Lord of the Rings Online

Rajaah · Mar 8, 2023

Wombat said:
There is so much god damn geography in the game at this point, and yes, there's a lot of Gondor and Rohan. To be accurate, there's a lot of time of (especially) Gondor and Rohan, as there were (in WoW speak) point releases for Minas Tirith pre, during, and post battle. (If anything, it sounds like people were getting sick of Minas Tirith by the end.)

And yes, the game has continued after Sauron's defeat, currently covering the dwarves retaking Gundabad and revisiting the Shire, presumably to remind everyone before the Scouring. And yes, the Mordor maps list Nurn / Rhun / Karad / Khand / etc., with the devs stating there's no reason why they couldn't continue to cover more of the world after Sauron's defeat.

That said, the (end) game is in a weird spot right now, with not even a point release since Gundabad nearly 18 months ago, with the last 'expansion' being an odd combination of new intro area and Mythics for level capped characters. Frankly there is so much game that they should copy WoW's timewalking system and just let people play the regions they want after Before the Shadow's intro, but instead they just include level boosts with the expansions.

I was looking at some maps of how the game is now. It's humongous, maybe bigger than WoW's surface area. Especially without flying mounts to smallify the world. Every time I thought I'd seen all of it I'd find some new set of maps for some coastal land I'd never heard of or something.

It was a little tough to figure out what was up to date, because when you search for LOTRO maps you get stuff from all these different eras, but I think I got the gist of it.

Found my notes too, looks like I left off in Rivendell and the next actual zone I was gonna do was Trollshaws 33-38, then Misty Mountains 38-45, then Angmar 45-50 (which was all that existed then).

Where should I go at 50? Forochel? Moria? I really like how Forochel looks so I'd like to do some stuff there before Moria if possible.

And did they ever make Ettinmoors into a regular zone or is it still a monster PVP zone? Always felt like kind of a waste back then because there were so few zones, but I don't really know.

Rajaah · Mar 8, 2023

Is this map pretty up-to-date? It's missing Lonely Mountain, off the top of my head, and maybe some of Mordor? But I think that might be it. I'm kinda surprised they haven't filled in more of the west coastal regions like Lindon.

Same question with this one, how up to date? Pretty helpful map for knowing where to go. Looks like the game ramps up in level very quickly in the 75-100 space (Rohan) and all the high level zones are either Mordor or points north. I think I might skip Angmar and do Forochel from 45-50 instead, whenever my mom and I play this again.

What's that blue thing in the lower right corner?

Pharone · Mar 8, 2023

Rajaah said:
I was looking at some maps of how the game is now. It's humongous, maybe bigger than WoW's surface area. Especially without flying mounts to smallify the world. Every time I thought I'd seen all of it I'd find some new set of maps for some coastal land I'd never heard of or something.

It was a little tough to figure out what was up to date, because when you search for LOTRO maps you get stuff from all these different eras, but I think I got the gist of it.

Found my notes too, looks like I left off in Rivendell and the next actual zone I was gonna do was Trollshaws 33-38, then Misty Mountains 38-45, then Angmar 45-50 (which was all that existed then).

Where should I go at 50? Forochel? Moria? I really like how Forochel looks so I'd like to do some stuff there before Moria if possible.

And did they ever make Ettinmoors into a regular zone or is it still a monster PVP zone? Always felt like kind of a waste back then because there were so few zones, but I don't really know.

Definitely go do the access to Moria. That will get you your legendary items. Once you get that, you can go back to Forochel if you want, and go back to Moria afterwords.

The legendary items are a really big part of the game. Think of it like epic weapons in Everquest except you constantly keep upgrading them for the rest of time rather than replacing them like in eq.

Daidraco · Mar 8, 2023

Rajaah said:
View attachment 462157
Is this map pretty up-to-date? It's missing Lonely Mountain, off the top of my head, and maybe some of Mordor? But I think that might be it. I'm kinda surprised they haven't filled in more of the west coastal regions like Lindon.

View attachment 462158
Same question with this one, how up to date? Pretty helpful map for knowing where to go. Looks like the game ramps up in level very quickly in the 75-100 space (Rohan) and all the high level zones are either Mordor or points north. I think I might skip Angmar and do Forochel from 45-50 instead, whenever my mom and I play this again.

What's that blue thing in the lower right corner?

Wish I wasnt so involved with work right now. I would have played this shit with you. Ive never went past the intro area for w/e reason.

Wombat · Mar 9, 2023

Rajaah said:
What's that blue thing in the lower right corner?

Minas Morgul, the corrupted version of Minas Ithil, a sister city to Minas Tirith that served as the final zone of the Minas Morgul expansion.

The map / storyline gets a bit wonky, as you visit Mordor in the second age in the 120s and then Dimril Dale earlier in the Third Age at level 130.

Rajaah · Mar 9, 2023

Pharone said:
Definitely go do the access to Moria. That will get you your legendary items. Once you get that, you can go back to Forochel if you want, and go back to Moria afterwords.

The legendary items are a really big part of the game. Think of it like epic weapons in Everquest except you constantly keep upgrading them for the rest of time rather than replacing them like in eq.

What level should I go do the Moria access?

Daidraco said:
Wish I wasnt so involved with work right now. I would have played this shit with you. Ive never went past the intro area for w/e reason.

I'm not actually playing it, just reading up. I dunno when I'll get back to it, kind of contingent on when my mom wants to play it again. For years she was trying to get me to play this with her and I felt kinda bad cause I was never that into it, but now I am! I got to level 33 back then.

Wombat said:
Minas Morgul, the corrupted version of Minas Ithil, a sister city to Minas Tirith that served as the final zone of the Minas Morgul expansion.

The map / storyline gets a bit wonky, as you visit Mordor in the second age in the 120s and then Dimril Dale earlier in the Third Age at level 130.

So the blue thing is "off the map" because it's in the past. That's a great way to feature some of the more iconic stuff from LOTR without running afoul of the lore hounds. I suppose they'd have a beef with time travel too, so I assume this is someone's memories ala Souls 2.

Pharone · Mar 9, 2023

Rajaah said:
What level should I go do the Moria access?

As soon as they will let you. I think someone said the quest becomes available around level 45 or 46... something like that.

You will go over to the wall of Moria, and do a small area of quests that lead up to you gaining access to Moria itself. It's a really cool quest line with some epic cut scenes.

It's basically done in two parts. The first part gets you up to the first cut scene, then you step outside the zone, talk to an NPC, get your Legendary Items, go to Rivendell to figure out how to actually forge and upgrade the legendary items, and then you go back to the wall of Moria to do the second part with the second big cut scene. After that, you have access to enter Moria.

All and all, the wall of moria thing takes less than an hour, maybe faster depending on how much you rush it. It's pretty fun. They did a great job on that first expansion.

Note that the Legendary Item system in the game is very complex. They apparently changed it completely a number of years ago, so when you go look up videos on YouTube, make sure it's recent, or it will be telling you about the old legendary system. You reforge the items every so many levels. Some reforges give you new sockets to add traceries (think augments from EQ, but way more powerful), there is a boat load of traceries with different abilities and fit different types of slots. Your traceries have a max level they work on, and you have to replace them with new ones. You level up the SLOTS that the traceries go in to which levels up the stats/abilities on the traceries. etc etc etc... it's really, really involved, and adds another major element to the game. I think of the LI system in Lotro like the AA system in EQ. It's that important and powerful.

Also, you will want different LIs with different traceries slotted in them for the different roles you play on your character (blue, red, yellow) which means you will be leveling them up separately.

Aaron · Mar 15, 2023

This game is wonderful, though Mordor killed it for me. Endless gorgeous vistas and landscapes to explore - then you get to around 100 and have to spend god knows how long in endless black desolate wastelands.

Pharone · Mar 15, 2023

Aaron said:
This game is wonderful, though Mordor killed it for me. Endless gorgeous vistas and landscapes to explore - then you get to around 100 and have to spend god knows how long in endless black desolate wastelands.

I am kind of worried that the game peeked with the Moria expansion, and that it is all down hill from there as I continue moving through the expansions. Moria was incredible, and every expansion I have played through since then has been meh in comparison.

I'm starting to get that EverQuest vibe of Kunark was great, Velious was good, Luclin was meh, etc, etc, to modern day expansions that are anything but an actual expansion and more of just a couple new zones with reused zones and monsters thrown in called an expansion. I really hope that isn't the case with Lotro, but we'll see.

I'd hate to think that it was great for one expansion and then they were done.

Rajaah · Mar 19, 2023

Pharone said:
I am kind of worried that the game peeked with the Moria expansion, and that it is all down hill from there as I continue moving through the expansions. Moria was incredible, and every expansion I have played through since then has been meh in comparison.

I'm starting to get that EverQuest vibe of Kunark was great, Velious was good, Luclin was meh, etc, etc, to modern day expansions that are anything but an actual expansion and more of just a couple new zones with reused zones and monsters thrown in called an expansion. I really hope that isn't the case with Lotro, but we'll see.

I'd hate to think that it was great for one expansion and then they were done.

My mom told me that Moria was the high point of LOTRO for her. However, I'm not sure when she stopped playing. Moria was the first expansion. Maybe 2-3 expansions after that? I think she was there for Riders of Rohan but not Helm's Deep.

So out of that group of expansions she said Moria was the best by a good amount.

Hopefully Helm's Deep and Gondor are really good too. I'd also hate to think the game peaked with the late Fellowship of the Ring zones when there's so much left to go after that. Personally I'm really looking forward to someday being able to explore Rohan and Gondor, because as a kid I was really obsessed with the Gondor part of the world.

Aaron said:
This game is wonderful, though Mordor killed it for me. Endless gorgeous vistas and landscapes to explore - then you get to around 100 and have to spend god knows how long in endless black desolate wastelands.

Kind of bummed to read that, cause as a kid I was also obsessed with the Mordor part of the world. One of the reasons I dragged my feet on LOTRO for a long time was that I wanted to wait until it was "complete", which to me meant Mordor was in the game, and probably level 100. Didn't expect it to go way beyond 100 and just keep adding stuff, kinda nuts.

How much of Mordor did they actually make explorable? Is Mt Doom in? What about southern Mordor, which has a giant lake and tends to actually be a bit prettier than northern Mordor (northern being the wastes and Plains of Gorgoroth seen in the movies). Prettier, while still being dark and menacing. Probably a lot to do there too given that it's accessible by men from Rhun and Harad.

Mordor doesn't need to be black desolate wastelands in this game. With the right art style it could be pretty awesome. Black towers, stone crags, moonlight, lava. That's what I think of. Something like WoW's Shadowmoon Valley, only with red and black dominant instead of green and black. From the screenshots I've scrounged up it looks more like a larger version of Direwind Cliffs from EQ, a vaguely Mordor-ish zone that is also brown and dull as hell visually. Kinda sad that an expansion of the game that I eagerly awaited for years is such a big step down from things like Moria and even Angmar.

Aaron · Mar 20, 2023

Well, you might like Mordor. It's a HUGE area, multiple zones. But if you're like me and like trees and grass and greenery and shit, then black/brown/red gets tiresome quick. I have heard that others enjoy it, so don't just take it from me. Check out some reviews on YouTube or something to see if you'll like it.

Rohan was a wonderful place to explore. The only downside I found was that mounted combat was clunky. Fortunately, you don't need to do it too much if you don't like it.

Pharone · Mar 20, 2023

Rajaah said:
My mom told me that Moria was the high point of LOTRO for her. However, I'm not sure when she stopped playing. Moria was the first expansion. Maybe 2-3 expansions after that? I think she was there for Riders of Rohan but not Helm's Deep.

So out of that group of expansions she said Moria was the best by a good amount.

Hopefully Helm's Deep and Gondor are really good too. I'd also hate to think the game peaked with the late Fellowship of the Ring zones when there's so much left to go after that. Personally I'm really looking forward to someday being able to explore Rohan and Gondor, because as a kid I was really obsessed with the Gondor part of the world.

I got through the epic story line of Endwaith and Dunland this past weekend. I'm still in Dunland cleaning up quests and deeds that I bypassed while trying to finish up the epic story in that area. The epic book quest line was very long with like 30+ chapters. Overall it was a decent story arc.

For the most part, I found helping a lot of the clans in Dunland to be annoying simply because they were arrogant duchebags for the most part. Every clan you came up to would be like "you suck, piss off, but if you want to stay, here's some chores you can do and we MIGHT not shit on you afterwords if you do a good job". I found myself wanting to just torch each village, but the game wouldn't let me.

The story was very odd at times too. No spoilers, but there was a moment in the epic story line in this area that I am like, "why can't we just kill the big bad guy right here and now, and avoid the rest of the whole Middle Earth is doomed shit in one blow". But, again, the story won't let you do what you want to do. It's like playing DnD and the dungeon master won't let you make any decisions that would alter his pre-set course for the scenario. It felt forced.

Was it bad? No. It was good and entertaining at times. I mean, it was content. Lots of content. I just found myself doing a lot of things that would be completely opposite of what my character would do if I had freedom to do it.

After I clean up everything left in Dunland (and there is a LOT to do there), I will be in the Gap of Rohan which looks pretty nice. I'm looking forward to it.

Pharone · Mar 21, 2023

As a side note for anyone looking to play on Lotro and "catch up" to current content.

I am quickly realizing that while it is perfect possible and easy to level fast in the game, that comes with a major downfall in the way of a lack of Virtue Points.

The virtue system in the game is similar to the AA system in EverQuest with much fewer options. You are basically choosing five virtues, and you level them up by gaining virtue points (aka virtue experience). As they level up , the benefits they give you grow. This is a big part of what makes your character powerful later on.

Here's the gotcha of the system though; you only get virtue points by doing certain things like completing Deeds. Not all deeds give you virtue points, but generally, the overarching ones do. For instance, completing a slayer deed won't get your virtue points, but then completing the Advanced version of that slayer deed does give you virtue points. Completing a quest may not give you virtue points, but completing all the quests in an area typically will give you virtue points.

In other words, if you don't want to suck, you will want to play through a good portion of the actual content as you level up your character rather than "just" focusing on gaining levels.

Right now, I am taking my 54 Champion back through some lower level areas to complete deeds because my virtues are so incredibly low on him due to just racing through the levels.

If you pick a zone and just do most of everything there going from quest hub to quest hub and completing as many advanced slayer deeds as you can stand, you will notice that your virtue moves decently fast. It's not something you worry about if you are playing through the game normally. You only notice that your virtue sucks really if you tried to level really fast (which is super easy to do in the game).

Just a little fyi.

Wombat · Mar 21, 2023

That's not really true.

First off, the daily login bonus will give you some amount of Virtue Exp.

Secondly, once you get to higher levels, many of the weekly wrapper quests (Complete 15 missions anywhere, 45 missions anywhere, 20 gundabad daily quests, etc.) will all give you virtue exp every week (total dependent on how many of those wrappers you do).

Third, some of the reward track rewards have virtue exp attached.

Fourth, you only have 5 active virtues max. Assuming you go with dps focused, even at max level across the board you only get ~20k primary stat, and 200k in each of your secondary stats. The rest are just passives, and will give maybe 100k hps and a minor amount of other stats.

So while virtues are handy, they both won't break your character if you are missing them and you will make progress on them over time. You will have a harder time than someone who's been max level a while, but in how many MMOs is that not the case.

Rajaah · Mar 21, 2023

Pharone said:
I got through the epic story line of Endwaith and Dunland this past weekend. I'm still in Dunland cleaning up quests and deeds that I bypassed while trying to finish up the epic story in that area. The epic book quest line was very long with like 30+ chapters. Overall it was a decent story arc.

For the most part, I found helping a lot of the clans in Dunland to be annoying simply because they were arrogant duchebags for the most part. Every clan you came up to would be like "you suck, piss off, but if you want to stay, here's some chores you can do and we MIGHT not shit on you afterwords if you do a good job". I found myself wanting to just torch each village, but the game wouldn't let me.

The story was very odd at times too. No spoilers, but there was a moment in the epic story line in this area that I am like, "why can't we just kill the big bad guy right here and now, and avoid the rest of the whole Middle Earth is doomed shit in one blow". But, again, the story won't let you do what you want to do. It's like playing DnD and the dungeon master won't let you make any decisions that would alter his pre-set course for the scenario. It felt forced.

Was it bad? No. It was good and entertaining at times. I mean, it was content. Lots of content. I just found myself doing a lot of things that would be completely opposite of what my character would do if I had freedom to do it.

After I clean up everything left in Dunland (and there is a LOT to do there), I will be in the Gap of Rohan which looks pretty nice. I'm looking forward to it.

Enedwaith is expansion 2 (Mirkwood) right? And Dunland is expansion 3 (Riders)?

Was trying to sort out what zones are from what expansions when I was looking at maps before.

Kinda funny that the Mirkwood expansion only has like the southern tip of Mirkwood and there's way more of the forest in later expansions.

Pharone said:
As a side note for anyone looking to play on Lotro and "catch up" to current content.

I am quickly realizing that while it is perfect possible and easy to level fast in the game, that comes with a major downfall in the way of a lack of Virtue Points.

The virtue system in the game is similar to the AA system in EverQuest with much fewer options. You are basically choosing five virtues, and you level them up by gaining virtue points (aka virtue experience). As they level up , the benefits they give you grow. This is a big part of what makes your character powerful later on.

Here's the gotcha of the system though; you only get virtue points by doing certain things like completing Deeds. Not all deeds give you virtue points, but generally, the overarching ones do. For instance, completing a slayer deed won't get your virtue points, but then completing the Advanced version of that slayer deed does give you virtue points. Completing a quest may not give you virtue points, but completing all the quests in an area typically will give you virtue points.

In other words, if you don't want to suck, you will want to play through a good portion of the actual content as you level up your character rather than "just" focusing on gaining levels.

Right now, I am taking my 54 Champion back through some lower level areas to complete deeds because my virtues are so incredibly low on him due to just racing through the levels.

If you pick a zone and just do most of everything there going from quest hub to quest hub and completing as many advanced slayer deeds as you can stand, you will notice that your virtue moves decently fast. It's not something you worry about if you are playing through the game normally. You only notice that your virtue sucks really if you tried to level really fast (which is super easy to do in the game).

Just a little fyi.

Yeah, I never plowed through the levels. Always went slow and did a lot of slayer deeds. Didn't even know they were for AAs later, just did them because they were there. Took me a while to get to level 33 in 2008. Would similarly play slow now, another reason it's taken so long to get back to it. I know it's gonna be a big time chunk. EQ usually takes up my yearly "MMO month" or two. At least WoW has completely dropped off for me. Tried to "catch up" with that before Dragonflight came out and couldn't even get through Shadowlands without being bored to death. And before that I barely got through BFA. Decided to just let the game fall off. So that does leave some room for another MMO. When I'm not doing a CRPG Crusade or doing a new EQ project it'll be LOTRO time for sure. Those are the only 3 things I'm interested in game wise lately.

Pharone · Mar 22, 2023

Rajaah said:
Enedwaith is expansion 2 (Mirkwood) right? And Dunland is expansion 3 (Riders)?

Was trying to sort out what zones are from what expansions when I was looking at maps before.

Kinda funny that the Mirkwood expansion only has like the southern tip of Mirkwood and there's way more of the forest in later expansions.

Yeah, I never plowed through the levels. Always went slow and did a lot of slayer deeds. Didn't even know they were for AAs later, just did them because they were there. Took me a while to get to level 33 in 2008. Would similarly play slow now, another reason it's taken so long to get back to it. I know it's gonna be a big time chunk. EQ usually takes up my yearly "MMO month" or two. At least WoW has completely dropped off for me. Tried to "catch up" with that before Dragonflight came out and couldn't even get through Shadowlands without being bored to death. And before that I barely got through BFA. Decided to just let the game fall off. So that does leave some room for another MMO. When I'm not doing a CRPG Crusade or doing a new EQ project it'll be LOTRO time for sure. Those are the only 3 things I'm interested in game wise lately.

I believe that Enedwaith was an inbetween expansions addition. Dunland is part of the Rise of Isengard expansion (3rd expansion).

Update 35 went live today which brings a ton of massive changes to both the Captain and Warden classes. These are major re-works of these two classes. The update also brought major changes to the importance of mana and mana regen in the game. Apparently, they decided to go back to more of a typical MMORPG style where mana management is a thing rather than long cool down timers. It should be interesting to see how the changes work out.

I plan on making a new Captain to check out the changes on my stream after work today.

Pharone · Mar 29, 2023

So, I did my first real group instance at level yesterday, and holy shit it was not what I expected.

I don't remember the name of the dungeon off the top of my head, but it was in Moria. I was on my level 60 Champion with a level 67 Guardian that sent me a tell asking if I wanted to do it.

Now first off, I told the guy I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and he was like no problem. He explained what to do to me as we went along. We died... many times, but... we had a great time.

Here's the thing about the dungeon instances, they're not easy. The big fights are NOT just about hard hitting mobs. It's more along the lines of a scripted raid event in other games, but it's for a 3 to 6 man group. You have to watch the boss and the adds, and listen to what they say (literally what they say.. it's got good voice overs in these things), and react.

The main boss at the end of the instance was the one that killed us repeatedly. The tank had to grab agro on the boss, and lead him around to traps on the floor that would toss oil on him. I had to stay right on the bosses ass hitting him non-stop (even though I was doing ZERO damage to him) because the second he gets caught in a trap, he drops to his knees for a short period of time, and that's when I can damage him. You need to be right on his ass, so you get the most time available damaging him when he is down because he doesn't stay down.

Periodically, adds were spawning, and they would come racing for me naturally because fuck the tank, the DPS needs to die first right. The tank had to make sure to grab the adds agro while maintaining agro of the boss, and keep looking around the room for new traps to be set (of which, the voice overs gave you a clue of this because the adds would say something like 'watch your step' as they are laying traps and letting the boss mob know not to get in to it).

The adds turned from normal trap layers to trap layers who also liked to spit fire at you. Again, they would give voice over clues of when they are going to light it up, so the tank would want to keep track of that, and move the boss in to the oil traps just before the fire would be cast, so the boss would get splashed with oil and the add would nuke his ass with fire.

This whole time, I am staying right on the boss' ass hitting him the whole time. That meant that periodically I would get hit by the traps as well, and if I wasn't cognizant of the flame throwing adds, I would get lit up as well. Getting torched usually meant I was dead in a couple seconds if not faster.

Now this particular dungeon was meant for a full group of 6 players, so we were really challenging ourselves trying to do it at level with only 2 of us and no healer (we relied on self heals and potions). It was very challenging to say the least, and a lot of fun. We came VERY close to beating the boss a couple times before I phoned a friend, and a level 111 Minstrel showed up to help us down him.

The point of this long post is that there is a MAJOR difference between the solo-able content through out the game and the group content in the game. It's night and day different. Anybody that has tried Lotro in the past, and never tried a dungeon at level with a group, might think the game is stupid easy... because it is stupid easy doing all the overland content, quests, deeds, etc. The group dungeons are a whole different animal. It's very challenging and rewarding to play through.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the overland content. That's what I play Lotro for, for the most part. I love the story, and I love killing swaths of enemies with out breaking a sweat. It's a shit ton of fun. But, it is super awesome to know that the challenging content IS THERE for when I want to do something that takes more than a couple brain cells.

I'm now really looking forward to trying some raid content at appropriate level.

Rajaah · Mar 29, 2023

Pharone said:
I believe that Enedwaith was an inbetween expansions addition. Dunland is part of the Rise of Isengard expansion (3rd expansion).

Wait, so is Mirkwood (exp 2) just the one zone of Southern Mirkwood? Cause that zone is only a very small part of Mirkwood too (I think they added the rest in much later updates?)

IIRC Lothlorien and Enedwaith might have both been added in expansion 2, but it might just be Lothlorien along with Southern Mirkwood. No wonder that expansion saw a bit of a subscription dropoff. I thought Enedwaith was part of it since it's at least a very large overland zone.

Pharone said:
I'm now really looking forward to trying some raid content at appropriate level.

Some of the raids look good (especially the fights with Mordirith, or the ring wraiths). Seems like Mordirith is the game's recurring "main villain" kinda, unless Return to Angmar gives us a reconstituted Witch King or something.

I'm concerned that there won't be enough players to actually do any raid content on most servers though. Unless the raids are made for like 10-12 players which is probably a good idea in this situation. Unfortunately the days of 72-person raids being an MMO norm are long in the past, unless you're on an EQ classic server or WoW.

Pharone · Mar 29, 2023

Rajaah said:
Wait, so is Mirkwood (exp 2) just the one zone of Southern Mirkwood? Cause that zone is only a very small part of Mirkwood too (I think they added the rest in much later updates?)

IIRC Lothlorien and Enedwaith might have both been added in expansion 2, but it might just be Lothlorien along with Southern Mirkwood. No wonder that expansion saw a bit of a subscription dropoff. I thought Enedwaith was part of it since it's at least a very large overland zone.

I did some research, and the second expansion included Mirkwood and added content to Lothlorien and Moria as well. Later they added Enedwaith as the precursor between Mirkwood and Dunland (the 3rd expansion).

You can think of Siege of Mirkwood (expansion 2) as the following:

Lothlorien
Mirkwood
Moria
Epic Volume 2 Book 7 - 10 (Lothlorien, Moria, Mirkwood)
Epic Volume 3 Book 1 -3 (All over old Middle Earth and then Enedwaith)
Level 61 to 65

Rajaah said:
Some of the raids look good (especially the fights with Mordirith, or the ring wraiths). Seems like Mordirith is the game's recurring "main villain" kinda, unless Return to Angmar gives us a reconstituted Witch King or something.

I'm concerned that there won't be enough players to actually do any raid content on most servers though. Unless the raids are made for like 10-12 players which is probably a good idea in this situation. Unfortunately the days of 72-person raids being an MMO norm are long in the past, unless you're on an EQ classic server or WoW.

Raids are up to 4 groups (fellowships) which is up to 24 players max.

From what I have seen on my server, there is a lot of kinships (guilds) that raid on a regular basis. With the smaller max player size of raids, it's probably not as hard to maintain a raid force for a kinship.

My friend raids in a multi-kinship raid force every week as well. They tend to do Tier 1 and 2 with some toe dipping in to Tier 3 from what I hear. Tier 3 and above is the hardcore stuff if I understand it correctly. To my best knowledge, tier 1 is the "do you have a pulse" level of raiding, so it's not rough to get 24 people together and do at least the first tier of raiding (or so I am told).

Kharzette · Mar 29, 2023

The early raiding had some complicated moving things about seems like. I remember having to stand in the right spot at certain times. That wasn't the rift though, maybe I'm remembering another place up north.

I can't remember if we ever beat the final boss of the rift. Seems like the last 10% was really tricksy.

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