More of my own favourite pictures, screenshots and videos from LOTRO!
Well, I said it would be a series of posts, didn't I? About time to make it so! Here are some more fun, exciting and/or quirky-looking pictures. At least some might find them so...
Those fabulous horse riders of Rohan
Back when Riders of Rohan was released, I loved roaming the grassy plains on my new war pony. Sure, it was sluggish and steered worse than the Titanic trying to avoid an iceberg, but there was something relaxing about zipping around on horseback over those wide acres. At least, until the inevitable rubberbanding dragged me back to the nearest fence/tree/building I had tried to pass...
Obviously, the Rohirrim are grand horse riders, which the following picture should show. I ran into this feller in one of the quests in Norcrofts (I believe), where he bragged about his horse riding.
Very skilled riders, them Horse Lords, I am sure yer agree. Of course, that impression was sort of undermined when the same rider 30 seconds later rode into the building in the picture below, not untangling himself from that porch until five minutes or so had passed. Pathfinding is hard, apparently...
More Rohan riding
Another reason to ride around in Rohan is that the area provides some drop dead gorgeous scenes for screenshots, because of the sky colours. I quite like the one below, where I head into battle during dusk. Probably, there are biscuits to be liberated ahead!
Hail the Bullroarer
Given that I roleplay a hobbit from Brockenborings, Bullroarer Took plays a not insignificant role in my backstory. After all, every hobbit up there knows about the Bullroarer's actions during the Battle of the Greenfields, where he rode a full-sized pony into the battle and knocked the head off the goblin king Golfimbul. Brockenborings has a statue depicting this scene with the Bullroarer in mid-club-swing, so I have spent some time trying to make a nice screenshot of it. This proves remarkably hard, since a) the statue is somewhat taller than a windmill, while b) hobbits are somewhat smaller than a windmill. So the angles get a bit weird.
Still, I am happy with the picture below, not least because the colour of the sky and the distant fog lent a slight aura of mystique to the scene. It seems a few others like the picture too, since it ever so often pops up on other sites (even with the same typo in the screenshot file name). Hint: a credit would be nice if yer download and use stuff from here!
It's raining lizards
Once upon a time, Khazâd-copper Ore was among the most valuable minerals in LOTRO, and I spent a considerable amount of time roaming the lands in Southern Eregion mining the precious ores. Please don't tell Jiro or Nimelia... Jiro actually caught me mining there once, leading to a somewhat hilarious chase through the lands.
A favourite stop during my mining was a hilly area between Echad Dunann and Mirobel. Not so much because of the ores or views, but because more often than not, lizards came falling out of the sky there. They spawned, fell down, vanished, and did the same thing again five seconds later. I came to enjoy those lizardly companions, and I am glad I took a screenshot of them once.
Tools for fools, or tools give you wings
Some say hobbits are gentle, peaceful folks. They clearly haven't visited the hobbit roleplaying community on Laurelin, because here conflict and strife positively thrives. Not nasty power-emoting combat conflict, no no, but strong differences in opinion on important hobbit subjects. In the previous post in this series you can read about the battle of the pigsty in Songburrow. Obviously, this is not the only battle fought in the Shire.
One of the enduring sources of conflict is the quarreling between tool sellers and dye sellers. Any visitor to the regular hobbit market in Michel Delving will surely have noticed the sometimes lively debate between Simbo and Nimelia, dye and tool seller respectively. Which is why it was somewhat easy for me to wonder if the local Tool Association were hard at work when I saw this dialogue between some NPCs in Michel Delving.
Durin I
Back in 2012-2013, I worked on a video for the Song of Durin's Awakening. Obviously, finding an iconic image of Durin would be somewhat important for this work. As luck would have it, I had lots of help from the dwarven players on Laurelin for the video, and not least master Barkgrim who spent way too much time being bossed around by me during the shoot ("go there", "do that", "jump!").
During the shooting, I paid my first visit to the Greenhouse outside of Thorin's Hall, which is one of my favourite locations in LOTRO. Turbine absolutely nailed the look of this location, not least the use of lighting. It was a natural backdrop to use for the "birth" of Durin in the video. Hence the picture below. Still one of me favourite LOTRO screenshots.
Photobombing the Thain
After yule this year, I spent some time brushing up things on this burrow, replacing some of the old screenshots on the site. This meant I roamed around the Shire for a while, looking for good screenshots opportunities.
I am not sure how the one below came to be, but it had me giggling when I looked through my screenshot folder afterwards. Looks like I am photobombing the Thain during a portrait session, or somet. Tee hee. Well, there was that time we fought over biscuits, so...
The search for the lost book
Back when I was young and eager and had too much time on my hands (3-4 years ago or so), I worked a bit on a roleplaying adventure within the Grand Order. It basically circled around a search for the in-game book Bullroarer's Boy, possibly the most fabulous lost mathom ever. It proved somewhat hard to keep momentum in the adventure going, but we had us some grand adventures for a while.
To keep the story going, I made a few videos related to the search. The first one was perhaps when I found out I really liked creating videos in LOTRO:
[tvideo type="youtube" clip_id="moES85hnqmE"] The Lost Book: Teaser 1
The second video is really the reason I add these to this blog post. Because, for some reason, I never made it public. Until now, it is just me and Tibba who have seen it... So, as lost mathoms come, this video is really it. Well, it was. Hm.
[tvideo type="youtube" clip_id="dVt5Uw0BJeA"] The Lost Book: Teaser 2
A year later, I tried to restart the adventure again with a new video. I possibly spent so much time on making it that I burned out on the adventure proper. But I am really quite pleased with the video itself. Lots of effects, filters and digital trickery used on this one. Possibly too much, but it sure was fun!
[tvideo type="youtube" clip_id="Zv3ZHidfjjc"] Bullroarer's Boy (The Lost Book teaser 3)