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extra stout
Feb 24, 2005

ISILDUR's ERR


Much of the content for LoTRO is now free, Gundabad is the most recent expansion pack and you don't need to buy it til end game. I'll revise this thread more soon.


-Choosing A Server-

If you're just starting out, pick Landroval to join us.
Our original server Silverlode is now long closed, so you can't log into those characters anymore. You can transfer them from the game launcher, our new server is Landroval.
Officers who can invite you to the kin if you message them a bunch of annoying references and forum memes:

Grodhir
Nazgun
Grimhesric
Imema
Archafiel
Dragonwort
Blondii

If none are online, you can search Nazgun on the left panel of the social menu (press O) or post in this thread.



Old news: Minas Morgul was better than Mordor in every way except for maybe the epic/book quest, for obvious reasons.


November 2018: Legendary server goes live November 7th.

October 2018: Update 23: Where Dragons Dwell just came out. It's free with VIP or 1995 LP for bums, many quests, two maps, three instances and a four fight raid.
Summary: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Where_Dragons_Dwell

This was great content, though much less necessary or active now. I might delete this picture after this edit



July 31st 2017: The Mordor expansion arrived with over 300 new quests, the new allegiance system, group content and a raid. And of course: The book quest contains some dramatic stuff no one could possibly predict.



https://www.lotro.com
https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/races-and-classes

The Lord of the Rings Online is my favorite MMO and the only MMO with a license to Tolkien's LoTR books. It launched in April of 2007 but has been updated many times since, with expansions including Mines of Moria, Siege of Mirkwood, Rise of Isengard, Riders of Rohan, Helm's Deep, Mordor, Minas Morgul and now Gundabad.The game is free to play, known as I believe the first MMO to really shift from subscription only to optional subscription without killing the game, but rather tripling sales and making the F2P concept very popular. Unfortunately most companies squeeze you pretty hard, but LoTRO does not. I'm not going to guess exactly how much it'll cost you because that depends on your amount of free time, patience, and sales, but I've been playing since the beta and average maybe $50 a year total to play, including expansions and everything in between. The game is 100% free for your first 20-30 levels, and then depending on your patience either permanently free or costing some bucks here and there. The "quad pack" of the first four expansion packs goes on sale 75% off every Summer and Christmas.

Updating that text soon as you can now play for free for nearly 95? levels of active content/quests.

quote:

Nazgun Discord Link: https://discord.gg/ewTckTs



POORLY ORGANIZED UPDATE:

Here's a video about the Update 19 housing updates, housing in game has been updated even more since this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbnRqvZ1RnI

A guide to legendary items for anyone who is confused by them, by the same guy who talks funny but is cool and good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDxnWczMrq4

The above LI video is now outdated. You'll want to check the official website, the lotro-wiki or better yet any number of YouTube videos about the new legendary item system. Will update this post with some after I review a few. For now: You go to an elf appraiser in The Last Homely House in Rivendell and they give you a bunch of dumb currencies based on evaluating your old LIs, you then make better LIs that are stronger, but struggle to figure out how to fill 20 slots with a bad UI. It's still going to be changed and improved more in upcoming patches.

extra stout fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Jun 13, 2022

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extra stout
Feb 24, 2005

ISILDUR's ERR
Websites to know:

https://www.lotro.com
https://www.twitter.com/lotro
https://www.twitter.com/lotrostore - Check weekly for not just in game sales (open the store in game with ctrl-S) but also for a coupon for a free item every week.

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Main_Page - The most up to date wiki on the game that I am aware of, feel free to use the search button on it if you want to see how a mount works or looks or are stuck on a quest.

Going to put this link here since it's been posted twice and is useful
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Zones_by_level

https://www.reddit.com/r/lotro/

---

Some Video Channels

The main company channel that does some preview streams and hosts smaller streams:
https://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/profile

Some of the sponsored streamers are:
https://www.twitch.tv/bludborn/profile Active again, and doing interviews with the new producer
https://www.twitch.tv/stine
https://www.twitch.tv/koolkkyle/profile (Mostly inactive)

A guy who is trying to run an online university about Tolkien and gives lectures in game
https://www.twitch.tv/signumu

YouTuber who covers end game content in short videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPTR7OkPWpgZZyPk3KxkUvA

extra stout fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Aug 15, 2021

Dark_Swordmaster
Oct 31, 2011
The Lord of the Rings Online: Who Are All These NPCs?



I'm excited for the server mergers, I can't wait to play something that looks like it didn't die 2 years ago again!


OP suggestion: Maybe grab the leveling guides from the last two/three pages of the other thread. Or have their authors clean them up if they don't feel they were fit for public consumption.

bombhand
Jun 27, 2004

Foxjo is also an officer. Later today I'll log in and give you a better list of active officers. Ideally you post your game name in-thread so that officers can add you to their friends list; it'll let us check when we log in to see if you're already online and make it easier to add you.

Since Hoboknife is stepping down, a new leader will need to be chosen. For anyone who's not aware, I have leadership right now; I picked it up because Hoboknife hasn't been able to log in but it's never been meant to be anything but a temporary thing.

Because of the server migrations, the new leader of the kin can be chosen from anyone who plans to migrate to the same server as the kin. Landroval is currently preferrred with Gladden secondary. That said, based on what I've been hearing in-game, a lot of S'lode kins are looking at Arkenstone as either the preferred or the secondary server, so I'm leaning toward that as well. I'm of the opinion that specific server choice isn't as important as making sure people get to stay with non-kin friends as much as possible, since all servers will have increased populations after the move. Anyone with comments feel free to chime in.

:siren: Anyone who wants to put their hat in the ring for Nazgun leadership, please post in thread. If you want to make a campaign speech or whatever, do it. Please mention your character name(s) and (if you're not on S'lode) server. Once everyone's had a chance to do that, I'll post a list of the candidates and we can discuss and then vote on a new leader. I'm going to reserve the right to disregard candidates or votes at my discretion in the event that I think it's necessary, but I'm really just hoping that there's a good, reasonable discussion about potential leaders with a more-or-less unanimous decision at the end.

If the new leader is on Silverlode, then I can transfer leadership as soon as the consensus is reached, with a little bit of cooling-down time. If the new leader is not on Silverlode, I can transfer leadership once the migrations are done.

Any questions, feel free to ask here, PM me, or talk to me in-game (Kumathinh, Bombflower, Dragonwort). I'm also on Steam as bombhand.

Can we also make it a habit for our first post in this new thread to include the name of at least our main character/server?

monkeyboy
Feb 3, 2002

If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Khammer and Searse for officer's list. I'm usually on in the mornings, Pacific time.
e: I'd recommend waiting until after the migration for new leader. Bombhand's doing a great job.

monkeyboy fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 20, 2015

bombhand
Jun 27, 2004

I think the migrations offer a good timeline for making the decision, and it's a good opportunity for players from other servers to potentially be involved, as well. It seems reasonable to me to shoot for having the new leader selected within a week or so of the kin migration, which may end up being several weeks away depending on how the server migrations progress.

xZAOx
Sep 6, 2004
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES
I've been in lots of goon guilds in MMOs, and rarely found the leader of the guild to be that big of a deal. Most goons just want someone to invite them to have some chat while we play (leading in some MMOs to give lots of people invite rights), and contrary to what The Internet says, most of us just want to hang out and have a good time.

That combined with the extremely low active goon population of LOTRO, what all do we need? I'm just worried that I'm missing something here, and would like someone to fill me in if I am. I see it as these things:

-Someone to keep the first post updated and relevant (server, officer list)
-Someone to invite people, or to give other people rights to invite people
-Someone to kick out anyone who is creating drama (robbing the guild bank, to being sexist/racist, to nonstop memes or something), provided officers don't feel comfortable doing it - and hell, our pop is so low, I don't know that this is really an issue/concern
-Someone to help with our upcoming transfer

I could be wrong, but I don't see, even after transfers, us doing coordinated raiding/grouping or anything like that. If enough of us are on at the same time, absolutely! Just can't see it being anything other than impromptu for the most part.

All that said - definitely want to thank Hobo for being in the role for however many billions of years he had the title, and if his poo poo gets fixed, I'm fine with him returning to it as long as the 4 things I listed above can happen. The goon guild was a happening place when the first Hobbit movie came out, and we had a blast as we all did lots of dungeons and Turtle runs. I hope after merges we can start doing some goon runs of the newer dungeons and I still would like to run a lot more BBs (missing tons of points, heh).

extra stout
Feb 24, 2005

ISILDUR's ERR
Thanks for the suggestions, updated the OP with more officers who can invite new players. As far as other ideas for it go, yep I was just reviewing which of the leveling guides would work most in current times, going to look and see how they compare to the one on Turbines site because that one is pretty and might still work if I just did a few circles and lines through it to save people money and maximize joy. And to clear up the new thread/leader thing without bringing any drama to it or hopefully sparking up too much poo poo, I had an urge to get Nazgun more active again for a long time now, hence mailing you all an annoying amount of pipeweed and realizing how even with my help it takes two weeks sometimes to get an invite, so I made a post on the forums, even showed it to some other goons to as "Do you think this will offend him or is it right to the point?" and they all said no that's good, post it. I posted it, he wrote a five paragraph rant including "gently caress you" and something about how we should have been grateful for him keeping the kin alive for a while (which we could have said thanks for except he immediately closed the thread and deleted most the OP so we wouldn't have guides or pictures from it).

extra stout fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Oct 25, 2018

AskYourself
May 23, 2005
Donut is for Homer as Asking yourself is to ...
This thread still being in the first page, I would like to thank Hobo for being kin leader all these years.

I've had a lifetime account since beta and he's done a good job since the beginning. He's kept the kin together during good and bad time and has always took good decisions IMHO.

I nominate him for the "new" kin leader.

Thank Hobo :)

ruffz
Dec 20, 2007

bombhand posted:

Because of the server migrations, the new leader of the kin can be chosen from anyone who plans to migrate to the same server as the kin. Landroval is currently preferrred with Gladden secondary. That said, based on what I've been hearing in-game, a lot of S'lode kins are looking at Arkenstone as either the preferred or the secondary server, so I'm leaning toward that as well. I'm of the opinion that specific server choice isn't as important as making sure people get to stay with non-kin friends as much as possible, since all servers will have increased populations after the move. Anyone with comments feel free to chime in.

This is the first talk I've heard about Arkenstone, and I'd have to vote against that, for what it's worth. It's currently the least populated of the five destination servers, and I don't see that changing post-merge. I have a gut feeling that anyone on Silverlode voting to go to Arkenstone just enjoys being on a quieter server. It's my opinion that if we're going to have anything resembling an active Nazgun again, we should shoot for one of the top 2 servers, and perhaps some of the people that have been on other servers for years could finally join us. Not to mention there's some goons already on Landroval.

That said, Landroval is my preference, and seemed to also be the preferred destination for most of the active players in the old thread. Landroval is currently pretty busy even before transfers begin, so I'm liking the chances for it to be the most populated server post-merge. Turbine said it would be "months" before transfers to Brandywine are an option, otherwise my first choice would be to go there. Gladden is supposedly more busy than Landroval at the moment, but Landroval has the history of having a strong community and hasn't just recently become populated due to being the recommended server. I'd almost side with waiting for Brandywine to open if we're not able to go to Landroval once our turn comes up, but I know many of us are itching to be able to play on a populated server and won't want to wait a few more months.

I have a biased opinion because I haven't done group activities in LOTRO for years, but I don't see Silverlode as having a strong enough community to justify following some pubbies to Arkenstone. Nearly everyone I used to group with back from launch to the Rohan days doesn't play anymore, so I personally have zero attachment to Silverlode's community.

I have 9 characters on Silverlode, but only a couple that I currently play:
Ithoran - main character level 100 guard
Velga - level 85 burg and has officer title. I don't log in every day right now, but when I do it's in the morning or early afternoon Pacific time.

Oxphocker
Aug 17, 2005

PLEASE DO NOT BACKSEAT MODERATE
To make a quick response (not that any of my responses are ever short), I cut the original OP down to just the basic information that needed to be kept because the complaint I was hearing was that the OP hasn't been updated, so I took out all the old info. I'll let the people who said they wanted to take up the job of creating a new OP do their part.

As for the role of a kin leader I think several goons touched on it exactly right, there isn't a lot to do much of the time. But it depends on the entire group adding to the whole as opposed to a single person being expected to do all of it. People complain about the OP not being updated...yet when I was sent messages about it I told people if they wanted to write stuff I could post it into the OP but I don't have time to write everything myself. Invites, same thing...I chose officers carefully for a long time because in the past we had problems with officers who should have never been trusted with that responsibility. Simply saying all lvl 100s should be officers is just as foolish. But I always checked each time I logged in to see who had logged in recently, typically it was the same 3-5 people usually with days apart in the log time. Dealing with drama is probably the single most important job of the kin leader to be the one person who says enough is enough when people get all internet drama-y and need to be told no. This was the major thing I brought through most of my leadership was dealing with those who wanted to stir drama. The last part of helping with the server migration, I would help if only I could log in...but even without that I've still been in contact with others and shared my opinion on the matter.

-Someone to keep the first post updated and relevant (server, officer list)
This one is pretty subjective, because it depends on what people consider to be updated and relevant. It could be an endless task trying to build the OP into something the size and scale of the goon EVE wiki or something similar. Major updates I could see something being put together, but honestly the OP isn't an encyclopedia...it's supposed to be there in case goons are interested in playing LOTRO and want to know about the goon presence there. Trying to make a big deal of that is a red herring in my opinion...something for people to complain about when they have nothing else to snipe at.

-Someone to invite people, or to give other people rights to invite people
Again subjective...every single person could be listed as an officer, but when something happens, the argument will shift to why do we have so many officers and why wasn't someone watching? I struck the best balance I thought was reasonable, giving officerships to those who I thought were trustworthy, showed that they would step up, and were generally helpful/thoughtful/responsible people. There are those who might disagree, but that's tough...so far I haven't had any major incidents with officers for a long time (since the Aeon split). I set Bombhand as the successor because of all the people who are still actively playing, he was one of the few that I felt comfortable handing the reins over because I knew he'd do exactly what he's been doing so far. If I'm not able to get back into the game that's who I'd vote for.

-Someone to kick out anyone who is creating drama (robbing the guild bank, to being sexist/racist, to nonstop memes or something), provided officers don't feel comfortable doing it - and hell, our pop is so low, I don't know that this is really an issue/concern
Yet it's probably the one single major point of a kin leader. Glossing over this point is being unrealistic as to the nature of how people act. When you've done this long enough, you'll realize that keeping an eye on things is probably the biggest thing. The rest (participation, mood, activities, etc) is something that the entire group has to contribute towards. A single person doesn't make up the entire kin.

-Someone to help with our upcoming transfer
This will be a fleeting issue and not really a variable in deciding a good kin leader. It will be who can press a few buttons at the right time without screwing it up.

Now I just submitted yet another ticket to turbine asking for assistance and I just spent the last hour dicking around with it trying to get it to work. If I do get it working again and I'm able to sign on, I could probably set aside 2-3 nights a week to be on, if people are actually wanting to do things. However, I've tried setting this up time and time again and just like herding cats you can make everything available and still people won't make even the smallest efforts on their end to bother is sending a message saying, "hey, a bunch of us are getting on at 6pm cst to go run turtle (or whatever) can you make it?" Chances are, most of the time I would probably be available...but I'm not going to sit online for hours at a time waiting for people to log in to do something. Sorry I don't have that kind of free time anymore. I'm 32. I have a house to take care of and a very demanding job (school admin/teacher) and I'm going back to grad school starting in the spring. If I'm going to be on, I need to know it's because people want to be on and actually run things that day. I'm more than willing to keep serving in the leader role if I can get back in the game but I'm letting everyone know up front that there's no one single person who is going to turn around the kin...it's a group effort and if the group doesn't want to put in the effort you can't expect the same from the leader.

That being said...it would probably be good to have actual vocal interaction amongst goons again...the vent server having long been dead. Lately I've been using a program called raidcall http://www.raidcall.com/index.html which is free and non server based. I made a channel for goons and I'll be in there for a while in case people want to talk more. The channel is called TheNazgun with ID number 11573734 so you can find it. Once you have it, raidcall will store it for future use.

ruffz
Dec 20, 2007

Oxphocker posted:

-Someone to invite people, or to give other people rights to invite people
I haven't had any major incidents with officers for a long time (since the Aeon split).

In pretty much every MMO I've played, the serious business goons always cause the drama. I took about a year off from the game after the last time I tried to raid with those people. Thankfully they left for terrible MMOs and never came back. There hasn't been any Nazgun drama since then that I'm aware of.

Oxphocker
Aug 17, 2005

PLEASE DO NOT BACKSEAT MODERATE

ruffz posted:

In pretty much every MMO I've played, the serious business goons always cause the drama. I took about a year off from the game after the last time I tried to raid with those people. Thankfully they left for terrible MMOs and never came back. There hasn't been any Nazgun drama since then that I'm aware of.

To give the backstory to those who weren't around back then. When Moria/Mirkwood was still all the rage and Enedwaith was a glimmer in the eye we actually had a lot of goons playing. Most nights we had probably +20 lvl 60s on, running all sorts of content especially in the mirkwood tower. There were goons who didn't think we were bleeding edge hardcore enough to master some of the content because we weren't raiding every night for three hours a night and basically wanted a two tier setup of those casual players and the raiders...those causals wouldn't be let into raids, get access to gear, etc. Basically I was against this because the Nazgun has always been about goons being on LOTRO, loving around, and generally having a good time while being fantasy internet nerds. Going hardcore raiding would have killed that and forced a lot of people out. Well, the voices grew loud an unending and despite saying no that it wasn't the goon way, they pushed for a leadership change which I reluctantly gave into (oddly enough it was the only other time I didn't have a reliable internet connection to be online) and they elected one of the officers to take over. Needless to say this didn't last very long and within about three months most of them split off to another game and I found myself right back in the seat. During that time, there were a few people who used their officer powers to kick people and generally cause problems so that had to be dealt with as well and so far in the history of the kin I think I've only had to ban maybe 3-4 people ever and mostly that was because of either inexcusable behavior or in the case of a certain individual being a conniving unscrupulous backstabbing snake that I'd never trust again ever and would not let him put the kin back into the situation we were at when the whole leadership thing began. Since then, it's been quiet. Do I wish we had more going on? Of course I do. The sheer amount of time I've put into this game and for this kin has been substantial. I care about the well being of the kin, just like I would my friends or my students.

extra stout
Feb 24, 2005

ISILDUR's ERR
You closed the old thread with a giant rant without warning, by your own admission you are too busy in real life to be the kin leader, stepped down without us even having to vote. Does the new thread really need to already be all about you again? If you don't have time for the game, that's fine we understand, play casually. But you seem to have more time to rant on the forums of a game you admittedly said you don't really play than anyone could imagine. I hope you'll stay with the kin and play whenever you have time, but all people wanted was a new active LOTRO thread, kin and community, and it seems like that'll be pretty easy to make work on the new server without a two page guide on how to handle drama, there's no on online to get offended by mild jokes so there is no drama beyond your posts, just a video game that owns big time. Also I will delete the parts of this post concerning you out if it means you won't hijack the brand new thread again.


edit


Read below this cool line for end game tips that own:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some of you might already know this, but if you want to save a good thousand gold or fifty bucks worth of turbine points you can go to the skirmish camp inside the building at the entrance of Dol Amroth, barter for tier 9 relics for around 250 marks/250 medallions each, then go decon those to get 1-2 relics from each. Then you click the refine tab of the relic NPC, and you get 1536, yes 1536 shards for each of those relics. The best settings in the game right now cost about 11,000 shards, meaning you just got one for your weapon and one for your class legendary item in a half hour worth of Glinghant runs or so.

I believe I posted this in the old thread, but you get an anfalas star-lit crystal (which you need 6 of total for a perfect weapon) from Book 3 Chapter 3 of the epic quest in central Gondor. Saves you about 200+ gold. You also get some essence, but they aren't the best and might not be what you want, so you can sell those on the auction.

extra stout fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Aug 20, 2015

xZAOx
Sep 6, 2004
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES
Hobo - going back to my 1997 Packard Bell days, support would always tell me "Format your computer". Have you done that yet?

These days with cloud-all-the-things, it's a much less daunting task to get back up and running, but your poo poo is so out of whack is the best I can think of.

Oxphocker
Aug 17, 2005

PLEASE DO NOT BACKSEAT MODERATE

xZAOx posted:

Hobo - going back to my 1997 Packard Bell days, support would always tell me "Format your computer". Have you done that yet?

These days with cloud-all-the-things, it's a much less daunting task to get back up and running, but your poo poo is so out of whack is the best I can think of.

Oddly enough, it's a fresh install. I just got an SSD a few months back, did a complete reinstall of everything and it wasn't until then I started having problems. The install of lotro went just fine, no hiccups...it's not until I try to run it that there's issues and it's not like I even get an error message, I can clearly see in the screen preview that the program is running.

tarbrush
Feb 7, 2011

ALL ABOARD THE SCOTLAND HYPE TRAIN!

CHOO CHOO
I have an account that I haven't accessed in like three years that's on one of the Euro servers. As part of this merger thing, will I get a chance to move it to whichever American server the Nazgun end up on?

Gray Area
Nov 17, 2007
Requesting an invite for my Minstrel, Moronosi.

moebius2778
May 3, 2013

tarbrush posted:

I have an account that I haven't accessed in like three years that's on one of the Euro servers. As part of this merger thing, will I get a chance to move it to whichever American server the Nazgun end up on?

From what I understand, no. EU to US and vice versa transfers still aren't allowed.

Brave New World
Mar 10, 2010
It's been confirmed that EU << >> US transfers will never happen. This is because Turbine & Codemasters each used similar/identical character database identifiers for each separate group of servers. For example, both US and EU servers would have a character identified internally as 0x2AF3.

ruffz
Dec 20, 2007

Oxphocker posted:

To give the backstory to those who weren't around back then. When Moria/Mirkwood was still all the rage and Enedwaith was a glimmer in the eye we actually had a lot of goons playing. Most nights we had probably +20 lvl 60s on, running all sorts of content especially in the mirkwood tower. There were goons who didn't think we were bleeding edge hardcore enough to master some of the content because we weren't raiding every night for three hours a night and basically wanted a two tier setup of those casual players and the raiders...those causals wouldn't be let into raids, get access to gear, etc. Basically I was against this because the Nazgun has always been about goons being on LOTRO, loving around, and generally having a good time while being fantasy internet nerds. Going hardcore raiding would have killed that and forced a lot of people out. Well, the voices grew loud an unending and despite saying no that it wasn't the goon way, they pushed for a leadership change which I reluctantly gave into (oddly enough it was the only other time I didn't have a reliable internet connection to be online) and they elected one of the officers to take over. Needless to say this didn't last very long and within about three months most of them split off to another game and I found myself right back in the seat. During that time, there were a few people who used their officer powers to kick people and generally cause problems so that had to be dealt with as well and so far in the history of the kin I think I've only had to ban maybe 3-4 people ever and mostly that was because of either inexcusable behavior or in the case of a certain individual being a conniving unscrupulous backstabbing snake that I'd never trust again ever and would not let him put the kin back into the situation we were at when the whole leadership thing began. Since then, it's been quiet. Do I wish we had more going on? Of course I do. The sheer amount of time I've put into this game and for this kin has been substantial. I care about the well being of the kin, just like I would my friends or my students.

That's a very accurate summary of what went on at the end of the Moria days from my perspective as well. I was basically the #2 guardian in the DN raid group, and got shut out in favor of a pubbie that could pres butan a little more efficiently. That just went against everything that I thought goon guilds/kinships should be. It was like "gently caress this goon that may or may not be impacting our progression speed, we want our loot faster, so here's a spot JoePubbie." By the time I came back to the game, nearly every one of the people in those raid groups had quit LOTRO entirely, and it was a totally new set of players. Nazgun returned to its roots as a casual, fun kinship where we help each other. Really crossing my fingers that there can be at least a slight resurrection of the kinship on a new server in the coming weeks.

edit: kinda funny how those same hardcore raider types are the ones that went on to kill several more goon guilds in the coming years that would follow. Those are the people that run the content into the ground, get bored, then gently caress off and never return. Habitual MMO hoppers.

ruffz fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Aug 21, 2015

Richard M Nixon
Apr 26, 2009

"The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker."
Aww man, we've been away for a while doing RL things and there's a bit of drama starting in ye olde LOTRO thread. Don't do it, goons!

I'm looking forward to coming back to the game for a bit and playing the new regions, hopefully sometime over the weekend. I guess server transfers aren't going on quite yet? It would be cool to see a larger pop server with more events being run.

Prism
Dec 22, 2007

yospos

Richard M Nixon posted:

I'm looking forward to coming back to the game for a bit and playing the new regions, hopefully sometime over the weekend. I guess server transfers aren't going on quite yet? It would be cool to see a larger pop server with more events being run.

Only European server transfers are currently active (and only between the destination servers; the other servers aren't consolidating on yet).

I made a new character on Landroval myself, though, and holy crap, it's already such a difference. I'm eager for the completed consolidation.

bombhand
Jun 27, 2004

Gray Area posted:

Requesting an invite for my Minstrel, Moronosi.
Added you to my friends list, hopefully it won't be long before you're online same time as an officer.

For anyone else who's still waiting for an invite, I'd just like to mention that if you're only logging in to check for officers and not actually doing much playing in the meantime, then your chances of crossing paths with an officer are dismally low. Besides that, if you aren't enjoying the solo game then you're not likely to have a lot of fun even once you're in the kin, because aside from carry runs your group content will be really limited until you start getting into higher level ranges.

ruffz posted:

This is the first talk I've heard about Arkenstone, and I'd have to vote against that, for what it's worth.
Arkenstone wasn't mentioned as a viable server in the previous thread, no. But I've been chatting in-game with leaders and members of other more active kins and arkenstone was being strongly considered for a little while. I think right now it's Landy/Gladden, though, so that's good. I don't want to split up my server presence, which potentially means a tough choice for me when the kins start migrating.

Oxphocker posted:

As for the role of a kin leader I think several goons touched on it exactly right, there isn't a lot to do much of the time.
Seems to me that the most important thing is being dedicated enough to check in regularly and make sure everything's paid up, which you were doing. Anything on top of that is varying degrees of "nice to have." But I wanted to give everyone the chance to weigh in, as I'm sure there are folks who care much more about the issue than I do.

tarbrush posted:

I have an account that I haven't accessed in like three years that's on one of the Euro servers. As part of this merger thing, will I get a chance to move it to whichever American server the Nazgun end up on?
You won't be able to transfer your server presence but you should be able to roll new characters on the same account, and be able to benefit some from any turbine points you might have. I'd probably wait until the migrations happen unless you're really hot-to-trot.

100YrsofAttitude
Apr 29, 2013




Hey I finally found this thread.

I've also added Moronosi.

My main is:
Foxjo- a hunter. I'm usually around 5-6 pm EST due to actually living in Europe.

After the merge I'll likely be on my alts:
Refiralin- 45 champion.
Renardir- 80-ish LM.

I still have really flexible hours so if it's going to be a matter of getting on for a group thing I can usually make it.

Thanks for keeping things running Hoboknife and Bombhand. I'm looking forward for a more active kin, I for one have always enjoyed just chatting to people. I'm not the best at actually raiding, but I follow instructions well-enough.

I've finally begun to make my push through central Gondor to hopefully finish the East before Minas Tirith and I've got to say Lebennin is really pretty. There's something tangentially different about Gondor when compared to Rohan, even though they seem somewhat similar (Kingdoms of Men invaded by armies). I don't know what it is, but whereas Rohan seriously began to bore me, Gondor manages to stay interesting and cool to see every time.

Oh and to anyone not sure to join up. Just ask yourself if you ever wanted to see the Shire and do dumbshit for hobbits. The Shire is the best starting zone and it just hits all the right notes. The whole game does that with a lot of the lore. It's by far the best thing about it, seeing the massive explorable world of Middle Earth accessible at your feet.

extra stout
Feb 24, 2005

ISILDUR's ERR

100YrsofAttitude posted:

I've finally begun to make my push through central Gondor to hopefully finish the East before Minas Tirith and I've got to say Lebennin is really pretty. There's something tangentially different about Gondor when compared to Rohan, even though they seem somewhat similar (Kingdoms of Men invaded by armies). I don't know what it is, but whereas Rohan seriously began to bore me, Gondor manages to stay interesting and cool to see every time.

Oh and to anyone not sure to join up. Just ask yourself if you ever wanted to see the Shire and do dumbshit for hobbits. The Shire is the best starting zone and it just hits all the right notes. The whole game does that with a lot of the lore. It's by far the best thing about it, seeing the massive explorable world of Middle Earth accessible at your feet.

What do you think of Central and East Gondor so far? I'm in Central currently and enjoying it, though curious what I'll actually be bartering for if I'd be better off using all these currencies for rep. Is there anything very important in either area, or can I afford to buy some cool cosmetic pets right off the bat without having to grind more coins? I agree the starting zones are all pretty magical, and I included a Shire fishing screenshot even if I had to crop it to fit the OP. That's actually taken on Landroval, it was a weird and pleasant thing to see people consistently fishing and chatting on a server.

Brave New World
Mar 10, 2010

100YrsofAttitude posted:

I've finally begun to make my push through central Gondor to hopefully finish the East before Minas Tirith and I've got to say Lebennin is really pretty. There's something tangentially different about Gondor when compared to Rohan, even though they seem somewhat similar (Kingdoms of Men invaded by armies). I don't know what it is, but whereas Rohan seriously began to bore me, Gondor manages to stay interesting and cool to see every time.

That's exactly what I thought too. They somehow managed to amp up the graphical appeal of Gondor compared to Rohan even. And seeing the beacons emitting smoke really conveys a sense that "important poo poo is happening" in a way that no other region has to date.

100YrsofAttitude
Apr 29, 2013




I have no idea what the currencies are for or where to spend them. I'm really not the most aware when it comes to that sort of stuff. My gear would probably be some pretty old beat-up crap were it not for the kindness and generosity of the kinship, particularly bombhand.

That said, Central Gondor is pretty good. It does the quest progression pretty well and while the enemies are vastly the same, though this is the case throughout the whole game, the geography is really nice. They really managed to portray Gondor as a sort Mediterranean area. Honestly it feels like some parts of the south of France that I've visited. So going from the mountainy pines of Ethering, to the dunes and coastal lowlands of Linhir, and eventually the floodplains west of Pelargir is really nice and natural. I've yet to hit East Gondor but most of Gondor has seemed pretty quality to me, especially compared to the dreariness of the greens and browns of the plains of Rohan. The only interesting areas there were the foothills of the mountain areas like the Stonedeans and even then. I think what also helps is that lore-wise they drew from a really interesting aspect that's little mentioned in the book: Castimir and the Kin-Strike.

I was a bit worried about Minas Tirith, seeing how bland Helm's Deep turned out, but Central Gondor has made me pretty optimistic actually. I'm genuinely curious to see Osgiliath. If you don't mind, I may try writing some quick blurbs on the classes I'm familiar with and sending it to you, not unlike your beorning entry, I think new players would like to know who/what they can play as. It's at least the thing I know I look for in other MMO threads first posts. Also, it'll ease up on the load of material you have to provide.

Has anyone else been doing the Bingo Boffin weekly stuff? Should it be mentioned as new material? It's really pleasant to be back in the Shire especially after all the Gondorian doom and gloom.

Lastly, if we do get a presence going on I really really really want to try to do a Chicken run. It's one of my goals and I've managed to beat all of the ones leading to the big hit-every-stop-in-Eriador quest. I think the Doodles were the others to give it a go.

100YrsofAttitude
Apr 29, 2013




Brave New World posted:

That's exactly what I thought too. They somehow managed to amp up the graphical appeal of Gondor compared to Rohan even. And seeing the beacons emitting smoke really conveys a sense that "important poo poo is happening" in a way that no other region has to date.

If you play the music they have some cool string stuff going down in Gondor, it's very fitting. The whole dark sky is thing is a bit dreary, and reminiscent of Angmar, but I get why it's there. It's hard to remember, because of the low population, but we're supposedly a member each of a large general Army of Free People's constantly skirmishing and fighting the enemies invading the land. I imagine when there's more of a presence of players, you get that impression.

extra stout
Feb 24, 2005

ISILDUR's ERR
Sure I'm up for contributions to the thread, I was talking with Bombhand earlier and what I thought was the best idea is to let people who really really want to "research" a game read the official site and the wiki, and to make the OP of this thread just barely long enough, but long enough to reduce a few questions and generate some more curiosity and interest out of new players. Overall though I think giving a few sentences about each topic in the game, and soon some better screenshots, is a cool idea because ultimately we want to help people out in game on a case by case basis when they have questions or need something crafted, not become forum lords or turn into a wiki, because this thread really can't compete with a wiki, but we as players can beat it with quick, simplified advice when we are online or posting.

For those still trying to figure out why to play this game: You pick your favorite race, then browse the classes and maybe ask some defining questions, then pick which one you hope will be your favorite. You explore and read about, slaughter your way through the entirety of Middle-Earth at your own pace and skipping whichever things you find dumb, and you make some friends and poo poo. Bingo-Boffin is cool, though I wonder if it's a good idea to add one more thing (in terms of a new player) in a game that already has one thousand things. Maybe do just enough of the Bingo-Boffin quest to get your pet rabbit if you like those kind of things, then try to catch up and level.

Also I got a chance to ask Frelorn about future additions to Bingo Bartering, since you can already buy about every item you'd want from it and there's something like 48 weeks to go. He said he doesn't work in that department and can't promise anything, but that's surely something he'll pass on to them and something he said he imagine they'd definitely be adding more rewards to. But, that is new fun player stuff, not a source of true Tolkien lore, PVP gear, or end game content so I might get to that last, it's pretty simple too.

100YrsofAttitude
Apr 29, 2013




extra stout posted:

Also I got a chance to ask Frelorn about future additions to Bingo Bartering, since you can already buy about every item you'd want from it and there's something like 48 weeks to go. He said he doesn't work in that department and can't promise anything, but that's surely something he'll pass on to them and something he said he imagine they'd definitely be adding more rewards to. But, that is new fun player stuff, not a source of true Tolkien lore, PVP gear, or end game content so I might get to that last, it's pretty simple too.

If they ever make Bingo's Sunday Best available I'm getting it. It's like a boating outfit from la Belle Epoque, a flower in the lapel, and red tie. It's too ridiculous. He's also had some good titles over the run so far like 'Afraid-of-Toads' and my favorite, 'Drinking-buddy'.

ukrainius maximus
Mar 3, 2007
Are there many open-world dungeons similar to Goblin-town? I've played this game on and off for so long and my current highest is my Hobbit guardian on Landroval, who is a few levels into Lothlorien. I think they re-did Goblin-town or something though which meant I was able to solo through it and I had so much loving fun going through there and just being a bad-rear end Hobbit saving elf mans and womens and killing goblins.

Are there other places like that? I really like the whole open, non-instanced kind of dungeon feel. Moria was pretty good for that, but I stopped playing a few months ago because Lothlorien just got sort of dull riding back and forth doing all of the intro stuff.

100YrsofAttitude
Apr 29, 2013




ukrainius maximus posted:

Are there many open-world dungeons similar to Goblin-town? I've played this game on and off for so long and my current highest is my Hobbit guardian on Landroval, who is a few levels into Lothlorien. I think they re-did Goblin-town or something though which meant I was able to solo through it and I had so much loving fun going through there and just being a bad-rear end Hobbit saving elf mans and womens and killing goblins.

Are there other places like that? I really like the whole open, non-instanced kind of dungeon feel. Moria was pretty good for that, but I stopped playing a few months ago because Lothlorien just got sort of dull riding back and forth doing all of the intro stuff.

I want to say es... but I'm not really sure since I've never played the Misty Mountains. I think that the feel of the game changes substantially once you hit Rohan. There's a real sense of apocalypse and war in Rohan that doesn't ever really leave in Gondor. It's there you realize there's a war going on and a legitimate problem in Middle Earth. Angmar is probably the only region that gives that impression so well. Great River is a mini Rohan so going through there will show you what you're in store for.

Because of this new tone the game takes on though you do feel like you're playing a significant if small part of a larger war, but there are a lot less just kinda fun adventuring of the earlier zones.

xZAOx
Sep 6, 2004
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES

ukrainius maximus posted:

Are there many open-world dungeons similar to Goblin-town? I've played this game on and off for so long and my current highest is my Hobbit guardian on Landroval, who is a few levels into Lothlorien. I think they re-did Goblin-town or something though which meant I was able to solo through it and I had so much loving fun going through there and just being a bad-rear end Hobbit saving elf mans and womens and killing goblins.

Are there other places like that? I really like the whole open, non-instanced kind of dungeon feel. Moria was pretty good for that, but I stopped playing a few months ago because Lothlorien just got sort of dull riding back and forth doing all of the intro stuff.

No, Goblin-town remains pretty uniquely awesome. You mentioned a lot of Moria gives a similar vibe - I'd say I got kind of a similar vibe from The Old Forest and parts of Fangorn, but nothing ever quite like Goblin-town.

Brave New World
Mar 10, 2010
Like xZAOx said, Goblin Town is a one of a kind insofar as it's an open world instance.

Anyone that has never run Carn Dum and/or Barad Gularan needs to find a way to run them ASAP. Carn Dum has some really awesome, memorable stuff in it.

ukrainius maximus
Mar 3, 2007
I definitely liked re-doing The Old Forest and dug that vibe as well, especially as I was reading through the books at the time. Shame to hear there isn't much more of that past where I am.

What level are Carn Durn and Barad Gularan?

flowinprose
Sep 11, 2001

Where were you? .... when they built that ladder to heaven...

ukrainius maximus posted:

\What level are Carn Durn and Barad Gularan?

Level 50

They were two of the initial end game instances.

Markkei
Aug 11, 2010
There are a couple more notable "public dungeons" - Sarnur and Haudh Iarchith, but they aren't nearly as large as Goblin Town.

Agree on Carn Dum and Barad Gularan, I have fond memories of running those dungeons all the time way back when 50 was the cap. My kin leader and I were in a group that had gone all the way up to Mordirith, the final boss of CD. We landed the final blow and my kin leader won the Elder Staff drop and I took home a fancy housing decoration, only to realize it was past 6 AM. We didn't regret it one bit and still reminisce about it!

Stalins Moustache
Dec 31, 2012

~~**I'm Italian!**~~
This game is basically Chill: The MMO. The Shire is one of the best designed zones, visually, I've ever played in any game. There's nothing better than running around as a fat hobbit being overly nervous about not getting caught by hungry hobbits with a freshly baked pie in your hands.

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Dark_Swordmaster
Oct 31, 2011
Level 50 eh? I'm in Moria and right around there. Maybe we could get an on-level group to run them and then the Moria instances? I know that's a lot to ask but hopefully we'll see a small flourish of activity soon due to server transfers.

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