martes, 30 de agosto de 2011

Endless travelling

After few quests, my search for Narchuil dropped as result the fact that the Angmaring and Amarthiel had found the first piece of the ring and had it safe on Angmar, north of the desolated lands of hate and evil... 

This trip, was more than justifed, I had to get that shard in order to gain control over the situation and cut some of my enemie's plans. And just because it was justified, for some reason I got a teleport to a advance post near the zone of the quest, which was great enough. Funny is that the travels that are not justified you have to do it by your own.

Back into Angmar, at max level... Time of revenge.
The fortress where Narchuil was hidden was not protected at all, of course I had the Inspiration buff which makes you even more greater than just a simple group, but the enemies were easy to kill and easy to overcome, sometimes AoE is just that beatiful. following the track for the ring, I found out that a old friend of mine, this Troll, was not dead and he escaped alive from Annuminas...

Wait.. you again?

Yet, he is no challange at all for a Minstrel of my quality and level doted with inspiration buff...

The several quests in Angmar shows how the enemy is trying to gather the second pieces and how good they have secured the first one in the halls of Amarthiel, with orcs and Angmarins angered by the only fact that you are there. Sadly, they are elite and you can't avoid the battle even at top lvl so walking between them is not a option... and they drop some Beryl shards so its a win-win situation. For you.

Not like the ruins... but they looks awesome...

Well.. I guess that not all the humans are friend...

HOLY! What does a bounder in a forgotten tower at Angmar ,
at one side of a guy from those lands?!
Amarthiel is quite different than Mordririth, while you could see under his reign some nasty things, Amarthiel had worst things. Basically they started to leave all the corpses on the floor, eat them or kick them as sport; yet, the trouble is not that.. the trouble is the quantity of bodies are on the floor...

Lots of them.. lots of them... and no dread...
As you go deeper into the quest chain, you find out the exact spot
where the ring is hidden and you only need to climb few stairs
to grab it.

Nasty fights with nasty numbers and nasty critics...
I love it!

After some fights and some stairs, you meet the guardian of the ring, some unfortunate poor soul that have no idea that if you arrive alone means that you are in god mode. the fight is pretty funny, some fire and lots of running, some fears and silence and some... flying undeads around the place that dies only running... creepy...
yada, yada, yada... let's go to the fight, would ya?

See? I told you... wait... no.. I forgot to told you
not to do it... sorry, my bad...
This chain was easy and fast, with a swift justified travel and not too muchof riding, but the only reason why  did it fast wa just because, walking from the post to the tower, no one attacked me due my level... if I were the usual normal level... that could have meant at least more than one hour just going to the tower and back again.

The next post is Forochel, where the second piece of the ring is located... the place that I found extremely annoying.. hehe I just found out that today is a complaining day in my post excepts on the RP post :) Sorry about that, it will end soon, I promise :)

Well, I gotta go, in few hours I'll leave to my home so I'll see you later! good luck and have a great hunting!

RP on Silverlode

Taking a break from all the epic books and reviews that bring both, memories of sadness and anger, to my soul, I'm going to tell the story of a peculiar event that happened yesterday at night, a event that prevent me to spent another play time inside those horrible quests for Amarthiel.

When I reached home, eadted and drinked and played with my cat a bit... In fact, I went directly to bed to bury my head on the pillow and my cat decided to tap with his paws my ears as if he were chasing moles or something... I decided to go once more inside Lotro to complete and end my personal karma, the tale of Amarthiel and all the riding that means. But I didnt logged complete when I got a /Tell from a friend, Asgand, asking me to have dinner in his house.

At the beginning I was like "O.o" since I had in mind travelling to Eregion and search for Laerdan.. again... but the idea started to sound, even if not good, at least as "Roleplay event". Asgand was completely new to the RP stuff and I was waiting for a RP event for so long so we decided that it would be great start at least for those who could like RP in Silverlode, which are plenty (I can see many all the time with their names in white running around)

The event was going to be simple, just dinner and perhaps talk about our character's story. Asgand decided to cook few things... Well, LOTS of things as he was lvling up his farming vocation while I was just ending some quests on Rivendell and searching for a nice cosmetic outfit to use. As you all have imagined, I have no interest in using dresses with Varsalla, I see her as a tough, roguish bard instead of a glamorous minstrel... In fact, she is not someone to tag along so easy.

And this was the cosmetic that I found on my vault... old clothes from old quests.
And I got the Rivendell's prized horse as well.
I've done RP on WoW, in Sentinel server and that's from where I learned how to role on MMORPG. It's quite different from D&D or Vampire Chronicles (Table games) since you have to understand many rules and keep in mind that you are not, but NOT, the main character of Lotro... You are just one of the thousand heroes that are fighting for the middle earth. Since this event came up to fast I had no story planned for her so I decided to improvise a bit, not talking too much about my past.

Eventually, after few hours of doing quests and wandering in Rivendell, the time was set and I had to go to Bree-lands homesteads, where Asgand have his house at. During the time while he was doing all the cooking, all the exaggerated (if that word is writen like that) cooking, I was telling him about few normal rules, like for example: if you are going to have a dinner at your home, with guests, it would be nice if you were using more casual outfits instead of heavy armor and your two handed weapon at your back; and maybe that running was not the best all the time, walking was more polite and less chaotic, usual stuff that I would have love to know in my first session in WoW.

Asgand and I on the square, near his house.
The best part of doing RP events are those weird things that happens that we can't control or at least we didnt had enough time to control it, like for example, Asgand with his clothes which could be good for any other class with any other background but perhaps for a Dunedaín (He is one of them, as his story is intended) its a bit too.. colorfull... Or in my case, while I was playing some music, some of my songs ended weirdly and less talented as intended...

Yep.. a bit too colorfull..

"I was sure that the song ended like that... even if sounded like if you kicked a cat
through the window..."
Eventually, RP fever got another member of the kin involved and to be honest, since we were just doing a bit of practice, we were not ready to confront any awesome roleplayer yet; But Antare the Dwarf is a good friend of mine in real life and he is a excellent D&D player as well and he wanted to give it a try.

Dwarf in a full plate with a heavy shield asking for dinner...
What else you can ask for?

The chat system at the beginning, with the three of us, become a bit
annoying, everyone was talking at the same time.
The sesion was actually funny, while Asgand was talkign and talking and talking without a way to be stopped, Antare was abusing of the emotes and I was always answer really late to any question, this was just a drill, thanks to the Valars, but I know that eventually, in no time, we wil be doing greatly and perhaps some RP could be done in this server.

As it was expected, while I was looking forward for the dinner, which almost didn happen... Antare and Asgand decided to make a beer contest, while they were smoking and yelling between each other, in my case, Varsalla needs her voice for her attacks so smoking is not a option for me and drinking... I dont know, it's not wise to drink too much near a crazy dwarf and a chatty human, so I used the lute again and started to play some music while I was counting the beers...

5 each one... 

After the 25 ended with Antare as winner and way to drunk
while Asgand feinted twice...
At that point we were just to far away from the RP session and we were mostly doing jokes and bothering each other with challanges until a new mssg was posted in the Kin chat. It is amazing the power that have the instances in each player, as soon as I read that Fireborn was gonna do GS for the daily and since ihave never been there, I jumped saying that I could heal and in no time all of us were ending the RP session as fast as you can't imagine.

My first time in Grand stairs... I wanted to jump down
so badly... 
This fight was annoying, really annoying... but we succeded.
From that point and further I didnt took any more screens, the only reason why.. well, I was the healer and or I was taking under control or everyone was dying near. I learned a few things in here, like potions are necessary, in my case, all of them but mostly power potions... I had plenty of them when I reached the entrance but after a bit I got none on my back and the last fight was just too painful.

For others players potions are strictly necessary as well, specially fear, I am not a master of healing but I think that the reaon why my Fear dispell has a extremely short range is just to be use on me just in case since most of the fears of apply DoTs or reduce Will and Fear... Since I'm learning all this on the road, I have no master or tutor, so I'm guessing. At least I had this AoE fear remove that was awesome, Fellowship of the heart or heart of the Fellowship.

But even with all the troubles we did just great and we all got nice items, I only got items for my house and some runes for my legendary weapons and for some reason I failed in the other 20 rune rolls and relic case rolls as well.

Yesterday was a awesome day, a bit a Roleplaying and then instances.. what else I could ask for? well, Raids and PvMP but raids is in few days and PvMP with Isengard sadly... in Raid speaking I'm going to sign up but my stats are quite lower.

Well, I'm out for a bit, good luck my friends and have a great time! happy hunting :3


Narmeleth, Laerdan's daugther

This post is going to be full of Spoilers, so please, read under your own risk.

If I have to say that I enjoyed one part of the Epic book of Angmar, will surely be this part, the history of Narmeleth, daugther of Laerdan the Elf. Since I have been walking into Trollshaws, there was always a ruin that got my attention from the very first moment. As I'm quite new in the game, yes, even if I have a lvl 65 now, i dont know all the names of the zones and ruins, I can't tellyou the name correctly of this place, but I can tell you that its located east from the last elvish settlement before Eregion in the elvish lands of Trollshaws.

My first visit to that place was when I were lvl 38  I think, chasing frogs and salamanders around the river to complete some quests so I cul get my rewards easily, I was more lost than questing as usual when I stumble upon some cavern with some stairs inside. That was already to weird to left it uncheck, specially with a elf watching the entrance in silence hidden in the bushes. Sadly, the place had nothing to offer, a old ruin almost engulfed by nature, creepy and damp, with a awesome stairs in the middle that takes you to a closed door.

The entrance of this place... magnificent in fact.

Inner courtyard... a greatly designed place, I really like it.

It was sad, so sad, that I could not go any further without any explanation or reason so I had to leave that place, not before swore that I was going to come back and unmask the mistery that was hidden there. It was impossible for me to think that, after reacheing the top level, I was going to go back to that place once again under the chain of a lvl 50 quest know as "Dread books" for me, or "Epic books" for others.

After going to Misty mountains to find some gems to the jewelcrafter of Rivendell could craft me the keys back, and no, the gems were just a exchange for forging the keys... I went back to the Ruins and went inside to unveil the secret that it hold for years. This quest is awesome, reminds me about Vargrant Story, one of my favourite old games, with the scenes of the past in were you, even if its not concerning you or you weren't there, you magically are transported to the zone and watch those events as if they were happening right there.

Ruins in lotro, the best ruins ever in game that I have seen before...

Using several object in the ruins, you will unlock a mistery of the past, like if the object would tell you the story and after that glimpse of the past, you will have few battles against some lurking creatures that were or even protecting the ruins or just hungry.

Laerdan arrives with a beautiful Elf-Maiden...

From all the NPCs that I have seen before, this one got the prize. at least as long
she dont start to act like a freak...
This story has something to do with Sara oakhearth as well, that little enigmatic character that is always everywhere at the beginning of the game. For some reason, when I strated to play Lotro, I was hoping that she could be someone really important AND good, saldy, I only were accurate with the important.

Laerdan and Sara, talking about Narmeleth.
Narmeleth is Laerdan's daugther that was claimed by the dark powers dring some war or something, that part I had to skip fast for many reason but mostly because I wanted to go out of the chain quest. Thanks to the Valars we have the pools of reflection and I can repeat it again tounderstand more the story of her tragedy. Narmeleth was holding "captive" by her father until he (Laerdan) could find a cure to the evil that was afflicting her. Hidden from the eyes of the enemy and without the ring of power Narchuil, already shattered by Laerdan.

Narmeleth was loosing all her memories with the pass of time.

While you dont know who is her, you could feel a bit of shame for what she is suffering.
But this story is not only about Narmeleth and her days on those ruins under the care of Sara and Laerdan. The false king Mordririth was looking for her as well which means that the hidden secret was not that "hidden secret" after all. This is the only scene of the quest that is quite dumb, since its the bad guys walking... it breaks, somehow, with the flow of the tale.

Well... I guess that they found her with a GPS... These ruins are well hidden...
Eventually, after several glimpses in the past, you discover that Narmeleth is in fact Amarthiel, without the Narchuil influence and in her normal state. Like the rings of powers can twist someones mind, I guess that Narchuil did the same with her poor soul and transform her into that miserable creature that its going to be your pain during all the Epic book.

Laerdan always had one solution for all the troubles "This room has become unpleasent for you...
let me find you another".. No friend, the only help could be
or chained her to the walls or seeking help from other elves lords.
Even with portion of Amarthiel inside her trying to gather control of her actions, when Mordririth and Narmeleth meets for first time she can show some resistance... But vengeance is just to great and the temptation is to strong that eventually she fell again under Amartiel's dark side.

Narmeleth: "No! Stay away! Father! Sara!"
Mordririth: "I'll help you with your revenge..  what do you say?"

Narmeleth: (Amarthiel) "Yes Master" (Add creepy voice)
This is were you realize that eveything was lost and she escaped with the False king once more to find her ring and become the champion that she already was, who was gonna think that at the end of the Mordrirth's life she was going to take control over all the things? I guess that not even the evil people can trust in their kin.

One annoying part of this was Mordrambor or whatever his name is... I grow up sick of this guy in Tinnudir, now in here and eventually I was gonna meet him in Forochel, with her fancy voice and weird way to talk... This guy is quite a evil mind, perhaps a evil mind as it was Amarthiel when Mordririth took her under his care. Ah, yes.. he let you prisoner of those ruins... as a bad joke...

/sighs
The reason why the evil guys here wont won one battle is because they dont even try to kill, they just go for the fancy way alowing you to find a way to escape. Be a man yo evil character! kill me at once or do away!

Anyway, this quest was awesome, long quest and easy even with the fights that has which are weird but maybe necessary as well. Do it, in fact, do all the Epic book but not because of the title or the Turbine points rewards, do it under the flag to understand who is Amarthiel and how she can be defeated.

Anyway, I gotta go, i'm gonna have my lunch now so good luck and have a great hunting my friends, I'll see you in a bit! :)

Ok, it´s the time...

Of complaining about something that I was not enjoying in Lotro, not even a bit. but first of all, for those who read the blog and have never played Lotro, there are several quests knowed as "Book quests". These book quests are somehow more linked in the beginning with the book, the properly book Lord of the Rings, and goes by section. Since you can´t be the heroe of the Ring (Because your name was not in Tolkien´s book) you wont be taking the ring to Mordor, yet, to help those who task is that one, you can help them in separate ways doing some errands that they need to see complete before they do something else.

For example, what was doing Aragorn before the hobbits arrived to the Prancy Pony? Well, he was investigating the Dark riders and trying to helping Amdir (I think that I totally forgot his name...) to avoid the dark powers of Angmar due the venom from some Nazgul´s sword. obviusly, the sotry so far is quite short, even if takes lots of quests to complete it and lots of hours, the story is no complete told. Each book have several sections, some of them are called Epic, others just part II and others in another way, yet I can assure you that there´s one that you wont forget about... Epic Book of Angmar.

I´m not going to describe it complete, since i wont be spoiling too much, but all started with Moridrith defeat in Angmar and the arrived of Amarthiel, the champion of Angmar claiming the throne AND a Palantir... awesome right? Just when you think that you just saved the day, there´s always someone waiting to ruin it around he corner. I stop these chain for one reason: Riding all Eriador was not that attractive at is was exploring Moria, so since I reached to the top level, I decided to complete all those quests before going further with Mirkwoods and Morias Books, even with Enedwaith books.

And I spent all the sunday in those quests, like 6 hours of game, and I didnt complete the entire Epic book... It´s not the quantity of quests on it, it´s the horrible time that you waste riding from one side to another if you dont have or either a hunter to help you or Swift Ride enable. Let´s just explore of the quests and later, at the end, I will do a entire review with maps so you can see all the road..

Evendim, this lands are never gonna be in peace.
Since Amarthiel is looking for Narchuil, her ring, she need it to visit Annuminas for a reason that I totally forgot and inside there, Leardal started to show more often in the epic book story. Laerdan is a important character in the chain quest yet, even if is a Elf, you are going to start to hate him for all the things, even if they are noble, thathe does.

Fights in here are always going to be awesome, at least that´s good.

My fist target was taking back Amarthiel´s Palantir under control, and since there was no one available, Calenglad decided thatit was me who should do the nasty work. Thanks to Laerdal, it was not a hard task, yet, he got captured at the end... even if I thought that he got killed due the cinematic movie.

Rogue mode: activated. Target: Adquired "Palantir"

Run Varsalla, run!
It´s quite lame how I retrieved the Palantir, seveal enemies and one fo them was  the champion of Angmar and I just took it like if I were grabbing a ball and then just running away... I was not expecting a fight against the championof Angmar, but at least, while Leardan had business with her, I could take down the others guards.

Once I got the palantir back to Tinnudir, we had to interrogate our prisioner, Mordrambor or something like that. a devoted soldier of Amarthiel that we captured (It´s on some past posts) easily in Annuminas as well. I totally had fogotten about this guy and I pretty sure that even the Wardens did, he is locked in the huge building at north of Tinnudir with only one guard... yes... only one guard...

Varsalla: You know.. one guard taking care of Mordrambor is not a good idea
Calenglad: Why?
Varsalla: I dont know, he is a great soldier...

Varsalla: See? this was just what I was meaning...
These quests are not bad, taking aside the ridin and the waste of time, the funeral quest was, for me, like a nice RP event quest like that I could enjoy with other toons. Sadly, after that quest I was sent to North downs, then to Lonelands, then to Trollshaws...

Funeral quest, I enjoyed this one, was different.

Travelling to Trollshwas at full speed.
Inside Trollshaws I was sent to one of the deeper ruins near the road to Eregion after find out that Narchuil was shattered in the past and now, Amarthiel was looking for both pieces. But this quest after all is not basically to search for the piece of Narchuil, it´s more to understand who in the middle earth is Amarthiel... and what those ruins hidden inside the mountains are for.

From this town you will be sent to expore Trollshaws.

To the West, near the wood trolls lair...

To deep into their lairs... closed places are never a good place for a fight.

To the ruins of the East, under the mountain, which are closed...

Aahh finally, I will uncover the truth of... wait.. do we need a key?

Searching for that blasted key... seems that it´s no in here...
I finally got the key, yet the bad news was that the key was also damaged and only one elf in Rivendell could help me, a jewelcrafter... I didnt know why not the Smithy elf, but well, I guess that the key it´s quite delicate and needsthe work from a jewelcrafter. A jewelcrafter who, looking that you are in a hurry, decides to sent you in the meantime to MISTY MOUNTAINS... to search in GOBLIN TOWN DEEP IN THE NORTH EAST... some GEMS... This is were the quest book was already completely annoying. but I´ll explain that later, in a next post, right now I have to go to work, have a good day my friends and good luck! see you in a bit! :)



lunes, 29 de agosto de 2011

And the promised day arrived...

All started earlier on a sunny Saturay when I woke up without any reason at all at some weird hour. Even if I was trying to get some good deserve sleep from the last week that  had, half of the week a bit sick while the other with a lot of work to complete at the office, my tries were in vain... I couldnt go to sleep again.

So Lotro was my only option after a fast breakfast and some zapping on TV, which demostrated why I never watch it, there's usually nothing to see in all those channels, and some playing with my cat, more like avoiding him to be sleeping at my legs while I was on the computer rather than"playing", at the end, he decided to make his last stand aside the screen, looking at me with that "I know what are you doing" face...

75% to reach lvl 65, the last level (For now) of the game in which I was going to start raiding and doing instances, getting rep and some funny stuff yet, for sure, I was gonna missing my level duties which is the best part of the game. I had a D&D chronicle planned for the same at the middle of the day so I had few hours to reach at least a extra 50% of experience, some extra gold and perhaps more leaves and branches in Lórien and Mirkwood.

Destiny was somehow a bit hateful with me...
This place.. Scuttledells... hell.. it's the same.
I spent at least all the morning in Scuttledells, a spider zone at north that is not just a spider zone with webs and poison and some hidden spiders... but also have dogs, crebains, undeads, signatures and rare elite mobs that almost killed me, a place were  meet my death at least 3 times in less than 3 hours, a place that was a unbelievable earth laberynth in the middle of the woods, where not only you had to pick a way on the ground level, but also in the top of the mountains theres... 

But at the end, after all that suffering that I would love to avoid,  got my reward...

It's awesome not only the tree... but also I got a legendary weapon reforge
at the same time, so I got the tree AND the dual swords...
Yes, after a long way from Ered Luin, I reached the max level before Isengard, fighting not only against orcs and ancient evils, but surviving Moria and Angmar, dueling against the forces of evil AND my ISP company as well... I reached the glorious max level.

They say that with this levels, the priority are others, and yes, they are right. Raiding duties and instances, dailies and more deeds its the only thing that it's left at the end of the game when you reach this point, waiting with anxious a next update and working hard in getting everyday a better soldier... Or Minstrel. But I was maxxed, so I decided to end some quests... and I had a horrible time.

Mazog... Who is already a dumb character its still among us...

And you have to chase him inside this spider zone...

Just to find that he and one member of the Hidden Guard got wounded...

By this...
That Chain was not long, but the quest instance was, so I decided, checking after that horrible quest that I was not ready yet for the end level duties, at least all the book quests should be completed, all the skirmishes unlocked and my second age mace for dps should be maxxed as well. Reaching the top level was just a fair advice that I had a lot of work to do.

With a bit of nostalgic I decided to watch once more Mirkwood and say farewell, my heart and quests will always be here, but some unchecked duties on the other side of Moria, in Angmar and Misty Mountains were waiting for me. The Epic book of Shadows of Angmar need it to be complete soon.


"Farewell tormented lands, I shall return and fight for you again"
I did a small instance called library or something like that and it was a bit painful but not because we were a horrible group, was horrible for one pull that didnt resulted as we planned yet, we fought and survived. And the rewards were something that I was not expecting, but they were taken without any doubt.

The best part of reaching the top level is the fact that I have this feeling that not everything is lost as I used to had on WoW, where just when I reached the last level I only had Raids and Randoms routine, no quests to complete that could give me a nice story, no rep to gather, no zones to explore... In here, I still have half Mirkwood, also, I got Enedwaith and Misty Mountains, and even if Misty Mountains is not a high level zone, it has a history to told and I have the need to hear it. Also, I got traits to unlock to become a better Minstrel and the Legendary weapons to work with, gather the bests relics, getting new tiers of legacies, Skirmishes and the best of all: Lots of content to end.

I was afraid of the end game, since end game it's not only "defeating the last enemy of the season", End game for me is getting no more fun and yes, even with Raids and Instances, that moment could reach us all. Lotro, by its own, offer us a different way to see it, since the max level is not even close (Unless you purchase everything on the Lotro Store, Traits, spells, legacies... Everything, instead of fighting for it.) to the end game.

I'm not ready for Isengard, in fact, I'm happy to have almost a month for Isengard to complete my tasks and my personal goals in the game, so I'll be around much more time, in special with the review of the Epic book of Angmar which has been, so far, the only disappointing thing that I have done. and that's too much to say, remember, I'm lvl 65 and I travelled half of the map and meet several character with amazing stories.

Well, I'm gonna go home, have a nice hunting my friends and good luck! I'll see you in game soon for sure! :)