I purchased the Mirkwood expansion when it came out, played very little (as it turns out my character simply wasn’t high enough level for the area and things didn’t go well for her).
I was never a fan of Lothlorien, and didn’t wish to continue playing there, nor did I want to drop my main character and level through older areas, only to get here again in the future.
So I stopped playing for a few years.
Here I am, frustrated with Lothlorien still, so I thought to look at the level for Mirkwood. 61-65! Yay! I’m level 62.
Abandon ship, I said, find the way to Mirkwood and la la la.
On the area map, it isn’t so far away. I just need to cross the Anduin River and I’m off on new adventures. Note my happy arrow. Good ol’ Paint.
Ride, ride ride all the way across Lothlorien to the shores of the river. Hmm, I can see they won’t let me get up on the other side from here.
Ride ride ride the shoreline. This looks good, clearly I can swim over and climb up easily right from here.
Swim a few feet. Dead. Inexplicably dead. Retreat puts me back in the middle of Lothlorien. If you’re going to cause me to die bogusly, at least stick me back on the shoreline where I apparently went so foul of the river’s swimming rules.
Many many bad words spoken.
I then looked up “How to get to Mirkwood for Lothlorien”. How nice, I can get a quest from Haldir (which I likely unknowing got in 2009 but hmmpf), or I can ask the Elf at the Docks for a ride over.
Nice. The boat awaits!
I actually wasn’t sure if I’d been to Mirkwood already, but I certainly had. I had a FAILED quest in my log. Welcome back, puny dog. Been Here, Failed That.
Oh, man, we’re bunnoles deep in ORC territory. How I’ve missed them! Hubba hubba, ORCS, I say.
Damn. I was sooo eager to reach the Orc fortress, I didn’t see a Goblin in the murk. He popped me off my horse, then completely grayed out all my skills so I had a tough time beating him, but I did get him, he’s a dead little goblin.
This doesn’t bode well. Nope.
The Last Chapter Gaming Blog 