A Casual Stroll to Mordor

LEAD braves the foul stenches in Moria’s deepest region to reach the Foundations of Stone.

LEAD braves the fiery pits deep within the heart of Moria inside the Flaming Deeps.

LEAD follows Dwarf scouts and Orc miners into the Redhorn Lodes.

Welcome to LOTRO Epic A Day, where I guide you on an epic journey through Middle-Earth, one day at a time. Each Book of the Epic quest is separated into its own Day, with Side-Days for leveling up to the next book. Gather up your belongings and hit the road, a new Day awaits! The [...]

LEAD guides the way into Nan Curunir, sneaking into Isengard to witness the rise of Saruman’s war machine.

The drums of war beat loudly as LEAD marches through the Gap of Rohan.

LEAD explores Zelem-melek, the Twenty-first Hall, and Moria’s many instances.

LEAD enters Durin’s Way, the uppermost region in the Mines of Moria.

LEAD travels down the winding ledges of the Silvertine Lodes, deep inside the Mines of Moria.

LEAD explores the Great Delving, the first region inside the Mines of Moria.

LEAD guides you through the beautiful yet dangerous lands of Eregion and up to the Walls of Moria.

LEAD guides you through the cold northern lands of Forochel.

Lead guides you through Angmar, the dangerous lands of the Witch-king.

LEAD guides you through the cold snowstorms of the Misty Mountains and introduces the first Legendary Traits.

LEAD guides you through Evendim and the Trollshaws while leveling and earning reputation with the Wardens of Annúminas and Elves of Rivendell.

These new quests are part of the changes made to the crafting system with the Echoes of the Dead Update we received in March. Having tested these out for every vocation, I have to say, I greatly prefer them over the previous method.

I managed to convince Ketani to come level a captain on Elendilmir so she could come check out the Elendilmir raiding scene and perhaps polish her captaining skills under the tutelage of the master.

Today while cleaning, cooking, eating, and watching Restaurant Makeover, I took a level 6 character, fresh from the new player tutorial, partway into level 17. I did this entirely at the Eating Contest “The Biggest Stomach of them All” in Winter-home!

This week while playing on my new Rune Keeper, I decided to quest in a few areas I hadn’t done in the past. Low levels in the Shire and some quests in the odd quest off near Thorin’s hall helped to break up the scenery nicely

Ferrel of Epic Slant has a good article summarizing his thoughts on the use of raising the level cap of their games and how it is unnecessary tactic to add value to a game that is past its prime. Ferrel makes some very good points, and operates off of the opinion that level caps are used for two reasons.

Our main topic this week is the leveling zones. Based on our email from Steve last week asking for advice on where to level up. We used guides from LotroLife and Keen and Graev’s blog as well as user feedback from Aillas in our comments from episode 24.

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In this episode of CStM, we talk about how we leveled close to 65 without dinging so we could do it together in a Skirmish with some kinnies. Merric now has all his alts up to level 20 and is planning on moving them all to Lone Lands to run through the revamped zone and try the changes to Volume I Book 2.

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We have made it to level 65 doing skirmishes with our friends!