Sorry; we’re not dead, and a Rushgore Tip!

What We have been up to

Its been a heck of a time since we last posted, as always when we come creeping back from a long break its a confession of still playing the game, but having a bit less time so neglecting the blog. Its the preferable way round to do it for us, but not so much fun for our readers so sorry about that!

As I said though, we have been up to plenty in our online absence. Firstly we moved kinships on our original main characters; Azbarak, Elgalandir, and Chumbo, from Heroes of Eriador to Ainulindele. It was not a sudden decision, or one we did with any animosity, simply that over the last year or two our focus and attitude towards those characters, and the game has shifted, and Heroes, whilst still and excellent kin, had grown a lot, and was focussed much more on larger group content, and tougher level content, just at the time where we were deciding to scale our ambition back and perhaps look at 3 mans, and the odd 6 or skirmish as our endgame goal. It was a tough decision, as 4 years is a long time to play and chat with some of the folks there, but we still have contact with many of them through the game, and the plethora of social media available these days and we hope that the kin carries on thriving, who knows, our focus may change again and we may be back? We have been with Ainulindele a few months now, and they seem to suit us very well, I have only quested and chatted, and run a couple of three mans, but it is a welcome change of pace, and I think we will enjoy it there.

We have run through the Isengard 3 mans fairly regularly, alongside some of the other 3 mans, and earned ourselves 4/6 of the Draigoch armour on both Ganin and Azaghar, and also on Izbaruk and Haki, with Vithar (Forest to me and you). We have been through the Great River region, and are having another look on Izbaruk, Haki, and Vithar, and have been having some fun duoing the Limlit Gorge on Azaghar and Ganin.

In addition to playing the Dwarves we have also been enjoying the Festivals, particularly the Anniversary one, which was a great success for us this year, a welcome break from last years rather more sparse affair. The Firework theme was great, and the events simple yet surprisingly fun to watch.

Emma got very lucky in the Festival winning both the Lossoth and the Dusk Watch Horses, more than once. My Festival character Tedwise was much more unlucky but was consoled by a solitary ‘Toast Emote’ and of course earning the Firework Pony! All in all we had a lot of fun! Emma also lucked out by winning the Steed of the Champion on Dandilyon her Hobbit Minstrel! We also took advantage of the ‘welcome back weekend’ XP buff to level Emmas Rohirrim Captain and Ef champion some more, putting 21/2 levels on them, going from 56-8 and hoping to get to 60 soon and try out the New Enedwaith, and then level her Captain with my Rohhirim Captain waiting in Enedwaith, ready for the Rohan Expansion later this year!

So in between little real life things like weekend trips out, holidays, and work we have been enjoying some of the recent things LOTRO has had to offer! We have also made a lot of new outfits for both our characters, which we hope to share fairly soon!

Rushgore Tip

Finally I’d like to share a little tip for those of you that hadn’t already noticed this. The folks in our new kinship put us on to this, and it can be a godsend if you are getting a bit sick in there, it will also work in the Dunbog too. The region is a very cool and pretty looking marshy area on the banks of the Anduin. Graphically it looks great, and first time through, though I found it a little difficult to find some creatures or target where something was that was hitting me, I took it all in my stride and enjoyed the journey, however on subsequent visits it gets a bit old fast, especially if you can’t track like a hunter. The merits and disadvantages of such regions have been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, so I’m not going to get into that, but suffice to say, I’m glad the World Design team manages to keep a bit of variety in the Landscape, and I think this new land mass bodes very well for future expansions.

If however it is driving you mad for whatever reason, one thing you can do is get rid of all those reeds and grasses, which makes a hell of a difference, at the cost of the look and feel of the place.

Go into Options/Advanced Graphics/ and scroll down until you see ‘Frill Distance’ and set it to none, and behold the results below. All the scree shots are pairs of the same view, the only difference is one has ‘Frill distance’ on Very High, the only has it on none. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you just want to complete the quests, or have been through enough times already, then this can be a godsend!

A bit of an extreme example of now you see it, now you don’t, but it demonstrates the effect nicely.

The first thing I’d have know about that Turtle would have been the comedic rumbling of little feet.

You get a much better spacial sense of distance, unrealistic for a swamp, but a hell of a lot easier to play!

I knew something was hitting me from somewhere!

So whatever your reasons if you want to make the Rushgore a little easier to naviate at the cost of its ambience its a tip worth remembering!

thanks for reading, hopefully wont be too long next time!

Adam