No one ever does it and when I try to create a party,
no one joins because they think its too long and don't have patience for it.
If you haven't tried, join your server's GLFF channel and ask there.
One of the problems with Fornost is that the quests for that place are generally for level 40-ish. By the time players are at that level, they're already out of the North Downs and possibly in Evendim, which has been revamped recently, or western Angmar.
I remember pre-Moria days when I was leveling for the first time. I had a great time in Fornost. It's too bad it's out of date and irrelevant. Unfortunately, immersively huge dungeon crawls are relics in this age of mainstream, nuke-and-loot McMMOs.
immersively huge dungeon crawls are relics in this age
This. Spending 3 or 4 hours in one super long instance just to get a couple of quests done and a few pieces of loot that you will out-level in a few days anyway, is not what most players these days are looking for when they log in. Your best bet would be with a kinship group I would think. Maybe try posting on your server's forum and see if anyone is interested. But I would think trying to organize a pug group to run this just from asking in game would be close to impossible.
Poor Fornost. The red headed step child of Middle Earth now.
It's so long and no locks. You get a series of quests to complete and then have to leave the instance to turn in and get the follow ups. Someone has to remain behind to "hold" the instance. So some of the group turns in and then has to wait for the other person to turn in. Each part takes a good couple of hours and the mobs respawn behind you. So if someone dies and can't get rezzed, the whole of the group has to go back and get them. There's always afk's, ya gots ta pee ya know, get coffee/tea/coke/pepsi or whatever, get a snack, get up so you don't get bloodclots in your legs. It's just a massive amount of time for very little other then the experience of seeing it and the challenge of saying, "I cleared Fornost on level."
hopefully it gets a revamp. It was the first instance I did at-level with 3 of my best real-life friends. it remains one of my favorite memories of LOTRO because it truly felt epic fighting up this castle-like area killing goblins, wargs, orcs, trolls, etc. The rewards were pretty good back then as well. Its a shame to see it run so infrequently.
Fornost is one of those extremely long instances with no locks. Border guard respawns. I spent three days in a row - four hours a day. I still did not finish the instance because of the way the drops are designed. Many of the quests require you to pick up 10 or so items. There are only 18 in the instance. You got a group of six you have to start the instance four times. After 12 hours, I had enough of Fornost never went back to finish it. One quest in Fornost, you only got one shot at. It involved finding a collar. The collar is the quest starter. Each character can only get one collar. Once you got your collar, you got to accept the quest, keep the collar, never cancel the quest until you finish. You cancel the quest, you can not get it again. You can not get another collar.
To me the instance it is not worth it. I could have taken those same 12 hours and gotten four or five levels instead of screwing around getting six quests or so done. Maybe a 30% of a level. I put Fornost as one of those content elements that is nice to do once so that you can say - been there - done that. That is the only reason going - to get your - been there - done that - T-Shirt.
Unless stated otherwise, all content in this post is My Personal Opinion.
One quest in Fornost, you only got one shot at. It involved finding a collar. The collar is the quest starter. Each character can only get one collar. Once you got your collar, you got to accept the quest, keep the collar, never cancel the quest until you finish. You cancel the quest, you can not get it again. You can not get another collar.
That is untrue. If you cancel the quest before the first turnin you can get another collar. If you cancel it after the first turnin you can pick the second part back up from the dude at Amon Raith.
I love Fornost. It's one of my favorite instances to just get in and play around in. That being said, I never grouped it. I went in around level 55-60 and solo'd it for kicks and giggles. The bosses weren't that challenging (only one wipe) but they were interesting. Unfortunately it's massive, took 4-5 hours and when I boasted in kin chat 3 people asked why I would do that to myself. It's just a massive dungeon crawl that really isn't worth it on level unless you and your fellow are willing to put the time and effort into it, but definitely go back and play around in it when you can.
I've been on a serious Fornost kick that past couple of weeks! I did a Fornost LOTRO search and found this thread!
I tried it a couple of times on my main rune keeper with a couple friends a long time ago, and after a couple hours on each run, and not much further than the second boss, we moved on to other areas. I started back into my guardian after shelving him for about a year and discovered how much fun guards are in fellowships! I've been hitting every instance possible while leveling, and I made mastering Fornost my current mission!
On my guard, I've managed to pull together seven PUGs and joined one other. It's a challenge in itself to pull a group together! It takes dedication to do so! I typically spend about 100 silver or more swift traveling to all the major areas and sending out tells on the LFF channels in each region in a big circuit I repeat until I have at least five people. With five people in the upper 30's to low 40's you can easily get to at least the third boss. Only once was I not successful in pulling a group together! When you're a tank and duo with a healer, though, it's pretty easy to pull the rest of the group together! "/LFF 2/6 Fornost! Any class welcome, lvl 36-45"
Once you get a group together, then the next challenge begins: Keeping a group together for anywhere from an hour to get to the first boss to easily FIVE hours to the final boss! After the first couple of runs, I started a Fornost thread in the Suggestion forum, and if you're curious, you can see you're not alone in your frustration and desire for some kind of revamp for Fornost! I think the best thoughts and input are on page three, but read at your leisure and add input if you're a wordy soul like me! Here's the link to it: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-Fornost/page3
much easier to form groups than spamming LFF all over the place - open up your social panel ("o") set the level range you want and delete the text in the location filter. That will do a server wide search of all non-anon people. Then send each of these people polite tells asking if they'd like to come along.
i have a very, very good success rate at forming groups in this way.
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much easier to form groups than spamming LFF all over the place - open up your social panel ("o") set the level range you want and delete the text in the location filter. That will do a server wide search of all non-anon people. Then send each of these people polite tells asking if they'd like to come along.
i have a very, very good success rate at forming groups in this way.
When LFF is slow going, I send tells to people I see in the social panel in regions I'm in, but I'll have to try out the rest of your technique, too! Thanks for the tip!
I love Fornost. It's one of my favorite instances to just get in and play around in. That being said, I never grouped it. I went in around level 55-60 and solo'd it for kicks and giggles. The bosses weren't that challenging (only one wipe) but they were interesting. Unfortunately it's massive, took 4-5 hours and when I boasted in kin chat 3 people asked why I would do that to myself. It's just a massive dungeon crawl that really isn't worth it on level unless you and your fellow are willing to put the time and effort into it, but definitely go back and play around in it when you can.
I think you sound like me. I love to do big runs. This week I have done full runs on CD and the Rift with a little Turtle tossed in for fun. I really do not care about the rewards, I just like the harder battles and the story lines. Doing quests has gotten about as boring as watching golf. One more silly a$$ Loth quest and I may wipe out the tree Elves. Maybe I need to get over to Mirk where there is real evil to kill
The older LOTRO content is so much better IMO than anything from Moria on I have seen. The newer stuff just seems to be tossed together for grindage sake. I think we have another Uru run sched this weekend for some guys to get some class items. The drake battles and the wargs are favorites of mine there.
Fornost I have done 1 full run, and as noted I think we were a 4 hour run. It was for kicks as we were mostly 5 - 8 levels over for it. It definitly needs raid locks and a new mechanic for turning in quests. Some very good content is not being run due to the amount of time required and the siliness of the quest turn in (same as the Dol Dinem area).
BTW, OP, if your on Riddermark look me up, I am always willing to beat up on Fornost.
Anyhow, as said they are revamping it and yes it WILL be split up, as it very much needs to be. If anything ever needed to be split up and totally revamped it was Fornost. If they scaled and revamped it and didn't split it up who would run it? No one is going to spend the 3+ hours it takes to clear for the kinds of rewards scaled instances give.
Do everyone a favor and read your tooltips.
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...::: Defenders of the Lost Light - Brandywine :::...
Fornost will almost certainly be scaled when it is revamped. I believe the devs have said that they want to scale all instances. It's just a shame they are not able to do it at a particulalry stellar rate..