Siege of Mirkwood has been out for a while now and I’m interested in reading people’s opinions on it. The introduction of skirmishes was obviously a big deal, not to mention the addition of southern Mirkwood and all that came along with it.
Prior to its launch, I read comments around the Internet on both ends of the spectrum. One that caught my attention remarked that Turbine would regret releasing this “mini-expansion” and that in the coming months Turbine would be hearing what a bad idea it was. I’ve not really seen that happen yet, but I suppose everyone might feel differently.
Personally, I’ve not had a ton of time for anything in the game, which makes me a sad panda. I have done several skirmishes though, which I thought were a blast. Has anyone had their fill of them? I suppose at some point anything can get a bit played out.
Did it live up to your expectations? Do you love/hate skirmishes? Have you enjoyed the new areas and raids? Are there things you’re hoping for in the next book update?
Volume 2 Book 9: Siege of Mirkwood, Patch 1 is up on Bullroarer for testing. For some reason it feels as though there’s been a longer gap between the release and Patch 1 than usual, but maybe things are just dragging for me. You can read the full notes on the official forums: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=312145
As usual there are issues floating around that aren’t addressed by this patch, but we’ll have to hope they’re addressed in the future. I know there are several camps of people who are unhappy with some of the current legacy options. Managing that well seems like a nightmare, I don’t envy the people working on it.
Additionally, there’s a change to shared storage that is worth explicitly noting:
Quest items are no longer allowed in shared storage. Quest items that were stranded in Shared Storage are destroyed the first time you login a player on the account. Players who have the related quest underway will need to cancel and re-acquire the quest to receive a new quest item.
I was under the impression quest items couldn’t be placed in shared storage, but if you happened to do this, be sure to restart your quests. It’s an annoyance, but hopefully not a major one for most people. I am under the impression that if you remove them before the patch you should be safe, so give that a shot!
That’s a pretty nice complement to ours, which is offering the Adventurer’s Pack. Interestingly, both of ours are screenshot contests too haha. Would be fun if you won both, huh?
That’s pretty cool. Orion is a nice guy and has done a great job with some of the area revamps. I bet there will be some good questions and responses.
We’ve teamed up with Turbine to offer two winners a key each to Mirkwood (if they haven’t upgraded yet) and a guest spot on a future LOTROCast episode. The contest is a screenshot contest with two categories; one category is based on locations and one is based on characters. More info here:
By now I imagine many of you have tried out the new Skirmish system. I purposely avoided a lot of the more detailed information on Skirmishes and was able to go in pretty fresh. My general thought? They’re awesome.
In a lot of ways many of them feel almost like a Tower Defense game. You have areas to protect, while random groups of enemies and leaders make their way in to push you back. It’s quite action packed and I think it finally gives PvE players a sense of being in an actual war. Plus, it’s just awesome to see familiar areas in different situations. Bree covered in tons of snow and being invaded by brigands is not something you’re used to seeing.
I especially like the amount of control you’re given over the system. Once you complete the entry quest (which is relatively simple, but kind of a downer) and the tutorial, you can join a skirmish at pretty much any point. These can be adjusted by area, level, difficulty (there’s three tiers of this). The way it’s designed, there’s almost no real way to get tired of it aside from overexposure. Considering there are some additional skirmishes that were in the beta but are still being worked on (as noted at CStM), I think we’ll have a good amount to do for a while.
The Skirmish Marks you receive during these battles are barter tokens. You’re given a soldier to help you out and these tokens can give them new abilities. You can trade for all sorts of items for your characters as well, including class quest items. There’s some unique items as well, some of which I’ve got my eye on. Even so, I’d certainly recommend making your soldier as strong as possible early on. The stronger the soldier is, the easier it’ll be to amass those marks.
Casual Stroll to Mordor also has an excellent post with answers to common Skirmish questions. I really suggest you check it out if you find yourself confused.
How has everyone else’s experience with this been so far?
Prior to its launch, I read comments around the Internet on both ends of the spectrum. One that caught my attention remarked that Turbine would regret releasing this “mini-expansion” and that in the coming months Turbine would be hearing what a bad idea it was. I’ve not really seen that happen yet, but I suppose everyone might feel differently.
