Care When Buying LOTRO boxed from the Web

O.K just a little heads up here, be very carefull when you are buying LOTRO on the web. Several large UK sellers- Amazon.co.uk and Play.com to name two have sellers on their sites, selling boxed editions of LOTRO as as shown right, the Codemasters release, and Described as being either Codemasters or not specifying exactly. Given the image used, the fact that its in UK Sterling, with UK shipping costs, on a UK site, I had assumed it was safe to assume this was indeed the Codemasters release but it wasn’t.

Naturally some of these sellers are overseas and probably do not know much about the particular techincalities of all the games they sell, and their running specs, servers, and organisation/distribution- why would they right! I have found at least one, a Play Trade Seller called INetVideo (based in Canada Shipping to the UK), who is actually retailing the Turbine Versions of the game and key, to all customers. I was lucky in that I double checked and explained that if they was intending to ship the American release to me I wanted to cancel my order, which they duly did and refunded me, which was very entirely professional and reasonable. I have however heard of people in game, and on the Codemasters forums of a few other incidences of this happenining, so just make sure you double check first they have the Codemasters edition if thats what you are after, and are not just using stock images from the web. Many of the sellers are sellign exactly what you need, but its by no means guaranteed. It is not the main websites repsonsibility, and the sellers may not be aware fo this issue, so just be sure to drop them an email to check the version they are selling has the Codemasters logo on, and a European activation key.

Level 65 First Age Legendaries

A kinmate pointed this out to us yesterday, few additions to the lore book- first age weapons, so they can’t be far off in the pipe line! So get saving those symbols, as the dps apparently starts at 80.7… wowza!

You can go look for yourself here!

More LOTRO Volume 3, Book 2 info from Ten Ton Hammer

Little more detail on the new expansion here at 10 ton hammer. Lots of exciting little tid bits about the new expansion and lotro future including

• Mounted combat
• The new dungeons
• Scaleable dungeons and loot
• Fangorn
• Ranger session play

Looks like in addition to the info over at Massively, we have got a fair amount to look forward to from autumn onwards!

O.K Enedwaith, but where and how big?

O.K now as far as I’m concerned this is just me having a bit of fun. I did this when the Mirkwood map was revealed though kept it private, but it turned out surprisingly accurate size wise. I am an archaeologist in RL, and work primarily in an office with graphics, aligning and drawing maps, looking at historic maps amongst a host of other things, so this kinda stuff just fascinates me.

Firstly I’ll state that most maps relating to, or drawn by Tolkein are vague, much like the medieval tithe maps I often deal with, so everything is approximate and rough in terms of accuracy. In addition an area like Enedwaith is relatively bare, and Turbine may have decided to add in additional roads, and tributary rivers which it makes sense for there to have been in some form. So I’ll first show you my core alignment map to attempt some comparative scale between my core base maps and the LOTRO game map (the rivers, coast and major town in red). The core base maps are from this superb site here and an amazing source for Tolkien information, especially mapping. You can see there are some deviations, and some distortions from screen scaling and other considerations, but generally, the major towns and rivers are in the right place, though they may meander slightly differently. The Hoarwell is a little displaces, but it is only the coast, and the lower reaches of the Baranduin (or Brandywine for you hobbitses) which really suffer, yet again screen distortion and the variation in certain maps are probably most to blame with this so we’ll proceed on the understanding that this prone to inaccuracy and is JUST A BIT OF FUN! 😀

So I’ll now align a detailed map of Enedwaith from my core mapping site , with the above core map, and zoom in on Eregion and Enedwaith a little more, again the main game map rivers are in red for clarity. I think this is pretty interesting, it shows just what a huge expanse this area is. However be warned; Mirkwood is also very big, and if it is anything to go by we are very, very unlikely to get more than a small percentage, and let’s be honest; it would be very  huge and probably really not deliver bang for buck, and be rather dull for many people. (I however could explore all day).

So moving on, lets add in the smaller region to the south of Eregion which has appeared, look at the rivers and possible routes out of Eregion. Last night I explored the southern most reaches and can confirm you cannot cross the bottom most of the three tributaries on the right. However, on the game map it looks as though there is not only land, but a town there, close to the source of the southern most branch of the Glanduin on the right hand side. (its highlighted on map further on as a black dot) (Update: as the internet has consumed the information from Massively and TTH another great map appeared on the US forums here, and also this appeared from Sapience on the US forums: “I just want to jump in and point out that the Enedwaith Google map from the Lorebook is not only incorrect (and thus not good for any kind of accurate comparison), but has actually been completely replaced by the correct Enedwaith region in the Beta. So, to be clear, that map you see when you visit the Lorebook has no relation to what’s actually going into the game and will ship with V3B2.”

So now we have seen the new map, where is this going to fit into all this, and why was the areas south of Eregion added? I’ll run through three potential locations, you could go on all day with different ideas and suggestions, but I’m going to use a few things to attempt align and scale my maps.

• It will be south of Eregion, but the two ‘to Dunland’ exits suggest in the northern part
• It will be of a comparable size to Lothlorien or Mirkwood
• The major rivers and roads may be alignable to the larger ones from the game
• It may or may not join directly to Eregion

So bearing these in mind lets take a look at possibility number one. This scaling is a guess, in reality I feel I made it a little large and should probably drop the scale so the map is contained within the Glanduin on the left. What does ‘sort of’ work here, is Thrors Coomb lining up with the area added ‘secretly’ although there appears to be no river on the secret addition, but that may come later. It also lines up with the river you currently cannot cross in southern Eregion, however south of that river the Enedwaith map shows a narrow pass, whereas on the map currently you can see a reasonable expanse to the right, including what appears to be a town (where the black dot is placed). The two south roads out lead very nicely to Dunland, though the major road that leads north-south through the region appears not to be the great north road though Tharbad and Sarn Ford as I had initially assumed. So given the error factors involved, it is a possibility.

Secondly, I’ll attempt to use the north-south road and assume for this map that there will be an Ered Luin style port to get to Enedwaith, or a thin valley channel as between northern Eregion and the Trollshaws/Rivendell. So on this one, we have a vague lining up of the kink in the part of the north-south road close to Tharbad, and interestingly the NNE part of the game Enedwaith map has a river with a small island shown on is, which lines up nicely with the core base map river which also has some tributaries or islands clustered around that area. The two roads out to Dunland are still approximately right, though the alignment with Eregion as I mentioned would have to be via another means. This and the apparent pointlessness of the ‘secret’ addition of land to the south of Eregion makes me a bit skeptical of this, but hell I’m enjoying myself!

So finally I went for a: ‘plonk it on there by eye and see’ approach, which, actually doesn’t look as dumb as it could. The road and rivers don’t line up with anything much, apart from the NNE river on the game map lining up reasonably well with where the Gladuin is on the Core base map. The part of the Southern Eregion map we cannot access, could well just be a travelling area, and the ‘secret’ addition could just be what we can see in the ‘background’ from our new travel route and from the North East corner of the Enedwaith map. The route into Dunland here look good again.

I’d finally just like to point out to you the lower half of this map; isn’t it great? Can’t you just imagine (assuming we get the region and not just a port door to Rohan) heading into Dunland knowing that at the south will be the Isen and Fords, and across those the Westmarch, and the Gap of Rohan! Awesome stuff, I’m in no great rush, but I’m looking forward to it all the same.

So we are no closer to having any idea of where it is after this little article, but in fairness I did warn you! I think some variant of the first and last suggestion is most likely, I don’t think we are looking at the main north-south road here. However regardless as just a fun activity, I certainly enjoy looking at the maps, and seeing how the terrain may work. Yes we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m always happy to mess around hypothersising about my favourite game. Lastly I’m pretty excited to see two town/fortress looking icons on there, one of which looks very much like its gonna be some sort of Dunlending fortress, probably where the next group content area will be. If any of you have any other suggestion please feel free to comment and I can probably try to knock up another map and see what other options we may have, or if there is something key you think I have missed please just say, then we can refine it a bit!

*update 26/7/2010 * se we have seen a good deal more info on this zone, one of which is this: “The North-South Road, which becomes the Greenway in Bree-land, passes through this land, leading north and west into the bluffs” from here. This is pretty interesting as either the latter map option above seems to be the closest in terms of scale and location, maybe just nestled into eregion a little closer. This means that the North-South road from Tolkiens maps is a little closer to the mountains than I thought, and than many Tolkien maps seem to portray, but this road generally is based on very little information, and if indeed Turbine have squeezed it in a bit, it matters little at all. All in all, it wil be intersting to see the new zone, and I’m still very excited to get in there!

Cheers

Adam

Information from Massively on Enedwaith

Thank you to A Casual Stroll to Mordor for pointing out some great new information released at E3. Looks very exciting, and great to hear that aside from this cool new region, housing, hobbies, and some cool mechanics for allowing old dungeon replays are on the horizon! Pop over here and check it out.

I was pretty excited reading on CSTM about some previews of the turbine shop here and some examples of what will be for sale here, and overall my mood went from optimistic, to excited, having just read that massively article I’m beside myself! It really does feel like LOTRO has a new lease of life, and I’m really looking forward to see how this pans out over the next few years!

Captain Quickslot Organisation page done

Well I was struggling with the Burglar tips, so I put it aside for next, and finished off the Captain ones. The Qucikslot article is done, but I’m still agonising over the Legacy post… hopefully It won’t be too much longer!

Enjoy!

https://thekhazadguard.wordpress.com/tips/captain-quickslot-layout/

Captain Trait Lines

Eodraed: Captain of Rohan

I wanted to post something about the Captains futures as I have been in the process of writing a legendary legacy post and a quickslot layout post about them and suddenly everyones chatting about captains, on the official forums, bogs and everywhere; some of it positive, some negative. I personally like the off healer/healer role, but it has to be said that it has become the only real viable role for a captain at high end, when previously this was less so the case. One of the better posts I have seen recently, and one that pretty much reflects my thoughts, was here on the Codemasters forums by Dalamyr. It lays out some excellent ideas on rejigging the captain traits lines, to allow a little more creativity in playstyle, So I thought I’d bring it to the attention of you guys, and summarise it here with a few thoughts of my own. Another interesting discussionis in this thread by Harkain.

I like the idea of Dalamyrs ‘Overpower’ for cappys style of ‘Lead the Charge’ build. The basic suggestion is that with a full 5 set trait bonus in lead the charge, your outgoing healing rate is reduced, but you gain a mellee damage boost (+XX% like overpower, not critical chance), and threatening shout becomes a forced taunt. He also suggests shadows lament is added to the end of the cappy battle shout chain, for a large amount of extra dps and threat. By adding more melee damage and tweaking shadows lament and threatening shout, this does make for a much better dps/tanking variant, Id even go so far as to convert threatening shout to an AOE taunt (none stun breaking), to complement shadows laments aggro on single targets, with an aoe draw for more general use, with pressing attacks AOE effect.

On the leader of men suggestion the additions he suggests to the current are; that war cry lasts longer and increases fellowship damage in addition to its current effects, shadows lament now has a 20% chance to start a conjunction, and the oathbreaker remains as the capstone trait. I must say, I love this set up and as long as the mark skills CD reduction stayed I’d say it would be great. It makes ‘leader of men a buffing set up again. In additon to this why not add a power return buff to revealing mark, again percentage based.

And as he says, the Hands of Healing set up is great as it is, and does exactly what you’d expect- turn you into a great healer, which sadly the other two lines currently do not really do for their roles.

Just imagine a pair of cappys hands of healing and leader of men traited, with traited banners of victory and hope in your group… you’d be impossible to kill!

Party Time!

To celebrate the resounding success of The Guards foray into the Great Barrows, and first kin run for Jualin, it was decided we would celebrate with a fancy dress party. Unfortunately …. we all came as General Talug. After much embarrasment we started drinking from the Sinister keg. It all got a little hazy after that, and I can’t remember much else of the night. I awoke wearing an orange traffic cone and with a splitting head, without my pants on, in the Scholars enclave in Duillond, and just enough money left for the horse ride home. Jualin ended up on the Dead mans perch… again, and Icklebard and Azaghar ended up on the boat in the bay at Forochel at level 40 and 43, much to the bemusement of a level 52 dwarf guardian who had just soloed his way there (presumably for the books) and was taking a beating, only to find his health rapidly rising as Icky and Az rapidly came to his aid. We all learn’t our lesson, and we won’t touch the keg until at least next week!

The Great Barrow

So as an official initiation into the guard after recieving her uniform, we decided to run the Great Barrow with Jualin. As the game stands it is a players first experience of group content, and it must be said it does a great job still. The atmosphere is great, there are some tough mobs, nasty diseases and fears, and three sets of bosses to fight. There is an awfull lot to consider for a  first time player in a fellowship so we kept it pretty simple. So after a very brief run through of class roles, the basics of turning on and using target assist, and fellowship moves, we set of into the Barrow.   

From Left to Right: Azaghar, Jualin, Icklebard, and Ganin

 

The Four Dwarves tasked with clearing the barrow were Azaghar (RK), Ganin (champ), Icklebard (minstrel), and Jualin (champ), as we were mostly over level, I took a back seat on my RK and tried to get a few screen shots and guide everyoen through the maze, and we had a great time, with quite a few screen shot breaks.   

Jualin dinged 23 thanks to all the great XP, which meant she could equip the official Guards med/heavy shoulder guards uniform after the run, and got a chunk more XP for the quest hand in after wards.  

The Guard Fighting the Wight Brothers!

When we had Killed the two sets of Bosses, and then ran back near the start to reforge the Skull key, we back tracked once again to go finish off Sambrog himself and get ourselves a nice trophy for the kinhouse walls. 

So for now we are all back to levelling up again, though Jualin has embarked on the Lone Lands and our plan is to 4 man Garth Agarwen when she levels up to those quests and get our selves two more trophies for the kinhouse- Ivars Banner and Naruhels dress! So as always new challenge awaits the Guard! 

Fighting Sambrog

Welcome Jualin

Jualin is presented with the official Guard uniform

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome Jualin, a Dwarf Champion into the Khazad Guard. Here she is being presented with the official Khazad Guard uniform by the welcoming committee of Izbaruk; Lord and Father of the Khazad Guard, Haki; heir and Seneshal, and Icklebard; also Seneshal. The initiation test is to take part in the Great Barrow and bring back Sambrogs head to be proudly displayed in the Kinhouse.

Hail and well met Jualin!