screenshots – LOTRO Players

So, what do you do when the update first comes out? If you ask me, usually it’s the Epic Book or the epic story. But since this update came with increase in legacy tiers I waited a little bit and finished my legendary items first. It is certainly a big help in an area like Mordor. After that… Epic story. But, where did the story go?

Where is the story?

I will probably become even less liked than I already am for writing like this about a developer who is probably the favorite child of the player base, but so be it. Made of Lions, or as you can recognize him in some of my articles – Voltron, has told us on many occasions that the pinnacle of the story has been in the works for probably more than ten years. He has envisioned it, worked on it, dreamed about it, etc. I believe this is said in several interviews. In the last developer interview he even says that we have probably paused the previous chapter of the story seconds before the ring is destroyed. And he wasn’t kidding. As soon as we start it, we kill a few orcs and then… THE EAGLES ARE COMING. The words that will make some fans wet their pants, but what comes next, not so much. A little bit of running around fields of Cormallen and the story… the anecdote… is done in 15 minutes. The rewards at the end? A miniature model of Mount Doom. An emote called Strength of Sauron, ironically shortened /sos, looks nothing like the eye of Sauron as is more of a quest ring. The emote is ridiculous, but you can certainly have some fun if you go to a festival and mess with people trying to click on you. What else is there? 1 trait point and 5 LOTRO points. No mount, no cosmetics, no special items, nothing. From here you will continue on to the Black Book of Mordor which is also hiding an extra trait point behind its completion of chapter 4. Again, no special items at the end.

Some of you may want to jump in and say that it is not about the items, it is about the story. But, like I said, I am missing both. I am missing the story and I am missing the items to remember this point in time by something.

Allegiance, Crafting, Fushaum Bal and other quests

What is Allegiance?

Allegiance is this big mystery that nobody tells you what it is. No developer interview, diary or anything for that matter, a regular forum post for all I care. No, we are to guess how it all works. Well, it works like this. At level 110 you can start an introduction quest to Allegiance of your choice. But what nobody tells you is that you need to go do it or where to do it. What ever happened to those letters we used to get? Is it hard to make an invitation now? The introduction to Allegiance system starts in the camp of Udun Foothold by speaking to Eomer. Eomer will then send you to behind the Black Gate to speak to one of the faction representatives. After finishing these quests you will get a travel skill to the Allegiance of your choice. What the quest tells you in red lettering is that you can advance only one Allegiance at the time, but what it doesn’t tell you is that you can finish all the intro quests if you like. By finishing all these intro quests once you hit level 115 and the crafting instances become available you will be able to gain 2000 Allegiance Points for every faction weekly by doing just one crafting instance. Or 2 in case you start with Barad Dur, which has one relic bugged in a wall. So, potentially, 8000 AP daily from these untill you finish the 7th chapter of an Allegiance, which then for some reason makes the quest for it disappear. So, if gear is not an issue, I already suggested you don’t finish these and collect more points daily to finish the other ones faster. But how in Eru’s name do you start the crafting instances and the daily quests?! Well, these will start only after you have reached rank 30 with one Allegiance and finished the Black Book of Mordor. Which makes no sense, because you will have to go through almost 100% of the content to get one Allegiance to 30 by questing, deeding, etc. And what content is that? Well, in order to finish the level 109 Lost Lore of Dol Agarnaith quest you will need to go through a camp of level 115 mobs and with 100 shadow that you can in no way counter on that level. Then and only then will you be able to start the crafting instances and nothing else. Only after you restart the game will you get the landscape granted quest to visit your expedition leader and you will be able to pick up daily and weekly quests. Travel skills to Allegiance halls are also a different kind of headache. If you didn’t buy the hurried traveler and reduced the cooldown to 5 minutes you will be doomed to wait for 50 minutes to advance or turn in a quest. So, one quest can take you several hours. For some reason there is a travel option from the hall to Mordor, but nothing from Mordor to the halls.

Fushaum Bal and other quests

Many quests are for some reason very unintuitive. Allegiance to start. Fushaum Bal are also in that group. Once you start with FB you are considered to be very close to an enemy. Even though I do not know why you don’t get attacked right away then. After questing you will eventually become an outsider. Once you reach this standing you will open your second set of quests for these groups. First set is available from landscape. Then after reaching neutral nobody tells you that there are new quests, you need to find this out on your own and check all the NPCs. And when this quest line is done you won’t be able to go back to the dailies they offer and fix it. Most quests when turning them in give positive reputation with one and negative with another faction. If you are using reputation accelerators you will gain double than you lose. There are also one or two quests that do not have this negative reputation, so you can use them to top of the reputation, reach neutral standing with both sides and then finish the quest FB resolution. Many have complained about this quest, since you are fighting the chieftains of the camps at once, so my suggestion is that you skill Talath Urui (or only do the start and skip Fushaum Bal) and go to Agarnaith and then come back. You will have some nice rewards and possibly a bit more Ash to trade in for other items. Watch out for the quests that can fail if you are seen by the Fushaum Guard. These are not properly shown on the radar and sometimes it’s even hardly noticeable in the quest description. Some have the red lettering you shouldn’t be seen, some don’t. There are few occasions where you need to talk to a statue. You know, like talking to SSG. But in this case, the statue reacts. But nobody tells you that you need to do this other than the quest ring on the radar. But you may have this turned of or have it very small or something else. You choose.

Missed opportunities

I think that SSG has missed a lot of opportunities to give some nice rewards in this expansion. In total there are maybe 3 or 4 good items that you can get from questing that you would use for your gear. Everything else is not really something you would want to use, just disenchant it to Ash right away. The Wastes for some reason had 3 or 4 dogs, but here zero pets. We can even have a person as our pet, a Loyal Swan Knight, but the goblin that says we will be the bestest friends doesn’t become our friend. The number of statues that gave us quests, we could have gotten one for housing.

Bugs or whatever it is

Through the whole region I did have the new kind of lootboxes drop, but I also had the Anorien ones. Black keys do not drop, but Steel sturdy ones do. I do not understand why instead of buffing hunter scrolls for Doomfold crafting the Anorien crafting ones were nerfed, but the +all stats food in Anorien was buffed. Crafting instances are still bugged. You are unable to finish anything except the main quest now. And it seems like they don’t reset properly, as the Alliance quests don’t appear either. I do not know the money issues with SSG, but the trailer they have put out has reached a very bad reaction and I would have expected them to take it down by now. I don’t mind some outtakes from the game, but some of those don’t even look like real fighting, just some posing of auto attacking while “a shot” is made. Some GM paning through Mordor and someone as a narrator speaking about it would have been much better than what goes for a trailer at this point. People are still very disappointed there are no High Elves in the game after promoting them as a part of the expansion and the disappointment isn’t small. Remember when I proposed they fix this item, due to its description on the item and in the quest? It should have been teal.

Well, they fixed it now.

Bellow is a gallery with some of the curious sightings in Mordor.

Again with the chest, someone doesn’t like scholars

And for the end, the best Mordor boy band. You are…. My fiiiire. My ONE… De-sire… Believe when I say… I want all your money.

Greetings LOTRO Players! In this article, we will be taking a look at some of the new sights that are coming soon when Update 19 goes live later this month. I’ll give my thoughts on the new region below, and also be warned that you should not continue past this point if you want to experience these wonderful new views firsthand!

Ithilien, the Land of the Moon, was long called the Garden of Gondor by its denizens, but foul orcs from Mordor drove the brave citizens west of the river many years ago. Now, its beauty lies undisturbed by civilization, seen only by a select few roaming warriors and hidden rangers. The journey into North Ithilien begins at the Cross-roads, a landmark set beneath the boughs of enormous shade trees. It is dominated by a statue of a King of Old whose head has been replaced by orcs with a crude stone bearing the mark of the Eye of Mordor.

The Cross-roads connects Minas Tirith to its sister-city Minas Morgul, with Osgiliath lying in between. Following the road east and south, we come quickly across a sinister gate leading to the infamous city of the Witch-king.

Unfortunately, the barrier cannot be crossed. Turning our sights north, the land slopes gently upwards, revealing fields of flowers and blooming trees set with ruins all about.

Many varieties of trees blossom here near the borders of Mordor — Many varieties of trees grow here near the borders of Mordor

Stately ruins dot the landscape, echoing the glories of Ithilien when its enemies lay dormant across the mountains.

Trees growing in the ruins of Aelin Veren

Continuing north brings us to Henneth Annun, the hideout of the Rangers of Ithilien, led by noble Faramir. They dwell within a cave that leads behind a roaring waterfall. On an interesting note, this cave is not instanced off from the landscape content; you can simply wander into the entrance of the cave and continue down to where the Rangers are stationed without ever hitting a loading zone.

The entryway to Henneth Annun sits atop a high hill

To the west, we get a fantastic view of the forests below and Cair Andros in the distance.

Riding west towards Cair Andros and turning a little north, we come across the Field of Cormallen. The beautiful King Crimson trees that line the clearing are a sight to behold, and I can’t wait to see this area in action for the party after the war is won!

Hurry up and get here already, Aragorn & Co!

Finally, heading north from Henneth Annun, we come upon Aragorn’s War-stead and our first glimpses into the wastes that surround Mordor known as Dagorlad.

The blasted area begins abruptly at the plains of Dagorlad, with the beauty of Ithilien only paces away

As promised, here are my thoughts after riding through the region for an hour or so:

The landscape looks beautiful. There are plenty of new art assets used, such as new types of trees and flowers, that keep the game visually interesting into update 19. Additionally, there is a good deal of variety, from the dark woods near Minas Morgul to the beautiful views of Henneth Annun. The world builders did a fantastic job of creating some breath-taking views in various places around this zone and cleverly winded the main pathway through the region to provide many of these moments. The new barter-flowers which are harvested in exchange for gear can be found in plentiful amounts all around the region; I was not particularly searching for them, and I harvested a good handful.

The wandering creatures in the area are more-or-less similar to what we’ve been seeing in most of Gondor: Bears, goats, birds, spiders, a few mountain-lions, and the occasional lizard. Of course, near Cair Andros were a great deal of Corsairs and orcs. Many were scaled above the level cap of 105, and I frequently saw mobs of level 107 or higher, making them more difficult to fight than anything in Far Anórien.

Lastly, the blue skies and bright colors that occupy most of the new region are a welcome breath of fresh air, relieving the ‘gloom-and-doom’ look of Central-through-Beacon-Hills Gondor. I was having a fantastic time exploring, and I hope you all will too when Update 19 launches later this month!

Please let me know in the comments below if there are any particular places you’d like to see more of. I’d like to also provide an article with pictures from the new housing neighborhood, depending on the status of Bullroarer this weekend!

Tag: screenshots

Mordor: What they didn’t tell you about allegiance and more