radiance-removal
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Echoes of the Dead update launches on Lord of the Rings Online's Euro shards
Better late than never, eh? Lord of the Rings Online's Update 2: Echoes of the Dead has been out for a couple of days in the States, and Turbine's European servers are finally joining the long-expected party today. Much like its American counterpart, the Euro version of Update 2 will be dropping the reviled radiance system and also spicing up Monster Play PvP with an initial round of tweaks. Minstrels, Burglars, and Hunters have also been given a bit of a facelift, and Legendary Items are on the receiving end of some developer love. Finally, Volume III: Book 3 continues LotRO's epic story quest line, and the Volume II epic arc has been revamped to make it more solo-friendly. These are just a few of the changes in store for denizens of Turbine's Middle-earth, and you can read the full release notes on the official Codemasters forums.
"We were wrong": LotRO dev explains radiance's failure
If you had to sum up Lord of the Rings Online's radiance stat in four words, those would probably be: good intentions, horrible execution. As we've known since last year, the much-hated radiance is on its way out of LotRO in the upcoming Echoes of the Dead update, and for many players, it's not a day too soon. "Sometimes it's difficult to shine the interrogation lamp on yourself and find out what exactly went wrong." Developer Allan Maki has the unenviable task of explaining just what went wrong with this feature, but he does it nevertheless in a new LotRO dev diary. Part apology, part history and part transparency, this diary is a fascinating explanation of how a well-intended mechanism can go awry without proper communication and incomplete implementation. After a long period of trying to force radiance to work, the team ultimately decided to yank radiance from the game altogether. Maki insists that it could have worked, had the team gone about it more smartly: "Radiance was not a bad idea. In fact, many of us still feel that if it had been designed correctly it would have been successful. As it turned out, however, we created nothing more than an arbitrary gating mechanic that forced players to get 'keys' in order to enter raids."
