Double dev chat goodness for LotRO Book 12

Two Lord of the Rings Online dev chats within one week? It's like Christmas came early for LotRO players. But it looks like some players are getting presents and others are getting coal.

German website, Lotro-Welten, held its monthly LotRO dev chat for European players last week. And last night US players got their own dev chat at MMORPG. Strangely, the EU dev chat held a wealth of new information while the US chat had very little new or interesting. Here are the highlights from Lotro-Welten's chat, mostly applying to the upcoming Book 12 content patch:

• Fishing is being introduced as a new profession category called Hobbies

• Hobbies are professions that anyone can level up in regardless of their other tradeskill choices

• The barber in Book 12 will offer new hairstyles

• The new cosmetic system allowing you to display different clothing will not extend to hand held items and will be entirely disabled in PvMP zones

• More solo content is a big priority for the dev team and Angmar is getting a pass in Book 12 to become more solo friendly

• Dresses with no stats, but simply for show are being introduced in Book 12 as well as cosmetic no-stat hand held items like mugs of ale

• Mounted combat may happen far into the future, probably Rohan

• Crafting is getting many improvements, though not immediately. Top on the list is more high end items for Scholars.

• There are no plans to add Easterlings to the game

• Burglars will be getting clubs in Book 12

• Middle level instances and quests will be getting better stats on their drops to put them on par or superior to their crafted counterparts.

• Book 12 will not go live before Christmas.

Now let's go over if any new information came out of the US chat:

• There are no plans to add a henchman system to the game (i.e. hiring NPCs to fight alongside your character)

• Sea monsters/sea combat may be coming in the far future

• Some more horse routes may be added, but no other class will be getting the Hunter's travel abilities

And...that's it. Either the US players need to stop asking questions that have been asked 80 times before or the dev chat moderators need to pick better questions.