Dipping Back Into LotRO

Between trips to the old house and trying to figure out what kind of blinds to put in the windows of the new house, I finally sat down (ie. collapsed in a blob) and spent a few hours playing LotRO over the weekend.

I’m continuing my overall quest to see all of the game before LotRO closes down*. The character I’ve chosen for this task is my Hobbit Hunter, my highest level character at level 52. (All other characters are in their 20s.) It was around the time that the servers merged when I started this quest in earnest, when I decided to abandon Angmar (because the Epic story at that point was basically impossible for me to solo) and take the plunge into Mines of Moria at level 49. I spent about a week going through the initial Eregion and Moria quests, getting from 49 to 52, and since then my Hunter’s been idling in The Great Delving.

Anyway over the weekend I completed a whole bunch of level 52 quests in The Silvertine Lodes (I think that’s where I was - I’m looking at a wiki trying to remember the names of quests I did). Most of the questing involved looking for mithril deposits for the dwarves, lighting torches, and fighting glow worms, dragonets, grodbogs, and goblins. It was pretty relaxing and fun, even though it’s incredibly easy to get lost in Moria.

After I found the mithril, a dwarf sent me on his goat to The Deep Descent to tell everyone about it. (Mithril is apparently a big deal to dwarves.) Unfortunately all of the quests there are level 53, so I stopped. This is a problem because I’m still only about 2/3 of the way through level 52. At the pace of leveling in LotRO, reaching level 53 will occur roughly the same time that the sun burns out in the solar system. Just kidding. I think the experience bar moved a little bit in the Silvertine Lodes, but it’s hard to tell sometimes with LotRO.

Anyway I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to get the rest of the way to 53 before taking on these quests. (I realize I could probably handle them, but I don’t want to get behind again, like I did at 49, 50, and 51.) I’ve never done anything like a dungeon in LotRO and have no particular desire to start now. (I actually find it weird and shocking whenever I see another player running around in Moria, this is totally a single-player game for me. :) I guess skirmishes? Unfortunately I never liked doing skirmishes with my Hunter. After glancing at the aforementioned wiki it looks like I might have missed some level 52 quests along the way, so maybe I’ll run back around to all the places I’ve been already.

Speaking of Mines of Moria, this is my first hands-on experience with the much-hated Legendary Weapon system in LotRO. After having played with them a little bit, I can’t really figure out why they are much-hated. I mean, these things are always portrayed as the Hindenberg of MMORPG features, but I’m not seeing it as that level of disaster myself. There are a bunch of extra legendary-related items piling up in my inventory, but I feel like LotRO is more-or-less built around things piling up in your inventory at this point, so it doesn’t seem any different from pre-level-50 gameplay to me.

I would have played more LotRO but, you know, it’s very uncomfortable sitting on a wooden floor hunched over a keyboard and mouse propped on a cardboard box. I’m still searching for a computer desk. I’m trying to find a good one for a change.

In other news, I made some more progress on building the new gaming PC. It boots without exploding, so now I need to find an OS to install on it. Due to a SNAFU at work, my MSDN subscription is inactive for the first time in some 10 years, so I might actually have to buy a retail copy of Windows 10.

By the way, I struggled with it but ultimately decided not to sign up for Blaugust this year, even though it’s a much more relaxed format. August is probably going to be another chaotic one for me as I finish up moving, and I didn’t want to make my month even a tiny bit more complicated if I could help it. Good luck to everyone else though!

* Not that anyone has said that LotRO will be closing down, but you know, just in case.