The Daily Grind

So it seems I've turned into one of those crazy people who'd like to get kindred with all factions and also complete every deed in the game. Yes, every! (aside from Ettens... and skirmishes too...not sure :P) I'm not quite sure why I ended up wanting to do this. I do have to say it's a difficult thing for me to achieve as I joined the game a few months before Mirkwood and also changed mains. Until the end of the summer last year, I considered my first character, my hunter Erunaneth, to be my main. But loremaster ended up being far too much fun, both solo and in groups. My hunter nearly had kindred with everything, so redoing quite a bit of the rep was rather painful.

I think why I'm doing this is for something to do on my loremaster, plus I think I'll be pretty proud of myself for completing this uber-meta deed. ;) It is a bit sad that this is really all my LM has left to do. She's just lacking two BG pieces and the Durchest caster bracelet (she recently won the Mistress bracelet woot!), but since those depend on raids, it's something that is out of my control. I love playing her and am proud when I finish deeds or rep, but honestly I wish I did have some more fun stuff to do with her. Endless kill deeds is looking a bit depressing.

As of now, my lm has attained kindred with everything but the Eldgang (a side effect of joining the game late!).

At least we have the Rift skirmish now which slowly builds rep (700 points a day). Though I really can't wait for the revamped Rift instance as I've already been doing loads of skirmishes and still have 40 someodd left before I hit kindred. I'm getting quite sick of the skirmish, though thank goodness it's a quick one. Lothirieth crying out of boredom!:

I also found the Inn League and the Ale Association to be a challenge as well. It was possible to do all the delivery quests in an hour but as the Ale Association quests were timed, I couldn't slack off and go afk for a bit. Those plus the dailies took a fair bit of time and I was struggling to make myself do them after a bit. But I knew I had to persist given the quests are only available during festivals. To my surprise I was able to achieve kindred with both factions in one festival and was rewarded with some fun new mounts. Woot for a good goat in Moria! The Inn League horse is also slightly drunk! :P


As far as the zones and instance deeds go, I've only completed Mirkwood and The Tower of Dol Guldur. Enedwaith is nearly done (damn wood trolls!). I had my doubts as to if I'd ever complete the Moria instance deeds but after a few decent runs in some instances, it should be doable. Although my lm hasn't set foot in Skumfil...so we'll see how it goes. The Carn Dum and Uru deeds look problematic as well. I really wish I would have had my main sorted and been doing these deeds when they first came out and everyone else was doing them!

Ah well, hopefully I'll get there eventually! :)

New dress

Well, long time no post. Starting a new job which I also have to bike to (haven't done that for years so it's a wee bit tiring :P) will do that unfortunately!

Yesterday I my Loremaster got a letter in the mail from Nora Strawley, thanking me for my kindness in Frostbluff and telling me that the townspeople were doing much better. She said that she'd come into a bit of money and had some things for me to express her thanks. Today I accepted the quest and headed over to Bree to collect my new rewards which were two cosmetics and a title.

I don't quite get the 'Villain' title considering it was good work I was doing. Apparently this comes from completing the hidden deed in the Yule Festival which was to complete the giving coins quest 10 times. I only took pictures of the dress unfortunately. I deleted the robe straight off considering it's manly and I'll never wear it. I didn't think to grab any screenies first. Apologies! The dress is pretty nice and will make for a decent change for a while. I dyed it with Ered Luin Blue I believe...or Evendim...can't remember. :P It's annoyingly but understandably bind on aquire. (cries for the state of her loremaster's bags/vaults)

Is that an egg you're carrying...

...or are you just happy to see me?

And bah, am getting seriously behind with screenshots. I had wanted to post about all the adventures Elenaneth and Linvala (my rk then my friend's champ) have been having. Must stop being lazy...but a trip and a new job aren't going to help. :P

New Deed

Today a new deed got released so my Loremaster went to check it out. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't keep reading. ;)

Mysterious relics have appeared throughout Middle Earth. Apparently people bumped into one whilst doing the Thror's Comb quests and once this knowledge became known on the forums, people started scouring Middle Earth to find the rest. Also Turbine released a letter called A Strongly-Worded Letter from Bungo Grubb which would tip off people as to one of the relic's locations. It's a pity I didn't visit that new area in the North Downs just a bit later as I would have found at least one of them on my own! You can start the deed at any of the relics. There is one in Thror's Comb, the North Downs, Oatbarton, Laenan's Cave, and Forochel.

In the North Downs near the new area I posted about:

In some fields east of Oatbarton:

In Laenan's Cave:

Forochel, at the end of the Ironspan:

Thror's Comb:

At the end you have to speak with Barliman Butterbur and are then awarded with a new title.

I found it interesting traveling around and reading what all the npcs had to say about these relics popping up. The speculation is they have to do with new instances/raids coming up. After you inspected each relic, you were given a quest to talk to a npc nearby. I noticed these quests were at the level of the surrounding area, so I wonder what that could mean for the level of the new content. I do hope that all will be available for endgame as lets face it, we desperately need new group content.

People are also speculating that these have to do with the Gaunt Lords. In the Lorebook entry it says:

After Morgoth’s fall, the remaining Gaunt-men went into hiding in the realm that later became Angmar. Their power was greatly diminished, but when the Wizards arrived to lend wisdom to the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, the Witch-king summoned the Gaunt-men to his service. Among them, five gained greater power to match the five Wizards. These five, embodying death, pestilence, famine, war, and purest evil, became known as the Gaunt-lords.

If you pay attention to what the npcs say, you'll see from their talk that each one associates with death, etc. xhii over at roll one hundred has some nice close screenshots of each of the relics and speculating which relic is which. We've run into all these Guant-Lords throughout the game (Ivar, Ferndúr, Drugoth, Thadúr, and Gortheron) so it will be interesting to see if they are being brought back for some new content.

I like the way Turbine has released this, teasing us a bit and making people get out there and do some exploration. Fun times!

Runekeeper action shots

I've been leveling a Runekeeper with a friend (him on a champ) and have been having a blast. (And it's also created a backlog of screenies of our adventures :P) RK is an epicly fun class. I've noticed my favourite classes tend to be flashy and quick, so RK fits in perfectly. I always had a feeling I'd love this class, so was trying to save it for later as I still don't have a tank, but my friend bugged me enough and with the opportunity to duo level...well I couldn't pass that up.

I have a 65 minstrel who is decently geared, but I really never ever liked healing on her. I just assumed that healing stressed me out and I didn't like doing it at all. That was one thing that was making me put off RK now that I think about it: I didn't want to have to heal. But my friend is a good RK himself, so he's been able to give me tips. And we've been trying plenty of hard stuff so I've gotten lots of practice healing. I've actually found RK healing to be quite enjoyable! I love the hots! I love that I can go from fully attuned dps to healing in a matter of seconds (without the cheat legendary trait mind you :P). Leveling this class is definitely the final nail in the coffin for my poor minstrel. Once my RK is at the level cap, the minstrel will officially be just a crafting mule as RKs totally pwn minstrels in my humble opinion.

RKs also make for some pretty and flashy screenshots!



New area in the North Downs

A few days a kinnie stumbled upon a bit of new area in the North Downs. I decided to ride and go check it out for myself. So what will it be? A new raid? Instance? or North Downs revamp? All I know is that I want in to take a look around! :P


Sunrise, Sunset

I've been running into some interesting sunrise/sunset effects, all around Middle Earth. A couple were glitch induced (the first and fourth picture), but created nice effects nonetheless. :) I do find it amazing that after all the time I've played lotro and been around the areas, I still find it to be a beautiful game. :)



I've also not been posting that much and accumulating a huge backlog in screenshots...which was already bad enough. Eeep!