LOTRO : Enjoying Moria's end game

I made it fairly clear in my blogging that I was not a huge fan of Mines of Moria, partly due to burnout and partly also to the winter blues that I often suffer from.

But that was a little unfair to Moria as it is a fantastic achievement in terms of the scale and variety of the environments, even if they are all underground and in the dark.

I reached the end game a few weeks back having thoroughly enjoyed questing through lovely Lorien and Book 7 (which asks you to return to Moria). To me the 'end game' does not mean you have reached maximum level, that almost seems irrelevant to me.

No, the 'end game' to me means you have explored all the solo questing areas and epic chain to your satisfaction and have only the high end instances that offer high end gear left to challenge.

I have to say I am enjoying the end-game for the moment and although I cannot see my enjoyment lasting for much longer, it is just as well then that Book 8 is due to be released imminently for more epic story thrills.

Book 8 will reveal some nasty bosses in Waterworks

I am done with solo questing pretty much. I skipped a lot of the Moria solo quests, particularly in Flaming Deeps and Redhorn Lodes while I was chasing the epic chain but I still have no desire to return to them.

To me nowadays standard solo questing is grinding. The stories are not enough to want me to do solo quests just because they are there. The only solo quests I like to do are the epic chain.

I get much more enjoyment from doing the instances with friends and getting a chance at the rewards that they bring (however slim). Although I think I am done with Grand stair now I have utterly completed it (got the radiance piece). If an instance (or turtle raid for a shot at a First-Age weapon) is unavailable I prefer to work on my traits these days, as stat improvements are a bigger pull for me than formulaic text based stories.

Once I have completed Book 8 (due very soon) I may take a break from LOTRO so I can enjoy some other games before the next new area is released.

LOTRO : Grand Stair HM Strategy

So the other night in Lord of the Rings Online I managed two firsts in one go:

• I completed a Moria instance (Grand Stair) in Hard mode!
• I won the roll and gained my first Radiance armour piece!

By the end of the night we had managed two runs through the Grand Stair so I thought I would blog the strategy we used while it is still fresh in my mind.

So we had myself the Champ, a Minstrel, a Burglar, an LM, a Guardian and a Hunter. This is probably not the most ideal group, but this is what we had.

So to succeed in Hard mode to get a chance of winning a radiance piece the first part is to get from the first boss (which is right at the start of the instance) to triggering the second boss (turn right at the crossroads) within ten minutes.

As you get near the second boss you will nearly be out of time, so usually one of the group has to run forward past the mobs to trigger the second boss. This will result in large numbers of mobs running back to the main group likely resulting in a wipe.

But the wipe does not matter - the most important thing is to trigger the second boss within ten minutes. Once you have done that (wiped or not) you can relax and make your way through the instance to the final boss Igash.

Chase me around your throne Igash!

When you get to the final boss area clear all the mobs first. You then have to face Igash the Fanatic, who has three servants. Two archers who will respawn as they are killed and a Devoted.

Hard mode dictates that you have to kill Igash without killing the Devoted servant.

We tried a few different things with our group racking up our repair bills and eventually came across a strategy that works and it definitely works as we tried it twice.

So the minstrel stands near the cart not too far away from the throne so he can keep everyone healed. The loremaster needs to keep the minstrel powered up but also help in the fight where he can.

So it was decided that the guardian should keep the two archers at bay keeping their aggro and killing their respawns.

Now the boss has a deadly AoE but he needs a line of sight to his victim to use it, so someone has to kite the boss around his throne in circles trying to keep the aggro. If you keep the throne between your line of sight with Igash he cannot do his AoE.

This role was between the hunter (lots of threat) and me the champ as we could not keep the aggro all to ourselves. Hopefully the hunter will keep the aggro for the most part leaving the champ to hit the boss as hard as he can as Igash runs past. If the champ gets the aggro then he kites the boss in circles around the throne until the hunter can regain it. Repeat this which takes a while until Igash is dead.

The devoted should be ignored at all costs, if he dies then Hard mode is over. The burglar should try and start fellowship attacks for power and morale and stabbing the boss as he runs past.

This strategy definitely works, we did the whole instance in 45 minutes on our second run and beat the boss in one go.

Good luck!

E3: day 2 Sony and Nintendo

E3: Day 2

Nintendo seemed weak this year, a new Mario and Metroid game, some wierd ring adapter and not much else...

Sony had a much more solid showing.

Their main thing interestingly was the PSP, and finally some good games coming out for it! A new MGS game, GT mobile out in October and Uncharted looked great too. All three are potential buys.

PS3 announced an exclusive Rockstar game : Agent, and didnt show it.

New ICO game looked good, thought GOW3 looked dated imo, but I'm not a huge fan anyway. GT5 looked mega... and some more motion controller things that did not look as good as the MS one. In general the Sony conference was flatter and not as punchy as the Microsoft presentation.

E3:, MS announce motion controller Natal and Metal Gear

So the first day of E3 has been and gone, Microsoft won the day with lots of announcements.

The biggest centred around MS's new motion controller named Natal, apparently using full body motion capture, face recognition and voice control combined.

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Video Games | Project Natal | E3 09: Project Natal Intro

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The video looks neat, but will it really work on such a hard core platform? This will depend on integrating the controller with real games, not just family-friendly casual efforts. The trailer does semm to point to 'proper games', but only time will tell if this is actually feasible.

Another big announcement was a new Metal Gear game on 360 called Rising featuring Raiden - not Snake. Still, MGS used to be a firm exclusive for Sony, so this is still quite big.

MS also trumpeted the fact that Facebook and Twitter will be integrated into the 360 dashboard. I'm not sure if I would use it, but it's there if you want it.

The expected games at E3 were there :

StarWars : Old Republic trailer:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 ... playerfeat

Metal gear rising (not so expected):

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 ... gear/50036

Assasins Creed 2

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 ... playerfeat

Beatles : Rockband

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/e3-the- ... st-trailer

Forza 3

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/e3-forza-3-gameplay

Crackdown 2

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/e3-crackdown-2-trailer

Another surprise was that Left4Dead 2 would be out as soon as the fall, 'exclusive' to 360 and PC. The second L4D will be a bigger game and have much more depth in terms of the co-op.