It’s Only *Mostly* Dead

Okay, I exaggerate.  The Windows 7 upgrade went pretty smoothly, thought it’ll be a full week before I have shaken it down enough to be satisifed with the system.  LOTRO seems to run, as do OpenOffice and the few other apps that I use, so I’m happy enough so far.

It’s worth noting that I upgraded onto bare metal – I installed two new hard drives.  There are two ways to use the upgrade in that sort of situation.  First, you can install a qualifying OS, then upgrade it using the 32 bit or 64 bit upgrade DVD.  Alternatively, there is a method which does not require the other media – check this link for the double-install trick.  Of course, the double-install is only legal if you own a qualifying operating system.  It’s probably easier to just install a copy of XP from your old media (assuming that you haven’t lost the CD), then upgrade from the GUI.

I’ll keep tweaking the system and see how it holds up.

Your Ass Will Be Laminated

Yes, it’s dyslexic Borg time.  My computer is joining the collective.

I’m going to upgrade to Windows 7 – I bought a pair of new hard drives, and I’m ready to go.  I’ll keep my old drives intact, just in case something goes awry.  It’ll have to be a clean install, since I’m going to be moving from a  32 bit to a 64 bit OS.

So, here’s to hoping that it goes smoothly.

Adapt or Perish

I’ve been hearing a bit of grumbling about the upcoming mini-expansion (Siege of Mirkwood), and quite of a bit of it is complaints.  Not about the content or the storyline – people are fine with that.  Most of the gripes are about updated class mechanics (mostly power pool costs and regeneration) and the new legendary items.

Now, as for power pool mechanics, I find the solution to be simple: tweak your gear and/or your traits to suit the new ruleset.  I’m sorry if you don’t want to, that’s just the way it’s going to be.  Since you’ll be going up five levels in the expansion, you’ll probably re-gear, anyway.  This includes our beloved existing legendary gear, which many of us have tweaked and adjusted to a point where we are comfortable with them.  You’ll be replacing those items.  Such is life.

Apparently, Turbine though that it was too easy to craft a desireable legendary item, because now you have to run a bunch of instances to get the materials from which the new level 65 items may be crafted.  The only really bad part about this from my point of view as a crafter is that you’re still playing the lottery when you create a crafted item – you have no idea what you’re going to end up with.  Again, such is life.  If you don’t want to run the instances, then you can always grind out coin and buy stuff off of the Auction House.  It’s up to the player to find a way to deal with it.

And that’s my proselytizing for the day.

Fornost or Bust

Yes, I’m sure that everyone thought that this blog had gone to the dog(s).  Not so – Kip still lets me play LotRO, occasionally.

My friends and myself finally cleared out Garth Agarwen and beat down Goldberry’s ugly cousin.  It feels good, crushing a lesser Maia, even if she was a pushover.  Ivar was the worst boss by far – we had no interrupts, so he could cast at will.  I may unleash Burhhelm on the instance a few times in order to get everyone their keys, just in case they want to revisit the place later on.

So, we’ve begun preparations for Fornost.  Most of us are level 34 or 35, but 40 seems to be the optimum level for Fornost.  We’ve got some levelling to do.  The quests and Esteldin and Evendim will probably take us far enough, and we haven’t even touched the Trollshaws, yet.  Getting enough quests should not be a problem.  Keeping the Deeds and Traits up to date, on the other hand, may be an issue.  A lot of people level up and ignore their Deeds until level 60, but they are really only making things difficult for themselves.  Traits really give you a nice lift.  So, I may not hit 40 by the weekend – I may need to go on a few slaying sprees.

And Now for Something Completely Different

This blog has been going for over a year, and so I thought I might introduce you to the brains behind the whole thing.  He has the brains of a rocket scientist.  I’m not sure where he’s hiding them.  He’s also got the cunning of a Bond villain, which he demonstrates every day.  Yes, I mean my fox terrier, Kipling:

A fox terrier in his natural habitat. On the couch, where you want to sit.

He’s ten years old, so I figured I’d give him the moment in the spotlight that he craves.  Well, it isn’t really the spotlight that he craves so much as KFC.  Like all terriers, he’s a bit loopy.  Then again, people who own terriers are a bit loopy themselves.

Captains Courageous

Another weekend gone, and another one spent with friends in what seems to be our standard questing group.  That’s two Captains, a Hunter, and a Rune Keeper.  Mostly, it’s a hybrid group, but it has been enough to deal with most elite swarms on-level.  It could probably use a Champion for more off-tanking and AoE, but it’s pretty sound, despite being a shade low on DPS.

That’s the one limitation that we have run into.  Even with a Hunter, our DPS is a bit low.  Of course, our hunter runs out of power only ten seconds into your average fight - the rest of the group is not sure how he’s doing that, but it impresses us.  Anyway, we’re beefing up our levels for a trip to Fornost in two weeks.  Burhhelm has already furnished new melee weapons to everyone, and those should last in the low 40s.  Authang is trying to keep up with the demand for new jewelry, but the lack of crit material (yellow rock salt) is holding me back from making some really nice things.  I suppose Burhhelm is going to have to go a-mining once more.

One last question which we have been knocking around is what weapon a Captain should use.  There are three real options in the two-handed range, as we see it.  The first is the greatsword – it’s probably the best for soloing.  The racial 2% bonus to sword damage is nice, but it’s not a deal breaker.  The headsman’s axe is nice when grouping, because it can debuff a target’s armor for the whole group.  The other weapon that we’ve been knocking around is the halberd.  The extra threat generated by a halberd is useful when trying to peel a mob of of a lightly armored person, and it’s useful for holding agro.  Which one of these is the “best” weapon for a Captain?  I can’t say for sure.  It may be that you want one of each, really.  Each of them has a niche.

No, I Will Not Deliver Your Pie

I’ve been clearing out the low-level deeds with Angring, my Captain.  Part of this required an extended stay in the Shire.  Rapture.  Glee.  Yippee.

Anyone who knows me is already acquainted with my personal view of Hobbits: they are the other white meat.  Setting aside my rage in the pursuit of Deeds, I tore into the various quests, killing sprees, and exploration tasks.  I’m pleased that I’m nearly done, but there is one quest chain which I will not touch: the infamous pie delivery.

You know the one.  The chain where you are not allowed to get near a “Hungry Hobbit,” or they may smell your pie.  Actually “smell the pie” sounds like a naughty euphemism, doesn’t it?  In the quest line, someone discovers that the pie filling is rancid, and you have to bring all of the pies back without allowing a Hungry Hobbit to sniff one of the rancid pastries.  This is the part which I don’t get at all.  If the pies are rotten, then you can be sure that I’m handing more of them out.  I’m hoping that the little rodent-scum all die of botulism.

Of course, I’ve been over this rant before.  I apologize for repeating myself, but hobbits have that effect on me.

So, the plan is to get fully deeded by this weekend, then the Captains Three (though the third seems to be morphing onto a Hunter) will storm the Great Barrow for once and all.  It ought to be fun.

Bobbing for Pumpkins

The Fall Festival is in swing in the Shire, the Ered Luin, and in Bree.  You can almost smell the harvest brews and just about taste the baked treats.  Okay, that’s more than an exaggeration.

The Festival really consists of running around and knocking out a few quests each day, emoting at some NPCs and using objects here and there.  It’s not rocket science, but it will keep interested parties busy for about an hour each day.  I’m trying this out, just for grins.  You can get a statue or maybe another horse, nothing to so excited that you wet yourself.  Unless, maybe, you’re the type who has to redecorate your house every season, or has to own one of every horse in the game.

I don’t want anyone to misunderstand – I like the fact that the festival is in the game.  It adds a little depth, and offers some nice non-combat things to do.  It’s just not my thing.  However, I would suggest that anyone who wants to try out a festival get it in gear and explore this one, because the winter festival will probably coincide with the Siege of Mirkwood expansion.

Grab the content while you can – you may not have time later.

I Blame Alfred Hitckock

I’ve been cleaning up the ol’ Deed Log, grinding out a few slayer deeds here and there.  I’m mostly done with Eregion.  I completed my genocidal campaigns against the Half Orcs, the Dunlendings, the Worms, the Wolves and Wargs, and even the vermin (Lizards and Crawlers).  However, it’s been problematic to get myself motivated to finish off the Craban Slayer deed.

Those crows are just a bit too sparse.  They are everywhere, but only occur in small clusters, which makes killing 360 of them a tedious chore.  I know it could be worse – I have a few Misty Mountains deeds on my list as well, and there is no outpost of civilization near the mobs in that zone.  However, it’s still irritating.  Just because I feel the need to blame someone I am blaming Alfred Hitchcock for filming ”The Birds.”  I’m also blaming Crow T. Robot, just because I can.

 

Addendum: Okay, the troll-slayer deed in Angmar has got this beat.  The trolls aren’t difficult to find, it’s just slow, slow, slow.  That’s what I get for chasing after the Discipline virtue.

It’s Shiny, It’s Silvery, It’s a Pain to Find

Yes, smiths and smithettes, I’m referring to mithril flakes.

As a weaponsmith, I find myself needing far less mithril than, say, a jeweller or an armorer.  I still mine, however.  Just because I don’t need an upgrade right now doesn’t mean that I won’t make something for friends, my kinship, or an alt.  So, I still mine, and I do find the occasional flake of mithril.

There are some signature and elite mobs in Moria and in Lothlorien that will drop a flake a mithril, also.  However, finding them is a rarity, and fighting a level 60 elite is not something that I do solo.  The majority of the mithril  that I have found has come from mining.

I can honestly say that the mithril flakes that I found by mining have all been found in Moria or in Lothlorien.  Never in Eregion.  Also, I’ve never found a mithril flake in a rich node of ore.  Only in basic nodes.  I’ve found mithril in khazad copper, khazad iron, and khazad gold nodes.  I suspect they can also be found in khazad tin, but I have never come across a flake of mithril that way.

I’ll also say that the best place to hunt mithril by mining is not in Moria.  There are too many hostile mobs that slow you down, and you end up doing as much fighting as mining.  If you’re still not level 60 then the experience is welcome, of course.  If you are level 60, then you should take steps to gain access to Lothlorien as soon as possible.  Lothlorien has some hostile mobs, but it also has a high number of neutral animals.  These animals don’t attack you on sight, so you can dig up nodes of ore without interruption.  Statistically, mining more nodes means finding more mithril.

When doing some serious nonstop mining, I gather one or two mithril flakes per hour spent in Lothlorien.  I also get a load of ore, which I can use or sell as I see fit.  You can even pick up the Lorien quests and mine as you ride from location to location.  Getting some reputation and a bit of pocket money is always welcome.