A couple of years back I logged off my level 65 Champion and I really thought I was done with Lotro. This September however I was tempted back to the game while pursuing an excellent Coursera course exploring Lord of the rings in game, book and movies. (https://www.coursera.org/course/onlinegames, highly recommended if they run it again).
I figured I would only play for the few weeks of the course so I picked up a mid level Loremaster alt and pottered around with him in original Shadow's of Angmar content. By the end of the course I had hit the original level cap of 50 but I was still enjoying the game so I decided to hang around for a bit longer.
Lotro has changed over the years and for the most part the game is a lot easier to solo. Oddly enough this suited me and I was happy to play the game on my own for a few weeks. The Loremaster is a very fun character combining crowd control, Pets, debuffs, modest heals and moderate damage. It probably isn't the fastest character to level (due to moderate damage) but a well rounded Loremaster has so many get out of jail cards that they are very hard to kill.
Playing a levelling game below the level cap has other benefits. There is no incentive to grind. Why repeat old content for a miniscule bonus when new content and higher level rewards await?
Anyway I was 40 levels behind the curve when I started and I had little hopes of getting to level 85 before the Helm's Deep expansion moved the goal posts by another 10 levels. I got into Rohan about two weeks ago bang on level at 75 and I decided to go for it and try to reach 85 before the expansion came out. Even with an XP bonus however I had only just hit 83 when Sunday came and I decided to call it a night before the big shut down on Monday morning. Then catastrophe struck Turbine with a data centre outage. The result was that launch has been delayed to today (Wednesday) and I managed to hit 85 just before logging off last night. Hurray.
By the way I enjoyed Rohan a lot even though I went through it rather quickly. Mounted combat is superb if somewhat overpowered. When I say somewhat I mean ridiculously overpowered. I hear stories of mounted players soloing raid bosses and I can believe it. Once an enemy is on foot (or dismounted) they can barely scratch a mounted player. I am not sure that such a huge bonus is warranted. Mounted players already have a huge mobility advantage over foot bound monster so I don't see why they need additional protection.
Anyway no Lotro today I guess because servers are likley to be down for a long patch. Roll on Helms' Deep tomorrow.
I figured I would only play for the few weeks of the course so I picked up a mid level Loremaster alt and pottered around with him in original Shadow's of Angmar content. By the end of the course I had hit the original level cap of 50 but I was still enjoying the game so I decided to hang around for a bit longer.
Lotro has changed over the years and for the most part the game is a lot easier to solo. Oddly enough this suited me and I was happy to play the game on my own for a few weeks. The Loremaster is a very fun character combining crowd control, Pets, debuffs, modest heals and moderate damage. It probably isn't the fastest character to level (due to moderate damage) but a well rounded Loremaster has so many get out of jail cards that they are very hard to kill.
Playing a levelling game below the level cap has other benefits. There is no incentive to grind. Why repeat old content for a miniscule bonus when new content and higher level rewards await?
Anyway I was 40 levels behind the curve when I started and I had little hopes of getting to level 85 before the Helm's Deep expansion moved the goal posts by another 10 levels. I got into Rohan about two weeks ago bang on level at 75 and I decided to go for it and try to reach 85 before the expansion came out. Even with an XP bonus however I had only just hit 83 when Sunday came and I decided to call it a night before the big shut down on Monday morning. Then catastrophe struck Turbine with a data centre outage. The result was that launch has been delayed to today (Wednesday) and I managed to hit 85 just before logging off last night. Hurray.
By the way I enjoyed Rohan a lot even though I went through it rather quickly. Mounted combat is superb if somewhat overpowered. When I say somewhat I mean ridiculously overpowered. I hear stories of mounted players soloing raid bosses and I can believe it. Once an enemy is on foot (or dismounted) they can barely scratch a mounted player. I am not sure that such a huge bonus is warranted. Mounted players already have a huge mobility advantage over foot bound monster so I don't see why they need additional protection.
Anyway no Lotro today I guess because servers are likley to be down for a long patch. Roll on Helms' Deep tomorrow.
