thing. I'm much pleased with the improvements I see in this regard. As for the whole quest, yeah, it was cool, but after comming out of Book 14 totally blow away by the ending narrative moments, I'm a little underwhelmed by the enterance to Moria. I mean, we didn't even get to see the whole watcher, just the bloody tenticles. However, if I'm reading the deeds correctly, there will be two other encounters with the watcher that may fulfil my desire for a full on battle with the creature.

In other news, I've worked more with the lengendary item system, reforging my halberd and seeing how that process worked. I'm really enjoying this sytem and can't wait to get some better weapons in there for improvement. Obviously, since I haven't gotten into Moria yet, I'm not getting any new relics. I haven't even found a relic-master or whatever it's called either. Guess they're in Moria.

Do Not Run TOWARD A Balrog

You will die. Or be defeated. Heck, you'll die. Why I didn't realize that? I don't know, but I didn't, and I died. Actually, I thought I was supposed to die, like in the session play associated with Laeradren. However, this time you're supposed to live and escape. Regardless, this session play featuring the Balrog was epic. I mean freaking cool. At least the Balrog part. The rest was kind of drivel quests leading up to it. Yes, the real meat was the visuals. So, this is a screenshot post, but I will say, it's probably better to experience it for yourself in full moving glory. Not sure why I'm even bothering, but I'll do it anyway.

We'll start out with Dwalin's Throne Room. You thought Thorin's Hall was sweet, wait till you get a load of this...

Throne Room 1
Throne Room 2

Now the big daddy of them all.

Teaser
All His Glory
Oh Crap!

You can barely make it out in the last picture (The originals are 1680 x 1050) but that's over half a million hit points on this sucker. And the first Arch Nemesis I've seen. Wow.

A New Volume

I broke my creed to do the epic book quests in order. That is go through the books in sequence. However, since there's hardly a soul out and about in Forochel for me to finish Book 14, and that book is required to start on Book 15, I went ahead and ran through Eregion to complete Book 1 of Volume 2. This book is required in order for you to 1) get into Moria, and 2) get a legendary weapon. I've accomplished number 2 at this point.

The legendary item system is much more straight forward once you're working with it directly, rather than have someone type or talk about it. Get your weapon, identify your weapon, equip your weapon, slot your relics, settings, etc. Name your weapon if you get a naming scroll. And then start bashing mobs with it to give you XP. Now, your first legendary weapon requires you to have it equipped to get XP. All other legendary weapons do not. Unfortunately, this weapon isn't as good as my Mirrored Ancient Steel Halberd crafted for me by a kinmate, but in order to progress, I need to set my lovely pointed object aside and go for a slightly lesser one.

However, as the weapon gains levels, you have the opportunity to increase it's power and therefore even my first legendary item, a purple, could become stronger than my Ancient Steel Halberd - a teal item.

I'm definitely looking forward to getting into Moria itself and being able to start working on better weapons and collecting the bits used in the system.

Going back to Book 1 of Volume 2 (Hence forth just book 1 or B1), I'm miffed that I forgot to take a screenshot of the door. It's quite beautiful and perfectly portrayed from the books. The quests of B1 aren't anything spectacular save one, but just being on the brink of Moria is enough to get me excited. I look forward to delving more into the epic quests and moria, but for the former, I'll be going back to my sequential ways by finishing Books 14 and 15 of Shadows of Angmar before I continue on the Volume 2 epic.

A Grey Day in Eregion

Today I went into Eregion (Caution: Map in link may contain spoilers) for the first time. Unfortunately, it wasn't sunny, but I still think the beauty of the landscape comes through. One of the things I loved about Forochel was the way the devs made the region seem much more open and expansive. Indeed, it was fairly large, but the way the terrain was built you felt less closed in. They've applied the same principle to Eregion, giving it a wonderful wide open scrub land like appareance in most parts.

To me, this approaches what Rohan should be like, only more open and more vast. Wide plains to roam across. I really like Eregion. You can get anywhere fairly directly and the mobs are easy enough to avoid if you're going cross-country. Some places the only way to get to a quest hub is cross country, so keeping it relatively easy to move about is important. One of the reasons Angmar is one of my least favorite zones is because of the density and level of the mobs, posing problems for getting around in Easter Angmar in particular. Then again, it's Angmar for crying out loud. It should not be easy to move about in a barren wasteland ruled by the Enemy.

Lastly, I'd like to finish this post up with a few screenshots. I must say again I'm quite pleased with the look of this part of Middle-Earth. My questing hasn't been extensive save for working on Volume 2, Book 1, but I'll save that for another post.

Landscape 1
Landscape 2
Landscape 3
Jaxom in the Moonlight

I'm Finally in MoM

Okay, after a whole slew of frustration regarding my computer and its upgrade. Well, it was a whole new build, but anyway, I'm finally back into LOTRO. Happy Thanksgiving by the way. So, amongst all the normal things to be thankful for (family, friends, food, football) I'm also thankful I've gotten my computer up and running.

Unfortunately, this is not a first impressions of Moria, but rather of how the game looks now that my system is upgraded... phenomenal. I'm amazed at how well this game looks. Having the DX10 shadows on now really helps bring the world some depth and life. I'm also stoked about my frame rate, which is incredibly better with my new graphics card, an ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB.

I'll probably post some screenshots when I get out to Eregion, one of the new regions. Some place I haven't been yet.

One of the things I wanted to do was to get some video capture of the game in the higher quality settings. Unfortunately, now that I have vista, I seem to be unable to get any video capture software to pick up the game's graphics. Just a black screen. Kinda annoying. I'll have to research the issue further.

More Moria Videos

Massively has linked to three more videos about Moria. Now, if you're a devoted player (I hesitate to use the word hardcore) you'll have already seen Moria. But for those who are lagging, for whatever reason (like me), here's more little tid-bits for you.

ETA on Getting Back Into LOTRO

My motherboard and processor will arrive on the 24th. My HD, RAM, vidcard, and power supply will arrive on the 25th. My case will arrive on the 26th. And I'll be out of town the 27th and 28th for Thanksgiving. So the 29th I'll be building the computer, reinstalling software, etc. I might make it on that evening. More probably it'll be Sunday afternoon, the 30th. That's 9 days from now. The wait is too long if you ask me, but I'm excited about it. Not only will I get back into the game, but I'll also be able to play with the settings maxed out. It'll be sweetness for sure.

Whole Slew of News

So a whole slew of news is passing me buy without posting about it. I'm just so bloody tired after work that most of the time I eat dinner, half-way fall asleep in front of the television for an hour... maybe... and then I go to bed. I don't want to think, let alone read something. We'll see how it goes.

But, since I'm writing this, I'll post something of interest, albeit without my thoughts. There is a two part interview with Jeffery Steefel over at IncGamers. Never heard of the site before but I found it through the TenTonHammer feed. Should be interesting to hear what Mr. Steefel has to say. He's always so excited about the game that anytime I hear or read something where he makes comment, I want to play. I appreciate that coming from the lead guy on LOTRO. It really helps push the game forward if the devs are excited about their work.

Oh, and the new computer is on it's way... or at least the parts are so I should be able to get back into the game without dealing with any more of these stupid motherboard problems.

MoM Collector's Edition Spread

So I bought the Collector's Edition of Mines of Moria. Or rather LOTRO, because every box comes with Shadow's of Angmar as well. Anyhow, I picked that up last night from my local GameStop. Of course, I entered the product key, and installed the game and patched the game etc etc. But what I'm most interested in mentioning today is some of the perks that came with the CE. The best way to describe them would be to show them, so I took a few pictures.

The Box - Pretty cool box if you ask me. There's a magnet that keeps it closed. Much more elegant than a tab or Velcro.

The Box Opened - Oooh! Goodies!

The Spread - So here's the "bang for the buck". Some people might argue 80 bucks wasn't worth it. I argue it so very much was. Because I, despite wanting to remain an unbiased observer of LOTRO, am still a "fanboi" at heart. I really do love this game. I already posted on what's included in the CE, so check out the archives or the official site for that info.

Moria Map - I'm a map nerd. I love maps. Any kind of maps. Even game maps. I love them all. And having a cloth map of the Moria zones is epic for me. Actually, I can't decide what I like more, the nice little gold One Ring sitting there, or the map. It's all cool. And of course, there's the sound track and art book in there as well. Like I said, well worth the money.

Massively Article Round-Up

Massively has posted an article round-up concerning the Mines of Moria. Any and all articles concerning the Mines of Moria are all referenced on one page, so no digging through their archives or mine for links.

Only a few hours away!

Lower Level Mines of Moria Content

Does it exist? Well, to some extent. Certainly the Mines themselves are only open to higher level players, ideally 50-60. But, there is an associated "free" content update in the form of Book 15, as well as combat revamps, a Moors revamp, improved itemization with quests, two new classes, etc. Take a look at this Massively article for the full low down.

In my mind, the Mines, being only open to high level players, is really where this expansion is at. The epic quest line, the legendary items, and the high level instances. Where it really shines for the low level players is the two new classes to try out. If you're one of those casual gamers that likes to dabble in a bit of everything for a couple hours a day or every other day, the two new character slots will give you the space needed to try out both new classes.

The Mines are only a night away!

Tomorrow!

Mines of Moria releases tomorrow. I'll be stopping by my local GameStop where I preordered the game to pick it up. I'm quite excited. Unfortunately, I'm not sure of my work schedule tomorrow and the rest of the week, so I might not have much time for first impressions. But I'll try to get something up.

Granted, I'll need to go through the first chapter of volume 2 before I can really give impressions of the new world content, but I'll probably give a brief overview and commentary of some of the UI changes when I log in tomorrow night.

What Will I do Moria?

Jump off the the Bridge of Khazadum. Why? Just because I can.

Well, actually, I'll be trying to finish up book 14 so I can jump right into book 15 and then into Volume 2, chapter 1 and get into Moria proper. The only way you can get into Moria is if you have a legendary weapon and you can only get your first legendary weapon through V2B1C1... or 2.1.1. That'll be my first goal. And of course, from there I just start checking out the Moria content.

But the real question is if I roll one of the new classes. I really like the idea behind both the new classes - gambits for the Warden and the dichotomy of the Rune Keeper. I will probably try both through the starter instance, just to get a flavor for the classes, but I'm not sure if I'll be keeping any of them around for continued play. My current alts aren't above level 12, and I've been mainly focusing on crafting. I'm a pretty monogamous player when it comes to my characters.

Speaking of crafting, I'm very much looking forward to leveling through the additional tiers of crafting. While cooking and farming aren't the most exciting of crafts, they level pretty quickly. I'm curious to how the crafting guilds specifically work and how it affects crafting.

Oh, and seriously, I will be jumping from the Bridge of Khazadum if I can.

Mines of Moria Patch Notes

You know the moment is near when the patch notes are released. Patience, the LOTRO community manager, released the patch notes for Mines of Moria today. If you're interested in very specific information about changes, fixes, etc, look here. However, you will not find any spoilers about Moria. I know my tongue is now wet... Only three days!