I'd forgotten how much work a festival in lotro can be, if you are as obsessive about collecting everything as I am.
Wait, let me back up.
A year or so ago, I decided to get both my Inn League and Ale Association standings to kindred. Getting both to kindred takes a good deal more work than just doing one or the other, as doing one will give you negative rep with the other. It was only through a delicate balancing act and several weeks of grinding dedication that I managed it.
By the time I was there, I had a couple stacks of the barter tokens for each faction. At first they seemed useless, but as Indy is unable to throw anything away, I shoved them in the vault and forgot about them. Until, that is, at the next festival, when I saw that these tokens could be traded on a 1:3 ratio for any festival token of your choice.
Suddenly, acquiring all those festival cosmetics and mounts was a piece of cake. I no longer had to grind out the quests and deeds to get tokens. Festival's started today? Okay, go to the vault, pull out a few Inn League or Ale Association tokens, turn them in for the appropriate festival tokens, aquire goods, done. That was it. I could usually accomplish all my festing in the space of five minutes, unless there was a new deed I wanted to finish.
Well, the Yulefest started last week, but due to the release of SW:TOR, I've been distracted. I just decided to log onto lotro today, and what would you know, but I'm all out of those IL and AA tokens.
So now, to acquire my new Yulehorse, I had to actually run quests, which isn't all bad since I still hadn't finished my Feast-beast title from last year, and there is a new snowman building quest/deed thingie. Thank goodness the festival will run until Jan 30th, because it'll probably take several days for me to get all the other cosmetics.
At least the new Yulehorse isn't that bad looking. Don't know what's on his head, but the rest of it looks good.
Just north of the city of Bree lies the festival grounds, a sprawling expanse of tents and stages full of merry-makers and feasting. A race track for skilled horseman encircles the tents, testing the unwary with hedges and ditches. But on the southern side, near the grounds, stands the Hedge-maze, and to those blessed with strong internal compasses there is a series of challenges to be completed.
The simplest challenges of course are timed runs, where you must navigate the maze within a certain time limit. Each successful run opens the challenge to run the maze faster and faster. On the sillier side of things, occasionally chickens wander into the maze and it is up to the player to catch them all before they escape.
There is also a challenge by the Inn-league, assuming you have completed the pub crawl and been initiated, to find the "artefact" and use it. The artefact turns out to be a huge keg. I saw no danger in it, until as I was approaching the keg a hobbit lying on the ground warned me in a slow slur, "No. Go away. S'bad fuh yew." Slightly confused, I poured myself a tankard and downed it in one long draught. Instantly my vision blurred and I was told to make it to the end of the maze within two minutes.... or else. Or else what? I was so drunk I couldn't even walk properly, and began hobbling my slow way toward the exit. I confess, I didn't make it. I collapsed within sight of the exit and passed out. When I awoke, I was hundreds of miles from Bree, in Forochel, stranded on the middle of an ice-berg, and missing my pants. However, I am never one to be turned away by something so simple as that, so I made my way back to Bree and tried it again. And again. And again. I believe I mentioned before that the maze is for people with strong internal compasses. I am not one of those people. Finally I made it and was rewarded with a replica of the artefact for my own home, which produces the same effects - extreme drunkeness, a hangover the next day in some far-off place, and missing pants.
Not all who enter the maze emerge safely though, even if they never take one sip from that horrible keg. Several elves entered the maze at the start of the festival and have yet to emerge, so you are charged with locating all the elves and making sure they are still... alive. Thankfully, they are all fine, and some defiantly refuse any help at all. One of the elves I found to be a bit...strange. He claimed that he was "just so distracted by each and every leaf" that he could not find the time to leave. I kindly suggested he move to a desert where there are no leaves to be distracted by. Heaven help him if it ever rains.
A dwarf standing outside the maze takes great pleasure in the fact that the elves are lost, and he gives what I found to be the most light-hearted of all the challenges - to post confusing signs throughout the maze so that the poor elves remain lost. I posted his signs for him, and he chuckled and clapped his belly in mirth, his deep laugh rolling across the festival grounds as I walked off towards the dance-arena.
The maze challenges are fun, to be sure, and can provide you with about ten leaves or more in the space of thirty minutes, if you manage to complete all the quests without any failures. I also remember the maze as being the first festival activity I participated in back when I started the game over a year ago now. Ah... memories.
Yes, I'm a slacker. So here, to make up for my slackiness, and because I have forgotten to take pictures of any of the other activities I've been meaning to write about - yes, I have a list - here is a short post to appease the clamoring throngs of people out there demanding my return to my blogging duties. There are so many of you I seriously have trouble sleeping at night. Seriously.
Another of the activities available to patrons of the Spring festival is the Pie-eating contest. Here we see Squid doing something to that poor hobbit courageously eating pie. If she manages to eat the appropriate number of pies in the allotted time limit and doesn't get indigestion (which is entirely possible, considering the rash of rancid pies all across the Shire) then she is awarded the "Pie-eating champion" title and gets to revel in her gluttonous greatness, which I find ironically appropriate given the season of lent and whatnot.
This quest can only be done once, unlike many of the other festival activities, and it is available during all four seasonal festivals. The quest-giver is that cheery looking hobbit at the back of the table, who can be found at the festival grounds in Bree.
Today's post on the Spring festival will highlight one of my favorite things to do in the game - participate in the activities of the Inn League. The Inn League is one of the many reputation factions within the game, but what sets it apart from the others is that reputation with them can only be gained during the seasonal festivals, making it one of the more difficult things to work on. The hobbits of the Shire love their beers and ales, and take great delight in celebrating them.
The basic and most common way to gain reputation with the Inn League is by performing the Shire Pub Crawl (not the official name, ^.^). Today I was lucky enough to run the crawl with Squid, who performed excellently and made it through the entire run. The quest starts at the party tree in Hobbiton, where you are required to drink six tankards in about a minute. Sis managed to pass this portion of the quest, while I was too busy taking pictures and failed.
Next participants have to run all the way from the party tree to Brockenborings, north and east of Hobbiton, to the Plough and Stars inn. There, the formula is repeated and you must drink six tankards of ale before the time limit expires. This time the Inn League is a bit generous and gives you about five and a half minutes to get from the Party Tree to the Plough and Stars and drink your drinks. This time sis opted to perform an impressive balancing act and stand on the edge of the table while she downed her frothy mugs of beer. The Inn League officiant, that hobbit lady sitting beneath Squid, apparently didn't mind that sis was standing practically in her lap.
Next it was off to the Golden Perch in Stock, right on the banks of the Brandywine River and at the far eastern reaches of the Shire. Thankfully Squid avoided any shennanigans this time and stood firmly on the ground while the hobbit patrons did their best to ignore the fact that an elf-lady was rapidly downing all their best beer. Like a trooper, sis finished this round as well, and with a swift call to our mounts we rode off to the next destination, the Floating Log in Frogmorton.
To me, getting to Frogmorton and downing the beer in time was always the hardest step in the quest, because for this leg they only give you about three minutes to finish. By now any participants should be beginning to feel the effects of the ale, and things in game will start to appear a bit fuzzy. The first time I attempted the quest I was having such trouble seeing (I stupidly ran the quest at night in the rain, which makes it doubly hard to see) and stood outside the entrance to the Inn until my time ran out because I couldn't see through my drunken haze enough to actually find the door. Squid ran inside though and completed her grim task while I waited outside to lead the way to the next stop. Why? I suppose I was acting as a sort of designated driver, so that sis not only found her way but avoided running any poor hobbits over on her horse.
Next, it was a quick trip west to the Green Dragon in Bywater, probably the most famous of inns in the Shire. This is by far the largest and most prosperous of the Shire inns, built on the edge of the Water, just down the road from Hobbiton. It is also the site of one of Merry and Pippin's memorable songs from the Lord of the Rings films:
After leaving the Green Dragon, we headed off to the Ivy Bush Inn, where sis bravely ploughed on, although her screen probably looked something like this by this point:
I applaud her tremendously for continuing on. By now if you stand still the screen will slowly sway back and forth and everything is at least in doubles, if not triples. It's hard to click on the beers to 'drink' them, so finishing this last stage is always a challenge. Her last stop was the Bird and Baby Inn in Michel Delving, the capitol of sorts for the Shire. After downing her last six beers, she completed the quest with a horrifically silly grin on her face, and collapsed, where I'm pretty sure she is lying still, soundly sleeping off the effects of all those beers in the basement of the Bird and Baby. Here's hoping she doesn't have too much of a hangover.
Just a few days from now will mark my one year anniversary with lotro, and I find it fitting that my 'birthday' falls in the Spring Festival. I love the festivals in the game. Each one holds different activities to try, and while some are simple, some require a good amount of skill and practice.
One such activity requiring a bit of effort is the horse race. There are two race-tracks in the game, one in the Shire and one in Bree, and since the advent of the new, improved horse races back in the winter festival, I have made it a point to practice riding on the race-course every time I go to my house in Michel Delving (what? It's on the way, and since I am such an avid collector of horses, I figured it wouldn't hurt). When I first tried the race-tracks back December, I failed the races more times than I won them.
However, as a result of my practice, I ran the Spring race today with Indrabar, and received my Spring Fest Horse Token, which, when combined with other items, will allow me to trade for a spring horse. Yay!
My only wonder now is if Turbine has added a new horse to the Spring Festival, as they did in the Winter Festival. Just in case, I went ahead and ran the Bree race too and received a token from there, so, provided I can get the other necessary items and the money, I will have at least one (and possibly two!) new horses in the near future. Now I simply need to get my other characters up and ready as well so I can have Spring horses for them all!
Stay tuned for a rundown of the other events in the land of Middle-earth during the Spring Festival!
Well, the Yulefest started last week, but due to the release of SW:TOR, I've been distracted. I just decided to log onto lotro today, and what would you know, but I'm all out of those IL and AA tokens.
