Tales From Middle Earth - The Bearded Minstrel

Day 7 | Day 6 | Day 5 | Day 4 | Day 3 | Day 2 | Day 1 | Day 0 I sincerely hope this is the last one. I've enjoyed my adventure through my memories but I'm just really excited for Mordor. I want to take this opportunity to focus on the future instead of the past. This series has been entirely about the last 10 years, but perhaps we can talk about the next 10 years. So, what does LoTRO have to work with? Pictured below in pink is the remaining landmass unexplored: Really puts things into perspective! But let's be fair, a lot of that is mountain ranges and unless it's underground (which is possible!) let's show just open fields: Still significant. Granted, it's very true Tolkien didn't expand much on these areas and they really are ruins of kingdoms long past. But the here is potential places to explore: South Farthing of the Shire  Gray Havens South Downs Far Downs Harlindon Farlindon Andrast Anfalas ...

Well... SSG has made something of a fool of me. :) I kid. I kid. I get it, these things happen. Although I did end Day 7 pretty nicely, I think it's only fitting I continue for as long as Mordor is delayed. Does that mean a day -1 or a day -2? Sure, why not. I've got 10 years of memories, after all! The oldest screenshot my wife could find of me is actually a text post. Dated January 13th, 2009. I would have been 22 or so. A few days later, we went into the Rift and I apparently said something that caused everyone to just....lose it. lol. People are so mean! Side note, y'all remember glff channel? That takes me back. You know why people lament over days past? Because this is the kind of stuff that sticks around with you: Y'all wanna complain about bugs in Mordor? Look at this from 2010: Anywho, hope you guys enjoyed some of these old pictures from yesteryear. Let's see how long this countdown keeps up! I'll start sharing some ...

Day 7 | Day 6 | Day 5 | Day 4 | Day 3 | Day 2 The White City So here we are. It's been really fun going through my memories of Lord of the Rings Online. From my first days in the Shire to my adventures in Rohan, the journey through Middle-earth has been one I will never forget. But we still haven't spoken about perhaps the largest most expansive content release in all of LoTRO's history. This also marks the absolute longest time in the game's release cycles. Let me show you why: Strawberry LoTRO: April 2007 - November 2008 Mines of Moria: November 2008 - December 2009 Siege of Mirkwood: December 2009 - September 2011 Rise of Isengard: September 2011 - October 2012 Riders of Rohan: October 2012 - November 2013 Helm's Deep: November 2013 - July 2014 All Gondor-related Patches: July 2014 - July 2017 As you can see, we've been in Gondor for 3 years! This is by far the longest release cadence ever. But don't think it's just been a conte...

Day 7 | Day 6 | Day 5 | Day 4 | Day 3 Ride now, Eorlingas! The Riders of Rohan was perhaps the most anticipated expansion to ever release for the Lord of the Rings Online. Rohan, it's people, and it's lands was probably, with the exception of the Shire, one of the most exciting and anticipated areas in all of Middle-Earth. Following the trend of bringing new systems in place per expansion, the Riders of Rohan introduced mounted combat. This was a really exciting prospect and I was truly looking forward to it. However, when introduced, I must admit I was not a fan. The concept was great but the execution at the time was not perfect. I remember the horses feeling very sluggish and difficult to control.  To complement the mounted combat, SSG also introduced Roving Threats. These were powerful monsters that could only be defeated in mounted combat. Honestly, they were a ton of fun especially with groups but it would be a while until SSG improved the tech so the...

Day 7 | Day 6 | Day 5 | Day 4 | The Rise of Isengard I'll be completely honest with you guys. I wasn't playing when this initially released. RoI released on September 27, 2011 and a new MMORPG called 'RIFT' had released a few months prior and it had enthralled me pretty seriously. That being said, it wouldn't keep my attention for long and I would find myself away from Middle-earth. I remember thinking Dunland was huge...almost too huge, if such a thing is possible. Again, I lamented slightly that we weren't following the Fellowship, but we were part of the greater story. The Grey Company was making their way to Aragorn and we were involved in it. Again, I wasn't too thrilled to be dealing with Hill people, but the story was really fun. I recall not being too excited about the Draigoch raid that was released. It was like WoW's Onyxia raid and it didn't really call my attention too much. The big raid, though, was the Tower of Ort...

Day 7 | Day 6 | Day 5 The Dark Days of Mirkwood I remember being very confused when the expansion 'The Siege of Mirkwood' was announced. Mostly, I was curious as to 'Why'.  The Fellowship was ready to begin their trek down the Anduin towards Gondor so I was very curious as to why SSG was going East instead of South. Regardless, the Siege of Mirkwood would be an expansion that would revolutionize Lord of the Rings Online in more than one way. Aside from it's selling feature; Skirmishes, the expansion also removed Radiance and introduced DX11 Support. Radiance. I wonder how many of you remember that. Back in the day, dread was countered by Radiance and raid bosses had SO much dread that if your gear did not have the appropriate radiance, you would quickly be defeated. It made raiding a pain, to be honest. You couldn't do anything if you didn't have the appropriate radiance amount, regardless of your general stats. The removal of radiance opened ...

Day 7  |  Day 6  | The Mines of Moria The day I learned that the first expansion for Lord of the Rings was going to release, I went nuts. Not only where we going to venture into the coolest place in Middle Earth; Moria but we were also getting a level-cap increase and two new classes! Rune-keeper and Warden.   I think what I remember most of all though, was the drama surrounding Rune-keeper. For the first time, ever, we had a serious debate occurring within the community regarding whether or not something could truly be lore-appropriate or not. There had been inklings of it when Forochel was released in Book 13 but there had been very little to argue against. Tolkien said very little about Forochel so a lot was left to interpretation. But Rune-keeper was a different story. Here we had, effectively, the first class to ever truly use "magic" and Tolkien purists were livid. Gandalf himself rarely utilized any sort of offensive or curative magic unless absol...

Day 7 Strawberry LoTRO You know....like Vanilla WoW? Strawberry LoTRO :D Ok. I'll stop. I remember the day my guardian turned level 50, which was the cap for Shadows of Angmar. I recall the very first thing I wanted was that AWESOME crafted teal cloak with the White Tree of Gondor; The Exquisite Radiant Cloak. I also REALLY wanted that sweet Heavy Elven shield. Both of which I got thanks to a great crafter friend! There were tiers of endgame back then. The first group were the people who ran Carn Dum and Urugarth regularly. Now, this might seem like a basic thing to you today but back then these dungeons were an involved affair. Carn Dum took AT LEAST 3 hours to complete, which didn't include the final tower where Mordirith resided. Even he was only tackled by the most skilled of players that had mastered the mechanics of that insane city. The next group of people where the people who ran Barad Gularan. This dungeon was unlike any other dungeon in the game. The sk...

Hullo Everyone! Today marks a week until the release of the Mordor expansion! In celebration of this, I will be counting down the release by submitting daily posts reflecting on the last 10 years! so let's jump straight into it! Concerning Hobbits I used to play on Brandywine server before I switched over to Landroval. The reason was one that I'm sure a lot of you could understand; it was the very first server on the list I recognized at the time (What's an Arkenstone? =P) I remember the first few days like it was yesterday. I made the mistake that a lot of people made that I still think, in my humble opinion, SSG has not rectified; I made a hobbit. I know, I know. Heresy. Just...hear me out. The Lord of the Rings films had made a huge impression on me. In the four years between the release of the Return of the King and the release of LoTRO I became a huge Tolkien fan, reading every single piece of literature that the man wrote. I was enamored with Middle-ear...