So here in Europe, Book 8: Patch 1 was released today, and as can be expected, within sec­onds of log­ging in, the trade chan­nel was being spammed with the newly craftable ‘reforged’ 2^nd Aged items, while the advice chan­nel was full of fran­tic mes­sages from play­ers des­per­ately seek­ing those all impor­tant new craft­ing recipes! (Note: For those who still need to know, the Lothlo­rien Vine­yards is where you will find a Lothlo­rien Craft Guild rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Guild recipes, while single-use recipes are traded by an Elf at the docks nearby). All of this craft­ing drama inevitably ended with the Auc­tion House flooded with all the new crafta­bles (with a hefty price-tag attached), and a dras­tic price-increase for mithril flakes.

After the excite­ment of craft­ing my own 2^nd age for the first time and help­ing a small group out with a Carn Dum cas­tle boss, I was advised by a kin­nie to head towards Esteldin. With a Level 60, there is not nor­mally any need to head towards the North Downs (despite spend­ing so much time there dur­ing the middle-portions of the lev­el­ling expe­ri­ence), but a return visit is now highly rec­om­mended: hid­den behind a pil­lar near the stable-master in Esteldin is a quest-giver, who pro­vides access to five bounty-quests, (which I can only assume is new with the Book 8 patch but wasn’t men­tioned in the patch notes!?). Each of these quests is designed for a Level 60 in a small fel­low­ship, is repeat­able every 5 hours, and, for each quest com­pleted, rewards you with extremely valu­able Item Expe­ri­ence (IXP) runes with IXP val­ues far exceed­ing those nor­mally found in Moria.

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