Shamus Plays: LOTRO, Part 1

[Hallc]

Spoiler: You have my sword!

Spoiler: And my bow.

A good read, can't wait to see more of the adventures of Lulzy.

Spoiler: And my axe!

Hell yeah! I got Gimli!

OT - I hope this one's a keeper, I haven't laughed quite so much for a very, very long time

EDIT - BAH! Damn ninjas. My picture's better, though, so nyaah

Spoiler: And my yellow boots.

I have high hopes for this, I very much enjoyed your Let's Play of Champions Online. Let's see what interesting and potentially hilarious situations Lulzy will be dragged into...

Spoiler: And my Pimp Hat.

Well I have finally seen the first part of the Hobbit starting quests. And one of the things I love about this MMO is the stuff you can do with Armor. As in the Outfit system and the ability to hide parts of your armor (Shoulders, Cloak, Boots, Helm), and an important tip Hide the Helms constantly

 

[The Great JT]

How will Lulzy the hobbit bard minstrel get out of this?
Will Boffin be run through with the Nazgul's sword?
When will game designers stop making spiders enemies in games?

Tune in next time!
Same hobbit-time, same hobbit-channel!

 

[kmc]

Woo hoo! I've been looking forward to this--LotRO is really my "main" MMO, even though I've been playing my "alt" (WoW) much more lately. And I hear you on the name thing, although I know I'm part of just the problem you're talking about. My hobbit (a female and a minstrel) is named "Fuchsia" (her last name is something to do with lambs), and yes, she was created before the end of open beta. My male human burglar even got the absolutely normal name of "Bertram" (although I didn't indulge myself enough to choose Wooster as a last name). But I made up for it by choosing the impossible "Aerdwintydd" for my captain, even though there were lots of names still open. I do what I can!
Oh, and I have to say, I love "Lulzy"--too cute!

 

[kmc]

That was hilarious. Well done.

Two questions though:
1) At the end, did you say your character was killed? Because this thing has a "Part 1" slapped on the end of the title, so I'm assuming there's going to be more. Unless you make another character, I must have been mistaken.
2) Your hobbit likes shoes? It's been a while, but don't hobbits hate shoes? They always go barefoot everywhere and hate constricting their feet, so why would lulzy like shoes? And why is she wearing some in screenshots?

It depends on the type of Hobbit. Fallohides hang around in the Shire barefoot. Stoors and the Hobbits in Bree-land sometimes wore shoes. (I don't know if a reason was ever given. Maybe because they spend time near the river, where there is mud?)

Also, for anyone not familiar with LotRO, there is an in-game option to turn shoes invisible on any character along with the standard helm and cloak invisibility option, which some people (myself included) do for their hobbits. And some people do it for everybody. That's a little detail that I liked to see.

 

[puggs]

Great post, I'm looking forward to your further adventures

 

[uNeekS]

Great read. I loved this game, was just sad how underpopulated it seemed when I played it.

 

[Adventurer2626]

I cried laughing. Superb job as always Shamus.

 

[Ph0t0n1c Ph34r]

Spoiler: You have my sword!

Spoiler: And my bow.

A good read, can't wait to see more of the adventures of Lulzy.

Spoiler: And my axe!

Hell yeah! I got Gimli!

OT - I hope this one's a keeper, I haven't laughed quite so much for a very, very long time

EDIT - BAH! Damn ninjas. My picture's better, though, so nyaah

Spoiler: And my yellow boots.

I have high hopes for this, I very much enjoyed your Let's Play of Champions Online. Let's see what interesting and potentially hilarious situations Lulzy will be dragged into...

Oh God....now we are all well and truly fucked.

 

[SaunaKalja]

DM of the Rings! I knew I knew your name from somewhere. Yeah, I'm not really aware of my surroundings.

I'm liking the new stuff, too.

 

[ww2jacob]

This was great! I read DM of the Rings a long time ago, had no idea that was you!

I played LOTRO for over two years, so it's awesome to see a new series about it. Can't wait to read more.

 

[Indecizion]

Wish id not sworn on my life never to touch an MMO again sometimes

 

[lluewhyn]

On another note, this gets me thinking. With hobbits being a bit more aggressive in the Shire in this game, it is no wonder that in the movie our fab 4 came back to find things just fine at home.

Spoiler: For you knowitalls

(Yes I know Saruman got his due before he wormed his way to Hobbiton as in the book.)

Until I saw the "Let's Play" format, I was almost expecting Shamus to do a Stolen Pixels combining the pictures of the 4 hobbits coming back from the world in all of their fine clothing and weapons along with a screenshot of Michel Delving and all of the fantastically dressed level 60 characters running around doing crafting there.

Sodoff, I know why *I* stopped playing twice after a year of playing each time- the frustrating tendency for the game to force grouping to get anything done story-wise. Yeah, you can get to level 65 strictly by soloing, but you'll leave 80%(more?) of the quest chains unfinished as they mostly tend to devolve to grouping. This problem only gets worse as the game gets older and more content is developed, as there's less and less people interested in grouping for the old quests(My wife an I's mains got stuck on Book 14 in Angmar) because they've all moved on to Moria/Lorien/Mirkwood.

Curious if that will come up in this series, as Shamus had previously said he hated the forced grouping at the end of quest chains.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

i lol'd a lot on this thx for your creativity!

 

[Donrad]

wow this is gonna be so funny

 

[rason]

Sodoff, I know why *I* stopped playing twice after a year of playing each time- the frustrating tendency for the game to force grouping to get anything done story-wise. Yeah, you can get to level 65 strictly by soloing, but you'll leave 80%(more?) of the quest chains unfinished as they mostly tend to devolve to grouping. This problem only gets worse as the game gets older and more content is developed, as there's less and less people interested in grouping for the old quests(My wife an I's mains got stuck on Book 14 in Angmar) because they've all moved on to Moria/Lorien/Mirkwood.

I hear you, I actually love grouping in MMOs and rarely get past level dummie unless I can get some group interaction going, but in LOTRO it was forced at alot of places where I just couldn't find anyone to group with.

 

[Jory]

This looks interesting. MMOs always have stupid logic to make fun of

 

[StriderShinryu]

On another note, this gets me thinking. With hobbits being a bit more aggressive in the Shire in this game, it is no wonder that in the movie our fab 4 came back to find things just fine at home.

Spoiler: For you knowitalls

(Yes I know Saruman got his due before he wormed his way to Hobbiton as in the book.)

Until I saw the "Let's Play" format, I was almost expecting Shamus to do a Stolen Pixels combining the pictures of the 4 hobbits coming back from the world in all of their fine clothing and weapons along with a screenshot of Michel Delving and all of the fantastically dressed level 60 characters running around doing crafting there.

Sodoff, I know why *I* stopped playing twice after a year of playing each time- the frustrating tendency for the game to force grouping to get anything done story-wise. Yeah, you can get to level 65 strictly by soloing, but you'll leave 80%(more?) of the quest chains unfinished as they mostly tend to devolve to grouping. This problem only gets worse as the game gets older and more content is developed, as there's less and less people interested in grouping for the old quests(My wife an I's mains got stuck on Book 14 in Angmar) because they've all moved on to Moria/Lorien/Mirkwood.

Curious if that will come up in this series, as Shamus had previously said he hated the forced grouping at the end of quest chains.

This is actually being addressed now.. though it's going to take a while to have all of the old content updated.

Older areas are being reflowed to remove much of the need for large groups, and quest chains are being separated such that you won't end up with a solo chain that ends in a group quest. The upcoming North Downs revamp, for example, is said to have separate solo, trio and 6 man team chains. Where this isn't possible (such as in older Epic quests that required groups), the devs are implementing a scalable buff system so group requiring quests can be completed by smaller groups or even solos. Also, if Mirkwood (the expansion released in December) is any indication, much of the new Epic quest related group instances will be tied to the Skirmish system. The Skirmish system is designed from the ground up with properly scaling support for solos or teams of 3,6 and 12 (with certain scenarios like the Barrow Downs Survival being only available for team play if that's your thing).

 

[Amarsir]

LOTRO was one of those games in the back of my mind to try sometime, but which I'll probably never get to. So a Let's Play sounds awesome.

 

[Simply Simon]

One of the few things I remember from this game is that I laughed the first time I saw the hobbit walking animation. Also, bards can apparently play/sing so badly that the enemies that hear them take damage.

 

[mptothedc]

cool