PB posted this on January 31st, 2012.
Categorized as DPS, End Game, group, hard-mode, instances, Lore-Master, lore-mastery, lotro, Pits of Isengard, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, threat, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/31/lore-mastery-update-5-instances-guide-pits-of-isengard/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
I was tossing up whether to do a Riders of Rohan wishlist post this week or continue with the update 5 instance guides, but I figure that the longer I take on these guides the less relevant they become so into the Pits of Isengard it is…
Pits of Isengard
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on January 25th, 2012.
Categorized as isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, mounted combat, Raids and End-game, Riders of Rohan, Rise Of Isengard, rohan, Traits, update 6, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/25/turbine-talks-2012-plans-for-lotro/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
Right on the heels of the Riders of Rohan Expansion announcement, Massively released an article with comments from Kate Paiz and Adam Mersky talking about the upcoming year.
The article starts off with a bit of a look back at 2011 and I think it is fair to say the whole EU transition took up way more time and resources then Turbine expected. Is this to blame for the “down” year for content? Who knows, but certainly it loomed large for them.
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on January 24th, 2012.
Categorized as Equipment, F2P, Free to Play, gear, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raids and End-game, store.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/24/turbine-finally-talks-about-the-store-armor-issue/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
Sapience today put up quite a lengthy post on the armor store issue today, and while there’s quite a bit of PR-speak in there he does address a couple issues. I honestly don’t think this will change anyone’s perception of things, but at least this is a post from Turbine acknowledging the issue and admitting that they went a bit too far.
First off, he pretty much admits that they never intended to say “we’ll never sell armor in the store” like many are upset about. I imagine many will take issue with this statement, but as I talked about earlier (my podcast discussion) I firmly believe they were planning this all along. Not to mention that he also references DDO (just like the Massively interview) which further reinforces my belief that they just poorly communicated their intentions from the start.
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on January 19th, 2012.
Categorized as End Game, ettenmoors, lord of the rings online, lotro, moors, PvMP, pvp, Raid, Raids and End-game.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/19/creep-mitigation-issues/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
I saw a short dev update on this, so I wanted to share it. Turbine has made a mess of creep-side mitigation in recent history by breaking them in Update 5, “fixing” them with Update 5.1, but that fix really didn’t quite work. Many on the forums had been reporting that, and finally we hear confirmation that there’s still an issue. Kelsen posted today that they know there’s an issue and they plan an upcoming fix to restore creep mitigations to the pre-Update 5 levels. Essentially the fix they tried, didn’t work the way the wanted it to and there’s still more to do. However, there’s no word on when that patch might see the servers.
I know this doesn’t solve anything, but at least they acknowledge the problem and are planning to fix it soon.
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on January 17th, 2012.
Categorized as Draigoch, End Game, group, instances, isengard, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lotro, Patch Notes, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/17/update-5-1-patch-notes-and-known-issues/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
Notice the name change for this update, which makes sense for me as it is a bug-fix patch for Update 5.
The Known issues are up first with a few:
Read the rest of this entry »PB posted this on January 5th, 2012.
Categorized as End Game, group, hard-mode, lotro, Raid, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, tower of orthanc, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/05/update-5-instances-review/
Luckily for me, unlike Doc I have had the chance over the past few weeks to play through all of the new instances and 3/6 wings of the new raid. I thought I’d jot down some quick impressions and give people an opportunity to post their reviews and thoughts on the Update 5 group content.
Overall I have to say that I’m extremely impressed. This is a content update that seems at least equal to the excellent In Your Absence cluster that was released last year. The first thing that stands out is the excellent visual design of the spaces. Imo you’d be hard pressed to fault these instances from a visual perspective, the landscapes and dungeons are interesting, varied, fit well with the lore and the real space that they exist in and are just fun to look at. I particularly love how the raid begins outside the Tower of Orthanc and then you head into the various wings – being able to see the building that houses the raid really adds to the immersion factor and is a really nice touch.
The three 3-person instances are all quite varied and I enjoy the various tricks and gimmicks in them. Some people have complained about the frogger in Fangorn’s edge or the punting in the Pits, but both are very manageable mechanics with a bit of awareness and positioning. The T2 fire troll trash in the pits can get pretty brutal, but once you figure out the positioning it’s quite doable. Of the three, I think Dargnákh Unleashed is the weakest. While the first few areas and particularly the first boss fight are quite fun, the final fight is a bit of a joke. There’s literally no DPS element to the fight so if you’re a pure DPS class you have absolutely nothing to do in the fight. It’s purely a healing/tanking check, and while that’s fun to have, surely they could have put some sort of DPS element in there. The difficulty level of these instances is pitched pretty well I think. T1s are all easily puggable and very flexible on class makeup (perfect for instance finder). T2 is tougher and for a smooth run you’ll pretty much want a proper tank (including champ) and healer (including captain), but people can challenge themselves with some success with more varied groups.
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on December 19th, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, End Game, group, instances, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raids and End-game, screenshots, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/19/new-lotro-armies-of-isengard-screenshots/
A few new screenshots were released today showing off the new instance spaces. The spaces highlighted in these shots are the Pits of Isengard, Fanghorns Edge, and Dragnakh Unleashed.
Sadly I’m still haven’t had much chance to get into these spaces so I’m living vicariously through these images and what I hear from others 
Read the rest of this entry »
PB posted this on December 18th, 2011.
Categorized as End Game, group, hard-mode, instance finder, instances, lotro, Raids and End-game, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/18/instance-finder-experiences/
I thought it might be interesting to put up a post for people to share their early experiences with the instance finder. While still in an early iteration, the IF is a pretty big change to the game and could have a big impact on how people play the game.
Personally I usually run groups with kin or friends, but have hit up the IF a few times in the past week when others were busy. My experiences have been generally positive, getting fairly quick 3-person groups three times, all 3 for fangorn strangely enough. Two of those groups cleared T1 while the other failed T2. I felt that group composition was reasonable, though as a lore-master I’m lucky to have some flexibility in retraiting for different roles. The failing T2 group was me a cappy and Hunter which might have been workable but just couldn’t get the tanking happening.
Personally I really like the concept of the tool but strongly suspect that it won’t really have its full impact until it becomes cross server. I also think people shouldn’t expect to be able to do T2c fears with the IF. T1 is designed for pug groups for a reason – keep T2 for groups you trust!
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on December 12th, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, End Game, group, instances, lord of the rings online, lotro, Patch Notes, Prince of Rohan, Raid, Raids and End-game, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/12/update-5-patch-notes-and-known-issues/
While we’re all waiting for the servers to come back up, you can browse through not only the Patch Notes but also the Known Issues posted today.
The patch notes are pretty extensive with all sorts of things hanging especially for many classes. I highly suggest taking a read for your class of interest to see what’s new as there’s a ton for both the Freep side as well as creep side. A few that jumped out for me:
Read the rest of this entry »DocHoliday posted this on December 9th, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, Developer Diaries, End Game, Equipment, gear, group, instances, lord of the rings online, lotro, Prince of Rohan, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/09/update-5-barter-currency-dev-diary/
I know many, including myself, have been wondering how all these marks, medallions, and seals will work out and how our current stuff will transition to the new. Luckily Zombie Columbus puts it all out for us with a nice Q&A section to describe all the new currency changes coming with Update 5.
Overall I like the goal of consolidating and unifying between the new instances, the old scalable ones, and skirmishes. I think the biggest concern so far is with the availability of seals which are needed for the top tier armor sets.
Read the rest of this entry »
