The true story behind Legendary Items

Silirien brushed away sweat from her forehead only to realize with utter disgust that her gloves were covered with slime as if she was walking in Dar Narbugud on her hands, scribing Words of Power with her feet.

Rhyaewald jumped over the carcass of the Mistress of Pestilence and proceeded towards the circle of throbbing eggs, crushing them one by one. Nameless creatures not fully formed yet fell to the floor in fountains of (ewww) slime to die under the Warden's boots, others were quick to help.

And then, instead of the usual *plop*, a much more desirable sound of *bling* reached their ears - in the faint light of a few fires (and a few pillars of flame - after all, Sil was a Rune-keeper) they saw the unmistakable shine of Gold. Dwarves, naturally, got an instant +3 modifier to Mood.

"So the Mistress was indeed female", someone commented, looking at a pile of golden leaves and some other shinies.

And then... she saw it... the unmistakable shape of a Rune-stone with the power of the Word simply radiating from it, calling her... As if in a trance, she approached the pile of loot and took it in her hands. Even through her slime-covered gloves she could feel warmth emanating from it and she knew before she even laid her eyes on the runes covering it that this stone has told many tales of Fire and that they were scorching to the core of the Earth. Its intricate beauty was unmistakeably elf-made, with delicate lines of ornaments following natural lines of existence.

This was the most amazing Rune-stone she had ever seen but nothing in her centuries of elven life had prepared her for the shock she was about to experience when she saw the signature of the maker...

...Fëanor...

A few months later, in Ost Galadh...
Legindir, Relic Master: *with clear panic in his voice* You want me to do what?
Silirien the Alluring, Rune-keeper: I want you to deconstruct these.
Legindir: But... but... they are works of immeasurable value, you surely are aware of that?! This Rune-stone... I would never believe it if I wasn't holding it in my hands. It was crafted by Fëanor for the love of the Valar! And these satchels here, Yavanna bless me, are the works of our beloved ladies Melian and Luthien..!
Silirien: Yes. but... I kinda don't need them anymore...

Legindir: *with tears in his eyes* ...and this Rune here, a work of Celebrimbor...
Silirien: A personal gift from the last era, a pretty trinket, but...
Legindir: Rune-keeper, have you any idea what you ask of me?!
Silirien: *a tad irritated* Yeah, I just did kinda... Destroy them! I need some settings to decorate this rune. A very nice aspiring hobbit tinker from Stock created it for me last week and his younger sister sewed this satchel here. Lovely, ain't it? It has the Bullroarer stitched on it! And next week I am planning to maybe make my own stone, I'm quite good with metals, you know, and I have those miserable trinkets from the fabled works of Celebrimbor that I can use to improve the overall design. I'm going to attach it to my stone and create a true avatar of pew pew!
Legindir: Silirien...
Silirien: What? I can't help it! Apparently the schooling work of this hobbit tinker from Stock holds more power than the creation of the legendary maker of the Silmarils. So destroy them, as I'm still asking nicely and not by making a barbecue out of you, and give me back some relics!

Legindir, crying, shatters the rune stone made by the hand of Fëanor and tears apart satchels stitched by Fey Queen Melian and her daughter, fabled Luthien Tinuviel in Nargothrond thousands of years before. The relics they hold and that he is able to extract he delivers with a shaking hand to Silirien the Alluring, proudly wielding her Rune-stone of the Third Age, made by Bobbie, a young tinker's apprentice from Stock.

Silirien: What the..? Copper settings..?
Legindir: *cries*
Silirien: Out of my three First-Agers and one Second-Ager? I was planning to update my Third-agers with the left-overs and all I get is this crap?!
Legindir: *races to the top of Minas Celebolf and leaps to his death*
Silirien: ...

Many thanks to Raedwulf for proof-reading and refining this little story!

Siege of Mirkwood: First Impressions

I must say that despite my pre-launch lack of optimism, I am overall very, very pleased. Finally, after a year spent in damp, sultry dungeons of Moria - I can now roam in the wilderness! What's more, in my natural habitat of gloomy, gothic-fairytale forest filled with haunted ruins, graveyards, towers of black sorcerers and roamed by the spirits of dusk xD I trully feel like in one of Tim Burton's movies and I am loving it.

Also, one more item has been added to my Residences to Buy Once I become a Dark Queen, aside of Barad Gularan: Dol Guldur!
I would be having a really hard time deciding which would become my Main Residence, if it was not for the whole awesomeness that is Mirkwood to accompany the latter. And the awesome Dark Gothic Castle Tower on the South edge of Dol Guldur. I am totally in love.

I've also enjoyed the storyline immensely. I laughed at how silly elves and dwarves are thinking any Servant of the Enemy would fairly trade one of his own kind for Freep prisoners in their custody... And when 6 Elves (including me) and a Dwarf show at their stronghold's gates. Stronghold! Of the Enemy! LOADS OF FORCES! 7 Freeps! Even just looking at the encounter, contra 3 Nazguls, one Master Sorcerer Black Numenorian, several elite Archers, at least 3 Trolls and others..!
I still LOL thinking about it ^^

My pessimism about Skirmishes also proved (mostly) void. They are fun and not that grindy (unless you want them to be). I must say I quite enjoy the stories behind them and their random encounters. It's hard for me to appreciate them in solo mode however - it's dull, slow and Soldier's AI is a horror, but let's face it: I don't enjoy any solo aspect in MMORPG and AI is always a weak side of any game, so this point is negable.
In a fellowship however, the whole experience is simple awesome. The difficulty lever I encountered so far is fair (maybe aside from the Grims - WHY GRIMS, Devs, WHY?), rewards are decent.

But it's not all roses, of course.
For starters, some quests are extremely annoying to do, like the one when you have to kill 5 Huorns on the swamp, while there are 4 hostile in total, respawning every few minutes... (I'm so glad me and Rhy rushed to keep ahead of the crowds!)
Or 3 quests - regular quest line, epic book one and repeatable daily of great importance, of which the last one requiring 25 mob drops - all require killing same mob type in same place. In other words, there's no danger from spiders there anymore, because there are no spiders to be seen anywhere near. Only extremely annoyed players, some of them behaving highly unethically...

New mount system is an extreme relief for my storage, but brings on some annoyance while usage. The [Dismount] button is no more, instead to dismount players need to right-click on mount vitals and select appropriate option. Or bind this mount to a skillbar and use the skill. First option is not handy, second option only works to dismount from a mount summoned by used skill.
Unfortunately, Developers regarded lore as bendable enough to squeeze Rune-keepers in, but were not flexible realistically thinking enough to let horses be trained to enter Moria. Which means that for ease of use of two mount types (because I shall not be seen on a goat unless it can't be helped!) I'd need to sacrifice yet another skillbar slot (which is impossible, because I am already lacking those) or switch mount skills whenever I enter/exit Moria (also impossible because I have better things to do). Can I has my [Dismount] button back please?

While new mount system was a relief for my storage, along with the awesome Shared Storage feature, any gains due to those two were basically negated with the amount of Barter Items that came with SoM (and before). Skirmishes are especially to blame in here with the huge amount of (rarely dropping) Marks/Exclusive Campain Drops. At least Skirmish Points seem to stack indefenetly... but the rest is still a pain. Add 3-4 stacks of Bronze Feathers/Silver Branches, some Gold Leaves/Stars, Lothlorien Medalions and hell, I need to keep everything on my mules because my Storage is more full that it was before the Landing!

Oh, and about the annoyance that is Landing deeds... I really, really hope Turbine/Codemasters will do something about "Mirkwood Landing" deed that is (or was) uncompletable due to one of the quest chains being "disabled due to performance reasons" (or something along these lines). At least it doesn't grant a title or I would cry like a baby hobbit, but it's extremely annoying to come across a deed like that that can't be completed later on. I don't want this incapacitated deed in my Log! Complete it for me or delete it, but I don't want it there!

Returning to Barter Items for a bit, I absolutely love the fact that now everyone in the Raid gets a little reward from each and every boss chest. Unfortunately, while this distribution worked in 3/6 man instances, it fails in a full raid due to the chest loot mechanism. Only one person can be looking into the chest at any given time, which means that the whole raid needs to queue up for their reward. Barely noticeable with 3 people, hardly annoying with 6, extremely irritation with 12. How about putting those on boss' body so everyone can pick them at the same time?

And about raids - yes, the radiance gating is regrettably still there and doesn't seem to be going away. I wish I knew a way to force some sense into Turbine Devs, unfortunately I don't, nor most of the community seems to have any influence over this. Argh.

Now to get my Gothic Loremaster out into the Gothic Woods xD

I will add some screenshots to illustrate this post later. I couldn't hold it up any longer after writing it for two days!

Radiance system working a bit different that asumed by most

Credit for this discovery goes to my guildie Tarinas who decided to check what rest of us assumed without proof about the radiance (former hope) system.

As it is true that the system rounds hope down to multitudes of 10, it is also true that dread is part of the same system and it is also rounded down, so contrary to popular belief, it's actually worth it to get all 3 parts of the Tier 1.5 gear.

Proof - also taken by Tarinas in Vile Maw (I think):