DocHoliday posted this on August 31st, 2010.
Categorized as BG, End Game, Enedwaith, Free to Play, Guardians, Raids and End-game, beta, captain, champion, champions, gear, group, hard-mode, lotro, moors, pvp, reputation, screenshots.
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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.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 19th, 2010.
Categorized as Equipment, Free to Play, alts, champion, champions, crafting, expansion, gear, lotro, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/ive-crossed-over-to-the-dark-side/
No, I’m not playing WoW (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but I realized as I’ve had no motivation to play my Runekeeper that I’m really just more into melee classes. After all the ribbing and trashing I’ve given Champions I figured I should give them a fair shake and actually play the class. Plus I haven’t been through the starter zones in a while so I figured it would be good to check them out again since all the revamps. If I had known we were so close to the F2P launch I might have waited until then, but oh well I’m too hooked now to go back.
Below is a shot of me warming up in Trestlebridge in my new level 18 heavy armor. As an aside, I don’t remember it looking as good when I leveled my Captain but maybe it just shows that I prefer looking at females.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 16th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raids and End-game, Warden, beta, captain, champion, champions, expansion, gear, group, lotro, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/new-treasure-category-on-the-classic-skirmish-vendors/
I saw a thread on the Minstrel Board about these new items and figured I’d go check them out. The way it works is that each instance “cluster” now has a Treasure category for it that has various weapons, shields, and jewelry available for barter. I’m a bit torn by this honestly as I do like the chance of randomness in instances but this does give a reliable way to achieve what you’re looking for. For the most part, I’m ok with this split implementation they’re rolling out with F2P in that the current instances will be “random” and the level scaled instances will be more deterministic in their loot. The other nice thing about this implementation is that you do have a list of what’s available as opposed to wondering if/where something drops.
There’s a bunch of drops there, so I’m just going to post some of the higher end gear. I’m also not posting the various weapons as honestly I just don’t know if they’re viable compared to others since I haven’t looked at off-hand items at all. I’ll have to do some more checking on the comparisons to my current gear but there are some nifty items.
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Goldenstar posted this on August 15th, 2010.
Categorized as Anniversary, Events, event, party, screenshots.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/BTEyraYkN0k/
I have to say that last night’s event exceeded all my expectations. I had such a great time with the live broadcast of Episode 50 while watching the party go on in game.
Thank yous are in order for all the people that really made this possible.
- Fionnuala: She put it all together and made it all work. She did an absolutely fabulous job. Honestly she deserves huge kudos for all the effort she put into this! I couldn’t be more pleased with her work!
- Prize Gatherers: Bex & Bryandt both gave up time and Skirmish Marks to help provide prizes for party goers. Kiarane provided crafted gifts to the party-goers
- The fantastic bands: Mar Vanwa Tyalieva, Green Hill Music Society and the Hobbiton Philharmonic!
- Tinki for handing out delicious beverages (that wine packed a wallop!) and pipeweed to help keep the crowds mellow and happy!
- Harperella for help with brainstorming the event!
- Everyone that attended. I was so pleased to see such a great turn out!
I was naturally pretty busy trying to keep up with the live broadcast but I was able to capture a few screenshots myself. Click to see a bigger view.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 13th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Raids and End-game, Warden, beta, expansion, gear, group, lore, lotro, moria, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/beta-event-and-instance-join/
This week a bunch of my playtime was actually over on Bullroarer and I enjoyed it quite a bit for a number of reasons. I did get in a partial DN run on my Warden but that was relatively routine.
First up was the Beta Stress test on Wednesday which after some initial bumps got off to a pretty decent start. A bunch of us were chatting over Twitter so we were able to join up in game. This was pretty fun as I got a chance to run around with folks I don’t normally get to play with but talk with frequently. They briefly pulled the servers down but only for a few minutes and then left them up for the duration of the event. Nothing too interactive from the devs as I think they were mainly trying to stress test the store and work any of the kinks out of that. It does seem like they’ve worked some things out as it does seem to be more responsive and a bit smoother, but I still think there’s some work to be done. One very cool thing they were testing out was the “Ripcord” capability which allows Turbine disable all Lua scripts globally from the server side. This allows them to maintain control and quickly disable things if they find a loophole or some undesirable script floating around.
After some of the “scheduled” stuff, the group of us just roamed around Enedwaith for a bit checking out the areas.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 3rd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raids and End-game, beta, gear, group, lotro, radiance, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/new-minstrel-armor-set-data/
I finally got around to adding in the Minstrel sets but I fail at Google Docs so I had to create a new Excel version but I could just append to the Google Docs. I have both the Excel version and the Google Docs version depending on which you prefer. Also, I took snapshots of the Minstrel set and remember the medium Annuminas set is the same as what I showed in the previous armor screenshots.
Light Annuminas
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DocHoliday posted this on August 3rd, 2010.
Categorized as Enedwaith, Free to Play, Warden, beta, expansion, gambits, lotro, lua, screenshots, scripting, video.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/examples-of-the-lua-scripting-plugins/
I played around quite a bit with the Lua Plugins during beta and I wanted to share some of the plugins that I really enjoyed. I also suggest checking out the LOTRO Plugins site and keep your eye on the LOTRO Interface site for more details on the plugins and some help in how to actually script using Lua. I will admit I didn’t write any plugins I just used them and tested them out.
Here’s a screenshot of my listing of the plugins I played around with:
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DocHoliday posted this on August 3rd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Raids and End-game, Warden, beta, captain, gear, group, lotro, radiance, screenshots, volume 3.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/beta-armor-snapshots/
I promised screenshots yesterday when I posted the stats for the new Warden and Captain radiance armor sets, so here they are. I took them both on my Warden but you’ll get the idea. Also, remember there’s no helm for the heavy Annuminas set.
Medium Annuminas Set:
Heavy Annuminas Set:
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DocHoliday posted this on July 30th, 2010.
Categorized as Free to Play, beta, lore, lotro, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/latest-beta-journals-starting-zones/
The latest installations of the Beta Journals are up with the focus on the newly updated New Player Experience. I’ve always enjoyed the intros as I thought they did a pretty good job of explaining things as well as getting you into your storyline and role. With the tweaks in the UI we’ve heard about it probably is good to tweak the intro as well. Plus with the influx of new folks it makes sense to not only introduce our role but bring some of the other main characters in play earlier. Since many decide it they like the game very quickly it is important for these intros to be fun, helpful, and visually stunning so I’m perfectly fine with Turbine spending resources to update them. You can get a good feel for some of the tweaks by looking at the new screenshots that were posted over on a Casual Stroll to Mordor. The one with the Black Rider almost makes me want to roll a hobbit 
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DocHoliday posted this on July 27th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Raid, beta, expansion, festival, isengard, legendary items, lore, lotro, moors, radiance, rohan, screenshots.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/filefront-hands-on-with-lotro-f2p/
There’s been a number of write-ups from people (Massively Part 1,Massively Part 2) who have had hands on experience with the new content and business model but Ron Whitaker’s (@ffronw) from FileFront did have some new tidbits that I figured I’d touch on. I’m not going to focus on the portions that are common from the other previews, just the things I haven’t seen before.
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