My First Week in Rohan

Howdy! Well, it’s officially been a week since Riders of Rohan launched, and I thought I’d write down some of my first impressions and thoughts so far. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with the expansion. My excitement leading up to the launch was building gradually as the date drew near, and I feel like Turbine did an excellent job with the initial experience of Rohan, adding further to my excitement with the locations and quests. I believe there were two ways to start the Rohan area: Either by following Gandalf’s letter to cross into the Wold, via the Great River, or following the epic book quests from Lothlorien to the East Wall. I followed the latter.

While the start of the book quests could be termed as “more of the same” once I reached the East Wall was when I started to experience what would eventually become my favorite parts of the this new expansion: the music and the quests.

Many of you are probably familiar with the music of Chance Thomas, as Turbine was releasing his music via Youtube in the weeks leading up to launch. While I knew I was going to enjoy the soundtrack from what I was able to listen to, finally hearing it as I looked upon the Argonath, or rode across the plains makes every moment in Rohan feel like part of an epic story. If you’re a fan too, you can purchase the official soundtrack through Amazon, iTunes, and I believe it’s even available to listen to on Spotify. Finally, Merric and Goldenstar from Casual Stroll to Mordor were able to interview Mr. Thomas. I recommend giving it a listen, as you can truly tell he loves his work, and really wanted to make Rohan literally sound special.

Now, I do not want to spoil anything regarding the quests themselves so I won’t give specific details, but my hat goes off to the writers at Turbine. The dialogue and writing I encountered (especially in the East Wall area) is very engaging, and I had several times come across laugh out loud moments with some of the subtle humor and nods they had placed within it. Some moments of particular note came during the breaking of the Fellowship, and while helping out the group that I refer to as the “Fellowship of Fail.”

As for Mounted Combat: I’m among the unfortunate individuals who are experiencing what’s been referred to as the “slingshot” effect. Because of this I won’t be making any comments on my personal enjoyment of mounted combat, since I am not experiencing it as it is intended. I will say a few words on the mechanics themselves though. Needless to say I’m disappointed I won’t be able to say much on the subject, especially since I’m not able to get the full experience of one of the highly-touted aspects of this expansion.

Now, while I thoroughly enjoy the dynamic feel of mounted combat (I’ve heard it likened to dogfighting within my kinship), I feel that melee classes are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to actual fights themselves. Ranged combat definitely has the advantage here, since the range for hitting your target is extended and you won’t have to worry about chasing down a mob, or missing your attack because server lag has you too far away when you think you’re within the 4.2 meter range you need to be in.

Speaking of melee combat, as a warden, I generally try to fight in the Rohirrim stance, which is our primary tanking stance. Granted, I’m only a week in and haven’t learned all the ins and outs of tanking for combat, but it seems like generating threat while on a heavy steed, and in the proper stance, needs a bit of a boost. Without any points spent in traits I have two skills with a threat component, and one of them is only listed as a “small amount of threat.” Traiting deeper into the Red Dawn line of a heavy steed will unlock a third skill that generates threat over time, but even with all three of these skills at my disposal I seem to lose the focus of my mob or warband to whomever is doing the most DPS (which is usually a ranged class). I do feel that a viable “tanking” horse can be built from any size horse, so in the coming days I will be posting the trait lines I use for the various types, as well as the different skills and effects available, after testing them out. Expect those once I have my steed at the maximum level and thus have as many points as possible to play around with!

Moving on: Warbands! I like these a lot. They are definitely a lot more entertaining than the usual daily quests of yesteryear. My only gripes about them stem from the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any real strategy to taking them down other than “don’t die”  and that player class seems to be irrelevant with these encounters. Furthermore, some of the rewards seem to be a little underwhelming. However, this is currently the only known way to find Battered Rings of Rohan to trade and I have also seen Tarnished Symbols of Celebrimbor  (the new symbol needed to craft second age weapons), but more awesomely…

Horse cosmetics! Did you know that there are currently two known drops for horse cosmetics, and they are warband exclusive? One of them is a new spotted skin for your war steed, and the other is an orc head on a pike. It’s gruesome, but really neat at the same time. Regarding the warband loot boxes: Remember how I suggested that using Erandabir’s Horseshoe might have an effect on the rate at which you get the rare items from lootboxes? Well I’d like to suggest that that’s definitely not true. I’ve specifically been hunting the warbands for the new horse skin, and have yet to see it drop. I was lucky enough to get the orc head to drop, and I wasn’t even wearing it at the time. Oh well.

I wish I could bring you more regarding cosmetics, but currently the cost of them from the LotRO Store is a bit prohibitive. There is currently a thread on the forums regarding this very subject. I would recommend checking it out, and even if you’re not all that into the cosmetics, I suggest making a post for the argument of fairer prices. While you’re there, check out the thread of people’s favorite horses, or alternatively join the discussion of what you decided to name your horse.

Alright riders, I think that about wraps it up for now. Be on the look out for my thoughts on building a tanking build for each steed type.

Ride on!

Defending the Norcrofts

Opinion: First Day Out of the Stables

Forth, Eorlingas!

As I hope our readers are aware: yesterday was the official launch of Lord of the Rings Online: Riders of Rohan. In my estimation it was probably the single most anticipated release this game will ever see. LOTRO’s first expansion Mines of Moria was huge, and brought some game-changing systems with it – most notably legendary items. The next two expansions, Siege of Mirkwood and Rise of Isengard; brought further level cap increases but not a whole lot of game changing or enhancing systems.

Many people who I’ve spoken with or players who have made posts on the forums have suggested Rohan was the expansion they wanted most. Even for myself – it was late May of 2007 when LOTRO was just a month old – I was running around in Angmar and thought “This game needs mounted combat!” I’ve been waiting for it ever since.

The realm of Rohan is very iconic in Tolkien’s universe. It is the first land we see or read about when the War of the Ring is really kicking off. For some reason, be it love for their culture, love of horses, or whatever else it may be; people love Rohan. Turbine themselves have stated that this was the one zone they had to get right. They split the map up into two halves and only just released the eastern bit so that they can spend the time the zone deserves on making it right.

I played around in the beta, but for the first time last night I actually observed and saw some of the parts of Rohan that Turbine has finally given us. Overall my general first impressions and feeling for the expansion are good. I feel it delivers most everything I’ve wanted, and there is no mistaking that the good folks at Turbine gave the expansion everything they had to make Rohan the biggest and best expansion we’ve seen so far in the Lord of the Rings Online.

The new and improved Pathfinder, Sigrum’s trusty steed.

Out of the stables

After the rush home (where I may have been issued a speeding ticket from a camera cop…)  Mossie and I sat down for dinner, ate quickly and then ran upstairs to fire up Riders of Rohan. This is the first time I’ve paid any attention to the quest dialog in the zone, as I purposefully ignored it during beta. This is also the first time I’ve done any real exploring and admiring of the landscape, and Mossie’s first time seeing any of it. We took our time working towards Langhold and beyond to Harwick and eventually received our new warsteeds.

Immediately upon earning my steed I opened up the Mounted Combat Panel to do some customization. My Hunter Sigrum would have the cosmetics from the Legendary pre-order, as well as the Steed of the Hunter stuff. As you can see in the shot above, there was a slight bit of mix and match done, putting the Steed of the Eastemnet leggings on, with the rest belonging to the Steed of the Hunter.

It was at this point that I came across my first and biggest disappointment with the game. The cost of the color packs in the LOTRO Store. Each pack of four colors costs 595 Turbine points and are on a per-character basis. One month of the VIP awarded Turbine Points do not even cover a single color pack. I call this highway robbery. It is my understanding that the hide, tail and gear color packs can not even be earned during questing or in warband boxes. I knew these would be available on the store, but I have to say those prices are cost prohibitive and basically insane. They do throw you a bit of a bone for cosmetic gear colors. If you have some horse-clothes that are able to be colored, you get a handful of colors to choose from at no cost.

What business does an elf, a man, and a dwarf have in the Riddermark?

In this case it happened to be a Hobbit and a Dwarf having business in the Riddermark. After the tutorial, Mossie and I set out from Harwick on various quests that took us to another small Rohirrim camp and past some Warbands. These Warbands introduced my only other gripe with the expansion so far.

Mossie is a Warden and as such was performing tanking duty while I was burning mobs down with my bow. With neither of us fully knowing what to expect we did things the way we normally would, not issuing attention to making sure we’ve each tapped any given mob to make sure we each receive credit.

You see, the Open Tapping system affects fellowed players as well. If I kill something and the other members of my group don’t tap it, they don’t get quest credit. Mossie had essentially tanked all the adds while I kited and melt down the Warband leader. She didn’t tap him, and therefore did not get credit towards quest completion.

I would guess she likely did more work towards eliminating the Warband than I did, but didn’t get to turn in the quest because of how the system affects fellowships. This is something I think really needs to be addressed.

Mossie and Sigrum getting ready to head out and hunt some warg.

Arise! Arise, Riders of Theoden!

Overall, I am happy with the expansion so far. One personal gripe and one glaring issue aside, Rohan has so far delivered what I was expecting. Sure, we are only a day in, but it is enough for first impressions. Mounted Combat is every bit of fun that I was hoping for and after a few small kinks are worked out, I think it will be a great system.

The Eastemnet itself is beautiful. The attention to detail that can be found in each zone, every building and each individual mead hall is outstanding. Looking at the NPCs, you can tell a lot of time and care was put into their appearances – compare them to an NPC you might find in Bree and see the difference!

There were a number of small little things that made the update great too. It seems people are getting a free expansion to wardrobe slots, from a base of 20 to 50 slots. Small things like the Legendary Bridle being equipped to the Mounted Combat panel and out of the inventory bag, saving precious space is a plus. Then you have the redesigned new item animation to make new inventory items more visible in the bags – great stuff, that.

We’ll see you folks on the plains of the Riddermark!

 

***UPDATE***

From Sapience on the Known Issues thread:

VIPs were incorrectly awarded an additional 20 shared wardrobe slots with Update 8. Due to this error several store offers for shared storage are not working correctly for VIPs and have been disabled. This issue will be resolved in Update 8.1. The additional slots will be removed from VIPs and the correct store offers returned to the LOTRO Store. We strongly encourage all VIPS to not use the additional slots as items stored in those slots may become unavailable when 8.1 goes live.

It seems the bonus of the wardrobe expansion was a bug, and they’ll be taking the extra slots away. The sour taste in my mouth regarding the cost of warsteed color packs has just gotten worse.

Riders of Rohan Update Announcement

Here it is:

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Monday, October 15th at 6:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) for the release of Update 8: Riders of Rohan! Thanks for your patience, and we’ll see you back in the game soon! Patch notes will be available on Monday, during the downtime.

Our excitement has been pretty high, waiting for ROR – this announcement just raises it further. See you in the Wold!