So, Isengard is here and I got to play it for a while. When I say a while I mean about 3 days since I’ve been in the Lands of no Internet. Nevertheless my captain is already 68. He is the only class I’ve taken to Dunland so far (and only character I’ve played since RoI) so let’s have a look on what he saw. Although I could probably cover every change RoI brought in one post I decided not to. I will make shorter posts about every area I’ve visited.

Still, this would be a really short post so I add my general impressions about RoI.

Launch

Despite the launch being a day early and people having already been patching by the time I got home I was among the unfortunate ones and spent 6 hours trying to connect to the server. When I finally did the patching process went smoothly and I got in fairly easily. Then my computer froze I didn’t have the will to log in again.

Gameplay

Stats were changed an all that but I didn’t really feel much different, not yet anyway. Yes I’m close to having 1000 points of Might (something I could’ve never hope to achieve pre-RoI) but I don’t really do significantly more damage and I’m not traited for it. Class traits changed as well so I had to do some swapping, the biggest difference for me (in Leader of Man) is that Routing Cry is no longer tied to on-defeat response and now causes Forced attack. There is another trait that gives Routing Cry a stun so I’m kinda wondering how would those two things play together.

Gameplay in general isn’t bad and even though the areas were somewhat overcrowded the mobs kept respawning fast and I didn’t have to wait to kill the number required for the quests. I am running into another issue though – my bags are full. I usually have a bag or so empty and the other four are full of stuff I don’t wish to part with. Now my issue isn’t that I would need to keep all the drops, there are only two kinds of ore and one gem (my captain is a Jeweller) the issue is that all the quests reward these superb looking armour pieces that I’d really like to keep but I can’t, my Wardrobe (90 slots) is full as well. Fortunately my Warden seems to have a lot free space so by the time I’ll be taking her through Dunland I would be able to keep all the stuff. Right now I’m only picking pieces for a new outfit and discarding the rest (with much sadness).

The quests flow rather smoothly and in such a manner that you aren’t bound to one central hub that you keep visiting over and over again. Usually an NPC in a hub sends you to some tasks and then talk to another NPC somewhere near the area where your quests take place and the NPC will take it from there. Epic quests have also an interesting approach, usually you help a Ranger with some tasks and he then continued further south. You’re left to help the Dunlendings in the area as much as you can (or see fit) before meeting with that Ranger (or another one) further down the road. The quests also reward a hefty chunk of XP (about a 10k per quest) so I made a whole level on the first day which was around 30 quests. I heard rumours there aren’t enough quests to actually reach 75 by questing but we shall see.

Crafting

I haven’t crafted much yet as the quest rewards are quite good but I was surprised with how many recipes a Jeweller actually starts. In the previous tiers I would usually get a full basic set (earring, bracelet, necklace, ring) then I could get some advanced sets from drops. In the new Westfold tier I’m starting out with a recipe for Polished Green Garnet and a necklace, just a necklace. The other stuff should come from drops but – as Murphy’s law would have it – I’m only getting drops for other professions.

Apart from the inventory issue I haven’t encountered any bad thing and I’m looking forward to the rest of Dunland as well as Nan Curunír and of course the Gap of Rohan. I don’t think I will be disappointed.

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.

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 it begun. I was done patching early in the evening and fortunately no errors occurred, waiting for servers was another matter especially when the forums decided to stop working and Codies decided to turn the servers up one by one. Guess which was the last to come? Yes, our most beloved Laurelin

But after hours of waiting I finally got in, waited for the pop-up text of “New Deed: …” and “Deed Finished” to disappear and then went to look for changes. So how are they?

Day 1 (aka yesterday)

The Shop

3000 Points (just Points, though I think an unofficial poll decided to call them DNotes ) + 540 Points from Reputation. I think I should have more, and maybe I will; as I understand not all points have been handed out yet. I bought the Traveller’s hood as promised and now I look cool, but in order to look even cooler and keep with the theme of the last Epic Book I have to dye my stuff gray. I’ll include photos once I’m finished.

The Vault, the Shared Storage and the Wardrobe

Vault is changed and I don’t like it very much, fortunately it will be changed again with the next update into what looks much better. Shared Storage – no change but I wanted to include it in the heading. Wardrobe – this is a blessing for me but even the maximum of 50 slots won’t probably suffice. Still, it’s something. I haven’t bought any additional storage yet as I’m not sure I want to give almost 1000 Points for that. Either way, my Vault has finally some room in it.

The Captain

Got one new skill, Sure Strike, that I have to learn to use along with slightly rearranged quickslots. Retraited for 5y/2b: Tactical Prowess, Adherent of Elendil, Blood of Númenor, Intimidation, Defiance / Captain’s Hope, Now for Wrath. Might play with it a little but I wanted to try the new shield-brother. (The yellow capstone makes the shield-brother skills apply to the whole Felllowship by a lesser extent). I tried and looks fine, I think I’m going to stick with it for a while.

New instances

Kinnies decided to try the the Great Barrow and I went with them. After initial problems with the leader inviting us to an already cleared instance we got to Thadúr’s wing. Despite some people’s arguments that revamping an instance doesn’t make it new it actually did. The only thing that is the same is the layout, new mobs with new mechanics, new quests, everything. The fights weren’t really hard though and in the end Symbol of Celebrimbor dropped (I didn’t won the roll). On we went to the aptly named Maze and this time we decided to properly try the final fight’s Hard Mode (we tried it with Thadúr but misunderstood the objectives) – we got pummeled by the decayed wights who are apparently still attached to their severed arms and took the harm we brought to said arms badly. We got our revenge though and completed both prerequisites to enter Sambrog’s wing. I went to visit a vendor after the two short instances and though I probably didn’t loot every trash mob I sold what I got for 1.5g. Then we went to Sambrog but we did not achieve victory even without the Hard Mode, though we brought Sambrog to 10k health (from 95k) his fellow fell spirits healed him, we need to watch them closer next time. All in all good fun though Great Barrow doesn’t really offer anything useful for a level 65 character. One last thing worth of mentioning, the random quests – each member of the fellowship gets a random side-quest (kill x Ancient wights, light y braziers) – what I like about those is that if some of your fellows happen to share the same quest your progress is tied together, if you light one brazier it counts for others as well.

Day 2

The Forums

Complains upon complains, what should I tell you. I was genuinely surprised that people complained about things (Character Selection Screen, Instance Join) that were known since the NDA was lifted, months ago. But what can you do.

The Fall Festival

Well, I only visited the Haunted Burrow, perfected my quickest way through, got the Burrower title – which I would be using if it weren’t for the recently awarded “Purveyor of Odd Things” – and did not get the horse.

The Newbies

As I wrote earlier I wanted to welcome the new players but I guess I didn’t pick the right time, I advertised a hand-out of Copper bracelets in Celondim and Archet but no one actually came, will try again over the weekend I guess.

Volume 3 Book 2

Epic book is epic. I am only 3 chapters far but it looks very promising. SPOILERS FOLLOWING! (you have been warned). First of all I was sent to Arwen who dwells in Imdolen, overlooking Imladris from above and finishing a present for Aragorn. The lady gave me the present (the banner of a White Tree on a black field, an important thing it will be in the future) and sent me to the Stables to meet with Halbarad. As I was nearing the stables I noticed there are Rangers standing nearby, chatting with townsfolk or taking care of the horses (I really like the new tech they put into this). I spoke with Halbarad and the others and then I took part in the best session play so far learning about the lineage of Isildur.

The session play begins near Cirith Rhîw, a passage from Evendim into Forochel, and you play a part of Laegened who with his fellow Haerdor set out for north after Arvedui the last king of Arnor did not return on a ship as expected. You play as a ranger having basically the same skill as Laerdan did in the previous session plays but combat isn’t really important here. What is really really nice thing is that the session play is narrated as you go forward in the story. Haerdor sends you to clear the path off the worms that moved there, after you kill 3 of them Candaith’s voice exclaims: “Laegened worked quickly and soon half of the worms were defeated. Only three remained.” I cannot express how much I like this. Fade out.

Laegened and Haerdor arrived at the site of the shipwreck and met with Hasikkä, then chieftain of the Lossoth. He told us the tragic story of Arvedui and that he left something behind so it wasn’t lost to the sea. (It was actually the Ring of Barahir, a heirloom from the First Age). Fade out.

Ettenmoors, nine hundred years later, you (Corugúr) and Glangon set out to save Arador, Chieftain of the Rangers who has been captured by Trolls and taken to a place known as Troll-height. You are sent to search the area and you end up fighting goblins (while Candaith still narrates: “Corogúr carefully dealt with the Goblins he encountered”, “The Goblins would long whisper of the shadow that cut down their friends that day.” Just epic.) Unfortunately Arador was slain, and so his son Arathorn, (later to be) father of Aragorn was to become a Chieftain, in memory of the fallen warrior the area was renamed to Arador’s End (sound familiar?) and to this day still bears that name. Another fade out.

Nanduhirion, eaves of Lothlórien, you (Túgonn) are walking with Aragorn towards the Golden Wood and you meet an Old Man, clad in grey, leaning on a staff (yes, it’s him). He shares some wisdom with you and you part your ways with Aragorn as he wishes to go south and achieve feats worthy of his forefathers. You see him and Gandalf walk away. End of session play.

In the next chapter you are sent to Gwingris where you met with another familiar face – Searadan – whose horse Erebrandir damaged one of his shoe. You are sent to fetch a farrier (now that’s a word I never heard before) who was last seen travelling east of Gwingris, you find him, protect him from two Uruks and that’s where I ended. Time to publish this and continue on

As you probably are aware, the US servers are up for the head-start and people are awaiting the arrival of F2P players, read ravaging hordes thereof

Yesterday, after the dev chat (radiance will be leaving!) the patch servers went up and I experienced one of the quickest patches, it barely took an hour. Unfortunately the servers did get up much later – at about 2 a.m. when I was already in bed. But they’re up now and I need to roll a Free character on Landroval anyway. I’m thinking about an Elven Hunter, the other choices are Guardian (and I’m not sure I want to roll one) and Burglar (which I really don’t want to roll). I usually spend hours inventing a name for my characters but fortunately I got one spare – Fandiriel – and I hope it’s not taken. By the time I’m writing this Landroval is probably mostly sleeping so I am going to listen to the Hunter roundtable and see if I’d like a hunter

Meanwhile: EU servers continue to go on as if nothing was happening and Codies haven’t really told us anything. I can only hope I will be patched on Friday. I expect Enedwaith to be pretty crowded the first week so I’m probably not heading there right from the start, though from what I have seen the area is just beautiful. What I am gonna do is enjoy my new wardrobe, my vault contains about 50 pieces of clothing a good quarter of which are cloaks and with all the chests bought I don’t have much space in there.  After that some tedious respending of LI points and Skirmish Marks and then I’d like to visit some renewed instanced.

So see you in Middle-earth, from now on at both sides of the Pond (Laurelin and Landroval).