You know what really grinds my gears? Festivals. So the horse race is down. Never-mind the fact that the chick is still standing there, taunting me with her sexy horseness at the starting gate. Never-mind the fact there is still even a starting-gate to have her sexy horseness stand at. Oh, nooooo… the horse race is [...]

Oathbreakers, The Free People of Landroval Need You It’s been months since the idea was introduced, and this weekend Gobblemoss’ vision was brought to life! The infestation plauging the Ettenmoors would eventually find its way to our homes and Bree was in grave danger. We had no where else to turn. This Halloween’s eve and day, the [...]

[Trade] WTB Creeps With Creativity Creeps. Seriously. Stop whining about EC and do something about it! Help me understand something because I still don’t get it…. Yesterday I log on and head out to the ‘Moors joining the Kin as per usual. The fighting is completely stale and the Heirs group (which was only 4 people at [...]

Their Journey to 11 Wulfhen and Trinstar had been planning their Rank in unison for weeks now and last night was it! Getting home later than usual last night I was glad to see Trinstar hadn’t already been out. Wulfhen had been lingering around in the ‘Moors for the last two days sitting at 75 renown to [...]

The Lugz Distraction that Never Ends…. Uhh, or Distracts Our attempt to be a distraction for a Keep take elsewhere turned into an epic hold. Entering the ‘Moors yesterday evening HoI formed a group as usual, this time led by Blacksparrow. With TR already blue Blackie set his sights on Lugz. Unsure if we’d be able to [...]

Ophy’s 5 Gold-a-Day Give-Away: Help Bring Back the Blog! [Oct. 16 & 19-23] H’okay so. *clears throat* You ever come to the Landroval PvP boards and see the Ettenmoors Community Blog and think to yourself, “Self? I don’t get it. I think I should start my own random thread about random thought #181923 that came into my head [...]

Congrats my dear friend and most favorite opponent!!! I can haz you as my death buddy now? ;P

You know what really grinds my gears? Festivals.

So the horse race is down. Never-mind the fact that the chick is still standing there, taunting me with her sexy horseness at the starting gate. Never-mind the fact there is still even a starting-gate to have her sexy horseness stand at. Oh, nooooo… the horse race is down.

Well okay, cool idea to add the ability to barter some festival tokens for the horse; that way I can still get it regardless of the fact that cold hearted wench at the starting-gate flaunting her horses won’t give me the time of day. I don’t need her! All I need is tokens! Well, the Free People’s Flag only costs me 2 tokens, and that’s something as vitally important to the good of man kind as can be so the horse must not cost much more….. wait, wait, wait, wait… 40!? Wow. That horse brat at the flaunting, taunting starting, never starting, start-gate must have been behind this evil plot to suck all my free time away just to get my hand on her horses.

“Oh well,” I say. “The horse shall be mine!”

Well, we’ve got some once-a-day quests and we’ve got some bobbing for goodies games that I can repeat every hour. Trying to ignore my fear of catching the Boar Flu from bobbing in places for unknown objects that others had bobbed for just moments previous without washing, I’m sure… I bobbed away. This shouldn’t take too long.

“Oooh a cracked Geode. That’s gotta be good for something, right?”

Wrong. The disgruntled Dwarf laughs in my face and gives me one measly token then sends me on my way. I didn’t buy the vertically challenged hairy creature an ale first so I assume I’d have better luck with the Elves who have no such need for personal entertainment or razors. But alas… an Unimpressive Scroll finds it’s way into my hands and nets me another individual pathetic token. I’m certain there’s no way my own kind will be so cruel to me so I make for the fairgrounds in Bree.

“Oh look. A small pumpkin. How quaint.” *glares*

The Shire is my last hope at the Party Tree. It’s a Party Tree! The hobbits will clearly give me what I’m looking for.

…. I’ve always hated hobbits.

And that’s what really grinds my gears.

What Really Grinds My Gears Archives

Oathbreakers, The Free People of Landroval Need You
It’s been months since the idea was introduced, and this weekend Gobblemoss’ vision was brought to life!

The infestation plauging the Ettenmoors would eventually find its way to our homes and Bree was in grave danger. We had no where else to turn. This Halloween’s eve and day, the Oathbreakers had come forth and stood up with the Free People of Landroval in the face of great opposition in an attempt to set out to do what they had long turned away from.

Our journey began in Bree itself as we led the Oathbreakers from the Haunted Alley where they had gathered restlessly so many times before and brought them to the heart of Bree at the Pouncing Pony. With the support of all those that gathered, the Oathbreakers swore to protect us and follow the orders given by any who held the power of the necklace, binding their souls to walk this land until their vow is fullfilled.

Some already bruised and bloodied from such a long battle as we’ve had, the hearts of many hung heavy and their hopes were worn thin, but with Leekae leading them and the masses of people, veteran and new at our sides, I knew that hope was not lost. Mounting up and guiding the Oathbreakers to what might be certain death, I watched the faces of those we passed in Bree; standing by thier homes and their shops, the patrol men pausing to watch. It brought me inspiration; we were doing this for them; for those that couldn’t stand up and fight for themselves. Bree had to be saved.

Not wanting to wait another moment as each hour that passed, more lives were lost we set off for the Ettenmoors.

The Land Shall Be Ours!
Not wasting a moment, we pushed off the Steps of Glan Vraig and out to the battle field.

It was dark when we reached the Ettenmoors. The land was all but belonging to the evil that walked the land and the infestation that had poisoned the waters and trees. We’d been able to hold control over Lugazag for most of the day, sending scouts to their base to keep watch over their movements, we’d been lucky to maintain our postion there. By the request of Sergeant-at-Arms, Hafthor the first location we chose to attack was the Lumber Camp. Perhaps if the woods were freed, we could push to the west and hit the Weavers head on in the Spider Den, weakening their numbers and continue on to the other locations that were flying the red banners.

Catching them by surprise we made short order of the camp, the Oathbreakers at our sides providing support like we hadn’t seen in ages. The Tyrant fell fast and with a sound so loud it seemed to awake an evil that we hadn’t even know could exist as from then on out, our night would be long and we’d see much death on both sides.

Taking our momentum, we pushed to the north-east to Tirth Rhaw but the enemy had already gathered; our ability to take them by surprise was no more. We held our own outside the Keep for as long as we could, but our opposition was immense and we barely made it through the door before too many lives were lost and others fled for the security of the Lumber Camp and Glan Vraig.

The huge hit gave us enough pause for the Eye’s army to make their way into Lugazag, slaughtering its guards and pushing our forces back. Mounted, we rode hard and fast clear across the map to aid in the defense of our territory. Ambushing them from behind, we pushed through their lines causing them to scatter then pushed back at them from the front until every last one of them found their way back to Gramsfoot.

Again growing momentum, Wulfhen led our force of 14 into the belly of the beast at Tol Ascarnen while the Oathbreakers continued to follow Leekae and the rest of the Free Peoples. We knew we were putting ourselves into great danger and with our small numbers we feared that we would inspire the Tyrant to greatness that we couldn’t defeat if we lost our lives to him there, but it was a risk we were willing to take. Moving in fast, we were spotted immediately but our blades and songs cleaned through the guards in no time. Picking up pace we began on the Tyrant. He seemed to be weaker than he ever had been with the Oathbreaker’s presence in the Ettenmoors on our side instead of theirs. More and more began to show to attempt to bring us to our knees but we couldn’t be stopped. Focus and determination brought us through such heavy fire and instead of us on our knees it was them on theirs. We ripped down the red banners and flew our flags for all to see.

Returning to Tirth Rhaw to make another attempt at pushing past the forces at the Keep’s reinforced enterance we were met with the same opposition as before but this time it stopped us dead in our tracks. Not even making it to the doorway we had no choice but to abandon any hope of taking over that territory.

Dar-Gazag Became Our Grave
Not having fullfilled their oath the night previous we ventured out again, this time setting a priority on Dar.

Last night was long and rough. Throughout the evening I died 34 times and most of it was at the hands of the enemy by Dar. We pushed the Keeps, we wiped the map but we were still unable to conquer getting into the door at TR. Because of this all efforts from those in my raid and the Oathbreakers went to takinig the relic held in the fortress of Dar-Gazag.

The details are blurry so I’ll be leaving you with only screenshots as I tend to my wounds. >.<

Exhausted and worn from an extremely rough night I took my leave of what has got to be one of the best and most willing and patient groups I’ve ever had the pleasure of leading. Wandering the map I made my way through the Lumber Camp just as it was being hit and lost my life for the last time that night.

The last two nights were really quite indescribably incredible. I will admit I struggled quite a bit to come up with words to put any justice on it and eventually gave up, heh. A countless number of thank yous to all involved and especially Gobblemoss.

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There are numerous posts on the Landroval boards telling more stories, posting more screenshots and eventually (hopefully) numerous videos as well.

[Trade] WTB Creeps With Creativity
Creeps. Seriously. Stop whining about EC and do something about it!

Help me understand something because I still don’t get it…. Yesterday I log on and head out to the ‘Moors joining the Kin as per usual. The fighting is completely stale and the Heirs group (which was only 4 people at the time) was struggling to keep Luel up as the only healer in the area at Elf Camp. We hate Elf Camp. We all hate it. But sometimes you just need to go. I understand that. So anyway, I join them and not long after more HoI come out as well. Now up to 8 members we’re completely done with EC and bored out of our damn minds.

What happened over the next hour is what has me confused….

We mount up and leave EC. We’re roaming the map and finding unfortunate soloers which 8 Freeps entirely too easily dispatch. Continuing to see comments in /ooc about the fight at EC, we refuse to return. Our first idea? We’re going to just chill out at Good TA map in. It’s a horrid place to hang out as not only is it (in my opinion) the spot of the best map Creeps have (Good TA) but it’s a hop skip and a jump away from what has got to be the easiest map for Creeps to acquire (Crude LC). Like I said yesterady in /ooc, our group practically stripped naked and covered ourselves in bacon then sent out a telegram (also covered in bacon) to the Creeps and got ….. *crickets.* We hung out there for about 15 minutes before finally saying “**** it” and crossed the river. Creeps want to hang out at Elf Camp? FINE! We’ll take over Orc Camp.

Thirty minutes we stayed there. THIRTY MOTHER ****ING MINUTES!! And you know what we kept hearing the entire time we were there? “[OOC] Creeps still at EC!” We couldn’t believe it. We even got so bored waiting for you to leave EC that we started sparring with one another to pass the time. So there we are. Orc Camp. Your teritory, your terf, your NPCs, and your rez circle pratcicaly dead from doing spars, and what do we get? About 4 Creeps in thirty minutes, that’s what we get. I even brought out pie and stood in the door to welcome you in!!!! *sniff* Not a peep.

That’s It, Paint it Blue
Completely dissapointed in the quality of fights, we just wiped the map.

Screw the dynamic fighting attempts. Freeps were without a raid, our numbers spread all over the map and the best fights we could muster were when our small group would just run inside TA and literally force the fight on us until we would wipe. We must have done it 3 or so times before even that was boring and we decided to make a call out in /ooc to push Lugz and just finish the sucker off. Now with all the Freeps in one location and Estellion kind enough to start an open raid (thank you Est!) our coordination and obvious assertiveness made for a smooth and quick take of Lugz. Then with Est’s drive pushing the main raid to finish what it had started, we followed along and took out TA as well.

Looking at the map I called it quits for a while and took a break to go play some DDO but came back out after a while when Freeps had the population buff back.

Elf Camp Miracles Really Do Happen
Words really can’t describe what happend, but I’ll try <insert reader’s eye rolling emotes here>.

There we were, Wulfhen, Keet (Tarastopchangingyourname), Frotswa and myself. We were doing “quiet time pvp”; no talking, just fighting. Not sure how we ended up going to EC but Creeps had just been pushed back from TR and then we were pushed out of Lugz so we must have just swung by on our way from one location to another. Anyway…. I’m not exactly sure just how many Creeps flooded Elf Camp on top of us the instant we showed up but it had to have been 20 minimum. 20 against 4… in “quiet time pvp” is a recipe for disaster in any normal situation but holy ****… it … was … hot. By the end of things, Frotswa and I were completely out of cooldowns and with he and I focusing on keeping eachother alive (and him pushing out to slaughter when Fellow’s Heart was going) and Keet and Wulfhen doing, well what they do, we had at least 12 Creeps dead by the time we fell. I can only imagine how frustrating that fight had to have been for Creeps. I had zero time to figure out what was happening or what went wrong (or right?) so I’d love to hear from a Creep that was there for it.

Why am I Always in the Front?
I get bored with waiting. Doesn’t anyone else?

Releasing from EC to the TR rez circle we pushed right back at the Creeps who flooded the old TR hot spot. Fighting here and fighting there, eventually Creeps picked up enough numbers to push themselves back to Tirth Rhaw and hold the outside. Freeps seemed to either be chicken or maybe there was just too many ranged classes because I spent the majority of the fight in the front lines. It was confusing. Per some requests in /ooc we did push the Creeps out however and at that point we roamed a tad to find one more fight before taking off for bed.

Big, huge, gigantic props to Creeps for pushing back and back and back to the Freep force despite the fact that Freeps appeared to be winning. That took a lot of guts and we really apprecaited you. Also big props to Freeps continuing to work as a team regardless of raid/kin/etc. lines. Landroval feels as good to me as a community as it has in a very long time.

Oh!!! And my sympathy card for the night went out to poor venomous who just happened to be in the absolute wrong spot at the aboslute wrong time. Our “quiet time pvp” group of 4 was on our way toward good ta from HH when we found him mapping in, but unfortunately (and coincidentily) so was the Freep raid!!! You may have gotten destroyed Venomous but you looked good doing it!!! *winks*