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Throgs Lotro Journal 24th April 2008: The Scouring of The Shire

Warning: Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't actually read the Lord of The Rings (shame on you!).

What a night. Following repeated wipes over the last few weeks Throg and his kinsfellows geared up for yet another go at the Battle of Bywater Raid instance. The large battle was tough as usual but for the first time the raid managed to completely surround the ruffians preventing any from escaping and pulling in additional adds. The raid's burglars used a co-ordinated sequence of conjunctions to to replenished all power bars to almost 100% just before the last of the ruffians was downed. This turned out to be vital because following a short cut-scene the raid was immediately catapulted into the confrontation with Sharkey and Wormtongue. Correct positioning was absolutely critical to this phase of the battle. The bosses have to be kept apart to prevent them unleashing their devastating AOE conjunctions. In addition it is absolutely essential to balance the damage on both bosses because if either bosses morale ever falls to 10% less than the other Saruman casts his instant mega-heal bringing both back to 100% and pretty much guranteeing a wipe. It was touch and go but eventually the raid managed to bring both bosses down to the 50% morale trigger level. After another short cutscene in which the fellowship offered mercy to the pair Wormtongue went completely mental and murdered Saruman. Then phase two of the battle commenced. In his crazed state Wormtongue is by far the hardest boss of the game. In addition to having well over 2 million morale points he is completely immune to Melee damage. Luckily he has a particular weakness to arrow damage so Throg and his fellow Champions did their bit by switching to bows for the final rounds of the battle. Wormtongue went down with an almighty roar and those of the raid who were still alive at that point were stunned by the ensuing silence.

The closing cutsecene and credits were a little cheesy but I don't care. After sticking with Throg through 12 months of intense questing I got a lump in my throat when that fateful final message scrolled up the screen:

"Congratulations Throg. You have completed Lord Of the Rings Online. Would you like to play again as another character (Y/N)".

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hehe, would be cool to see that message at the end, but with a persisent world with persisent monthly fees for most that will never happen...I wonder how long Turbine and Codemasters will be supporting this game, 10, 20 years? Myself like you would like to see a Game Over screen, and in reality I don't think I will playing this game in 2 years from now. Curious thing to ponder...
mbp said…
Its a pretty good bet that it will never happen alright but I wonder what Turbine are actually going to do after the Epic story line reaches the end of the books. I wonder how much flexibility their license gives them to mess around with the Tolkien Canon?
Lars said…
This comment has been removed by the author.

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