Episode 5 is now live, head on over to LOTRO on TGN-Stratics for the full show notes.
Read the rest of this entry »Episode 5 of the Sally Forth in LOTRO Podcast
DocHoliday posted this on February 6th, 2011.
Categorized as BG, End Game, Free to Play, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lotro, podcast, radiance, reputation, Skirmishes, video, Virtues, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/02/06/episode-5-of-the-sally-forth-in-lotro-podcast/
My Thoughts on the LOTRO Updates
DocHoliday posted this on February 3rd, 2011.
Categorized as BG, End Game, group, hard-mode, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raid, Raids and End-game, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/02/03/my-thoughts-of-the-lotro-updates/
Following up on yesterday’s big day, today’s first note today was a follow up from the server outages last weekend as Turbine has announced their Weekend event. Sure it isn’t a huge bonus but it is always nice when developers toss out little bones like this to the player base when real life events take over. Oh, and I totally forgot but these tokens will now appear in your Barter Wallet, not your inventory 
My other suggestion is that rumor has it the rewards from the boxes in the Ettenmoors are better then the other boxes. Or maybe the moors box plus the horseshoe results in uber loot? 
The other update was the Burglar Dev. Diary which we knew was coming after Sapience’s post yesterday. One of the more interesting things about this update is the fact that it applies to EVERY character in LOTRO since they’re looking at not only weapon bleeds but also Fellowship Maneuvers – or as some of us like to call them, Conjunctions (CJs).
Read the rest of this entry »Episode 4 of the Sally Forth in LOTRO Podcast
DocHoliday posted this on January 28th, 2011.
Categorized as BG, End Game, epic line, F2P, Free to Play, gear, group, hard-mode, legendary items, lotro, Mirkwood, podcast, radiance, Raid, store, video.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/01/28/episode-4-of-the-sally-forth-in-lotro-podcast/
Head on over to LOTRO on TGN-Stratics for the full patch notes and grab the episode either here or via iTunes.
Read the rest of this entry »Episode 3 of the Sally Forth in LOTRO Podcast
DocHoliday posted this on January 22nd, 2011.
Categorized as BG, End Game, group, lord of the rings online, lotro, podcast, radiance, Raid, Raids and End-game.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/01/22/episode-3-of-the-sally-forth-in-lotro-podcast/
This episode is a little later then I would’ve liked, but sadly real-world delayed things a bit, head over to LOTRO on TGN-Stratics for the full show notes.
I’ve also attached the episode to this feed just so I can see if folks prefer to get it here. This is all still quite an experiment so I’m trying things out.
Read the rest of this entry »More Raid Content on the Horizon?
DocHoliday posted this on October 18th, 2010.
Categorized as BG, End Game, Enedwaith, epic line, Free to Play, gear, group, lotro, radiance, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, volume 3.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DocholidaysLotroBlog/~3/lwgWTyaFBVo/
There’s been a bunch of hype swirling around the F2P launch and in addition, Turbine is slowly leaking out what their game plan is for the upcoming couple of releases. I’ve pieced this information together from a few sources, but since it hasn’t shown up as an official post of sorts this is certainly subject to change.
The first good source of information was the Massive Online Gamer podcast interview with Kate Paiz talking about LOTRO’s future as well as various F2P tidbits. Also, Merric from a Casual Stroll to Mordor has posted some of the various links and dev comments. I’ll also splice in some other forum blue-name posts talking about this as well.
Our first update will come later this year, and I’m guessing it will be late November or early December to try and keep a couple people from the WoW exodus. Plus that is a pretty popular time for Turbine over the past years with LOTRO. This will most likely be a similar update to the Enedwaith region with the next book in the Epic Line and hopefully into the Dunland region. I’m not sure about the region, but I’m pretty confident there will be a content update of some sort around this timeline and not just a book quest line. I also expect another new skirmish or the possible revamp of the Volume 2 quest line in a similar fashion to what they did with Volume 1. This also wouldn’t be a bad place to start rolling out the class updates from all the feedback threads, as they’ve talked about spreading those over a few updates. Certainly not all of this will make it in, but if I toss out enough ideas, one is sure to be right.
Read the rest of this entry »Radiance Speculation and Raid Gating
DocHoliday posted this on September 30th, 2010.
Categorized as beta, BG, crafting, End Game, Equipment, gear, group, hard-mode, lotro, radiance, Raid, Raids and End-game, Traits, Virtues.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DocholidaysLotroBlog/~3/CkjyPK85JQI/
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, ever since the WarCry Dev Chat mentioned the fact that Radiance as a system was going away. I first want to cover my thoughts on the current system, what I’d like to see happen, and what I think will happen. And yes, my asbestos suit has arrived in the mail so I’m prepared for whatever comes from this post
As for the current system, I’m actually pretty happy with it. I don’t think the grind to get radiance gear is all that hard at all. Now getting the top tier radiance gear can be more challenging, but the lower tiers really aren’t that hard if you consistently run group content. And that’s the key – you need to consistently run end game group content, which for many (myself included at times) just isn’t feasible. The fact that they’ve opened it up to the 3 man groups makes it insanely easy to find groups to run the content and while it may take you more runs, it still isn’t as difficult for smaller or more casual kinships. The only issue I really have with the current system is that it forces you to wear certain gear to complete certain content. Now we do have more options available with a total of 6 radiance sets, but I really wish there was another way to implement it to allow for more customization.
Read the rest of this entry »Today’s update to Bullroarer
DocHoliday posted this on August 31st, 2010.
Categorized as beta, BG, captain, champion, champions, End Game, Enedwaith, Free to Play, gear, group, Guardians, hard-mode, lotro, moors, pvp, Raids and End-game, reputation, screenshots.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/todays-update-to-bullroarer/
As I quoted yesterday, Sapience indicated that some of the items in the store have been tweaked. Now granted, I will admit I may be a build or two behind on some of these but I did want to talk about a couple of them as there was a new patch up today. However, nothing earth shattering on the patch with only a few notes in total.
First up, I’m happy that they did add in a helm to the Annuminas Heavy Armor set. I’m not super excited about the look, but it is nice to have another option including the cloak to get the full 6/6 bonus which this set really needs to be comparable. I’ve updated my spreadsheet but am really struggling with Google Docs so I’ll probably wait until launch and post a final version. But certainly take a look below for the stats and looks of it.
Read the rest of this entry »Good Warden End-game Gear
DocHoliday posted this on August 30th, 2010.
Categorized as BG, captain, champion, champions, crafting, End Game, Equipment, gear, group, Guardians, hard-mode, lotro, Minstral, Minstrel, Mirkwood, moors, radiance, Raid, Raids and End-game, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/good-warden-end-game-gear/
This will probably have some spill-over for the other classes as well but I wanted to start keeping track of not only some of the better gear options but where some of these things drop. The forums are a great resource for this kind of information but sometimes it can be hard to find and even lost due to forum wipes.
The armor sets are a little easier to keep up with and follow, but I do have some spreadsheets for Wardens, Captains, and Minstrels comparing the various sets statistically and visually.
When it comes to jewelry and cloaks it gets a little bit harder for 2 main reasons. First off there’s just a lot more variety in these areas with crafted, drops, quest rewards, etc that all can be viable in certain cases. But probably the tougher part is that many of these are random boss drops that don’t always drop so it can be hard to not only track them but remember where they dropped from.
Read the rest of this entry »More LOTRO Video Resources
DocHoliday posted this on August 26th, 2010.
Categorized as BG, blog, End Game, expansion, Free to Play, hard-mode, lotro, podcast, Raid, Raids and End-game, video.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/more-lotro-video-resources/
There’s been a number of new (or maybe just new to me) videos posted over the past few days that I wanted to comment on and share.
First up, I know many of you are interested in the Lua scripting so in addition to the video and information I posted previously Merric from a Casual Stroll to Mordor has put up a great video. His video focuses on just a couple plugins and seems to hint that he’ll be doing more of them, this review touches on the Plugin Manager and Hunter Travel Window. I think the Hunter Travel window will definitely be one of the must-haves for any Hunter or Warden.
Next up for those of you looking for tips or hints from running the various Instances, Middle Earth Chronicles has started a new section of the blog with a good collection of videos. Go check out their Instance page and make sure to send in any videos you may have.
Read the rest of this entry »Developer Diary – Instances Part 4 – Helegrod
DocHoliday posted this on August 11th, 2010.
Categorized as beta, BG, End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, expansion, Free to Play, gear, group, hard-mode, lotro, radiance, Raid, Raids and End-game, video, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/developer-diary-instances-part-4-helegrod/
For me this was the most highly anticipated part of the instance scaling diaries to date as not only do I love Helegrod but I’m curious to see what they have planned for the space. There’s a lot of good information in the Diary so check out the latest from JWBarry.
To start off, three of the wings will be 12-man spaces with the Thorog wing being a full 24-man raid. There are no locks at all, but before being able to tackle Thorog you must complete the other three wings at least once. So essentially, clear the first 3 and you can farm Thorog to your hearts content.
Read the rest of this entry »
