It’s that time of year again in Middle Earth, and to slow things down for Arwellyn I’m taking her out of Moria for awhile and only doing the daily festival quests in hopes of getting a few housing items. I say “in hopes of” because unlike other festivals where I simply save up tokens to barter for the exact items I want, the Yule vendors give gift-boxes with random gifts. I understand where that’s appropriate for the whole holiday gift thing, but it’s personally frustrating because there are only a few specific items I actually want. The cosmetic clothing I already have from previous festivals (no new ones, grrr) so I’m only interested in the season-specific housing items. And eventually the Yule horse but I need to save up some gold first to buy a normal horse to trade for it.
I did do the non-repeatable quest to get a Yule tree for Arwellyn’s yard though. That one is in the Shire. Notorious stick-in-the-mud Lobelia Sacksville-Baggins is the Yule planner due to an old Shire law that says whomever lives at Bag End gets to plan the Yule festivities. That wasn’t a problem when Bilbo was around but he’s gone now and Lobelia goes to great effort to put a damper on anything the locals might consider even remotely fun. Eventually we go see Michel Delving’s Mayor Whitfoot who informs us of the unfortunate law, though suggests we check out the book of Festival Law from the library of Great Smials. The mayor flips through the book and says a new planner can be appointed if a petition of at least ten citizens of Hobbiton are willing to sign, which is not a problem for the fun-loving people of Hobbiton! Lobelia wigs out over her foiled plans (it’s a shame they didn’t use a Scooby Doo “if it weren’t for you meddling kids!” pop culture reference, but then the Tolkien lore-nerds would be out in force screaming foul) and Gaffer Gamgee gives us a Yule tree decoration.
The downside to the tree? It’s not its own special Yule tree model with decorations and all that. It’s just the snow-covered fir tree model from Thorin’s Gate, the dwarven starter zone. Boo hiss. Oh well, more fluff to spruce up the yard and make things seasonal is still a plus for me even if it’s not totally what I’d prefer.
Pre-Moria I was going pretty hardcore with dungeons, raiding and reputation grinding. Now I can slow down again. Ten levels doesn’t take long; in fact Arwellyn was 54 within the first few days of Moria’s launch without even trying. Right now she’s 56 with just under 3 bubbles to go until 57, which won’t take much effort at all to obtain. Moria shipped with 6 Epic Books, and she’s already on Book 4, Chapter 5. The Book 7 update should be in either January or February, and that will be adding Lothlorien reputation, so I’ll be working on getting the Iron Garrison Guards and Miners reputations prior to that (currently focusing on Miners for the goat at kindred then Guards for the legendary trait) but I’m not going to be spending every waking moment playing LOTRO when I have a whole year to enjoy the expansion content, not to mention worrying over my couple of alts. I’m really wanting a deluxe house for the extra storage chest and extra hooks for decorations and furniture (which will also let me free some storage space) but I keep hearing rumors of Lothlorien housing so slowing down and biding my time until Book 7 also gives me time to see if that rumor has any truth to it. One “problem” with the current neighborhoods is there are so many standard houses, which are cheaper, but they have all the good locations. Look at the one I chose for Arwellyn, right by the river with her own little area for swimming and fishing and a great view. I almost got one right next to one of the waterfalls but I figured (correctly) that I would tire of the constant noise from that waterfall. The deluxe houses in Falathlorn are all in non-scenic areas with other (standard) houses crowded up against them. I do have a location picked out that I suppose fits the “lesser of the evils” as far as scenery and having my own space without feeling like I’m in a suburb, but I’m hoping there is Lothlorien neighborhoods with more deluxe houses to purchase in better, more scenic locations.
One thing I wish LOTRO did was decorate the main towns for each festival. Guild Wars completely revamps the hub cities for their holidays. I think EQ2 does as well. I’d love to see Bree and the other primary hubs decorated and celebrate the holidays, not just at the Bree Festival Grounds or the Party Tree in the Shire. It’s fine to go there for the activities but show some holiday spirit and decorate those towns! Maybe there are decorations and it’s so subtle I don’t even notice — LOTRO is all about subtleties, after all — but I don’t think that’s the case.
Loading ...
on 
on 
Entries (RSS)
My tiny hobbit hunter is also running around the shire doing quests for Yuletide. I’m slowly collecting the tokens to exchange for a box. I really hope I don’t get coal every time!
I did the Yule Be Sorry quest, which opened my eyes to how different LotRO is from WoW. At the very least, I had to force myself to realize that the boundaries of areas weren’t as clear-cut, as Hobbiton (for example) didn’t just refer to the exact area in the map that was labeled HOBBITON but also encompassed the areas north of it and such as well.
I also got inadvertently sucked into the Inn League initiation quest. Now, that was a big pain in the ass. Running around on a timer to every tavern in the Shire and getting so drunk that I spent half the time trying to grab each tankard of ale as the screen kept sliding back and forth — heh, okay, a part of me was highly amused by it, and the fact that my little hobbit was doing the quest seemed quite fitting.
Nah, there’s nothing decorating the towns, which is definitely a shame. As it stands now, there’s no real way to know anything special in-game unless you talk to a friend or visit a town crier. As you mention, anything to do is also generally off in some place you’d not typically go to. How often does anyone go to the inn in Thorin’s Gate? lol
Some decorations or something would definitely help. I also have to admit I’m getting a bit let down by the holidays offering the same items both years. I know the game is still relatively new, but I can’t imagine it’d be hard to offer a different tree, for example.
Decoration would not only be recyclable, but it would pump some special feeling into the game. Wish the devs weren’t so busy building Lothlorien right now. Oh well
WoW does the main cities and towns I believe as well… it’s fun to walk into a town and see the lights, the mistletoe, etc.
Definitely a welcome bit of fluff atmosphere.