There's so much to do in LOTRO at the moment, I'm starting to get annoyed. I know that probably makes me a strange person, but I get paralysed by choice. For example, at the moment Merrygrim is level 32, and...
- I need to master expert metalsmithing, which involves a bunch of mining before I move zones and the mining nodes I need stop being available. I've also started on the next tier. My gear is now starting to show its age, so I need to craft myself some upgrades somehow -- either lower-tier crits or higher-tier standard recipes.
- I'm way behind on my tailoring. I can combine farming for leather with getting some wolf/worg slayer deeds. This really needs doing sooner rather than later.
- I've just about finished the quests in the Lone-lands, I think. I have some bounty quests to repeat, and Book II to finish off. What's left though, is plenty of deeds, most of them slayer deeds. There's easily another level's worth of XP there, possibly two. Maybe even three if I use some Destiny Points to buy extra rest XP... That's probably not a good idea, though.
- My reputation with the Elgain isn't high enough to buy the reputation jewellery set for my level, so I need to look into raising that somehow. If the quests I have left aren't enough, there's some repeatable crafting recipes that can be turned in for reputation. Which means more mining.
- The Metalsmith's Guild. More reputation to grind, and more mining needed. I've deliberately not looked at the recipes available for this, so I'm not too worried about keeping pace with the rewards, but I'm trying to make at least something every day. I'm thinking the mining guild recipes will be more of an end game pursuit for me.
- Where next? I have a bunch of quests open in the North Downs, but some of them have since gone grey, but I know if I rush through them they'll lead to quest chains that are at-level. There's also all the deeds I've started there. I have a quest to move to Agamaur. I have some quests to move to Evendim. I have a quest to move into the Trollshaws. I haven't a clue where Book III will take me.
I think my plan is to do the farming for ore and leathers that I need to get my professions sorted, then finish the quests and deeds in the Lone-lands. By this point I'll probably be around level 35: the experience/levelling curve still seems really quick. After that, I'll follow the epic storyline a little further and see if it picks a new zone for me -- if the quests prompt me to spend any length of time in any particular zone, I'll pick up the quests and deeds there.
As a more meta-gaming personal goal, I'm going to try and enjoy the experience as a whole more, and stop worrying about keeping gear and professions current. The XP curve and amount of content available seems to make it impossible to do everything at-level and timed perfectly.
Labels: lotro
I've spent most of my LOTRO playtime in the Lone-lands this week. It's not the prettiest of zones (especially having come from the rolling green of the Shire and Bree-lands) but LOTRO does scenery so well it's still great to look at.
Labels: lotro, sundayscreenshot
My MMO resolution to reach the level cap in LOTRO is going well -- I'm still having a great time with my hobbit guardian, Merrygrim.
Some things I really like about Lord of the Rings Online, in no particular order:
The Deeds System
I'm a somewhat unusual MMO player, in that I really enjoying grinding and farming. The Deeds system -- which pops up as you're questing and asks, hey, why not kill 100 orcs for a cosmetic title, then another 200 for a tiny boost to your stats -- suits me perfectly. And with the rather deep crafting system (I guess some might say grind-focused) on top, I find myself spending more time grinding Deeds and farming materials than actively questing. Which is fine by me: the XP reward for completing deeds is reasonable, and crafting is a means to itself.
The Outfitting System
In LOTRO, if you are allowed to equip an item, you can instead equip it to a outfit slot instead of your armour slot, and choose to have it displayed instead of what you're really wearing. You get two full outfit sets to choose from, and once an item is equipped to a outfit slot, you don't even need to keep it in your bags or bank.
I love this system. As a guardian, I'm supposed to wear heavy armour, which is all plate mail and metal helmets. As a super-stylish and very dapper hobbit, I want a big floppy hat and something comfy around my not inconsiderable belly. The outfitting system lets me have the best of both worlds.
My Kinship
I've been in the same kinship (The Knights of Iluvatar) since I started playing LOTRO, and they're a great bunch of people. They've answered my beginner's questions, helped with group quests, and sent me equipment and supplies. They're always friendly and cheerful in the kinship chat channel, and there's often a brisk trade in items and crafting services for no charge.
My one concern is that so far in the give-and-take of kinship supplies and services, I have been much more of a taker than a giver. I hope once I have a few levels under my belt, I'll be more effectively able to redress the balance! As a tank, I should be of genuine use to kinshop groups, and as an armourer I can help keep beginners and alts in gear. I'm still hoping to get fairly rich, too, which should enable me to help others in a variety of ways.
The Lore
My other MMO love, WoW, has lore, but not like LOTRO. The trashy fantasy novels associated with WoW can't really compete with JRR Tolkien, now can they? There's enough content in the One Wiki to Rule Them All to keep me happy for a very long time -- not to mention the original source material!
Labels: lotro
Merrygrim fighting a pair of skeletons during Book 1, Chapter 11, inside the Great Barrow, Othrongroth.
Labels: lotro, sundayscreenshot
One of my goals for my Lord of the Rings Online character is to make him a rich little hobbit. More gold in the bank means more pies and fine pipeweed to keep his hobbit-belly full and his fairy little feet happy.
Taking the Goblin's advice to heart, I realise the best way to become rich is probably not repeatable quests or mindlessly grinding, but to play the auction house and amass a fortune through trade and commerce. So let's take a look at the auction house in LOTRO.
The first thing that immediatly springs to my attention is I don't have something like WoW's Auctioneer addon to help me. So I'm going to have to analyse the market the old-fashioned way: lots of searching and note-taking with pencil and paper (and OpenOffice Calc).
My hobbit, Merrygrim Fairfoot, is an Armourer, which means he has easy access to all the spoils of mining -- not just the raw ore and the bars which can be made from them, but also the gems, stones and shards which are mined along with the ore. Of course, just because I can mine these myself doesn't mean they are free (time is money, after all) but it is somewhere to start. I could also sell the goods he makes while levelling his crafting skills, but they are worth far less than the raw materials -- a typical quirk of (most) MMO economies.
At first glance, however, the economy on my server appears to be a little crazy, and therefore ripe for profiteering. There must be LOTRO goblins out there (perhaps a LOTRO goblin is in fact a dragon, jealously sitting on a mountain of gold?) but there is little evidence of them in the auction listings. While most items seem to gather around a fixed price point, some are listed at prices wildly more or less than the average, just begging to be bought and flipped for a profit.
It seems to me that the best place to look for a profit will be in raw crafting materials and perhaps dyes; items which are useful to a wide range of players. Once I know more about the mechanics of the game, end-game raiding consumables may also be a good market to get involved with. For the mean time, I'll swallow my goblin pride and sell the raw materials I gather while questing until I have a cushion of money, and then concentrate instead on flipping materials other players have farmed.
Labels: lotro
I'm making an MMO New Year's Resolution -- to play less WoW, and instead play other MMOs. In order to help me achieve this, I'm setting myself an actual actionable sub-goal: to reach the original level cap in Lord of the Rings Online by the end of the year.
Now, that might sound easy (and it probably is) but it also comes with a few caveats. I will be levelling my crafting skills as well, and I intend for them to be all mastered, up to whatever was the original end-game tier. I am going to participate in plenty of skirmishes, and have my soldier levelled up appropriately. I will have suitable reputation with my crafting guild. I will complete as many deeds as possible, barring perhaps any ridiculous end-game grinds which are no longer relevant. I will have all of my class training and mounts purchased, and a house, even if it's just a small one. Hopefully I will also have a bank vault full of useful crafting ingredients and a nice pile of gold.
As a side-project, I'm going to see if I can apply the Greedy Goblin's principals about WoW's economy to LOTRO's economy. After a quick glance at the LOTRO auction house I'm guessing it's possible -- one themepark MMO economy should behave much the same as another.
I want to be a contributing part of my wonderful kinship, the Illuvatarian Knights, and a large part of that is freely sharing crafting goods, recipes and skills. Some Greedy Goblinism will help here, although handing out the rewards to my kin runs counter to Gevlon's way of thinking!
One thing I'm not committing to is progress through the epic/book storyline. I'm mainly a solo player, so I intend to do it as-and-when I can, either as it gets patched to allow solo progression, or when I'm so ridiculously over-level that I can handle it solo anyway. Same goes for the various instances along the way.
Essentially, I want to squeeze as much solo/small group content out of the original game as possible, before setting foot into the Mines of Moria expansion. I quite like twinking out a character at each expansion threshold, making sure all my professions, reputations and finances are in shape before purchasing the next segment of content and moving on.
Labels: lotro, resolutions
