Monday, January 19, 2009

Fairwell to the Fellowship

One of the things I noticed upon my return to LotRO was that key figures had moved from their previous spots and offered new quests. The story line of the fellowship was advancing. I was sent to see Aragorn and Boromir to see if I could assist in their preparations for departure. They sent me on a few errands, after which I entered a private instance. Words were exchanged between fellowship members and with me as well, and then I watched them all go. It was all so touching, I almost got a bit teary-eyed and wanted to join in after them.


It left me wondering what their plans are for continuing the story. Will they reach a point in the fellowship's journey and then stop? I can't imagine they'd see it through to the end or we'd be left in a more pleasant world, killing just boars and neekerbreakers.

I really enjoy these type of private quests involving you in the story line. But the bugs lately have been a bit frustrating. Since our return, both of us have been experiencing crashes to desktop and blue screens of death. I have never had a bsod in any other game before. And then there's the rubberbanding, which I haven't experienced since SWG. I hit certain paths where I cannot proceed forward and keep getting bounced back. I either have to circle around a different way, or if it's an enclosed path where I have no other options, I just have to camp. A check on the forums shows this has been occurring for a couple years now.

Last night was a new type of bug. My husband and I were in Misty Mountains. I needed to run back to Rivendell to pick up a quest. So down into the valley I go, into Rivendell and I find the quest giver at the marketplace. She sends me to Elrond. I run up to the main house, zone in, and up the steps to zone into Elrond's library. He sends me to Gloin back in the Misty Mountains. I zone back out of the house, get stuck on the zone and get disconnected. I log back in and find myself back at the valley entrance with no record of my having gotten the quest.

So back down I go, pick it up again, back to Elrond, zone out successfully, and start running up the hill when I'm just frozen in place. I look over at my husband's screen. He's still killing stuff so I know we've not been disconnected. But his mobs are standing up straight when they die, and when he attempts to loot them, receives a message that they have too many hitpoints for that action. I can't use any abilities and still can't move. Eventually, I receive a disconnected from server message.

I log back in and there I am again at the valley entrance with no record of having picked up the quest. Grrrrrr. I called it a night at that point. I think I have a lot of patience, but this gets aggravating. Particularly, when I've not experienced this in other games. I really hope that was an isolated incidence or my time here will be short.

3 comments:

Green Armadillo said...

I found that quest a bit odd, actually. A questgiver somewhere else (I want to say Misty Mountains) sends me a summons from Elrond to come back so I can /wave to the Fellowship, and have Boromir and Aragorn say how they wish I was coming with them.

Uh, guys, I'm a level 50 Champion. There are a dozen of us sitting around the auction house. I didn't even FINISH that quest Aragorn assigned me when I walked in the front door of the Last Homely Home (I hadn't done Epic Book 1, so he had never met me before) to go get a crucial item he needed to have his sword re-forged. Somehow, I don't see why NPC's as important as these are going out of their way to make sure I get to witness this event.

(Thus concludes the very rare case in which I actually take the LOL-ore more seriously than the devs. :))

Aspendawn said...

I just view it as one of those fluff fun quests and would hate to be excluded from it because I hadn't done the epics. I'm glad I got to witness it.

Even though we may not be the real heroes of the story, the heroes going out of their way to interact with us makes us mini heroes rather than peons. At least that's how I felt anyway. Rather than looking at the story from a distance, they're bringing you into it...even if you skipped a few steps along the way hehe.

Elementalistly said...

Green Armadillo shows one of many issues I carry about this game.
We know the story, we know how it will end, we know what happens, and it almost makes it feel NOT fresh to me.
I have read the series 4 times, watched the movies 3 times, and in 6 months I grew ever more tired of the overall boringness of Turbines Middle Earth.
Sometimes I wonder if, issues aside (I have a major list of those), if this was my real problem...the LORE everyone goes on about just does not excite me now...and why should it...
I am not a part of the most important piece of the story...and I already know how it ends anyways...

Cheers