Pumping Irony

After nearly two years since I left World of Warcraft, where I swore I’d never do the hardcore raiding thing again — and I won’t — I set foot into my first raid instance in Middle Earth, The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu a couple days ago. Unfortunately it was the Canadian Thanksgiving and several core members of my kinship are Canadian so it was myself and one other kin-mate, a few friends from other kinships, then a few PUG players.

The intention was just to poke around, have a look at the place. Nothing serious. For a few of us, it was our first time ever in the Rift. Others hadn’t been there in 8 months or longer. I briefed everyone my feelings on the matter, that I’m just here to have a good time with everyone, have a few fights, and I fully expected to die several times. I figure it’s good to be up-front with things like that, especially in mixed company where PUG strangers are concerned.

The overall experience was very slow going, and we did indeed die several times. In fact, several party wipes. All said and done, it was Arwellyn’s record high repair bill, a whopping 325 silver! Of course, she’s a light armour wearing Lore-master. The heavy armour guys had bills from 800 silver and higher, so they weren’t exactly sympathetic to Arwellyn’s paltry 325 silver.

Typically after every wipe or near-wipe, one of the PUG players would leave, but at least they let us know and were cordial about it. Finding replacements every few fights was the main factor in the slowness of the raid.

However, we were successful in killing the first boss, the troll Barz! That was actually a very fun fight! Arwellyn and the other lore-master were busy with crowd control and sharing power along with the occasional spot heal. From my short experience in the Rift, it would seem that Turbine gives all their raid bosses (and even a friendly giant NPC) voiceovers that not only up the entertainment value but also serve as a warning for an imminent special attack.

We successfully made it to the next boss, another troll Zurm but our guardian main tank had left earlier and we were unable to find a replacement. We pretty much knew it would be suicide to attempt Zurm with one player down and no real main tank character, but we were just about finished for the night so we engaged him. It was chaotic and hectic fun while it lasted, but with no guardian, Zurm just tore through everyone on his threat list and beat us down painfully.

I’ve made enough new friends and allies that I can probably get into a raid most times I’m in the mood. Right now I’m sorta-kinda going hardcore-ish just because I’m trying to play catch-up on the instances before Moria arrives, but after that if I can do a raid just a few times per month that would suit me fine, so I’m actually looking forward to raiding again — but raiding on my terms.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Lord of the Rings Online. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.