Eteocles

Forgotten LOTRO Lore: Silver Deep Guard House

If you have spent any amount time around Thorin’s Gate in Erin Luid, especially down by the Stable Master, you have no doubt noticed a nearby doorway. If, like me, you enjoy exploring the world of Tolkien, you have wandered over to the door, your mind already busily imagining what sort of mysteries could lie behind it. Could it be a vault full of forgotten dwarven treasures? Another underground tavern? Or even the hall where all the female dwarfs have been hiding all these years?

Instead, upon trying to open the door you receive an error message informing you that the door is locked. No quest, level or reputation requirements can help you. The door is locked, and nothing you can do will help you pass through it.

If this has happened to you, then you too have stumbled upon the mystery of the Silver Deep Guard House.

Located at 15.1S, 103.6W in Thorin’s Gate(1), the locked door is thankfully not a developer error, and sadly, not a secret SoonTM to be added expanded Dwarf area. Rather, it is a leftover from an early version of the Dwarf starting quests.

Prior to the November 2010 revamp of the Dwarf starter area, the Guard House was part of the ‘Guards of the Silver Deep’ quest in the Epic Intro. A ill dwarf could be found in the Guard House, who was cured by recovering mushrooms from the Rockbelly Pit, a part of Thorin’s Gate which remains part of the Epic Intro.(2)(3)(4) The Guard House contains two rooms, both with fireplaces and assorted furniture, connected by hallways in the distinct Dwarven housing style. After finishing the Dwarf/Elf intro and being teleported to the main word, there is no way to regain access to the Guard House.

Since the Guard House was closed, players have requested that it be opened up again, as a possible new area for Dwarf-based role-players to use.(5)

Do you remember exploring the Guard House when it was part of the Epic? Do you have any suggestions for what Turbine could do with it if they opened it back up again?

Rohirrim Rambler: The East Wall

Welcome to the Rohirrim Rambler, where I’ll be taking you on a guided tour of the East and West Rohan. Inspired by the LOTRO Epic a Day column on CSTM(1), this series will provide an overview of the region and its major quest hubs, giving you a clear guide to follow through the area without ruining the story with spoilers.

Our first stop is the East Wall, an area designed to be your first taste of East Rohan and featuring level 76-77 content. You’ll arrive here following the Epic Quest (Volume III, Book VII), being ported here straight from the Great River. If you already have your War-steed, you can use it to help you compete quests in this area, but if not don’t worry, the quests are designed to be completed on foot.

Note that you can also enter East Rohan through The Wold, which is connected via bridge to the south of the Great River. Choosing to go this way will allow you to acquire your War-steed early, though will disrupt the story of the Epic. Given that your War-steed is of limited use in the East Wall, I suggest holding off getting it just yet. It’s easy to get distracted learning the mechanics of Mounted Combat and miss out on the great moments the East Wall has to offer.

Another thing to be aware of in East and West Rohan is the style of questing. Rather than being able to jump between hubs and skip quests you aren’t interesting in, in Rohan you have to do each quest in turn in order to unlock the next. It allows Turbine to develop a strong story line at the expense of player flexibility.

The Argonath
The first quest hub of the East Wall takes place at one of the East Rohan’s most iconic locations – the Argonath. You arrive at the foot of these majestic monoliths following the Epic Quest line, though don’t spend much time here at all. There are only a couple of Epic Quests to complete, and before you know it, you’re vectored to the next quest hub. You won’t rejoin the Epic until the final quest hub of the area. In same ways this hub is a bit of a missed opportunity, as the Argonath would have made a great backdrop some questing. For most players though, finally seeing these monuments realised in game will suffice.

Mansig’s Encampment
Upon arriving at this small Rohirrim camp you are given a couple of quest lines relating to dealing with the surrounding Orc and Uruk forces. Quests are the usual ‘kill X number of Orcs’, ‘collect X number of Uruk bows’, and while they can be completed using your War-steed, the terrain is filled with rivers, rocks and trees which can make Mounted Combat a challenge. Note that there is no mailbox, crafting facilities, or legendary vendors here, so make sure you have a travel port to somewhere better equipped for these services.

Dead Orc Glade
The Dead Orc Glade, and the events that unfold here, provide one of the areas best fan moments from Fellowship of the Ring. While you return here during the Epic, the initial quests have you helping an injuried Orc in return for information. While that sounds fine enough, I couldn’t get past the fact that he rewards you with Rohirrim items. This would have been the perfect opportunity to give players some unique and creepy Orc items to assist in their travels. Make sure to grab one of the arrows stuck out of the surrounding trees to start another important quest line.

The Under-wall
While you are officially vectored to this hub from Mansig’s Encampment, more than likely you’ll stumble across the entrance to the cave while en route to the Dead Orc Glade. The visuals of the cave are outstanding, and it’s good to see Turbine creating a cave that actually looks like it was dug out of the ground, rather than a dimly lit hallway. The Under-wall features a handful of quests where you deal with two distinct threats to the expedition which is attempting to map out the tunnels. The absence of auto-bestow questing is a curious feature here. As I’ve discussed previously(2), recent content has moved away from the old quest model, that of going into an enemy camp two or three times for a single objective each time, to a quest structure where you’re given all the quests for the camp before entering or are given them when entering the camp. Unfortunately, you’ll find yourself running back and forth down here quite a bit between the quest givers and the objectives. Streamlining this questing would be a real benefit to an otherwise visually rewarding part of this East Rohan.

Parth Galen
Here you will finally link back up with the Epic Quest, and meet the East Wall’s most entertaining inhabitants: a group of explorers from Gondor known as the Bumbling Fellowship. While the quests are what you’d expect, the dialogue and stories between the members of the fellowship provides some much needed light hearted content. Be prepared, as part of the Epic you’ll experience some most iconic moments, including some very well thought out and executed session plays. Be sure to fully check out the descriptions of each session play characters skill for some great fandom moments.

I quite enjoyed my time in The East Wall. Unlike later parts of East Rohan, the quests go by quickely and aren’t overly numerous, which doesn’t result in the feeling of ‘overstaying your welcome’ that you get in other parts of Rohan. My one annoyance is the ‘Quest of The East Wall’ deed, which doesn’t give you an exact figure of how many quests you need to do, and forcing you to complete all quests in order to complete it. Be careful to not skip a hub of you could find yourself doing a lot of backtracking.

See also
1. Rohirrim Rambler: The Wold

Forgotten LOTRO Lore: The Fashion Maven

Welcome to Forgotten LOTRO Lore, where each fortnight I’ll be taking a look at an aspect of LOTRO which new players might not be aware of, and which old players may have forgotten about. This week we look at the Fashion Maven event, where Turbine would reward the best (and worst) dressed players throughout Middle-earth.

The Fashion Maven event looks to have first appeared in February 2009, and was active in November 2011 and most recently in February 2012.(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)

Players would dress in their chosen outfit and hang out in major hubs throughout Middle-earth, hoping to catch the eye of a GM controlled character. Those lucky enough to be selected would receive a scroll in the mail which could be turned in to an Outfitter for one of three titles – Fashionable, Unfashionable, or Eye-Sore – based on their appearance. A number of Hauberks were also rewarded, along with a ‘Hat of Shame’ if you were deemed an Eye-Sore.(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)

While the event sounds simple enough, there are conflicting reports about how to earn the rewards. The GM controlled character was spotted hanging out in Bree, Rivendell, Moria and Galtrev, with some players finding that they were more likely to be rewarded after waving or interacting with them. Other players believed the event was more sinister, with invisible GM characters ‘silently judging’ those around them. Either way, a lot of people complained that they did not personally see the GM and accursed Turbine of favouring certain servers and timezones.(13)(14)

Since their last visit, the Fashion Maven has gone into hiding. It’s not hard to see why: while the event was organised with the intent of uniting the LOTRO community and bringing new life to Middle-earth, the negative player backlash was impossible to ignore. It’s sad to see the number of prominent LOTRO fashion blogs who scorned the event publicly, believing themselves to be obvious winners of the event, and deeming it a failure when they weren’t given rewards. Future incarnations of the event will need to take onboard this undue negative reaction and devise ways to best manage it.

While the event has not been active since early 2012, Sapience – the former Community Manager – stated recently that he was trying to find a way to bring the titles back, possibly as a reward for a screenshot competition.(15)

What are your memories of the Fashion Maven? Were you lucky enough to earn a reward? And do you have any suggestions for how Turbine could improve the event?

Guide to the Revamped Misty Mountains (Part II)

Having last week looked at the first half of the Misty Mountain revamp in Update 13, I will now look to the three remaining quest hubs, some of which have received a much needed facelift with the latest LOTRO game technology.

Hrimbarg
The fourth quest hub in this region is a mixed bag update-wise. There is still only six quests across two quest chains in the area, but you can complete them all in one trip through the area. One of the quests is an auto-bestow on entering a cave, and the other is an auto-bestow for killing a snow lizard. Its good to see Turbine implementing this new technologies in this hub, yet a shame to see them not featured at the previous hub. The Garuadan camp in the south is still quite densely populated, and light armour classes should be carefully not to be overwhelmed. This area would have been ideal for some new quests, but sadly they didn’t make the mix.

Goblin Town
Prior to Update 13 Goblin Town was a level 50 grouping area, one of the ‘end game’ areas prior to Mines of Moria. Since that time however, the area has fallen into disuse due to its high mob density, uninspiring rewards and the difficulty of finding a group. Thankfully, the mobs has been thinned out considerably and the area is now solo friendly, meaning you can now take more than two steps without being jumped by a goblin pack.

While purist will complain that this area has been changed, players presently blast through this level range on solo content elsewhere and had no reason to come here. Thanks to the revamp, new life has been brought to this area, and on my server of Evernight there is always half a dozen folks running around to help if you get lost. A new quest hub has been established just outside the dungeon which significantly improves quest flow. Goblin Town does still contain small fellowship group content, but it has been limited to the Goblin Town Throne Room instance.

Having said that, there is still room for some work to be done on the area. The quest flow within Goblin Town hasn’t been changed, and while the mobs are easier to deal with you will still find yourself running back and forth between quests more than should be necessary. Converting the quests to auto-bestow would have gone a long way. There also isn’t a nearby resurrection circle, which makes for a painfully long hike back if you happen to get overrun in the deeper parts of the dungeon. Non-heavy classes should proceed with caution as its very easy to get overwhelmed if you pull one too many mobs in the deeper tunnels.

Helegrod
No changes with the revamp aside from some of Gloin’s preparation quest being moved to the new Goblin Town hub.

As with all regions following Update 13, the Misty Mountains has new meta-deeds which reward loot boxes and marks for completing all the deeds in the region(1). Misty Mountains content now finishes at level 45, setting you up perfectly to move south into Eregion. Alternatively, eastern Angmar or even Forochel, if you want more snow, could be where you turn to next.

Overall, I would call the update a success. It had been some time since I’d run a character through this part of Middle-earth and it felt refreshing and fun, two words that I haven’t heard being used to describe the Misty Mountains in some time. While there is always room for improve, Turbine has succeeded in bringing some much needed life back to this important yet often overlooked region of the game.

(1) http://mmoreporter.com/2014/04/11/lotro-reporter-episode-228-they-are-giving-us-trees/

Guide to the Revamped Misty Mountains (Part I)

When LOTRO launched in 2007, endgame was represented by two regions covering levels 40-50 which contained high level landscape mobs and challenging group quests – Angmar and the Misty Mountains. While Angmar has remained largely untouched in recent years, as of Update 13 the Misty Mountains have undergone a much needed revamp.

Prior to the update, the Misty Mountains were much like Forochel – a snowy wasteland rarely visited by adventurers. Quests were poorly spread out and there was a distinct lack of travel routes, which saw adventurers wasting hours simply bouncing back and forth across the map turning in quests. Given the important role the region plays in the lore of Tolkien, it was important for Turbine to keep this outdated area feeling fresh and relevant. While it was only the smallest of the three Update 13 revamps (1), the changes that have been put in place again make the region a pleasure to visit and explore.

Gloin’s Camp
The first thing one notices when entering Gloin’s Camp, the first quest hub of the region, is the lack of quests. While the Misty Mountains has always been one of the sparest regions in the game quest-wise, only having 70 quests compared to 150+ in newer post-Moria regions (2), my first visit to Gloin’s Camp after the revamp was disappointing. Upon first arriving at the hub I only had a couple of quests available. As it turns out, Turbine has converted a lot of quests to auto-bestow, meaning that you must explore the surrounding area to be granted them. This is a good move by the developers as it encourages players to go off the beaten track and visit areas of the map they would have otherwise ignored. Quests here cover the areas of Western Bruinen Source and Northern Bruinen Source and have been bumped from level 39 to 40, though there was no noticeable difference in difficulty. If you are working on Book 5 of the Epic Quest it’s best to get most of it done here, almost all of the quests are set in these areas and most are granted and turned in at Gloin’s Camp.

High Crag
Beside auto-bestow quests, the other reason for the lack of quests at Gloin’s Camp is that many have been moved to a brand new, albeit unnamed, quest hub in the High Crag. The small camp has been created next to the resurrection circle, and contains a Task board, an elven vendor and a dwarven stable-master, the later of which is capable of swift travelling for VIPs back to Gloin’s Camp. Travel in the Misty Mountains has always been a nightmare with the lack to stable routes, so this new hub and travel routes are a great quality of life improvement. The dwarf and elf give out quests for levels 41-42, covering Eastern Bruinen Source and the High Crag. No longer are you bouncing back and forth half way across the map for quests which were previously started at Gloin’s Camp but involved questing in this area, allowing you to complete them a lot easier. Completing the quests on offer here vectors you to the next hub, with the option to undertaken level 45 fellowship quests around the Giant Halls.

Vindurhal
The third quest hub in this regions looks have had little updated, and it slows. The old quest chain model in LOTRO looks something like:

Get quest, go to a camp, kill 10 Goblins/Wargs/Rats
Turn in quest, go back to same camp and pick up 5 stolen goods/swords/lost things
Turn in quest, go back to same camp and kill the leader/chieftain/bad guy

By and large this quest chain model has been abandoned in newer/revamped regions. Instead, you are given all the quests at once and only have to go into a camp once to finish them. Sadly, Turbine kept the existing model for the two quest chains here, one involving a nearby Goblin camp and one involving the a Warg den in the north east. What this means is that you still have to do the quests one at a time, going in and out of the same area each time, making the quests monotonous and repetitive. The Goblin camp hasn’t been thinned out, and its still easy to get overwhelmed on level if you aren’t careful with you pulls. The quest chains also have capstone quests which see you trekking all the way back to Rivendell. It would have been good to see this quest hub get a little more love.

Next week I’ll continue my guide to the revamped Misty Mountains, looking at the three remaining quest hubs in the region.

(1) https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/dev-diary-%E2%80%93-update-13-revamps-north-downs-trollshaws-and-misty-mountains
(2) https://www.lotro.com/en/lotro-store-quest-packs