It has been a very busy week at work, so my time has been somewhat limited. That being said, here are two sites that everyone one should check out, and check out often.
LOTRO Dynamic Map - This is a great map for finding out where things are. You select an area, then you can set filters from drop down menus on the top of the map.
Darzil's Crafting Site - A must see for all those who are interested in crafting. He even shows what the crafted items will look like when equipped as well as what is needed to craft them.
Hopefully I'll get a bit more time next week... Enjoy.
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Two Sites That Should Be on Everyone’s Bookmarks
Azz posted this on October 29th, 2009.
Categorized as crafting, lotro, maps.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://wizzardofazz.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-sites-that-should-be-on-everyones.html
Two Sites That Should Be on Everyone’s Bookmarks
Azz posted this on October 29th, 2009.
Categorized as crafting, lotro, maps.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://wizzardofazz.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-sites-that-should-be-on-everyones.html
It has been a very busy week at work, so my time has been somewhat limited. That being said, here are two sites that everyone one should check out, and check out often.
LOTRO Dynamic Map - This is a great map for finding out where things are. You select an area, then you can set filters from drop down menus on the top of the map.
Darzil's Crafting Site - A must see for all those who are interested in crafting. He even shows what the crafted items will look like when equipped as well as what is needed to craft them.
Hopefully I'll get a bit more time next week... Enjoy.
Read the rest of this entry »
LOTRO Dynamic Map - This is a great map for finding out where things are. You select an area, then you can set filters from drop down menus on the top of the map.
Darzil's Crafting Site - A must see for all those who are interested in crafting. He even shows what the crafted items will look like when equipped as well as what is needed to craft them.
Hopefully I'll get a bit more time next week... Enjoy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Hunt for the Ring
Jaxom92 posted this on August 25th, 2009.
Categorized as books, links, maps.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com/2009/08/hunt-for-ring.html
Visions of the Ring, an excellent map-centric site, has a new interactive map up: The Hunt for the Ring. It's an excellent overview of Frodo's journey and the peripheral characters from Bag End to Rivendell. I highly recommend checking it out as it does an excellent job of geographically grounding that part of the journey. It can sometimes be difficult to place all the characters, where they traveled, etc.
What I'd really love to see is an overview of the game's sequence of events within this timeline. Unfortunately, I think there might be a problem considering the distances involved - i.e. the player travels a lot more than is physically possible within the timeline available. There is a bit of that for a portion of the timeline and it's an excellent way to relate it to what's going on in LOTRO's storyline.
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What I'd really love to see is an overview of the game's sequence of events within this timeline. Unfortunately, I think there might be a problem considering the distances involved - i.e. the player travels a lot more than is physically possible within the timeline available. There is a bit of that for a portion of the timeline and it's an excellent way to relate it to what's going on in LOTRO's storyline.
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Journeys of Frodo
arbitrary posted this on August 7th, 2009.
Categorized as frodo, frodo's journeys, lotro, maps, maps of middle earth, middle earth, random, scans, turbine.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://nerfthecat.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/journeys-of-frodo/
Another quick aside…
I mentioned on twitter recently(ish) that I’d picked up a cool book in our library sale that followed Frodo’s journeys through Middle Earth*. And I promised I’d provide a couple of scans. Well, after a little searching through our strange Tolkein collection, I found it. And as I want to post them on twitter, a couple of scans I took this morning:
Mountains, Mountains… Not a Rock to Climb
Jaxom92 posted this on April 18th, 2009.
Categorized as commentary, forums, maps, world.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com/2009/04/mountains-mountains-not-rock-to-climb.html
A frequent criticism visited on LOTRO, particularly by old school MMO players, is that LOTRO has a lot of mountains that aren't climbable. Furthermore, these mountains create a "fishbowl" type atmosphere where we're always stuck in valleys and we cannot get out of our little "aquarium".
Is this a valid criticism? Partly, but let's look at it. There is no denying that the zones use mountains/impassible terrain as a means of bounding the zones. And often times it does feel like we're in valleys all the time. On the surface, these arguments are perfectly valid because they're true. However, we should look at why there are mountains, mountains everywhere and not one is climbable.
First we have to understand from which direction this game came from. LOTRO is not starting out with an MMO and building a world around it. Rather, it's the opposite. Turbine started with a world - Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and built an MMO around it. The nature of MMO world building is different from that of a normal world - which is how Tolkien tried to build Middle-Earth.
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Is this a valid criticism? Partly, but let's look at it. There is no denying that the zones use mountains/impassible terrain as a means of bounding the zones. And often times it does feel like we're in valleys all the time. On the surface, these arguments are perfectly valid because they're true. However, we should look at why there are mountains, mountains everywhere and not one is climbable.
First we have to understand from which direction this game came from. LOTRO is not starting out with an MMO and building a world around it. Rather, it's the opposite. Turbine started with a world - Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and built an MMO around it. The nature of MMO world building is different from that of a normal world - which is how Tolkien tried to build Middle-Earth.
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What Zones?
Jaxom92 posted this on April 28th, 2009.
Categorized as commentary, expansions, maps, world.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-zones.html
Now, I understand why they chose to picture this farther south - in preparation for moving further with the fellowship, who doesn't go north. However, I'm bothered by the fact we're missing some of the far north areas of this region, which is mentioned in the Lord of the Rings in reference to Bilbo's previous journey. As such, I've always felt this map would be redone at some point to better reflect the region - to be more in line with the books. It certainly wouldn't be the first map that has been redone. Interestingly enough, the Shire map was re-done with the release of Moria and nearly all the other maps save Evendim and Forochel were reprocessed as well.
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