Game A Cide

Well the grind fest went pretty well. My main LOTRO character is now a 47 Hunter and should hit 48 before the weekend is over. I decided to take him over to Eregion to check things out since I knew that Moria’s entry was in that zone. As it turns out I wondered over to Walls of Moria ad completed that quest line. I did spend some time in Moria after I gained access; needless to say it was quite fun to see a lot of the higher level characters running about. The time in Eregion was well spent though; I did get to run with a couple of my Kin and we even were able to do one of the instances there.

All told I ended up gaining several levels and acquired some new armor and even better my first two Legendary items. The first was a bow for completing Walls of Moria. Actually you get it before you complete the quest line because you need it to kill a mob before gaining access to Moria itself. The second is a Axe although with my play style I didn’t slot it but it is leveling. If it turns out that its a decent axe then I’ll slot it but my current gear is just so much better. I did pick up a couple of other items in Moria but I deconstructed them since they had less then 3 legacies and they were not for my class.

On to my other project.. the Undying Minstrel failed in the home stretch. I was foolish and took him where I should not have and he died. But thats ok because started a Rune-Keeper right after and did take him up to 20 securing the Undying title. He is now 23 and was not defeated until trying to regain Weathertop.

I did manage to finish the Yule bar fights on both as well as collect all of the cosmetic garb. So all in all a great grind!

Yes, its that time of the year again. A lot of people are getting ready for the end of year which in gaming terms mean extra time off to grind out some levels. Be it crafting, exploring, or just plain leveling your favorite character.

For me it means I should be able to finish a little project I started a couple of weeks ago. I’m working on leveling a Minstrel to 20 without being defeated. If you are not a regular LOTRO player then you might not know that there are ‘Titles’ for a lot of achievements in the game. One set of achievements is surviving to 20 without a death.

Here is the list:

1. the Wary – 5th level
2. the Undefeated – 10th level
3. the Indomitable – 14th level
4. the Unscathed – 17th level
5. the Undying – 20th level

Now there are some mixed feelings about these titles. Some say that they don’t really mean squat and anyone can get it by playing it safe. The other extreme is there is a Kinship on Landroval that has the title as a requirement for membership. Some other people are min/max’ers or completionists that have to have every thing that is possible. As for me; I thought it would be fun to try since I’ve had perhaps 8 or 9 characters that I’ve started that have never made it to 20 without dying. I think the next character I’m likely to try this with is a Rune-Keeper. I have one at 17 but I think he died before 10 or 14 so the title is out for him.

Beyond this little project I’m hoping to get some more levels on my Hunter. Currently he is sitting at level 42 so I should be able to get him up to someplace between 45 and 48. The minimum level goal for him is 45 since there are a lot of dungeons/instances start to open up. As I recall that is also the level where Legendary weapons open up. Between levels 45 and 52 the base plan is to beef him up and get ready for Moria since I’ll be spending a lot of time there.

With that said, have a happy grind.. I mean holiday!

For the longest time I didn’t listen to many podcasts (read none). The reality lately though is that I may or may not be in an internet streaming friendly location. In fact the odds are high that I find myself at a client location that will monitor internet traffic since I’m a consultant. So what has happened is that I’ve run into a few decent podcasts that I can pull down from the net over night and then I can listen to them during the day.

Here is a short list of some of the decent ones that I’ve run into lately:

Casual Stroll To Mordor
LOTROCast
Galactic Watercooler
For The Lore

While that is not the full list of podcasts I’m following it is the short list of my favorites currently. And as you might be able to figure out I’m currently into LOTRO.

So what do I mean by ‘Title Centric’ .. well I have been known on occasion to play most of the new titles as they come around. For instance I just got done with Aion. If you look around you are bound to find at least one or two podcasters out there talking about new titles as they come up. While I was playing Aion I was listening to about three or four of them. Now in Aion’s case two of the main podcasters I was listening to decided to shut down. One just seemed to go dark and the other was nice enough to close out the podcast with a “We’re shutting down“ episode.

But I digress.. The main point is that a lot of serious gamers like to digest as much information as they can about their current ‘addiction’. I’ve come to learn that they often have as much information about a given title that I do but they do come up with some good information that I don’t. A prime example of this is I prefer to play healers but will often select a highly solo-friendly class to play due to time constraints as well as a desire to get to a higher level so I can cover the costs for the preferred class. Beyond that I might not know much about the remaining class mechanics except for what I see when I group with them.

Podcasts are a great source of information in this respect since they expose you to other players that perhaps play a tank or mage that I might not have otherwise considered. Given that I’m glad to have access to these additional perspectives.