LOTRO: Rescuing Amdir

Posted by Wolfen in LOTRO

Now that Jagger is dead, Ellie wants me to go after bigger fish. She has talked me up to the top leader of the Blackwolds, a man named Skunkwood. I am to go speak with him, but I should first go talk to the ranger Toradan. He tells me where the Blackwold hideout is located and sends me on my way. Toradan said he would meet me there later.

The Blackwold Hideout is located at the northeast corner of the Staddle pond. The door to the hideout is next to the falls that pour into the pond.

I enter the hideout and I am transported into an instance. The Blackwold”s guarding the gate were expecting me and they let me pass. I roam around the cavern for awhile until I come across the leader of the Blackwold’s. A man named Skunkwood.

I eventually find the cell in which Amdir is imprisoned. Amdir appears to be in a very bad way. He has been attempting to fight off the evil influence infecting his body but things are not going very well. He even scares the Blackwold guards stationed there to keep an eye on him.

I try to speak with Amdir but he is too far gone. He bursts open the door of his cage, knocks down his guards, and runs down the tunnel. This is when I noticed another prisoner in the cell.

A woman named Oakheart asks me to escort her out of the cave so that she can be free. The problem with helping her is that she walks very slowly. As we make our way through the cave, we see that all the Blackwold’s have been knocked unconscious. They re-awaken as we approach and I have to defend the woman from the attackers. Towards the end, I must defeat Skunkwood and his wolf guards. I took screenshots of all this but somehow they never saved to my hard drive. I don’t know why.

As I make my way towards the cave exit, I encounter Toradan facing off with Amdir. Toradan tries to help him but Amdir has transformed into something evil. He attacks and kills Toradan and then runs out of the cave.

I return to Constable Underhill and tell him what happened. I am rewarded with a tunic that is a huge upgrade for me. 74 more armor rating to be exact. Underhill then tasks me with finding the ranger mustering cave in hopes of finding more help.

This Blackwold instance was a fun experience. It advanced the main storyline and gave me several things to do in the cave. I never came close to dying, but I did enjoy my time.

–Wolfen

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Gaming Again

Posted by Wolfen in LOTRO

My 17″ Macbook Pro finally arrived and I now have it setup the way I like it.  It has been a long wait, but I can now get back to gaming.  I decided to start with Lord of the Rings Online.  Since LOTRO requires the Windows operating system, I had to setup a dual boot configuration on the Macbook Pro.  I decided to install Windows XP, even though it won’t use all 4GB of RAM that is available to the machine.  The game runs great on high settings at 1920×1200, even though the 9600GT 512MB video card isn’t all that great of a card these days.

I have a level 37 Champion on the Windfola server, but I decided to start fresh, so I rolled up a human Guardian that I named Strongg.  I wanted to try out a class in the game that I had not played yet and Guardian was one of them.  Humans start in the Archet area, so my game introduction had me escaping from a cell and then helping a Ranger named Amdir to rescue some kidnapped hobbits.

Once the introduction is complete, I found myself in the town of Archet, eager to find some quests and get to work.  I didn’t have far to go.  Amdir was wounded in the battle, so I had to help him with defense of the town.  The first few are you typical newbie quests that have you go out and kill wolves and boars so that the town’s sheep are kept safe.  Once those are done, I was sent to a hunter’s lodge where some things needed to be done.  Seeing this lodge brought pangs of nostalgia to my heart because the lodge reminded me of my beloved Everquest’s Surefall Glade and the lodge that can be found there.

One of the farmers outside of Archet had a boar problem that he wanted me to help him with.  A boar named Old Bloodtusk needed to be killed.  I remembered this boar from the time that LOTRO first went live.  There was a line of people waiting to kill this boar and each time he appeared it was a general free-for-all contest.  This time, however, there was not another player in sight and he was waiting for me when I arrived.

After running several other quests, none of which were very challenging, I came to the last quest in the “game introduction” line.  Brigands were attacking Archet and I had to help Amdir defend it.  The town was in flames when I arrived and it was filled with battle.  I worked my way through the town, finally arriving at the final showdown, which culminated in a fight with Eogan, a servant of Angmar who was responsible for all the problems in the area.  I dispatched him with ease and ended the quest line.

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