Bohemond

I'm one of the few it seems that is still enjoying this last season despite its many imperfections. Most of these I can put down to the last 2 seasons being very rushed. Pacing is definitely off, and if it were a movie, I'd be expected an extended directors cut to come out to patch up a lot of the problems later - of course I can't see this happening with a TV series. Jon, Dany et al are certainly making some stupid decisions - but I don't see them as necessarily out of character decisions. Neither are experienced military generals. Of course - they should have some experienced officers under their command, and given better pacing, we could have at least seen them (foolishly) overrule such officers. More time could allow for other, more sensible strategies to be attempted and fail, at least excusing less intelligent strategies as a necessary last resort. I really think the main problem has been living up to expectations since the Red Wedding - which has to have been some of the best film of any kind I've ever seen. From this point on, not only was the audience expecting bigger and better twists, but the fact they were looking for them makes them harder to catch off guard. The writers are then left with either silly twists that make no sense, or "surprises" that have enough of a setup that they are worked out well in advance. As to GRRM''s writing - I enjoyed the books, and once finished went online looking for something similar and was directed to Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen. Once I got into that (and it's definitely not the most accessible style) everything about GoT - characters, story, world building - felt very simplistic in comparison.

I played the original Warcraft RTS back when that first came out but I've never actually played even a second of WoW. Somewhat considering giving classic a go if it means a relatively challenging landscape for a duo.

I stumbled upon this "Official Streamer" a while ago which helped it to finally sink in just how embarrassingly low the competence bar is at SSG: * Clicking skills * Struggling with -5 level content * Obliviously clicked "continue quest" even though she had pulled adds - either she didn't know it would activate the quest sig, or assumed she could handle it + the adds * No situational awareness. The marksman shoots her 7 times - and she even has it (automatically) targeted for 8s once the barghest goes down - and still doesn't even know it's there until it moves on screen into melee. * Random panic once in trouble - didn't see any attempt at any "oh crap" skills. No idea whats possible now - haven't played RK since 65. I do remember a short AoE stun. A single target mez. A long snare. The real kicker .. despite such comprehensive incompetence: at 2:08:07 "I don't die very often in this game"

Yeah sure looks that way when I suddenly get 2 infractions for 3 week old posts. Yeah that's one way of handling it... But I've been sorely tempted to post this instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag43uW4AOFc

Sap banned my main account in 2009 out of nowhere. I even have an old email I naively sent to Turbine complaining about an absurd infraction from him before I knew what a sociopath he was. Now it seems Cord is heading in the same direction. Earlier I received a warning for telling Maartena "It's interesting watching how many knots an SSG apologist can tie himself up in defending absolutely everything and anything." Amazingly, I've (so far) managed to avoid any infractions for that sock puppet thread, but curiously enough today I've suddenly got 2 infractions for posts from Nov 23 Both, in what I am sure are just amazing coincidences, are responses to Palentian. Neither even remotely worthy of an infraction.

Looks like the essence grind is starting earlier than I had expected. My highest is only 20, and still enjoying it so far (partly due to the now fixed DoT that made things slightly dangerous for a little while). Most of that is duoing with my cappy and my partner, first her LM then a guardian since she suddenly decided she hated inductions. Anyway, being only 20, I'm not too sure what stats are like at 50, but I'd guess those essences (especially if teal gear drops with 4 slots?) will make for some incredibly broken (pointlessly so) OP builds

Yep I started playing on the legendary server fully intending to stop well before any essence grind. I'll most likely get to 50 (no rush, 19 now). Possibly stick around for Moria if they manage to sufficiently un-neuter it from its horrible revamp. Tiny chance I'll be around for Mirk. At a huge stretch I might be able to endure RoI to enjoy Great River. Zero chance I'll be around for Mounted Combat or the grindy garbage beyond.

Just because something could happen doesn't mean it has or will or is even likely to. I've been away from the game for a while now, but even when I played, I don't remember ever seeing 1500+ players all using the stone of the tortoise to remain 1-50 (oh hang on, that's because it has never happened) I've barely posted here since my auto attacking champ thread, but from what I've read from you, you appear remarkably bitter and disdainful towards any players who don't hate SSG with the same burning passion you do. You also don't seem to be very bright: I'm getting a very strong Dunning Kruger scent from your posts. That's not your fault I suppose, you can't helping being who you are. That said, I'm enjoying the server and knew full well what I was getting myself into: except perhaps the OP bleeds which were definitely an added bonus that increased difficulty enough to add to my enjoyment. I've been the last one to mindlessly accept all the rubbish that has been released since the decline began back in SoM. I still hate the trait trees and always will, but they are more bearable on a 50 cap server without the boring battles or do every single quest in west rohan grind to get them all. As a founder, I lost nothing by trying out the legendary server. I'm certainly not a whale - but without going into too much detail, I'm financially comfortable, run a successful business, and am debt free. Once I found I enjoyed it enough, I had no problem subbing for my partner for 3 months. The fee is a pittance. And I really don't care if the server shuts down before it gets to Moria, or if the minimal challenge is nerfed tomorrow, I've already got enough value for the single tiny payment I've made.

I feel very similar. It's light years away from the early SoA legacy server I'd prefer, but it's closer than anything else they've come up with for years. I'm enjoying the slower pace and have only just hit 15 on my champ and 14 on the cappy I duo with my partner. With such a short distance from 1 to cap, I'm not feeling any rush or impatience to get there. One side effect of no PvMP I hadn't anticipated was that it gave me one less reason to hurry to cap. I'd definitely prefer well balanced PvMP (such as late SoA or SoM) but no PvMP at all is preferable to poorly balanced rubbish. I'm quite enjoying the weird challenge of OP bleeds and discovering the new scaling gear. Knowing that I don't have a massive LI grind looming above me helps with enjoyment dramatically. Even then, there's a chance I might stick around for Moria if they can manage to make it able to handle a large population (I have my doubts given how utterly gutted it was during the easifying revamp a while back) Very unlikely I'll stick around past Moria though, unless they enable PvMP and accidentally manage to balance it well.

True for some, I'm sure, but a bit of an over generalisation. It'll never happen, but I'd love to return to an early SoA difficulty when I sure as hell wasn't king anything. In the early days, I floated between my hunter champ and burg. I remember once when I was back on my early 30s champ, after playing burg for a little while. A little rusty, and spoiled by my burg's avoidances, he pulled a couple too many worms in the ram duath, messed up his fervour gen and with N/A for BPE was shredded in no time. That is the kind of time I'd like to go back to.

This sure does seem like a troll thread. I'm hardly the biggest fan of lotro these days .. but there's nothing wrong with Vastin's post. Especially in the context of the handful of whingers on the forum making repeated assertions with nothing to back them up. I was actually following the blue hunter whinge fest closely enough to debunk some of the entitled easy moders' absurd claims. No surprises, but I found the new supposedly "broken" blue hunter still wrecked its way through landscape like a hot knife through butter.

A common refrain I've seen is "I'm a casual. I'm nowhere near cap because I'm not one of those loser power levelers. I'm patient, taking my time, enjoying the story. NOW LET ME GET MY ANNIVERSARY STUFF NOW!!"

​That was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me with the moors. Audacity started the decline - I went from playing every creep class and 2-3 regular freeps, to just 1 creep (never max aud) and 1 or 2 freeps. Add in the effective removal of kbs and the trait tree fiasco, and I was done. (Hmm... I just realised it's been so long since I've played the moors that "freep" is starting to sound silly again!) Everyone and anyone who PvPed understood and accepted the titles were just a bit of fun - and fully understood titles on different classes had different "values." A cappy or defiler getting a kb was worth way more than a hunter doing so. Ruining kbs was probably one of the stupidest decisions Turbine ever made about LOTRO. Not only was it perhaps the least asked for change (I never recall seeing it once) Their "but it was always a bug" bs spin was a blatant insult to our intelligence.

​I was definitely skeptical when it was first announced. I enjoyed the novelty at first but that quickly wore off and I was back to wishing they had skipped it entirely or just ripped off Mount and Blade. Ultimately I knew this wasn't an option, as the engine really can't handle mounted combat at all, and certainly not M&B style. But now my hatred for mounted combat is almost up there with trait trees. For me, MC added to the trivialising of landscape content difficulty and further damaged immersion and any sense of place in a simulated Middle-earth.

Mirkwood intro completed ... including Hilltop Assault This was another tough one. Took me about 4-5 attempts. First couple were not even close, but I soon realised why: going into the boss fight, Fuirgam and Agorin were almost out of power and not quite full morale. I addressed this by waiting on top of the last spawn of orcs (which appear when the second troll dies) to grab aggro and running them past the elves, down the hill and out the gate as far as I could. The elves gave chase, and with the last orc dead pretty much as far from the boss as possible, the long walk back gave them ample time to regen to full morale and power. Still wasn't quite enough - but very close, Fuirgam dying with the commander at 3820/54495 (Note he still has his +50% damage corruption up) Now, because I don't know the right way to play modern LOTRO, my first recourse was not to flee to the forums and demand it be nerfed down to my chosen play style. I was instead encouraged by progress and tried again, this time staying on the boss the entire time instead of trying to pull the adds he summons during the fight. I even swapped out my off hand with an armour rending weapon, figuring every little bit counts - especially with a whole bunch of friendly npcs beating on him. It was still a near thing. With the boss down, there were 4 adds all targeting Fuirgam. Fortunately he had yet to hit any of them and I was able to grab all but one with a quick tap (helped here by the other elves too) then focus on his target to whittle them down one by one.