As an elf of Mirkwood, I have always felt at home in the wild and amongst the open air. I have never enjoyed being underground where the Dwarves dwell. But when need of my services led me to the Mines of Moria, I put aside my own dislike and entered its grand halls. I have never seen anything like it. Giant pillars hold its top and statues of great Dwarves watch its halls. Great stairs are ever winding and seem to lead you no where.
But there is also an evil that dwells in its depths. When I first arrived I heard the story of how the dwarves had dug too deep and awoken an ancient evil, the Belrog. He had claimed the life of Durin VI and caused the dwarves to flee the mines, thus goblins and orcs took it over as their home.
After much exploring, I came to the Chamber of Mazarbul and heard the story of the passing of Balin, Son of Fundin and brother to Dwalin, Lord of Thorin's Hall.
Hearing these troubling tales reminds me of my own tragedy. My kindred are not fond of Dwarves, but I can't help but sympathize with them. I am willing to give what hand I can to help them conquer this evil so that they may once again dwell in these magnificent mines that they so very much love.

So I'm playing LOTRO today, this is about my second week into it. The Shiny is definately starting to wear off. Reality is starting to creep in. The overwhelming majority of the quests are either, kill X mobs, gather X items, or kill X mobs and gather X items from their bodies. There is the occasional exception, like I've been doing some quests for Inn League Members. The Inn League is basically a drinking club with a running problem, and the quests their members give are beer runs. They are an amusing diversion in an ocean of mediocrity. I know all the other major MMOs follow the same formula of unimaginative progression systems and dull excuses for story telling. One day a studio is going to release an innovative mmo, that doesn't rely on grind to progress and encourages innovation by the player. I hope Bioware will fulfill my dream when they release SW:TOR and I hope they knock the rest of the mmo market to its knees.

I'm an excellent healer. I can proudly say that. And what's more: I can say that since level 29. Whyso? Well, because the following happened:

In a pseudo-Rp-Event, I and some of my kin (two hunters and a Loremaster) struggle through Angmar. I'm below level 30. But I still tag along, and pretend to heal. The two hunters leave, and the Loremaster and I (let's say, Vingi and I) explore some of Angmar in pseudo-RP, what later became a Kin-wide and then a muli-Kin plotline. I heal Vingi all alone, and after a while we stumble upon a Master Elite turtle, level 45. Vingi was Level 44. I level 29.
"Shall we try?" he says.
"Let's go for it." I say.
And one of the most epic battles ever begin. It lastes, and I hit all my pots, gave all I got. Vingi's lynx dies in the first few seconds, and he alone struggles. I go OOP. All my pots are on cooldown. I wait. I watch the turtle's health-bar drop, but equally, Vingi's. He goes OOP. I kick in a celebrant pot and quickly heal him as much as I can. Then I go OOP again, still healing. And just when that darn turtle is down to something like 100 morale, a little more than 1-2 meele strikes away, Vingi dies. My pot's cooldown ends just as I am slaughtered right after.
We failed. But we were increadibly close. And had the turtle given us a second more time, we would have beaten him. A level 29 minstrel and a level 44 loremaster. All alone. Against a level 45 Master Elite with (back then) so much morale it made us dizzy...

Before I came to Lord of the Rings Online, I was in a heavy cretive block. No stories, no drawings, no poems, heck, no reading and no roleplay. I was pretty much at the edge of my nerves, and I hated most things. Games bored me incredibly fast. Work seemed unbearable.
Then I get the suggetion: 'hey, why don't you try Lord of the Rings Online?'
I thought about it. I thought 'Nah, it's probably a crappy thing that went with the flow of the movies.' Yes. I thought that. I hadn't looked in to it. I knew nothing of it, aside from the title. And I was still full of prejudice. I shunned every game that had a name linked to a movie (or set of movies, for that matter.)
Well, in the end, I did try it out. I asked where my buddies played. 'On the english RP server.' they said. RP? I didn't like that thought then. I wasn't up to it. I weighed the pro's and cons, and decided for it. I joined the Laurelin Server and created a character. An elf it had to be. And I made her of Lórien. And she 'had' to be a minstrel! as her name, Morielen, was one I used often, and most often linked to a bard or music in some way.
Then I entered the world. But it was not what I expected. No peaceful landscapes, no magical forests. None of that. In stead, a burning town and people shouting hectically. I was immersed from the very first second on, near to panicked, by the sudden action. Nothing that I expected. At all.
About a week later, after some rough RP, where I had no idea whatsoever how to react (I answered some really witty pseudo-jedi-whatever stuff... really, I'm ashamed of that...) I was invited to a kinship. It didn't take long, and I was invited. And all of a sudden, meeting so many wonderful people, I started to RP decently. I started to read and study Tolkien's works. Heck, I asked my mom if she could hand me her old books and I bought myself a copy of 'The Hobbit'. I started having fun again. And I hadn't been so immersed in to a game as I had for several years.
My creativity came back. I wrote two beautiful songs, and learned the poem of Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel, as it is the most beautiful poem I have seen to this day. I started to draw, and made several characters purely fore RP. And I'm trying to study both the Sindarin and the Quenya languages. And most of all: I'm happier than I have been in a long time, and I seem to meet more and more people I wish I had met much, much earlier.
Now I'm not completely perplexed anymore when I'm greeted with a friendly 'Suilad, Mellon!'

I have to say that I am continually impressed with the people who have chosen to play Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO). Not a play session goes by that someone hasn't done something to help someone out or just BE helpful in general. It is unfortunate that more of my MMO experiences haven't mirrored this one. Perhaps that's why LotRO is the only online game I've chosen to continue playing.

So I finally made it to Moria. When I entered the mines I noticed that some of the flooring wasn't appearing!?!? At first I thought it was suppose to be like that but they where way too square to be natural. So I threw out some chats asking if anyone else was having the same problem and no one was at the time on my server. It sucked. I couldnt tell where I was gonna fall and where I could step. So I contacted Turbine and they said it was an issue with my video card but that didnt make sinse to me cause it wasnt like your tipical lagg. So I found a thread on the LotRO forums with other people having the same issue. Later on some dude posted a reply saying he was a DEV for another company and he could fix it, it worked for some but it didnt work for me. So later on Turbine posted a thread saying they are now going to fix the problem with a upcommin patch. THANK THA LORD! phew I really didnt want to switch to WoW but it looks like I might til they get it fixed.

Since re-forming The Council a few weeks ago (currently rank 8) we have added some pretty amazing people, all of whom are proactive and supportive. We now have a teamspeak clan server (The Council) and continue to move forward. We are still looking for a few more officers to fill our ranks and plan to start open in-game recruitment in the next couple weeks.

In the end our unique kinship experience of being role-based and storyboarded will fill a gaming void for many players. Instead of a kinship based on followers or so casual to the point of being inert, The Council will provide quantifiable support and in a very fundamental way expand every members gaming experience.

Yes I'm bored. Bored because for some reason I download patches through the client at dial-up speeds. So I'm using this time to write up my thoughts on the Legendaries.

If you havn't read part 1, then you're going to be lost in the terminology.

Every MMO game I have played has something called an infinite experience system. Usually not built in at first, this system is put in after an expansion or two, but always put in. Everquest put it in during Luclin, and LOTRO has put it in for Moria. What is it? Its a set of levels or ranks where there is no end. You spend the points on abilities, or in LOTRO's case on items, but you essentially never stop gaining experience. I am not a fan of infinite experience systems.

The system in LOTRO is pretty cool so far though. While they advertise that you will have a weapon level with you and keep with you as you make your journey as you go, but actually you'll be changing a ton. In fact you should get rid of your first one as soon as you can because it will not level in your bags, only your hand. If you get dependent on it like some I've seen, you really miss out later on. So no, you can't get too attached because you're obviously going to find better ones to level. A 52's bow might take 6 Legacy upgrades before its equal footing with a 55's base Legacy power.

Recently they let us choose between 2 randomly selected legacies at 20, 30, 50. This gives us alot more customization than you'd think. We almost never get throw away legacies anymore that do not fit how you are styled, or are too stupid to ever use anyway. And that's the first flaw with the system, useless skills. I know its there to make you change weapons and keep that grinding, but I still hate it. There are some bonuses for every class that will make you scratch your head, or even pissed. Imagine leveling a weapon to 50, taking you maybe a month or more, and suddenly you get a bonus to non-movement stealth... very very lame.

So alot of complaining eh? Well that's the bad stuff. Let me get to the good stuff. I love legendaries, I really do. Their grinding reward is much better than deeds, and you do not have to go to a specific place to grind them like you do deeds, so it just kind of happens while you play. Their looks are a notch above the usual stuff I've seen in LOTRO, and much better than the stuff before Moria.

Also, there are Legendary Instances. Whole instances for solo or 3 man use that give lots of legendary weapon experience, and also allow you to alter the weapon at the end. These instances require a consumable, but these consumables drop plenty. These instances probably take 30 minutes to an hour, but are really easy to start and a nice time waster if you're waiting on your groups to get together.

I am just starting to reach some powerful legendaries also. I am finally seeing what all the effort is worth. At first I wasn't sure, but I had just been looking at my Kin's weapons which they hadn't spent much time on, or even replaced. The bows I am seeing now are really astonishing and worth the effort. So stick with the system if you're being underwhelmed, work the system for you and you'll find a few you'll like. Till then just rank them up to around 11 and decon them for the xp gems to use later on a LI worth using.(Legendary Item = LI).

The system is obviously evolving to give us more customizations as they see people using them more and more. People using lesser quality weapons because they aren't screwed over by bad legacies are leading to them giving us more control. I do not think there is any worry of us leveling them too fast, so customization would be great. Especially on the looks end of the deal, I'd like to be able to choose the look of my weapons.

There, I'm done with the Legendary items posts. Disjointed and less organized than I like to write things, but its hard to pin these items down. Just so much to talk about with them, so complex w/o being a Rube Goldberg, that its hard to even describe them. You just have to play them.

For an infinite experience system I have to say this one actually seems fun.

Very good game

I have enjoyed Lotro very much and have been on since February 2008. I have gained and lost friends while playing this game but ultimately it is only a game. Now if I could only finish all the deeds in Bree. ( :