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Friday 1 December 2017

Fashion Friday: High Elf Warden


You may remember the commotion about Lord of the Rings Online's Mordor expansion earlier this year. One of the gripes about its pricing was that the new High Elf race was only available if you'd buy the deluxe edition for $80,-, or the legendary edition for even more. Other players would have to wait until "winter" and buy it in the in-game store. Well, last week the time was finally there: the High Elf race was available for LOTRO points! And I bought one.

Then a difficult decision had to be made: what class should my High Elf be? I already had all ten different classes. Only burglar and warden were still below level 50. Burglar is not available for High Elves (and wouldn't make much sense lore-wise), so warden it was. And since I also had an Aria of the Valar from the Mordor base edition (an item that instantly levels up your character to 105), my new warden, Ravalas, was near level cap right away.


The first thing that I noticed, is that High Elves are taller and more masculine than regular Elves. Even their faces look stronger. This makes sense from a lore perspective: in Tolkien's lore, generally speaking, the older the race, the more powerful it was. Because of the High Elves' superiority, I wanted a perfect looking one, with golden hair and shining armour. I knew right away which armour I wanted to use, as it had been in the back of my mind from the moment I set foot in Mordor.


Another interesting fact about the High Elf race is that there are small, but noticeable details that distinguish High Elves from regular Elves. For instance, High Elves sit differently on their horses, as if they're holding reins (unfortunately you don't see any reins, though, so it looks silly if you're paying attention). When High Elves fall from a height, they roll over. They also have a special Elven cry for skills that play a shout sound effect. It sounds really cool.


/dance3

But most of all, High Elves are famous for their special racial dance. There was a lot of buzz about this gracious, ballet like dance when the race was just released. Everyone loves it. It certainly fits the look-at-me-I'm-so-perfect air of the High Elf like a glove.

Outfit

Warden Ravalas to the right is wearing the following:

The pieces of the Mordor armour set come as selectable medium armour quest rewards for various quests. There are many quests that reward then, so don't worry if you can't find the specific one mentioned here. You can also barter them for ash.


An alternative for the shiny golden spear is the spear Fight Against the Darkness or the javelin Strike Against the Darkness, both selectable rewards from the level 30 warden class quest. They are dark blue with gold, so they are a perfect fit for this outfit. It's a shame you have to pick between them, because I'd love to have both!

Did you buy the High Elf race? And if so, is yours wearing shining armour as well?

Many thanks go to Conrad, for helping out with the animated GIF and for his invaluable fashion advice. I don't thank him nearly enough for his invisible contributions to this blog from behind the scenes.

19 comments :

  1. She looks great!

    The Warden, for me, is one of my favorite classes across any MMO (conceptually). Sadly I barely played LOTRO and my attempts to get into it once the Warden was launched as a class was largely a solo experience with a lot of F2P nagging in game :).

    Basically, looking at your screenshots with Envy :)

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    1. Thank you! The warden is certainly a unique class. I'm still in the process of figuring out the best keybinds in order to play it well; hopefully I'll get it under control soon (TM)!

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    2. May I submit a suggestion? (Made my first warden 6 years ago) set your quickslots to wdrqaztgv34, and use sef to move (<- ^ -> = s e f). Map shift, ctrl, and alt to your mouse and have each skill bar have the same button layout just with a different modifier (use left mouse button as a modifier if you run out of slots) that way you dont have to remember the mapping for everything just a single bar, and which modifier the other bars are. Set your builders to wdr and use gambit to space.

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  2. Not been in LOTRO for weeks but you have tempted me with this post. I have always liked the warden class although I have yet to get one very high. Maybe a new one is in order. (Haven't been in SWTOR either as been distracted, first by Conan Exiles, and currently by Ark Survival. And my writing as wrote 60k in November).

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    1. It's good to see you pop up. I should really get back into ARK one of these days... it's such a cool game and I'm sure there is tons of new content I haven't seen yet. Also, 60k writing... that's really impressive! :O

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    2. Great that you've played Ark and find it cool. Totally absorbed by it ATM. Did try to create a high elf warden, but discovered that I needed to buy the Mordor pack to unlock it. Maybe if I get back into LOTRO. (Too many great games and so much tempting content = money that I no longer have being retired.)

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    3. Yeah, ARK is amazing; I wrote some blog posts about it a while ago, even!

      Are you 100% sure you need to buy Mordor in order to play High Elf? Because this is the first time I hear of it. The commotion earlier on was about not being able to buy High Elf separately with Mordor *at launch*: it was only available if you bought one of the more expensive Mordor expansions (it was basically a way of luring people into those expensive deals). But now that's no longer the case: you can buy it separately in the in-game store for LOTRO points. :)

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    4. Thanks, Ravanel. I checked out the store and unlocked the High Elf. I made a warden and enjoyed the new prologue for the high elves. So much so that I might consider making a high elf champion - once I have deleted one of my three wardens. Not sure why I duplicated some of the classes!

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    5. I'm glad to hear you were able to buy and play your new High Elf! High Elf champion definitely seems a good fit. I was tempted to make one myself, but I already had a champion that I'd love to get to Mordor one day. ^^

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    6. I'm sure that yours might get there faster than my new one. :-) Original has become a jeweller in Esteldin - a safer life.

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  3. She looks really good! It's nice having someone to help out with fashion advice. :)
    I logged in to LOTRO for the first time in months a couple of weeks ago and went, "meh." I swear I have a love hat relationship with the game...

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    1. I have that with MMOs as well. I have these whole periods in which I just really don't feel like logging into a particular title and get completely absorbed by another. Although it was the other way around for me, as I've been mostly playing LOTRO since the release of the Mordor expansion.

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  4. For how much I adore LOTR I should really give this game a try at some point. I LOVE your High Elven outfit. So much so, that it I actually want to cosplay that beauty. Haha.

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    1. Thank you so much! I imagine it's a lot of work making this armour IRL, but it would be so cool! :D

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  5. Ah, a member of the House of Finarfin, I see. (Golden Hair.)

    Does your High Elf's eyes have an inner light? High Elves, basically those who have seen the light of the Two Trees (or, correspondingly, their parents/grandparents), are supposed to have an inner light behind their eyes.

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    1. Haha, I should have photoshopped the trees in Ravalas' eyes in that closeup shot! ^^

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    2. Well played, Rav. Well played!

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  6. kinda shame that high elves shouts that quotes in female voice of the starting instance narrating lady...like they couldnt use the voice of the guy who narrated the racial video...thus killed the race for me because of this detail. xD

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    1. Do you mean that male High Elves also get the female voice over for those skills? If that's the case, that's extremely sloppy and immersion breaking.

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