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LotRO dev diary details the Instance Finder
In today's Lord of the Rings Online developer diary, game systems engineer Leo "Ransroth" Zelevinsky takes some time to provide players with information on the Instance Finder coming with Update 5. In a nutshell, it works like this: The tool exists in order to allow players to easily find instance parties and to reward them for participating in random content. Joining and completing an instance or skirmish using the Instance Finder, which can be done with or without an existing fellowship, will grant players instance currency, which can then be redeemed for spiffy loot. For the full details on how the Instance Finder works, head on over to the official dev blog.
The further adventures of Captain Vault and the amazing LotRO!
As we barrel toward the September 10th release date of LotRO's Volume III Book 2 update and F2P craziness, Turbine's devs are rushing to cover as many of the changes as possible in their detailed dev diaries. The first diary covers the changes to the metal-clad captain class, which is receiving an overhaul thanks to player feedback and extensive fine-tuning. Ken Burd explained the rearrangement of two traits lines, Leader of Men and Lead the Charge, which have been reworked into tank and DPS specialties, respectively. Burd also discussed the changes to heralds, standards and armaments. For everyone else who isn't a captain (and, OK, captains too), games systems engineer Ransroth gushes over the improved vault system. In an attempt to make the vault easier to peruse, Turbine is changing the bank UI to resemble the shared storage UI, which results in an easier-to-read interface. When beta testers responded negatively to the new vault interface, the devs worked to find a solution to mimic the old structure of multiple chests. Vaults 2.0 also come with a number of spiffy tools, such as dynamic filtering, sorting, automatic stack merges, and searches. Both the captain revamp and the vault improvements are scheduled to hit the servers in a little over two weeks.
