The One Lotro Horse I will probably never get.,,,

Because as of right now it's only available in the LOTRO store for real money. About 25 bucks' worth. For one horse. For one character. Across ten characters, that's ... wayyyyy more money than I want to spend. So yeah, the Steed of Night, available in the Lotro store for only 1995 turbine points. Go buy it, if you have the money to burn. If not, just enjoy Kismet of Gladden here, who shelled out the bucks for the thing.

Perhaps there really are people in this game crazier about collecting horses than I am.

Sly Cooper Returns!

One of my favorite game series has always been the Sly Cooper games. Well, let me back up a bit. If you've gathered anything, it's that I have a fondness for platformers in general, but Sly has always had a place in my heart. There's just something about that slinking raccoon that makes me smile. The trilogy of games were all released several years ago for the PS2, but were just recently re released on one disc for the PS3. My wonderful husband got it for me as a surprise gift, and for the past few days I've been reliving the stories I enjoyed so much back when I first played the games.

You play as Sly Cooper himself, a dashing raccoon thief, and sometimes (more often in the later games) his cohorts. The games are cel-shaded, but the series is one of the few games I have found that manage to tie the uniqueness of the graphics together with a reasonably sound story. 

Granted, the game series is geared towards younger audiences (throughout most of the dialogue this is readily apparent, but there are odd snippets here and there that lean towards an older listener), but that doesn't mean the average adult gamer can't get a kick out of playing the series.Some sections of the game can be fiendishly difficult, and with the 'one death and you have to start over' rule, this only intensifies the feeling of having to get it right the first time. There are some power-ups you can collect to temporarily override the one-death rule, but at the most you have two or three chances to get it right before you have to start over again. The other games have different versions of this, but as I haven't gotten to those games yet my memories are still a bit hazy. Stay tuned though, because when I get to the second and third games I will be sure and post more!

Strange times in Middle Earth

Ask anyone who plays lotro with me regularly, and they will tell you that I am a screenshot addict. I am taking pictures all the time. Besides a particular obsession with taking pictures of every single spider in the game (don't ask me what that's about, I have no idea. It's just something I started doing because I felt it needed to be done. Yes, I am weird), I like to take pictures of things I find amusing or .... interesting. Most of them, like the picture below, end up being the rigormortis poses of dead mobs, but sometimes it's other things too.

I couldn't help it. We killed the giant and he looked like a turtle. Enough said.

Sometimes, the game yells at you to Go. Away. Now.

Cocoons. Spiders will build them anywhere. Even on top of shacks. Because, you know. spiders regularly build cocoons.

Speaking of strange spawn locations, I found a buried treasure! Half-buried, anyway.

I used to have a lot more, but apparently when I went through and did a mass cleanup of old files I accidentally deleted my weirdness folder. :(

Not that any of you care about any of this, assuming there are any of you at all and this is even worth mentioning. Which, I suppose, it's not.

Blogging. Never have so many said so much to so few about so little.

And she fell down into the big Underground....

Lately, I've been playing Minecraft. A lot. When my husband first showed me the game, I thought it was meh, but once I tried it myself, I found it very addicting. The graphics and gameplay are simple, and there is literally no story, dialogue, or (if you in multiplayer mode) combat. All you do is dig. And build your ultimate _________ (<--- Insert whatever you've always wanted to build here).

If you are in single player mode, the concept is simple. You start out somewhere on a randomly generated landmass, with nothing in your inventory. You must find shelter and a light source before nightfall, because soon the monsters will be out. This comic from Penny Arcade best describes the early stages of the game to me.

After a while, I kept deleting and restarting my single players saves because I wanted a landscape that was inspiring and really would challenge me to build something fantastic. When I loaded this world in, I was wowed from the start and have been in love with it ever since. However, being in the shade from the cliffs and grotto means that I have to deal with more monsters than usual, and I have died several times.

Last night, a friend of mine from lotro and I received an invite to play on another lotro friend's multiplayer Minecraft server. We checked it out, and have decided that multiplayer is much more fun than single player. Sure, the game is still in alpha, so the multiplayer mode doesn't at this point have all the functions that single player does, but the general concept is still there. I found it much more fun building things when other people could see what I was building and not only admire them, but offer advice, make their own modifications, and such.

Theories and I are in the process of building a gigantic fortress - which, due to a lack of knowledge about where the rest of the players had started building, is VERY far away from everything else, but we are okay with that. The friend who invited us built a massively long bridge/highway from their village to our fortress, so now we at least know how to get to them if they need us, or we need them. Multiplayer currently has no monsters though, so unless we are suffocating under a pile of sand and need to be dug out, that won't really be an issue....

The Strongest Horse in the World

Up until the release of Enedwaith, the highest amount of hp a horse in lotro could have was 150. Once Enedwaith was released, however, the opportunity to get two new horses with 200 hp. This may not seem like a big deal, but that 50 points could very well make the difference in whether or not you get knocked off your horse while you are riding though dangerous territory.

The only caveat to obtaining both of these new horses is that you have to be at Kindred standing with the Grey Company and with the Algraig, the two new factions. Normally, it takes me weeks to get to kindred standing with any faction, but suppose the thought of a shiny new horse or two had me all excited or something, because here I sit, just eight days after the release of the new area, and I am sitting proudly on my Grey Company horse.

 He is a fantastic blue-grey color with wonderful detailing on all his tack. His mane is also done up in tiny little braids. The name he came with was Hunter's Pride, which I wanted to change to Wolverine in honor of a rather embarrassing episode from a couple days ago, but the game told me that was an invalid choice for a name.   :(

Anyways, now just to push for the Algraig rep, which I know will take much longer, as there aren't as many opportunities to further it and the dailies can only be done, well, once a day. /sigh.

Until then I am content with my new horse, and also in the fact that I am only one of two or three possible people on Gladden right now to have the horse. That could just be because only certain people have announced it, but whatever.

Leaving Moria

So, the other night, Squid and I finally left Moria (I know, I have been slacking severely in my Lore-master chronicles and I can't recall if I even mentioned us going IN to Moria in the first place, but whatever, we left it). She had been refusing to leave Moria until the epic line prompted us to, because, in her words, "Once I leave Moria, I'm not going back." After running all the way east to First Hall, we stood for what seemed like ages at the doorway, just staring out into the last bit of darkness. Squid claimed she was afk, but our burglar buddy, Licentious, suggested that maybe she had Stockholm Syndrome and that perhaps Moria had been so bad to her that she couldn't tear herself away from it. She huffed and puffed at this and claimed that she could leave anytime she wanted to, thankyouverymuch.

So we left. The sunlight outside was bright and stark after the long dark of Moria. The elves of Lorien, of course, were snobby and wouldn't let us in. So we had to run back and forth, carrying arrows and clearing the orc muck out of the Nimrodel before they would let us pass. They are very protective of their realm, and even shot Squid for trying to enter Lorien before they said she could. Heck, they even stuck a couple arrows in me for getting too close to their borders while trying to clear out orc muck.

Finally, we had done enough menial demeaning work to satisfy the elves, and they let us into Lorien. As we rode our horses down the pathway, with twilight just coming on and the last bit of sunlight fading away into blue duskiness, Squid couldn't help but exclaim how beautiful everything was. I had to agree with her. Lorien has always been one of my favorite places. We ran around performing more tasks for the elves, helping them keep the forest alive and well, like in this screenshot, where we are singing to the sick trees. Apparently, in Lorien, that helps.

Eventually we had done most of the quests that didn't involve a lot of killing and resorted to outlandish acts, simply to see how far we could push the boundaries. One of the defining marks of Lorien architechture is the construction of Talan, or great platforms high up in the boughs of the Mallorn trees of Lorien. There is a deed to discover all of them, and in the process of climbing up all of them, we discovered that the huge branches can be walked out onto.

This of course led to all sorts of shenanigans, which, inevitably, led to misadventure. The problem with jumping around in branches high up in trees is that you will most likely fall out, and it is a lonnnnnggggg way down. And when you fall a long way, you will die. Which we did, more than once. It was loads of fun though, and in the end, as the sun came back up over Lorien, we called it a night and went our
separate ways, leaving the rest of Middle-earth for another day.

Perhaps eventually we will make our way further east towards Mirkwood, or even south into the wilds of Enedwaith, but for now I am content to sit and relax in the eaves of the Golden Wood.

Dear Turbine,

Dear Turbine,
I will admit, when I first heard you were giving lotro a free to play option I felt a strange sense of dread and uneasiness creep into the back of my mind. I dismissed it, carefully, even after getting into beta and seeing so many things that seemed, in my mind, to break the spirit of what lotro used to be. There were things in the store that shouldn't be there, there were things that cost points to unlock that should have remained open, and the fears that the community would be destroyed hung like a cloud over the beta testers.

Slowly, as beta wore on, my fears gave way into acceptance, and once the free to play headstart launched on the 8th (just last week!), my fears were for the most part relieved, as some of the major issues I had with things I'd seen in beta seemed to have disappeared. Of course, my being a vip subscriber helps alot, I'm sure, as many of the money-grabbing tactics I saw displayed for f2pers in beta do not apply to me.

I will be honest - I am thrilled that you listened to the community on several of the issues that were brought up in beta, particularly the quest dialogue revamp and the reputation horses. However, I do not believe you are ready for free to play. Why do I say this? Because, even though you added new servers and new hardware to handle server stress, I have not been able to enjoy the game for the past three days because it has been such an outright lag-fest. I know you are working on it (at least, I hope you are), and part of me is thrilled that so many people have flocked to this game, which, over the past two years, I have grown to know and love. Most of me, however, is still upset at the fact that I, today, cannot even get into the game, and have been sitting in a queue for upwards of thirty minutes now, waiting to get into a game that will be so laggy it will be unplayable. I am paying you good money every month for a product that is supposed to work, that is supposed to not give me issues. My subscription runs through December, and if I do not see any improvements, though it pains me to say it, I will probably be canceling any further payments beyond that point.

I know the cancellation of one subscriber is no real threat to your company, what with the masses of f2pers and the income they will bring you through your lotro store, and I am happy that your development team may finally be seeing the money they need to bring even more fantastic content to this game. While my cancellation may be no real threat, I want you to seriously consider the workability of your current system. If more and more people cancel, or even if the f2pers stop playing because your game is simply unplayable with so many people on, then how will you make money if no one plays? You will be back in the same boat you were in before. Remember the sayings - one vote can make a difference, one grain of sand can tip the scales, one drop in the ocean can cause a flood? Those are true for a reason.

Be wary, Turbine, and get your act together, or my letter may not be the only one you see. I know you are trying to fix this, at least I hope you are, and I hope whoever monitors the servers warned you about this and didn't blithely assume that everything would 'be ok.'

With regrets,
a disgruntled elf

The Cloak of the Cluck: Flying the Coop

For those who have lots of patience, quick reflexes, and perhaps a friend or two to help them along, the Cloak of the Cluck is a pretty interesting little item to get in lotro as a cosmetic piece (it does have some stats, but they are low and rather useless). Also, this post is going to be extremely long, prepare for a wall of text or two.

After doing some pre-requisite quests, which introduce you to the plight of the chickens at Sandson's farm in the Shire, just north of Michel Delving, you are able to start the series of session plays known as "Flying the Coop." These place you in the body of a brown rooster, level 1, with only about 32 morale. Yup. You better watch your step, because it's a big world out there, with lots of things that would love to have chicken for dinner.

You start in the Shire, at Sandson's Farm, where you first must go to some of the different animals scattered across the Shire and ask them for help in defending your coop from the invading wolves. Old Sally, near Tuckborough; a Fox near Woodhall; and Farmer Maggot's three dogs, Wolf, Fang, and Grip all refuse to help you, so you are then sent back to Sandson's farm in dismay. This quest is not too difficult and can be completed solo if you watch out for the brigands and wolves scattered about. Most of the enemies in the Shire will at least warn you before they attack, so this is probably one of the easiest of the sessions to complete.

After you finish Flying the Coop, you are presented with a series of regional session plays that can be completed in any order. All of these start at Sandson's Farm, and some of them can take over an hour and a half, so be prepared for a long run of bobbing and weaving, especially if you don't have anyone to help escort you (in our Kinship runs, I will usually run as an escort on my 65 hunter and turn anything that gets too close to the flock of chickens into a pincushion). I will present my takes on the different regional session plays in the order I have done them, though keep in mind that once you complete the basic Shire Flying the Coop, the regional ones can be completed in any order.

For the Ered Luin version, you must run from Sandson's Farm up to Thrasi's Lodge to speak with the injured Lynx mother. This one is not too difficult, especially if you keep to the road. It's simply a bit long, and for the most part, empty. There aren't many enemies at all to worry about between the Shire gate and Duillond. The most difficult sections are in crossing the Rushock Bog, but most of the creatures there can be pretty passive, just hope your escort, if you have one, doesn't have the Shire bounty open or you don't run into the troll that sometimes wanders around the bog at night. Another area that might give you trouble is just before Thrasi's Lodge, as Dourhands and crebain like to hide in the trees. After speaking with the Lynx mother, you are sent back to the Shire.


For the Bree session, you must speak with several creatures scattered across the entirety of Bree-land. This, to me, is one of the hardest ones to complete, as there are many places where a careless step could get you killed and you will have to start all over. For this one you must speak to the cow on the roof in Buckland, Wink the Cat in Bree (in the cat lady's house on the Scholar's Stair), a Horse at Hengstacer Farm, a Squirrel up on an island in Nen Harn, and Sniken the Neekerbreeker in the Midgewater Marshes. I have not yet found a route that doesn't require much doubling-back or too much dodging. There is a pesky wall of cliffs between the Marshes and the fields by Nen Harn, I have found a path through them once, but have had trouble finding it again and usually end up looping around through Archet and coming down through Combe and then cutting diagonally across the marsh. There is a path for sure on the far right through the Weather Hills, but unless you feel like messing with the chance of stealthed wolves and a camp of level 55 half-orcs, I suggest you avoid that route. One thing I will mention is that those attempting these quests should pay attention to the quest dialogues of the different animals if they can, as some of them are quite humorous. My favorite is definitely the squirrel up on the island, he's psychotic.

For the Lonelands you have the relatively simple task of running to Ost Guruth and speaking with Radagast the Brown, seeking his help. As long as you stick to the road and have a bit of good luck, this one is also easily soloable. Sometimes, especially closer to Ost Guruth, you will run into lynxes, wargs, spiders or half-orc archers close to the road, these can take a bit of effort and adrenaline to avoid, especially the archers. Your evasive skills (ie ALL your skills) can be very useful here, and play dead if you have to. Once you speak to Radagast you are again transported back to the farm.Apparently no one has the time to help a poor chicken out and you are refused again.

For the North Downs you also have a single creature to talk to: the Aurochs Yearling south of Gatson's Farm. For those without an escort, this one can be a bit of trouble, but if you have an escort or two, feel free to cut across country and head in an almost straight line towards the yearling. However, take care when crossing the river that flows down the center of the North Downs - there are high cliffs on the right bank that can make crossing difficult if you don't hit it at just the right spot. When I ran it I thought I could just cross the river at any point, but picked a bad place and spent several minutes swimming up the river looking for an accessible exit point. After speaking to the Aurochs Yearling, who of course also cannot help you, you are transported back to the Shire.

For the Evendim session, this is perhaps the easiest, but also the most boring of the sessions you can play. For the most trouble free route, something easily soloable, simply run along the roadways through the Shire till you get to Brockenborings, then head east and jump into the Brandywine. Then swim up the Brandywine, avoiding getting too close to the banks on either side (especially up near the big curve to the left near the brigand's camp. There are archers that can peg you if you are too close to the right side. If you have an escort, as in the above screenshot, then feel free to run along the left bank, with your guardian angel pegging away at any nearby nasties. Then continue up the river and across the Evendim lake until you get to the Eavespires, where you must speak with the Ent Longbough. Keep in mind that if you jump in the water while pressing w (or whatever your movement is set to) you will swim faster than simply moving forward. Don't ask me why, I don't know and it makes no sense. After successfully completing this session you are, naturally, transported back to the Shire.

The final session to be completed is a trek to Rivendell. This one is without a doubt the longest and the most difficult. It can be soloed up until you reach the Bruinen Forges, but after that I have not yet found a way to reach Rivendell without some sort of help (or a great deal of luck and skill). The bears and lynx, the lurkers, badgers, boars and sickle-flies are a bit too scary for me, so I called in some help from a Rune-keeper friend of mine for the last bit, but if you are confident in your Fowl Fleetness and Bobbing and Weaving, then by all means attempt it. Just remember, if you die, you have to start back at the Shire and run all that way again.

For all that effort, you are rewarded with the Cloak of the Cluck, a fantastic looking cloak that shows off your patience and mad skills to the rest of the lotro community.

As an escort for chicken runs, I have to say the hardest part is seeing the chickens if they happen to get in tall grass or too far away. They are kind of tiny. Also, I developed a funny paranoia and kept looking behind me and doing a headcount to make sure I still had all my chickens and hadn't lost any.

Oh to cosplay.... one day.

All this talk of Gamescon lately has got me wondering what I would cosplay as if I ever were to cosplay. Granted, I in no way have the body shape for any sort of that right now, it would take a lot of work and effort, but I'm pretty sure it would be worth it in the end. Plus my husband and I have already talked about how fun it would be to cosplay, and while he was thrilled with the idea of me dressing up like someone from a game or anime, he wasn't too keen on the hundreds of horny basement-dwellers gawking.

Anyway, back on track, it didn't take me long to decide what my cosplaying goal would be. Or at least the realm containing possible goals. The Prince of Persia series has always been my favorite, so I would have to go for either Farah or Elika. My only problem (besides me currently looking like a fat otaku) would be deciding which of the girls to go for. People have told me many times that I look a bit like Elika, from 2008's PoP:

Not a horrible choice, all things considered. She's dressed relatively decent, for a vidjagame chick anyways. I know I could do the hair, at least.

My second (and third, as it were) option is to be Farah. My only issue here is, would I play the Farah from Sands of Time or the Farah from The Two Thrones? They have some significant differences, and while I think I like the character of the Sands of Time Farah, I prefer the costume of the Two Thrones one.
 To the left here is the Farah from the Sands of Time. Her costume is simple, not too revealing (I'm loving the fact that her skirt goes to mid-thigh and I wouldn't have to wear anything..... drafty.
 If nothing else, I could definitely do the whole hairintheface thing. That's something I've always been good at.



 The Farah from the Two Thrones is a bit more complicated:

Instead of a costume that could be achieved with nothing but cloth, this Farah has some definite leather/metal action going on, something that could prove problematic. Her bow is a lot more detailed as well. Check out those weird patterns.

Also it looks like this skirt a bit more on the skimpy side, so I'd definitely have to make sure I was absolutely ready to go after portraying her.


In the end, I would probably go the lazy route and just go after Elika since her costume looks the simplest, but would that be unfair to poor Farah?

/sigh

Death to Narmeleth!!!

So Squid and I finally finished Volume 1 of the epic story in lotro. Thank heaven. Finally. I think she was ready to strangle the elf-woman by the time we were done. But, all that matters, besides strangling, is that we finished, and that we have these lovely white horses to show for it.

Oh, and matching cloaks, but it was night-time in Rivendell when we finished, so the pic didn't turn out quite as well for that one.

The story really is nice though, and if you pay attention to it (unlike sis, who just accepted and moved on without reading) it pays some interesting tributes to some lesser known Tolkien lore every now and again.

They don't make them like they used to....

I have officially decided that the creators of Lotro do not make locations, instances, and fights like they used to. Take, for instance, the instance of Ost Elendil in Annuminas:

This is quite possibly one of the prettiest and most regal locations I have ever seen in the game. The strategy for completing the instance is interesting as well, and I can't think of any other place in the game that requires the tactics needed to beat this area. Granted, at level 65 in a level 50 instance, the mobs weren't too much of a challenge, but like several of the old instances, this will all change in the fall when instance scaling is released. I know I am thoroughly going to enjoy running this and all the other old instances, but this time at level 65.

And yes, I know I could run the current instances at their intended level of fifty, but I am too lazy and skeered.

The Questing Geese Jugglers

Several months back, Squid and I created our own kinship for our alts, mostly as an experiment to see if we could use it for storage once we were eligible to buy a kin house (five months later! Aghhhhh!). After a while we forgot about the kin house though, until one day, while I was on my (then) measly level 6 champion, that I and a friend put down a wager to see who could reach level forty the fastest. I suggested a rather large sum of in-game gold (for my budget, anyways) as the prize, with certain variables for the winner's stats upon reaching forty. If everything went as planned, there was the possibility that the loser would have to pay up 15 gold. I would never have proposed this ridiculous amount of money unless I was sure I could win, which I was, seeing as how I currently am unemployed and have unlimited free time, while my opponent has a job and a farm to take care of. I felt pretty darn sure of myself.

Everything was going hunky dory, until I realized one day that no matter how hard I thought I was pushing to level, every night my opponent would manage to gain the same amount of levels or more in half the time. This was probably due in part to the difference in our classes, and that I was a heavy armor melee class, with practically no heals, and he was a light armor tactical class that could send out either massive heals or dps as needed. Finally I began to panic and realized that he was probably just toying with me, and if he so chose, he could blow me and this contest out of the water. So that weekend, I sat and stupidly played for over twenty hours straight. I made it to 40, pushing harder on some quests than I should have, and dying many more times than I could count, but I made it. Granted, I pushed so hard that I didn't have much time to level virtues, the variable factor in our wager, so I didn't come out on top with as much as I could have, but still, I came out with about 8 gold. I also came out with a strained wrist and had to wear a brace for four days. It still twinges, even now.

The prize money, combined with what I already had scattered about my other characters, finally gave me enough to purchase our Kinship house. So if you're ever in the Thorin's Hall homesteads on Gladden, feel free to stop by 5 Roaring Road, Tonbry. There's free ale, if that makes any difference.

Squid and I have yet to truly celebrate our new house (we have fireworks saved in our bags to shoot off) but I know in the future it's going to get a lot of use, provided we can remember to pay the monthly upkeep.

As silly as the contest was, we have decided to one day do it again, but on a different server where we have no backup money from other characters to fall on if need be. THAT should be interesting.

Balrog Down

After weeks of trying and countless gold pieces spent in repair bills, I finally managed to down the balrog with an outstanding group.

The most amazing thing to me is that after all these dozens of tries and failures, where the group would wipe multiple times - on this go around, not a single person died. It was perfect. Textbook, in a sense.

Other than getting bugged out at the end of the fight and thereby unable to receive any loot ( insert sad panda face here) I gleefully ran back up to the surface to turn in the quest. This was the final step in gaining my Dunedain Warhorse, the first of my meta-deed mounts.

However, after turning in the quest, I was woefully surprised when my meta-deed did not update, and I did not get my horse either! In something fast approaching a fury (it is amazing how, when you play a game long enough, not receiving a reward, even a pixelated and quite imaginary one, can send one into confused and startled anger. Like a badger), I cried out to the gods on Olympus (aka the GMs) and asked where my horse was. I wanted my horse.

The GMs actually responded, and a certain +Ohtah+ told me to try relogging. I did so tentatively, but upon my return to the game I found a Dunedain Warhorse waiting for me in my inventory and a very satisfyingly complete Saviour of Eriador meta-deed.

So here is the much sought after horse, and while he is indeed rather ugly (the modeling of the head is the most horrific), I ride him proudly throughout Middle-earth, showing off my triumph and dedication to the game (and also my complete and utter lack of any meaningful activity, production, or social life).

Video Games and the Movies

I've been seeing trailers for this movie called "Scott Pilgrim vs the World" floating around, and while I know I don't normally talk about movies here, I felt since the film seems to have an awful lot to do with video games I would mention it. Especially since their website has this fun little character creator.

See? I made me ^_^

If I was better at drawing comic-style art, and had a reason to draw myself (wow I suddenly sound very narcissistic) I suppose this is how I would make myself look. Except maybe taller. That chick up there looks a bit on the petite side, and I'm not that, for certain.

Ales and Tales at Goldberry's Spring

Last night, I decided to go to an Ales and Tales meeting on the Landroval server. Since sis called and wanted to play together just in time for us to make it, we each rolled new hobbits on Landroval (I have a warden named Elimiera and she has a burglar named Pangiruk, a tribute I suppose to her Gladden characters) and ran as fast as we could towards Goldberry's Spring, the location for this week's meeting.

I was expecting maybe a dozen people to be gathered under the trees, but no, there were probably fifty or more people standing around in the clearing. Some were dancing, many were drinking, and all were having a good time. On the large rock under the tree, a band stood and performed, and that rock became the speaking platform for each performer as the night wore on. Some recited poetry, some sang, some played music. One elf even told a lovely story of the old days and the Two Trees.

All in all it a was a fantastic time to be had and I am looking forward to next week's meeting at the Plough and Stars Inn! I might even work up my hobbit courage and recite a poem of my own!

A Rifting We Will Go

I'm feeling a bit wordy, and my imagination won't let me sleep, so forgive me if this post is a bit more on the .... grandiloquent side than usual. This may quite possible turn out to be my longest post to date, so I won't blame you if you don't have the time, patience, or interest enough to read it. If you are looking for information on how to beat the Rift, what strategies you need, etc. You won't find it here. This is pure creative release for my own mind, to share my experiences while they are still fresh.

 Last night, the kin got together, all impromptu-like, to do a bit of Bogbereth farming. We killed her about twenty times, at least until everyone who wanted the housing trophy had one. Farming her was pretty easy, and we had the group and were in the general vicinity, so we figured, why not? Let's go to the Rift.

Now the Rift of Nurz Gashu is the old end-game content for lotro, back when the level cap was fifty and the player base still all knew how to play their classes. I had been to the entrance of it, once, but I had never actually been inside. After volunteering myself for Horn duty, I headed up that way from Gath Forthnir. Even though I had been to the entrance of the place before, I had never really realized how desolate the place was. I felt like I was riding through some surreal movie sequence or something. My imagination began to run away with me as I rode slowly up to the summoning horn. I could almost see little puffs of ash swirl up around Bainrhi's hooves as he worked his way across the ledge. The wind was utterly still, and there were no signs of life to be seen, except for the distant glows of campfires.

After what seemed like ages and ages, I found a camp, but it was not the one I was looking for. These were no Dunadan. These were orcs. Angmarim. Trolls. I threaded my careful way between them and continued towards where I hoped the friendly camp would be.

I finally made it. I summoned my kinmates to the camp, and we marched down from the cliffside to the abandoned arena. The one thought that kept flitting through my head, like some annoying insect, was the size of the place. What sort of place was this? Why had it been built? And where was the entrance to this supposedly horrible place?

The answer to that last question was soon answered, as the leader of our party rode his horse down into a gaping crack in the stonework. A small voice inside me laughed with the thought, at least now you know why it's called The Rift. A great crack in the earth. Then, another thought soon replaced it. What happened to open up this crack and reveal whatever horrors lie beneath it? I had heard horrible things about this place, about how difficult it could be. Even now, at fifteen levels above the intended level, I knew I was up for a challenge. This used to be end-game. The old Sammath Gul. Of course the creators of the game were going to make it as tricky as possible.

I watched my fellow kinmates enter the cave, one by one, and then, I rode down last, into the Rift. Murmuring to myself that I was about to die, I turned, just before entering, and bid farewell to the sunshine. As pitiful as the sky in Angmar is, I had a feeling it was going to be a while before I saw it again.

Inside was a gaping cavern, far larger than what I had been expecting. Truth be told, I had been expecting a tunnel, but no. This was something else.  Far away, I could see orcs and angmarim wielding picks. Were they mining? What was going on down here? What was this place?

We worked our way down ramps that looked none too steady and stopped before a small group of orcs and a massive troll. They were speaking, in their own harsh way, and arguing. I have come to learn that orcs argue a lot. Those with swords and shields rushed forward, and I hung back with the other archers, as was my place. We dispatched with the lot of them quickly, and relatively unscathed.

And that was the way of things for a long while. We would press onward, ever deeper into the earth, and the orcs and evil men fell before our blades. Eventually we came to an interesting scene - some extremely large giants, fighting a band of orcs. For a while we stood back, waiting to see how it would turn out, but then, with one mind, we rushed forward and assisted the giants in defeating the orcs. They thanked us and told us of some horrible creatures ruling over the orcs, and asked if we would help defeat them.  Of course we would. That's why we were down there, wasn't it? To kill bad guys?

After the commotion with the orcs had died down and we had stopped for a bit to catch our breath around the giants' fire, something caught my attention. What was that off to the side? I ran over the the ruined archway and proceeded to view one of the few sites in lotro that have caught me quite by surprise.

What sort of place was this? Who were these fire-giants, the Eldgang? Had Tolkien invented this place, or was this one of the more fanciful (and frankly, strangely beautiful) places the game's creators had though up? But there is no rest for the would-be heroes, so I was soon called away from my sight-seeing to press onward with the rest of the group, ever deeper into the earth.

It soon became apparent that we were headed towards that great coliseum I had viewed earlier. Part of me was excited about the prospect of going there, but part of me still held a lingering fear. Deep places of Middle-earth usually hold ancient, evil terrors, and I had heard rumors that one dwelt here. A balrog. But he has no place in this story yet, for we were still a long way off from that coliseum.

We did battle with many more evil things, not the least of which was an orc named Zogtark and his many drakes. The drakes fell to the ground after we filled them full of arrows, and Zogtark was dispatched by the sword-carriers. We pushed through, and emerged through what appeared to be a promising door only to be met with frustration: We had come out too low, and now had to work our way back up toward the coliseum.

 
Letting my imagination take hold again, I wondered what the heat of this room would feel like, and how taxing it would be on our little band of heroes, both mentally and physically. The armor of the stronger ones would surely grow hot from the heat, and the air would dry out my bow and weaken it. In a place like this, how long could one expect to hold out and continue fighting? Some of my companions' clothes had even caught alight from stray sparks.

It seemed as though we had been underground for ages. The vast caverns had given way to small, tight corridors, and I longed for the sight of the stars. A clear night in the Shire. I wondered how much further we had to go. Even Moria, with all its twists and turns and tight places, gives way to the beauty of Lorien in the end. What golden wood was waiting on the other side of this darkness?

I began to think we had gone too far, surely we've gone too deep. Strange creatures, that looked at first as though they were trolls - but no. These were not trolls. I do no know what they were, even after leaving the Rift and finding the sky again. I have a feeling I do not want to know, with names like Shadow-eater and Stone-biter. Later, we found one that was named World-eater, but that is for later.

Eventually, we fought our way past the strange creatures and into the coliseum. I braced myself for the Balrog. But he was not there. Instead there was another of the Eldgang giants, and a strange creature called the Ever-seer. I was not looking at them though. I was looking at the place I was in. How many thousands of people could this place hold? I wondered, looking at the rows and rows of seats. A pity a volcano had decided to come up in the floor.

I looked below me, over the edge of the platform, and saw beautiful statues. Again I wondered who had built this place, and why. What were those stone kings put there to watch over, with their fire-bladed spear and their towering shields? What was inscribed on their shields? My elvish is a bit rusty. It was in this room that our group was put for the first time to a real test, and we failed miserably, I admit. But we got back on our feet, dusted ourselves off, and tried again.
This time we succeeded, and pressed onward, to what I still didn't know, but thoughts of the Balrog still held heavy in the back of my mind. We ran onward across a long stone bridge towards what appeared to be a fall of lava, cascading downwards from some great height. High above us the roof of the cavern stood, and for a moment I was thankful to be back out in the 'open' and away from those tiny tunnels. I laughed mirthlessly to myself and continued across the bridge with my kinmates. Far away I could see that ruined archway at the giants' fire, and I realized how far we had come. How much farther did we have to go?

At the end of the bridge we came to a great door, and going through it, I met with surprise an elf maiden. But this was no mere maiden. This was a warrior, so strong that it put my feats thus far in the game to shame. This was one of the Eldar. She pointed to a great door beyond us, at the other end of the hall, held shut by many great locks and seals, and told us the tale of how Thaurlach had been imprisoned here many ages ago by the Istari instead of being killed for what he had done to her people, and she had set guard over him for thousands of years, waiting for him to try and escape so that she could finally give him the justice he deserved. After assuring her that we would help her defeat Thaurlach, the Balrog (!!) she opened the great door with its many seals for us.

Not long after entering his prison chamber, something went horribly wrong and he broke loose from his chains. We fought valiantly, but in the end death takes us all, I suppose. It was only a matter of time. And so ends my story of the Rift. Maybe next time, when we've had a chance to catch our breath and re-summon our courage, we'll try again.

If you know me at all and the way I play lotro, I am a complete shutter-bug, and am constantly taking screenshots, sometimes of completely pointless things. This post, if nothing else, should be evidence of that - that I managed to take all these pictures and more in the middle of a twelve-man raid. Maybe that has something to do with my dying so many times. Who knows?