First visit to Middle-Earth in a while.

I hadn't reinstalled LOTRO since redoing my notebook a few weeks ago. Warcraft has been dominating my gaming efforts, so I didn't feel a need. So this morning during WoW's regular weekly maintenance and restarts, I installed LOTRO, then copied the backup files I burned to DVD before wiping the previous installation.

I found my level 24 Guardian, Flughorin, sitting at the southern edge of the Fields of Fornost. A great area for my level, with several mining nodes and level 25-27 mobs all within close range of vendor NPC, making grinding/selling/repairing very convenient. Half an hour of grinding Barghests and some Oath Breakers got me to level 25, and my total coin up to just over 900 silver. I'll be donating my coin and bank to the kinship here soon, as the upcoming Housing feature will be expensive.

Although lacking much of the fantasy and magic aspects I enjoy in Warcraft, LOTRO is always a relaxing, enjoyable experience for me. My Kinship, Kindred Spirits is a great bunch of people to game with, on both the LOTRO and WOW fronts. These folks help me keep what's left of my sanity while out on the road :-)

Well, back to WOW. Gotta check up on those 85 auctions I posted last night...

A new twist for my paladin.

A while back, Gweedo blogged about Protection Spec'd paladins as a change of pace. My paladin Remil was at about the right level for the respec, so I swung through Stormwind, respec'd putting all 31 points I had into Protection, and thanks to Nihow picked up Thermaplugg's Central Core in Gnomeregan. Willam logged on and put an Iron Shield Spike on the shield for me (me being so dopey didn't realize I could do it myself until later, doh!). So with a Striking enchant on a Tiger mace, I headed out for a little grind.

Man, this is a nice change from the old Crusader/Command Retribution stuff I was doing. Deadmines was a breeze, pulling 10-15 at a time. A trip to Hinterlands to take on some level 42-45 wolves and owlbeasts went well too. I took on an owlbeast 4 levels above me, and finished the fight with over 80% health and mana remaining. As of this morning, just tinkering around has gotten me 1/4 of the way through level 42, just grinding, no deaths, and some time for a blog entry..

Anyway, if you're looking for a new twist on paladin'ing, give it a try.
Guide to Prot Spec Leveling and AoE Hotspots!
The Light and How to Swing It: The sadist's guide to PalAOEadins