This was a good weekend to play LOTRO. Not only was the Anniversary Festival going on, they were running a special 100% XP bonus all weekend. Because of that, I didn’t do much with my Lore Master, because he is at the level cap, but instead took advantage of the XP bonus to work on my Warden and Minstrel. The Warden is questing in Dunland and went from level 68 to 71, while the Minstrel is in Moria and is now level 57 from 54 or 55. I also did a little work on my Hunter in Rohan, but he’s still level 79.
I did run the Hytbold dailies once on my LM and figured out what was going on with not being able to rebuild more of Hytbold. It turns out there are 2 rebuild quest givers in each area, once for when you are an Ally to the faction the area is named for, and another for when you are Kindred. I am Kindred with the Sutcrofts, so the 2nd guy showed up and I spent the more than 100 Hytbold tokens I’d built up. I am close to Kindred with 2 of the other factions and will continue working on it. Last week, my LM also finished the Eastern Rohan epic quest line, which ends with a bit of a whimper. The final prize is a 2nd Age Legendary Bridle for your horse, which is a great thing, but remember that the quest line in Great River gave us 2 Worn Symbols of Celebrimbor, so we could make 2 level 75 2nd Age Legendary Items. This Bridle seems like a letdown, though I’m sure the reasoning is that we should get all our really good stuff from the new raids (which I haven’t done, because nobody wants a Lore Master – they always call for healers or Captains).
Overall, a very fun weekend in LOTRO. I really like the way Moria has been redone. It is much easier to get around and the quests tend to be better. I suppose it is a lot of work and not very cost effective for the dev team to redo all of the areas, but some facelifts, particularly in Enedwaith and Misty Mountains would make them more appealing. Moria needs more fast travel routes, too. It’s annoying to have to take a slow pony to Orc Watch or some of the other southern locations.