mmo

We had a kin event scheduled on Saturday to get a those of us you just finished Volume 1 through the Drums of the Deep (2.5.5) in Volume 2. The instance runs went very smoothly, thanks to Gorandir, Azzbuk, and Mortermeer (from the Weathertons kinship) for helping out.

After finishing, Tele, Phebe, and I decided to push on into Book 6. We got all the way to the next big fellowship instance, and we must have been feeling especially motivated because we picked up Berniard from our kin as guide/healer and recruited Thomborn and Mercatio from lff chat.

Even with a full party of 65’s and one 64, we wiped twice getting to the end boss but strangely had no problems with the last two big fights. The Cloak of Flame and Shadow dropped and I lucked out to with the roll (which usually never happens). Unfortunately Mercatio was bugged somehow and didn’t get credit. So we may be getting a rematch against 2.6.8 sometime soon.

In the end, I stayed up playing until nearly 5 am and finished Book 7 up through Chapter 6.

Grey quests get a bad wrap. Lots of players don’t understand why anyone would “waste” time on a grey quest since they don’t get any XP or likely any item upgrades, but I think that grey quests can still be rewarding. You still get to experience the content and occasionally you can still be challenged (if you’re into that sort of thing). Plus if you’re MMO offers cosmetic slots, like LotRO and EQ2, you can also still get some use out of any quest rewards that you just like the look of.

Sometimes a quest will go grey while languishing in your quest log because you need a group and can’t find one. Sometimes you move to  another area and forget to come back soon enough. Sometimes you find  an area you missed while exploring. This happened to me in LotRO once with Echad Candelleth. I’m not sure if I just missed it since I didn’t spend much time in the Trollshaws beyond traveling to Rivendell and doing the epic quests there, or if Turbine added it to the game after I had out-leveled the area. Regardless, I was exploring the Trollshaws and saw a quest icon on my map which led me to the camp of Echad Candelleth. All of the quests were grey to me, but I decided to pickup them all up and see where they led me. I’m very glad that I did too, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have bothered with The White Hart, which starts out pretty generically, but begins a quest chain culminates in the first appearance of Gollum in the game (that I’m aware of).

The epic quests in LotRO are another good example. There is a lot of story told through quest text, in-game cut scenes, and session play (to allow for alternate points-of-view), making it well worth completing at least once, even if you’re 15 levels above the quest level like I was when I finished.

So if you’re the kind of gamer who enjoys lore, story, and experiencing content don’t just skip a quest because it turned grey. You might be missing out.

As I mentioned on Twitter last night, I finally completed the Volume One epic quest in Lord of the Rings Online. Council of the Secret Fire members Azzera (loremaster), Kelmric (captain), Phebe (hunter), Telebrethil (warden), and Brynulf (myself,  hunter) joined up with Narmeleth to defeat Mordrambor and Mordirith.

Having Volume 1 completed is a great feeling of accomplishment, very much like when I first hit max level. Incidentally I also hit 65 last night, but the novelty has worn off of that experience since this is the third time I’ve hit max level with Brynulf.  Finishing Volume 1 was fun and rewarding for me, not because of any difficulty involved, but because of the amount of time I had invested. I’ve been chipping away at Volume 1 since the game launched, which also means that I’ve had at least one quest log slot dedicated to a Volume 1 epic quest for the life of my character.

So now it is time for Brynulf to make a victory ride on his new white horse back to Moria and tackle Book 5, Chapter 5 of Volume 2.

One of my goals for the remainder of the year is to finish Volumes 1 and 2 in Lord of the Rings Online on my main, Brynulf.  Thanks to Goldenstar and Meric from A Casual Stroll to Mordor, I’ve been able to make quite a bit of progress.  When the game launched, Volume 1 was eight Books although with content updates the finaly number is 15.  Well it’s taken me nearly two years, but last night I finally finished Book 8 with the help of the Casual Strollers and Azz from The Wizzard of Azz.  We did go past and complete Book 9 and Book 10 Chapter 1 as well.

I’m not sure how likely it’ll be that I finish Volume 2, but I am going to finish Volume 1.  Only 5 more Books to go.

Go check out Goldenstar’s writeup and screenshots.  She has a nice shot of her in front of a Palantír.