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Angmar's Hill-people are the focus of a new Lorebook entry
Turbine's Lorebook continues its focus on Angmar with a new entry on Donnvail, a village of Hill-people (we promise, no Lothar references; whoops, too late!) who live under the oppressive rule of the false king Mordirith. The people of Donnvail are friendly to the players (who arrive in Angmar as representatives of the Dúnedain Rangers) because visitors from the outside are in the position to loosen the yoke Mordirith has around the Hill-people's necks.Angmar is one of the higher-level regions in The Lord of the Rings Online and has been the subject of several of Turbine's recent Lorebook entries. It's a cool place, but it would be nice to see some entries on other areas as well.
Lorebook entry looks at the heart of evil in LotRO
Carn Dûm -- the seat of evil in western Middle-earth. 'Twas in this fortress that the Witch-king of Angmar reigned as an oppressor of men, elves, dwarves, and hobbits alike until he was chased off by two heroes. It's home to evil men, orcs, trolls, and some evils that do not sleep. In other words, it's awesome, and you can read all about it in Turbine's new official Lorebook entry.Carn Dûm is one of the places that Turbine has expanded beyond what was contained in the books. While Angmar (of which Carn Dûm is a part) was, as the entry says, "only mentioned in passing in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings," Turbine has filled in the gaps with their own bits of gameplay and lore in The Lord of the Rings Online. The entry also utilizes the Google-based map of Middle-earth that Jeffrey Steefel was talking about in the Ten Ton Hammer interview we covered yesterday.
LotRO downtime today for Book 11 Patch 1
Book 11 provided a huge chunk of content for Lord of the Rings Online players. Player housing, Balrog raids, the Harvest Festival, revamps to the Lore-master and Burglar classes, the introduction of Gollum, the list goes on. And with every fat patch comes a swarm of bugs that make it to the Live servers.Today, Turbine is stomping on a number of those bug with Book 11 Patch 1. Servers are down from 7am - 1p EST while the new patch is implemented on the Live servers. Along with usual pathing problems, stability adjustments and mob AI tweaks, fixes include DirextX 10 support coming out of beta, fixes to the Hooks in housing used to place decorations and nerfing some Conjunctions used in Player vs Monster Player combat.For a complete list of patch notes, check out LotRO's Lorebook wiki.
LotRO dev chat is silent on new info
Stratics hosted another developer chat, this time with the Lord of the Rings Online staffers. The topic was Book 12, but unfortunately not much was revealed that we didn't already learn in the LotRO German dev chat earlier this month. Without the class developer on hand, all Guardian and Burglar revamp questions were deflected. As were most other inquiries. It seems that the developers couldn't answer many questions at all. But here is the little that I was able to glean from them.Housing improvements in Book 12 include being able to use Bound items for decoration and house items will be able to be rotated on their hooks. There is also a "high likelihood" that alts will be able to use the recall to home feature of other characters on the same account.
Tom Bombadil skips his way into the Lorebook
Tom Bombadil is one of the most mysterious and bizarre characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth canon. Nobody, not even Tolkien himself, knows exactly what he is or what he represents, but he's depicted in such an impacting way that some readers theorized he might even be a manifestation of Middle-earth's God himself. Most Tolkien aficionados reject this theory, but nevertheless it speaks to the power of the character.Bombadil lives in the game world of The Lord of the Rings Online as an important quest NPC in the Old Forest, and he's the subject of the latest official Lorebook entry from Turbine. The entry matches the excellence of previous ones and is worth a read if you want to know a little bit about this pivotal figure in LotRO's lore.
Ents march again in latest LotRO lorebook article
Everybody likes trees. They give us shade on a hot summer's day, they provide the raw materials that help us build homes and shelter, and they provide all kinds of fruits and nuts that help add a special flavor to our everyday diets. In a similar way, everybody loves Ents. They are the shepherds of the forest, they regale us with tales long-forgotten by even the most erstwhile elf, and perhaps best of all, they smash in the heads of any orcs or wood-trolls who would do us harm. In their latest lorebook article, Turbine gives the low-down on the Eavespire, the first (and presumably only) location that players can get a glimpse of the mighty Ents in Lord of the Rings Online. Perhaps more interesting than the lorebook itself is the player reaction on the official forums; there is some disagreement as to whether the Eavespire's remoteness lends itself to the lore, or whether it just means most players will never experience the content due to a lack of travel options. An interesting debate if ever there was one.
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Barad Glaran entry added to LotRO Lorebook
Turbine has gone to great lengths to stay true to J.R.R. Tolkien's gigantic library of Middle-earth lore in The Lord of the Rings Online. Regularly updating the official Lorebook is one of the ways they've tried to appeal to gamers who are fans of the literature.Every now and then they write up a new entry to fill us in on the story behind a place or person in the game world. This week, it's the high-level instance of Barad Gúlaran in Angmar. Barad Gúlaran used to be the fortress of the dreaded Witch-king, chief of Sauron's Nazgúl. When a few heroes chased the Witch-king away in the name of the free peoples of Middle-earth, the fortress was left open for plundering ... but it's still not exactly safe.Turbine included a couple of really nice screenshots of the dungeon, as well. And if lore isn't enough for you, you can learn a bit about the gameplay experience of Barad Gúlaran at the unofficial LOTRO-Wiki. That is, if you can tear yourself away from grinding Deeds!
