Blaugust Day 4 - The sun is setting on some of Lotro's servers

Turbine have now announced the servers that will be closed allowing for merges to create 10 larger servers.

Those affected are Elendilmir, Riddermark, Firefoot, Nimrodel, Windfola, Imladris, Darrowdelf, Silverlode, Vilya, Meneldor, Estel, Gilrain, Eldar, Anduin, Morthond, Maiar, Vanyar, Withywindle and Snowbourn.

That leaves 5 servers in the US - Arkenstone, Crickhollow, Landroval, Gladden and Brandywine, and 5 EUE servers - Belegaer, Gwaihir, Sirannon, Laurelin and Evernight.

Obviously this has left a lot of people sad that they are being uprooted from their home server that some have been at for close to eight years. I personally spent the first five years solely on Windfola and have a roster of 9 characters there. Fortunately, a couple of years ago I rolled a whole new roster on Landroval and the community there made the game a lot more attractive to the point it became pretty much a permanent home. I am actually happy that I can now transfer many of my Windfola characters over, some of which are either at level cap or very close and not only that, my former kinship and some old friends will be joining me on Landroval.

While I feel sorry for those being uprooted against their will, I will say this change will be a good thing and the benefits are a larger community will enrich the game further for you, and give us greater numbers to fight the threat ahead,  at least till the day we sail off to the West and the sun sets on all of Lotro's servers.

This post is part of the Blaugust 2015 initiative. If you are interested in taking part, all the information can be found by clicking the logo below.

Blaugust Day 1 : My Evergreen game - LOTRO

This post was already in mind before I saw a writing prompt from Void of A Green Mushroom blog,  to name your Evergreen game, the game you keep coming back to month after month, year after year so felt this fits the bill.

Of all MMO's I've dabbled in, Lord of the Rings Online is the one keep coming back to. My first true MMO, I discovered just before the release of the expansion, Siege of Mirkwood in 2009.

During those years, levelling was a slow process. It was close to a year before I got anywhere close to level cap on Jestro, my hobbit hunter and didn't even dream of having an alt. I never so much as looked at another MMO for about four years and even when I did it was a brief dalliance to return to my first love.

When my interest began to wane, I found renewed joy by playing on another server, rolling a new character on Landroval, having burnt out playing 9 alts on the Windfola server. This coincided with the Coursera course that revolved around the game and along with a new kinship and a community of roleplayers, it gave me a renewed interest.

A year on, I discovered Guild Wars 2 and that took over. I was burnt out again, having reached cap on my warden and rolled even more alts. I stopped playing Lotro altogether. After about two months I decided to end my sub, for the first time in 6 years. As my sub ran out, I logged in to say goodbye and found myself drawn in again. It felt fresh once more and as I'd been having problems with GW2 crashing, I'd become frustrated so returned to my old flame. My account lapsed for a full 24 hours. I logged in, realised what a pain it was not to have the functionality I'd had before, so I resubbed. That was a couple of weeks ago and I've been playing every day since. 

I've decided to try and focus on one character, my captain Diaspora, and so far it's working. Spreading myself thin quickly leads to burnout and I'm loving running through Rohan again and seeing things I missed before as I rushed through the content. The kinship is more active than ever before with new people coming through every day and with server merges ahead, things are looking rosy, at least for Landroval. I suspect Windfola may be one of those put to the wall, so I may have to transfer most if not all to Landroval. This will give me a diverse pool of crafters though the thought of trying to get all of them to level cap leaves me with cold sweats. 

One day at a time...

Diaspora, Ambassador to the Elves

Having returned to LOTRO, I set myself the challenge of getting Reputation to Kindred, the max level for the three Elven factions, Malledrim, Galadhrim and the Elves of Rivendell.

After 5 long days of grinding, I finally hit all three and now not only have a new title, but a shiny new mount, the Elf-ambassador's steed, one of the faster mounts in the game.

Over 5 years later, finally cut the cord...

LOTRO Title Giveaway #2 ENDED

As with my recent mount giveaway for LOTRO, I have some codes for titles to hand out as modelled below by Captain Diaspora. Comment below with your choices (You can choose more than one, or all if you like!)

As before, leave a contact email or Twitter handle and I'll be in touch with the codes for the winners. Draw will take place on Friday May 15th.

Hero of the Small Folk (Winner - Jon Andrist)

The Wise (Winner - Ravanel Griffon)

The Celebratory (Winner - Indra Quintero)

The Sociable (Winner - Indra Quintero)

Celondim Comedy on the Lotro Landroval server

Celondim Comedy is on 22nd November at 4 PM /servertime Landroval!

The event will feature stand-up and improv comedy and games, including some with audience participation. There will also be a fashion contest with fun, themed prizes.

The Remediators start playing at 3:30, so arrive early to hear their wonderful music! This event will take place just south of Celondim at 29.2S, 92.7W.

Blaugust Day 23 - Epic Grumbles

I didn't get up to much gaming today, the wife took the baby hobbit to the in laws so I got to do jobs around the house and garden I don't normally get done when they're around (much as I'd loved to have spent the whole day playing games!)

I did, however, get into LOTRO in the evening and ran Helms Dike with a kinnie. Now a lot of people have complained about the Epic Battles but ideally enjoy them. Yes, they're a challenge to solo and. Bit of time sink but they're fun if you know what to do. However, my recent experiences have started to cloud my love of the system.

I was informed by another kin mate that the catapults are bugged and can crash the instance, so I avoided using them (which happen to be my favourite part of the battles). Then today I found the Powder at the Gate side quest to be bugged. Having wiped out the opposition effectively, the instance ended before it registered our victory, thereby robbing us of valuable rewards.

I don't understand how these instances, that are working perfectly well for the most part, can now be so riddled with bugs. I really hope Turbine sort these out before launching any more!

Oh and another thing, if you are in the Treasure Hunt and rob a berry bush under another players nose, don't get all butthurt when said player uses a speed boost and beats you to the two next bushes. You had it coming!

/endrant

Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative - Coursera 2014

Last year I joined a course via Coursera, Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative run by Jay Clayton of the Vanderbilt University.

It covered a range of topics related to the "remediation" of literature into other forms of media, notably gaming, and this ties with the courses connection to Lord of the Rings Online. Through the course, I joined Landroval, a second permanent server for me, and made some great friends.

The course is due to run again for 2014 and if you have any interest in trying an MMO or learning more about the subject, I can't recommend it enough. It starts on 14th June and runs for 7 weeks. It is free and of course, LOTRO is a free to play game, so it's not going to cost a penny.

If you want to sign up, join us on Landroval. We have a Kinship, a guild, dedicated to course members called the Courserrim. Leave a comment or drop me a line @jestrosneak on Twitter if you need an invite.

Course information here

Introducing Pinestro of Landroval

Recently I read on Lotroplayers that there will be a Hobbit Warden 21 spear salute in honour of Pineleaf, a veteran player on several Lotro servers, including my own, Windfola.

Pineleaf, if you're not aware, has written a number of excellent skirmish guides for CSTM which you should definately check out. As part of the start of this years Fellowship Walk, a charity event on the roleplay server, Landroval, there will be a gathering of hobbit wardens to line up and salute in her honour.

So I rolled another toon...

Pinestro of Landroval, a distant cousin of Jestro, has taken up spear and shield and become a warden to join the festivities! My original intention was to get to minimum level required to get through the intro but it's been so long since I played in the Shire, I got hooked in. I decided I would take my time, do all the quests and deeds in the zone before moving on, I even had my eye on the Undying title, a deed for surviving to level 20 without dying.

 I went AFK at level 16 in Bindpole Wood and you can guess the rest.

Not put off though, I intend to continue levelling him. It's refreshing to be on an RP server and as much as I love my kinnies on Windfola, it's nice to be able to play from scratch without the backup a ton of crafting alts affords.