Group Shot - FLEX

We’ve managed to make it to the mid-Thirties with out group. We’ve been running a little light for the past week or so, as one of our members has been away, but we’ve decided to forge ahead and help her catch up when she gets back.

One of the things that really helped us get leveling again was moving into a different zone. Although we haven’t been trying to get every quest in a zone done before we moved on, we have been trying to “finish” the zone, i.e. try to get the important quests done, maybe all of the group ones, before we move on.

Now, I was talking to Aji, a new member of the kinship (see more details about Cor Pethroni here), and he was mentioning that he likes to complete every quest in a zone before moving on. He also reminded me that if you don’t complete every quest, you are likely to miss out on some great events and stories that come out of those quest chains, which I hadn’t thought of.  I think that for us, as a group, we have to move on. We just aren’t able to stay in a zone long enough to get all of the quests completed. That’s something that Bill and I mentioned in the very first podcast, something that we both love and hate at the same time: LOTRO has WAY more content in each zone than is needed to level. That makes it easier to pick and choose what is interesting, but it also makes it hard if you do want to complete all of the content. I know that I struggled with that choice for a while myself. We tried finishing all the quests as a group at first, but by the time we got close to finishing the zone, all of the mobs where such a low level, it was very boring for us to kill them. We then decided not to do that anymore, and to move on. For the first 20-25 levels, I would go back after the group had logged off and complete some of the quests that they had decided to skip. I wanted to get everything done. But I found that I started to get a little too bogged down in the grind, so I made the conscious choice to move on out of the zone when a new one became level appropriate. It’s just not important enough for me to finish them all.

That being said, I wish that I was patient enough to be in LOTRO only for the journey through the content. I am more interested in the content than in getting to the “end game” of max level, but I also really enjoy NEW content. It’s not that I’m rushing though the game, it’s just that I like seeing the new and shiny things. Call it a personality fault.

As mentioned previously, on the talk like a pirate day post, we recently discovered Evendim, and that got our explorer juices going, and we haven’t really stopped since. We decided the very next time that we played that we where going to run to Rivendell, as one of our fellowship member did not have a port to travel there.

What an enjoyable run that was!

We completed a few quests along the way, we started to get some of the next tier crafting materials, and we killed a whole bunch of Rock Trolls. A good time was had by all.

We followed that up with a night of questing in Evendim, where we slew many brigands, as well as salamanders and the such. Again, a good time was had by all.

On both evenings, each person managed to level once, and some of us even leveled twice. We are now almost within reach of our coveted horses! We can’t wait until we hit level 35 and receive those boons to transportation. Now, those of you who already have your horses, please don’t tell me how they’re not really that great. Don’t tell me that they are not much more convenient than the stable masters. I don’t want to hear that it’s a pain that you can’t interact with the world while you are on them, or do any emotes (that’s being changed in SoM anyways!). All I want to hear is how the entire game will get even better than it already is the minute I get my horse.

Our fellowship is slowly getting closer and closer to Moria. Each step brings us to new and exciting places, where we get to see new and exciting things and, well, kill them.

See you in game!