Roll one hundred

Ressing Roll100

2011-11-18T18:43:00.000+02:00

Hiiii, anyone still here? I know it's been months and months since my last update, sorry about that! I've got plenty of things I'd like to ~~rant and rage~~write about, but I think I'll have to take it easy and not scare away any remaining readers with my ~~massive turbine hate and anti-f2p hatespeech~~ well-formulated arguments against a certain game that has been frequently featured on this blog... but not anymore, mwa-HA!

Well, to cut the long story short, I got finally fed up with the sub-par performance that Turbine has been delivering with Lord of the Rings Online, the unimpressive and unfinished Rise of Isengard expansion, the horribad LotRO community site, lack of targeted advertising (newsletters and loading screens with US-only competitions and WalMart ads) and the greedy and intrusive cancer that is the LotRO Store. Oh, and all the people who continue to spend 20 money on fugly mount that's unlocked for one character only. And I don't mean you, dear reader, but all the other tools that support a game that isn't worthy of its IP :).

Ohhh, feels so good to get that off my chest. Here's hugs to everyone! Happy gaming!

MEANWHILE, IN RIFT:

massive dragon invasion is massive

So, yeah, Rift has been good, but more on that later. The new region, Ember Isle, is calling →

End of the Horizon

2011-06-09T18:33:00.000+03:00

I'm slowly closing in on level 50 in Rift. It's certainly bringing me back memories from 2008 when I was leveling up my first character in Lord of the Rings Online - when each new level felt like an achievement and one step closer to the mythical max level. Coincidentally the cap was also "just" 50 in LotRO back then, so it really feels like an eerie déjà-vu.

Since ~45 or so I've tagged along with my guild, doing some lv50 invasions and crafting rifts - I could hardly hit anything and kept dying all the time, but at least I got to see places and have fun!

I'm sitting at 48 now, and really can't be bothered to quest anymore. There are tons of quests spread over several areas, so there's plenty to choose from, but now I think I'll just take it easy and grab a bit of exp from a craft quest here, an invasion there, and the occasional expert rift done with the guild.

At around lv30 I had to give up my beloved Stormcaller/Elementalist build, which had until that relied on the earth elemental pet to tank. Since I didnt' put many points into Ele the pet wouldn't have leveled up past that, so I changed my solo build to Necromancer/Warlock, which is an amazing soloing machine with decent damage and incredible survivability. I just miss the Stormcaller's skills since they have amazing sound effects - the zaps and roaring thunder from the lightning skills are just so immensely satisfying that the Necromancer's generic hissing sound effects are nothing in comparison.

Tonight we're going to try and create a guild in Rift with E Voronwë folks. No idea how I'll be able to juggle two guilds in Rift in addition to playing LotRO every now and then... but we'll see!

Oh yeah, and if you'd like to give Rift a try, please use this link to register: Rift Free Trial. I'm playing on PVE-RP Argent server, Defiant side, if you want to hook up.

Back to Rift

2011-05-14T15:18:00.000+03:00

I was a bit pissed off at the start of the week because I hadn't got any response from the Rift customer service them to the ticket I sent on Saturday, until I got an email on Monday that my ticket had been closed because I hadn't replied in 48h... turns out there's a 3rd party customer service site where all the tickets are answered but I never got any email notification about it (and there was NO mention about the other site in the automated ticket response) so I couldn't have known. Meh. Oh well, I had to call their customer service in the US but luckily they could just remove the borked Mobile Authenticator from my account so everything's fine now. Yay!

I'm so going to need a beach holiday after these dark tunnels!

I continued working on my Mage, who is now 34 or so. I was also invited to a guild of old LotRO friends, so I hope to get my toon to 50 now and geared up so I could start running instances properly. I've only been to one instance so far (mostly I just overleveled them while questing), and it was fun to work in a group again - which reminds me that I'm constantly amazed at the level of maturity, politeness and friendliness on my server! Perhaps I've just been lucky, but pretty much everyone I've ran into or joined in a Public Group have been nice, helpful and, GASP, used proper punctuation and capitalisation! The make me feel like such a 1337 kiddie..

[me] yey thanks for the company :)
[random nice person] Likewise, safe travels.

Capital letters, baby. Capital letters.

Another thing I've enjoyed about Rift is the knowledge that with the monthly fee I get everything there is in the game. I think I'm pretty good at ignoring the tasteless Store advertisements in LotRO, but when playing another MMO the difference is pretty big — no tacky buttons, no annoying popups, no bypassing content by opening one's wallet. I'm happy to part with my money for another month's sub in Rift, and I'm even thinking of getting the Collector's Edition unlocked for my account for the lulz, because right now I'm having a good time and I want to see what's behind the next hill.

I'm also a bit lonely at times, so now that there's a Free Trial of seven days, you can join me in Rift for free!!1 And do note that this "free" doesn't come with the burden of fugly BUY NOW buttons...

Click here for a free 7-day Rift trial

↑ that link is my "refer a friend" link, so if you register from that page and decide to buy the game later (you can get it online for as little as 25€) we both can get some nice benefits in the game :)

Outfit #2: That Girl in Green

2011-05-14T15:01:00.000+03:00

I guess I could call this my first 'signature' outfit, and probably one I've worn the most. I've still got all the original pieces, which I earned back in SoA times, stored in my vault. I like this outfit so much because it reminds me of places I've been to - the original Annúminas and Rift, my favourite places in the game.

.. that is also the reason I hardly ever make outfits from "mundane" items, because I want to show off that I've been there and done that! /vanity

Head: n/a
Back: Cloak of the West-Tower (Annúminas cloak), dyed green
Shoulders: Shoulders of Seven Stars (Annúminas light set), default dye
Chest: Robe of the Elder Days (LM Rift set), dyed green
Hands: Gloves of the Lady's Wisdom (LM DN set), dyed green
Legs: n/a
Feet: Boots of the Elder Days (LM Rift set), dyed green

Accessory: original Harvestmath steed (matches the character's name)

I'd love to make a real-life costume of this outfit, but it'd be pretty hard to make the robe NOT look like a bathrobe!

Rift: derp

2011-05-07T17:26:00.000+03:00

← my face today

Haha I fail so much. I had some troubles logging in to Rift (again!), so in my frustration I thought the mobile authenticator was borked (again!) and I uninstalled it from my Galaxy Tab.

Which anyone who, uh, actually ever read what it says on the authenticator wouldn't do, since it basically locks your account and you have to contact their customer service for help.

*twiddling thumbs*

Let's see how long this takes...

Outfit Madness

2011-05-07T14:09:00.004+03:00

Did I miss a memo or where did the sudden LotRO outfit boom come from? Lately there's been a ton of interest in the cosmetic system on both forums and among bloggers. In addition to the classic forum threads (such as Wardrobe outfits, which even got mentioned on Twitter by @lotro_europe) there's at least three new blogs dedicated just to making and sharing outfit ideas:

Lotro Fashion, by Freyjuska of Snowbourn
Cosmetic Lotro, by Hymne of Snowbourn
Lotro Stylist, by Devonna of Landroval (also has a blog for guest submissions, Friends of the Lotro Stylist)

(I don't know if it's a common wordpress.com feature, but it's a bit annoying though that some of those blogs only show excerpts of posts in my RSS reader, meaning if I wanted to see the actual outfits I'd have to click and visit the blog proper — that's of course good for getting more page hits and views, but it's annoying as hell if you're someone like me who hates passionately all extra clicking :D)

To go with the new fad I'll try and showcase some of my favourite outfits using the same format as those blogs. I've never been interested in keeping my outfits "secret" (or stats/gear, for that matter), since I can usually tell with one look what someone else is wearing anyway.

Outfit #1: Raiding Hunter

Head: Traveller's Hood (store item), dyed black
Back: Fine Quiver (festival recipe), dyed white
Shoulders: Shoulders of the Mighty Verse (minstrel Moria set), dyed black
Chest: Jacket of the Lady's Secrecy (burglar DN set), dyed white
Hands: Gauntlet's of the Swift Arrow (lvl 60 crafted/purple Moria set), default dye
Legs: Leggings of the Elder Days (LM Rift set), dyed black
Feet: Stone-Reader's Shoes (LM Moria set), dyed black

Accessory: Skeleton Painted Horse (2010 fall festival)

That's my most used outfit out of the way! More to come~

Bonsai Huorn

2011-05-05T23:37:00.000+03:00

Rare housing item drop from the Tree bosses in Ost Dunhoth. So cuuuute!

The Grindaversary

2011-04-24T13:44:00.000+03:00

As most who've been reading the LotRO community forums and blogs know, the current Anniversary Event, also known as The Grindaversary, has been quite unanimously declared a complete fiasco. The token costs for the few new cosmetic items and the garish festival horse are way too high and they're only available, one at a time, from two minigames, one of which can only be completed twice a day. The other option, the Thorin's Hall bar fight, is fun but gets tedious very quickly — mostly because of the long waiting times between rounds.

And the icing on the cake is, of course, that after the whine escalated Turbine went and added a third option to the token grind, and it's only available on the US servers since our EU provider still doesn't have the system in place that would allow lotteries on our servers.

Damn carebears, whining about pvp.

So I went and did a few rounds of Beer Brawl to get the horse and a couple maps for the new Cartographile deed. And by a few rounds I mean around 80 rounds. I managed to get myself quite addicted to the minigame, and the waiting wasn't so bad after I dug up an ebook to read between rounds. What really really pissed me off (and still does) were some lame table campers — but at least they were easy targets to knock out of the fighting area, ha-HA! After the umpteenth fight I had absolutely no qualms about knocking people away from the beer jug and grabbing it for myself. Give no mercy and expect none!

Luckily I also had several friends helping with the maps so we each ground one or two and then shared them between us so everyone got all the maps counted for the deed.

After Lothi got her horse as well we went to take some screenies together but it was too dark and they didn't turn out quite well. Suffice to say the horse looks very silly and hastily made.

I also got a /salute from somewhere during the Beer Brawl and it finally completed the /swordsalute deed for me. Yay!

Rift: FOR SCIENCE!

2011-04-21T23:36:00.000+03:00

"damn, I broke a nail ~"

A week ago there was an open free trial in Rift, so I thought I'd give it a shot (esp. since I had just turned into a D&D widow for the weekend). I had tried the game briefly during beta, but didn't think I'd want to play it after launch since I was busy with work, travel and the new LotRO update. Luckily Rift was so easy to get into that I finished the trial (the cap was level 15) very quickly and wanted more, so after hunting around on the interwebz a little I found a site that sold the retail code for 25€. I grabbed the offer so I could continue leveling my little mage.

Yup, I rolled a Defiant mage. Usually in these types of games with two factions one of them is the "goodie type" and the other is "baddie/emo", and although the Kelari (Defiant elves) have quite convinving emo looks I think Trion did quite a good job making them more interesting than "hurrdurr we're just misunderstood". I actually tried rolling a couple Guardian characters (the "goodie" side) but my inner antitheist just couldn't tolerate any of that godtalk (and the angel-like npcs gave me bad memories from Aion). So I chose to support the Defiant cause and created a character called... Science. ~~Because I'm cool and edgy like that.~~

So far Rift has been fun. I like playing it, although I'm not yet sure if I like the game itself and its world - it's as generic as you can get and doesn't seem to have the epic art direction of Guild Wars to make it stand out from the other generic fantasy mmos. The soul system is great fun though and I can't wait to try out all the different roles and combos I can come up with - I like the idea that I'm not locked into a single role (great cure for altitis!) and that I can swap complete builds anytime I want.

Tl;dr: playing a defiant mage called Tiede (Finnish for science) on Argent PVE-RP. Looking for friends and guilds and fun.

Ost DundundunDUUM

2011-04-18T21:58:00.001+03:00

Previously, on Raid Channel: Balrogs have wings now lol

Our kin has been plowing slowly but steadily through the newest raid in LotRO; Ost Dunhoth. It's been a nice raid so far, although it does feel like a theme park ride with a ton of reused encounter concepts. In that sense though the whole LotRO game is starting to get old; after the latest update landed I found myself wondering "is that it?". Run new instances, get new barter stuff, get the couple new shinies in those instances with stats a point or two higher on our previous gear, grind all those until you have everything. Oh, a new Legendary Item, must grind! Oh, I need 2000 instance medallions for this armour set which will be obsolete in a few months anyway! HMMMMM.

Yay, back to hunter tanking! I totally have never done this before in a boss fight!

That line of thought got me wondering if I'd even have the energy to grind through the next update, or the Isengard expansion after that, if it's just the same stuff in a new (but deviously recycled) package. I do think LotRO is going to need some seriously new mechanics, be it mounted combat, dynamic events, enhanced pvp or even just a character model update to stay fresh.

~~Golden shower~~poison wing boss. Fun fight, even more so on T2.

Anyway, back to OD. So far I've seen and beaten the first four bosses, two of them on T2. The boss fights themselves are a good challenge and the hard modes will definitely be a tough nut to crack (we've only got one T2 challenge done so far).

I must say though I've been very disappointed in the loot so far, at least for hunters. The regular, non-raid instances don't really seem to have any must-haves for hunters so I've been more tempted to run them on my alts. I haven't yet seen all the OD loot and the hunter armour set sure is sweet, but I'm really put off by the medallion grind, especially since I just burned my meagre collection on Empowerment scrolls to upgrade the godawful first-ager LI you see here on the left. I was seriously considering just throwing it into the bin and grinding a few weeks for a new one!

Oh well, I thought I'll just grit my teeth and do it — replacing every single legacy on the bow and then upgrading them to t5+. If only it had 4 or 5 major legacies! But no, NO I can't have nice things.

Well, the grind is over, now I'll just have to complete the raids and I'll be happy - for now.

Meanwhile, cooling my toes in a place that starts with R and ends with T. More on that later.

Sup

2011-04-18T21:26:00.000+03:00

Hi, long time no blog! I've been fairly busy with work as well as... traveling! I spent a week in Hong Kong with excellent company, eating and shopping and having a good time. It was my first trip outside Europe and wow it was so different from anything I've seen so far! Makes Finland seem so small and dull in comparison.

Evening view from the walking path high up on Victoria Peak, Hong Kong.

I had hoped to buy some cheap'ish electronics there but in the end I mostly shopped for clothes and noms. I did score a Samsung Galaxy Tab on the way back from the airport though, yay! And also bought a huge crate of stroopwafels in Amsterdam during our flight transfer there.

Sunny Nathan Road, one of the busiest shopping areas. And on our flight back to Helsinki my heart sank seeing all the ice and snow still everywhere...

Hotness

2011-03-29T22:39:00.000+03:00

Hot Balrog Butt™

Hot Burglar Butt™

♥♥♥ Geren, the Gay Prince of Middle-Earth ♥♥♥

OH HAI

2011-03-28T00:07:00.000+03:00

Y hallo thar, big guy.

The New Fab Five

2011-03-25T16:59:00.000+02:00

Drugoth totally doesn't look like a bald anorectic myspace teenager wearing chains and some kinda s&m mask.

If THIS is what one of the five gaunt-lords is wearing these days, I can't wait to see the other four!

And don't get me started on the ~rainbow beams~ in that boss fight.

The Final Ding

2011-03-16T20:56:00.000+02:00

A view over dark Sad Doldur, in Mirkwood.

Sooo, my second minstrel finally hit 65 last weekend. I must say it was a fun ride, and I really miss getting XP now - questing just feels so much more rewarding when you know there's always a new skill or trait or piece of equipment just after the next milestone.

I'm also surprised how easy it was to solo as a minstrel, the original healing class. It was pretty easy all the way to 50+, and once I got the red-line trait capstone at 58 (I don't know how I did it, but I got Kindred with the Guards just a moment before hitting 58!) my puny bard turned into an insane weapon of mass destruction, critting 2500+ on on-level mobs and hardly losing any morale herself while tackling 2-4 mobs.

Short guide to minstrel awesomeness:

Acquire and trait Unrelenting before lv20 and oneshot on-level mobs.
Trait Battle-Hymn as soon as you can (awesome combat-regen for solo).
Use Cry of the Valar (fear) if you pull too much.
Kite using the run-speed buff of Call of the Second Age and nuke while running.
When facing a difficult pull (skirmish lieutenants with adds, etc), use Song of Distraction to break the group.

Basic Warspeech damage rotation:

Ballad of Resonance (raises all your tactical damage by 10-20%)
Echoes of Battle (lowers mob's resistances -> bigger chance your next skills will land
Call of Oromë (lower's mobs Light resistance -> your ballads and cries will do more damage)
Spam Call to Fate, Call of the Second Age (if melee), open ballad tiers for Anthem of the Valar (with Battle-hymn trait this gives as much combat-regen as Anthem of the Free Peoples)
Apply Call of Oromë once it's off cooldown and keep Ballad of Resonance up at all times

I even got to dps a couple times in instances where the group already had a healer, but sadly power is a big issue for minstrels still. After one or two skill rotations my power pool would be empty. While solo I usually just ate some regen food and bought the 50dp regen buff for 30 minutes (I definitely recommend that for anyone on a questing spree!), but without a meek LM feeding me power I wouldn't be able to keep the mincer-machine going in group instances.

Now I'm sort of wondering what to do with my new healer, since my runekeeper is already giving me angry looks and my first minstrel refuses to talk to me.

Bookworm!

2011-02-18T21:24:00.000+02:00

I got this pretty drawing from my dear friend Pery as an early birthday gift <3! Thank you so much!Go check out her art/game blog here: Colour Soufflé

LotRO Community Awards

2011-02-16T21:43:00.001+02:00

~ such irresistible charms ~

Oh my, it seems me and a thread I made have been nominated in two categories in the European LotRO Community Awards! The personal nomination is for best creative work and the other is for best all-time thread. If you have an account on the LotRO-EU forums (you can log in with your game account as well), go and have a look at all the Community Awards threads here and cast your vote.

Other categories I'd recommend checking out are best guide-writer (kinnie of mine has also been nominated for his outstanding LM guide) and best fansite, which sadly has only two nominees but both are definitely worth the title.

Tower of the Bracelet of the Tower

2011-02-16T18:43:00.000+02:00

After running Durchest HM over and over again for a year, finally the elusive Bracelet of the Tower dropped. I went all in with BKP and got it. Now my hunter is complete!

With the new Legendary Item changes coming in the next book I'm going to swap out some stats and normal legacies on my weapons to lower my Agility in favour of more Will. I should already probably swap out Treasury Stone for the Phial, but it's just such a nice shiny item that I want to keep it. I'm fairly happy with my build right now, most of my equipment is very balanced so I have maxed Ranged Offence (ie. as high as you can get it solo), near-cap Ranged Crit, good ICPR and my morale and power stay over 6k/3k no matter what traits and gear I swap back and forth.

Now I'm ready for the new content, which will surely make all my previous efforts and shinies completely obsolete within hours!

Lothi

2011-02-12T12:56:00.000+02:00

It's Lothirieth :)

Fixing that distant shadows bug

2011-02-07T19:27:00.002+02:00

In DX10/DX11 mode, there's a big ugly shadow covering most of the distant landscape.

Since the F2P update and the additiong of DX11 support, there's been a very ugly graphics bug in LotRO when using DX10 or DX11. Turns out it's a problem with the "distant lighting" setting.

Here's the fix:

Go to Options → Advanced Grahics and turn off DX10 Distant Landscape Lighting (use the search box at the top if you can't find it)
"Refresh" the graphics by changing to some other Landscape Lighting Quality setting (ie. from high to low)
Change the quality setting back to what you had before, but leave the DX10 Distant Landscape Lighting checkbox unchecked

Here I was thinking that my landscape screenshots would be forever ruined, so I'm very happy about finding that fix!

You nube

2011-02-05T13:47:00.000+02:00

[Kinship] xxxxx: One of the best roleplaying moments I saw in pony was few days back...some knights were fighting over a woman and after a sophisticated discussion the other said: "Who are you, you nube to question me" xD

(picture unrelated)

Not sure what happened, but... yay!

2011-02-02T18:33:00.001+02:00

The winners for the Yule Fashion Contest and their winning screenshots were announced a week ago, but I don't know what happened since then because yesterday I received an email saying I had won something in the contest! So I went to look at the original thread and saw that it said "12 winners" but the list held only 11... so I wonder if they couldn't contact one of the original winners or if someone stepped down. Well, I'm not going to look a gift too closely, so.. yay, 1000 store points!

I love my new forum title!

Duillond from Dusk till Dawn

2011-01-26T20:49:00.001+02:00

Isilmewen, Lhas and Duissane playing trio songs.

Last week the regular Hall of Fire RP event was held in Duillond, near the starter areas for elf characters. I've been very quiet on the RP front (and, well, the whole game front tbh) because all the events start around the time when I'm already ready half asleep, so when I've had enough energy to join an event I've mostly just stood to the side, played a song or two and then logged out before my forehead makes acquaintance with the keyboard. The HoF-in-Duillond event was a refreshing change though, and I managed to produce a bit of RP of my own as well, instead of my usual Lhas-is-a-brainless-teenager routine (which is immensely fun at times, but not very satisfying in the long run).

Lhas is totally not flirting with Lord Anglachelm.

As elvish events go, it was the standard 'music, dance, gossip' fare, and at some points there was just too much stuff going on in the chats that I completely lost the thread of the conversations I was having. Note for the future: scatter around a bit when it gets hard to follow even a single conversation. No point in trying to endure it if you don't have to!

Naruvir sings a song written by professor Tolkien himself.

The event was concluded by an amazing sunrise, which the gathered players greeted in proper elvish fashion with song and warm words. Screenies don't quite do it justice, but the moment was very beautiful and I certainly felt 'in-character' there. I wish I knew any songs or poems so I could someday contribute the way the best role-players on Laurelin do.

And of course, afterwards there was AGAIN a massive shitstorm in the HoF thread on the Laurelin forums, because baaaaaaaaaawwwwww some kin has more members than others and it's overcrowding the elven events and baaaaaawwwwwwwhatisthisIdon'teven--

Tall lady

2011-01-19T19:34:00.002+02:00

New Year's Ball

2011-01-18T23:01:00.000+02:00

I went to have a quick look at the Bree-themed New Year's Ball, lots of people crammed into one kinhouse! Alas I had to log off early because of work, but the bands I managed to hear were very nice - makes me want to perform .abc music again!

"I'm sorry, I hope my boobs weren't in your way, sir!"

DEM TATERZ

2011-01-15T13:48:00.002+02:00

And the funny thing is, this isn't the first time I've seen that same convo on GlobalLFF.

Fashion Mag: Yule Extra

2011-01-15T12:27:00.000+02:00

As usual, I made my submission to the Yule Festival Fashion Contest at the last minute. Here are some of the screens I managed to grab on my short photoshoot in Forochel; one of them is the one I submitted to the contest. Lhas looks like the Swedish flag in that outfit.

Because of work and stuff the whole Yuletide pretty much flashed by for me, and I didn't even get to enjoy the whole Yule Festival at all (to be honest, I'm not really into seasonal festivals anyway, not irl nor ingame).

Also, here's a screenie from this week's Wilderness Appreciation event, which took place in Forochel and ended in one big plothook. I'm really looking forward to what Nimlith will come up with for the next installment of the event.

Mysterious Relics

2011-01-11T19:43:00.002+02:00

Today a mysterious new deed was opened — and if one doesn't want to be spoiled about the theme of future content they should stop reading now.

Basically there was a mysterious "official message" both on the US and EU servers from a bewildered hobbit, and several people doing their dailies in Enedwaith spotted a new black rock that starts a new deed. The deed is called Mysterious Relics and it requires you to find five relics scattered around Eriador.

I'm certain the newly appeared mysterious relics are representing the five gaunt-lords, "embodying death, pestilence, famine, war, and purest evil". There was a thread on the US forums some time ago, speculating their involvement in future content, but right now I can't find it - however certain quests in Enedwaith revealed the last, previously unnamed Gaunt-lord, so it's all becoming quite clear now. If anyone has a link to that thread I'd surely appreciate it, since I'd like to add the Gaunt-lords' names to this post but can't find them at the moment.

So here are my conclusions:

Thror's Coomb is most likely "purest evil", and it's probably linked both to the last Gaunt-lord (which appeared briefly in a quest instance nearby) and also the closed-off castle in the same region.

Oatbarton is "famine", and fits with the whole hobbit&food theme (and the blighted pipeweed farm here could be a nod to Saruman buying pipeweed from the Shire). Also check out this official message: A Strongly-Worded Letter from Bungo Grubb.

North Downs (William Peake's farm) is "war"; the farm where this relic appeared has been burned down. Probably also linked to the new town just around the corner.

Forochel is "death", the dialogue speaks of "mounting sense of fear".

Trollshaws (Laenan Caves) is "disease" and linked to the mysterious door, which apparently leads to an underground passage to an ancient temple where men of Rhudaur worshipped evil spirits.

Here's the tl;dr:

After completing the deed you get a nice title: Calm Before the Storm. Sadly, this deed gives no TP. But the excitement was surely worth it!

UPDATE: Many thanks to Anuhart for finding the right link; this thread from July reveals both the 'domains' of the Gaunt-lords as well as some very interesting bits from the original Volume 1 storyline. These are, as far as we know now, the five Gaunt-lords and their respective domains:

Drugoth the Death-monger, DEATH (Minion of Shadow)
Ferndur the Virulent, PESTILENCE (Minion of Plague)
Thadur the Ravager, FAMINE (Minion of Misery)
Ivar the Bloodhand, WAR (Minion of Battle)
Gortheron the Doom-caller, PUREST EVIL (his title is Minion of Plague as well, either it's a bug or he's a minion of Ferndur and we've yet to see the BBEG!)

This is what Gortheron tells the player during a quest instance in Enedwaith:

Gortheron the Doom-caller says, "How dare you disturb my work here! My brother was felled by the Free Peoples of this world, and I sought to return him to his proper place."
Gortheron the Doom-caller says, "Now he lies waiting and in rest. You seem to have undone some of my work here, but my forces shall lay waste to this place."
Gortheron the Doom-caller says, "Now I shall depart, but I will have vengeance for my fallen brethren. You shall rue to the day that you crossed paths with Gortheron the Doom-caller!"

So I guess it's fairly certain that the upcoming instance/raid cluster will be about the return of the Gaunt-lords, and I'd guess that the instances will be spread around Eriador near the places where these relics now appeared (the new town in ND, the temple in TS, the Ironspan in Forochel are all pretty good candidates for instance entrances). The locations also coincide very well with the regions we visited in Volume 3 Book 1, when we were gathering the Rangers for the Grey Company. Now that they're gone it seems all sorts of nasty things are returning.

Interesting times ahead!

ALL GLORY

2011-01-08T16:55:00.000+02:00

Tuaran, what is best in life?
— Essence of Toad

My Little Steed Grind

2011-01-06T16:03:00.001+02:00

Finally completed the massive metadeed, "World Renowned", which requires reaching Kindred level with all* the reputation factions in the game. Unf. But it wasn't that much of a grind, since I was around Ally (next highest tier) with most factions when news came around of the new metadeed, so it only took a couple days of casual grinding and some AH shopping to get all the old rep factions to Kindred. The two new ones, Grey Company and Algraig, took a bit longer though, but with the good rewards (ixp, especially) it didn't feel like I was doing dailies for nothing.

* apart from Eldgang, craft guilds and the festival factions, of course

While working on my Enedwaith rep I stumbled upon what will hopefully be some sort of raid or instance cluster in the future:

It's a huge Gondorian-style castle complex in the south-west corner of Lich Bluffs in Enedwaith. I'm itching to get in there! There's a large inner courtyard with mobs walking back and forth, but it's currently closed by a strong iron gate.

Also, if you're in the area, don't forget to check out this tourist trap:

OH SHI--

2011-01-02T02:09:00.000+02:00

Happy New Year 2011!

♥ Thank you for reading, following and supporting roll100 ♥

Quote of the... YEAR

2010-12-29T18:30:00.001+02:00

Yes, LOTRO was only ever 'Tolkien flavoured' but of late, one suspects Turbine of using cheaper ingredients and more artificial additives. They've also made the packets smaller, if you see what I mean :)

~ Radhruin

Return of the Fashion Magazine

2010-12-22T23:49:00.000+02:00

I'm sorry about the long silence — cats, work, Christmas preparations and lack of sleep have kept me from updating. I got my faulty graphics card replaced yesterday, so now I can play LotRO in dx11! Which amounts to, uhh, one new water effect and some small shadow improvements. But at least the new card doesn't have idle temperatures at 100°C...

To break the long blog block, here are some new outfit creations. You know the new minstrel I posted about a couple weeks ago? She's doomed to be my eternal dressup doll.

Managed to complete my radiance robe collection - my wardrobe now has all Moria, DN and BG robes, yay. Not sure if I want to expand into the new Classic sets...

Since the armour type restriction got removed in the latest patch, I rushed immediately to kit out my minstrel in epic heavy armour (and I know many others did the same). I love the D&D Cleric look, even if it's not exactly Middle-Earth and makes loretards rage.

Lhas in her tight pink leggings. Again an outfit I made for the lulz, because it's just fun to look at when I'm out questing.

Not a cross-class wardrobe creation per se, but managed to take a nice screenie of my RK and a LM from Custodi wearing full red BG sets. Those LM shoulders are simply gorgeous!

Purrrrrminators

2010-12-12T11:47:00.000+02:00

These cute little brothers arrived in our home last Wednesday, they're 4-5 months old kittens from a local pet rescue group. The orange one is called Taika-Jim (Mandrake the Magician) and the grey one is Mustanaamio (The Phantom). They're very shy and tend to dart off from the smallest sound or movement, but since yesterday they've become much bolder and have let us pet them and even pick them up. When we're not looking they're busy tearing the house apart, though, so seems they're just wary of people. Nothing a good bribing-with-noms shouldn't cure :3.

Also, my PC's power supply unit broke conveniently the next day after the kitties came - so I haven't been able to play much and probably won't, either, until I get a new PSU. I hope all the graphics card troubles were caused by the faulty PSU too...

I don't get this

2010-12-02T19:47:00.001+02:00

So basically CM removed all multi-month subscription options from LotRO. What it means is that people who had had some really good 3-month or 6-month sub plans, from various Founder or anniversary offers, got their subs cancelled and were forced to renew them into more expensive 1-month plans.

Meanwhile Turbine is, like, uh, EVERY OTHER MMO OUT THERE, still happily trying to sell me a cheap multi-month sub.

So please remind me, what does the EU distributor (CM) have to offer to EU players, especially new ones without established accounts and social circles, that Turbine doesn't provide better and for a lower price?

"That doesn't look very STABLE"

2010-12-01T17:53:00.000+02:00

Quote by Leo :D.

Songs of Power(gaming)

2010-11-25T17:58:00.000+02:00

Guess what was the first thing I bought from the new LotRO Store? It wasn't an outfit, it wasn't a wardrobe unlock, it wasn't even a stat tome...

I bought a new character slot so I could roll a second minstrel.

As some of you may know, my first* character was an old man playing a banjo, and that was aaaaaaages ago. Like two years at least! Anyway, will all nine classes close to the level cap, the whole F2P update experience and the interesting possibilities offered by the new wardrobe system I thought it might be fun to roll a lowbie and dress it up in endgame gear and then see how much I can twink it in order to steamroll through lowbie content.

So I did it. And now my level 20-something Minstrel is oneshotting on-level skirmish mobs. It's awsum fun!

Hey, it's just for the lulz. It's not like I'm ever going to level it past 50. Right?

* technically my first toon was a hunter on the US servers, second one a hunter here on Laurelin that I deleted soon after, and the minnie, which was my first main, was the third character I rolled. After that I rolled the LM, though, and because the first minnie lost the Undying title I rerolled him too - so the Wakey I have today is the fifth.

F-f-finally!

2010-11-24T18:41:00.001+02:00

Finally, the elusive Fall festival Skeleton Horse is m-m-m-MINE! And I'd only been checking the chest seven times every day for the past weeks.. and now with festival ending on Friday I finally got it - and for my main even! Well, the hunter isn't quite my main, but she does get the most screentime. Yay!

I'm also very happy that I switched from Photobucket, which I'd been using since, hmm, 2004 or so, to Imgur which is so much faster and easier to use.

Rattles behind the curtains

2010-11-08T21:28:00.000+02:00

Tiny Easterling Hobbit says hi!

So, LotRO finally went F2P even here in Euroland, and the past week has been pretty exciting. I haven't been able to play as much as I otherwise would have (or would have liked to), since I started at a new job last week, my aching arms are killing me if I play more than half an hour, and seems my main PC is, once again, going all drama on me ("baaaaw my innards are at least 3 years old, let's turn the monitor signal on and off and have some overheating-induced flickering artifacts in your face"). If it turns out it's really the graphics card that's dying my conscience should finally allow me to buy a new, beefy dx11 card to replace it. Yay?

I'm also thinking of getting a cat. Or, actually, two.

And I mistyped that as "car" on the first try.

WAAAAAH I WANT A KITTEEEEEH!

November Store Shopping List

2010-11-03T17:21:00.002+02:00

These are the new cloaks that are currently available in the store on Bullroarer, Turbine's test server. I'm assuming these cloaks will come with the next update which should be sometime during this month. All cloaks are available as hooded and hoodless versions.

Completionists and collectors should also rejoice; the rare cosmetics that were previously only available from GM events and the seldom-run Angmar battlegrounds will be available in the store, as well as the elusive Helm of Rohan!

As usual, click for full size! Green denotes dyeable areas.

Wood-wanderer's Cloak, Cloak of the Windsinger

Twilight Cloak, Cloak of the Silver Birch, Cloak of the Mallorn

Cloak of the Autumn Wood, Elf-lord's Cloak, Cloak of the Mountain Wolves (Middle-Earth version of those kitchy wolf t-shirts?)

Cloak of the Ibis, Cloak of the Dove

Cloak of the Fallen Leaves (last of the new ones, the rest here are the old event/battleground rewards), Cloak of Vigilance, Helm of Rohan, Cloak of the Steadfast, Campaign Backpack, Hauberk of Glory.

I want Cloak of the Windsinger. Nao!

Twiit tweet

2010-11-02T16:09:00.000+02:00

So I made a twitter account for small game-related messages and for all the stupid stuff I'm too embarrassed to post here :D.

picture unrelated

That time of year again

2010-11-01T18:32:00.000+02:00

Next Yule festival items as currently seen on Bullroarer - two cloaks, a tunic and a scarf. Green/red are dyeable.

And this post is here because we were collectively wallowing in our laziness so I thought I'd post something right now. Now the hot potato goes to Breggie and Erun to post something.

Dwarven Facelift

2010-10-27T23:43:00.000+03:00

The next update, which is due somewhere in November, was recently added to Turbine's test server Bullroarer. Since I still had that client installed I though I might as well go and have a look at it, and after hearing some praise for the revamped Dwarf Intro I decided to check it out.

The updated intro instance marks some interesting changes that I hope will be made to the entire game sooner or later. Almost all of the NPCs have been completely remodeled and they're no longer just standing around waiting for someone to click on them (actually you can't even interact with most of the NPCs in the new intro, they're just decorations). Now they've got individual faces, clothes and animations, and it was fun just running from NPC group to another just to see what they were doing.

This post is very image heavy and contains many spoilers! You have been warned!

While running headlessly in a mine my dwarf finds something sinister...

Well, dead dwarves must be an everyday thing, since he just runs off and... into a troll! Good thing Mr. Grey was there to save the day. I never found out what that shiny thing there on the ground was.

Afterwards he has to listen to the neverending sorrows of the Eldar. But hey, something looks familiar here!

Down some stairs and...

Ha! Another one!

Okay, what's with the decorations?

Mmkay, the creepy dwarves are up to something... sinister.

Oh well, off to gather some bat poo for their mysterious rites in a conveniently located dark cave.

Then we're off into town to investigate some small environmental catastrophy. The merchants and their lack of personal hygiene was my first suspect...

So was that motor oil or battery acid you had?

Gambling with runestones. Zap!

At least these fellows seemed a little more respectable than their other kinsmen.

But seems there's some shady industry going on near the rivers!

Hmmm, zombie bears.

More shady business.

M-m-m-multikill!

Whoa, more creepy caves!

Okay it's time to put a stop to this mess!

The bad side of alternative medicine.

Well, as usual the bad guys ran away and then it's time for the heroes to leg it as well.. before the creepy cave collapses on our heads! Hmm, déjà vu.

This is the corridor I showed off a couple posts back, btw. No more gently glowing crystal pillars! Me sad.

I'd help you but, well, you know how my back is now and all, and I'm in a hurry...

Well, that was it. Actually I didn't get a screenie from the end of the instance, because there wasn't much to see really. But all in all it was a very enjoyable intro and I really hope they'll revamp all the other NPCs in the game as well.

Mirkwood Hunter

2010-10-22T11:31:00.000+03:00

A couple weeks ago I commissioned a drawing of my hunter from fellow Finnish artist and LotRO player, Milawyn. And whoa does it look good!! Remember to check out her other stuff as well on her DeviantArt page.

Heart Catch☆Dwarf !

2010-10-21T12:53:00.000+03:00

Just... wow.

The Legend of Beracula

2010-10-14T16:01:00.000+03:00

Now with Halloween on the doorstep you should go read Beracula, a funny Dracula-LotRO crossover written by my friend Berandon. You should check out her other stories too on the Laurelin Archives, they're all worth reading!

I was browsing through my rss feeds and bookmarks when I realised most of the mmo blogs I read are written by women. Is that just a coincidence, or are girls/women more likely to write blogs? (or post pictures, as in the case of roll100)

Hello Beastie

2010-10-07T18:39:00.001+03:00

So we thought this whole raiding business is getting a bit boring already so we sat down with the big guy and had a talk like adult people.

As a token of good will, a peasant was offered to compensate for all the damage we had done to the tower's interior decorations.

Then we all went to play bingo together.

Look Back

2010-10-07T13:38:00.000+03:00

Here's a tip for you explorers: when running forward in a dungeon, remember to stop every now and then and look back (or up, or down, or whichever way you came from). You might be surprised by what you find.

Posers

2010-09-29T00:43:00.000+03:00

~ can't touch this ~

~ epic raid boss: hobbit warden ~

~ got my wings, now I can die happy ~~

T&A

2010-09-26T20:24:00.001+03:00

One member in our Dungeons&Dragons party had* an elven sorceress best described as "something from a Korean mmo".

* said character died right at the beginning of a boss battle; got burnt by a well-placed fireball and subsequently smashed by a big bad orc

Classic!

2010-09-22T15:08:00.001+03:00

The irony.

Also, at this point, anyone NOT wishing to hear about my misadventures in FFXIV should turn their links to http://roll100.blogspot.com/search/label/lotro or whichever label they like to read about the most.

Useful mods: Songbook

2010-09-21T16:02:00.000+03:00

While some still like to claim that LUA addons are unnecessary and will be the death of LotRO, mods such as the Songbook should prove them wrong. It's a really nifty tool that lists all your ABC music, including subdirectories, and helps synchronising songs with members of your fellowship. It's a boon compared to alt-tabbing and manually copying song names from a folder with close to 1000 files.

I can't wait to get the update live here in Euroland as well, since the Songbook and Lotropad really are addons that would enhance my personal gaming experience. Big cheers to Chiran for making these!

Rivendell Nudist Colony

2010-09-16T15:42:00.000+03:00

Faces censored to protect the ~~innocent~~.

FFXIV: Plans for the future

2010-09-13T20:39:00.001+03:00

I managed to get into the Open Beta of Final Fantasy XIV, and I also succeeded in getting the client to work after a long struggle. I was feeling a bit worried at first, since the game was far from stable on my system and the controls felt really awkward, but after a while I found a good settings combo and got a hexbox controller working and so the game experience changed completely. All in all it doesn't seem like a bad game, just very very different from the current generation of PC MMOs (and XIV isn't really a PC game at all).

The head start should start next week, on 22nd of September. I've decided to roll on the Besaid server, which was named the unofficial RP server by the FFXIV Role-Play Coalition. If anyone else is joining at launch drop me a line and join me on Besaid!

Robe of Gender Bending

2010-09-13T09:49:00.000+03:00

Meet lady Spaixwen :D!

LotRO Store shopping list!

2010-09-07T17:32:00.001+03:00

With just a few days left before the big launch of Lord of the Rings Online going "free-to-play" it's time to prepare ourselves again for new features! And in my case that obviously means clearing my bags, sorting my vaults, crafting a truckload of dyes and counting my reputation points in anticipation of the big day when the LotRO store opens. Who cares about pots and stat tomes and whatnot when there's a ton of new cosmetic items to be had?!

The lawgiver's robe, raven cloak and raven mask will definitely become "the new black" (or rather "the new ranger mask"). Not that I'd mind, this time, since they do look pretty cool, unlike the ranger mask :D.

I'm fairly certain the elf-queen's dress and swan-cloak will become the new fad in the elven rp circles. I think I'll roll a dwarf and dress him/her/it up in these.

I hope you don't mind the ugly background colour, I couldn't be bothered to run yet another beta toon through the starter instance so I just took the screenies there. Anyway, here's the rest of the new store-only cosmetic items:

Innkeeper's Dress, Elf-queen's Dress and Elegant Formal Dress

Hauberk of the Eagle's Crest, Greenwood, Mirrormere and Sellsword's Hauberk.

Rugged Adventurer's Robe, Lawgiver's Robe, Hauberk of Rhun and Cloak of the Sunset Wood

Cloaks of the Boar, Algraig, Dragonfly, Swan and Northern Lights

Inn-League Survival Pack, Cook's Pack, Sage's Pack, Sea-turtle Pack and Elk-hunter's Pack

Battle-mask of Rhun, Raven Festival Mask, Circlet of Adamant and Feathered Felt Hat

It seems the "loyalty rewards" (bonus store points for having subscribed for years) won't be given out at launch, so I'll just have to hope I can get enough points from completed reputation deeds so that I can buy at least something nice on launch day. I think I'll start by maximising my vault and wardrobe spaces and then buy some cosmetics depending how many points I have left. I think my first days after the launch will be spent creating new outfits using the wardrobe, so I'm not in a hurry...

Sunshine and rainbows!

2010-09-02T15:47:00.000+03:00

The gay elven ladies :D!

On another note, I was browsing through my Analytics results and found several new referring sites. It also reminded me that my own blogroll is still tiny, so if you, dear reader, have a similar mmo-related blog let me know and I'll add you! (both to my rss reader, if it's not there already, and to the link list)

Also, 私のブログを読んでありがとう~ Aikanaroさん

Flawless Victoly

2010-08-31T23:20:00.000+03:00

Finally our awsum kinship got the LT down in Hard Mode \o/. Actually the whole fight is so much easier in HM than EM, but the radiance gating kept us from trying HM - until now. It does feel good having beaten the last raid challenge in the whole game before the next update.. which is due in just 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, my minstrel is feeling down and getting drunk and thrown out of bars. ~~Totally not mirroring my miserable snot-filled flu day.~~

Lazy people

2010-08-27T19:41:00.000+03:00

Idle hands during a RP event.

F-f-f-fangirl squee

2010-08-27T13:36:00.001+03:00

New Final Fantasy XIV pre-release trailer:

I haven't made much noise about it yet, but I have to admit I'm really really looking forward to Final Fantasy XIV. Not only because I liked Square's previous mmo, FFXI, but also because it speaks directly to the innocent adventure-lover in me. In films, literature and games I always have a soft spot for just pure heroic adventure, and that's what FFXIV seems to be all about. Forget EPIC FEUDS between TWO FACTIONS (cue world pvp), forget LOOMING APOCALYPSE (although, knowing the FF series, it's probably somewhere in there), forget.. well, can't quite come up with a good third punchline right now, but I'll tell you if I find one. What we've seen of FFXIV seems to indicate that we're all just aspiring nobodies looking to find some GOOD HONEST ADVENTURE.

I've already preordered the collector's edition of the game. I happened to win a gift voucher to a local game store in their Facebook lottery (lulz), so I thought I might as well shell out for the bigger package since I don't really buy any other games anymore. The lucky bit is that with the CE I'll be able to join the game earlier than those who buy the regular package, although I'll have to see how the dreaded EXP fatigue will turn out and whether or not the early access will be of any other use than for reserving names.

Which reminds me, I need to pick a name for my toon. I think I'm going to roll a catgirl just for the giggles and call her Tui. Seems that in FFXIV each toon has a 2-part name so I've got a month now to figure out a good surname for her.

Oh yes, also the game's lead art designer is Akihiko Yoshida, my favourite character designer of all time. *massive fangasm*

What are your thoughts on FFXIV? Anyone I know planning on playing when it launches?

Now I get it

2010-08-26T00:41:00.000+03:00

-- why certain people hate the LT fight so passionately. As a hunter I'm actually pretty damn good in there, all things considered (honestly, it's just one massive ego trip for hunters), but now that I've seen it as LM I can only say.. can we please forget that place even exists and never ever go there again? Please? And maybe nuke it from orbit too?

Delving Deeper

2010-08-22T15:35:00.000+03:00

One part I hadn't yet explored in LotRO was the Delving of Frór, the labyrinthine dungeon inside Ettenmoors that houses several raid-worthy bosses as well as the chance to run into hostile players while farming for valuable spirit-stones.

Started with the Rogmul fight, which took a few tries to get him down. It got especially exciting since we were expecting creeps to sneak up and gank us anytime.

Tree boss. We ran into creep players here, they were waiting for us on the other side of the boss and his adds, so we had a burglar HIPS-pull the boss while the whole group rushed over to spank the poor creeps.

Finished with the drake boss. Nom nom, delicious tank!

Guild Wars, my old love!

2010-08-17T10:52:00.000+03:00

I was browsing through some image files on my old hard drive and stumbled upon my old Guild Wars screendump! I used to be a such a community ~~who--~~spammer in GW that my screenshot folders must have held several gigabytes worth of pictures, especially since I took part in several screenshot contests and used to make character portraits for ingame profit. I found these old shots I had taken for a funny community-run contest called "Tyria's Next Top Model", which had these weekly fashion-related assignments and really pushed people to take some extraordinary screens in the game.

Damn that game still looks gorgeous. Out of curiosity I went and logged in, but alas, my oldest (existing) character still needs 2 more months until her fifth birthday and, hopefully, some really cool birthday present!

Good night!

2010-08-15T23:45:00.000+03:00

With all the stuff going on irl (just finished moving, yay!) I've only been able to log in for short amounts of time. However on one of my trips* between the AH and crafting hall in Lórien I stumbled upon a very nice sight - there's a short moment between the "pale golden afternoon light" and "obscenely turquoise night light" when Lórien looks really pretty and almost how I imagined it in my mind when I first read fellowship of the Ring.

* to craft and then post on AH some insanely overpriced hunter consumables

I think I could still sleep for a week more. Good night!

Duuuuuh

2010-08-12T18:49:00.010+03:00

palefolk are awesome!!!

Also, Kras has a huge ass.

2010-08-12T14:31:00.001+03:00

"This whole issue seems very confusing to me. Why cant they just make everything free for everybody? It's not as if all this virtual stuff is real anyway."

That quote almost deserves a blink tag.

(source)

Not just pretty ladies in dresses

2010-08-12T08:49:00.000+03:00

~~Just so you know I don't have any elf princess/pretty dress fetishes.~~ I managed to grab a couple screenies of friends' burly warriors in action.

That mohawk looks like it could be used as a close-range weapon, too. Headbutt!

Classic Armours: Helegrod, Part 3 of 3

2010-08-11T17:47:00.000+03:00

Aaaaand here's the last part of the Helegrod armour feature. I've also added all my previous armour posts on a separate armour page so they're easier to find.

Dragon-scale set

Champion set, which has a really cool-looking breastplate and looks gorgeous in all-red. All these heavy armours look rather silly on my skinny elf chick though..

War-captain's set

Captain set, which has such a tall helmet that it didn't fit entirely in my dressing room window. As with most heavy armours, this one looks much more impressive on Men.

High Protector's set

Guardian set, which has a distinct dwarven look and looks better on dwarves, of course.

Next up is Ettenmoors armour, after that it'll be a trickier task to get screenshots of each endgame set, since most barterers in Moria, Lórien and Mirkwood are class-specific so I can't just waltz around with my main and check out each set in one go. Luckily I've now got all classes at 60+ so I can actually go and try on every set, it'll just take much longer and the screens won't look as uniform because of race/gender/location differences.

Classic Armours: Helegrod, Part 2 of 3

2010-08-09T11:21:00.000+03:00

Sorry for the delayed updates! I've been swamped by illustration work and stuff. I'm moving in with my bf soon so it's going to be a load of work packing all my stuff, cleaning his place and mine and trying not to lose our sanity in the process. Anyway, to continue the classic Helegrod thread, here are the medium armours:

Armour of the Aurochs

Hunter set, which has the best set bonus in hunter history and will probably become popular again after the instance update.

Shadow-stalker set

Burglar set, lovely shirt and miniskirt! I'm SO going to share this set across all my toons using the Wardrobe.

Spear-shaker's set

Warden set, which is a lot more muted than the other garish Helegrod sets, but very stylish nonetheless. I think I want it...

The Night Raid

2010-07-28T00:51:00.000+03:00

The Night Raid was a brilliant RP event held tonight, where several groups if Free Peoples stormed a large camp of evil Dunlanders. This time, however, they weren't just NPCs, and they fought back hard.

Sander Woodhead, my evil Dunlander for the night, watched the western bridge for signs of trouble.

Out of the rainy mists a group of heroes stormed through and pushed into the camp.

They cut down everyone in the camp, and outnumbered, the evil leaders were forced up the hill.

A small but desperate skirmish was fought on a platform overlooking the hilltop.

Beaten, the Dunlanders are mercilessly questioned.

The minions tell nothing.

The leader and her cronies are escorted out of the fortress.

When reaching the bridge, the leader makes a desperate jump into the river.

However, she and her minion are caught and escorted back to the main force.

Night sets.

They make a stop at an elven ruin, and start nursing wounds and questioning the prisoners.

The leader is gravely injured, and it's not certain she'll live to tell anything.

One of her remaining minions is also badly wounded, and collapses quietly. The elves strip him of his armour, revealing many old wounds and scars.

The elves are eager to get answers, but it will take time to get anything out of the prisoners.. and time is running short.

*cheers at everyone who took part*

Classic Armours: Helegrod, Part 1 of 3

2010-07-27T10:52:00.000+03:00

Helegrod!
Helegrod!
Helegrod!
~~...it's only a model.~~

Here are the old, OLD raid sets from Helegrod, the original and only 24-man raid in LotRO. Although the raid is, in its current form, horrendously outdated, it's still run by many people for deeds and, occasionally, even fun. In the next update the huge instance will be split into separate wings, it can be scaled up to lv65 and there will be new challenges (hardmodes) in each boss encounter. We'll have to wait and see what they'll do with the current armour rewards.

Anyway, here are the Helegrod light armours. Note that these are all from the era of Silly Hat Designs. I have a feeling the artist team was still looking for a consistent style, because some of these designs just look old and, compared to the later Rift set, rather ugly.

Silver-voice set

Minstrel set. Confusingly the new minnie set from BG is also called Armour of the Silver Voice.

Beast-master set

Lore-master set. The robe design is really unique, but sadly it doesn't dye that well. Also, revenge of the Tea Cosy Hat!

Learned set

Runekeeper set, which stands apart from the other armours since it was created over a year later than the first sets and doesn't actually look all that bad (the discontinued Ettenmoors version was especially cool-looking!).

Classic Armours: Rift, part 3 of 3

2010-07-25T20:08:00.000+03:00

And lastly, here are the heavy armour sets from the Rift. I've used RED dye to show each dyeable area. Here it's pretty obvious that they re-used most of the armour models, but managed to create enough difference with shoulder and helmet designs. I really wish they'd continue making more of these extravagant shoulderpads (without going all WoW, haha).

Gloom-bane set

Champion set, which is probably one of the coolest-looking armours in the entire game. Red is also the original dye on the armour, and I didn't have the heart to swap to any other colour because it just doesn't look the same.

North Star set

Captain set, which, like the burglar set, looks rather odd on an elf (it's not possible to roll elf captains nor burglars, so this look isn't possible to achieve ingame... yet). It's still one of the best-looking armours for captains, and looks especially gorgeous in all-white.

Rift Defender's set

Guardian set, which looks quite a lot like the champ set when dyed red (it's blue originally). The shoulders look HUUUGE on other races, especially on those stocky dwarves.

Allright, so that was all the classic armour sets from the Rift. Next up will be classic Helegrod, and after that... you tell me! What would you like me to showcase next, in glorious high-quality screenshots?

Classic Armours: Rift, part 2 of 3

2010-07-24T12:47:00.000+03:00

Here are the medium sets from the Rift, again with RED as the dyeable colour. Note that some of the helmets are 'bugged' so that they look pitch black in the dressing room (front and back view), can't really help that - they do look better ingame.

Doom-hunter's set

Hunter set, that helmet is my favourite in the whole game (although the BG headgear is a close second).

Thrill-seeker's set

Burglar set, which looks rather odd on an elf :D. That hood is also very popular, especially now that it's available as a cosmetic version from any skirmish vendor. It's actually rather difficult to find any other pieces of armour/clothing that go well with it, and on most non-burglars it just looks out of place.

Town-saver's set

Warden set, I really really like the chestpiece here, it looks very feminine :D. I wish they'd make a proper 'skirt' model instead of that old one they've used here.

Classic Armours: Rift, part 1 of 3

2010-07-23T10:20:00.002+03:00

Here are the three light armour sets obtained from the Rift, which used to be "the" endgame for years and is still considered by most to be the best raid in Lord of the Rings Online. Luckily the next updates should see the Rift, as well as other "classic" instances, become scalable up to the current max level. Since we don't know yet how they'll change the loot and other rewards in the scalable instances, it might be a good idea to go grab parts of these armour sets now that they're still fairly easy to get, as both Rift and Helegrod can be easily run with a fellowship (6 people) or even less. Grab some friends (preferably champions :D) and have fun!

Wandering Bard's set

Minstrel set, RED areas are dyeable.

Elder Days set

Lore-master set, again RED areas are dyeable.

NB! There's a strange 'feature' in most Rift headgears; for some reason they appear black when viewed straight from the front or the back. For a better look, check out the cosmetic versions from any skirmish vendor.

Graven Word set

Rune-keeper set, used GREEN here for dyeable areas since the original colour of the robe and accessories is a reddish brown.

For stats and more information on each armour set, see Darzil's Armour Guide.

Fan Service: Annúminas Armour

2010-07-22T18:48:00.004+03:00

I'm grabbing some of roll100's keywords and trying to answer them as well as I can, hence the title "fan service". One of the most used keywords people have used to find this blog is "annuminas armour", which is kind of odd since I haven't really talked about it, except perhaps than mention that it's rather pretty, so I thought I might as well post some juicy screenshots of it for your viewing pleasure.

Why the sudden interest in such an old instance? Well, once LotRO goes free-to-play, all these old instances will be scalable, so they should see some more traffic in the future. The devs have also stated that these old sets can be acquired as cosmetic items, so their looks will definitely be popular again - there's also the new Wardrobe function, which should offer all kinds of interesting possibilities if it'll allow sharing cosmetic looks between characters on the same account...

There are three different sets total, one for light, one for medium and one for heavy armour users. Each set has seven pieces and a 6-piece set bonus, and they can be acquired by bartering Battered Annúminas Armours and Armour Fragments which can be looted from most mobs around Annúminas. Some pieces, notably the chest, leggings, shoulders and headgear (shield for the heavy set) need a specific trophy that can only be found inside one of the three instances inside the sunken city.

Seven Stars set

This is the light armour, called the Seven Stars set. I'm using WHITE dye here to show each dyeable area - click on the image for a high-res version. The headgear has the same skin as a Dwarf-Make circlet.
PROTIP: the shoulderpads go really well with almost every other armour.

Nenuial set

Medium armour, called the Nenuial set. Again, the WHITE areas are dyeable, but the bright green is pretty dominant whatever you do.
PROTIP: the boots are awesome.

West-tower set

Heavy armour, called the West-tower set. This set doesn't have a headgear, instead it's got a heavy shield.
PROTIP: the cloak, Cloak of The West-tower, dyes really well and looks good on any character. You don't need to be a heavy armour user to wear the cloak.

I went and took similar high-res screenies of all the other "classic" armour sets as well, expect to see them in future updates!

(btw I always feel dirty when I'm accessing Google Analytics by typing "anal" into my address bar... now let's see how that sentence will affect this blog's keywords :D!)

Wilderness Appreciation

2010-07-16T01:06:00.001+03:00

Read more about this exciting event here!

Demotivational LotRO posters

2010-07-12T14:34:00.000+03:00

O LÅL LOOK IT'S A MEME HAHA OH WOW SO FUNNAY

Maddy contributes:

More:

EU Thread
US Thread

Cold Halls of Stone

2010-07-11T23:32:00.002+03:00

Just cruisin'.

Close your eyes, it's..

2010-06-30T00:28:00.002+03:00

Purple prose time!

From Bad Roleplayers Suck:
The frosty breeze cooed hither from the coast, the seasonal leaflets whirling downward like papery snow settled, the crepuscular beams split down through the web of branches as a silvery blade and splashed alike holy water upon the sward, and Anel passed by, the phantom of the woods unseen and unheard. Of quiescence, Anel’s presence was utterly unknowable but the utterings of the breeze thereabout was ubiquitous. Sibilating, the susurrus from his shifting lips echoed amidst the oaks and conifers. Anel’s tune desisted; he sat.

(click on the link to read the whole thing - at your own risk, though!)

Whenever some elements in the Laurelin RP comm make me facepalm so hard I can't find my nose anymore, I'm still happy this level of thesaurus-molesting purple prose hasn't found a foothold there - yet.

First look at the Summer Festival

2010-06-29T20:17:00.002+03:00

The Summer Festival started today, and me and a friend were already camping the pub in Thorin's Hall, counting down minutes and eagerly looking forward to the new festival items. Here are some of the things I managed to grind today:

The new dress is fabulous and dyes really well!

Wicker chair and summer tunic.

Summer ~~horse~~pony, looks like a toy :D.

I noticed that all the new cosmetics are Bind on Acquire (can't be traded to others), meaning I would have to grind individually all those costumes I want for each of my nine characters. However, the recent free-to-play announcement also heralded a new Wardrobe system that will be used to store cosmetic items, and cosmetic items only. I made a thread on the EU forums about it, asking if the Wardrobe will allow Bound items to be shared across the account - if it does, I could just grind each costume once and then wait for the update and share them to my other toons. Anyone have any info on this?

Brb, making stupid face

2010-06-23T10:08:00.004+03:00

Damn, playing a warden is addictive. It's a constant thought of "one more level and I'll get a really cool gambit", and after I get one I start aiming for the next one, cuz gotta catch em all!

I'm sort of amazed I'm still having fun doing lower-level content for the tenth time - it's fun in a mind-numbing way, although the prospect of having to start Legendary Items and Moria soon is already dampening my spirits. I actually wouldn't mind a switch that made me stop leveling after 50, so I could just say forever in Vanilla LotRO.

Remind me why I even bother

2010-06-12T17:30:00.007+03:00

So I thought "why not?" and bid on a 2nd age symbol, won it, made a sword for my hunter. In before "3rd agers are just as good" - I wanted to get rid of my ugly 3rd age club so I could fix the relics, and hunters actually have some pretty good legacies on melee weapons nowadays, plus on a 2nd ager I could even max out all of them. I got 2 starting legacies, and on reforges I only got some crappy melee legacies nobody in their right mind would use - at least not before all the more important ones are maxed. So please remind me again why the Legendary Item system is so legendary and useful and rewarding?

I find it completely inexcusable that a 2nd ager, which are so damn hard to get in the first place, can get less than four (not to mention just two!) starting legacies - I would have been happy with just 3 pool A legacies and replaced the rest with stat scrolls, but obviously I can't have nice things EVER (I'd show the ~~awesome~~ridiculously bad LM staff I made a couple months ago but I just closed the game and don't feel like logging back in again).

*grumble*

I'm guessing the only people who like the LI system are those luckwhores who get nice things on the first try - I know for certain this was my last attempt in a long, long, long time.

>> QQing over virtual items

Legit Lens Flare

2010-06-10T20:53:00.000+03:00

Red boots \o/.

/random

FFXIV Character creator sneak peek

2010-06-10T10:16:00.004+03:00

Maybe I'm still a terrible weeaboo, but the 'art style' in FFXIV appeals to me a lot more than those in other MMOs. You know how some MMOs go for the realistic look, and others for a cartoony one because simpler styles require less resources and they're said to last better. I must say the cartoony look we've so far seen of SWTOR is a big, BIG turnoff for me, I don't find it pleasing or appealing at all - but there's something in the looks and animations of FFXIV characters that makes me like them on first sight.

(also, lulz at the people in the video :D - it's a pretty smart way to do a bilingual video though)

EDIT. Haha, the video has apparently been removed by Squeenix. I'll re-link if it comes online again.

OMG HORDES OF WOW KIDDIES

2010-06-07T20:48:00.002+03:00

-- IN MY GAME NOOOOOO.

^ that seems to be currently the hot potato in the LotRO community, and even more so in the RP threads. As we learned last week, The Lord of the Rings Online is going free to play later this year. This "f2p" is very far from the more common, free Asian mmos, since it's pretty much just an unlimited trial with severe limitations (such as only one character per server, money capped at 2G, less storage space), which can be removed with microtransactions in the ingame store. What most of the early ragers on the forums missed was that subscribers and Lifetimers would see no change in their game, in fact they are getting free points each month to spend in the store. Personally, as a Lifer, I'm pretty happy with what we've seen of the new model so far. There's even going to be additional character slots in the store, so I could roll at least two more toons! Because 9 is so not enough.

Back to the topic - of course, the new f2p will mean that EVERY SCREAMING KID ON THE INTERNET IS COMING TO ROOOOOOIN MAI AR PEE SERVERS. Some of the folks on the forums are wondering if their precious Laurelin should be turned into a VIP-only (VIP meaning subscriber/Lifer), with a multi-part questionnaire posed to each new player thinking of rolling a new scrub there. I have a feeling that in reality that would not stop those who plan to join Laurelin just to grief role-players, but it would most likely deter those who are still undecided about RP or who like RP servers for the community. I hate it when role-players get all territorial.

(it's a funny thing how each f2p discussion brings up "wow kiddies" - aren't they already busy playing their p2p game? kiddies logging in while wow is in maintenance, you say? well, that's maybe an hour or two away from my life, and in that time I can easily avoid them, if I ever even happened to run into any!)

What personally makes me RRRAAAAAAAAGE is that there will be NO CONTENT UPDATES until the game goes f2p, meaning there will be a ~10month gap between any meaningful new stuff. Meaning it's going to be a very, very quiet summer in Lotroland, unlike last year, when we got a nice new set of instances to entertain us until SoM. I'm assuming there will be a summer festival in a month or so, but that's not comparable to proper new level-cap instances (no, I won't forgive Turbine, not even when there's a wicker chair and a hammock among the new summer festival prizes). I had been sort of hoping there would be a new update soon-ish, which would give me some incentive to play again (I don't count role-playing as playing the game - it's 3D chatting :D), but it seems like we'll have to wait until autumn now. Tsk tsk.

What I fear the most now is that the quiet period will make me lose touch with many new acquaintances I've made, both ingame, on the forums and even real life - I'll just have to come up with something to combine all three.

Shades Concert

2010-06-07T00:20:00.003+03:00

There was a massive, 3-hour concert on Laurelin tonight, performed by the Shades band of the kinship The Shadows. While the lag was awful (close to 200 players present, I bet), the music was sublime and the company the best kind. The concert was held in the glade outside Celondim, and the theme was very elvish - between songs the storyteller would recite old elven legends and history.

Trüü RP art

2010-06-04T14:54:00.004+03:00

chadmango made me do it.

(if the flash doesn't show, here's an image of it, sans the awesome glitter)

Under the stars and moon

2010-06-04T00:58:00.002+03:00

Before I noticed, I had turned into a full-time roleplayer. There have been some brilliant events this week, and next Sunday there's also going to be a big concert. Ooooooo.

Let's just hope I won't start writing purple prose character stories and adding lens flares and glitter effects to my screenies.

More knots

2010-06-02T19:07:00.002+03:00

Funny how the time flies when you do something mindless... like drawing or gaming.

Also, wallpaper size. Brushes from redwhirlpool.

Knots

2010-06-02T01:41:00.002+03:00

Gahh should have gone to bed hours ago.

Break time

2010-05-25T18:07:00.004+03:00

So I quit LotRO last week.. I think. It's come to a point where I log in just to fight the urge of deleting each toon, which I just can't do since a few are my precious RP playthings and every other is a valuable Supreme Master&Kindred crafter. I had the same feeling in 2008 when I quit GW (which I also had played passionately for many years) - there's just nothing in the game to do, and the things I'm still missing are either easy to grind in a couple days (which I could do any day, meaning I'll never do it), or locked behind such a massive endless luck-based grindfest* that I'm not even going to consider going through it.

* like, grinding SG half a dozen times each day for a chance at a Symbol, yay!

Maybe I'm just spread too thin - I have 8 characters at lv60+ (and I've done the lv35 horse quest maybe 10 times), because I like playing all possible roles. I guess my problem is that I just don't prefer one specific class over the others (and it's not that I "like" them all, it's gone to a point where I'm disliking one just a little less than the others), and the current game mechanics are very much trying to force you to focus on one. It's the whole awful and unrewarding LI system combined with Radiance gating that means that if I ever want to do anything interesting with my new characters I'd have to grind a massive amount just so they'd be able to join the ride. I'm sick of the Legendary Items and how the entire endgame** just revolves around them - I don't want to spend all my game time working towards a lottery that only gives me disappointment nine times out of ten.

** there is no endgame, there is only SG

I like leveling alts, but my character slots are full already, and advancing new toons would just eventually lead them to hit the same brick wall I'm stuck at with all my other characters. Like my bf said it: "why should I level up my alts, so that they too can run SG?". I'd kind of like to just delete all my scrubs and maybe save one or two so I could focus on them better, but it still wouldn't fix the fundamental sources of frustration in the game - the reduced quality of content (and complete lack of it) is so obvious and it doesn't show any signs of getting better. The devs just seem to apply band-aid upon band-aid instead of actually.. oh, I dunno, amputating the whole current endgame mechanics? :D

Hm, maybe I'll go play Aion again, it's so bad it should make LotRO seem like a shining gem. It's just weird that I'm so used to wasting hours in LotRO each day that I can't really come up with other things to do with my spare time.

Lilies

2010-05-21T00:50:00.003+03:00

I got stuck raiding and missed a wonderful rp event ;__;. But at least I got some cute screens while wandering around the Old Forest - all alone and very much lost.

On another note, I finally, FINALLY got my thesis done and presented, so now I should have more time for hobbies again. I'm kind of tempted to try or resub some other mmo right now. I've actually still got an unused STO retail key, but on the other hand AoC (which just got a new expansion, I believe) and Aion are also kind of tempting..

And on a completely other note, I also realised Roll100 is one year and three months old now. Yay!

LotRO Speedrun

2010-05-11T15:44:00.001+03:00

Shameless plug:

My boyfriend rode from one end of the LotRO game world to the other, FRAPS'd it and sped it up ten times :D. It took him around 1 hour 40 minutes in total. Not bad!

Infinite Loop

2010-05-10T21:48:00.002+03:00

Oh hahahaha, I ripped the good old Gold Saucer theme from FFVII and put my hobbit to play it on loop in the middle of Michel Delving. Gods, I love this tune.

Fashion highfive

2010-05-09T19:26:00.003+03:00

I found a pleasant surprise when I was randomly browsing the US LotRO forums and clicked on the last page of a thread called "Show us your favorite cosmetic outfit", and just four posts down I spotted my own costume screenie! I had originally posted it the EU forum's Elven outfit thread a month ago. It's a pity I can't comment on the US forums (us eurofags aren't allowed to post there), but here's a highfive to our fellow costume enthusiasts across the pond o/.

Deeds for deeds for deeds

2010-05-04T13:18:00.004+03:00

In the wake of my Ring-forges farming, I happened to join a pug raid for old Helegrod. While the raid itself is long and tedious (too much trash) I thought I'd seize the chance to get a Thorog kill for my hunter, since I've only ever been to Hele on my LM and minnie, and because the kill also counts towards the Eriador meta-deed which I'm still working on.

I ran into Silirien of From Dusk 'till Dawn, and got a couple nice shots of us giving Thorog some tender punishment.

I must say that was probably the last time I'm ever going to Helegrod though, it's still a bit too tedious to be fun. The immense scale of the instance (and bosses inside it!) is still awe-inspiring, and I wish Turbine will make something similar in the future. We need more enormous, ungated and non-linear raids!

The Ring-forges of Eregion

2010-05-04T10:16:00.003+03:00

I have been slowly and steadily working on the new meta-deeds, and yesterday I was bored enough to go and finish another book in Volume 1. The deeds inside the last instance of Book 14 are counted towards the Eriador meta-deed, but my hunter (who is not my main btw) had never finished Vol1, so I had to do a bit of running before getting to the legendary Ring-forges.

In one of the corners there is a large fresco of the Lord of Gifts. It gives you massive DREAD.

The Champion of Angmar, Amarthiel, as lovely as ever <3. Now I just need to do it two or three times more to get all the deeds finished.

Victolyy

2010-05-02T23:51:00.003+03:00

The Lieutenant of Dol Guldur is no more. The chicken used HIPS, but left us a nice chest of treshur instead.

I bid high and got myself a nice pair of new pants. Finally I get the 5-set bonus! And the set is pretty too!

Here's the 5-set bonus, if anyone's interested.

2010-04-16T21:12:00.002+03:00

My boyfriend's reaction to this new Dev Diary:

I'm the GIBBERLING HORDE!

2010-04-10T20:23:00.004+03:00

Me and my bf are trying Allods Online. It's a funny, free-to-play MMO, and I'm completely and unquestioningly in love with the Gibberling race. They're small, furry, and they come in threes. Fear the GIBBERLING HOOOOOORDE.