There is quite a bit more to session play than chicken play. One of the most extraordinary parts of the game is a session called We Cannot Get Out, in which you play Ori, one of the dwarves from the Hobbit. You can probably guess where it takes place and how it ends.
When you get to it, eventually, turn the lights off and the sound up.
The use of session play for “retelling history” is an interesting one. I’m still not entirely sure it was well done for the most recent book volume, where, truthfully, the actual playing was extremely limited - I probably spent more time reading narration than actually doing anything - though I can’t think of a better way to convey those bits of history. =/
I’m sure there is. I’m still bumbling around the Shire, however. The most “epic” thing I’ve done so far is the “A Gift for the North” quest (my burglar teamed up with a minstrel for it last night). A lot of the quests are still very silly. In fact, it’s kind of telling that playing as a chicken was less silly than a lot of the other stuff I’d been doing.
Hobbits are silly folk. 
There will be plenty of time for “my herds are being eaten by wolves, can you kill exactly 8 of them for me?” later.
Just hit level 23 with my Lore-Master on Silverlode. The game definitely opens up and becomes more fun after level 20. You get a mount for faster travel and you can do those instanced skirmishes, which so far have been entertaining. It looks like there’s a group-based skirmish called Greater Barrows, but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet.
Seriously, to those who think the quests kind of suck: they do, but at level 20 it gets leaps and bounds better.
Character name is Soone, if anyone sees me running around. My summoned pet is Noonian. You know, Noonian Soone the Lore-Master… bonus points to whomever gets the reference.
Needs more data.
If it was Noonien Soong I’d say it was an STNG reference to Data’s creator so you should get the prize plus a bonus for the cleverness of the reply. 
Err yeah, I managed to typo it this morning. Whoops.
Whatever your toon’s name as, you might find some of my LM strats on the previous page helpful.
Things start getting really fun when you get Sword & Staff.
My wife and I play a number of characters on Silverlode. We mostly solo or duo. We are very casual gamers. We took a break for awhile, but we are back playing. We’ve nothing end-game yet. We’ve characters in the late teens, early thirties, and several in the late 40s/early 50s. We’re in no kinship, but if anyone here has one recruiting, we might be interested.
[quote=“Airk, post:28, topic:555572”]
I’d disagree with this and I do play a Burglar at end-game. Coincidentally, I’m also on Silverlode!
While my burglar isn’t as tough as he was pre-MoM, I would still say my Burglar is the toughest of my three raiding toons. Now, admittedly my other two are a Rune-keeper and a Loremaster, but the Burglar is a beast.
I think it depends on how you define extremely hardy. I’m no warden or guardian, but I can easily solo up to 4 white/yellow con mobs, or tank Igash back before Mirkwood.
I’m taking a break to give WoW a go at the moment, but I’ve been on Silverlode since Beta, and I still raid every now and again… so I’ll be sure to look some of you folks up when I wander back.
I’m going to have to say - it’s not really particularly impressive that a raid geared character can solo 4 whites. And, well, having a loremaster and a runekeeper as your other standards sortof skews your comparison. 
I can accept people saying burglars are “durable” but “extremely hardy” is entirely too superlative when the game features classes like wardens, captains and guardians.
[quote=“Fuzzy_Wombats, post:71, topic:555572”]
For what it’s worth, you are quoting Airk, not me. Since I don’t play tin cans, it does indeed skew my comparison.
[quote=“Maeglin, post:73, topic:555572”]
My apologies… I got tripped up in the embedded quotes. :smack:
I know it’s not particularly impressive generally, but when the alternative reference was having trouble handling two mobs with a burg it seemed an apt comparison.
A better standard might be my LM… Prior to Mirkwood, I’d regularly clear the first floor of FG up to the boss solo…
I don’t have many post-Mirkwood references because I’ve spent most of my mirkwood raiding time on the RK and the other two are mostly moors toons at the moment.
How’s that?
Edit: Let me just add, I was just trying to point out that, in my experience, burglars are perfectly capable classes at end-game. They add a great deal to a group or raid, but even individually they’re tough little buggers.
Not to mention stealth + pvmp is fun.
With my L14 Burglar, I can pretty consistently manage 2 blues. I’ve done 3, but it’s generally been very touch-and-go–it’s much easier with humanoid opponents, since I can Riddle one of them. Pissing off a blue spider queen in the quarry nearly ended in death, averted only by creative flight maneuvers. I tanked the even-level troll in “A Gift for the North”.
I gather that for this game, that’s not too bad. It does feel kind of lackluster, though–again, I’m coming to it from a game with a different paradigm. In City, your character is supposed to feel powerful out of the gate; the standard is generally that you should be able to take on at least three white mobs at once, or a white and a yellow. In reality, most City characters can take on multiple mobs several levels higher than they are–my defender (probably closest to a runekeeper or minstrel) regularly takes on more than a dozen mobs at once, all his level or higher, and has been known to tank giant monsters (I don’t know if there’s an exact equivalent–tougher than elites, but weaker than raid bosses). The overall challenge isn’t that different–City just throws more mobs at you–but it’s definitely a different feel.
Well, to be really truthful, Balance, a lot of that is the fact that you’re only level 14. Lower level characters have less of everything, and therefore cope less well with larger numbers of things. The burglar in particular is really pretty weak and low levels, IMHO. (Though I absolutely agree with Fuzzy’s assertion that they are a perfectly capable class, but like several others, they need to grow into it a bit, and you’ve barely dipped your toe in at 14.) There are situations where even at that level you can be good for 5-6 critters of near your level - you’ve probably noticed the existance of “swarm” type creatures, which are significantly weaker than "normal’ creatures.
Actually, LotRO has more “difficulty categories” of opponents than any other MMO I’ve seen or had explained to me.
Swarm (Much Less Morale than normal, somewhat less damage than normal)
Normal
Signature (Much more morale than normal, slightly more damage than normal) - often used as “more challenging” solo encounters, but still very soloable on level. Also the “trash” for small fellowship events, generally.
Elite (Much more morale than signature, much higher damage than signature) - stock opponents for full fellowship events, “tougher” opponents for small fellowship.
Elite Master (Much more morale and damage than elite) - Bosses for small fellowship events, mostly.
Nemesis (Much more morale and damage than elite master) - Usually bosses for fellowship events.
Arch-Nemesis (Much more morale and damage than Nemesis) - Raid bosses, generally.
So there are multiple categories your “giant” class could fall into.
But you’re right - its’ essentially a different paradigm. If you’re used the over-the-top superhero “watch me take on this group of mooks without even breaking a sweat” paradigm, the merely heroic “Whew, I came out of a 4 on one fight alive!” may seem underwhelming.
The “three whites” balance point I mentioned is for level 1 characters. The hero tutorial only pits you against two whites at a time, though experienced players may herd up a lot more while pursuing a badge (deed).
City has underling, minion, lieutenant, boss, elite boss, archvillain/hero, giant monster, and Hamidon (technically, anyway–the Hamidon is the end-game raid boss, and has its own category). They track pretty closely to the categories you described. Elite Bosses are roughly parallel to Elite Masters, but are actually soloable for many characters of all classes. Archvillain matches Nemesis pretty well, and giant monsters would fall between Nemesis and Arch-Nemesis–they’re designed to require at least two teams, though one good team can often take them. (A few builds can actually solo them, though the process can take hours.)
It’s the front end that’s hard to get used to. “It’s only four blues. I can swat them…oh, crap! Wrong game! Run awaaaaaaay!”
I hate to bug people for any further advice, but since I was so far off on proper Lore-Master usage I was hoping to quickly bug people about a few things.
First off, about the Hunter-I’ve been keeping him for when I want to be an awesome solo guy, and my working strategy has been 1) set trap, 2) build focus, 3) pull enemy with triple-shot, 3) alternate puncture shot and barbed arrow until enemy goes bye-bye.
Is this about what I want to be doing? It seems like I could get into some trouble here if I accidentally pull too many enemies, but with one or two mobs it seems to be working pretty well.
Second, I’ve been playing with a Captain, and while I like the concept, at least at very low levels I’m really not seeing the surviveability that people have talked about. My guy is only level 10, and he just got his Herald, but I simply don’t understand how he’s supposed to be so great: he can’t really heal, and his DPS is very low, so I’m not seeing him having a lot of roles that a Champion couldn’t do better: do I just need to play him for longer and unlock more of his abilities before his role starts becoming obvious?
I’d build focus before setting traps so you get the max time out of them but that is a good basic shot rotation except your main killer shot is Swift Bow (triple shot) so build your rotation around its cooldown.
I found with my hunter that I needed to concentrate on getting more morale through equipment and virtues in the sub L30 phase as melee is sometimes unavoidable. Here’s where your parry skill comes in handy.
Virtues are something not to neglect at any stage and the survival bonuses they offer can make the difference.
If you pull too many enemies best just to retreat and come back.
That’s pretty much my hunter experience. You’re going to be a complete monster for single targets, but it’s going to be quite a while before you stop having trouble with pulls of greater than 2.
The Captain is a “hybrid” class, which means that they have a very broad skillset - covering several different areas. The downside of this is that it means that it takes longer for you to flesh out any given skillset to where it is useful. While a Champion has all the basic building blocks of their game by about level 14, a captain is only just barely starting to get rolling at that point. At your level you have essentially yet to recieve any healing skills (except rallying cry) any mark skills (And the one at level 12 is pretty bad), you only have one buff, probably the worst herald, no access to banners, etc, etc.
If you’re looking to get a feel for playing the Captain, you’re going to need to hang in there until at least level 22 or so - by that point, you’ll have your first shield brother ability, you’ll have your baseline heal, your rez, Last Stand, a mark that isn’t complete garbage, heavy armor, and another buff. But truthfully, the party really starts at level 30 when you have relentless attack, revealing mark, herald of hope, and blade of elendil, which add up to a very significant change (Revealing Mark alone makes a pretty monstrous difference.) and you can start working on the deed for Now For Wrath.
Captains are late bloomers and they’re not for everyone. If you are interested in soldiering on, try to play to your strengths - try to keep moving between targets as swiftly as you can to get the most oompf out of your Defeat Response skills - having War Cry running all the time will help, Rallying Cry will help keep your morale up, and Routing Cry is actually a pretty good whallop when you first get it, though it scales pretty poorly over time. Oh, and you can probably retire Devastating Blow right now - with the changes that happened around Mirkwood, it’s essentially entirely obsoleted by Pressing Attack unless you’re in a situation where you absolutely cannot use an AoE.