The LOTRO Beacon: Issue 168 is now available!

Favorite is that the stables and text for levels don't seem to line up making it 'interesting' to stable to quests.

The Calypso LOTRO theme music!

The many different quest stories at the great banquette etc.

the fireworks

When i finished the Quest to get the Class Point.

My favorite part was running around Minas Tirith

The gathering of Players and the different NPCs all across Middle Earth, especially when the Rangers from the Grey Company surprised me with their cheers at the wedding festival, like seeing your old pals that you fought and won battles with from back in the day! lol And the goodies from completing the festival quests are nice "bonuses" too...Nice job Devs and tyvm!

Absolutely love the little errands and quests just like in every festival event, however what was the icing on the cake for me is picking up Gandalf's limitless stash of fireworks during the main quest!

how the revelers in the healing house are obviously related to the Dale auctioneer.

The entire festival has been well-planned and well-executed. Minas Tirith is beautiful; I am glad to have a chance to see it at its best. My favorite part of the festival is the sequence of quests at the banquet in Merethond. Bravo to the SSG team! Very well done! Thanks so much for the hard work.

Once in a while when I summon my firefly pets they pop in HUGE.......new pet idea giant firefly. Like having a giant flashlight lol.

Stumbling around the beautiful flowery city like a drunken dwarf without a clue where to go has been so much fun. Evading server gremlins has been less than jolly.

My favorite part is watching Aragorn and Arwen dance.

(Can we dance like that too... please?)

Midsummer!

My favourite part of the Midsummer Festival is...

Well, part of me wants to say the cool new horses, but actually I'm going to go with the eulogy for Denethor. Gandalf's remembrance of Denethor at the wedding and then Faramir's quest inside Merethond both made an important point: that even though Denethor fell at the end, that was only after decades of striving to resist Sauron, and he held longer than most would have. Countless folk of Gondor and the wider Middle-earth owe Denethor their lives, and it would be a grave injustice to let a bad end take all of that away.

After all, Frodo also failed at the end. Very few people can face the will of Sauron directly and stand. Tolkien himself wrote:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tolkien Letter #246

I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.

We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man's effort or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached.

Nonetheless, I think it can be observed in history and experience that some individuals seem to be placed in 'sacrificial' positions: situations or tasks that for perfection or solution demand powers beyond their utmost limits, even beyond all possible limits for an incarnate creature in a physical world – in which a body may be destroyed, or so maimed that it affects the mind and will. Judgement upon any such case should then depend on the motives and disposition with which he started out, and should weigh his actions against the utmost possibility of his powers, all along the road to whatever proved the breaking-point.

Frodo undertook his quest out of love – to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real contract was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed. He did that. I do not myself see that the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of his body would have been – say, by being strangled by Gollum, or crushed by a falling rock.

---

The same seems to apply to Denethor, to me. He fought for as long and as hard as he could, as far his strength of mind and body allowed, and if at the end he was driven to madness and despair, that does not seem any more a moral failure than if he had simply been stabbed by an orc.

So I would congratulate Standing Stone Games and particularly whoever wrote those quests for understanding the spirit of Tolkien's work. I enjoyed it. Thank you. :)

seeing minas tirith being rebuilded into a lush and beautiful environment surely was the best part of midsummer. And there were even a lot of details added to it. It probably took a lot of time to add in all those NPC's dancing, drinking and having a good time all together. Nevertheless the results are remarkable

The Florist for The Grand Wedding did a grand job! The beautiful cascades of flowers all over the city make riding round and round for the repeatables fun. Pink is my favorite color and it appears in abundant sprays of flowers so pretty that I can smell the fragrant aromas throughout The White City.

still enjoy the fireworks!

"What is your favorite part of the Midsummer Festival?"

What ALES you! Not the quest, the pun!

As with all festivals, I enjoy the limited-time housing items.

I like the music the best

seeing Minas Tirith thrive

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cordovan

https://www.lotro.com/sites/default/...68headerEN.png

Thank you for reading the LOTRO Beacon! Don't forget to reply below to the Weekly Comment for your chance to win 500 LOTRO Points. We'll select a random winner after Noon Eastern on Friday, July 24th. Good luck!

---

I really like how there was almost a fourth wall break as the abient music of the game was being played by minstrels throughout the city. Amazing sound quality!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tuilerie

So many things are may favorites, the wine tasting for example, both emote and the quest (love all those reactions you get as you sample the wine).

---

The wedding and the banquet were like a culmination of everything we have experienced in Middle Earth!

I think everything is wonderful but the wedding was beautiful and very festive