What the...

[Dux]

Since when was LOTRO a decent game to play? This leveling experience is actually holding my attention for more than 15 minutes. Theses classes are dynamic and interesting!?!? WTF.

[Dux]

So LOTRO is turning out to be much better than I was even hoping. Turbine has come up with a very interesting instance/dungeon type of gameplay that is actually quite amazing. They call it Skirmish and essentially what you could compare it to very loosely would be WoW's LFD tool but on a whole different scale.

Skirmishes contain all of the things you've seen in other instances: monsters, quests, NPC interaction, bosses and interesting locals. Because they are Skirmishes, each of these things will have a twist. Skirmishes represent the increasing military action spreading around Middle-earth. The Free Peoples have begun to mobilize and have set up Skirmish Camps near most major cities. They will take place in pre-existing locations from around Middle-earth. As instances, the return to these locations will take place separate from other players, allowing us to add any number of special changes. Much like our other story instances, Skirmishes can be replayed.

You can choose to do these skirmishes solo, duo, group or raid. Every player is equiped with a minion. This minion is a humanoid npc that you can customize and specialize to whatever you would like. In a nut shell you can gear up your NPC, give it unique talents and abilities and most importantly determine if it will be a healer, tank, or dps.

The rewards you receive from doing these skirmishes are much like emblems in WoW. You get badges that you can turn in to receive gear, weapons, armor, minion upgrades etc. You basically can obtain any type of item in the game via doing skirmishes, even crafting upgrades etc. You're reward is determined how hard you scaled the skirmish. There are 3 tiers of difficulty and you can also up the level of the mobs in the skirmish. For example if you unlocked the skirmish at level 30, but are now 65 and you can still do the level 30 skirmish but ramp the level up to 64, 65, 66 and level you'd like. You can also scale the difficulty in general up by choosing the easy, medium, or hard options. Obviously if you're 65 and choose to set the skirmish up for level 60 on easymode you rewards would not be as good as if you set the skirmish up for level 66 hard.




All in all this is a really cool concept and it must be pretty amazing for PVE guilds due to being able to do this in a raid format and receive valuable upgrades. It's basically like us being able to log and be like... so do we want to do MC, BWL, Sunwell, or Ulduar today? Ramp up the difficulty and be rewarded with actual useful upgrades from old content.

heres the nerdy ass devs talking about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtYuNP9LxxA

[Dernus]

That does actually sound pretty fun.

[Dux]

Another cool thing is you have an equipment tab and an outfit tab. You can choose to show your equipment like normal but you can also put other equipment/clothing/other armor in the outfit slots to override the cosmetic appearance of your actual equipment.

[Dux]

What a LOTRO raid looks like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtR9_yQK-Ag

[Darkpresence]

LOTRO's version of yogg saron?

[Fullmaster]

Have you tried a lore keeper yet? It looks kinda fun but watching some gameplay videos makes me think theres casting lagg or that it's choppy

[Dispose]

what realm/server are you on?

[Dernus]

I'll probably give this a shot when this goes active.

http://www.lotro.com/news/709-announcing-the-lord-of-the-rings-onlines-move-to-free-to-play-

[Dux]

Brandywine

[knailo]

Thanks for the post Dux, I've been wanting to read something from LOTRO compared to WoW for quite a while.

The idea of scaling up instances is something that I've long desired for WoW. I really love doing heroics, maybe I'm just retarded or something, but I would enjoy them much more if they were more difficult or easy depending on the group you have, and the look being distributed accordingly.

On that matter, how would that be? Would it be a single long list with loot for difficulty and then the drop comes out of a random of lets say 20 or 30 items? Did you do any of those already?

And the NPC idea is quite neat too, although I wonder if the NPC is a noob or raider skilled player.

[Unholy Evil]

Have you tried a lore keeper yet? It looks kinda fun but watching some gameplay videos makes me think theres casting lagg or that it's choppy

Are you asking about the Lore-master or the Rune-keeper?

Most of the time it runs smooth. It is based quite a bit on computer performance. I have only seen a few times where the server was laggy. The graphics seems to be 10x better. Not as cartoony?

Skirmishes are a good way to do instances without having to travel to them and group up to get fairly decent gear. New gear is available every 3 levels via skirmish marks. You can enter a skirmish from anywhere. They are also a good way to level. It is a constant barrage of mobs so the grind isn't as bad. You also get some help from your "solider" as stated earlier. These guys are very helpful. There are a few different types you can build. There is everything from healers to tanks to DPS. They do a great job as long as you keep them leveled above your level. You level them via skirmish marks.

Overall it is a fun game. The only downside that I have come across is the lack of people. It is tough finding groups at times. I believe there is a 10 day trial still going. If anyone tries it out and needs some help, I am on Windfola. Hit me up in-game under Htwoo or Bailful.