Merric posted this on August 27th, 2010.
Categorized as F2P, General, Guide, Skirmishes.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/_9BxdXupXu4/
Skirmishes have been a success since day one of their release. This past weekend I was describing them to a friend of mine who quit in 2007 and he said a system that would allow him to jump into the game and then jump out 20-30 minutes later would be perfect. Needless to say, I’m going to be dropping him a line on September 10th to remind him to sign up for an account. Luckily for him, he’ll be able to try skirmishes 10 levels sooner than I was since with free-to-play Skirmishes will now be available at level 20 instead of level 30 (which is what it is set to now). As a free player he’ll have access to 4 skirmishes compared to 9 as a VIP (Premium only have 4 as well), with the option to purchase more.
So what skirmishes are available at what level, and how much will they cost?
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Pineleaf posted this on August 23rd, 2010.
Categorized as Guides, Skirmish Guides, Skirmishes, Trouble in Tuckborough, lieutenants, walkthrough.
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Welcome to Pineleaf’s Pictorial Primer to Skirmishing. In this series, we will look at each of the skirmishes you can run in The Lord of the Rings Online™. In this first volume, we will take a look at the skirmish that is set right in my own backyard: “Trouble in Tuckborough.”
In this series, we will look at each skirmish in turn, including its scenario, layout, mobs, bosses, and encounters. While I discuss the lieutenants you will be facing, I will leave a detailed analysis of them to a later volume.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 11th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Warden, beta, captain, gear, group, lotro, radiance.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/new-radiance-sets-tweaked-in-recent-bullroarer-patch/
This was a bit of a stealth update that wasn’t mentioned at all in the patch notes but all the new radiance sets were upgraded with the most recent patch. The Annuminas sets didn’t change all that much, just a point or two here or there. The Helegrod sets though were buffed quite a bit and in many cases are some of the best pieces around. I’m pretty happy about this for two reasons as it shows they’re still tweaking things as well as making sure the amount of effort matches the rewards. The appearances of them haven’t changed but if you’re interested in the stats they’re worth a look. If you need a refresher on the looks check out the Minstrel sets and the Warden and Captain sets.
I’ve updated my spreadsheets for the Warden, Captain, and Minstrel sets so check those out if you’re a number geek like me.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 2nd, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Minstral, Minstrel, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Traits, Warden, beta, captain, expansion, gear, group, lotro, radiance, volume 3.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/lotro-f2p-beta-initial-details/
As Sapience has posted, the NDA on the LOTRO Beta has been lifted. I’m pretty surprised they did it this early, but I’m not going to complain if they decide to release this sooner as opposed to later. There are tons of posts up on the boards but if you don’t want to sift through those I will share my thoughts so far. I will admit that I haven’t done everything but will break my post up in a few different topics as well as spread them out a bit. I’ve already talked a bunch about the store so I’m not going to talk about that. Once the servers come back up I will be posting some screen shots as well but I’m sure others will have them up shortly too 
Also, if you have any specific questions let me know and I’ll see what I can do to answer them.
Starting off with my main class, the Wardens have gotten some nice bumps at the cost of a potentially nasty bruise. The biggest change is that our various carvings now apply to not only the gambits but the builders themselves. For me this not only made a significant difference in my power usage, but since I didn’t have to pull back as much I also had a nice DPS boost. Also Wardens will be getting a Muster to Forochel which while not game breaking is nice to fill out the skills. The biggest “nerf” is that our Gambit recovery skills are now “fast” skills as opposed to immediate which means you can’t use them to interrupt long animations like Defiant Challenge. I’m a bit on the fence about this one as Defiant Challenge really is now back to a crappy legendary but I understand that they need to be careful as it could be overpowered. Not much else changed, but for other thoughts and ideas, check out the live boards for other reactions.
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DocHoliday posted this on July 28th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, expansion, gear, group, hard-mode, legendary items, lotro, radiance.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/developer-diary-instances-2-0-part-2/
The next portion of JWBarry’s Developer Diaries is up, this one focusing on the rewards and quality of the instances. You also might want to check out Part 1 of this 5 part series as that covers some of the high level concepts like travel, scaling, and quests.
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DocHoliday posted this on July 24th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Enedwaith, Equipment, Free to Play, Mirkwood, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Traits, Virtues, epic line, expansion, gear, group, hard-mode, legendary items, lore, lotro, screenshots, volume 3.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/the-news-pours-in-about-beta-and-enedwaith/
This past week has been quite busy on the news front for LOTRO and I will admit I’ve been quite behind. This has just been a pretty long week for me with my job and as such I’ve barely been able to keep up on the news, let alone comment on it. However, I wanted to touch on a few of the releases as there’s some good (and not so good) updates of late.
First up is the HUGE Developer Diary covering the new region Enedwaith which covers pretty well the new zones, their history and influences, their general storylines, and some of the kinds of enemies you’ll face. I’m looking forward to not only exploring all of the new spaces, but I really like the idea of pulling from Medieval Welsh and Briton influences. I’m also very impressed by the size (bigger and more quests then the North Downs) and all the new artwork as I will admit I’m getting a little tired of not only the darkness of Mirkwood but goblins and orcs There are lots of new screenshots in the diary, but these were 2 of my favorites:
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Elborigorn posted this on July 19th, 2010.
Categorized as General, Skirmishes, beta, event, tournaments.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/fTmjC33wPEc/
On Thursday July 15th, Turbine blindsided the LotRO community with the addition of the beta version (just want to stress the fact it’s in beta phase but publicly so and on the live servers) of the so-called “Tournament” system.
This tournament system allows turbine to specify a task/accomplishment and a time in which it must be done with the X number of top people moving on to the next “round” each round advancement includes a reward that gets mailed to you.
The first beta tournament system event was a 3-round timed race through skirmishes. The first round consisted of getting through Stand at Amon Sul in a fellowship on the tier 1 setting in as little time as possible. The top 78 players (equal to 13 fellowships) from that round would move on to round 2: competing in small fellowships doing Siege of Gondamon on tier 2 as fast as possible. The top 21 (7 small fellows) moved on to what, at first, seemed to be a daunting final round: Trouble in Tuckborough tier 3 solo skirm. The top 5 players then “won” the tournament and claimed the larger chunk of the prizes.
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DocHoliday posted this on July 16th, 2010.
Categorized as End Game, Equipment, Mirkwood, Raid, Skirmishes, Traits, Virtues, captain, gear, group, legacy, legendary items, lotro, moors, podcast, pvp, radiance, threat.
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Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/captain-roundtable/
If you missed it live (or want to listen to it again), a Casual Stroll to Mordor’s Captain Roundtable is now posted both on their site and on iTunes. I participated but definitely Elb and Geiri really do know their stuff and they do play their captains slightly different. If you have a captain or want to learn more about the class, it is certainly well worth the listen. It is a little long (a shade over 2 hours) but we do also cover a bunch of other group related topics as well. The build-up and recording of it certainly has gotten me more fired up about the class and I’m actually working on my captain again as well as working on his radiance. I did finally hit 65 and realized that I really do miss the class I’m not saying he’s going to become my main again, but certainly not banished to the Thorin’s Hall Homestead either.
Goldenstar posted this on July 15th, 2010.
Categorized as LotRO News, Skirmishes, beta, event, tournaments.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/ARs0nKDdDxc/
Today LOTRO announced on their forums a new Tournaments & Events System coming to the game this fall. Sapience describes it in his post:
Tournaments will offer a variety of events and competitions for those who wish to participate. Players who participate in Tournaments may win community renown, badges for display on player profile pages at mylotro.com, or even in-game items, gold, or Skirmish Marks!
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Azz posted this on July 8th, 2010.
Categorized as General, Skirmishes, casual, raids.
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Full link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cstmfeed/~3/p_L3iqmyo4E/
This post will briefly touch on the age old debate of Casual vs. Hardcore. While it is not my goal to rehash past debates; I feel it pertinent to give my opinion on the matter so as to provide a reference point from which the following has been spawned.
I would like to first, try and present this from my point of view, because this is a post on how I see it. I consider myself a casually hardcore gamer. I aspire to some of the hardcore play styles and tasks, but am limited by other obligations that take a higher priority to my gaming, hence the casual. I do not view it as either/or, or mutually exclusive, but more of a sliding scale from one extreme to another. I am somewhere in the middle, but more on the hardcore side if that makes any sense.
When I refer to raiding I will be referring to the 12-mans in LOTRO, i.e Rift, Vile Maw, Dar Narbugund, Barad Guldur, and any of the skirmishes that provide for 12-man runs.
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