While most of the MMO blogging community seems fully bogged down in WoW Classic these days, the first game that I keep going to every night is Lord of the Rings Online. It’s not as helter-skelter crazy as retail WoW can be, but it’s certainly more refined and overall more enjoyable than Classic. That’s just my gut check on it.
Enedwaith adventures continue apace. There’s this cadence to LOTRO’s quests that asks you to slow down a bit and go on small journeys. I am never trying to rush through them, because I know that each quest is going to require some travel time and usually a good dose of objective hunting and killing. So instead of getting into the mindset of “I must get all of these rings done ASAP” I put on some music and pick the first quest and focus down on it. It creates a very relaxing and satisfying experience overall as I knock them off one by one.
I feel that my Hobbit Minstrel is in a good place, all around. She’s got a ton of great outfits now, although I am hugely partial to the new (and free) armor set that SSG gave out a few weeks ago. It looks fantastic, especially with the blue kite shield that she boasts, and I don’t get tired of seeing her yell and slash bad guys down.
I will say that there’s a special loathing in my heart for the Wood Trolls of Enedwaith. They’re nothing difficult to fight, but they have this initial attack of lobbing a big chunk of dirt/rock if I’m trying to skirt by them — and they almost always knock me off my mount and force me to fight them even if I’m not in the mood. Dude. I have a headache. No fighting tonight, OK? Maybe tomorrow?
Egads, look at that purple sunset skybox. I never get tired of how pretty LOTRO’s world can be.
One nice thing about Enedwaith questing is that I feel that the reputation rewards work really well in this zone. I’ve been unlocking a few great emotes from the Grey Company, including a spin and a jump emote that looks adorable on a tiny Hobbit.
Last week the game ran the limited-time mission, The Tale of the Shipwrecked Mariner. I can’t recall if I had ever done this before, but as it was tied into Talk Like A Pirate Day, I made sure I put it on my calendar so as not to miss it.
Turns out that it’s a pretty lackluster excuse for an “event.” It really is just a single mission to go pick up stuff that a ship dropped when it got into an accident, and the only pirate-themed anything is the hat and eyepatch that you can get as a reward. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for getting an eyepatch for my wardrobe, but I kind of expected something… more. I mean, why not do something with the fantastic Inn of the Forsaken dungeon, which is totally Goonies/Pirate-themed? That’s just me, though.
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