After weeks of gathering the most useless drops my champion, Erechir, finally finished a hundred tasks. Huzzah! On to another hundred (and another and another …)

To task or not to task?

Seeing as there is a deed associated with tasks the choice is simple – do the tasks. Granted, 500 tasks sounds horrible, more so if you realize you can only complete 5 tasks a day (at least at the beginning and barring the use of Store-bought items), on the other hand it’s less of a struggle compared to some slayer deeds. The tasks are more similar to the enmity deeds since the regions don’t matter. Not that a deed on its own would convince me but there are cloaks to be had as well as fancy titles. The title for 100 tasks completed is Up-and-Comer, no cloak though as those are available for the last three stages (300, 400 and 500 tasks completed). There is also another reward that makes the next deeds easier to complete:

As I’ve told – the daily limit for tasks is 5. However after you complete the first hundred it’s raised to 6, then to 7 and so on up to 10.

The maths

I once calculated the amount of days needed to complete the 500-task deed to be 78 days if I recall. That’s assuming you will always do the maximum amount of tasks but won’t buy task resets or limit increases from the Store though you will use those you find in the reward. That was shortly after beta and I didn’t know you’d be rewarded a task reset as well. So let’s do the math again:

• 19 days of tasking, 5 tasks per day, 95 tasks done
• 1 special day (107 tasks done)
• complete the daily 5 (100 tasks done) and receive Task Rewards
• use the limit increase first and complete 1 additional task
• use the task reset and complete additional 6 tasks (that’s 12 tasks in a day)
• 15 days of tasking, 6 tasks/day, 197 tasks done
• 1 day (208 done)
• complete 3 (200 done), get Task Rewards
• use limit increase, 1 task
• reset, complete 7 tasks
• 13 days (299 done)
• 1 day (309 done)
• 1 task (300 done)
• increase, 1 task
• reset, 8 tasks
• 11 days (397 done)
• 1 day (410 done)
• 3 tasks (400 done)
• increase, 1 task
• 9 tasks
• 10 days (500 done)

And there you have it, it will take you a minimum of 20 days to do 100 task but then, thanks to increases and resets, the next milestone will come sooner. The second hundred will be completed on 36th day, the third on 50th, the fourth on 62nd and finally the five hundred tasks will be completed on 72th day from the start. And you’ll even have 11 additional tasks to complete on the last day. 72 days is not bad, on the other hand I don’t play every day and I don’t always play my champion.

The dark side of tasking

There are several things that can make tasking a rather unpleasant experience. I’ve talked about the task limits but I don’t think there are bad per se, maybe I’m just used to the daily caps on class deeds.

One of the problems is that tasks are only available close around you level – that is 2 levels above and below. If you’re level 50 you cannot complete tasks in Lone Lands and the tasks items from Lone Lands aren’t usable in Angmar (or other level 50 area). This is bad if you overlevel an area but still want to complete the quests there, you cannot get the tasks done. Now if accept a task beforehand you can outlevel it but even the quest log has limits.

The other thing is that a) there are no tasks above level 50 (so far, it might change with Isengard) and b) experienced people (as opposed to those new to the game) generally level quite fast so completing all the 500 tasks might be a bit of a problem (it certainly is possible to reach 65 within 72 days). I think my champion started doing tasks around level 30 and he’s now 45, I plan to complete all quests in Forochel with him so I might reach onto 200 but I won’t be able to finish the 500. My Rune-keeper didn’t even finish the first 100 and by now he is in Moria. My hope lies on my level 14 Lore-mistress who might have enough time to finish this.

I guess the last problem is meeting the quota if you want to be efficient. Sometimes it is hard as the items simply don’t drop, or you need specific items which are kinda far from the hub and you’re lazy to travel there and sometimes you have plenty of items but the tasks for those are only available in a distant outpost. An example of the latter is the Great Ear, albeit rare the thing drops off almost any beast in Angmar, Forochel, Misty Mountains and possibly Eregion. However the only place where it can be handed in is Hrimbarg, deep within Misty Mountains. Now that I am able to do 6 tasks I day I’m not sure I’ll be always able to (or want to) keep up.

The brighter side

Fortunately there is a way out of this – Epic instances. A single instance (like the False Trail or Fire and Ice) will usually get you an amount of task items that will suffice for two or three days. Tasks may also provide reputation and while it is only 300 points per task it can help in the long run.

All things considered tasks don’t really provide much on the other hand they aren’t meant to. One could even say that tasks are a second hobby after fishing. As far as I am concerned I’ll try to do the 500 tasks with one of my characters (to get the cloaks at least) but I’ll probably leave them after that.

I seem to be making some large pauses aren’t I? Certainly feels like WordPress is issuing updates faster, oh well…

Anyway, my Elven Rune-keeper got into Eregion which is one of my favourite zones so I though I could do a little overview of what I like and dislike about the area.

Landscape

Well, there isn’t an area that I wouldn’t like for its landscape. In Eregion we got trees, we got walking trees, we got occasional Elven ruins which remind me of another nice area which is Ered Luin, we got dry riverbeds which is a nice new thing and we got the Redhorn Avalanche, so apart from a swamp and a desert I don’t think we are lacking anything.  And even with about three or four high peaks the area is mostly flat so you can see pretty far even from the ground.

The Foot of Redhorn

Flowers and Animals

Eregion – in case you don’t know – stands for the Land of Holly so it should be no surprise there are holly trees to be found all around. Not to mention holly huorns, holly bog-lurkers and holly wood-trolls some of which are called Holly Warriors (I see what you did there Turbine). To be honest I haven’t seen a holly tree in real life, I know how the leaves look so that was my only clue. The animals are pretty varied given the size of this zone, compared to Bree-land there are definitely more species in here. Boars (well, duh), worms, fire-flies, crebain, lynxes, sabre-tooth cats, wolves, Wargs, crawlers, lizards, snow-beasts and ice-grims. And then there are half-orcs, Uruks, Dunlendings and Angmarim. And that’s not counting instances, those would add regular drakes (wings, fire-breathing), orcs, pale-folk, gredbyg (Moria bugs), salamanders and a bear – unless I’m not remembering correctly there really is only one bear inside an instance.

Let me make a stop at the ice-grims, I hate those creatures. They do Frost damage and it hits hard, they can punt you away, they can freeze you in place and they often give you a nasty wound that does Frost damage over time. And because they are so much fun the devs decided to create an Elite Master ice-grim, I met him once long ago and I was obliterated in seconds. On the other hand there is only one quest that requires you to kill some of those and on a Rune-keeper they aren’t that much of a trouble, although they seem to be resistant to my tactical skills I can resist their frost and wounds.

Quests, Deeds and Story

Joining multiple things together but before I do that let my start with a bit of history: Once upon a time before the release of Mines of Moria there was this huge server-wide event of Ring-lore gathering, humanoid mobs of all levels were dropping pages of lost Ring-lore from Eregion and Elves stationed in towns and outposts were gathering them and sending them to Master Elrond. If I remember correctly one character could only hand in five or ten pages a day for which he received a random reward and a title if he gathered enough of those. 70 000 pages of Ring-lore were needed to be gathered for Eregion to open up, our server (Laurelin) was among the first. However not all of Eregion was revealed, only a small area near Mirobel with a swift-travel available from Rivendell, it was there where one of the final chapters of Volume I Book 14 took place. The whole Eregion was released later along with Moria.

Now to the story part – Eregion was the place where Elves made the Rings of Power, some five thousands years ago. Shortly after that achievement Sauron, who in disguise was helping those Elves, made the One Ring, marched north and razed Eregion.  Refugees found shelter in Imladris and the area was left abandoned, up until now. The Fellowship has passed through Eregion and shortly after some Elves set out to reclaim what’s left (and shortly after that we came around).

Questing in Eregion is pretty streamlined: visit one hub, do all the quests, go to next hub. There are deeds tied to quests that apart from rewarding virtues open up swift travel options between each of the hubs and Rivendell. If you don’t skip quests then by the time you reach the next hub you can already use the swift travel from there.

Most of the quests deal with various threats to the Elves usually due to the influence of Saruman and partly Angmar. There are half-orcs breeding drakes, Dunlendings gathering wood and so on. There’s also a nifty feature present in most of the enemy camps: a summoning horn to call the commander of the camp and kill him. It makes me wonder however why it was developed. You see at each camp there is usually a “second-in-command” boss patrolling around who always spawns and to call the commander you need to have a quest.

Even though I really like questing in Eregion there are some things that I don’t like in terms of design. The usual quest arc constitutes of visiting one camp of enemies about three times and doing a different thing each time. Let me give you some examples – there are drakes being bred in the ruin of Pembar – so you go there and destroy the eggs, at the same time you also search the rubble for any priceless trinkets or something. You return those quests and you’re sent there again – to kill some of the half-orcs and get valuables from them (it’s not like you haven’t been killing them the first time you were there), you also need to kill the worm-sire and also the half-orc drake-breeder with his drake pet. Those are three separate quests, not one. After this is done you return yet again and summon an Uruk Lieutenant who I’d think was supervising the breeding. You kill him and you’re done. On to a similar series of quest. There is another arc that even has some of that switched around – first you kill half-orcs in a camp, then you return to kill the Uruk Lieutenant, then you return to burn some tents – here it stops making sense, I’ve massacred some of the half-orcs already, killed their leader and if there were any half-orcs left they must have had fled already, how does burning empty tents help? That said I guess don’t mind it because the enemy bases aren’t that far away from the hubs.

There is also another thing that kind of bothers me. Right at the beginning there is a Dunlending lumbercamp, similar quest pattern to what I’ve described. However to start this little arc you need to kill a random Dunlending who will drop an item that starts a quest that has you informing an Elf in a nearby quest hub that something’s going on and after that you continue. My problem is that I don’t have a reason to kill any mob unless I’m on a quest to kill said mob or the mob attacks me and I’m lazy to run away. The Dunlendings are off the road and if I didn’t know I’d probably skipped that altogether.

Now on the brighter side again. There is sort of a quest-arc that deals with the passing of the Fellowship through the area, you basically track down their path and learn that they aren’t really that careful as their campsites are easy to find, as you progress further you learn that some of Saruman’s spies have learned about them and you have to make sure they won’t inform anyone. It’s pretty well done as you learn what’s been happening to the Fellowship since they left Rivendell and you also take part in their story, although indirectly. You’ll also find an iconic location called the Burnt Tor where the Fellowship was surrounded by a pack of Wargs and Gandalf drove them off with some fire.

Now to the deeds, I’ve talked about the quest-counters but there are some other and more interesting ones. First there is one that deals with the Ring-lore, you need to find six lost pieces of the lore with half of those dropping off humanoids and half being found in various ruins which I think is a pretty nice idea. My favourite deed in Eregion are the Uruk Lieutenants, there are nine Uruk Lieutenants, servants of White Hand, scattered across Eregion. You usually find them while doing quests (some directly send you to kill them). Some of the Uruks are camp commanders, one of them is responsible for the crebain, one of them was tracking down the Fellowship and so on. You have to find them and kill them. Before each of them dies he will shout “The General will avenge me!”, it got me rather curious as to who is this General supposed to be when I was doing the deed for the first time. About ten levels later I’ve found out – it’s General Talûg, final boss of the Fil Gashan instance in Moria, it was quite a surprise because I’ve almost forgot about it by then.

One deed also deals with discovering all the campsites that the Fellowship left behind and sort of ties together with another deed that tracks the Fellowship’s passage throughout Moria. Given the varied fauna there are also quite some slayer deeds (and an exploration deed to find Dens of Beasts) although some of them are way too tedious as the creatures are scarce. The last deed is a hidden one and I won’t spoil that (look at the top *hint, hint* *nudge, nudge*).

Rune-keepers and Eregion

As far as rune-keeping goes players are sent to Eregion on about level 45 as part of their class deed. It is possible to quest there but I’d wait till about level 48. I know players are often going to Eregion at level 45 to get their first legendaries but I’m in no rush, I got my first legendary on level 52 and I’m still in Eregion finishing up quests. As far as I am concerned I got some interesting jewelry and also a rune-stone I think. Being slightly over-level I don’t have trouble with any quests. Huorns and Wood-trolls as well as wolves and Wargs are quite vulnerable to fire which I can only appreciate.

We got transfered! And I got to check out the Icy Crevasse on my mains.

As I expected with a Captain (level 65) this wasn’t as bad as with my hunter. I’m running the Leader of Man trait line which provides group-wide Shield-brother effects and so I can keep myself alive better provided my soldier doesn’t die but more about that later. The Winds of Forochel (damage buff) certainly helped and I felt like Moria again – I even scored a 1.5k Devastating, something I haven’t seen for a while. The last fight is easy, Captain is pretty much an anti-sorceror class (not that Guinokh does many magic tricks to begin with) and the only trouble I can see there is the wider range of the mammoth’s melee attacks (he can reach you across the steam vent and still have the damage buff). Even when I ended up fighting both of them it was easy to handle provided they both stayed on the steam vents. I also took my Warden through (level 65 as well). Obviously that was easier – I mean I am a Warden, slightly undergeared Warden but still. Basically the only problem are the grims – they switch targets and they don’t like to stay in one place, it can get messy when a soldier tries to follow their erratic behaviour.

Trouble came yesterday as two friends and I went in – me on a level 49 RK, another RK on level 53 and a Minstrel on level 60 and the skirmish itself set to level 50. We experienced two defeats on the way to the bosses but it wasn’t that hard. The bosses were another story. In a 3-man setup Guinokh lays down 3 pools (one under each person) which wouldn’t be that bad but every time Guinokh enters fight a counter-attack comes. So you got the sorcerer to take care of plus the lieutenant with his entourage and little space to stand on. It went nasty and after the Minstrel switching for his level 65 Hunter and no difference therefrom we gave up. (And then we did Attack at Dawn and showed them what for). Of course our setup wasn’t the best and we probably need to train a little on easier skirmishes.

Anyway, now that I have properly checked it out I kinda like it not mention I need to finish all the encounters anyway (we needs those titles preciouss) so I’ll be running it quite often. On the other hand there are the rewards. I’d really like to get some of them for my Warden but they are pretty price-y: 4k Skirmish Marks, some Odothuilan Marks (campaign-specific) and finally Veteran Third Marks – only available from fellowship and raid skirmishes (or an expensive mark upgrade). Not likely I’m going to see those any time soon.

The final paragraph shall be dedicated to the soldiers. If devs plan on doing more skirmishes like those two (with emphasis on spatial awareness) they better upgrade the soldier management system. In the Icy Crevasse its often important to retreat and run to the steam vent or stay on it from the beginning. What do trusty soldiers do? They pick an enemy and run towards it thus ensuring the incoming enemies will stop to poke them to death before turning towards me. Yes I can actually face another direction forcing the soldier to look the other way but at the last control point in the Icy Crevasse this isn’t possible – I have to aggro the counter-attack and run back to the steam vent. I’d be really happy if it was possible to make the soldier stay on a spot until I tell him otherwise – he wouldn’t run where he’s not supposed to and I could also make him stand in the damage buff and not on the steam vent. But maybe I should just be grateful that I have only one NPC to worry about.

Once again I installed Bullroarer. This time I could even copy some characters over and so I did export my huntress, she’s 41 but at least something (if they don’t decide to open E&G), after we get annexed by our new Turbine overlords I will be able to play with my mains over there.

I found Bullroarer quite empty but I guess it’s no wonder taking into consideration the small size of Update 3. Anyway, let’s have a look on what’s there:

Skirmishes

When last time I was on Bullroarer it was during the F2P beta and at that time players were given 5000 Turbine Points to spend on stuff, I was happy to find that I got over 3000 left and proceeded to buy the two new skirmishes. Eagerly I tried Attack at Dawn and boy did I get my ass handed to me.

Attack at Dawn

This skirmish takes place in Dol Dínen,  starting near the fenced area in the south, and it is an offensive skirmish. Being F2P I only got access to Tuckborough and Gondamon on my huntress, quite likely my other characters will like it better but I find it quite hard. Compared to Tuckborough there are two major differences – there are no friendly NPCs to help you with counter-attacks and no matter what all the enemies that hold a control point will pull at once, even if they wander off. Such a “wave” consist of 4 regular mobs – here in Dol Dínen it’s mainly wargs, goblins and trolls – both normal and swarm and a Lieutenant (there always is one). With no option to split the group you have to deal with them at once and that’s where my problems started, I died right at the first control point. Sure I can set a trap but that takes care of one mob, the other four will still be hitting me which is not really good for my inductions. It might be due to the fact that Tuckborough is deliberately made easier and/or that I’m slightly under-geared.

Attack at Dawn features an interesting mechanic (which again I will probably enjoy more on my other characters) – after taking the first two control points you enter a courtyard which is being bombarded by catapults. When the thrown stones hit the ground they do quite some damage but what’s nice about it is that it doesn’t care whether you’re a friend or foe and hits everyone equally. On the same time it also breaks CC. Five seconds or so before the stone hits you’ll see a shiny circle on the ground so it isn’t difficult to avoid. Don’t think you can wait till it eradicates the enemies though, their out-of-combat regeneration is pretty high. After passing through the courtyard (and several more deaths) I reached the leader’s tent and disabled the catapults that stood by it. After that came Blood-rook and four wargs in a counter-attack and I really had no way of staying through it and being a bit depressed about my performance I left the skirmish. I retook it later on level 35 which was bearable so I know what does the boss fight look like. Graug – an Orc who looks like one of the Ghâsh-hai (the fire Orcs from Moria and Rift) welcomes you in his tent and sets on fire you as well as the entrance to the tent so you can’t leave (the tent itself is apparently fire-proof). There is also a multitude of little goblin sappers standing on ramps inside the tent and from time to time one of them will attempt to make a run for it and you have to kill it, they’re swarm so it shouldn’t be a problem. Graug will also do a little bombardment of his own but it should be easy to avoid, at least for a solo player, I dread to see a 12-man raid all inside that tent. All in all it looks like a good challenging skirmish, which I really struggle with on my Hunter though I won’t be buying in on my F2P account anyway (unless they make some super sale). Apart from the difficulty issues there’s the thing that pretty much all the mobs have the Moria skins (pale goblins, green, scaly, iron-clad trolls etc.) but I hope they change it, it’s only a beta after all.

Icy Crevasse

(Well here’s a word I never heard before) A skirmish set in Forochel (yay!) and I can say the same things about it as I did with Attack at Dawn, offensive and really hard. And also with a new mechanic – the Winds of Forochel – the mighty winds of that region (somehow) increase your run speed and all your offensive capabilities and every time you take a control point the tier goes up (you end up at +20% run speed and +50% to all damage). At certain places there are also several cracks in the ice with steam coming through, standing on top of them will give you bonus (50%) to your incoming and outgoing healing but it gets rid of the Winds. As with the catapultage, these winds also affect your opponents. Ouch. The usual Forochel fauna can be found here – Gauredain (inluding those with pet wolves), sabre-cats, Angmarim (though in “summer-attire”), ice-grims, Dourhand Dwarves etc. I’ve even “encountered” a mammoth, a bear and an ice-worm.

The skirmish itself takes place in the canyon between Kauppa-kohta and Pynti-peldot and as such is quite linear. Sometimes I managed to split the pull at the control points and so I only died during counter attacks. The final fight consists of two elites (yes, two) but they don’t always fight at the same time. There is a mammoth-riding Gauradan and an Angmarim sorcerer, the mammoth starts the fight then retreats (at about 2/3 morale) and the sorcerer joins the fight only to retreat later, the second time around the sorcerer doesn’t retreat and calls the mammoth so you end up fighting both. The sorcerer will also put down “puddles” that heal him when he hits you (doesn’t work the other way around though). I got really close to finishing it, by unleashing every powerful attack I could so the enemy would retreat fast enough (you are still in-combat during those transitions but they take a while) but I still got defeated at the end. Oh and why is there a sorcerer at the end you might ask – well you probably wouldn’t as enemy sorcerers are commonplace but anyway – he wants to command wind and rain (snow) and froze over the lake of Evendim so an army could march on Tinnudir. A bold plan and I guess many players would maybe like to let him do it, travel across the lake would become easier.

For a more detailed look on the skirmishes and related changes in Update 3 I recommend Pineleaf’s Preview at CStM.

Instances

Well, I would really like to say something about those, being level 41 I thought I would be able to try them more or less on level but Bullroarer really seems empty these days, the first day I logged on there were only 2 other players on the whole server (plus some anonymous ones I’d presume). If I catch a group I’d really like to have a peak inside but so far I got to spend time looking at the rewards – and some of them are really good especially those for level 65 characters which rival the items that are currently deemed the best. There are also some housing decorations to be had from one of the instances (a throne and a tomb) but I’ll have to wait a while to see those.

Despite the small size I say there are things to look forward to. This will also be the last update that US players will have before we do, although the reason won’t be a delay on Codemasters’ side but a delay caused by all our “earthly possessions” being copied over to Turbine’s servers.

Faradwen is Kindred with Annúminas. (Yay! Huzzah! etc!) While I’m glad to be Kindred – and not only for the 20 TP – I think devs might have been a little too generous with the revamp.

Got to Kindred and all I got was a shiny statuette

Before the update came I have already been questing around Tinnudir, Ost Forod and Eavespires which got me about halfway through Acquaintance. Some reputation came from daily tasks (300 points per task), some from handing in the Tomb-Raider’s Sashes (300 points for 10 sashes) and the rest from quests.

After the update every single quest gives about a thousand points of reputation and killing single tomb-raiders and Angmarim gives some reputation as well. I have been gaining reputation about as fast as I have been leveling and I reached Kindred before setting foot to Annúminas and before being even able to trade in the higher reputation items (Bands of Númenor and Black Badges). Next time I’ll have an alt through I guess I can hit Kindred before visiting Eavespires or maybe even Ost Forod. There is one new low-level camp at the foot of the Colossus and Oatbarton I’ve heard has more quests as well and I haven’t been through those with Faradwen. I really think the devs should lower the rewards a bit, being Kindred used to require completing the region and then doing a little extra work – even if that extra work was one evening of cooking cauliflower (that’s how I got my captain to Kindred with the Mathom Society). As it is now, players reach Kindred halfway through Evendim and it doesn’t feel like much of an achievement.

Speaking of extra work the region of Enedwaith seems to be on the other side of the scale, there isn’t enough reputation. I don’t mind in particular that doing all the quests won’t get you to Kindred but what I mind is the way of advancing your reputation after you’ve done everything. There are two factions in Enedwaith – the Algraig and the Grey Company. Doing all the quests will get you to Friend with the Algraig and Ally with the Grey Company. Then you are left with repeatable quests and here starts the trouble. The Algraig quests are now pretty fine (they’ve been revamped already, prior to Update 2) there are 7 or 8 quests and the daily gain is almost 6000 points. On the other hand the 4 Grey Company quests only give about 2000 points a day and sadly, the new book did not provide any reputation. In the end you can very well be sooner Kindred with Algraig despite having to gather almost twice as many points. Nendhiniel (my Warden on Laurelin) is already Kindred with the Algraig and now she’s slowly trying to get Kindred with the Grey Company to acquire a shiny trinket. 3 or 4 days and I’ll be there and then I’m probably going to hide away from anything that would remind me of Enedwaith. I don’t mind repeating the same thing over and over but I’d like to see a larger increase in reputation (and I don’t particularly like visiting the Black Dens but that’s another issue).

One final paragraph that hasn’t got to do much with the reputation but with another grind. It has come to my attention that vendors in Ost Galadh (Mirkwood) invented some new food and are bartering new recipes. There are two issues with that – I’ve got rid of the barter tokens upon leaving Mirkwood for Enedwaith and the recipes are BoA. So I have to invest in yet another set of repeatables.

P.S. That’s Ancient Annúminas Statuette in the picture, a pocket item with +11 to all stats. You can click it and your toon will do the displayed pose. The cooldown for that is 10 minutes. (Rumour has it there is a hidden deed associated with that but no actual evidence has been presented. I still click it everytime I can)

While here in EU we’re (again) waiting for the patch to arrive, Update 2 is alive and kicking over the Pond. So I logged on Landroval and proceeded to Tinnudir as I was questing there before the update anyway. Spoilers ahead!

What’s New?

The first thing you’ll see if you arrive by Hunter or Warden travel is a Vault, yes they now have a vault in Evendim, although its security is questionable at best – the Tinnudir Keep would surely serve a little better. Another thing new in Tinnudir is a crafting area next to the Keep but as far I could see there weren’t any superior facilities in there.

Quests

There are many new quest and the pace of them is pretty quick. I’ve started a new mission in Tinnudir at a new Ranger whose name is Orchalwë. He sent me to investigate some of the ruins – though he calls them estates – around Parth Aduial or as he called it the Fields of Twilight. What’s especially good about the first quest I received was that Orchalwë gave me his journal to guide me – I have proceeded to the first ruin and after finishing the task I got the rewards immediately. Then I read the journal and another quest was bestowed upon me. On to another ruin, finish another quest and read the journal again. No need to run to Orchalwë after each finished quest. Orchalwë further serves as kind of a Quest-General, he will send you on a series of quest into the ruins, then into Ost Forod and then into Eavespires where I stopped yesterday. Apart from Orchalwë’s quests I’ve also paid visit to the Colossus as I’ve heard that you can actually climb on it. Well, you can, you need to accept a quest from Sardan (something about a ballista) and following the chain after 3 quests you will be able to get on top of the Old King’s Crown. Amazing view from up there, even during the night.

The quests flow pretty quickly mainly because there is now a quest in pretty much every place. On top of that each quest rewards some reputation (it’s about 900-1200 per quest) and killing goblins and Tomb-robbers now gives reputation upon kill. You will also get some barter coins which fortunately are barterable between themselves (that is one silver coin is 5 bronze coins and you can barter silver for bronze and bronze for silver). In two days (5-6 hours of playing by my estimate) I’ve gone from level 36 to 38 which isn’t much but I’ve also gone from Acquaintance to Ally, which is just crazy. I’ve also gotten some parts of a new hunter set. There are new sets for each class (featuring some rehashed designs) which can be acquired – at least partially – through questing and several parts are available for barter at the Ranger Cannuion. Definitely check the rep vendors at Tinnudir keep they got tons of new stuff.

Certain places are now more covered with quests than before: Ost Heryn (where you might or might not have been dealing with an Elite Oathbreaker) now has 3 quests inside. Nan Orngon east of Ost Forod where I’ve never been before has 4 quests. The entire Thief-taker’s bane chain has been redone. It doesn’t start on Tinnudir but rather in Ost Forod. You are sent on Rantost to contact some spies among the Tomb-robbers and after you finish several quests for them you can proceed to the Thief-taker’s Bane instance. It’s now solo and actually a little too easy, I’m quite certain you can finish it without even helping the rangers. In Eavespires there is now about twice as much Gauredain and they’ve spread to Even-rills. The Dol Haerdir encampment is larger and getting to the riddle marker now does not require going through the whole camp though you’ll still do the whole round for other quests. And that’s just the beginning, unfortunately I have already been questing in Evendim before the revamp and so I can’t really take advantage of all the new quests. But I always liked the area and I’ll be definitely bringing any new alts through. I’m hoping we’ll see other areas being revamped as well, it certainly won’t hurt.

In the last week all I’ve been doing is questing and grinding Enedwaith Reputation on my Warden, she’ll be Kindred with Algraig tomorrow but as far as Grey Company is concerned it looks like two weeks if I can be bothered which I probably can’t (I can only hope there are ways to get some reputation in the upcoming book).

Anyway, the last stop on her journey are the Gloomglens and especially Maur Tulhau, the hobbit village. As with pretty much everything you encounter in Enedwaith the names are neither Westron (English) nor Sindarin (Elvish), instead they are in the language which has not been named (Dunlendish perhaps?) but which bears a striking similarity to Welsh. Now I’m not going to teach you Welsh, mainly because I don’t know any (unless you count the hundred words of which meanings I am aware )

What I’m going to show you is how the Hobbits in Maur Tulhau are connected to the Hobbit families further north in the Shire. Let’s start from the top shall we?

Iolo Brochtû (Brockhouse family)

broch – badger (also called brock) and tŷ – house

the Maer – Mayor, see? Welsh is easy – of Maur Tulhau related to the Brockhouse family; Brockhouses can be found all over the Shire and Bree-land, probably the most notable member of the family is Viola Brockhouse the leader of the Woodworker’s Guild, currently residing in Esteldín.

Caradog Henbuch (Oldbuck family)

hen – old and buch – buck (see it almost translates itself)

the name Oldbuck is not found in today’s Shire but descendants of the family are, Oldbucks used to live in Marish, which is the area south of and including Stock, and the first Thain was of that family; Oldbucks later crossed Brandywine and established Buckland and they’ve also changed their name to Brandybucks. The majority of the Brandybucks family can be found there.

Coid and Violed Isbrun (Underhill family)

is – under and bryn – hill

A Forge-master and what I’m guessing is an accomplished gardener. The Underhills can be found mostly in Bree-land and some are in the Shire. You may be familiar with Constable Underhill from Combe, whom you helped early in the epic story.

Iago Glennudh (Banks family)

glennydd – banks, plural of glan – bank, shore

an agricultural visionary (yes he’s the one for whom you collect boar droppings), this was the first Hobbit whose name I tried to translate – Banks? Interesting … then I found that Iago means James. James Banks? Who is he? Does he work for Turbine? Is it some kind of Easter Egg? Then I found there is a family of Hobbits called Banks and it sprouted from there. There are only two Bankses in the game though – Alric, Inn League Taxidermist from the Bird and Baby Inn, and Opal, skirmish weapons barterer from the camp at Glâd Ereg in Eregion.

Rhosun Turio (Burrows family)

turio – to delve, to burrow and Rhosun I’m fairly certain is a variant of Rosie

The Banks family is a fairly numerous one, the most adventurous of them is probably Ham Burrows who is freezing up north in Forochel with at least one other Hobbit (he’s a again a skirmish Barterer). The cooks among you may remember Esmeralda Burrows who charged you to prepare some delicious food during your first crafting quest (but I’m not sure she will be in the game much longer).

Adsiltia and Aled Madcorf (Goodbody family)

mad – good and corff – body (my guess is the word corpse is related to that)

a Relic-master and a … someone (not going to tell you). Goodbodys can be found in the Shire and are actually of the few who do not live outside of it (if Lorebook is up-to-date that is), you may be familiar with Opal Goodbody who is in charge of catering (I guess) around the Party Tree and who also sends you a letter any time there is a new festival.

Cadel and Kened Balchtrod (Proudfoot family)

balch – proud and troed – foot

Cadel is provisioner on the main “square” of Maur Tulhau, Kened whose surname is Baltrod which I guess is just a “typo” is again … someone. The Proudfoots (Proudfeet!) are another fairly numerous family closely related to Bagginses. If you like horses and racing you sure do know Carl Proudfoot the Race Master and there is also Postmaster Proudfoot who is basically the chief officer of the Shire Quick Post.

Lili Gardhur (Gardener family)

garddwr – gardener

Lili is the healer vendor of Maur Tulhau. Gardeners are about as rare as Bankses – only three of them in the game. There is also one Ted Gardener the Vault-keeper of Bree but last time I checked he wasn’t a Hobbit.

Avan Brocktull (unknown)

Avan is the Stable-Master of Maur Tulhau and I haven’t been able to identify him unfortunately. The word twll stands for hole (or smial in this case) and this is where Tulhau comes from (meaning smials). He may be somehow related to the Brockhouse or the Longholes family but who knows?

Rhus Cornchúthur (Hornblower family)

corn – horn and chwythwr – blower

Rhus (Rees) is the first Hobbit you’ll probably encounter in Enedwaith (safe for occasional hobbit corpses), he’s sitting on a slope in front of Maur Tulhau and he would be probably blowing his pipe if the darn Hobbits were actually into something else than marigolds. Can’t smoke those, no sir!

Hornblowers are a small family the most notable member of which is probably Holly Hornblower the pie-baking enthusiast from Hobbition.

Gwin Curhonod (Maggots)

Gwin is a Hobbit captured by the Bugan of Khoblún Utot. The only connection I can make is farmer Maggot – the word cynrhonyn means maggot – but the famous farmer is the only one of that name.

And that would be all, allow me now to share my sources:

• Welsh-English Lexicon
• LOTRO Lorebook and the list of Hobbit families

So I was doing the Epic quests with Lamvaethor, my level 49 Rune-keeper. I’m in Angmar and currently on Book 9. The instances of previous books are fairly easy with Inspired Greatness and even if the NPC takes some beating I can simply pop the Master of Writs, cast some Writs of Healing and continue DPSing. The skill must have been designed with suicidal NPCs in mind.

Now to the darkness: it’s nothing horrible, I’ve just been doing chapter 1 of book 8.

The quest used to send players into Carn Dûm to recover pieces of Golodir’s armour. With the soloification the quest now requires player to visit three of the eight towers of Barad Gúlaran in Nan Gurth. While doing the quest yesterday it occurred to me how fortunate I was never to visit Nan Gurth during night-time. I’d like to think of myself as a skilled navigator and I certainly don’t have any problem reaching most of the in-game locations simply by foot but navigating in this kind of darkness is beyond me. Despite that I have found the first two towers (Hill-men and Goblins) though I have died leaving the second. Finding myself revived in Myrkworth I proceeded to find the third tower (Dourhands). After nearly running into an Angmarim Elite Master and likely missing several others I simply did not see I found the tower and recovered the third piece. (During the quests you enter the towers and kill emissaries inside, IG automatically kicks in so the fights aren’t hard).

The pieces of Golodir’s armour (a sword, chain-mail and a shield) are damaged and so you need to get them repaired. I proceeded further with the quests only to find out that I’m stuck with the horrible darkness of Nan Gurth. Fortunately I only had to visit Esteldín and Rivendell and didn’t have to traverse any kind of wilderness. Still spooky though:

Esteldín

Rivendell

After the Sun rose I could only see a faint fog but I could tell the bug was still there. Nonetheless I have logged off by that time and restart will surely fix it. Now I’m only wondering what to do further. I will probably finish book 9 but I have done the rest recently with my Warden and I don’t want to repeat it so soon. I will probably start Volume II and head down to Eregion though I’m not in a hurry to enter Moria.

And yes that’s all

So, you may have noticed I haven’t updated the blog for a while. I haven’t gone to another game (Guild Wars 2 is not out yet ) but I have been studying for final exams that had fortunately earned me the bachelor’s degree (yay!).

Anyway, back to blogging and what I’ve been doing. First of all I’ve upgraded WordPress and deleted about 400 pieces of spam (in the very unlikely case that I’ve deleted a proper comment I apologize). And then I decided to write a post.

Winter Festival

Though I’ve been gone for two months I’ve logged in near the end of the Yulefest to try out some of the “amusement rides”. This was by far the best festival yet. The theatre was amazing – and I’ve been picked as a Protagonist the first time I stepped in and despite having little clue as to what I was supposed to do I succeeded. Though there really wasn’t many people around overall there have always been people in the G.L.O.B.E. and only once was the performance cancelled. Although it took some waiting (during which I completed all the stuff-throwing deeds) I have received all three titles and now I’m only waiting to receive the Thespian title, providing they fix it.

The Snowball fight was also nice but the problem was that not many people were around, 4 was the most participants I’ve seen, usually it was only me and one other, not really fun. I spent one day just throwing snowballs on some AFKers who stood near the event announcer, just within the range from the border of the field (which I couldn’t leave as it would fail the “hard mode”).

Since the announcement of the festival and the related house decorations I had one goal – a snowman army. The downside is that it doesn’t look like much since the hooks are spread too wide but here you go:

The Present and the Future

(Spoilers ahead of course!) Well, it’s only been two days I’ve been back but I was keeping an eye on LotRo in the meantime. Some mysterious relics have been scattered across Eriador so I set out to pick them up. I knew where they were so finding them wasn’t a problem, don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know. Well one was revealed by Turbine and the location of another could’ve been guessed based on the fact that some new structure arose in Annundir. The one in Enedwaith I would probably stumble upon. The rest I probably wouldn’t have found. Anyway I’m really looking forward to what the devs have prepared for Q1, this form of “delivery” is much appreciated. The next update or book will be called Echoes of the Dead and it’s more than clear that we will be dealing with the Gaunt-lords once again. New instances are expected to pop out in the vicinity of those relics, the ones in North Downs and Oatbarton already have new structures near them. The one in Forochel has a chunk of unused landmass behind the gate at the end of Ironspan, some new ruins are floating in the air high above some ruins in Trollshaws and in Enedwaith there is this inaccessible ruin.

Enedwaith investigation

I’ve heard rumours that a small new part of Enedwaith is accessible south along the Old Way. They have proven to be true but you can acess maybe a third of that area since there are invisible walls all around. Now for the ruin, as you may have noticed there is a Gondorian ruin in the southern part of Enedwaith, currently inaccessible though there are at least two mobs inside. I’ve been looking all around and only found a back-door in the form of a “rabbit hole” leading to the side of the structure no entrance there either.

Towers of the Ruin

A look through the gate

Class updates

Another thing we know is coming in Q1 are the class updates, Minstrel dev diary was released yesterday, Burglar popped up just as I was writing this. I don’t play either of these classes but it looks good and I like how they are addressing things. Maybe the last update will concern Wardens? (or Guardians which would make me really sad since that is the third and last class I don’t play)

The rest of Q1 goodness

LIs revamped, Radiance gone, new instance cluster and a new raid. Looking really good although it will take at least a month till it arrives. Well, I still got some rep to grind and deeds to do. Volume II epic line gets revamped to accommodate solo play, another good thing though it will take some time for my alts to reach Moria.

Well, I planned for the post to be longer but I’ll cut it here, new posts will hopefully be coming soon.

So I decided to play LotRo only to find out that today’s the Maintenance Day in Europe. Fortunately now I can avoid those by playing on Landroval. And what do you know November update is live in there, so after a while of patching I got in.

First thing I noticed are the advanced skirmish deeds for killing 50 Lieutenants. They required the Mirkwood expansion before but since that is now free (bar the quests and deeds) and 30 levels away I have access to them. As far as Hunters are concerned there isn’t anything new, and having now checked the release notes there really isn’t apart from a quest that comes around level 50 and a class consumable.

Next thing which is only cosmetic (as is most of the update) – the vendor interaction panels look different, there are now icons assocciated with the actions instead of simple bullet points.

Unfortunately this update also means more Store buttons in places they have not invaded before like the character panel, or the new crafting panel. Or the quest log, which brings us to another part of this update – Tasks.

Tasks basically equal turning vendor trash in for XP and reputation (and I don’t think there is a piece of vendor trash that doesn’t have a Task associated with it which means I am now afraid to throw away anything). Faradwen is currently in North Downs so I only scouted around there, unfortunately she is also level 33 and thus ineligible for most of the Tasks except for Othrikar and Esteldín (although there is a task bulletin at every other quest hub – Trestlebridge, Meluinen and even Amon Raith). Yes, unfortunately Tasks have max level restrictions, and another thing is that you can only complete 5 tasks a day (unless you sell your soul and buy a reset or cap increase). Now there are also some rewards, the first one is a special gift box with unknown content and a title (Up-and-Comer) for completing 100 tasks (and I suspect also a +1 cap increase). That’s twenty days at least, oh well. Next deeds should be at 200, 300 and so on. I did 2 for Othrikar (there only are 2 in there, requiring the beaks and feathers of the hawks that are quite abundant in the area) and 3 for Esteldín (skins, ears and leather from various beasts) that got me 300 reputation with the Rangers each.

There is now also a barter wallet – currently only storing the various skirmish marks though it has it’s own search bar (like you couldn’t find a mark among only 10 different pieces) and newly yet again upgraded vault, but I’m going to appreciate those two much more when the update arrives in Europe (which won’t be sooner than next week).

Buttons! Buttons everywhere!

I mentioned the crafting panel – the good thing is that you no longer need to go through various tabs to see everything, on the other hand it covers almost my whole screen but of course the option to hide it when crafting is still there.

Last thing: while I haven’t seen the Ered Luin revamp, the new Dourhands have been given adjustments all over Middle-earth, so I got to see those new models in North Downs. They do look good though I am not sure where in the North Downs did they get so dirty.

All in all not a bad update, looking forward to have it on Laurelin.