autolooting
Latest
Massively tours LotRO's upcoming three-man instances
Although the canon Fellowship of the Ring was substantial when it set out from Rivendell in Tolkien's epic, the group's size diminished in time as members went their separate ways. So, too, can Lord of the Rings Online players split off into smaller groups for different adventures. Such is the case with the new Road to Erebor instances coming in Update 9, due to release some time in December. This trio of level-scaling instances lets a team of up to three dive into The Hobbit-inspired locales to do their part to prevent Mordor from gathering more and more power. LotRO Senior Producer Aaron Campbell unlocked the secret back door and let Massively romp through the snowy hills, trash-strewn halls, and dark caverns of Iorbar's Peak, Seat of the Great Goblin, and Webs of the Scuttledells so Justin and I could share those experiences with you. We faced down massive stone giants, filthy goblins, and emaciated trolls so you'd know what to expect come release. And trust us when we say, there are a couple of hints you'll be glad to hear before tackling these new adventures.%Gallery-172923%
The pros and cons of autolooting
Gnomeaggedon has a really insightful post about one of my favorite "hidden" features in patch 3.1. The first time I ran Naxx after the patch, I was a little worried on the first boss that I couldn't loot my badges or Stone Keeper's Shards. But of course, I'd missed it in the patch notes: all of that currency stuff now works like currency should. Whenever one person in the group or raid loots it, everyone gets their own as well. No more forgetting to loot your Badge, as it all goes automatically into the currency screen. Very nice change.But as Gnomeaggedon says, there are still a few kinks in the program (aren't there always?). Quest items still don't get auto-looted, and since Badges do, that's even less encouragement to go check the loot to see if there's anything you need. He'd also like it if items got autolinked while Master Looter is on -- right now, it's the responsibility of the Master Looter to link and give out items that get looted, and that doesn't always get done clearly. That second one is kind of a good point -- my raid looter does pretty well with showing off items, so I don't really have much of an issue with that, but it would be helpful to see for sure what's in there.But back to autolooting: the flip side of this is that if Blizzard uses autolooting too much, the game becomes that much more simple -- they already show you where the monster is and how to kill it, and now you want them to give you the loot automatically too? While it would be easier to have quest items sent to your backpack automatically, let's not forget that mobs with loot on them are shiney. It might make sense in raids to do autolooting (since everyone is grabbing for the same quest item), but autolooting while soloing might be a little too streamlined.
