General
Did you know…
Sep 18th
Hello all, I’m excited to announce that Chris has kindly added me as a contributor to this website. For the present, I will be focusing on the “Did you know…” segments, but if I behave myself nicely, eventually Chris may let me branch out to other stuff! Anyway…
I have found a very handy little option that has made my LOTRO experience so much better. The “Item Names” option puts a bright label overtop all kinds of important stuff in the game. You see, I have a VERY bad sense of direction, and I often have an issue finding the door to get in or out of a building (yes, you read me right!), and with this option activated, the door is labelled for me: DOOR. Isn’t that clever? Also, this option is really cool for noticing stuff that you might otherwise miss. Stuff such as chests, crafting items (pieces of wood, scholar items), food (onions, cabbages, etc), and small quest items that might be tricky to spot. It even displays the names of all the buildings (crafting house, inn, etc), so you can tell at a glance what’s what.
So, what is this great option?. Simply go to Options, and then UI, and enable “Item Names”. Trust me on this… you won’t be disappointed (or stuck wandering forlornly around some random building, desperate to find the exit!) LOL!
Isanni
I have a thought….
Sep 18th
I’m wondering if the LOTRO Community would be interested in creating a Kinship where Podcasters/Bloggers and their fans could all join together and actually play the game together. Thoughts?
Motivational Poster Winner
Sep 18th
Turbine has annouced the first winner for the Motivational Poster Contest winner. Congratulations Starbuckjones!
The original story on the LOTRO site is here.
Threat Generation as a Tank
Sep 18th
As many of you have probably heard on the podcast (found through iTunes or the link on the right of the page), my main is a Warden. I’ve gotten him up to the low level 30s now, and am loving the mechanics of the class, as well as playing a tank in instances. As you can see from some comments in previous posts, Bill and I disagree about the mechanics, as he feels that they need an overhaul to make it easier to remember/know the combinations of attacks needed for Gambits, while I find that they work just fine. To each their own!
Overall in LOTRO, both as a Guardian and a Warden, I’ve found threat generation to be very different in LOTRO than in other games. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but it is nearly impossible for me to have all of the mobs attacking me, while the DPS in the group attacks my target, then we move to the next target, etc. If we do manage to get all of the mobs attacking me, we often have to have our Rune Keeper move to healing, so that both the Minstrel and the Rune Keeper are healing me. Otherwise, I go down quick.
As far as the Guardian was concerned, I found that it was simply a lack of attacks that would allow me to gain threat. The threat increase attacks that I did have where also reliant on a parry or a block before I could use them. I found it very difficult in a group to get ANY of the mobs to attack me. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but it just didn’t work for me.
When I moved to the Warden as my main, I was ecstatic that I had threat generation attacks almost right away. It made it much easier. However, as we go through the game, and keep running instances, I find that it’s large groups that give me trouble. I just can’t get them all to attack me. If I use all my threat attacks, then I don’t have any of my defense buffs up, and go down quickly. If I use my defense attacks to get those buffs up, the mobs attack the other members of the party.
So, what am I doing wrong? I’ve got my Gambits down pat, so I know which ones give me threat, etc. I have found that Maddening Strike is next to useless. I was trying to use it to transfer the threat from my felllowship members to me, and it didn’t do anything. I ended up just going back to Precise Blow and Piercing Strike to attack single targets, and moving from one to the other to keep them off the healers.
Here is how I see the attack so far: I throw a spear to start the pull. Then I use Piercing Strike on the first mob. Our fellowship attacks my target, and I keep using my Piercing Strike to keep gaining threat, but one of the mobs will move to the healer. I then use Precise Blow or Piercing Strike to pull the mob off of the healer. I also use Goad when I have all of the mobs on me to keep gaining threat. The mobs will then start to attack different members of the fellowship, and it is nearly impossible for me to get the mobs back. We do sometime split things up, however, when we are fighting a boss. We might get our hunter and/or our champion to attacks the adds in the group while I stay on the boss. Otherwise, we usually have the group attack my target.
So, please o wise LOTRO Reporter community: What am I doing wrong?
See you in game.
The class for me? Warden
Sep 10th
The Warden is a really fun class to play. I enjoy the mechanics involved, as they get me a little more involved in the combat. When I was playing DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) I liked the fact that you had to click your mouse button for every attack. Very Diable-esque. I would often find myself clicking faster than the game could register, especially during tense fight. It really added to the immersion.
Although being a Warden in LOTRO doesn’t mean that you click your mouse button for every attack, the Gambit system is a unique way to get players more involved in the combat. For those of your who don’t know that the gambit system is, here is a quick description: A Gambit is an attack triggered by a combination of attacks that come before it. For example, if you use your Fist attach (gain threat) and your Spear attack (damage), then trigger your Gambit, you perform a Precise Blow, which does Damage, and gives you threat over time.
There is list of Gambits sorted by effect here. I have found it quite useful.
If you are thinking about making a Warden, here are a couple of things to keep in mind: It is an advanced class, and a little bit more difficult than some of the original classes in the game to play effectively; It does take quite a bit of memorization to remember the combinations needed to perform the Gambit.
That being said, I find playing a Warden as the main tank for our group to be much easier than playing as a Guardian. For me, it’s easier to gain aggro (threat) and keep it than on the Guardian. Maybe I just wasn’t playing the guardian right, but so far, the Warden is for me.
See you in game!
Did you know?
Sep 8th
This “Did you know?” come to us from Isana on the Brandywine server.
If you right-click the General tab in the chat window, then click Change Text Colours, you can adjust the colour for every kind of chat that comes up in the chat window. You can even adjust the size of the text, so that things that you want to make sure you don’t miss (such as comments from the fellowship) will be easier to see.
Thanks Isana!
You can do this for any of the different categories of chat. I currently have my fellowship and /tell messages showing up with a bigger font than the rest. Really makes them pop out.
See you in game!
Skirmishes info from Siege of Mirkwood
Sep 5th
There is a “World First” preview of Siege of Mirkwood posted by a fan who wrote about their experience talking to the Turbine developers about the upcoming “Digital Expansion”. You can find that post here.
Basically, he spoke to them about several things, but the most interesting one for me is about the new Skirmishes. In a nutshell, it sounds like these skirmishes will be in adition to your leveling experience, and will be battle that you fight by yourself, or with groups of three, six or twelve players. Well, not by yourself, as each player will have one soldiers that they command. The example of a skirmish that was used was that the players would have to defent the Prancing Pony in Bree from Sharky’s men. The Prancing Pony will have hit points, and based on how well you defend it, you will get a certain amount of skirmish points in the end.
These skirmish points can then be used to upgrade/custamize your soldier, to whom you will be able to give traits and abilities.
A few last details are that it sounds like these skirmishes will be scalable to your level, and that you will gain access to this part of the game at level 30.
See you in game!
Siege of Mirkwood Announced!
Sep 4th
Wow. I wasn’t expecting this this morning. A new “digital download” will be available this fall titled “Siege of Mirkwood”. The official announcement is here.
Some of the new features:
- Increased Level Cap to 65
I think that this will please the people who enjoy leveling. Personally, leveling is not my favorite thing in the world. As long as they make it interesting, and don’t just make it a grind through five more levels, I think it’s a good thing.
- Answer the Call of War! Jump into the heat of battle with the new Skirmishes feature. Skirmishes offer endless action in repeatable, randomized instances where players can create and lead customizable soldiers into battle, training them to greater skill as they earn victories against the forces of shadow. Answer the call of war wherever violence erupts with the new “World Join” function that lets players and their fellowships band together to fight in various locations throughout Middle-earth.
What? WOW! This sounds awesome. Leading customizable, trainable soldiers into battle is something very different, and I’m not sure that this has been done in an MMO before. Yes, Guild Wars and DDO both had henchmen that you could hire, but I don’t think that this is going to be something similar. This seems like each player will be leading a squad of soldiers into battle. I can’t wait to get more information. Will this be like an RTS, where the view changes to a 3/4 perspective and you worry about the strategy, or will this be from the traditional LOTRO 3rd person view, and your squad will follow you? Will they add Squad commands like a Squad Based shooter? AHHHHHH. My head is about to explode with all these questions!
- Take up Arms! Infiltrate the dark jails, deadly arenas and savage stables of Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths, and strike a blow against Sauron’s forces in new 3 and 6-player instances. Call upon your fellows to adventure into the most deadly 12-player raid yet and face the ultimate challenge – the Nazgûl Lord!
New instances/raids/adventures? Check!
- Major Gameplay Enhancements Turbine continues to improve the award-winning experience of LOTRO with major improvements to the combat and Legendary Items systems. Players will experience improved responsiveness when in the heat of battle. Players will also be able to create and craft their own customized Second and Third Age Legendary Items from raw materials and grow their weapons’ power to level 60. Achieve new Legacies, new titles, and a fourth Runic slot that will make Legendary Items even more unique and powerful.
Now this part worries me? Major improvements to the combat system? Ummm, is it broken now? Turbine, have you heard of a little game called Star Wars Galaxies? Do you want to me to explain to you what happened when they had “major improvements to the combat system”? THEY BROKE THEIR GAME AND HAD THE POPULATION OF THEIR SERVER DROP DRASTICALLY! Be careful Turbine. Please don’t break my game!
Upgrades to the Legendary Items system, from what I can tell, will be very welcome.
More Legacies, titles, etc? Great!
So there we have it folks. To me, this seems like it will be a free content update, and not the next expansion. I don’t think that it was a big enough announcement for one thing, and I also don’t think that the amount of content is in line with what Turbine put into MoM. This would be a great way for Turbine to finish off the MoM expansion though, and get us ready for Rohan! At least, I hope that the expansion is to Rohan. We’ll have to wait and see.
Oh, and Turbine, you missed something in your post about this update. GIVE US HORSES EARLIER!
There, I’ve said it.
I feel better now.
See you in game!
More LOTRO Podcasts
Sep 2nd
Being an avid LOTRO player, I find that I enjoy listening to podcasts about the game. So much so, in fact, that I also listen to podcasts OTHER than LOTRO Reporter. I know, weird huh?
I thought that I’d take the time to mention a few that I listen to, and link to them, so that you might have a chance to listen to what others are doing in the LOTRO community.
- Ringcast – http://www.virginworlds.com/podcast.php?show=3&ep=36 - A very interesting podcast. Lady Sinaea is a great host, and has lost of information about end game content, as well as news.
- LOTROCast – www.lotrocast.com – Another good podcast. Great hosts, with more information about end game content, as well as news and editorial content.
- The Lord of the Rings Online Report – http://thelotro.com/ – Awesome information on end game raiding and dungeons.
Now, I’m sure that there are more out there, including A Casual Stroll to Mordor (not yet on iTunes), but I’ve limited myself to podcasts that have updated recently. I think that each podcast offers something different, and they complement each other quite well.
So, enjoy, and I’ll see you in game!
Did you know?
Sep 1st
Did you know that when you are going somewhere new, perhaps with some new monsters, when your screen goes a little blurry, and you “cower” (your character hunches down and you can’t move), that it’s a game system called Dread?
Dread is a game mechanic that is triggered when you go near a monster or area that is particularly scary to your character. Your character reacts to this, and they gain several debuffs, including a decrease in morale (health). There are items in the game that give you Hope or Radiance, and they counteract this effect.
See you in game!
Note: I know that this is a very basic explanation, but that is the point of “Did you know?”. If you’d like to submit a more detailed explanation, I’d love to post it! Send emails to lotro.reporter@gmail.com
