The Minstrel Magnet

Friendly vs. Liquid LOTRO

2011-10-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, I was on a Lord of the Rings Online podcast! Woot!

You can download that episode from iTunes here.

Liquid LOTRO is a podcast done by Icywiz and Stephen Spiritcaller of Ravenwood Radio fame, only they're just Steve and Christie on that podcast. :) Steve was out because he was sick, so Christie asked me to sit in and help out. We talk all about LOTRO, and we even briefly touch on a bunch of other MMOs.

If you have a spare hour (perfect for some drive times), download that and check it out. :)

Happy Dueling!

Skirmishes = The Hotness (And ding level 31)

2011-08-17T03:45:00.000-07:00

Shoestrings is now Level 31, in fact he just finished up his level 30 quest involving burglarizing a sword for Palma Brownlock. Here's a pic of us chillin' in the basement of the Forsaken Inn.

It was maybe 1 out of 2 quest completions I've done outside of skirmishes in ten levels. The exp is just so rich in skirmishes that they are perfect for me. I've already done all the quests outside in the big vast world of LOTRO with my other characters, and I don't have a ton of time each day to devote to LOTRO. Running skirmishes for experience and those little skirmish marks I can trade in for loot is making me an extremely happy little hobbit.

I even had a chance to group up with Steve and Christie from LiquidLOTRO last night. I'm finally approaching their level range, and we were able to group up. Here we are at the end chest of the Attack at Dawn skirmish.

It was a little messy and could have gone better, but I think that will come in time as we continue to group up. I died a couple of times just learning the ropes of the significantly harder group skirmishes vs. solo skirmishes. There were a few bosses that I hadn't seen yet (and one in particular with a pretty nasty AOE).

I was happy I was able to try a few of my group specific skills that burglars get to start fellowship maneuvers. I mean the "exploit opening" and "trip" skills are great for an easy stun when soloing, but those two skills were meant for starting fellowship maneuvers. That's a huge benefit of grouping with a burglar, you know?

I asked Steve and Christie if they'd like to try any funky group maneuvers out, and they've just been pounding all red when those pop up.

The three person fellowship maneuvers are all about flushes and straights (these work both forwards and backwards):

Resounding Strikes - Flush - Red - Red - Red
Deception - Flush - Yellow - Yellow - Yellow
Three Pronged Assault - Flush - Blue - Blue - Blue
Mustering of the Troops - Flush - Green - Green - Green
Wrath of the Righteous - Straight - Red - Green - Yellow
Strength of the Pure - Straight - Blue - Red - Green
Sinister Plan - Straight - Yellow - Blue - Red
Will of the Strong - Straight - Green - Yellow - Blue

In a three-person group, these pretty much just do as advertised. Red is damage, blue is healing mana, green is healing health, and yellow is a damage over time. From what I remember in the past, the combos just give you a little extra oomph than if you didn't complete your maneuver in a combo.

I used to really appreciate the extra mana and healing group maneuvers back when I was playing a minstrel full time. It definitely took the heat off of me and made my job easier.

I can't wait to group up more and definitely run through more skirmishes! They're perfect for me and my busy lifestyle. Great to be able to jump on and complete a skirmish in 20 minutes and jump off, and since I've been through all this before, I really don't feel like I'm missing out on the world. I'll come back through the world when I finally decide to level my crafting after I'm a higher level. ;)

Happy Dueling!

Dragons at level 20?

2011-08-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

You know, I haven't played this game "seriously" for a long long time, but recently the universe has been pushing me in the direction of LOTRO, so I've been playing it again. You know, coming into things like free LOTRO point codes from an anon friend and the kinship invite from a couple old Wizard101 friends have really helped with my interest level. (Special shoutout to Steve and Christie from LiquidLOTRO.) Good times.

I've been making ok progress on my Burglar. I'm now level 23 and rising. I even got a goat!

Nice goaty. :)

What really shocked me though was this dragon I encountered while playing through the solo version of the Siege of Gondamon skirmish.

WOW! That was totally an unexpected surprise. It wasn't too difficult, but I think I just found my new favorite thing about this game.

I never had done much with Skirmishes, even when I came back to play a level or two with my minstrel. I wish I had. It might have kept me going with the game. I imagine that once you've gone through a skirmish a few hundred times, it's not as awe inspiring as the first few times, but man . . . what a total blast and completely refreshing. (Not bad exp either.)

Control+J is my new best buddy in LOTRO.

Happy Dueling!

Shoestrings--of diaper-clad Burglars

2011-07-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Shoestrings has now moved on from the tutorial!

With much cowering I avoided confrontation with the Cargul, and with much stab-itude Calder Cob was dismissed to his dirt nap. No biggie. The tutorial is short and sweet.

Shoestrings also earned his first deed!

Hooray for that. ;-) But mostly what I did was deliver the mail. You know, I never was very fond of the mail delivery quests, but it didn't seem too bad this time around. Nosey hobbits didn't catch me delivering the mail at all! Easy stuff.

Unfortunately, I left the game up while uber wife asked me to come into the garage and lift a couple things . . . an entertainment center, a couple TVs, a couch . . . that kind of thing. This isn't unfortunate because I'm a complainer or anything like that, it was unfortunate because the diaper-clad burglar undid my perfect roll through Hobbiton by running my character around without my guidance.

LOL. Well, there's goes the title for leveling to 20 without a defeat. hahaha! I tried to take a picture of him sitting at the computer with a big grin on his face, but I was slow to the draw with the Iphone. Dang cute kid.

That leaves Shoestrings at level 10 and climbing. Almost time to make the trek over to Bree.

Happy Dueling!

Shoestrings!

2011-06-28T04:52:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note for my LOTRO/Wizard101 Crossover buddies -- Shoestrings the hobbit burglar has been born on the Crickhollow server! ;-)

I'm digging the Justin Beiber look. hahaha!

. . . is it just me, or is the tutorial a lot easier than it was all those years ago? Shoestrings seemed pretty invincible out there.

Happy dueling!

Installed, did Weatherstock, and even played a bit!

2011-06-19T04:36:00.000-07:00

Yup, I actually downloaded and installed Lord of the Rings Online again! I'm in trouble now! Far far too many MMOs loaded on my machine for my own good. ;) I guess I have to blame Liquid LOTRO for this. I've been catching up on Steve and Christie's podcasts, and I couldn't help myself.

The first thing I did, of course, was log on my old friends on Windfola: Stingite and Bachelbu. I haven't logged on since before LOTRO went free to play, so it was an experience just to find out what it was like now and what I had "earned' through all of Bach and Sting's accomplishments. The end result was around 3,200 Turbine Points. There seemed to be a number of new badges I had earned and that the exp curve had been adjusted.

The second thing I did, of course, was send inappropriate mail to my good friends Jelalron and Burrwin. ;-) That's a tradition for me.

The third thing I did was level up a new character to sixth, made the run to Weathertop Mountain, and attended Weatherstock! yup, here I am with my new character named "Weatherstockman" at Weatherstock.

Can't tell where I am in that sea of names, no? Ok, how about now?

Still no? Ok, let me help ya.

There we go! Weatherstockman at Weatherstock 2011! After songs would play, he would say, "Weatherstockman loves you!" and then use the /smoke emote. At one point everyone used the /smoke emote trying for LOTRO's largest /smoke out. This was followed with a response of /cough from the rest of the crowd.

How was the event? Well, let's just say it was interesting . . . a little dry compared to something like a Wizard101 or a Freerealms party, but HEY, this is LOTRO after all . . . land of the relax and be calm. Right? Right. It was pretty amazing that people can sync their own music, make a virtual band, and perform in front of a large crowd . . . all online. crazy. And being a part of that crowd was pretty cool.

~~~~~~~~~~

After watching me at Weatherstock, my son was absolutely freaking out and wanting to play Lord of the Rings Online, so I let my middle child on the computer and let him do his magic. He worked his way through the tutorial zone and beyond with minimal assisted help from me and took a lot of screenshots because he wanted to post about it--just like dad. He dictated to me what I should type, and I put that on his blog. (He's a young, high functioning autistic kid that LOVES videogames. The kid could play me under the table any day. And incredibly cute--I'm not biased.)

It was definitely a LOTRO type of a day for us.

Happy Dueling!

Big News! Rise of Isengard!

2011-06-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a year and a half since I've posted anything on this blog. WOW! Makes sense though as I've been playing around with other things.

Lord of the Rings had an amazing announcement today, though, so I figure, what the heck! I've got the time. I'm home sick and all. Might as well blog the awesomeness that is the Turbine press release for their new expansion.

Here's a cut-n-paste of the press release for you (with a little creative line spacing to make it work in Blogspot). Check it out:

~~~~~~~~~~~
NEEDHAM, MA – June 7, 2011 -- Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Turbine announced today The Lord of the Rings Online™: Rise of Isengard™, the next expansion to the award-winning free-to-play massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) will launch on September 27, 2011. Players across North America and Europe can pre-purchase Rise of Isengard to receive special benefits starting today at http://www.lotro.com/isengard.

“Our journey through Middle-earth is now taking us to one of its most iconic locations,” said Aaron Campbell, Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine. “The new regions are going to be truly epic in scale, story, and challenge. In addition to the wealth of features and content coming in September, players who pre-purchase the expansion will be able to use their bonus items immediately as they prepare for the launch of Rise of Isengard.”

THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE: RISE OF ISENGARD FEATURES:

Explore Three New Regions! -- The time has come for you to turn eastward, toward the vale of Isengard. Where ancient forests once flourished, a corrupted waste of metal and wheels suffers under the thrall of the traitorous wizard Saruman. Here, in the shadows of the tower of Orthanc, gathers an army of Orcs and Uruk-hai, toiling to make ready for war. Forge ahead into these devastated lands and uncover new quests, skills, and traits as you strive to thwart Saruman’s ambition.

Dunland – Adventure amidst the bright forests in the foothills of the southern Misty Mountains. Beware the Dunland Clans, rugged warriors tempted by the dark promise of power.

Gap of Rohan – Battle over the legendary pass between Eriador and the plane of Rohan. This key strategic point must be defended against the ambitions of Sauron.

Isengard – Explore Orthanc, one of the iconic Two Towers as it rises over the once beautiful Isengard valley. The once beautiful vale now desecrated beyond imagination by the Wizard Saruman the betrayer.

Advance to Level 75!

Face new challenges and continue to forge your own legend in Middle-earth with all-new epic quests, skills, and deeds as you fight new enemies on your journey to level 75!

Master the Legendary New 24-Player Raid!

Face the ancient evil of Draigoch, one of the most powerful creatures in Middle-earth! Prepare for the ultimate challenge where nothing less than the strength of an entire force of 24 heroes stands the chance of victory.

Starting today, players can take can take advantage of three special pre-purchase offers to celebrate the release of the third major expansion to LOTRO:

Rise of Isengard Base Edition – Includes the full Rise of Isengard expansion plus:

Steed of the Gap, a new in-game mount with matching red cosmetic cloak for every character on your account

In-game title – Guard of the Isen

25% XP boost for all characters on an account up to level 65

Rise of Isengard Heroic Edition – Includes the full Rise of Isengard expansion plus:

1,000 Turbine Points for use in the LOTRO Store

Steed of the Gap, a new in-game mount with choice of matching cosmetic cloak and armor in your choice of red, white or green for every character on your account

In-game title – Guard of the Isen

25% XP boost for all characters on an account up to level 65

Rise of Isengard Legendary Edition – Includes the full Rise of Isengard expansion plus:

1,000 Turbine Points for use in the LOTRO Store

All three Steeds of the Gap, new in-game mounts with matching cosmetic cloak and armor in all three colors for every character on your account

In-game title – Guard of the Isen

25% XP boost for all characters on an account up to level 65

Access to the Path of the Fellowship Quest Packs including Trollshaws, Eregion, Moria, Lothlorien and Mirkwood

Players will have access to all of the bonus items including the new mount, cosmetic cloak and armor, in-game title and XP boost immediately after purchase. The Rise of Isengard expansion itself will be available to play on September 27, 2011. These special offers will only be available for a limited time. For more information, please visit www.lotro.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And here's a couple pictures direct from Turbine to help you visualize both hacking and slashing with your crew and galloping on your new super cool mount in your new super cool clothes (click to make those screensaver worthy)!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's really hard to not take an amazing screenshot in LOTRO, but whoever took these did a great job.

I can't believe you can level up to 75 now. Egads. I think my characters are still stuck back at 52/53 maybe? That 25% exp boost would be helpful. :)

Uber wife thinks those horse crowns are enough incentive to get into the game . . . I dunno, they kind of look a little silly to me . . . especially on the mustache man in red. O.o

I wish I was down at E3 so I could preview this content! Ahhh well, I'd rather be sick at home with a headache than sick at E3 and not be able to enjoy it fully.

Happy Dueling!

Nice Interview by Eurogamer

2009-12-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

.

I just got my LOTRO newsletter in e-mail a couple of days ago and FINALLY had some time to read it. It was the basic polished product that Turbine distributes. At the end though, they had a link to a really nice redux of the skirmish system written by Daniel Etherington of Eurogamer:

CLICK ME!

I found this paragraph particularly interesting:

On first entering a Skirmish, you summon an ally - your Soldier. The idea is that he's a volunteer from among the Free People, and, as explained by Turbine's Brian Alosio in his Developer Diaries, "they are not as well trained as the Captain's Herald or Lore-master's companions. In battle, they will act without your orders, engaging the enemy as they see fit... they are not well-disciplined enough to be managed as much as seasoned soldiers." So don't expect squad controls. Instead, you define your Soldier's behaviour through the options in the new Skirmish panel. There are four tabs: Attribute, Skill, Training and Personal. The latter is how the Soldier has a direct influence on you: a buff, in other words. The Attribute is what Role you want your Soldier to take - effectively its class. With each Role you also get a special bonus. So the high-damage, ranged-attack Archer gives you an increased critical rating, the heavily-armoured Bannerguard support role gives an Armour Aura, and so on.

Interesting that the soldiers are not as well-discipined as the herald or even the Lore-master's animals. Methinks I smell a way to make Captains and Loremasters still feel special, which of course they are.

*hands special cookie to Captain and Loremaster friends*

Merry Minstrelling y'all!

Echad Eregion - We Got The Lynx!

2009-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

Please sing with me in tune to the gogo's:

Bachs Got the Lynx

See the echads walking down the street
Fall in line just watching all their feet
They can't guess where they wanna quest
But they're looking for some pests

They got the lynx
They got the lynx
Yeah
They got the lynx

See the rangers just getting out of school
They can't wait to hang out and be cool
Hang around 'til the server goes down
That's when we're not online

Bachs got the lynx
They got the lynx
They got the lynx
Yeah
Bachs got the lynx

Bach'ys music sounds like it's from France
The Prancing Pony gettin' in a trance
Sing the Minstrel and make us all dance
That's when we fall in line

We got the lynx
We got the lynx
We got the lynx
Yeah
We got the lynx
Listen to my LOTRO hijinx
We know you can dance to the lynx
Jumpin' - get down
Round and round and round

. . .

Oh, you probably don't know what the heck I'm talking about, do you?

Well, one of the first things the NPCs in Echad Eregion want you to do is to hunt down two handfuls of lynx pelts.

easy.

But seriously, I have the hardest time taking a bad screenshot in this game. Check em out:

Even an eye full of lynx tail is hawt.

DRUM THE CAT TO DEATH I SHALL!

HIGH FIVES!

I'm happy to report that by the time I got knee deep into Echad, I realized that I needed to head back to Gwingris and finish up a couple things. Yup, oversight happens.

Turdur here was causing a few troubles. AND THAT DINGED ME 51ST LEVEL WOOT! I'm on my way and still haven't used up all my rested exp yet.

Merry Minstreling to you all!

Gwingris Questing Ends!

2009-12-12T19:35:00.001-08:00

yeah.

Um . . . You get here, you do your thing, you help out with some holly and seeds and worms and satchels and whatnot . . . maybe a few half orcs for kicks, and you're done.

*wipes hands clean*

You know . . . really not much to it.

Seriously though, I can't get enough of these wood trolls.

OH yeah, and another thing. Those half orcs I was talking about? They drop components to start your skirmish quest here.

Overjoyed I be at me first skirmishy. arrr!

That first skirmish quest wasn't too tough at all. The coolest part? You get to see Bree in the winter time. :-)

You know, you wonder what thought actually went into making the snowflakes look like this . . .

Maybe it's just me.

Echad Eregion here I come!

Gwingris Questing Begins!

2009-12-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I logged in Bach and decided to actually get going on some of these eregion quests that I had picked up. Among the quests for harvesting holly and planting seeds, the main fighting quest to begin here began with a kill quest to hunt these attractive beasts:

No, that's not just my backside, that there is a Fell Holly Creeper, which wasn't much to worry about, but the quest also asked me to hunt down a number of these signature'ish trees:

Check out those hitpoints!

Needless to say, I was a little intimated by those numbers and that glowing ring around their picture just coming fresh back into the game and not really remembering how to mash those buttons (I'm used to dueling cards out in Wizard101 remember?), but the button mashing came back quickly and before you know it, I had soloed the quest and remembered why minstrels are so freaking awesome. Heals. Period.

So Lithuilas at Gwingris was a little saddened that we had to chop down the trees and defeat his nature buddies, but it had to be done by somebody . . . might as well be Bach.

And as per usual, there was more to be done.

Yup, Lithuilas needed me to thin out these WICKED LOOKING trolls while I was at it.

I couldn't stop taking screenshots of these guys. So awesome looking.

Thankfully their hitpoints were not as nearly as scary as the tree hitpoint before them . . . I just had to kill twice as many.

By the end of my play time I had killed an hour and finished up a couple good quests . . . and remembered how to mash buttons.

I may have to call in the big guns from the kinship for this next quest . . . looks scary.

I should have scrolled down to get a screenshot of the rewards from that quest . . . they looked purple quality. cool!

Merry Minstreling to you all!

The Ultimate Mirkwood Recap, Part 2

2009-12-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, I finally made it through all those links in Part 1, and I'm starting to feel caught up on Mirkwood information. Very cool that you can do animations from your mount now. I can't wait to try it out. The skirmish system sounds great. I like the sounds of Dol Guldur. I most likely will not be raiding, but I can definitely see myself doing the 3 man or full group instances of Dol Guldur. My life just can't hack raiding.

I know nothing about legendary items other than my friend Jelalron said, get started on your Mines or Moria book quests ASAP to start leveling your legendary weapon. /shrug . . . ok. At this point I'd just like a solid hour of play time to be honest.

Ok, so on to Part 2 of this Ultimate Mirkwood Recap. What do I have for you? More links (or more homework for Bach):

Siege of Mirkwood Image Gallery--If a picture is worth a thousand words than our Siege of Mirkwood Screen Shot gallery is worth millions!

Turbine YouTube Channel and Siege of Mirkwood Trailers--Don't forget our incredible new trailers! You can find them all on the Turbine YouTube channel
Siege of Mirkwood Trailer #1 Galadriel's lament
Siege of Mirkwood Trailer #2 Lieutenant of Dol Guldur
Siege of Mirkwood Launch Day Trailer

What the Press is saying about Siege of Mirkwood
Obviously we think Siege of Mirkwood is pretty wonderful, but don't just take our word for it! See what the press has to say!

Massively.com
Developer Tour
Full Coverage

MMORPG.com
Siege of Mirkwood Interview with Jeffrey Steefel and Aaron Campbell
Siege of Mirkwood preview
Full Coverage (screens and assorted news items)

Ten Ton Hammer
The Heart of Mirkwood - A Siege of Mirkwood Q&A with Jeffrey Steefel
Preview
Full Coverage

Warcry.com
Siege of Mirkwood Recon (Preview)
All Siege of Mirkwood coverage
Warcry US Dev Chat Transcript

Whew, ok, I think that gives me enough homework here for now. I asked the LOTRO Community Manager if he has a Mines of Moria Ultimate Recap like this one since I'm really really behind here. I'll let you know!

Merry Minstreling!

The Ultimate Mirkwood Recap (Part 1)

2009-12-04T15:43:00.000-08:00

Hey! I just got a nice E-mail from Rick Heaton, the LOTRO community manager, and he had a TON of links to information surrounding the release of Mirkwood to share. These links went to all the LOTRO community sites. He's calling it the Ultimate Mirkwood Recap (copyright 2009 Rick Heaton . . . ok, that catch phrase isn't copyrighted, but I like it; it's catchy!).

First up is a long list of links for a developer diary look at the new Skirmishes system:

Part 1: Overview
Part 2: Story Instances
Part 3: Randomization and Scaling
Part 4: Skirmish Soldiers
Part 5: Rewards
Part 6: Accessibility
Part 7: The End

Ok, I now officially have a lot to read.

Then Rick lays the true dirt down about all the OTHER features in the new expansion:

Crafting in Siege of Mirkwood
Welcome Back to The Lone-lands
Introducing Dol Guldur
Mirkwood Region
Legendary Item System Update
Legacy Pool Updates
Siege of Mirkwood Skill Upgrades
Combat System Changes
Character Panel and Stat Updates
Mounts 2.0
Shared Storage

Cripes! Did I tell you I have a lot of reading to do now?

Ok, I'm going to stop there for now . . . After I finish digesting some of that, I shall revisit the remainder of this e-mail.

Merry Minstrel-ing! (think I may be close to my own catch phrase there!)

He's Bach!

2009-12-03T04:24:00.001-08:00

So, I bit the bullet and shelled out the money for a few months of playtime and the last two expansions. My character was there and still as shiny as I left him:

Who says dwarves are the only ones who can have beards?

So, my character's name is "Bachelbu," right? But everyone calls me "Bach." It's just too fitting for a minstrel. Anyway, it's a running joke that when I log on the people in my guild (er kinship) all yell "He's Bach!" Last night was no exception. It was good to be "Bach" once again and see some old familiar faces.

A good majority of the night was spent just trying to remember what all the buttons do and trying to find my old house so I could pay upkeep on it and bring it back out of forclosure. MAN, pricey little venture letting your house go into forclosure. It was like half a gold piece to remove all the dust and pay upkeep for a month and a half.

By the end of the night though I was galloping alongside my old friend, Tony. Or, Calab. Or Calrain. Or Jelalron. Actually, he's Jelalron in this game. We've played way too many games together to keep the names straight.

It was good to get some face time again! He got me all set up in eregion and showed me where it was that I needed to start questing. Life is good!

So I'm going to be happy to report all my dings and experiences from this place. It's a beautiful landscape (as illustrated by that picture above), of course, LOTRO is a beautiful looking game. Never a bad screenshot to be taken!

Happy Minstreling! (hmmm, need to work on that catch phrase)

The LOTRO Conundrum--Should I Come Back?

2009-12-02T04:51:00.000-08:00

So last night I patched LOTRO and sat there very quietly contemplating what I was doing. Do I really want to play LOTRO again or am I just happy doing what I'm doing?

You know . . . it really all boils down to getting some rare face time with my good friend, Calrain. But, on the other hand, how much face time will I really get since I MUST make some agreements up front about playing this game again if I do play.

1- I'm not a raider. I just can't put my 3 kids through the loss of their father for 2-3 hours twice *or more* a week. That's just not going to happen.

2-I'm a limited grouper. Once again, I have to be able to afk when things go down off screen in real life. That means grouping with people that fully understand who I am and how I play (I AM extended AFK man!) . . . and that they take my situation with gigantic chunks of kosher salt. Calrain is one of those people. But will guild peer pressure be hard on me?

3-I'm mostly an unknown soloer in a big big world. In some ways that's actually attractive to me. I don't mind some quiet play taking on stuff that I have no business taking on. My favorite memories of LOTRO are when I soloed Beryl Shard droppers in the Bree Faction dungeons. Will I be able to find the same with Mithril Flake droppers and beyond in the new expansions?

Let me tell you . . . I'm am perfectly content just playing Wizard101. It's totally different from LOTRO and yet has those MMO Fantasy characteristics just like LOTRO. But Wizard101 is FUN and BRIGHT and HAPPY (and I'm arguably "famous" in that game). LOTRO is more beautiful and eerie and mellow (and I'm literally a nobody in that game, which has its benefits ;)). Yeah, both have their moments of boredom and both have their moments of intense excitement, but they are about as opposite as you can get.

You know what really gets me here is the cost. The Mirkwood and Mines of Moria expansion are going to set me back $30 and a 3-month subscription will cost me another $30 . . . that's a year's worth of play on Wizard101. Yes, yes . . . I know there are other options like the $200 lifetime subscription, but I'd still have to shell out $30 for the expansions at this point.

My wife said to me last night as I was sitting there pondering this state, "Well, if you want it, then Merry Christmas." Hmmm. What to do.

um . . . hi!

2009-12-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

So, I'm wondering if anyone out there still has this blog tagged in their RSS feed? Hello? Is there anybody in there?

So, listen. I'm excited for all of you LOTRO players after hearing that Mirkwood was going live today. I hope it's everything that you want it to be.

I've been thinking about coming back to LOTRO to play on and off. Heck, I'm behind two expansions, there'd be plenty to write about. Then again, I'm really busy maintaining my new love: The Friendly Necromancer! My time blogging for Wizard101 has really taught me a thing or two that I wish I would have known back when I was actually keeping this blog.

So, hello again, if you're out there. Please let me know what you've been up to and if you're still playing Lord of the Rings Online. You may see me in here once again from time to time trying to catch up to you all.

As I say over on my wizard101 blog . . .

Happy Dueling!

Catching up with Bach

2008-06-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. Turn around and a couple months fly by. Sorry about that. Hopefully everyone that reads this blog has marked the RSS for subscription and comes back to read.

So here's what's been going on with my gaming life . . .

Super Smash Brothers for the Wii -- Really disappointed no one does random internet games on Super Smash. /shrug.
Boom Blox for the Wii -- My son is absolutely addicted to this game.
World of Warcraft -- I, yes, defected and played WoW again for a month. In that month time frame I worked a Rogue up from 1-50 and decided that, no, I don't want to play that game.
Guild Wars -- Every Sunday night our little band of brothers gets together and works through a mission or a quest or two in Guild Wars.
Diablo II LOD -- Old schoolin' it with BPaul. Rock on. Rolling me up a necro, bonedaddy.
LOTRO -- Yes! YES! I came back to LOTRO! Let me tell you that the break was just what I needed to refocus myself. I'm back in the swing of things and loving the new (to me) Forochel area.

Forochel was exactly what the game needed for the upper level soloing game. When I took my break from LOTRO my champion was stalled at level 49. I just didn't have any more solo quests I felt up to doing. Forochel, my friends, Forochel. You just catch a horse ride from esteldin over to tinnudir and then run up north until you get to that freezing cold water.

Stingite dings 50 in Forochel!

Side note . . . that water is cold up there. I mean, in some parts if you get in the water, you're dead in about 10 seconds. You've been warned.

Have fun with what you're doing!

I Found This Hilarious

2008-04-01T04:38:00.001-07:00

The April 1st message is here.

My favorite part is "Crush your foes into 6, 12, or 20 pieces."

Here it comes . . . the mines of moria

2008-03-15T04:34:00.000-07:00

Well, Turbine announced the new expansion and watch out, here come the Rune-Keepers. Jeepers-Creepers! Just sounds like a great new class name, doesn't it?

"Marvin is so funny in kin chat that he shouldn't be called a Rune-Keeper; he should instead be called a Hilarity-Keeper! LOL"

"Nah, Marvin sucks, he should be called a Rune-Failer. xD"

Hyphenated class names ftw. It's built in kinship chat comedy!

The other new class they announced was The Warden. What a completely unfun name. I can't even think of a good rhyme to go with Warden other than Boredom, and that's not even a good rhyme . . . that's not even half-rhyme . . . just some lame quasi-assonance. I hope the class plays better than the name. sheesh.

If you're looking for details, you're going to have to wait a bit. Turbine has set up the mines of moria website and it looks like at the end of March, beginning of April they'll be having you play little mini-games to unlock secrets and information about the new classes and all the other new goodies . . . unless of course they just announce it was a big April fool's joke on us all.

Level cap is going up to 60 as well kids. Have fun with that.

I'm wondering if they'll increase the number of characters you can have in your account by 2 (ala Guild Wars) because currently you only get 5 slots. There's a gal in my kinship who has all 5 slots filled with level 50 characters, and I don't think she's the only one.

Along with this expansion will come six new books worth of quests under a new "volume," so that should be a lot of fun. Rock on. I wonder if you're going to see Gandalf say "you shall not pass" in one of them. /scratches head. Would be cool.

And now . . . pirate picture!

Nalgron, Burwinn, and Bachelbu modeling the new pirate-barbie look!

Crannog's Challenges and Book 12

2008-02-22T12:38:00.000-08:00

So, they recently updated the game again and made some stellar changes in Angmar. I liked this zone to begin with, but now it's 10X more awesome. The quest lines are more logical, the outposts are better, and the level progression across the map just simply makes better sense.

So, I ran both my champ and my minstrel through a series of quests back in good ol' aughaire. The chieftan there (mr. Crannog to you) has a very nice surprise for you at the end of his quest line. I'll let the video below do the rest of the talking.

also introduced with book 12 was THE NEW ULTRA-BARBIE CLOTHING OPTION. So in all their wisdom, the developers added two little clothing slots in your gear, so you can have three outfits to choose for your barbie all while retaining the stats of your "real" gear set. Thank you developers. Now bach can slay the dragon in his party dress. Bless you.

Stunning, just stunning

Sorry no updates in a while

2008-02-09T19:01:00.000-08:00

Hello Minstrel Fridge Magnet readers! I just wanted to apologize for the lack of updates. Truth is I've been cavorting with my champion, who dinged 46 today! Give me a few weeks and I should have two max level characters at my disposal, which is awesome. There's going to be a ton more flexibility with that.

So, random reader . . . if you have any requests for information from a seasoned (well kinda) minstrel, please leave it here, and I'll do my best to respond to you in a future post.

Of other character news, Bach became a grandmaster jeweler and my champ is only a few hundred points away from becoming a grandmaster scholar. What does that mean? That means I can craft the best jewelry items in the game and make all kinds of health and power potions for all my raider friends.

Good times.

And now . . . random screenshot time.

I thought this was a great shot of my champ fighting a wolf in the misty mountains. (click to enlarge)

Gollum Encounter in LOTRO

2008-01-11T23:28:00.000-08:00

So, I realize that I'm behind the times because this content came out a month or so ago, but it's all new to me. There's a little quest you can undertake in South Trollshaws that pairs you with a hunter named Wistan. You see, this "creature" has been KS'ing the hunters out there, and it's miffing them. To boot, you have this . . . thing . . . sneaking into the local's houses and sniffing at their cribs, so they're a little freaked obviously.

I did this solo instance twice and made screenshots and captured it a bit with Fraps. Gollum has always been my favorite creepy character ever since seeing The Hobbit cartoon.

So, without any more delay . . . I present to you (in all it's ancient stoorish hobbity goodness) my latest Youtube, the Gollum Encounter in LOTRO . . . it's hella good.

Ettenmores for Exp at 40th level

2008-01-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

I had hinted on this in an earlier blog entry . . . when you hit 40th you can travel to the Ettenmoors, right? right! It's actually cheeper now that it was as well . . . for the cost of 1 silver, you can buy a trip there.

I recently did this with my little Champion alt who dinged 40. Easy exp my friends. There are at least 4 quests you can do that will net you easy exp and 3 others that could possibly do the same as well.

What you’ll want to do is take the hike like no other quest, the quest to visit Ost, the quest to visit hoarhollow, and the cleansing the hoarwell quest. Before you log in, you may want to visit the AH and pick up 10 hoarhollow ales, 5 historical books of rhudaur, and 10 historical notes of Rhudaur. Why? These may be hard to find, but if you do manage to find them, when you get to Ost, you'll have 3 more quests you can do turn ins for and get exp.

click me to make me bigger!

So, that map shows pretty much the path I took while completing these quests. I'll detail them below

1- You start out here in Coldfells at the Freep main base. Follow the arrows through the back path up to Ost Ringdyr.

2- Here in Ost Ringdyr you can do the turn ins that I mentioned above and complete your first quest. You'll also flag a location for your Hike like no other quest.

3- From Ost you'll want to make your way up to Isendeep Mines to be flagged as visiting that for the Hike like no other quest. As a side note, if you're a miner and this area is controlled by the free people . . . yum . . . mining goodness inside.

4- After making your way back to Ost, head on out and a touch north so you can get flagged for visiting Tirith Rhaw (TR). Just touch the North side and you'll be flagged as far as I can remember.

5- TR is just a quick stop off as you make your way up to the top of the waterfall. Now this is kind of risky. On top of this hill that overlooks the waterfall, you have a good chance that it will be controlled by the Creeps. If you just go barreling through here you'll get smoked and hate me for my advice. What you need to do is approach the hill from the north and make a swoop along the edge. As you do this, you will attract the attention of a giant mosquito looking mob (pass that first one on the hill to the right) and you'll have a series of archers start plucking you with arrows . . . just keep running and fall down the hill to the top of the waterfall. You'll get a message that you should click on the barrel in your inventory. Do this. Now personally I like to then fall down the waterfall. as you fall down the waterfall, press your back arrow so that you hang on the ledge. Wait for the snare from fall damage to go away. Then drop down the rest of the way and swim along the bank and follow the arrow to 6.

6- Manuever your way to the grim lumber camp so you can be flagged for the hike quest.

7- Head on over to Hoarhollow and talk to the mayor to finish a quest.

8- Next, take the long way around and over to Lugazag and get flagged.

9- Take a hop, skip, and a jump over to the bridge to be flagged for visiting Tol Ascarnen. Now all you have to do is make your way back to Coldfells and you're done. Easy exp and a few tokens to boot.

Your milage may reeaaaaally vary . . . this is just how I would do it. :-) Best of luck avoiding the creeps.

Book 11 and the Minstrel . . . hooo boy.

2007-11-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, eh kids? Well Uncle Bach has been busy with stuff . . . like a kid still in diapers that has diarrhea . . . ok, I know . . . TMI. But that’s what this blog is allllll about . . . information! Yes! Information! . . . um . . . you thought it was going to be all about diarrhea didn’t you?

So what’s new? Holy smokes! The new minstrel skills . . . that’s what’s new. You see Book 11 was released. This patch introduced a bunch of great things, the first being player housing. Now the metaphor of playing Barbies is complete as I now have a Barbie house in the hills.

I need to talk to my real estate agent about these mysterious blue squares on the ground.

I went with the elf style of house. I chose a house with a super cool deck in the back where you could fish off of (not really since that isn’t in the game yet) and water tube down. Inside my house I have all manner of fancy stuff and even painted the walls purple.

They also introduced a new instance called the Rift. This is a 12-man raid and is a complete prayer answer to smaller guilds. I haven’t gone yet, but this hasn’t excluded me from being asked to go . . . over and over . . . don’t worry I’m always polite when I say no.

It's not you, it's the repair costs . . . I have a barbie house to keep up now don't you know!

But enough of this Tom Foolery . . . gimme the skills man . . GIMME THE SKILLS.

The new skills are, in a word, awesome. I posted a couple of months ago how I wished we had the ability to toggle our skills. Guess what. At the cost of -50% healing, I now can toggle on the “War-speech” stance and have a decent Damage over Time spell (Chant of the Oathbreaker), 2 AoEs (Call to the Elder King and Call of the Second Age), and a faster refresh on my damage shout/stun. This is fantastic for farming. I mean, who doesn’t want to crit on a mob for +700 . . . Unfortunately, the creeps still have time to run away when I’m solo.

The skills . . . to pay the bills . . . repair bills that is.

When I’m playing it, I like to get the DoT burning (Oathbreaker is so neat to watch since it’s a couple glowing swords that hack away at your opponent), begin the rotation with ballad of resonance (to amp light damage), hit call of the elder king (to make ‘em more susceptible to light damage and do some damage), Round it off with Call of the Second Age (this sucker hits for a lot – they have to be right up against you though), and if it’s up tap Cry of the Chorus (to open up anthems), and lay down anthem of the valar AOE. By this time your call of the elder king will have repoped. It’s farmtastic AoE fun.

Long story short for you minstrels: um, don’t use these when you’re the main healer in a group. Sure, you can stance dance if you have a captain helping you cover heals or something, but come on, -50% healing just isn’t something you want to inflict on your group Now, if you have 2 minstrels in a group or (heaven forbid) 3 minstrels, then FIRE IT UP, BABY! Just make sure one of you has enough common sense to declare yourself “main healer.” Hint: bring a bag of tactical crit gear along. Another hint: Remember you’re wearing medium armor and, therefore, are a glass cannon. Don’t go stealing agro just because you can. Yeah yeah . . . maybe the first couple of times would be good just to say that you’re all that, but we know what really makes you all that: self control.

/wink & have fun!

Gold Farmer Crackdown and /anon on

2007-10-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

Pretty much everybody has figured out in LOTRO that if they type in "/anon on", then the spam from Gold Selling websites goes to practically nothing. This is the grassroots effort to silence the annoying tells that look like these:

It doesn't stop there . . . they also like to send you annoying in-game mail, just like back in good ol' WoW.

I've been collecting these screenshots just to kind of illustrate how nuts it is when you're playing and don't have /anon on hiding you from their sight. The problem with this is that when you turn /anon on . . . you're invisible to your friends list and to the zone you're in. So if you have friends outside your kinship, /shrug . . . who knows if they're online or not. Not me! /shrug

I've turned my /anon off, and here's why: I'm cracking down on these fellas thanks to the "spam" reporting feature. Here's what you do, the moment you receive one of these, find a safe spot, hit escape, select "help," open a ticket, click spam as the type of report you're submitting, and type "spam message from www. wherever the link goes.com" and the person's name that sent you the tell. So far I've reported at least 7 names in the past couple of days, and I will continue to report this nonsense . . . but I have to tell you this feels very much akin to "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root" as Thoreau put it. I feel like a branch hacker.

So what's the root of the problem? Oh man, it goes deeper than I dare shoot in this blog. MMOs have to make games challenging and they have to make earning money somewhat difficult. When things are difficult, they take time. Some people see these games as a type of "work," and therefore buy gold because their time is worth more money to them.

How deep do you really want to go with that?

This whole discussion could also be looked at from a ladder of abstraction view because the root of the problem is a long root . . . where do you cut and why?

I mean . . .

you could blame a particular programmer for not being energetic enough to develop a "cure" for these advertisements that don't involve the player base.

you could blame that programmer's boss for not directing that programmer.

you could blame Turbine for introducing the refer a friend program, which means gold spammer advertisers get 5 free accounts to spam me with.

you could blame MMOs in general for how their business models are.

you could blame the 3rd level of Maslow's hierarchy.

on and on and on ad nauseum. But, for now, what we have in the LOTRO world is a spam reporting feature. I guess I'll take it and use it.

Although, one warning, when you report spam . . . you get spam . . . thanks Turbine, what in the world are you thinking with this deluge of e-mails to my inbox?

FAQ for the PvMP minstrel

2007-09-30T06:37:00.001-07:00

I came across this post from croupier at codemasters, I'm going to copy it in full below (in compliance with creative commons license) because I just think it's a very good read for minstrels (and a lot of companys would rather block codemasters than blogger ;-)).

I've tried to answer a few most common questions regarding minstrel's work in PvMP.

1. I'm dead, why the minstrel doesn't resurrect me?
Few possible reasons:
a) Our combat resurrect skill (from a legendary trait) has a cooldown of 10 mins. If we used it, we need to get out of combat first, to res you.
b) You are too close to creeps. Our res skills have range of 25m.
c) In tight situations (fighting a tyrant or a large group of creeps) we don't have time to res if we need to heal others. Resurrection skills have a long casting time.

2. If I spam chat with "rez plz", "I'm dead!", "need res!!1one" or send a tell to a minstrel will I get resurrected faster?
No.

3. I died! Why didn't I get a heal?
Few possible reasons:
a) No "line of sight". Any small rock, fence, trunk, wall, tree can cause this. Please stay in line of sight.
b) Minstrels can't heal while moving. If you charge or chase a creep - we have to run too. If we run, we can't heal. If you need a heal, stop or even better - fall back a little.
c) There are creeps/npcs attacking a minstrel. Every hit we take makes our casting time longer, even to the point we can't heal at all.
d) We are stunned/silenced. Creeps who know what they do, stun/silence us a lot.

4. How can I protect minstrels?
a) Watch our health. If we are taking damage defend us.
b) If we take damage from NPC try to get his agro. Leaving untagged archers and other NPCs around, will result in minstrels getting their agro.
c) If you see that creeps are on a minstrel, try to root, slow or stun them. If you can heal us - do so please. When creeps attack us it's really hard or sometimes impossible to heal ourselves.
d) Try not to leave us behind. If you do - wargs will kill us in seconds. If we are webbed or stunned wait for us. If you order a tactical fall-back, wait for us to finish our heal or resurrect spells.
e) Try to use your class specific protection skills on minstrels. Don't save them for later or "just in case". We use all our skills and abilities to protect you, often paying with our lives. We expect that you back us up too, if needed.

5. Can minstrels blind NPCs?
Yes, kinda.
We have a skill "Song of Distraction" that reduces NPC's perception by 75%. NPC's can resist it tho (~15% chance from my experience). If they do, they will agro. You can tell that a target is distracted by a black-red debuff icon.
Example: We use "blind" on a Chieftain. Now that Chieftain won't agro, even if a Tyrant is pulled.
Example2: There is only a Tyrant left but there are many creeps hiding behind him, ready to defend him. We "blind" a Tyrant. Now you can move much closer (to 25% of his normal agro range) to him, or go around and nail the hiding creeps before pulling a Tyrant.

6. Omg, wtf? Why that minstrel keeps stealing my kills? Shouldn't he stick to healing?
Minstrels are the only class that can efficiently and constantly damage an opponent from range, while running. That's why we sometimes get killing blows while chasing a creep. For 10k+ kills I got only 230 killing blows tho.

7. How can I thank a minstrel for a great healing?
No need to thank us really. Every class does his job.
But if you really need to - give him some ale. Or a pie. Or both. ;)

Remix! Quick CD run

2007-09-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

I'm still messing around with Animoto . . . here's remix with some highlighted screenshots.

Quick 30-second CD video

2007-09-29T08:06:00.001-07:00

I'm just messing around with animoto and threw some screenshots from the latest trip to CD . . . more later.

Post 50 life?

2007-09-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

It's the question I asked, and it's the question being asked of me . . . what do you do after you ding 50?

1- Dress your Barbie. It's a term I've had for many years. You see, metaphorically all these MMOs are in essence is like playing a grandios game of "Barbies advanced." Yeah, take a look at those girls. They collect their barbies that usually come with an outfit on them. Then you buy new barbie clothes and you put your barbies in kind of imaginary settings. Then you call up your friend and ask her to bring her barbie over to your house because you got a new dungeon . . um, i mean, malibu play set. So your friend comes over, and you two play on the play set and invent scenarios. Heck, you might as go as far as inviting your whole neighborhood over and you end up having an army of small girls armed with their various Barbies. And then you notice Sarah from the end of the cul-de-sac has THEE COOLEST BARBIE OMIGOSH! I WANT THAT OUTFIT!!! When you ask her where she got that outfit, you find out she raided an outlet store called Helegrod's R US until she found it.

*insert the sound of a phone ringing*
*wife answers on the other end*

"Hey, do you work Saturday night? Yeah, the guild is raiding helegrod, can I gooooo oplease please please?!?!?"

The ideal would be to build one super dooper unreal set of gear. Reality, you carry around multiple sets of gear for various situations and forget to slip in and out of them until it's too late. I will probably try to build 3 sets of gear: resistance gear, mana pool, and soloing/pvp set.

2- Factioning. The latest patch in the game introduced a number of grinds into the game. If you faction enough you can open up the potential to buy certain items like rare shields, gear, new horses (not any faster than the regular horse mind you), etc.

3- pvp. See previous posts for information on this. there really is nothing more fun than fighting a thinking person versus a programmed AI.

4- raiding. (I already talked a bit about this)

5- trait and title grinding. this is basically going back through all the content you did leveling up and filling in the gaps on all the titles and traits that you missed.

6- farming gold. Clear out your backpacks and go kill a bajillion cave claws for money . . . so you can buy outfits for your barbie or horses for your other barbies!!! not to mention crafting stuff. some days I'd rather farm gold and buy crafting materials than farm it up myself. /shrug

7- help your lower level friends. GASP! WHY? Doh . . . you want to go through those high level instances with cool people that you know . . . not some random pug. yikes. It's good karma too.

8- crafting. It takes a lot to grandmaster certain crafts. You'll see if you don't know already.

9- Legendary traits. Finish them all off. yup. Even if they seem useless. yup. Actually out of all the things listed here, this is the activity I'm most anxious to complete lately.

10- level up another character. Why have one barbie when you can have two?

I'm sure I'll have more insights to share after a month or so of post-50 activities. Happy grinding to you all!

Ding 50

2007-09-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the video:

I finished my level off primarily from grinding on undead at imlad in east angmar.

Let's review . . .

Ok, first of all . . . all you people new to MMOs have no clue what it was like to ding your last level in the game Everquest. I actually have a chart of my two main EQ charcters and it covers about a year and a half worth of time, and I never in that time dinged the top level. I eventually dinged 75 with my Beastlord (they raised the cap 2 times afterward and have raised it to 80 with the newest expansion to be released Nov 2007 I believe). But this took about 5 months of my very conservative play to ding the top level. I'm not the fastest player; in fact, there was a gal in my kinship that dinged 50 three times over (as in three 50th level characters at her disposal) before I dinged 50 once.

My analsis is that the last 5 levels are the hardest followed by the stretch from 25-35. The rest of the game "leveling-wise" is cake. Your mileage may vary of course.

Here's the deal . . . if you have friends in game and you all level and group and progress along the same paths, you'll sail through the levels. If you primarily solo and group when you can, be prepared to grind without quest bonus exp for a while. In fact, that's how I earned a majority of my final level. I killed a lot of undead in Imlad. This resulted in a bounty of bone necklaces for the blah blah blah of the North faction, but it was probably my least fun experience leveling. On the flip side, I use to grind like that all the time in EQ and that was the norm . . . there really was no such thing as quest exp.

Looking back, here is what I learned from my experiences:

Unless you have +/- two hours of free time, don't plan on doing any of the instances along the way. Some can take all day if you let them . . . I never did see Fornost or Carn Dum while I was leveling. I did see Greater Barrows and Urugrath and the new Annubiaus (just murdered the spelling there) instance, but those were lucky nights.
It is essential to finish past Book six chapter six in your epic quest lines. Why? You need to get to the eastern part of Angmar, and the only way you can do that is finish that book.
If possible, pay a visit to your class trainer every single time you ding . . . until they can't teach you anything more. ;p
Work the AH. find your niche and work it until you make money.
Get a horse. I originally posted on this blog that it was a luxury item that you didn't need. I didn't own one at the time and was taking the advice of people that I thought were giving me good advice. Listen. Get a horse and learn how to avoid mobs while riding it. Use your mouse with your right hand and your arrow keys with your left hand to move you around . . . learn to strafe. This alone will improve your horse riding skills 100%.
The only quests you really don't want to dump are the ones that lead to instances (read that as a long chain quest that eventually leads you to Greater Barrows, Fornost, Urugrath, Carn Dum, etc.) and the epic quests. it's a pain in the butt to research where you were and who gave you the quest after you dump it.
Higher dps weapons = good, no matter what the class.
Feign Death (FD) as a minstrel is a fantastic way to lose agro in a group, but you have to be smart. If you're in an instance, realize that FD button is your entire group's "oh Sh**" button. You'll need it to rez after wipes.
Don't ever lead a train through 4 archers into a group of 2 trolls as a minstrel. >.<
You can die from falling in two places that I know of. 1- treslebridge and 2- from the mountains of trollshaws down into rivendale.
Go ahead and suspend your disbelief like you were reading a book. I think you'll dig the experience more.
This is not WoW. You will not find the funny dances. You will not find the wild colors. You will not find the pop culture references. If you like that, don't play LOTRO or you'll be bored.
Try everything the game has to offer. You'll be surprised by the things you may have had a pre-disposition to from your other MMO experiences. For me it was pvp.
more to come

LOTRO PVP De-mystified

2007-09-04T18:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, I’m not the most experienced PvP’er in the whole world, so bear with me and know that I come from a somewhat limited PvP background. To the random visitor, feel free to leave your comments or correct this post as you see fit. The purpose of this post is to try my best to demystify the LOTRO PVP to my non-LOTRO playing friends.

Assumptions
1- You know what PvP is. **Note: I use the term PvP here, but in reality this type of PvP is called PvMP (player versus monster player).
2- You understand MMORPGs.
3- You at least know the basic classes of LOTRO.

How to Start
After installing the game, you begin to play a character up to level 10. Once you hit level 10, you will be able to access the “monster play” button from the start up screen.

Once you do this you will see that you have five character types you may play (and 5 creation slots to play with) . . . in fact creation of this monster player is very similar to character creation except for you don’t get to customize your “creep.” Creep is a term used to classify monster players (you know, things that creep along the ground or creep you out at night).

Once you choose your Warg (stealth fighter), Blackarrow (orc archer), Spider (crowd control fighter), Reaver (melee fighter), or Warleader (tankish healer) you give them a name and enter the world of the Ettenmoors. Bam . . . there you are standing in the start camp as a level 50 monster, ready to snack on both NPC good guys and PC good guys alike.

The Land of Ettenmoors
Ettenmoors is a land divided in two. The North western area is where the creeps make their base and the South eastern area is where the Freeps make their base. Freeps? Yeah, we’ll get into that in a second. Just know that the Freeps are the player controlled enemies who will kick your butt one-on-one. You'll need to group up with other Creeps to have a chance or be very sneaky about when you choose to engage a Freep (like when they're questing and don't think anyone is around, so they let themselves get to 50% life with 2 NPCs attacking them . . . we call this "ganking" shhhhhh).

The Ettenmoors is a zone that is inaccessible from the other areas of the LOTRO world. There are quests here like elsewhere in the LOTRO world and there are NPCs here like elsewhere as well. For the most part, the evil looking beings around the north west are amiable to creeps and the good looking beings (even the bears and falcons) to the southeast are amiable to freeps.

In the middle of the Ettenmoors are a number of forts and areas that creep and freep armies can fight to take over and improve. These have acronyms associated with them, some of which are as follows:

DG (Darg-Gazag)
EC (Elf Camp)
GF (Gramsfoot)
GV (Grams—Creep base)
HH (Hoarhallow)
IM (Isendeep Mine)
LC (Grimwood Lumber Camp)
Lug (Lugazag)
Ost (Ost Ringdyr)
SB (south bridge of TA)
Stairs (South Coldfells—Freep base)
TA (Tol Ascarnen)
TR (Tirith Rhaw)

Questing
There are various quests located throughout Ettenmoors on both the Creep and Freep side. For example, the creeps have a quest to poison the river that runs through Ettenmoors and the freeps have a quest to cleanse the poison in the river. These quests are repeatable every couple of hours or so.

If you complete a quest on the Creep side, you gain money and destiny points. If you complete a quest on the Freep side, you gain money and a token. Destiny points can be spent to improve your Creep. Tokens can be turned in to open up chests with items in them.

Freeps
So what about these Freeps I keep mentioning? Ohhhhh Freeps. Well, you know, once you level your main character to level 40, they can go to any stable master and ask for a ride to the Ettenmoors for a small fee. Once you select this, it quick travel teleports you to the Ettenmoors.

So, the benefit here is that you can earn experience in Ettenmoors for killing stuff (both NPCs and Creeps). The quests aren’t going to net you any experience, but the money and items you earn are “real.” Meaning, this is more than just a mini-game experience tied to LOTRO. It’s an extra component to the game where you can take your loot into the PvE world.

Also know this . . . you can earn titles as a Freep in Ettenmoors, and they will be visible in the rest of the LOTRO world.

Titles
Both Freeps and Creeps gain titles in front of their name as they gain renown/infamy for defeating foes in Ettenmoors. On the Creep side it goes a bit like this:

Rank 0 (no title) 0-499
Rank 1 (Tracker) 500-1499
Rank 2 (Scout) 1500-3499
Rank 3 (Skirmisher) 3500-7499
Rank 4 (Fighter) 7500-19499
Rank 5 (Soldier) 19500-44499
Rank 6 (Sentry) 45000-94499
Rank 7 (Chief Guard) 94500-194499
Rank 8 (Chief Warrior) 195500-344,499
Rank 9 (Taskmaster) 344,500-544,499
Rank 10 (Luitenant) 544,500-844,499
Rank 11 (Commander) 844,500-???
Rank 12 (Chieften) ???
Rank 13 (High Chieften) ???
Rank 14 (Overlord) ???
Rank 15 (Tyrant) ???

On the Freep side it goes a bit like this:

Rank 0 (None) 0-499
Rank 1 (Footman) 500-1499
Rank 2 (Esquire) 1500-3499
Rank 3 (Guardsman) 3500- 7499
Rank 4 (Man-At-Arms) 7500-19499
Rank 5 (Sergeant of the Guard) 19500-44499
Rank 6 (Sergeant-at-Arms) 44500-94499
Rank 7 (Master Guardsman) 94500-194499
Rank 8 (Master-at-Arms) 195500-344,499
Rank 9 (High Warden) 344,500-544,499
Rank 10 (Lieutenant) 544,500-844,499
Rank 11 (Commander) 844,500-???
Rank 12 (Third Marshal) ???
Rank 13 (Second Marshal) ???
Rank 14 (First Marshal) ???
Rank 15 (Captain-General) ???

Note that you can toggle this title on and off by simply checking a box in your titles section of your character window.

Titles don't end here though; we've only talked about the prefixes (which are unique to the LOTRO world). There are a number of suffix titles you can earn as well. For instance, if you kill 500 black-arrow Creeps, you can earn the title "Blackarrow foe." There are tons more of these suffix titles and I'll leave those for you to discover. An example creep suffix title would be "mistrel's foe." /shudder to think.

Of Trolls and Rangers
Now to make things more fun, the last expansion introduced a little fun benefit for the Creeps and Freeps: Trolls and Rangers. For the cost of 5,000 destiny points, you can assume a Troll form on the Creep side or a Ranger on the Freep side for about an hour (AFAIK).

These guys have about 12 times the hitpoints of the regular player and really pack a wallop. A Creep raid backed by a couple of trolls can easily drive a Freep raid into hiding. It definitely adds a whole new component to face offs between raid forces.

Destiny Points?

You gain Destiny points as you level your character (past 10th level) at a rate of 200 points per level. These points are account/server based as well . . . meaning, Bachelbu will have earned a total of 8,000 destiny points just by leveling to 50; however, I also have leveled Stingite to 20 . . . that's an extra 2,000 Destiny Points. So my total number of Destiny Points I can use on the Windfola server is 10,000.

As the article states, "If you complete a quest on the Creep side, you gain money and destiny points." This is the benefit of playing a Monster. You earn destiny points for your account.

Destiny points are used for either temporary buffs for your real character (like temporary boost to hitpoints, runspeed, or armor class . . . or to extend rested XP by 2 bubs), permanently strengthen your Creep, or to play as a troll or ranger for an hour.

So Destiny Points are like an alternate currency for you to use on your account/server.

Defeat?

It's pretty much a given that either your creep or freep is going to be defeated at some point in time. The less you're defeated, the more renown and infamy you are worth to the other side and the better your ranking is on the server. This is all tracked in a dialog box from your character information screen under the tab labeled "the war."

If you die as a creep, it has no real impact on your regular characters. So don't worry about leveling one character to 10th level, starting a creep, dying, and worrying about whether that had an effect on your "no deaths" title on your regular character.

If you die as a freep, you don't incur the normally painful repair costs and 10 minute time out due to dread. This doesn't mean you won't incur repair costs "at all." Creeps beating on you will still cause damage to your armor. It just won't be as painful as when you are defeated in the PvE world.

When you do die, you pop up in a little safe circle nearby that is surrounded by ally NPCs that will one shot anyone who gets to close. This is a great spot to AFK. It's also a great spot to trick people into running into after you've damaged them a bit. /wink

Hot Spots

Around every keep in the Ettenmoors, you will find large banners rising into the sky like beacons. The color of these banners will indicate whether the entities surrounding the banners are Freeps or Creeps. White indicates that the hot spot is Freep controlled. Red indicates creep control.

When all banners around a keep are controlled by either the Freeps or Creeps, there is an effect given to the defenders or invaders. The effects of holding all hot spots surrounding a keep could be that any invader nearing the keep will gain a debuff (like an annoying disease damage over time debuff) or that NPCs will help invaders by swarming the keep kamakazi style.

You will hear groups or raids sometimes saying they would like to "flip" or "protect" the hotspot around a keep. Flipping a hotspot means that your fellowship must stand and not move an inch at the base of the banner anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

More to come
Stay tuned . . . I hope to add and refine this post as time goes by, but hopefully this has slightly demystified the basics of PvP play in the LOTRO world.

Ding 49 and PVP FIESTA! OLE!

2007-09-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

Three personal news items from me today:

1- I finally got serious about leveling and ran a couple nights worth of quests. One was a random PUG and the other was just duo'ing with the infamous jello. Ding 49.

2- And I am happy to announce that I obtained 25 pvp tokens and opened the mega chest.

This is definitely a graphic you need to click to enlarge.

I was slightly disappointed in what I found inside . . . yeah, 3 purples, nice potions, some good sellable loot . . . but where's the creme filling you know? I kind of had hopes that a teal item would fall from the heavens. Meh, too much to ask for I suppose.

3- I also spent a night doing a PVP raid where we fought back creeps and trolls for hours . . . this resulted in my first PVP rank of "footman." This is basically like a private rating in the old school WoW days . . . hehe, just a touch more difficult to obtain though.

This was a killshot I got on a troll. Players can opt to be a troll during their creep experience for a cost of . . . I believe . . . 5k destiny points. It's a chunk of destiny points. These things are super nasty and tough to kill. The killshot just means I'm lucky. :-) there was a raid of us pounding on him.

"It's all about the Challenges!"

2007-08-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

. . . sorry about the title, I was having a pokemon diamond and pearl moment. BUT, it is applicable. The past couple of weeks in LOTRO have been all about exploring ettenmores, which is the PVP zone in the game. Now, this is a complete zone that is isolated from the world. It has it's own quests and challenges built into it. Even the random monsters in the world choose sides.

For the most part, I'm one of those that avoids the groups and raids forming to take on the Creeps. I'm more interested in the random encounter with a creep and earning tokens for loot (see post below). I'm already half way to 25 tokens. I've been on a serious drive for these.

First, I'm happy to announce my first kill in pvp! This spider had the audacity to perch himself on a hill in the middle of the hobbit town. Sleeper . . . this bug was worth 89 renown, which I understand is pretty nice. I don't fully understand that system yet. All I know is, I got him and it was fun.

Secondly, I finally figured out this quest. I was looking everywhere for this stump.

The Wolves of Grimwood quest asks you to gather 10 wolf talons (do wolves have talons? I thought that was a bird thing?) and put them on this stump. After waiting a couple minutes (seems like forever), these wolves totally storm the camp. RAWR!

I sat from a distance and watched . . . they will agro on you . . . thank goodness for feign death.

It's pretty fun to watch them clear out the orcs . . . it'd be a great strategy for taking this camp. to help you clear out the trash mobs.

Third, Since kicking up this PvP thing, I've also had the thrill of running for my life and living. YaY. Here's the story as told to one of my good friends in game.

Blogspot just doesn't seem to like the graphics I load up. Anyway . . . post incoming in a bit after I do the 25 token turn in. woot!

Ding 48 and pvp land

2007-08-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

I dinged 48 a few days ago. It was rather uneventful as I was simply solo griding against orcs in angmar when it happened. If I really wanted to ding faster I'd hang out in angmar and do a few PUGs, but for now . . . it's just grinding mobs solo waiting for something good to happen within the kinship.

LOTRO released book 10 this week and I'm quite baffled at the size of this free content they gave us. They introduced factioning and a whole new line of story epic quests to complete. Amazing. The new area features a slew of evil dwarves, birds, and caveclaws that are on an insanely quick repop timer. /shiver

on another note, I've been hanging out in the pvp zones lately running a few quests here and there. Much to my joy I finally earned 10 tokens and was able to turn them in for a key to a chest full of loot.

As I wrote to a gamer friend of mine in an e-mail:

". . . last night I achieved my 10th token in Ettenmores. I giggled a bit to myself and turned it in for a key. I stuck the key in the chest and rubbed my greedy hands together in anticipation and hey! Looky there . . . LOOT! ALL FOR ME!

1- A purple 1handed mace with +15 will, +90 power, 28.6 dps, and a slow proc (level 50)
2- A medium armor chest with a bunch of will on it (didn’t examine this much)
3- Coin (I don’t even know how much I got . . . but I think the screenshots captured it)
4- 2 pure morale potions (+650 heal range)
5- 2 pure power potions (+650 heal range)
6- A purple heavy armor chest (bind on equip)
7- A purple 2-handed hammer (bind on equip)

So, I got looking at it and . . . whoa . . . ok, the patch introduced three new chests . . . the 10 tokens turn-in is actually for the lowest chest now. 15 tokens for the medium chest. 25 tokens for the grand-daddy chest."

Here's a screenshot of all the loot! WOOT!

Click me to see good stuff!

Now I have a new goal . . . 25 tokens for the grand-daddy chest!!!!! I will most definitely make a report when that happens.

Functionality Toggling

2007-08-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

First off, here's what the folks at Turbine have given Minstrels for instruments:

Superior Lute
Serenade Defense Vital Cost Modifier: -15.0%

Superior Flute
Serenade Utility Vital Cost Modifier: -10.0%

Superior Harp
Serenade Offense Vital Cost Modifier: -10.0%

Superior Drum
+15% Ballad Damage
+10% Ballad Power Cost

Superior Theorbo
Threat Reduction During Combat

Basically the only two that people really use are the superior drum or the superior theorbo. Soloing, you throw on your drum . . . group, you throw on your theorbo. It's our way of toggling our abilities to some extent. Now to the outside observer +15% to damage is nothing to shirk about, but I have to tell you that it's not that big of a boost and the power cost is not that big of a power cost. As for the Theorbo, there's no real way of telling your threat in this game aside from mobs leaving their dance partners for you. Tell you what though, strap on your theorbo and add some lute strings of subtlety and you're not going to attract much attention if your tank is even halfway decent.

I just think that the potential for doing damage as a minstrel is kind of poor. Especially AoE. To get to an AoE spell, a minstrel has to cycle through 3 tiers of songs until they can get to an AoE blast, and even then . . . it's kind of pathetic. The legendary aoe blast (which is also a tier 4 anthem) actually does put out some pretty decent damage . . . the problem is the refresh on this thing is horrible; we're talking 15-20 minutes to refresh here.

I like the idea of functionality toggling. If I'm in a group with 3 healers, I think I'd like the ability to toggle my healing off and turn my damage on and turn it on big time. The introduction of these instruments and the threat reduction string for the instruments is a step in the right direction. I would encourage more of this and encourage the ability to damage dump AOEs more frequently. I don't want to have the best dps in the game . . . but I like the idea of trade-offs for the group or the solo'ers sake. If we have strings of subtlety, can we also get drum heads or drum sticks of amplifiction that would boost my damage and extra 15% and an extra 10% mana cost? Options = good.

Ding 47 and holding

2007-08-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've stalled here at 47. What I'm noticing is that a lot of the quests are now group based, which means when I fight solo all I really can do is just grind mobs over and over for traits. So, you basically kill 240-480 wargs to get a bonus of 4,000 exp and a title. Fun? meh.

Mr. Weird of the Worms to you

It is kind of cool to open up the rare names like "Weird of the worms," which is what you get for killing fire worms in angmar . . . or like "lord of the fangs," which is what you get for killing wargs in angmar. My next target will be orcs and hillmen . . . and then I may go back to worms to get the advanced trait. Let me just say that grinding these solo isn't very fun . . . it's boring . . . but if I want to keep leveling during my weird times of play when groups are scarce, this is what I'll be doing.

Speaking of grind . . . I'm grinding all the page dropping mobs as well . . . they're so pretty.

I swear this Morroval is trying to get me to look down her shirt.

Because I've stalled here, I've also been pulling my champion alt out of the closet and dusted him off a bit . . . you minstrels out there that haven't ever played a champion . . . man, you should see the nastiness of aoe killing on low level green-con mobs. I may have to make a video of it just because it impressed me so much.

I lived through this and maintained my no deaths title on my level 16 champ

Ding 46 in half a bub and screenshot time!

2007-07-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

I'm just a little nick of experience away from dinging 46. This is exciting because that means the pvp world has just opened up for me. You see monster players come in to the pvp world automatically as level 50. Being level 46 means that I can now hit them. Hooray! It also means that there are a whole slew of quests in the ettenmoores just waiting for me to help me level up to 50.

So this has been an interesting few days since my last post. There has been a big push in the kinship to complete book 5 of the epic quests and this has led to some amazing battles. Well scripted ones too. Close your eyes if you don't want to see a screenshot of a Nazgul awakening this giant, dead dragon.

"arise, spirits, and awaken this great beast back to our world"

Here's a good one of our fellowship hanging out with Glimly before a nasty fight in book 5.

love it when Glimly talks tough.

Dinging 45 was pretty cool as this is when you can start raiding if you want to. This is just a quick screenshot for anyone that may be wondering where Sigrun is for opening up all the Helegrod raids. Look for the red arrow.

Do you see it? Sigrun, right below the bitter stairway and to the west.

And just to round out this screenshot extravaganza I've got going today . . . here's one of a random named (shataz) in the misty mountains.

Gratz Shyadarin on the kill. :-)

And last but not least, the ego-stroking closeup of me and Jello. We were hanging out last night in gloomy ol' Imlad and I snapped this closeup. Our barbies sure have nice clothes these days.

:-)

Jello and Bach, the duo of rock on Windfola. ;-)

Ding 45, minstrel of such talent

2007-07-27T14:53:00.001-07:00

So, when you ding 45 and go talk to the local minstrel trainer you find out a couple things. 1) hey, there's no more skills for me to learn from these people. nice. 2) you get paid a nice compliment and told to go find a nice elf lady who wants you to grind out stuff and in return she'll give you some epic gear stuff.

I've just received the first part of this, but there's more you need to grind than just this. Here's a screenshot of the first two gathering quests.

So basically I need to farm snow beasts, orcs, a named warg, and some wing-less dragons. In return I'll get some . . . da da da DUN . . . teal gear. Screenshots to come . . .

And speaking of screenshots, here's how the ol' boy is looking lately. Dig the purple shoes man . . . dig 'em. That club I'm using is fairly nasty; it does bonus damage vs. trolls, but it's most notable characteristic is a mana drain proc. niiiiiccce.

Ding 43 . . . well close enough

2007-07-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm just a bub away from 43. These last couple of levels have been all about Angmar. Ohhhh my, Angmar.

You see, Angmar is the Maiden's Eye or the Plaguelands of Lord of the Rings. Why do I say that? Well, in EQ, Maiden's Eye to me was one of "thee" scariest zones out there back when you were in your low 50's. It was easy to get overwhelmed and die there . . . and die quickly. There was just a feeling about Maiden's eye that will stick with me always. spooky. Plaguelands in WoW was the end leveling area back before Burning Crusade. It wasn't terribly nasty although you could definitely die there if you weren't alert. But it too was slightly overcast and forboding.

So let me see if I can describe what I've seen of Angmar so far. It' chock full of nasty mobs that will kill you quick. Anywhere you go, there's something there to kind of keep you on your toes. In the fields there are these hitpoint heavy elite bulls (called "Gouge-horns") that give you a nice 2 second warning before running you down if you're still in their agro radius. In the bogs there are these gigantic hitpoit heavy elite turtles (yes, turtles . . . it's quite funny to be attacked by a giant aggressive turtle) that can mow you over faster than one would ever dream a turtle could. In the center of the bog there's a hidden den of fire worms (like dragons without wings) . . . again, these things will kick your butt faster than you know your butt's on fire. In other areas mobs like to come in twos and threes and assist each other. There's also a bunch of connecting raid instances in Angmar. It's just a downright spooky zone.

Jello and I leave a lot of these turtle corpses around when we duo.

If you can't tell by now, I like Angmar a whole lot. :-) It's just the way I am. So, I'm having a ton of fun working through this stuff as well. The run to level 50 is going to be spent 2 places . . . angmar and misty mountains . . . there's really no where else to go. i guess some parts of Evendim are still viable, but this is the spot atm! Good stuff.

There was one particular quest in Angmar that lead me through 3 challenges. The end challenge was to sneak/kill my way into a nasty hillman camp and kill their chief. this was by far one of the coolest quest lines I've done so far. Chief Walraig came in a pull with a healer. It was an incredibly difficult fight, but I lived to tell the tale and have the "solo pwnd" screenshot to match.

Walraig and Bach tango into the night. HACHA!

**NOTE** this quest line was changed in a recent patch, please go to this newer post here to read about it **NOTE**

Of other note I also crafted a really nice “crit” ring and discovered that when you crit on these upper items you get to “inscribe” a word on them. Awesome.

I wanted to inscribe "Bachelbu made this beeotch," but opted for a simple "Bachelbu" when I discovered you couldn't put spaces in the inscription.

The grind . . . here it is

2007-07-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

I found on the LOTRO forums some great information on gathering the Legendary Trait books for minstrels. I'm shamelessly stealing it and reposting it here because it's a great list.

Book Name: Melodies of the Valar
Granted Trait: Rally!
Description: In-Combat Rez

Book Name: The Rising Chord
Granted Trait: Song of the Hopeful Heart
Description: 60 second +hope buff

Book Name: Valour's Marches
Granted Trait: Anthem of the Wizards
Description: Light damage AOE + debuff

Book Name: A Lesson from Lindir
Granted Trait: Fellowship's Heart
Description: Instance cure of fear + fear immunity + HOT

Level 50 class quest
-------------
WHere to get the pages

Rising Chord:
1st 4: Orcs in Dun Covad
Last 4: Wights in Imlad Balcoth - all of them, not just archers

Valour's Marches
Worldwide random drop off humanoids (aka non-beast/insect) lvl 39+

Melodies of the Valar
1st 4: Morroval in Western Angmar (both outside and inside the cave)
Last 4: Goblins in the MM

All books drop the same as valour's marches pages, but at a reduced rate. I would guess if you have the book for valar or chord the drop rate is around 5% or less, tradeable pages around 2% and books less than 1%. I firmly believe this drop rate increases slightly based on the level of mobs you kill.

Go ye' forth and grind your hearts out friends. Grind grind grind grind grind.

Ding 41 and King Charles

2007-07-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

So being friends with Cagefury has already paid off in bling . . . hooray for my new horse. She lent me the last gold I needed to get my pretty pony.

I'm still thinking of a name for my new horse, but I'm leaning toward "King Charles the looming."

I dinged 41 while grinding Wargs the other day in Misty Mountains. Ahh, the good life.

Jello and I managed to group up again, and I did capture some video footage. After viewing it a bit, I think I need to not zoom out so much and try again. But, here is what I captured anyway. It was kind of difficult to play the game with no interface and really show how it goes down, but my Fraps is currently set to start video capture when I hit F12 and that's the same key to hide the interface. yeah, easy fix. Let it be done. this was just some easy grinding on some humans. We chose them because the humanoids drop pages for our legendary traits . . . it's the big, cool thing for level 40+ people to work on. To tell you the truth I don't even know what my legendary trait is. LOL. I should spend some more time researching this stuff.

Ding 40! Oh Noos!

2007-07-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

So here I am . . . facing my last ten levels. Btw . . . as a tip, they give you a free 2.5k exp at 40 just for visiting Ettenmoors (the pvp area). Sure it'll cost you 35 silver or so just to pay a visit, but I don't care. I didn't go out to pvp or anything; I just talked to the stable hand, he ported me there, I talked to the stable hand there, he gave me exp loving, and I ported back to the real world. yay. Harmless, shameless exp.

I spent some time the other day just running around mining up copper and gems and killing low level wights. Why? Well I just figured something out in the totally non-intuitive crafting dialog box. You see, once you've completed a tier of crafting, you then have a second notch in that tier of crafting open up so you can "master" that tier of crafting (provided you "mastered" the lower level tier of crafting . . . clear as mud?). What I didn't really get was that there was a tab at the bottom of the dialog box (TOTALLY UNINTUITIVE . . . SERIOUSLY) that you can click on and . . . wow . . . this is what I thought to myself, "you mean if I go farm wights I can get a drop from them that gives me an almost 50% chance to crit when crafting an item? no way!" It's true! (someone is laughing at me for taking so long to figure that out on my own /shrug.) So a lady in our guild wanted some jewelry crafted for her alt and I volunteered. This wasted a bunch of time as I farmed up crit items and enough to give it two shots. LOL. I didn't crit either time. Oh well. It was a nice distraction.

On the killing things front, It's all about Misty Mountains for me now. Jelalron and myself went and killed a bunch of really grumpy Mammoths the other night and also discovered the joys of training through a number of seriously nasty elite mobs to get to some precariously placed non-elite bears I needed to kill. Good times. We then proceeded up a trail through goblin territory and completely destroyed a named at the top. Our little hunter/mistrel combo is something to be feared. Add Rogart for some tankage and we are even more deadly with random world stuff.

Onward to 50! /snap

btw . . . bad me for looking at upper level loot, but I saw this today and actually drooled a bit.

Daddy wants.

A horse? and POWA!

2007-07-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

So it's now become public knowledge in the kin that I don't have a horse, and I'm a hair away from 39th. This seems strange to most.

Wait a second. You hit 35th and didn't get a horse? What the heck are you thinking?

I'm just thinking I don't want to slow down and get a horse . . . that's all.

Wait a second. Did you just say "slow down" and "horse" in the same sentence?

yeah, I did. First of all, the horse you buy isn't as fast as the horses you rent. Second of all, you actually have to pay attention when you drive your own horse, you can't put it on auto pilot and walk away from the computer. Third of all, you can get knocked off your horse if you get tagged by a mob when you're riding it. And you get all this excitement for 4.22 gold. Yeah, it's a luxury item to me. /shrug

But it's all good . . . people seem to like offering up suggestions of how they farmed up their 4.22 gold. This is good info to absorb and hide in the folds of your mind (only 50 years later to be revealed to your 80-year-old buddies at the nursing home *there goes Tom talking about gold again*)

I thought for a second that I might have a good cash farm the other day. The boss mob for Book 3 chapter 5 is a nasty orc called Drukordk). He's tucked away in a corner of North Downs. Everything there is grey to me at this point, meaning I can just run past them and they don't agro. I can even go dance with Drukordk and he just continues walking with his whole, "I ain't gonna mess" attitude with me. I found a nice pathing for him and a spot to pull him to. I was probably crazy for trying to solo him . . . he is a 9k+ hitpoint super dooper elite mob anyway, but I tried it.

The first time he owned me when he was at 200 life. The second, third, and fourth time he coughed up 20 silver and loot for me. Also, there are two ground spawn chests (well, corpses . . . same thing *shifty hands*) up by him that I can loot from as well.

You know . . . if I had a way of transporting people to me, I could port them in to my farm spot, tell them to sit very still, kill the mob, and charge a fee for service. It would be awesome.

/shrug

As it turns out, I can make money faster from killing other stuff.

Someday I'll have my horse, call it Betty, and feed it crispy bacon. Until then, the bacon is mine, and I'll keep riding the rent-a-horse.

A light blue kind of excitement . . .

2007-06-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

So, I'm level 38 (ding 38 btw), and I'm closing in on my 40's (and the last 10 levels before the cap). From what I hear 40-50 is a longer haul, so it'll probably take a while.

*puts on his Mr. Explainer cap*

You see, there are really 5 levels of gear in this game

White . . . you're only going to see levels 1-10 wearing any of this stuff.

Yellow . . . your standard world drop and easy quest reward (equate to greens in WoW).

Purple . . . the nice quest rewards and world drops (equate to blues in WoW).

Teal (incomparable) . . . Raid gear and high level epic quest rewards (equate to purples in WoW).

Dark Blue (legendary) . . . /shrug . . . not many get 'em? (Equate to orange in WoW)

?

People in guild have been linking a lot of their teal “incomparable” weapons in guild chat lately, and those weapons are pretty nice. There's also some talk of raiding. Some of the 50's in our guild are already doing pickup raids or forming alliances with raiders, and I can already feel the pull inside me to get to 50 and see the raid stuff.

This is tough for me. I've quit two other MMOs before over raiding, mainly because I know how tough raiding can be on me and my family. Let's face it, raiding in WoW and EQ can be unforgiving for the essential classes, but developers don't stop at essential classes anymore. Take WoW's Karazhan instance; it's brutal (from what I hear). It was stated to me that I could expect to not move from my chair for 3 hours if I raid Karazhan. Ridiculous! If you think the kids and wife will put up with that nonsense, you're living in a completely different universe than me. Even in EQ the newer raids were starting to glue me to my seat, and I was playing a beastlord. Yeah, next to the bezerker, a beastlord has the most uninspired role ever in a raid force. Point. Click. Kill. Yeah yeah, I know, buffs, fero, and pet control, but still there's not much to it.

I've chosen to play a minstrel in LOTRO. There is some heavy, heavy, and intense wack a mole going on with minstrels. Wac-a-mole you say? Yeah, if you've played a healer in any MMO, you know that what you really do is not look at the pretty undulating graphics in front of you; you instead look at the little health bars and wac at them before they reach empty. It's just an advanced version of wac-a-mole.

Events that make it so you have to position, run, jump, tap your neighbor on the shoulder, and bonk your head twice on the mystic healing tentacle while playing this advanced game of wac-a-mole are brutal. fun. but brutal.

And why???? WHY? (you can tell I've completely lost it here in the rant) For that shiny teal “incomparable” gear . . . oh it's so nice. *reveals a bit of geeky leg to the reader*

So . . . again . . . I'm level 38, and there are basically 12 raids in this game at the moment from what I hear. I have no idea what it's going to entail, but knowing me, how intense or not intense of an activity will be what makes or breaks the game. I love putting ultimatums on a game so I feel like I have a sense of control.

. . . or I could just level up another alt or play monster play . . .

BUT WAIT (the rant takes a surprise and almost shocking turn!!) . . . THIS JUST IN! Wait a gosh darn minute, you can get incomparable items another way?

As stolen from https://beta.turbine.com/showthread.php?t=67074

all single use recipes when crit at grand master produce incomparable items.
some regular recipes when crit at grand master produce incomparable items.
class epic quests yield incomparable items.
incomparable weapons drop randomly from bosses in urugarth and carn dum.
an incomparable pocket item is the reward for completing book 8 chapter 5 (in addition to the selectable reward).

there are many level 50 players running around with 5 or more incomparable items.

some of the more lucky crafters are wearing multiple single use crit armor/rings.

with the best tools in game (20% imcomp) and a scroll, the best any crafter can get is 35% chance to crit and make a light blue tool/weapon/ring/piece of armor. every single use recipe requires a trophy from one of the various semi rare elite mobs in the regular combine (eg: colnor, skybreaker, acathling, sagruz, et al). thus there is no crit item for the combine (hence the 35% max chance to crit).

needless to say, it will be quite a while before we see anyone with a full set of light blue armor/rings.

What's "crit" crafting gear? It's just that.

When you make crafting gear, you get a critical chance for it to be extra nice. It's a good perk for crafters.

*takes a breath*

nice.

/end of rant

conversation with Frodo and Sam

2007-06-28T04:50:00.001-07:00

So the developers were kind enough to, throughout the game, give you some alone time with the characters from the book after you complete some quests, etc. In this particular instance, Galdalf sent me to help cheer up Frodo. Frodo asked me to just chill and take a walk with him, which I did. Usually these mini-instances, where it's just you and a character from the game, go horribly awry, and you're attacked by something . . . but not this time. I kept looking around nervously for what was going to jump out at me . . . nothing. /shrug. Easy exp in Rivendale y'all.

I decided while jumpily following frodo to just have the conversation the developers are begging you to have. It's a completely cheesy experience. I guess for the fans that loved the books more than I did, this would be a really neat and intimate gaming experience. And I got that twinge, but it just didn't really unfold that way:

LOOK! I SQUIRREL! . . . typo's ftw.

Ding 31-37

2007-06-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

Neglectful posting? Definitely! It's a great sign that I haven't been informing anyone on my progress; I've been having fun.

A few things have happened here since the last time I posted.

1) The Evendim free content expansion was released. This new area layout-wise reminds me of an old zone in Everquest called Dragnor's Cauldron . . . only no underwater temple, no difficult to find butcherblock entrance, and no levitation runs at 1,000 feet up. Instead there are a ton of grave-robbers and even more clueless and incompetant rangers. It's becoming a joke now about how all the quests offered to players are basically from ranger NPCs that are pretty much just lazy.

2) The fate statistic has been changed. It now not only effects in combat morale and power regeneration (read that as health and mana), but it also affects crit chance with "Tactic" based moves. That means all the minstrel songs and cries get affected by fate now. Delicious. +will and +fate items are all the rave atm.

3) I have this new guardian friend named Cagefury. She was going out of town for the week and told me to not level while she was away . . . hehe, she's gonna be pissed.

4) I don't have enough money for a horse and I don't really care. They run slower than the rented horses and you can get knocked off of them. /shrug. Maybe someday I'll get enough cash for one. I'm not in a huge rush.

Ding 30, class quest

2007-06-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

Yay! Ding 30. I've been kind of slacking off . . . well, I've been occupied with other things lately like relatives. But I did manage to ding 30 and knock out the class quest for this level. It was not too bad. You basically have to fight off 2-3 waves of 3 elites with an NPC helping you . . . so keep him healed basically. Then at the end a boss elite comes rumbling down at you, kill, win . . . everybody sucks up and changes there attitude from you guys wasted a trip here to you guys rock, thanks!

In the end you get to choose between a couple different hats. I went for awesome:

In fact, I don't know how anyone could go with the other option, affectionately known as "not as awesome"

this of course led me to slaughtering more dourhands . . .

These little buggers were actually harder to find than one might think.

Ding 28/29, Crafting, and gear sets

2007-06-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

So crafting in this game is a bit interesting. They've really tried to interrelate tasks and also make you a bit self sufficient at the same time. For instance, I'm a "tinker." Meaning I make jewelry, mine for minerals, and also like to cook. However I don't just mine gold and silver and copper . . . I'm also mining tin and iron, but I don't need tin and iron. Take a look however at armor crafting people and you'll see that they don't need the gold and silver and instead need the tin and iron, so there's a lot of trading that goes on between players to get what they need. I really like this aspect of the game. (Why not just make an alt armor crafter and be self sufficient . . . what kind of a poor sport are you anyway? Self sufficient, pfffft. Greedy, double pffffft. it's all about the love, yo.)

The past couple of levels have gone quickly, but I am starting to notice the power decline with my damage. I may have to start to build a soloing set that has more Might, Agility, and Vitality on it. The +will items are just so nummy though.

Building an alternate gear set would have its downside though . . . my backpacks are already bursting at the seams with junk. It may be time to downsize once again and CLEAR 'EM OUT. Lack of packrat space remains my number one complaint with MMOs.

Ding 25, 26, and 27

2007-06-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

Levels continue to come pretty quickly here. North Downs is a nice place for leveling in this range. It's just so chock full of quests.

Over this weekend it was really nice to finish out some more of the storyline quests. I had the final two chapters of the first book in my quest log for a long time compared to my level. The first time I had tried this it was with a group of me, another minstrel, and two champions . . . so basically four pieces of paper going up against a burning ring of fire. It was awesome to get a glimpse of a dark rider consorting with his lackeys and I captured some screen shots of his instructions to them.

Also of note this weekend I was in my first all Kinship group. We completely tore up some of the book 3 quests that involved staving off an orc raid on a town and escorting a manly dwarf by the name of Dori through a series of more grumpier dwarfs that had issues with . . . I don't know . . . what exactly makes these dourhand dwarves so grumpy anyway?

And the short lived fun of the top hat is now gone as I picked up a brand new helm that is actually not half bad looking: SKULL PROTECTION!!!

Dancing with Gandalf

Special thanks goes out to Fingalad for completely swarming me with gold this weekend so I could advance my jewelry making skill. Worked like a charm.

ding 22, 23, and 24

2007-05-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

So I got sick over memorial day weekend. I didn't have the motivation to anything much more than lay in bed and go to the doctor's office. But, before that I did level a bit and had a bit of fun fighting in Lone Lands and North Downs. I even picked up this incredibly goofy looking top hat from a quest.

And that's really all I have to report. I'm still recovering from the sickness that included a +102 degree fever. It's been a dim couple of days between that and the pain killers.

sniff.

Old Bauman

2007-05-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

Well there he is . . . I knew I'd see my friend Bauman in this game eventually. I remember him talking to me at my house when he visited me from out of state. We played EQ together for a long time. He played a bard and then a necro and I played a cleric and then a beastlord. The words still ring in my head, "I know all about the Lord of the Rings books . . . inside and out." Now I play a Minstrel and he plays this NPC. CRAZY. To think he chose to be an old dude that gives out quests and whittles wood all day. Much respect.

I chose to be a wisened man as well. I don't give out quests though . . . I just raise the charisma quotient with a super thick beard and helmet hair. Life is good.

Ding 21 and Great Barrows

2007-05-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

So I hit the magical 21st level and I'm ALL PSYCHED because now I can finally use the Herald's hammer trait. It's pretty cool . . . 'nough said. Being that I'm past 20th now, life is good for a minstrel. I have the rez spell. I have a couple of incredibly efficient heals. I'm wanted to play wac-a-mole with people's health bars. yes, life is good.

So a fellow Kinmate (Ramiel) . . . or guildy . . . however you want to say it . . . was asking for help from a minstrel in the Greater Barrows instance. Now I had been seeing people mention this instance and my interest was piqued, so I decided to give her a go.

I should have probably not gone since the wife was starting to put the children to bed, but I felt I deserved it after tilling the flower beds, mowing the lawn, and after putting in a hardcore 4 days in a row of Kari working nights while I watched the kids. As it turns out, a dad's work is never done . . . and I caught a little wife agro, but this wasn't too bad.

Anyway, this went rather well. I was the lowest level toon in the house at 21. We had a level 27, a level 25, a few level 23s, and me. This instance was everything you'd expect for an instance . . . a couple neat events, mostly elite mobs with a good amount of hitpoints, some swarms of regular mobs, and a couple bosses. We were after the main boss at the end, which you need a key to get to. Since 3 people already had their keys, we didn't complete the key quest for those that needed it (i.e., me). Time constraints . . . and this was cool with me.

We get the end boss down to 1-2k hitpoints (out of 15k-ish) and wipe on him. He does a nasty mana drain and has adds as part of his script, and everybody pretty much ran out of energy and was losing life like crazy. This apparently is normal and he's just tough. Well, we all retreat back to our bind point at the beginning of the instance and start running through the instance to give it a second shot; however, the same door we had opened before was now perma-locked and stopping our bloodthirsty rally to go beat on him again. This apparently was a surprise, a bug, working as intended, or someone accidentally closed the door from the inside. If I get any insights to that, I'll be sure to post them. Killing the end boss is a quest as well . . . I just didn't have it yet. I think you have to complete the key to get the quest to kill him.

It was good fun, and I'm definitely up for more instance runs like that.

Ding 19/20 coolness factor found!

2007-05-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

Ding 19 and 20 . . . they both went relatively fast. I had been hearing this "ND" acronym being thrown around by the 20's crowd in guild and found that spot yesterday. A quest in Bree told me to head up that way and chat with some townies. So I did. It's a touch higher level for me, but I managed to complete a quest or two by sneaking behind groups and grabbing stuff from camps before respawn happened, which was quite quick.

The big news for me is . . . the coolness factor has been found and that is grouping and in particular fellowship manuevers. More info about those is found here. I had no idea they existed, but they rock.

I keep forgetting to load fraps, but I will . . . and when I do, I'll post up some video footage.

1,000 button mashes woohoo! (ding 18)

2007-05-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I stopped stalling and just decided to finish a couple forsaken inn quests and be done with it. Ding 18.

There's a quest where you have to kill some wolves a little more northward of forsaken inn . . . kind of on your way toward weathertop. I just have to note here that it was a serious pain finding the stealthed wolves. There just aren't enough of them to go around. So bring some patience. What I did notice about this area was that there were quite a few cool looking trees that lent themselves to a fun looking battle with a few orcs. I wish I would have had Fraps running . . . in fact, I may need to head back so I can just make a fraps of this fight--try to recreate it or something. There was a lot of weaving in and out and around the trees; it was just awesome.

Also of note this level . . . I did it! I mashed the herald strike button 1,000 times and opened up the class trait "herald's hammer." If you mix herald's hammer trait with the noble cause buff and a few herad strikes . . . you can actually put out some pretty decent DPS for a minstrel. I'm incredibly excited about this . . . the only downfall is that I don't get another class trait slot until 21st level, and right now I have the medium armor trait in my class trait slot. So I'm going to have to wait, but it makes me anxious to reach 21st level! That's a good thing.

This morning I spent some time chatting and splitting mobs with an equal level minstrel as we both ran up the hill in Minas Eriol. It was really cool chatting with him. I added him to my friends list, and I hope I get to chat with him again. It's good to have some class comrades to chat strategy with in game. I used to do that with a lot of beastlords back in EQ.

Honest to goodness newbie

2007-05-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

Honest to goodness newbie

So I ventured back to Breeland the past couple of days to catch up on the prologue to the epic quest that I have been conveniently avoiding, right? I get a quest to go kill a bad dude named Jagger Jack and poison the sheep corpses he feeds his wolves off of. I run to the ruins where this guy is chillin and start poisoning sheep corpses when this dude asks me to help him out. So I join his group and he has a level 8 with him, which is incredibly low for the area we were in.

So we run off and take down Jack without much sweat and all of a sudden the level 8 starts dropping like mad in health . . . of course, he has aggro’d a TON of mobs. Well, being the good minstrel I am (as opposed to “smart” minstrel) I toss him a heal. This transfers the hate of 6 or so mobs on to me who decide to both hit me with metal objects and poke me with pointy arrows. I try to heal myself but the interrupt rate with any more than 3 is ridiculous . . . even if they are green or gray to me. I die. Mr. level 8 dies. And wouldn’t you know it, the other dude is like . . . heh, I just soloed like 5 of those guys I ROCK. Nerf Champions.

So Mr. level 8 then asks, what’s agro mean? Well looky here! An honest to goodness MMO newbie. The other guy and I start to explain that it means the bad guys in the area got “aggressive” to him and even more so because he was such a low level. He explains that, yes, this was in fact his first MMO.

It’s interesting to note that this phenomenon is always going to happen. Not everyone that plays LOTRO is going to have years of EQ and WoW experience . . . there will be a rare few who are, in fact, fresh out of the game console scene. In my mind, this is why these games are always going to survive. People are going to be fascinated over and over with the MMO world and find the things we all found a few years ago in these games.

I actually do have fond memories of EQ. Every once in a while I’ll get a flash back of being on orc hill in Greater Faydark (which by the way is going to be redone . . . the next expansion is going to renovate it) or in various dungeons that we use to hunt and smile. I remember my first raids and Kael Drakkel and the Halls of Testing with fondness. Taking down Dozekar will always be there in the back of my mind. It was fun.

the fun . . . um . . . or cool factor in LOTRO

2007-05-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

I was just reading an article comparing WoW and LOTRO and the argument seemed to be stemming around what was innovative and what was fun about the two games. I borrow a couple of those ideas below. Anyway it got me to thinking about what y'all are finding fun in this game and what fun are you having here in this game, that you couldn't have in another game.

1- /Music—For me, I've been liking the /music command. I don't think I've ever seen that in another MMO. I haven't been going crazy with it or anything, but I think it's a cool idea. I wonder if there are any rare musical instruments out there for the /music command. That would be awesome.

2- The LOTR story elements—You're not going to find them anywhere else.

3- The titles—They come quickly and with a variety. It's just a fun option.

4- Built in VOIP—It was a smart move. I don't know how it implements in a raid setting, but it's a good step in the right direction.

5- Evil is evil—You know in WoW how if you came across a horde player, you'd type /wave and kind of run past them . . . and in EQ, iksars were just good buds with wood elves outside of their towns. In LOTRO, evil is evil and you can't play evil outside of the MP. Evil isn't just a misunderstood group of opposing races.

6- I don't know a lot of people—there's kind of an initial rush for me of trying to get to know new people without coming off as a complete freak. The people that I do know that are in this game already are great people from a previous guild I was in.

Other than that, I can go on any other MMO and find a quest to kill X amount of this or that or gather an amount of this or that and turn it in for xp and gold or items. I'm not sure if I've yet found the "coolness" factor in this game, though. There has to be something that really makes it sing, or this is going to be a short trip in this MMO for me. I need the coolness factor.

I have no idea what end game gear is going to be like. Hopefully that is where the really cool stuff goes down or that is where I will feel like I've been through or witnessed something amazing.

Please feel free to chime in if you have an opinion about it.

Ding 17

2007-05-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

Ding 17. Those crazy forsaken inn people. They got all the mad quests, yo.

I didn't get to play much this weekend at all, really. I instead spent most of my time in the real world shoveling dirt; buying and planting trees; attending a soccer game; taking my wife, mother, and mother-in-law out for lunch for mother's day; cooking my wife and mother-in-law breakfast; attending church; studying lesson material for church since I had to teach; and playing with the kids.

This morning I did head back to the combe area to get going on the prologue to the story-line quests in the game since I haven't even touched those yet. I'm way above the level to do those . . . so the exp garnered was like 50 exp? Totally NOT level appropriate. :-) it made navigating around wolves and bears to pick roots and berries a snap though.

Somehow I've bottomed out with game money and only have 2 silver to my name, which stinks. I need to find a good money making venue at this level.

It's Crow Killing Time!

2007-05-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

Ding 16. I've spent most of my time that last level at the forsaken inn. The people there are pretty much bent over all the goblins, wolves, crows, and boars and stuff that's bugging the crap out of them. It's pretty standard fare for MMOs to have quest givers be pestered folk, isn't it? And we like it too because it's straight forward for the most part. Go kill 16 goblins. Awesome. Will do. Go get me 10 wolf pelts. YOU GOT IT! 7 boar tusks? rawr. You need some crow feathers for your pillow? IT'S CROW KILLING TIME! (tm) (I'm so trademarking that)

I actually need to go back and work through the storyline though. I've kind of been skipping that whole aspect of the game in favor of just questing and leveling. I'm blatently trying to catch up to the 25+ level folks so I can play with them more. That's another wonderful aspect of me and gaming. I'm always trying to catch up to somebody. hehe.

I also ran to some town that was west of the forsaken inn. Following the road wasn't too bad, but eventually there were mobs crossing the road that conned red and purple, which would equal defeat . . . but with a little creative strafing, it wasn't too bad to get through and on to the new city. I didn't spend much time there since I needed to get to work, but I made it! yay!

The Minstrel's Friend

2007-05-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

So I did the level 15 medium armor quest last night. It was waaaaay too easy.

**SPOILER ALERT**
Basically you have to escort a hobbit in a mini-zone. He fights off light blue con, brigand-model mobs while you either join in the battle or simply heal him. Around 15% life, the brigands beg for mercy. Eventually you get to the end of the tunnel where you do the same against the leader of the troupe, who isn't any tougher than the rest of them. At which point they decide, what the heck, let's share this meat and blackwolds come running out from around the corner praising the hobbit for being such a standup short guy.

After that you zone out of your mini-instance and go talk to the minstrel at the Prancing Pony Inn. He tells you to jump up on one of the tables and sing a song about what you just did. That was actually the hardest part. I jumped on the table and typed /music and started jamming thinking that was what I was supposed to do. LOL. Come to find out I just needed to click on the song lyric item in my inventory. Rack that up to not paying close enough attention to the scrolling game text. I didn't even realize that I had the song lyrics in my backpacks.
**END SPOILER ALERT***

The other cool part of this quest is that you get a cool club called "The Minstrel's Friend." It's actually not a bad beating stick for this level. It was definitely an upgrade for me. :-)

Peace

ding and dang 15

2007-05-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

Last night I had both my first death and I dinged 15. It was funny because in the morning yesterday I was killing mobs 2 or 3 levels over me and doing really well. At night yesterday I couldn't deal with a simple even con bear. /boggle. I wrack it up to just being tired. I had healing potions and mana to spare when I died. Oh well . . . at least I got the level 14 title, "indomitable," for not dying up until that point.

15th is a cool level for a Minstrel because we get the medium armor trait. On the forum boards it's being debated on the usefulness of using the limited trait slots for medium armor. Those arguing for medium armor say that medium armor is more plentiful and has better stats. Those arguing against medium armor are saying there's really no difference and I can be better served with a different trait in that slot.

When I logged out last night, I was at the feet of the guy who runs you through the quest. I'm looking forward to completing that the next time I log on. Can't do that this morning though since the servers are down for maintenance.

First! (and some observances)

2007-05-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm hoping this blog will be a place to not only journal a bit but also to talk a bit about my new chosen class in Lord of the Rings Online. I'm also hoping for a bit of response from anyone that's reading to give more insights or just spur discussion.

I'm playing a minstrel, which is kind of a mixture of bard from EQ and your standard healer class. It's kind of cool, when you play a song, it not only damages your target but also sends out a buff. The third tier of songs you play (have to play a tier 1 and 2 song first) will buff your group as well. And instead of being a hybrid . . . the minstrel is the main healing class. wild.

I've been reading a bit from the class forum boards, and that's a great resource. . . some tidbits I've picked up so far:

+evasion items might be a good strategy to countering high agro
Stay close to the tank in most instances so they can use their agro grabbing tools
people are claiming the agro from healing is outrageous and especially if you don't have a good guardian (i.e., tank)
+will items are better than +power items
if you die a lot while soloing you need to learn2playnoob.

Things I've noticed so far as a level 14 minstrel:

The fear you get at this level is good on humanoid targets . . . even elites.
Clear an area to pull a fear kite target into rather than engage them where they stand.
You can survive 3 at once if you have a heal potion ready after you kill the first one. Don't even try to song heal yourself if you have 3 beating on you.
Stat food is good, regen food is better.
It's dang hard re-finding quest givers sometimes. You may want a good cheat map just to cut down on hunt and find time.
High level friends powerleveling you through quests that are a little high for you = good. They might even give you some hints about the specific mobs in the areas you're fighting in.
Always talk to the stable hand to lock in a town.
Paying 1 silver for a fast zone from stable hand to stable hand to the other side of town may or may not be worth it . . . it has to reload the zone. Probably still faster but . . . every silver counts here at lower levels.
Lag in Bree is astounding at times.
Lag in the crafting shop inside Bree can be even more astounding.
YOU CAN ACTUALLY PLAY AN INSTRUMENT WITH THE /MUSIC COMMAND!!!! You get 3 full octaves and can just sit there and jam. It'll even play chords. Of course, you only get one octave at a time to your disposal.
Oh man, a lot of people playing instruments at once can be a huge lag factor.
Repair your gear often.
Quests are bank for both money and exp. Do 'em.
Killing a lot of stuff can unlock some cool traits and a title. It's good if you're just in a solo grind mood.
Day 4 of the same minstrel battle sounds I was ready to destroy the game. Day 6 I had completely blocked the sound out mentally. /shrug.
Be polite when you see someone fighting a monster right near a mine please . . . they probably are fighting that monster because they want the mine . . . if you jump it, you're a jerk.

And that's all I got in me so far. I'm liking my new guild and I'm having fun with the game. Hope to get some good comments and have people drop by as I write my way through the game.