Bio Break

While I’m not planning on doing much of anything with this year’s Yule Festival in LOTRO, I was glad to get this new mount from a hobbit present. It’s a different kind of horse model that — I think — has only been seen as a variety in a supporter pack before. Big fluffy feet horses, that’s the life for me.

The first zone of this year’s expansion dumps us into the Moulder-wood, an obviously Last of Us-inspired region full of creeping fungus that’s taking over everything and everyone. However, I started to notice that I was really struggling in fights, especially against some of the tougher mobs. I was hoping to skate through this part, but it became clear I needed to suck it up and go back to Rivendell to do something I’ve been putting off for a full expansion now — I needed to update my legendary items and eek out a little more power. Man, this system sucks.

At least I got to pause and soak up the sheer colors and more welcoming atmosphere for a minute. And the detour was worth it, because when I went back to Umbar, I was a good deal stronger with updated traceries, essences, and the like.

One thing I like to do when I go through new expansions is to cobble together an outfit from drops and quest rewards. So far, the main style of gear is pretty attractive to my eyes, so I dyed it burgundy and kept an eye out for complementing pieces.

Nothing like a quest where a weird gollum-like dude prompts you to eat a variety of possibly poisonous mushrooms… for science! Or entertainment!

It’s strange — this is the first LOTRO expansion release since Siege of Mirkwood that I’ve not been there on opening day. The reason for my tardiness is a little mundane, mostly due to Christmas shopping budgets and a lack of a pressing need to get into Kingdoms of Harad ASAP, not to mention the egregious bugs reported by players. I’m still greatly enjoying time with my Lore-master two expansions back, which contributed to the lack of a push.

In the meanwhile, it’s time for more confusing city questing! It turns out that there’s only two slayer deeds here… and I’ve done one already. That’s good, at least. And the quest deed meta is 30 total, which is pretty reasonable. So I’m going to plug away at that this week.

I really like this quest chain where you encounter a sketchy guy who’s running an animal circus of sorts and totally abusing the animals. Of course, our characters have killed entire species of animals by this point, but hey, these are the ones we’ve got to save! That makes up for it!

As much as I complain about questing and traversing MMO/CRPG cities, the irony is that I wouldn’t mind actually exploring Umbar on foot if it was a real location. It’s got a true vibrant feel to it, kind of like a meticulously designed theme park area in the vein of what EPCOT does with its world showcase. I have no problems with the visuals, I want to emphasize.

I honestly startled when my character abruptly leveled up to 151. I’d totally forgotten that the level cap increased even if you weren’t doing the new expansion, so now I’m starting to pick up those levels well in advance of Kingdoms of Harad. No complaints there!

I started to feel both bad at missing the expansion and curious about it, so that tipped me over from apathy to decisive action — purchase successful! For the first time since last summer, I logged onto my Minstrel and started her journey through Kingdoms of Harad. Hey look at that, it’s Gandalf with a sword so powerful it punches through stonework!

Going into the first zone, Adagim, I was pleased to see that it (a) had a lot of greenery despite being swampy and (b) looked like it should be pretty easy to navigate. Hey, it’s a nice change from deserts and more deserts, so I’ll take it, even if I’ll probably get malaria here. Of course, the further I pressed into this zone, the uglier and more disturbing it got with a whole bunch of fungus and rot everywhere. Still better than a desert, I say.

With a slightly sinking heart — because I know what lays ahead — my Lore-master rode into the metropolis of Umbar. Headache-inducing maps and confusing navigation welcomed and taunted me, and my only consolation was that I knew I wouldn’t be here one minute more than was required to get all of the deeds done. I promise I’ll try not to have a bad attitude, though. At least the city is visually attractive and some of the quests have outstanding writing.

Here’s a look at Umbar through the ruins of an old shrine to Sauron that used to be all over the place.

Part of my frustration with Umbar is that it’s impossible to quest in an organized and methodical way. You kind of just have to snap up quests wherever you find them and work on them as best you can. Everything is so crammed and dense on this map that it makes it impossible to go section-by-section through it all.

Prior to Kingdoms of Harad, my routine was to log in and spend about 30-45 minutes a day doing some laid-back questing without any push or rush. This character doesn’t need to sprint to the cap, so this approach is ideal and the least frustrating for me.

To take a break from the non-stop shuttling involved in violence-free quests, I took a couple days to knock out a slayer deed in one little pocket of the town. It sounds silly, but man that was relieving. If I go too long without fighting in any RPG, it makes me antsy. And while I was doing that, I picked up 53 ranks of goodies from the 15th legendary reward track, including a huge gob of housing items.

Right here, right now, cruising through early Umbar zones with my Lore-master is hitting the spot in LOTRO, and I don’t want to force any other projects that I’m not enthusiastic about this second. I’ve really been enjoying the lazy tropical vibes and working to level her up. In fact, she just hit 150 and snarfed up several more virtue ranks. Good times. I have been lazy about her legendary items and need to set aside some time to level both of them up. It’s a chore, to be frank, and I keep putting it off.

Focusing down to a single character per game has the benefit of simplicity and focus. There’s no confusion or juggling of goals, just a continuation of what I was doing the day before. And that activity is, apparently, beating up murderous sentient palm trees. I wonder if those are functional eyes and a mouth, or just an affectation of the plant?

I wish they all could be Middle-earth California girls…

I always like quest chains that kick off with a compelling mystery, such as a seaside town struck by a mysterious ailment that’s affecting animals and people alike. I’ve only done this story once before and forgot its resolution, so I wanted to keep playing until I discovered the answer.

My goal to get through 50 quests in Cape of Umbar for the deed cruised along — not super-speedy, but also not torturously long. There are a few daily quests that I could utilize if I wanted to plant my butt somewhere and simply log in to do those every day until the deed was done, but that seemed boring and repetitive.

Following that was a slightly annoying hunt for all 20 treasure caches in the region, but once that was finished, I could completely cross of Cape of Umbar as done and DONE. It was great to see my Lore-master’s virtue ranks shoot up with that last deed.

Throughout this entire month, I’ve almost completely forgotten that a whole new expansion is about to drop. I feel a little ambivalent about it. I’ll be nice to have some new stuff to do, sure, but the setting isn’t personally exciting and there isn’t any extra features to really rev my engine. Man, I hope SSG gets its act together next year and can start taking this game forward again. 2025 really has felt like a lot of treading water while the devs figured out the server situation.