The LOTRO Conundrum--Should I Come Back?

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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)