I won’t lie — seeing Minas Morgul from the other side of the river reminded me just how long and far I have to go with this character. My Minstrel’s still in South Ithilien, heading Osgiliath and Minas Tirith way. The uglies of Mordor are still to come in my future.
There’s only so much stalling that LOTRO can do before it lets you go where you obviously need to be going — in my case, Osgiliath. Or “Oz,” as I feel like calling it.
I’ve greatly disliked Osgiliath in past adventures due to the fact that it combines hard-to-navigate dense urban jungle (in ruins, no less) with a super-high mob density. If you’re at-level with the mobs, it’s a total slog through a warzone that you can’t seem to escape.
But this time around, most of the mobs are grey to me, so I can move about a lot less impeded. And that means I have some extra time to appreciate the details and environmental storytelling at play.
Osgiliath came and went fast enough, for which I was happy, and I was off to Minas Tirith and the epic battle showdown. But before that could happen, Gandalf wanted to do a magic show for all of us.
I took a break from all of the doom and gloom to go hang out with my kin at an intimate concert in one of their houses. Great decorations, and it was really relaxing to just emote around the place while the featured band delivered a lot of uplifting tunes.
After wrapping up a few more deeds — and capping out all of my essential virtues — I started in on Minas Tirith in earnest. I’m hoping it won’t be a slog, either, but history says differently.
Bio Break 