Book 12 details revealed in new LotRO dev chat
The German Lord of the Rings Online fansite LotRO-Welten held its regular end of the month chat with LotRO devs, community managers and players. Today they posted the transcripts and, boy howdy, it's a treasure trove of Book 12 goodness.
The Burglar and Guardian revamp revelations weren't too extensive as the class dev didn't make it to the chat. But Burglars were promised a stealth that can be extended to a group member and a set of skills that can be used after a successful Fellowship Maneuver.
Though two classes get the spotlight for revamps, all classes are going to get small adjustments. Devs hinted that the recently revamped Hunter class make get a few of their skills improved and Champions will get some love as well, but nothing specific was mentioned.
Player versus Monster Player combat is getting a lot of new itemization as well as a new raiding zone, The Delving of Frór. No new healing monster class until a later content update, but new racial abilities will be introduced.
As for cosmetics, players will be able to wear one set of equipment for stats and another set for looks. This is an excellent idea recently implemented in SoE's Everquest II.
What's not happening in Book 12 is no new raids and no new landscape regions. There is a new landscape region in development, but it won't be ready until Book 13. In the meantime, Angmar will get a polish pass for Book 12. Neither will house selling or trading be implemented as it causes too many scam and customer service issues.
Player housing is getting rotating decorations, displayable trophies that drop from boss mobs and the owners name will appear with the address as you approach their house. They are still not getting crafting stations as the LotRO devs have stated time and again, they don't want the static towns that currently host the tradeskill stations to become ghost towns. Stop asking, people!
Here's a short list of ideas brought up that the devs would like to implement, but have no concrete plans for:
Customization options for horse appearance such as different color or armor.
New session play (aka chicken play)
House pets
Fishing
There was a great deal of good information provided in the hour long chat and we probably missed a note or two. You can check out the entire transcript in English on the German site.
