Burglar is also good for soloing, although something with more defense or healing abilities (Warden) is also quite handy.
I love how they made a lot of the content soloable as an option to doing it with a group, and the skirmish system that lets you pick the number of people to do it with (for better rewards) so if you’re in a rush you can do it alone.
If the graphics look a bit dated, try using ReShade or SweetFX to improve it.
My Captain can solo anything -and while she is slower than the “Cuisinart” champion, she is certainly sturdier -and to some degree, more interesting. Consider a Captain.
You know – I have to say – given my recollection – Minstrel is probably better – they have a lotta dps now as I last looked. Captain is more of a – all-round melee --an interesting class in an mmo – heals, melee dps, just --odd. NOT really like a paladin in other mmos.
[quote=“KristiGaines, post:2942, topic:59553, full:true”]
and to some degree, more interesting[/quote]
Oh now it’s ON! ;-)
I’ve always enjoyed a captain in Lotro – and BTW as for grouping, most groups will grab you whenever they can (or they used too). You can even pure red line for dps and you are still buffing and healing a group a bit. Plus they have a little ranged with shouts and some aoe – fun class, interesting, though one thing: Don’t expect to burn stuff down questing like a champion or a hunter! Also -they use halberds – who wouldn’t wanna smash an orc with a halbard, with the misty mountains in the distance?
Daagar
2947
Turbine support is pretty solid. Because of this thread, I decided to load things up - I actually found an old ‘Shadows of Angmar’ box lying around, with an unused key. The in-game store accepted it, and granted ‘premium’ access (ie., not VIP which is subscription-based, but not ‘free 2 play’ either). That’s pretty damn cool of them.
According to the box, I should have a Pentium 4 and a Geforce 6800 for recommended specs :)
The loading screens are all horribly stretched and ugly and archaic, as is the character selection screen. But the actual game still looks pretty good. I transferred my characters over to Brandywine and, having discovered that I had roughly 4000 turbine points laying around (I think I bought some during a sale years ago and never got around to using them), I went ahead and unlocked the new Beorning class/race with accompanying extra slot and Journeyman Riding for my whole account, since I already had free mounts handed to me by virtue of anniversary gifts and such. And then I tried to get my bearings. There’s just so many different mechanics and things they’ve added or changed since the original launch that it’s a daunting task. Mind you, I don’t feel this way getting back into most of the other MMOs I play, including WoW. I maybe don’t remember the precise rotation for my character(s), but in terms of the general gameplay and what I want to be doing, it’s no problem. I think LOTRO’s just a smidge overeager in piling stuff on you.
I ended up taking my level 25 captain (I think the highest I ever got anybody) out for a spin around the Barrow Downs. I outleveled it enough that the quests were mostly green, but I still got some deeds and rep and tons of task loot and it was a more gentle reintroduction to combat than trying anything at level. Plus I got to lay a ghost to rest, so that was cool. I don’t think I’d ever gone into the Downs before, what with their fearsome reputation, but at this point aside from a couple of small-group oriented barrows (which I could still solo except for wandering rares) it wasn’t a threat.
I have a hard time picturing this revisit lasting too much longer with Legion on the horizon, but I may just poke around some more in the meantime. Deeds especially are still quite cool.
Was all set to login tonight and get back to the Return to Middle Earth Tour deed-crunching the three starting zones (completed Breeland on the first couple of nights, The Shire two nights ago and got started on Ered Luin last night) when the client informs me there is a “hotfix” to download. Said hotfix is 6008 files and looks like a 40+ minute download. That’s one hell of a big hotfix.
Yes, I’m on my second night of updating the game. Fun times!
Daagar
2951
I updated twice too - installed the game, patched 9000+ files. Then next day they updated every tree in the game, and had to patch another 6000+. And now GW2 xpac is going on sale, so I’m conflicted. Argle bargle.
rei
2952
Worst patching system ever for a MMO followed by Marvel Heroes.
I’ve never had an issue with Marvel Heroes patches, but that’s maybe because I run it through Steam. Doing that with LOTRO doesn’t really help. (Except, I’m hoping, it doesn’t silently install that terrible background bandwidth leech that the separate client does or did last time I tried.)
Once patched I’ve been having a decent time. There’s some interesting changes to how stuff operates. Perhaps the most monocle-popping is loot. You don’t loot corpses anymore. Ever. You kill a thing and a little notification pops up telling you you have loot to claim within the next hour or so. I don’t think I’ve seen any MMO do anything quite like it. It’s a bit fiction-breaking, but it’s really nice. There also seem to be a lot of ambiently assigned quests that I don’t remember existing back in the day. Mostly kill quests, sadly, but since you’re already there for other reasons, nothing horribly wrong with that.
Yes, I love the loot system they implemented a couple of years back. I have 5 bags with 15 slots each on all my main characters (holdovers from the pre-F2P days) and I still routinely run out of inventory space while questing. Being able to let all that junk loot and task trash pile up in the 50 item “loot limbo” makes it so easy. I just head back into town at the end of my session, stand next to the vendor, and loot-sell right from the holding pen. Then I can hit the task board and do the same thing with task trash, then over to the auction house to drop anything that’s actually worth something to other players into an auction. So…much…easier.
Finished off a bunch of slayer deeds and quests in Ered Luin last night. I’m only a few kills and a handful of finished quests away from being done with all non-Sarnur Ered Luin deeds. I didn’t realize until last night that Sarnur was a level 45-50ish dungeon, so at 43 I’m going to have to come back sometime and finish off the deeds assigned there (and probably wait to hit kindred status with Thorin’s Hall until then as well).
My return to Middle Earth itinerary is to spend time finishing all deeds and maxxing rep in the zones I’ve already outleveled (Bree, Shire, Ered Luin, Lone Lands, North Downs, Evendim and Trollshaws), gaining a ton of TP and Marks along the way, and ending up back at level-appropriate content in Misty Mountains and Angmar. So far it’s been a blast revisiting all the starter zones, seeing familiar faces and places, but also seeing new parts of the zones and doing simple grey quests I skipped (or never knew existed) in the zones that hold so many great memories for me. The Shire over the weekend was so great. The comments from the hobbits, the little villages, and the music…so perfect.
Daagar
2955
Sigh, guess I’ll be doing this AND GW2. Just to sightsee if nothing else.
Third night of patching. We’re having fun!
Whoa…what’s taking so long? I just patched the yesterday and it was maybe 2 hours?
I’d run back to the game – lord knows I’ve played it enough over the years – but what’s the end goal? I mean as good as the game is – what is the end result? It … goes off in a 2 years?
The problem with Lotro is that whatever the alt or character you had the ultimate end game was facing Sauron in some alternate reality boss fight. At least that is what the game lead you to believe --I think.
Will we get to fight Sauron?
Yeah I exaggerate. It was probably an hour a night over three nights and its done. But that was the second major patching in a week and so it just seemed like I couldn’t actually play the game.
But, I’m back in finally. As a lifetimer, I’ve been getting 500 Turbine points a month since they went free to play, and now have about 27,000 points, enough to buy every expansion and then some. I can even spend points to auto-boost a character to level 90. But what fun would that be?
Daagar
2960
That’s what is a little infuriating at the moment. Started up playing because it would be nice to take a tour of things before it goes away, but you are entirely right - there isn’t a guarantee and I could save effort/time and just re-read the books. But then, that could realistically happen to any MMO. Sans having a book for it to know the ending.
