WOW!!! What else can I say about this expansion?
Turbine seems to have put everything together extremely well from a technical point. The patch loaded with few issues and the worlds stayed operational as they should have.
I know they had a few issues that they had to address, but such is the nature of the beast. I still see a few things like the screen going to 'loading' and the results being that you aren't where you thought you were but nothing serious.
I grabbed Tannras and headed for the bridge into Rohan. I was a little conceerned that I might have trouble with the new content, but the Boars and scruffy characters fell quickly to my quarrels.
I headed into Langhold to see what kind of quests were available. There were some opportunities to be had by the people of the town, but the real quests were located inside the Great Hall. The Thane and his wife had some activities for me to accomplish and off I went.
Between thinning out the population of Salamanders and Wolds, I was pretty busy. As I am more of a traveller by nature, I left some of the quests behind and headed down the road to see what the region had to offer. The road was fairly safe and I travelled as far south as I could. There were a few areas that were a bit dangerous but I was careful and did not have any trouble.
I stopped in at Mansig's Encampment and talked to several officers there and picked up a number of quests to complete. I then found myself at Parth Galen and also grabbed a bunch of quests from these soldiers.
One of the major enhancements to the game is the Temporary Loot Container. It allows me to acquire up to 50 different pieces of loot without filling my bags within an hour. As one tends to hunt similar enemies together, it is easy to acquire 10-20 of 1 item. Once you are done with hunting, the loot can be transferred into your bags and sold, crafted, or sent to your vault.
I would love to see this enhancement added to all players at all levels and not just restricted to Rohan.
The other major enhancement to the game is the War Horse. In order to acquire this horse, you need to run through an extensive set of quests in the correct order. It takes a little while but the result is well worth the effort.
Using the War Horse, on the other hand, is a bit complicated. It will take practice to get good riding him into battle. It is a different game. You can also pickup Legendary Bridles in Light, Medium and Heavy. They go into your Legendary Slots and will level independant of your weapons.
I am really looking forward to how these horses work in the future.
The next set of objectives is to follow the major quest line and that really starts in Harwick. You meet the Thane and are pretty much an outcast. You have to work hard to become welcome or you get kicked out of town.
Once you complete the need to become welcome, you start a huge chain that moves you through the Wold.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
August 2012 Patch - A few days after
Now that I have a few days in on the August Patch, I guess I know a bit more about how it will work in reality.
Stipend
For a player with 1 account, the stipend may work very well. One of the issues is that every account has 10 characters per world. If you play 1 world, getting your characters a stipend once a week may not be to hard. If you play multiple worlds, the effort increases for every world.
Now, if you have multiple accounts, well, you can see where I am going with this. This could require a huge amount of time every month to get all of your characters stipends.
Value of the stipends.
A few of the stipends are for special use.
Resetting Attributes and Skills are something one wouldn't use often.
An Augumentation Gem every 3 weeks. Now this might be useful for a trade skill character or a buffbot to get their length of buffing up to 2 hours.
Once a character can survive the 125 Eaters, that route is still the quickest.
Experience - This can be useful along with the normal levelling of a 150+ character. For a lower level character, it returns some XP but it is still limited.
Moving a Monarchy Hometown to Arwic. This certainly is worth considering. Arwic has become a needed center for Salvage and now Stipends. It doesn't offer a lot to lower level characters.
Stipend
For a player with 1 account, the stipend may work very well. One of the issues is that every account has 10 characters per world. If you play 1 world, getting your characters a stipend once a week may not be to hard. If you play multiple worlds, the effort increases for every world.
Now, if you have multiple accounts, well, you can see where I am going with this. This could require a huge amount of time every month to get all of your characters stipends.
Value of the stipends.
A few of the stipends are for special use.
Resetting Attributes and Skills are something one wouldn't use often.
An Augumentation Gem every 3 weeks. Now this might be useful for a trade skill character or a buffbot to get their length of buffing up to 2 hours.
Once a character can survive the 125 Eaters, that route is still the quickest.
Experience - This can be useful along with the normal levelling of a 150+ character. For a lower level character, it returns some XP but it is still limited.
Moving a Monarchy Hometown to Arwic. This certainly is worth considering. Arwic has become a needed center for Salvage and now Stipends. It doesn't offer a lot to lower level characters.
Visit to Withywindle - LOTRO
While I am waiting on the Riders of Rohan expansion to arrive, I decided it was time to explore a new world in LOTRO.
As a result, I chose Withywindle as a new location and started to create my players there. When Turbine added the Shared Storage, it was one of the best additions to the game. There are so many crafting items that every character picks up that can be used by another character and shared storage is the ideal location to keep those items and pass them between those that acquire and those that use them.
I decided that I wanted to create the bare minimum of characters and still cover all of the crafts. This resulted in the creation of 4 characters. Along the lines of the restrictions, I wanted to make them common so I chose to make them all Hunters. As an added bonus, I was able to create each Hunter into their own Race. I wound up with an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Human. They each have their pluses and minuses but they play solo well and level fairly quick.
As being a Hunter and an Elf are just a natural fit, he became my base character. I gave him Woodworking and Forester Craft Skills and set him loose. With him being a few levels ahead of all of the other characters, he can make the missile weapons and soon the melee weapons and tan all of the hides for armor.
Quickly, I have moved him up to level 28 along with his craft skills. He has purchased a home and is the all around leader for the other characters.
I did not neglect my other 3 characters. I set a goal of getting them to level 20 and that has been accomplished. They now all have Riding skills and are about ready to tackle the Lone-Lands. I have outfitted them with level 20 bows and still need to equip them with level 20 melee weapons and armor. They also need to make sure their crafting skills have reached Expert and above in order to acquire and use the higher level raw materials.
Turbine has improved the capability of a craftsman in gaining higher level skills without having to be capable of hunting in those higher level areas, however, unless you also hunt and become Kindred with the various peoples, you do not get access to the best crafting recipes.
I watched a video this weekend of 2 Turbine players explaining the Rohan expansion and it was very interesting. They did battle against some roving War-Bands and went on tours inside some main halls. I am certainly looking forward to its arrival.
As a result, I chose Withywindle as a new location and started to create my players there. When Turbine added the Shared Storage, it was one of the best additions to the game. There are so many crafting items that every character picks up that can be used by another character and shared storage is the ideal location to keep those items and pass them between those that acquire and those that use them.
I decided that I wanted to create the bare minimum of characters and still cover all of the crafts. This resulted in the creation of 4 characters. Along the lines of the restrictions, I wanted to make them common so I chose to make them all Hunters. As an added bonus, I was able to create each Hunter into their own Race. I wound up with an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Human. They each have their pluses and minuses but they play solo well and level fairly quick.
As being a Hunter and an Elf are just a natural fit, he became my base character. I gave him Woodworking and Forester Craft Skills and set him loose. With him being a few levels ahead of all of the other characters, he can make the missile weapons and soon the melee weapons and tan all of the hides for armor.
Quickly, I have moved him up to level 28 along with his craft skills. He has purchased a home and is the all around leader for the other characters.
I did not neglect my other 3 characters. I set a goal of getting them to level 20 and that has been accomplished. They now all have Riding skills and are about ready to tackle the Lone-Lands. I have outfitted them with level 20 bows and still need to equip them with level 20 melee weapons and armor. They also need to make sure their crafting skills have reached Expert and above in order to acquire and use the higher level raw materials.
Turbine has improved the capability of a craftsman in gaining higher level skills without having to be capable of hunting in those higher level areas, however, unless you also hunt and become Kindred with the various peoples, you do not get access to the best crafting recipes.
I watched a video this weekend of 2 Turbine players explaining the Rohan expansion and it was very interesting. They did battle against some roving War-Bands and went on tours inside some main halls. I am certainly looking forward to its arrival.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)