Moria is deceptively big... no wonder Dwarves are

Since getting to Moria, I've not left. I think I got in around level 54 and now I'm 56. One big worry is about leveling too quickly and making all my remaining out of Moria quests go grey.

I walk questing in the Water Works and looking around. Man, it's huge. I wondered - can Moria really be an expansion of its own? Well, I suppose yes. Not as large as SoA, but getting from one location to another is pretty much equivalent to many cross territory SoA travels.

On top of that... man, thinking about it... it's in a MOUNTAIN! Most of that has to be carved or dug or dragged in from other carving and digging. No duh dwarves are grumpy!!

I don't recall the books really talking about how truly large this place is, but Turbine's designers sure did an amazing job building it... bravo. I take lots of screen shots, but on another computer and I'm too  - I don't know - to remember to put them on the file server for later uploading somewhere... and frankly, the image inclusion process for this blogging tool stinks. Anyway... maybe next time.

Falling Follies in Moria

Be very careful, as always when tired, when at the Crossroads in Moria. One fall into the well and you fall.. not to your death... no, much worse. You fall into the Waterworks, a place that during my first stay was pointless and gave me hours of wandering to try to find my way out - then out of that out to get back into Moria proper. I'm sure I'll have plenty of reason to get back down there eventually... but when I accidentally found it, it was NOT what I wanted.

The real lesson? Stop trying to play when I'm dead tired. Running to my death off cliffs is bad enough, but Moria is a dark dark place... getting lost in the dark is well, it worked well for Bilbo and finding preciousssssss, but the rest of us have normal hobbit luck.

Moria, Here i Come

It was many moons ago that a fellow kinsmate coerced convinced me to go to the Walls of Moria and get a move on to Volume 2. I believe I was level 45 or so. I knew the risks were a bit high, but been sneaking in crazier places. He might have forgotten that once inside, he couldn't help, since he'd finished teh area. So I pittered around with some quests and attempted the expeditiojn quests in Filgogan. Bad idea. Way not doable for a lower 40-something burglar. So I left. My mission? Not sure, only to not get killed here. Of course, I COULD have just entered Moria, but seeing that warning about cancelling expedition quests and weighing against my quest OCD (needing to finish nearly everything in an area before leaving - or until I just cannot do it solo... hello Garth Agarwen).

Well, I finally finished Volume 1 and made my way back. Knocked out a bunch of Eregion quests and just killed off all the expedition quests at Walls of Moria. The ultimate procrastination? Writing a stupid blog entry before taking the plunge.

Um, yeah... time to talk to Bosi and get this show on the road... err... mines.

[edit] Grrr... forgot about the fall of moria session.. which I failed. Stupid Balrog.. didn't know what I was supposed to do.. now waiting for th timer to be up to do again. Such is my life.

Foggy Forochel isn't Fully Fun

Two nights ago I get back on for the first time in two weeks (well, 30 minutes doesn't count for much - so I played my alt then).  I'm really trying to comlete volume 1 and now I'm doing epic quests all over the place without stopping to pick up new local quests. I'm assuming I'll get back soon enough... or I'll just go back. It's a strange balance. Quests I'd like to do, but if I get back too late, they are gray... so anyway, historically I get to the zone and say hi to some NPC who bestows a quest upon me, which turns into an arc. 10 quests later I'm back on the epic. I believe some changes were made that also make vol 1 epics MORE soloable... a couple still most definitely are not for a burglar.

OK, so last night I hit Forochel. Yep back to the cold-ass north. The actual quests and battles are not too bad... but traveling there is worse than Everswim. I was back

~~ spoiler alert ~~

because frankly, the last half of chapter 14 appears to be created by Amtrak or AAA, because it's all about going from relative extreme location to relative extreme location. Forochel to Rivendell to Micheal Delving to Thorin's Hall to Celodim - often one extreme to another. So, when it's late at night and the player is tired... navigating around bad guys to get to destinations is risky, so it's taking the Middle-Earth taxi service time - good thing I have a remotely decent treasure reserve.

For all of last night it was foggy in Forochel. Snow mounds and risky waters make for interesting navigation when you can't see too much further than your nose. Worse yet, we were playing on the laptop which is set at LOW for graphic settings, meaning low detail, low distance draws and creature creep - where you sometimes are traveling faster than the draws and suddenly you're being attacked.  No real complaints... but that much fog took away from the very nice environmental views. Heck, even when it rains (sometimes especially) it just looks amazing.

I'd post a picture, but how about you just go to your shower, turn it on super hot, close the doors and turn the fan off... wait about 20 minutes. :)

Can't I just push them in?

I was sneaking through Annúminas last night - well, only sneaking around groups of 3+ warriors/etc. and happened upon this group. I did not expect to see a group of them fishing. This is GREAT! Hey, if we can chillax in Middle-Earth, I imagine the evil forces NEED to have some time off as well... but no, usually the evil doers are ALWAYS just doing evil. Perhaps they were hoping to catch fish to torture them, then release - rinse-repeat. In any event, I snuck up close enough to get a decent pic and thought "man, why can't I just push them in?"
Later, while swimming below them, they dropped poles and raised crossbows taking shots at me while I swam. That wasn't nice.

Even at level 50, GA still hurts...

I figured that hey, I'm level 50 now. That 30 something level quest to go jack Ivar shouldn't be too bad.
OK, well.. not the case. I went around killing off wights mostly one-offs or in pairs. more than 2 is very risky.
There's a gate to Ivar... closed. Come to find out, you must defeat Blogkrit, an 11K badass that seemed mostly immune to my Riddle and Subtle Strike. I hardly did any damage either.
In the third attempt, I got him down to 4K, but he got me before I could HiPS or play dead.
Next time I gotta suck it up and wait for help/LFF.
sniff. :(

know fear, no fear

Just taking a break from game (love access to the lorebook/blog within the game, since I game full screen mostly) to comment on something I've thought about often. I've back in Angmar for the last BUNCH of play sessions, but I'm back in the Trollshaws after handing in a few epic quests - yay me.
Heading back toward the Bruinen Gap, pop in to complete a basic giant quest... and I see all the drakes I used to have to sneak around, else I'd aggro them each time. Now? Nothing. Instead, I can walk up to them and just look. I can walk around the land and look around. One reason I play this game is because the world of Middle Earth just plain intrigues me. The idea that I can walk around it in 1st person is exciting. So, each time I level up to where I grey the baddies into ignoring me, I get to enjoy a part of the game that's harder to do when everyone around you wants a piece - even if you're a morsel of a hobbit.

Now to do some more quests, that are supposed to be fellowship, sneaktastic solo style, cuz there's so few people on, and even fewer willing to fellow with most of my LFF requests.