Shamus Plays: LOTRO, Part 10

[matobi91]

Very funny!

To those who are put off though, he did say he is picking these types of quests when you are out of the racial starting arias you get very well written and fun quests (especial the epic books). He is actually taking part in the introduction to the epic books by doing what the Shakelvills say.

Keep up the lol's!

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Wait, do you actually ever get to go out and meet other players and go on quests? XD

I'm not sure if your question is sarcastic or not, but I will answer it anyway. Yes you see other players all the time, and yes you can go on quests with them. A lot of major story arc quests have a decision box, before you start them, that ask if you want to do the fellowship quest or the solo quest. I really like how Turbine is retooling the fellowship quests so you can solo them if you want to, mainly because I'm the type of player that wants get through the quest and learn the story, rather than having to worry about protecting the other players(I get enough of that with the insanely aggravating escort quests) or listening to other peoples' commands. The other reason I don't like teaming up is the loot rewarding system, you can either pass on a piece of loot or "roll" to see who gets it, and 9 times out of 10 I don't get it.
Out of the two months I have played LotRO, I have only fellowship-uped twice. Once because I was talking to someone and it is an easy way to see where they are on the mini-map, and the second time, it was because a lower level player begged me to lead him though a heavily populated goblin camp, so he could find some guy's grandmother or evidence that she was there and was obviously killed(It is another silly Shire quest).

 

[Wounded Melody]

Wait, do you actually ever get to go out and meet other players and go on quests? XD

I'm not sure if your question is sarcastic or not, but I will answer it anyway. Yes you see other players all the time, and yes you can go on quests with them. A lot of major story arc quests have a decision box, before you start them, that ask if you want to do the fellowship quest or the solo quest. I really like how Turbine is retooling the fellowship quests so you can solo them if you want to, mainly because I'm the type of player that wants get through the quest and learn the story, rather than having to worry about protecting the other players(I get enough of that with the insanely aggravating escort quests) or listening to other peoples' commands. The other reason I don't like teaming up is the loot rewarding system, you can either pass on a piece of loot or "roll" to see who gets it, and 9 times out of 10 I don't get it.
Out of the two months I have played LotRO, I have only fellowship-uped twice. Once because I was talking to someone and it is an easy way to see where they are on the mini-map, and the second time, it was because a lower level player begged me to lead him though a heavily populated goblin camp, so he could find some guy's grandmother or evidence that she was there and was obviously killed(It is another silly Shire quest).

Thanks for the info! (no I wasn't being sarcastic, just not used to having to be in groups all the time ><

 

[binabik]

Pure, Solid gold this story. Pure solid gold.

/cheer

Binabik

 

[w00tage]

Actually, the resource-gathering professions related to weaponcrafting and armorsmithing generally turn a nice profit. This is funnier, though.

This is true, you can make a lot of money just running around gathering stuff. One profession (The Forester?) lets you do plants, wood and metals all at the same time, I think.

From what I have seen, having only played the game for only two months, prospector and forester are, I feel, the most lucrative .

If I have a not so busy college class week, I usually play at least two hours a day. While running or riding to quests, I will almost always run into a ton of ore nodes, and usually there is a fallen tree branch near each of those nodes as well, so those kinds of journeys are twice as profitable in gathering if you are an explorer profession set, which includes both prospector and forester, along with the tailor profession, which the forester's ability to make leather from the hides of the animals he kills is very helpful.

To point out the profits:
After crafting a hundred ingots of a tier 1 ore, I can sell that hundred for at least 250 to 300 silvers.
Tier 2: 500 silvers for a hundred.
Tier 3: 800 silvers for a hundred.
It just gets higher and higher from there. The forester is the same in selling price, but you have to factor in that you have to buy wax to make the wood into lumber. If you just sell the base ingots and don't make your iron ingots into steel ingots, you won't have to buy anything for crafting, you just have to repair your crafting gear.

It took me a little less then a month to make it to tier 3 prospector. I was a Master Expert Prospector before the first month was over with.
-----------------------------------------

It was another great addition to the series Shamus.

But I think Lulzy needs to pick up a pick-axe and start mining. She'll be rolling in clothes in no time.

It would be funny to see her working at a forge and commenting about it.

Thanks SD, I remember now that there's a profession (Explorer?) that can prospect, harvest plants and chop lumber all at the same time. But they can't go farther up into smelting or anything like that until they decide to specialize, so that's how a lot of players start off.

Re the moneymaking part, I actually usually saw higher prices for just the raw materials, because high levels wanted the raws for their crafting alts. Many players who have decided a kinship (guild) is "home" will make one to help out guildies, and of course, all of the time spent prospecting / foresting is taken out of the time they play their mains. Therefore, they are willing to pay a premium for the materials to "start up their shop"

Given that Lulzy is all about getting the money for those clothes, and this is equivalent to picking up money from the ground (or as she'd likely put it, "PICKING UP MONEY OFF OF THE GROUND???!!?!?"), I can see her viewing this as a great option. Esp. since hides from animals are also raw materials in great demand, and she can do the harvesting work while on quests to save farmer's sheep from those nasty wolves

 

[w00tage]

The longer i read this, the more my respect for this game drops. At least you make it funny to read about. What kind of other dumb quests did they put in there i wonder?

Meh, every mmo out there has quests that if you really put yourself in the shoes of your character would be just as silly if not sillier (is that a word?) as some of the quests in this game.

Keep up the good work, I can't wait to see what happens next!

"Kill 10 rats and bring back their tails to me, and I'll give you 6 copper."

'Nuff said

 

[ReverseEngineered]

The crafting part always gets me. Sure, it's cool to be able to make your own stuff, but inevitably the stuff sells for less than it costs to make (because we don't want players printing money) and the stats are worse than what you could get from doing quests (because we wouldn't want to undermine the quest rewards). So if it's worthless to you, and worthless to everybody else, why are you crafting it?

I'm an engineer, so building cool stuff by hand always appeals to me. And if a video game has a crafting system, I'll try it out as soon as I can. But I'm always disappointed. The result is never unique or worthwhile. Rarely do you get a chance to customize it or even have any part in creating it: you buy plans, you buy components, you press Go, and 5 seconds later you have yet-another trinket which is useless and worthless.

I know it's hard to come up with the art and balance the stats and everything else, but can't we come up with even a basic system for making unique things? Even something as simple as being able to pick from a limited set of bonuses and appearances would be wonderful -- anything to make it an art rather than yet-another grind. Crafting is supposed to be a break from the usual grind, not another excuse for it.

As with all games, adding on new mechanics doesn't always make them better. I like the idea of a crafting system, but unless there is a reason for the player to use it, why is it even there?

 

[carpathic]

" I've actually forgotten what self respect feels like by this point. I tell Rollo I'll do whatever he wants as soon as the word "coppers" crosses his lips."

I suspect they cater to this whim on the Howard Stern show...or on the internet...

 

[wickedpt]

The crafting part always gets me. Sure, it's cool to be able to make your own stuff, but inevitably the stuff sells for less than it costs to make (because we don't want players printing money) and the stats are worse than what you could get from doing quests (because we wouldn't want to undermine the quest rewards). So if it's worthless to you, and worthless to everybody else, why are you crafting it?

I'm an engineer, so building cool stuff by hand always appeals to me. And if a video game has a crafting system, I'll try it out as soon as I can. But I'm always disappointed. The result is never unique or worthwhile. Rarely do you get a chance to customize it or even have any part in creating it: you buy plans, you buy components, you press Go, and 5 seconds later you have yet-another trinket which is useless and worthless.

I know it's hard to come up with the art and balance the stats and everything else, but can't we come up with even a basic system for making unique things? Even something as simple as being able to pick from a limited set of bonuses and appearances would be wonderful -- anything to make it an art rather than yet-another grind. Crafting is supposed to be a break from the usual grind, not another excuse for it.

As with all games, adding on new mechanics doesn't always make them better. I like the idea of a crafting system, but unless there is a reason for the player to use it, why is it even there?

Actually, thats not entirely true. Most of the things you craft have a cheaper vendor value, if you sell it to the npcs. But you can make quite a bit of money if you sell it on the auction house.

Some quest items are good, but as a rule of thumb most of the top crit crafted gear is better, on-level, than any of the quest rewards.

 

[likalaruku]

45 pairs of shoes & not a THING to wear with them

"I can't afford luxuries like food and drink while I'm saving up for clothes."

Will that be on Lulzy's epitaph? XD

 

[duchaked]

to be fair, a fine lady such as herself deserves nice clothes