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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Happy Anniversary, LOTRO!

It feels kind of weird wishing LOTRO a happy 10th anniversary, since it feels only yesterday that I was wishing the same for WoW.*

The mini-Reds love the Anniversary events and are always pestering me to get more involved, so this time I took a break from grinding deeds and ran across the length and breadth of Middle-earth in the gigantic scavenger hunt that the devs put together for this special occasion.

And crack some skulls.

Being L81 but only up to the Rise of Isengard and the Great River expacs and quest packs, I was kind of shut out of completing most of the scavenger hunt events, but I still crept along as best I could without aggroing too many enemies. Unfortunately for me, I discovered that even neutral animals out in the wild would come from miles around to chase after me if the level difference was high enough, and when I poked my nose out of the Rangers of Ithilien's hideout, I was looking at the scenery only about 10 feet from the opening to discover a deer zipping at me from points unknown.

At least my toon can outrun a deer down a twisting passage if given enough of a head start.

After that little surprise, I decided that asking for a port to some of these locations was not a good idea, because I'd be a smudge on the ground quicker than you can say "WTF??!!!"**

Nice view. Of course, Frodo was a bit distracted
when he was at Amon Hen.

But that didn't stop me from making it to Amon Hen and then attempting to skirt across the length and breadth of Rohan. (And collecting all of the stable locations.)

Not exactly the length and breadth of Rohan,
as it's the Great River, but I found this really cool.

Still, for long time players this was a trip down memory lane that they'll not soon forget. And even though I started up an account shortly after LOTRO went F2P, I didn't really start playing seriously until long after, about 3 years ago.

If there's one thing that I wish about the 10th Anniversary event, it's that it would last an extra week. I'm not that into collecting stuff from the event as far as gear and fashion is concerned, but for some reason the firework event has been very soothing to me, much more so than in years past.

No, this is not an archive screen capture.
I just like fireworks.

Maybe I'm getting old, but... /shrug

I can live with that.





*I blame kids for my amnesia.

**I have had that dubious experience with roving threats. Once when I was shuttling back and forth from Annuminas as part of the endgame for Shadows of Angmar, I parked my toon in what seemed to be a pretty secluded area, free from enemies, while I went to go grab a beer. I came back a minute later to find that I'd been killed, with a roving threat gloating nearby.


4 comments:

  1. I love the mental image of your character being chased by a deer! Didn't know those things were that vicious in Middle-earth! :D

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    1. When I aggroed that deer, I expected it would be an orc running at me from nearby. Then I saw the antlers....

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  2. "when I poked my nose out of the Rangers of Ithilien's hideout, I was looking at the scenery only about 10 feet from the opening to discover a deer zipping at me from points unknown."

    This is freaking hilarious. Please post more stories of you besting the critters of Middle-earth while trying to complete the Scavenger hunt! ^^

    As the Scavenger hunt is going on until July, I actually totally missed that the anniversary itself would go away, so I forgot to exchange my tokens for all the cool stuff I wanted and missed out on everything. Derp. And I really wanted that red-and-gold dragon outfit for my Haradrim character! Ah well, something to look out for next year.

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    1. I'm not so sure I want to find out what it's like closer to the Stone of Erech. After all, I might be close to level, but I'm woefully undergeared.

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