Guest Blogger on Casual Stroll to Mordor

I have been fortunate enough to take a stab ats a guest blogger for CStM. It is on a brief rundown of the Barad Gularan instance in Angmar. I'll be posting some pics of the event here on my blog soon. Enjoy!

Link here...

Warden Dol Guldur Raid Armor Pics and Stats

As promised!

SoM NDA Lifted!!!

Yay, I can talk freely now!  Beta was awesome.  There are some good things coming, that's for sure.  Go check it all out on the official forums !  I'll try make a post this evening after I return from work, showcasing the new Warden Dol Guldur Raid armor, of which I have pics.

Quick Update

Just a quick update.  I'm still around and working piece-mail a post.  Problem is work has just gotten crazy with insane deadlines so a lot of my blogging time has been eatten up.  I am hoping to be back very soon!

Then, Now, and Yet to Come

Recently I had the opportunity to traverse into one of my favorite old Shadows of Angmar stomping grounds. Carn Dum. A few of my kin mates and two friends still needed a few items to complete their level 45 class quests. I for one have always enjoyed strolling through Carn Dum (CD). The entire instance was very well designed and implemented.  Pivotal boss fights and of course the hornblowers.

Lately I began feeling very nostalgic about the old Angmar instances, CD and Urugarth. Barad Gularan was fun as well, though I have only run it once, but I was fortunate enough to down the "Onion" on that run. I really do not know BG that well, and it's hard to get a group together to learn. I will work on that. Thinking back on how the "end game" instances were run in the past, I reflect that, with how they are now and see a few major differences.

Two Sites That Should Be on Everyone's Bookmarks

It has been a very busy week at work, so my time has been somewhat limited.  That being said, here are two sites that everyone one should check out, and check out often.

LOTRO Dynamic Map - This is a great map for finding out where things are.  You select an area, then you can set filters from drop down menus on the top of the map.

Darzil's Crafting Site - A must see for all those who are interested in crafting.  He even shows what the crafted items will look like when equipped as well as what is needed to craft them.

Hopefully I'll get a bit more time next week...  Enjoy.

A Few Screenshots From the Other Night

I was in the Shire and Bree a few nights ago finishing up a few deeds and had a few O.o moments.  Here are a few screenies of my travels.

Rainbow over Took-land

Sunrise in Hobbiton

Sunset in Bree

Looking over the Brandywine into Bree-land From Evendim  above Annuminas

Excellent Raid-Centric Post

Over on A Casual Stroll to Mordor, Merric lays out a very good synopsis on what raiding is and where it could be going.  As an end-gamer mostly, I found that I agree with his description and love the ideas that he brings up.

This is a must read for anyone who has raided, or plans on raiding in the future.  Good stuff!.

Fall Festival Quests

Goldenstar over at A Casual Stroll to Mordor has posted a very good and informative rundown on the festivities of the Harvestmath Festival.  Rather that trying to add to it I HIGHLY suggest and recommend you check out her post. Which can be found here.

One thing to note, last year there were also problems with the horse races .  And after they fixed them, they extended the festival for an additional 2 weeks, if I recall correctly.  Will we see that this time?  I hope so.  I'd rather log on at 1:00 am or 2:00 am in the morning and knock out the race, than spend my stock piled festival tokens to get the mount.  Granted the Harvestmath mount is the best of the 4 festival mounts as far as appearance, in my opinion, so I will be getting one anyway.  I'd just rather finish off getting the rest of the fall fluff with less token grind by winning the horse race.

Frustrated with PUGs? Here are a few alternative options.

One of the biggest problems for those of us who consider themselves casual/hardcore players is finding groups to run the end-game content outside of PUGs.  The way I see it there are a few options to this dilemma. 

1. Join a more raid-centric kinship that tolerates the casual nature of your play style. - This option, while easier to find kinships of this nature in LOTRO, is inherently problematic in the fact that kinships based on end-game content tend to tolerate those players who play A LOT.  Having said that, these kinships do exist, but finding them could be difficult.  I'd suggest posting on the official forums under your server forums of what you are looking for.  Try checking out the kinship section of the server forums as well to see if something jumps out at you.

2. Start or join a "PUGer's Society." - These are essentially a collective group of players with the same desires to run the content, but want to remain in their current kinship.  These groups are less collective than kinships and more tolerant of limited play schedules.  I have seen posts and in-game spam regarding this alternative.  I think that these could in fact work and be enjoyable.  I have yet to try one and very well may in the future.   These can also be found on the forums, though I have heard that the more successful ones are invite only and do not advertise.

3. Form a kinship alliance. - This is where two or more kinships "band" together to support and contribute as a single kinship.  There are varying degrees of alliances that range from acting as one cohesive unit to facilitating raids and quests.  Unfortunately, Turbine has yet to create an option for official in-game alliances.  This has been done if various other MMOs and I don't know why we do not have this option here yet.  While there is a limited workaround, using a shared chat channel and cramped friends list, the option to actually see who is online and where and what they are doing is nonexistant.

Why Do You Play on the Server That You Do?

What made you pick the server you play on?

It is really a question I have been mulling over with myself lately.  Why did I choose to play one Landroval over the other servers?  I think the biggest reason I chose Landroval was that I have enjoyed RPing in past MMOs and Landroval is the unofficial RP server.  I liked having the option open to me if and when I were to decide to get back into it.

My thought process in deciding where to play:

I browsed over the official forums to get my initial information regarding which servers included the aspects I was looking for.  It was common knowledge that Brandywine had the largest population, and that Landroval was either the second or third largest.  So far Landroval had the option for regular RP, and a good server population.  My next step was to find out about kinships.  Did I want a small one, a large one, a social one, raid, RP, etc. 

Once again I had to appeal to the official forums for advice.  Personally I was new to the game, not really sure what I was looking for.  Luckily I came across a few kinships that looked promising.  I visited their websites and forums, and decided on the one that I am currently in.  I don't want to turn this post in to a tribute to my kinship, so I'll just leave it at that and save that for another post.

So far I am very glad that I made the choices I did, and I wonder what cosmic force lead me to the server I am on and the group that I play with.  I could have easily ended up on any server and in any kinship.  Making the correct decisions in this regard,  have a huge impact on our game enjoyment  .And the beauty about that is, is that I don't really feel is would have mattered a whole lot.  The LOTRO community is BY FAR the most well behaved, mature, and game enjoying centered community I have ever been a part of.  So hats off to all of us for making our LOTRO experiences as great as they are.

What made you all join the servers you did?  Friends, population, something else entirely??

A Very, Very Brief Warden Overview

After reading a variety posts on the main forums, and with conversations with those in my kin, I thought that it would be good to give a brief and directed rundown on various skills and gambits of wardens, from what I have observed. This will likely be a continuing topic I would like to expand on in future posts.

General Overview:

In general wardens are a different animal, as far as tanking is concerned, from a guardian. Guardians are the proverbial meat-shield, they can soak up tons of damage, wear heavy armor and heavy shields and can stand toe to toe with most baddies. (disclaimer, I have not had a guardian past lvl 20 so this is based purely on observation.) Wardens on the other hand utilize medium armor and a “medium” shield. They do not benefit from the extra damage mitigation that heavy armor gives, but make up for it with amazing self-heal capabilities and an increase to their block, evade, and parry (B/E/P).

A warden can use all one handed weapons, though their weapons of choice are usually spear, sword, and club. This is due to the great benefits they get from passive skills when using these weapons. At level 1 they get:

• Club Training - +10% club damage.
• Sword Training - +10% sword damage.
• Spear Training - +15% spear damage.

Welcome!!!

With this first post I would just like to say welcome to all those who will take the time to read my future rants, ramblings, and randomness. I would also like to give a small overview of the things I will try and focus on with this blog.

As the blog description states this will be a Casual/Hardcore centered blog. This is my way of trying to describe my type of play. Casual in the aspect that I am married with kids and actually have a life outside the game, but Hardcore as in I like to focus on more on the endgame content. I would like to focus the majority of my energies discussing the challenges of enjoying the endgame content, instances, and more particularly, raids, while having limited resources, ie. level appropriate fellows, time, and of course gear.

I hope this goes well and that I am not biting off more than I can chew.

Also I would like to note that I am very new to this blog stuff and may not totally understand all the different gadgets and tools available to me. So if anyone have any suggestions, ideas, or coments they will be more than welcome.