All my little hobbit wanted was a pretty Black-footed Chicken for a pet. How shiny and beautiful its black plumage is! The lovely little chook would make such a nice wandering companion that I obliged her little hobbit wishes and took her to the Hobnanigans field. What we were met with was not quite as fun of an event as we were both hoping for.
This Friday, Steam released a new starter pack for LOTRO: the Steely Dawn Pack. I had vaguely heard about it but didn’t really think much about it. Then today I was looking at the Show Us Your Favorite Cosmetic Outfit thread and andys90 had posted a picture of their toon wearing the chest piece:
I immediately fell in love with it! I’ve been looking for a new white outfit for Cithryth. All the white armour I’ve come across in-game just hasn’t really cut it for the White Captain look, besides dresses. And a true captain can’t go charging into battle in a dress. But THIS! It’s white, not to elvish, but definitely set for battle. So I decided to buy it. I mean really when you think about it, $20 for some armour you get for every character is a better deal than a $20 horse for just one character.
Here are some more hi-rez photos courtesy of Casual Stroll to Mordor:
That’s where the trouble began though. I purchased it and followed the steps to get the CD key for it to put into my Turbine account. You’re supposed to be able to right click the game (in this case, LOTRO) in your Steam library and go to “View CD Keys”. This then brings up a window showing you your product keys associated with the game. No such luck for me, though. The closest thing I could see in the right click menu was “View Downloadable Conent”. That only shows that yes, I have purchased the Steely Dawn pack and yes, it pertains to LOTRO. That’s it. No key. So, not able to put it into my Turbine account to actually get the items.
I looked around Steam support and the LOTRO forums to see if anyone else had the same problem. There was one other poster in the LOTRO forums that I could find (because finding anything in the LOTRO forums is a chore) who had the exact same problem. So I oped to send a support request to Steam. That was about five hours ago and I still have no heard back. I am displeased because I was really looking forward to playing with some new shiny outfits. Guess I have to wait. 
In happier news, I have continued my theme of trying other outfit pieces and made a new outfit for Sagewood. This outfit I think really makes sense for Sagewood. She’s a Bree-land archer out killing game and orcs and brigands as a mercenary for the town of Bree, or whoever might hire her.
Ceremonial Town-saver’s Jacket
Leggins of the Mark – umber
Vital Eastemnet Combat Boots – sienna
Fingerless Gloves – umber
Storyteller’s Fur-lined Mantle – gold
Plain Cloak – umber
Tattered Hat – sienna
Normally if I had gotten these leggings as a drop and tried them on in the dressing room, I would not have kept them. However I decided to give them a shot and I surprisingly love the way they go with this outfit!
Okay, so up until just recently the Steam forums were down for maintenance (thus why I didn’t mention looking in those for help). Well, just after I posted this I decided to try looking at them again and they were up! So I went into the LOTRO section to see the top post was about this exact issue. Many people are having it. Luckily, a user named Pixel Moose posted a solution!
Hey guys, I bought the Steely Dawn pack and ran into the same problem but I have found a solution. If you activate Big Picture mode on the Steam client, go to Library and click on LOTRO, then go the Links and More and at the bottom there should be a link that says View CD key. It is here that you can get the code for the starter pack. It was stupid for them not to put that on the regular Library page.
And it worked! Yay! But that is incredibly frustrating. Why should we have to go through the Big Picture mode (aimed at users with TVs and controllers… not regular PC users) just to get the CD key? Seems very broken to me. But it’s good to know for those having issues.
Today marked the release and announcement of the Steed of the Captain. Although it should be a generally happy announcement, it has been soured by quite a few factors, most of them stemming from the picture linked to my “Steed of the Captain” text, just previously. A few things to note about the picture. Most prominently, the steed is a dark brown, perhaps a black chestnut. The next thing I’ll point out is just a silly thing but I mean come on! The character riding the steed is an elf! Why would you advertise the Steed of the Captain using a character that is most definitely not a captain?!
They also apparently decided to advertise the Steed of the Captain using a horse color that it wasn’t as well. So we have a theme of fakeness going on here it seems. Once purchased, you would discover that the Steed of the Captain is not the black chestnut displayed in the promo pick but is in fact the default, boring blonde sorrel. Turbine seems to love this stupid blonde sorrel steed so much they have been using it as skin for nearly ever new regular mount that has come out recently. It’s annoying and boring. Terribly boring. Many people are upset about this and have made their voices heard in this thread in the Store Feedback forums (and I suggest you go over there and give them a piece of your mind too).
Update as of 2:11 PM EST: QuarterMasterU has come into the thread and said that the blonde sorrel skin appearance is a bug – the hide of the regular Steed of the Captain is supposed to be the dark brown pictured in the ad. The bug should be rectified by Update 9. No word on egg helmets though.
I still bought the damn thing anyway because it’s the steed of the captain and I am the White Captain. So I kind of had to. Also the cosmetics of it are generally quite nice (except for one quip I’ll get to momentarily). Since I’m using it pretty much solely for warsteed cosmetic purposes, the color of the regular steed does not effect me quite as much.
So without further ado, here is my Steed of the White Captain:
The only two things I changed: dyed the caparison olive and left the gear off. “Why would you leave the gear off?” you might be asking. I’ll tell you why: it’s because the stupid helmet looks like an egg on the warsteed version! On the regular mount, it is obvious from pretty much all angles that it is a helm. However, go to equip the gear on your warsteed and it looks like you’re carrying a giant runestone or some kind of rock that you found in Moria. Here is a side by side comparison of the warsteed gear and the regular steed gear:
Why would they change it so much from version to version? Another good question is, why is a helmet the signifying mark of a captain? As many have brought up in the Captain forums, why wasn’t a banner used instead? Clearly a banner is the logical choice for a captain. I mean… part of our whole schtick is banners and heralds carrying banners and whatnot. Guardians got a shield, hunters got a quiver of arrows, minstrels got instruments, champions got a slew of weapons, burglars got tricks and daggers, lore-masters got scrolls, rune-keepers got runestones and books… and we got a helmet?!
Sorry if this post is more negative than my typical posts. However it just sucks when your class steed finally comes along only to be riddled with unexplainable marketing and cosmetic decisions attached. Overall I like the cosmetics of the horse and am pleased with my purchase. I suppose it is just that there’s the ever growing feeling that Store is trying to take advantage of us cosmetic lovers more and more. They realized we were willing to spend TP on cosmetics and over time they have pushed and pushed and pushed how much they can get away with. I think it won’t be too long until they have pushed too far and many of their most long time, TP spending fans will stop spending like they used to.
Today Turbine announced that they will be taking over the EU servers from Codemasters. And there was much rejoicing. Codemasters has never delivered on a lot of the very nice things Turbine has done for us on this side of the pong, specifically My.LOTRO and the Lorebook. However, one thing that Codemasters did that Turbine refused to do was to designate RP servers.
I am in a bit of a mental pickle.
My home server that I have always played on is Windfola. I love Windfola. I have many friends there and it’s a smaller community so that nothing is ever too crowded, however I never feel as if the server is deserted. The only problem with Windfola is the role-playing, of which there is little to none.
I never really had an interest in role-playing until the past few months. I had always kind of had a backstory for Cithryth and Herefara in the back of my mind, but I never really did anything with it. I always tried to dress my characters realistically and always tried to make them seem like they really were from Rohan.
As many of you know, I then began a crusade of sorts to bring role-play to Windfola. It has been going well enough. There is a small group of us that meet every Saturday night at the Pony. The only problem is that we often get overrun by griefers. We don’t have the kind of numbers that Landroval has. I know if griefers show up at Ales and Tales, they are told in no uncertain terms that that kind of behavior is unwelcome and they usually leave because they are outnumbered. It seems the reverse for poor Windolfa, however. But we are making do.
