Pictures by an intrepid, nosy hobbit adventurer: Part 1

January 15, 2016|Adventures, Laurelin|Image, LOTRO, Videos11

A collection of some of my own favourite pictures, screenshots and videos from LOTRO!

I love making screenshots in LOTRO. Whenever I go on adventure, explore Middle-Earth or attend events, I usually look around for possible fun, exciting or quirky-looking pictures. Well, at least I find them fun, exciting or quirky-looking, and now is yer chance to see if yer agree. I might even throw in a short video of mine that I don’t feel deserve a blog post of its own. This is the first in a series of posts, so please let me know if you enjoy this and would like to see more!

So, what kind of pictures can you expect to see? Lovely views. Screenshots from favourite events, capturing fun quotes. Hobbits in battle with far too large creatures. Sights that might raise you eyebrows. Technical glitches. Or just the odd screenshot I really like, for no other apparent reasons. I’ll likely have tweeted some of these pictures on my Twitter account before, but that’s just how it goes! If you want larger versions, just click on the pictures.

The Songburrow brandy cellars

Songburrow Hall, kin home of The Grand Order, has always been rumoured to hold lots of secret cellars. Many an exploring hobbit is said to have been lost in these cellars, looking for brandy, food or our mathom collection. Much to my surprise, I found myself down in the cellars one day…

This is a technical glitch in LOTRO, where you sometimes fall below the floor when you enter your home. You beam back up again after a few seconds, though. Usually.

Sunrise

One day I was exploring around Thorin’s Hall, I caught view of the sun in the early morning. I kind of liked it and made this screenshot.

The horrible oinker in Songburrow Hall

Over the last year, there have been heated discussions in the Grand Order over whether or not to build a pigsty in Songburrow. Those in favour cite the easy access of prime pork for roasting. Those not are rather worried about the possible smells and sounds from the pig sty.

The battle was all good-natured for a long time. After all, there were no ways to bring neither pigs nor pig sties into the homesteads.

Until Turbine started adding pets to the game. Including a war pig from Gondor. And there are rumours that animal pens are next. Eep!

Naturally, us hobbit roleplayers pounced on this development with excited glee, leading to a particularly vile oinker currently living in the study at Songburrow Hall while we wait for the lazy workers to finish the pig sty (or for the sty opponents to chase the porker away before that happens). The picture shows the horrid swine winking knowingly to the camera after having eaten all the yule decorations at the Hall, and that look just had to be screenshotted.

The missing ponies

Back around yule 2012, there was a bug in LOTRO which made the stable master horses/ponies (besides the one you were riding yourself) invisible. Obviously, us Grand Order hobbits had lots of fun with this, given that we often hopped on the pony from Michel Delving and back to the Shire homesteads. Here I am chasing Sevelda and Nimelia after a particularly festive event.

Off the beaten track

One time, I was so eager making screenshots of far-off vistas around Weathertop, I forgot I was riding fast on me pony. At least I managed to snap this screenshot before plummeting into the rocks below….

Beavers like summer picnics too

Around midsummer, the Grand Order hosts the Grand Midsummer Picnic for the Laurelin hobbits. The picnic usually involves a concert with The Songburrow Strollers, and so it was back in 2014 as well, when this picture was taken. In the audience, miss Yidia was dancing around wearing a beaver mask, and I spent a little time trying to catch both her and the Strollers in the same screenshot. It seems miss Yidia noticed the camera, though, since she’s peeking into it… I rather like the sunset in the background too!

Emote videos

LOTRO is currently adding sounds to the flirt emote. The video below shows the female hobbit version of this emote. Please note that the video is from a beta version of the game, and that there might be changes when U17.2 goes live.

LOTRO flirt emote

It must be said that a few LOTRO old-timers were filled with dread at the prospect of Turbine playing around with emote sounds again. The reason is a rather scary attempt at changing most player emotes back in 2012, when the Riders of Rohan expansion was beta tested. Back then I made the video below, which shows some of the horrors involved, but I never dared release it publicly. I figure that it is safe now, though, 3.5 years after it all happened.

If you wonder why most of the characters show their backs to the camera, I figure they were just too embarassed from the sounds they made…

Riders of Rohan beta: Player emote sounds