This may come as a bit of surprise, but I’ve decided to close up MMeOw.
I felt this way a few months ago and was encouraged by support from fellow LOTRO bloggers and podcasters. I stuck it out and, in many ways, I was happy I did.
Still, I know what it is that I’d like to do … unfortunately, that means letting go of this site. There are too many other things I need to do and wish to accomplish, things I want to learn, places I want to go. True, MMeOw in and of itself is not preventing those things necessarily, but I spend a significant amount of time, money and energy on it. While I still love the game and plan on continuing to play it regularly (it’s almost all I play it seems!), my passion for writing about it and maintaining this site has dwindled.
I’ve really loved writing here and I hope other people have enjoyed it as well. The LOTRO and extended MMORPG community have really been wonderful toward me and this site. I’ve appreciated the kind words and help along the way. I’m probably most sorry that it’ll disappoint some people in doing this, but I think you’ll forgive me .
MMeOw was something I wanted to do because, at the time, there were relatively few LOTRO blogs out there. Now there’s quite a few of excellent ones out there, headed up by some really great people. I think this makes it a little easier to move on (please don’t read this wrong, as I don’t want to overstate my importance). I encourage anyone who visits here to check out the LOTRO Combo Blog, which links to quite a few of them. As of right now, I plan on leaving that running indefinitely; however, if anyone wants to pick up the reins on that, let me know.
If you still want to know what I’m up to, you can visit my more personal site, radish.me, or follow my non-MMeOw twitter.
This morning, LiuTsieng posted a brief explanation on how the gauntlet system for Barad Guldur is supposed to work. After the bug fix for the gate issue in this area, some things have been adjusted.
We don’t do a great job of communicating the way the gauntlet works, so here’s what’s happening in that pic:
— You have 40 minutes from the time you kill the last two armored guards at the end of the gauntlet to kill Durchest without having to reclear the gauntlet.
— 39 minutes after you’ve killed those guards, you’ll get a warning message. Something to the effect of, “You hear the sound of reinforcements in the halls, they are coming..“
— A minute after that warning message, you’ll receive a message stating something to effect of, “Reinforcements have arrived, this is your last chance.“
— At this point you’ve had 40 minutes of free attempts on Durchest. Any current attempts will need to be finished up, after which the gauntlet will reset.
If you’ve been trying to prevent a respawn of the gauntlet, you’ll see the situation in that picture. Simply walk to the entrance (you don’t need to leave the instance, just walk to the door). You should see the front gate raise, an instance billboard indicating that you will have to reclear the gauntlet, and then the gate should lower.
This is why most groups aren’t seeing this. If you kill Durchest before the gauntlet timer is up you shouldn’t notice a thing. If you consistently attempt Durchest with everyone dying and then reviving at the entrance, you shouldn’t notice this. If for some reason you do though, walk to the entrance, let the gate raise, then lower, then reclear.
Hopefully if you’ve been having some issues, this will clarify things a bit.
I’ve been without a kin for over 6 months now and while it does get boring talking to myself in chat, I have to say I’ve survived pretty well without one. I’ve filled my hours working on crafting and doing as many solo quests as I can. I do occasionally group with a friend or two for the 3-mans or to knock out lower level quests. But lately I’ve been missing the raiding I used to do in my old kin and have been looking for a new one. What am I looking for in a kin? One that has fun and knows how to raid.
Herein lies the dilemma. I’m not a hardcore raider, but I do like having the bits of shiny for my toons. I don’t need to be the first to down the boss or have the instance on farm status, but a girl likes some swag, you know?
Then what are the options out there for the “casual raider”? Well, you can try to form a static group with people from different kins, but you might run into some issues with figuring out the loot rules as everyone will have a different take on how to divide the loot. Another option is to do PUGs, but honestly, when do PUGs turn out well for you? Almost never.
Seriously though, when looking for a group to raid with you can join a kin, but that doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to raid with them right off the bat. Many kins these days require you submit a raiding application and then have a visual inspection of your gear and stats. The problem with this is that if you’re new to raiding (whether it is in general or on a particular character) you might not have all your traits maxed out or have the best gear. With that in mind, it is a good idea to “shadow” a kin if you’re able to. By that I mean see if you can join them on a raid or just go questing with them and get a feel for how they play and how the officers treat their members. Also find out if there is a waiting list for raiding and if they have multiple static groups that raid. Larger kins do raids at different times to accommodate alts, so there might be room for you on their secondary raid group. Check out all your options and be well informed before jumping into a new kin. There’s nothing worse than being known as the person that is a ‘kin-hopper”. Once you’ve run with the potential new kin a few times you can better decide if you want to make it your home.
If this doesn’t work out for you, there is one last option and it is my favourite. Get two or three friends who will do quad boxing! Put all your toons on auto attack and auto follow and hit those raids! The only drawbacks to this idea are falling off cliffs when you drag that last toon around the corner or having your toon run into the insta-death water. But really, other than that it’s a fine idea. You have 4 times the chance at good loot, you get more coin and more XP. A win-win-win-win situation for everyone.
Hounding Fear is one of those mob skills that has always been a center of debate. In the past I would say it was overused, but Turbine has made an effort to change that over various updates. Today I came across this post on the forums from LOTROSystems with some clarification on how Hounding Fear currently works and what is planned for the future:
Hounding Fear.
This has been the subject of many threads, complaints, frustrations, and arguments. We’ve responded in the past to some of these threads trying to explain things a bit (feel free to hunt them down if you wish). We also made a significant adjustment to Hounding Fear with Moria: reducing the chance of it landing on you when fighting mobs lower level than you. Currently, you actually have a 0% chance of getting hit by Hounding Fear when being attacked by mobs that are gray to you.
The reason we’re responding to this (newest) thread is because the game has changed a bit: Skirmishes, specifically soldiers. We want soldiers to be able to protect players the best they can, and we also want players to be able to protect their soldiers the best they can. Hounding Fear hampers that a bit. If you’re able to heal your soldier and trying to run over to him but get slowed by Hounding Fear, you might not get in range in time to save him. Therefore…
The effect “Hounding Fear” is being removed from Skirmishes AND from Landscape.
Now, you might be saying: “Protecting your Soldier? That is your reason for removing it when there’s so many better ones that have existed this whole time!?” What it comes to is that this was the final straw. We’ve debated back and forth for a long time now about the merits and flaws of Hounding Fear: what we were trying to achieve with it, how we were successful and unsuccessful with our goals, what the consequences will be if we remove it.
We hope this change will be for the better in the short term and the long term. We feel this is the right choice to make (though, to be fair, we always make the choices we make thinking they’re the right ones). Should it have been made sooner? Maybe. Will it backfire horribly because of some unforeseen consequence? Hopefully not.
Thank you for all of your feedback. We do pay attention to your concerns and try and act upon them when we are able to (assuming we agree with you, of course ).
So things appear to be changing for the better for all you Skirmishes out there.
It’s another Welcome Back Weekend in LOTRO, but this time there’s something different going on. The bonus XP for mob kills has been reduced to 5%, but to make up for this all stable travel is free. FREE!
I honestly like this a heck of a lot better, as it’ll benefit everyone across the game. It also encourages returning and new players to see more of the world and the things that have been changed.
The event starts today and runs through January 25th.
Tip Time: Helpful UI Adjustments: Lately this blog has concentrated heavily on news about Mines of Moria. As exciting as that is, I really feel more atten...
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