The foreboding Gygaxian DIKU gate is imminently approaching in Lord of the Rings Online. We are given until December 1, 2009 for the Mines of Moria iteration. Then, the Siege of Mirkwood power levels are deployed. Following the usual formula, your hard earned gear is washed away as more powerful boars and spiders resist laugh at your feeble Morian might. At least on my server, it seems, no one cares.
I just bought a new ring at the sizeable price of 4 gold. I didn’t need the ring per se, but at a 33% discount from the usual market price it felt like I was making a good decision. My stats were buffed the usual 2%, and I had another teal to adorn my indigo-hued Captain. People are still buying my black dye, and my top tier morale potions seem to sell within the hour. Shouldn’t we all know that within a month all of this will be for naught?
People are still working on radiance gear in the Moria instance cluster, the Watcher and Turtle are weekly runs for many, and generally the heroes fighting the denizens of the deep are unaware of the war-hippies’ plans to attack Southern Mirkwood. Maybe all at once the cultural focus will shift from advancement to preparation. Open beta perhaps? Until then, ignorance is bliss.
–Ravious
a child said, what is grass
Personally, I am at level 38, working on 39. My preparation for SoM involves leveling to 60 as fast as I can. As a mostly solo player (but with an awesome kin), that is a bit challenging. Maybe that seems like ‘not preparing for Mirkwood’, but then I am not in the upper echelon of awesomeness yet (level 60).
Heck, I need to take a break from leveling to experience the fall content.
I’m in a similar boat. I’m approaching level 50 but all the original Shadow of Angmar instances are deserted. I’m trying to race to level 60 so I can try some of the Moria instances before everyone leaves in pursuit of the new shiny.
Well since its only 5 levels and since radiance gating is part of the expansion maybe they see it as a step ladder progression rather than a huge jump… Hence they are not despairing about the expansion but rather looking forward to it.
Perhaps my experiences are atypical, but it doesn’t seem that people are abandoning the older instances as rapidly as they did with WoW’s expansion. Every class quest requires people to go through Urugarth or Carn Dum to unlock some legendary abilities, so there is occasional interest in running those instances. PUGs were tough to get, but my kinship has run these instances quite a few times. We even did a Rift raid last night for the fun of it, and a few of the lower level members got some cherry upgrades. My kinship is still talking about trying to gear up for Dar Narbugud. So, a tip for people who want to see old content: find a kinship that shares this interest.
I think that it’s as Thallian says: it’s “only” 5 more levels and radiance is still going to matter, so getting gear now is still important.
We constantly had the Rift gate-locked on farm status for the hope bonus off completing the final quest for the Balrog’s chain.
We’d run the rift, get the bonus then do the Watcher…good fun.
What makes you think we don’t? I don’t think I’ve gone through any point in my (now sort of long) LOTRO career thinking something I just did will matter much at all in a month. In a month most of my gear will make my current outfit look like a joke.
Now. . a week, maybe you have an argument. Maybe you shouldn’t blow all of your cash on 2.5 DPS improvement two days before Mirkwood drops. But a month? You seriously want to wait a month to spend anything or do anything because Mirkwood is coming?
Well I guess it depends on your style of play. My playstyle requires that I kind of “plan” my course of action. For people that play 20+ hours / week, the influx of time and money might necessitate spending. :)
It seems that folks are just having enough fun doing what they’re doing to bother convincing themselves of the myth that additional content somehow annihilates existing content.
Turbine did a pretty good job overall making content fun rather than merely necessary.
It’s not like that radiance gear won’t have use. The +10 set is still superior to everything else you can get until DN. If you’re outfitting a non-raiding character to go through Mirkwood with the most success, it makes sense to try and get the +10 set. It isn’t as if the rad instances are hard, or as if groups don’t run them every day.
And if you’re a raider, come Gol Dulgur, we’ll need either the three-piece Mirkwood set + the three-piece Moria set, or the full DN set, in order to have enough radiance to enter the newest raid.
So really, there’s no reason NOT to continue to upgrade our gear, if upgrades exist. It’s not like that extra +40 morale is going to do you any harm, and really, what else is there to do in the game while we wait?
Very true, I keep hearing how powerful the Watcher set is even compared to DN. So it might last a good couple of levels in to Mirkwood.
And I thought they were changing radiance so it no longer gave morale?
I meant the morale upgrades going from the crafted guild stuff (which is really nice stuff btw, and only a little below the +10 set) to the +10 set. And it’s also a number I just pulled out of my ass, so.
Just implying that gear upgrades never do you any harm, even if it’s a few points.
Everybody in my kin knows that SoM is coming, with a new raid, but we still run DN weekly. After MoM came out we still ran the Rift weekly for a few months while people were slowly levelling up to 60. It’s about playing together and having fun, and the challenge of beating content, than the rewards.
If you play any MMO anywhere, without even any expansions, sooner or later I hope everybody realizes that none of it really matters and it should be just about doing it for fun. I try to approach my gaming with the idea that the servers are going to be permanently closed in a month and everything I’ve ever done will be lost forever. With that in mind, do I really want to spend my time doing activity X or not? And only do those things I feel like doing.
Very true. I feel sorry for people who only hit Carn Dum, Urugarth and The Rift in their 60s, basically rushing through these wonderful instances for class loot..
We went to The Rift last weekend and I still see those beautfifully designed rooms in my mind, the perfect pace of the action, the bitter anger and hate of the Balrog in chains.. not to mention the door to that chamber is a masterpiece in itself, the cloak of the elf maiden.. ahh.. they should have kept the team responsible for that immortal work of art; whenever I see a post-SoA video I just find it ugly..
Go there in your fifties if you have a chance.
I think any time we play any game, we know it will all be for nothing… eventually. That new 4 gold ring will serve you well during the rest of October and all of November.
Eventually, we’ll run out of things to do and get bored. We’ll quit the game and then everything will be for nothing… but for right now, there’s gearing up for that last 2%, and then after that there’s Mirkwood to do it again.
Ah, the nature of a treadmill game design.
It’s nice to actually *finish* games now and then.
(He says as he goes off to try to get to another ending with Disgaea DS’ New Game Plus feature…)
I had done trade skills on my alt characters but had ignored them except for harvesting on my main character. With the best items for the 4th relic slot in SoM not being tradable I have been spending my limited play time working on tailoring. Slightly miffed by that because I do have a supreme tailor on a low level.