Category: Lord of the Rings Online

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The Hardship of the Blue Team

The first thing I miss on the freep side is that quartermaster in Gramsfoot. He sells healing potions, cheap, in unlimited numbers. One click, 800 health, good deal. Freeps need to craft for those, which means I may make an alt with the Scholar trade skill. All this time working on trade skills, and it turns out the main things I want are consumables, which my Tailor main does not make.

Repair costs are a bother, but not severe. They are probably higher for the folks out front or who die a lot, but I think my costs were ~40 silver for the night that included two deaths.

Continue reading The Hardship of the Blue Team

The Ease of the Blue Team

I have had two nights as a freep in the Ettenmoors (PvMP). Wow, that is so much easier. The first night was as a 47, the second as a 48, and I will take another trip soon since I hit 49 last night. (No idea why the arbitrary “once per level until 50” thing. Probably because there is no xp to be had out there.) Both times we took one keep, I got about 100 kills with 10 killing blows, and I earned 2300 infamy. That means I hit rank 2 on my first night. That estimate I had about how long it takes a creep to rank? If I can keep this up, and I think I can do better, cut those times by 75%. I died 0 times the first night, twice the second night.

The damage is great on the blue team. Hunters have much better burst DPS than Blackarrows, and we have more of them. My Hunter likes to start fights with ~500 damage in a few seconds, so few things survive three seconds of concentrated fire from a raid. Hunters also track for free, which takes a talisman every time a creep wants it, and freeps can find everyone with two skills versus the one talisman per freep race. The buffs are very nice as well, especially when a Captain gives +50 to everything with In Defense of Middle Earth. Minstrels are great healers, again with burst versus the Defilers’ heal-over-time slimes. Let us not compare the value of a Burglar on your team to that of a Warg Stalker.

The great thing about the blue side is that the red team is suicidal. Continue reading The Ease of the Blue Team

I Hate Your Guild

I hate you for spamming every 90 seconds, with a paragraph of text that takes up the entire chat box. You are almost as considerate as the gold-spammers. They at least restrict themselves to one zone.

Let me tell you, nothing says “selective” quite like a guild that broadcasts for members. Constantly. I am sure that is how the most competent people come together. And that whole bit where you don’t even spell the words properly? Gold.

: Zubon

Different Grouping Experiences

In City of Heroes, groups are where it is at. Pick-up groups are not hard to find, and they are rarely apocalyptically bad (although some are pretty weak). If you are in a supergroup or on a global channel, you know some people to group with. With sidekicks and exemplars, and auto-exemplaring in TFs, finding people “your level” is trivial. The game is not built around fighting one thing at a time, and there are many powers that do not hit their stride until you have a team of 4+. We love fighting huge spawns, and with the xp curve changes, fighting bosses (group size 7-8) is where the great xp is. All missions are shared instances, so everyone can join in anything. It is typical to keep a group going for several hours, shuttling in people as a few drop out. This starts as early as level 2, when people form sewers groups, and continues through level 50. Team composition does not matter: this is no holy trinity, and I have done a task force with 3 Scrappers and a Defender.

In The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ PvE, grouping is not encouraged. There are several reasons why you might want to, from fellowship maneuvers to shared experience, but the quest-based leveling system pushes you away from sticking with the same people. If you are with the same people for more than a half-hour, and not in an instance, you are probably grinding enemies for a trait. When you reach a new town, you get a stack of solo quests scattered around the zone, some of which will lead to group content. You group for one quest, then Legohlaz has a full pack, Legolass wants to do her spider quest, Lejolas is working on a quest in the other direction, and the group splits. Repeat at next group content, except in the quest chains, where you split after completing the chain. Groups cap at six, so a couple of people leaving means you are paralyzed until you find new members.

I have yet to fiddle with The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ endgame PvE content. There seems to be a lot of it, and it is all group content. I hope the expansion does not consign it all to the dustbin, since I am not going to be able to get a raid together for something 10 levels below the cap.

In The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ PvMP, open raids are great. There is almost always one open, maybe two, and we get so used to it that we forget to start a second when the first fills up. Voice chat is lively. People are work pretty well as a team, even with random composition. You regularly see raid-and-a-half versus raid-and-a-half, with a player troll and a bunch of NPCs in the mix (no problems with my graphics card), so the Ettenmoors really does re-create that “war” feeling that so many games miss, complete with monsters that keep dying and coming in waves while the free people play conservatively and have far better kill-death ratios. It is the most fun I have ever had in PvP.

City of Heroes PvP feels lonely. There is so much mobility that the fight sprawls over city blocks, in 3-D up to the flight ceiling. The goal is to pounce on one squishy, crush him, then spring away before his teammates can react. The only alternative to skirmishing is the long, drawn-out brawl from They Live, featuring Tankers and Scrappers who take forever to kill with ridiculous defenses. The skirmishers may actually continue their bouncing bloodsport over the tanks who have nothing else to do but engage their similarly invulnerable counterparts.

: Zubon

The Secret Life of Trolls

I have gotten used to the fact that humanoid enemies can drop certain things like crafting resources and recipes. Sure, goblins carry gems that they mine, that makes sense. But why is this troll carrying around a recipe for Superb Dwarf-Make Radiant Shoes? Does he long to retire from the military life and take up cobbling? Was he drawn to the fine penmanship in the instructions? Foot fetishist? Do shoes scale well from dwarf-sized to troll-sized? Does he have a troll-friend who makes pretty elvish dresses?

Who knows what lurks in the hearts of mobs?

: Zubon

I See You

My Uruk Blackarrow hit rank 5 last week and got his stealth detection ability. My own stealth is -4, but I can see through 14. Well-equipped Burglars using Hide in Plain Sight still escape me, but I can see through Camouflage and Hobbit Stealth even if I forget to turn on my buff.

I put it to use Monday night. It was awesome. My teammates do not share my line of sight, but the Burglar becomes much more visible once I set him on fire. They are so cute, creeping along in the stealth animation, not realizing that they are about to be shot in the face. The most satisfying was the one trying to sneak away after we wiped the rest of the freep raid. All night long on voice chat:

“Burglar creeping up on the right side.”
“Where?”
*twang*
and fifteen people dogpile on him.

: Zubon

Now if only I could actually kill Burglars without the fifteen friends. Just wait until I hit rank 7!

Big Beaks

I am the first one to mock games for re-coloring mobs so that you are fighting the same guys at level 40 as level 4, only blue versions with new hats. Indeed, The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ was really disappointing when I got to Evendim, because the level 1 bandits get new jobs as level 35 tomb robbers, along with their friends the wolves and the bears. The developers seem aware that boars are the only missing piece.

Blade-Beak Ravager And then you go to Angmar and meet these guys. Yes, this is the cave claw model from level 2, and the fight is pretty much the same, but it becomes something special when they are brightly colored world-devourers whose forelegs are taller than you are.

: Zubon

Mostly True to Tolkien

It was the recreation of the siege of Minas Tirith with gummi bears that pointed out to me that Tolkien named everything. Monsters and swords, of course, but why not a battering ram? The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ plays this straight, with a constant string of named quest rewards. Fill your character with named rings, cloaks, bracelets, weapons, hats, gloves, and shoes. (Yes, every letter there is a link. I have plenty of alphabet to go.) I assume that most of the names are words from Tolkien’s made-up languages.

Make sure your item’s name has an international character or two. Your sword is weak if it lacks a diacritic.

At some point, you start to wonder about all this magic loot. Here we are in Middle Earth, with some five wizards on the planet, and we sell packs of magic weapons as vendor trash.

: Zubon

Place and Space

Something The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ has that City of Heroes lacks is a sense of distance. There are a few huge zones in CoX, so you dread going all the way across Independence Port, Nerva, or a Shadow Shard zone, but for the most part movement is very fast. Two monorail lines (or one villainous ferry) visit almost all the zones. You have teleporters in your base and at least three extradimensional waystations that serve as mini-monorails. Once you are in the zone, you move quickly, leaping tall building in a single bound or running faster than speeding locomotive.

In The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢, you walk. On foot, you cross a zone in 5-10 minutes, assuming you can run in a mostly straight line. Hunters run a bit faster, and you can get a horse at higher levels. The rental horses are pretty quick, and there are a few teleport abilities (again, go Hunters).

To me, moving two zones over feels like a huge project. Maybe I have been lulled by convenience, starting with Asheron’s Call’s portals and ingrained by years of CoX, but I do not want to spend 10 minutes traveling before the adventure begins. If this is a fellowship, finding members and bringing them together is potentially a half-hour or longer project. Even in-zone, fifteen minutes is not unusual.

Continue reading Place and Space