Since my last post about LOTRO's most recent expansion, Rise of Isengard, I've covered most of the southern part of Dunland, that is, Starkmoor, Dunbog, Carreglyn and Gravenwood, as well as finishing the new epic quests that were released as part of the expansion (Volume III, Book 4). That earned me about 4 levels (from the start of 69 to almost 73).
Chapters 8 through 17 of the epic book primarily served as vector quests throughout Southern Dunland, in the same way that the first 7 chapters were vector quests through Northern Dunland.
I enjoyed Starkmoor (level 69) as a region, particularly since it included the first actual encounter with Saruman. My only complaint was that by this point I was really losing track of all the different clans, especially since they are sometimes referred to by their Dunlending names and sometimes by the English translations. I think the multitude of clans is a really cool part of the lore of this region as well as the overall story, but it loses a lot of its effect when I'm not sure which clan is which.
Dunbog (level 70) was the first region where I found the extensive chaining of quests in Dunland a problem. While I do like the way it makes the story more cohesive, it meant that once I got stuck on one set of quests I was unable to get any more quests in the region. In this case, I couldn't handle the Lhan Colvarn camp on-level, mainly because in such a crowded area it was easy to pull 4 or 5 mobs when I meant to pull 1, and as a burg I have practically zero AOEs. But I have found that despite the limited number of quests at each level, it's okay to skip a couple -- it just means doing a few quests that are a level higher than my level, which so far has worked out okay.
Carreglyn (level 71) was similarly frustrating -- too many trash mobs around in Upper Barnavon that inevitably aggroed just as I entered combat with a quest mob. But again, I was able to comfortably skip the last few quests in the area and head to Gravenwood.
Gravenwood (level 72) started with a nice example of the quest-giver that follows you around so you can turn in each quest as you finished it without heading back to camp, although he did take a long time to give out new quests, forcing me to backtrack and kill a bunch of mobs that I'd already killed. Gravenwood also meant meeting Theodred, which was pretty cool, and a few moments that brought tears to my eyes that I won't spoil.
After Gravenwood, the epic quest stopped being vector quests with what I think is the biggest twist in the LOTRO story so far -- I suppose that the lack of official Tolkien story about Dunland enables them to surprise us a lot more than somewhere like Moria. I won't spoil it here, because I was really glad that I hadn't had it spoiled for me, but the second half of Volume III Book 4 (which I believe was originally intended to be a separate book) was probably my favourite part of the epic so far.
The epic quest ends there, to be continued in Book 5. I haven't read anything yet that clarifies whether Book 5 will start at level 72/73 where Book 4 left off or if it will jump to level 75, nor has a release date been announced, so in the meantime I'm heading down to the Gap of Rohan to continue levelling.
No comments:
Post a Comment