Book 11 and the Minstrel . . . hooo boy.

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

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

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

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

Quick 30-second CD video

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

Post 50 life?

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

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