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Lotro – The Road to Moria

Lotro – The Road to Moria
First expansion of this game is Mines of Moria

It’s been more then a year that LOTRO has been out. I’ve been playing ever since and I am still having fun. In the fall there will be an expansion to this game. All the free updates to this game has ended with book 14. Out of all the free books I enjoyed book 14 update the most. I’ll be reviewing the other books soon but with this new update the live events really made it enjoyable for everyone!

Now that the last free content update has happened everyone is looking to the first expansion. From some of the press releases this expansion seems it will be very good. You can already pre-order this expansion which should be released sometime in November.

 
 

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LOTRO: The Mines Of Moria Announced

LOTRO: The Mines Of Moria Announced
Mines of Moria has been announced for LOTRO

Today was a big day for the players of Lord Of The Rings Online (LOTRO). The first retail expansion for this game has been announced. It’s called “The mines of Moria” and is expected to be available in fall of 2008. Since the launch of this game Turbine has added 4 new updates for free. This expansion will be the first update which will need to be paid for. The reaction in the forums have been positive and the majority are willing to pay extra for this. Many LOTR fans have been waiting to adventure in Moria. The maximum level for a player will be extended to 60 also. There will also be 2 new classes added called the “Rune-keeper” and “the Warden” but no further details on what role they will play. I have also found some more details of a new Player vs Monster Player (PvMP) area in this expansion as well.

 
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Posted by on March 14, 2008 in Mines of Moria, new content

 

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LOTRO: My review of book 11 update

LOTRO: My review of book 11 update
Level 50 minstrel and rank 7 weaver in LOTRO

Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) has been updating their game almost every 2 months with new changes and areas. Book 11: Defenders of Eriador! was added on October 24, 2007. This book brought a new smaller 12 person raid called the Rift with a balrog to fight against. I haven’t done any raiding in this game yet but I have heard this raid is very challenging. I also have reached level 50 with my minstrel and rank 7 with my spider in monster play. I’m the first rank 7 spider on the server I play on so It’s a big accomplishment but I get no new skills so that’s a disappointment.

New update allows housing for everyone in LOTRO
The inside of a kinship housing in LOTRO

This update also allowed players to buy houses for themselves and for their kinships. Players can decorate their houses with brand new items and some crafted items. There are 4 different housing areas for each race: dwarf, elf, hobbit and man. I picked the hobbit housing for my characters and kinship house just because that is my main race and my kinmate liked the houses.

The misty mountains was expanded with a new area which includes the goblin-town. Trollshaws area was expanded too. A lot more quests for the higher levels were added with some great items with good stats. You might also meet gollum in one of these quests. It is a fun quest when you finally find it and doesn’t break the lore at all. Gollum’s cave in the Goblin town area is a a great place for fans of the Hobbit book to visit. It’s not easy to get to unless you are a high level character.

Book 11 update for LOTRO brings new skills

Lore masters and minstrels got some new skills which really was a great addition. Lore masters can rez (resurrect) a fellow player and have more pets. Some of these pets are passive and only for looks. Lore masters can lay tar down on the floor which makes mobs slow down to a crawl and vulnerable to fire. Minstrels can now do some good damage if they sacrifice their healing a bit. Minstrels get some better healing too but the best part is now they have better dps for solo play.

Some changes to other classes didn’t play well with players. Hunters biggest damage skill now places a big x mark on a creep in PVP so it’s a warning for the creep to get out of the way. When hunters track players in PVP the creeps get notified of being tracked now. Burglars didn’t appreciate the 10 second timer on their sneak skill which didn’t have any before. But Burglars are still the best at PVP and can still survive easily.

Monster players can now use warband maneuvers which allows a stronger attack within a group. This only used to work on the freep side but only to npc characters. Now both sides can use it on any player character or npc’s. In my opinion this was not the right thing to do. The attacks were too strong and it pauses the fight which is not good in a PVP setting. I’ve suggested to keep the group attacks but not allow them on player characters. The creep side got some needed skills for higher ranked players which allowed for better fights. There were plenty of silly bugs that got though testing but I felt these were not as bad as the last update.

This update provided a lot of content for high level characters. The housing was the best due to the chests which allowed players to save more items. The rift seems a big success from what I have heard and read. It’s challenging, entertaining and gives great rewards. The new skills for minstrels and lore masters were great and it made players have more choices on how to play their class. The new skills made PVP more difficult in some ways with the tar being the most hated update skill.

I give this update a 8.5 out of 10.
 
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Posted by on January 16, 2008 in new content, review

 

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Revisiting Lord Of The Rings Online Part 2

Revisiting Lord Of The Rings Online Part 2

This is a continued post about the updates to Lord Of The Rings Online since today. Click here for Part 1.

On August 20th, 2007 the second free content update was added called “The City Of The Kings” which features book 10. Watch the trailer here.

The book 10 quests start in Evendim and occurs mainly in Annuminas. I haven’t started on this book but the quests look challenging and interesting. Annuminas has plenty of hard enemies and instances for the higher level players. Other quests have been added throughout the world for all levels. This new update also changed the user interface. Players can resize the controls and icons to fit better on their screens. Some of the classes got more skills like the captain and hunter. This update seems like it gave some needed stuff for the higher levels but not enough to satisfy some.

Players can now play as a chicken in a separate session. You have different quests to do and you can gain a new cape and some destiny points. As a chicken you can walk among the other players but you can’t attack or talk to them. A chicken starts at level 1 and can not gain any experience. This is actually a fun little side part of the game and I hope they expand on this idea for the future. Trying to run in places where wolves and bears try to kill you is hard! At least a chicken can evade and run really fast to get away.

You can play a chicken in LOTRO now

Reputations have now been added to the game which allow players to gain some nice rewards. A player can do quests for a particular group to gain points. These points will gain favors and rewards which can be bought or traded. The amount of stuff you need to collect is a lot and becomes a big grind to get more reputation. I find the hobbit reputation the hardest due to very rare drops. More vault space for your items have now been added for a price at certain levels. This was a needed addition but they still need to add more bag space either from crafting or buying them. With all these quests, players need more space to hold items.

Crafting has also been updated with jewelers making earrings and bracelets. I hear that jewelers are making lot of money from these new recipes by selling stuff at the auctions. Scholars can now track their resources which was was very much needed. So this update gave some nice stuff for crafting including plenty of new recipes to find.

Monster play had plenty of changes implemented. All the keeps can now have defenses like boiling oil. This could have been a great idea but in my experience it isn’t working as it should. It kills too many people all at once when it should at least slow the attackers down. The creeps had some of their damage increased and health increased. It actually makes ranked creeps a bit better at fighting freeps. The biggest change is that they allowed players to play as a troll and a ranger. Now this could have been great for some great battles but the trolls seem like they are just too powerful. The trolls have massive AOE attacks which scatter the players. The rangers on the freep side can stealth and kill creeps with one shot. The rangers can be handled if they have no backup. The trolls can be taken down easily with a really good group of players. Before this patch the freeps could easily take the map when they wanted to. Now they can only take keeps with good tactics and less creeps around. This patch needs to be fixed so it becomes a bit more balanced for monster play.

LOTRO gets some new session play characters

In my opinion this update introduced more bugs and less needed content. Some of these bugs were awful and easily should have been seen on the test server. Having a whole building disappear with lower graphics on is one example. The game is still fun and the higher levels have some new content but I am hearing that they are getting bored. I have paced myself and don’t have plans of getting to level 50 any time soon. So for me this game is still entertaining enough for me to continue playing. The next update might happen in October or november. I’m hoping they will add more quests for us solo players and better stuff for the players at level 50. They better fix monster play or this part of the game might not entertain players anymore. I give this update a 6 out of 10. The bugs and poor planning with pvp really brought me down. The next update looks promising with player housing! Fun Fun!

 
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Posted by on September 4, 2007 in experience, new content, review

 

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Revisiting Lord Of The Rings Online Part 1

Revisiting Lord Of The Rings Online Part 1

I’ve been playing Lord Of The Rings these past months and got my main minstrel up to level 44. I have another minstrel at level 42 which I don’t play anymore and a captain close to level 30. I’ve been playing mostly in monster play on the monster (creep) side as a weaver (spider). The creeps fight against the free peoples (freeps) who can only come out in the ettenmoors after level 40. I thought it was a good time to report on the updates and playability of this game.

On June 13th, 2007 the first free content update was added called “Shores of Evendim” which features book 9. The books are epic quests which roughly follow the main story from LOTR. Watch the trailer here.

Lotro has a new area called Evendim

Evendim map was opened up above the shire with new monsters and quests to be done. Some of these quests are hard and you need to be over level 30. The salamanders are a fun enemy to fight against because they can blow fire. The deer in this area can attack as well so be careful! The worst part of this area is the huge lake which takes up a big part of the map. Fastest way to get across it is to swim very slowly. They really should add a boat or something to get across this lake. Also this update brought in a very hard quest called “Thief-taker’s Bane” which really needs more than 1 minstrel. Most of the players who finish this quest really hate it but It’s a good challenging quest compared to some others. This is a fun addition especially for the level 30 to 40 people looking for solo quests.

Each class can now get unique epic armour from drops and the first 24 person raid was introduced in the Misty mountains called Helegrod. I Am not high enough to try this raid but I’ve heard it can be rough. Some have complained about the lack of epic drops in other areas outside of raids. I don’t know if I will try a raid when I get my character to level 50. I only raid in monster play right now.

There was some much needed changes to the crafting professions too. Farming is now more profitable and is needed for the cooks. Before this patch cooks would be able to buy all ingredients from npc’s instead of regular players at the auctions. Now this has changed for the good. Farming is now profitable and cooking is not as easy as it was.

The music system in the game got better with two additional instruments. A drum and bass can be bought to play music. They also added a way to play abc notation from a file. This brought in some fun for regular players who couldn’t play as well as others.

My spider in Lord of the Rings Online

Monster play had some changes happen on the creep side and some incentives for the freep side. A major change was to the spider who now can spit poison making it a range attacker. I actually created a spider of my own around this time and have been playing one ever since. I am now rank 5 on Elendilmir server and rank 4 on Firefoot server. Ranking a monster player can only be done by killing freeps.

My personal opinion of this update was that is was needed for more solo quests but it brought in some bad bugs which needed to be fixed. I still haven’t finished the book 9 quests yet so still need to do more with this update. This update also brought some new enemies to kill for level 40+ players which is desperately needed for this game. I give this update a 8 out of 10. I liked it and was entertained for a few weeks and I still have stuff to do in this area.

 
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Posted by on August 31, 2007 in experience, new content, review

 

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