Trouble with GMs, Follow-up

Concerning the problems we encountered with Draigoch and the bad attitude the GM had, we asked for a senior GM. As I was not part of that conversation, and I didn’t get any screenshots, this is just hearsay.

But what I got from two sources, is that the senior GM was very polite and apologetic. They thanked for the bug-report and seem to be aware of the problem. On the other hand, the existing tools available for the GMs seem to be far less powerful than in other games. Such tools were in development.

Personally, I doubt these statements. I have seen GMs one-shooting players and mobs. I have seen GMs spawning chests and handing out loot as well as handing out loot from one player to an other even though the loot was bound on the first player. I don’t doubt reports of other players, that they have been thrown in the air and fell down for thirty seconds before hitting the ground and with that killing the player.

Anyway, even though there was no palpable result, at least the better attitude seems to have satisfied the kinnies.

The problem with Draigoch seems to be related to fellowship movements, which, when happening before he flies off from the ground in the third phase, seem to bug him out. This does not happen in the first two phases, so it should be something quite easy to fix. Not sure if I want to run the instance in the current status though...

We did return to Barad Guldur and had a quick run through the tower. We wiped once at the twins, as not everyone knew where to place the pools. Even though the raid-leader told em twice... I don’t think not being on vent is an excuse. If you don’t know what to do, it is your responsibility to tell the raid-leader, not the other way round.

Tonight is skirmish-night and I hope I’ll be able to get two more characters to level 75.

Draigoch - Buggy as Hell - Trouble with GMs

I was in several runs on Draigoch, two of which were successful (with Tier 2 Challenge).

But today, Saturday, after the update, he bugged out three times in the third phase, so we spent over four hours on three attempts without anything to show for.

So of course we sent a ticket, which was the usual useless response (Sadly, we can't do anything). After the third time, they just closed the ticket without responding.

Draigoch, being several months late, is somehow fun, but extremely buggy. The second team of our kin had also one game bugging out... It mostly seems to happen with fellowship movements. So we tried to avoid them, but got a random one.

We did an other ticket, which got closed without an answer. A second ticket was sent and the sender was threatened by GM.

Even though we told him, that out of five fights, he bugged out four times in the same manner, didn't help.

"+Algar+: The number of occurrences does not change the fact that this fight is much to complex to fix manually for you."

So he asked

"(Name) tell +Algar+, 'you want to come into the raid and one shot him so this is ended with everyone happy?'"

"+Algar+: Nobody in our department is going to do that for you, (Name). If we could fix this for you, we happily would do so."


+Algar+ did not respond to tells, for more than ten minutes and did not close the ticket either. Which is fucking stupid, as they did ban one player of our kin, after not replying to a GM after ten minutes.

We then asked to get a senior GM, but after half an hour, we still did not have a response. After a long day at the office and five hours in the raid, I'm off to bed.

Warner Bros and Turbine are not offering the customer service you would expect from a North Korean company. Warner Bros should really think hard, if they want to be associate with such bad service.

Factually, we  almost tenmanned it, as one player crashed and couln't get back in and one person lagged so badly, that he was not able to contribute a lot to the fight.

The one raid Turbine managed to deliver, months after they had promissed to do so, the only raid at level-cap fails four out of five times. The real challenge for Draigoch is no the raid, it is being lucky enough to not have Draigoch bug out...

This is neither fun nor good customer service. Anyone got better experience with Turbine GMs? Tell me your worst stories!

Rise of Isengard

It has been some time, over four months actually, since I last posted. Even thought I have been away from here, I haven’t been away from LotRO. I did spend some more time in World of Tanks, but haven't touched that game for some weeks.

There have been a lot of posts regarding Isengard, so much I will write here, you might have heard somewhere else.

What have I done in the expansion? First I have leveled my Hunter, Minstrel and Captain to level 75. Triple-boxing has been a less positive experience with Rise of Isengard, as the amount of client-crashes has exploded. These crashes mostly happen in high-traffic areas, say Galtrev, or when moving from one part of the world to an other (say, entering the vault in Galtrev or an instance on three characters at the same time.

Even thought I had taken some days off, I didn’t hit level-cap as fast as I had planned. I did like most regions of the expansion and the Epic Book, the parts I didn’t like were Dunbog and the Pit of Iron, the latter mostly because of the buggy tracks and the missing map.

My favorite parts were in the Epic Story as well as the Gap of Rohan quests.

After getting three characters to level-cap, I started gearing my Hunter and my Minstrel. I did some twelve-man skirmishes and some of the upgraded three- and six-mans. I really like them and they seem to be a bit easier than they have been before. I am looking forward to triple-boxing the school and library again.
I started leveling my next two characters, Burglar and Rune-Keeper. They are at level 69ish and Champion and Lore-Master will be next.

Hunter seems to play more or less the same as before the update. Minstrel and Captain have changed a lot. I didn’t spend a lot of time on my Captain but like the changes for my Minstrel a lot.
We also visited Draigoch, the big, bad (?) dragon. The raid well done. I sadly was always too late for the first few 'failed' attempts but was lucky enough to bring my Hunter to the first Tier 2 and Challenge run. I even won the coin for the head-piece.

Draigoch fights in his pit which has three levels. A small part of the raid does the tanking on the upper level, whilst the rest fights the paws on the lower and central levels. After ‚killing’ the paws, Draigoch falls to the ground whilst the raid hits his body. Fellowship movements are important, as a specific series of twelve FMs weakens the paws. After a bit, the dragon wakes up again and this repeats over and over again. Withe the FMs weakening the paws, less time is needed to ‚kill’ these and the phase to attack the body will start sooner.

There are three phases, as I have only been on the dps team, and the first and second phase seem to be different mainly for the tanking team. I also think that a Rune-Keeper is a better healer for the tanking team as a Minstrel should be in line-of-sight with the boss to play ballads, which is not recommended with Draigoch.

The third team is quite easy if you have lots of ranged dps. Even though melee dps get a better buff than the ranged dps, the Hunters and Lore-Masters don’t suffer from the distributed attacks of the paws.

After a long time, the fight takes about 90 minutes, he was finally dead. I was very happy to be on an other server-first. Four chests spawn. Most sought after were the scales, three of which are needed to craft an epic cloak. Three scales dropped on the first run, four on the second. Then we had two coins fort he set on the first run and three on the second run and on the first run, we got an Worn Symbol of Celebrimbor. Some teal items (jewelery and amour) and some runes and settings completed the loot.

With three accounts, I spent around US$ 150.00 for the Rise of Isengard expansion. Money well spent? Yes, I think so. Even with the buggy Pit of Iron and the failure to have enough quests to get to level-cap without having to do repeatables and tasks, I like the expansion.