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Lord of the Rings Online dev diary details Rune-keeper changes in Riders of Rohan
Lord of the Rings Online's upcoming expansion, Riders of Rohan, is less than a month away, and players can certainly expect a plethora of changes and updates when it hits. In today's LotRO developer diary, Turbine shines the spotlight on the game's Rune-keeper class and highlights some of the skill and trait improvements and changes that Rune-keeper players can expect in the expansion. For starters, Rune-keepers will be receiving five improved skills: Improved Scribe's Mark, Improved Rune of Restoration, and Improved Armour of Flame/Winter/Storm. Meanwhile, the abilities Flurry of Words and Mystifying Flame are receiving some minor adjustments, and the traits Linnod of Peace and Rune of Endurance are getting nicely upgraded. Some players may be befuddled by the extremely minor changes, but the dev diary notes that the devs "don't feel that Rune-keepers are in need of major changes at this time," so it seems as if Turbine feels that the class is in a pretty good place right now. For the full details on the changes and upgrades, go check out the full dev diary on the LotRO official site.
The Road to Mordor: Rune-keepers under siege
Let's start today's column with a couple presuppositions, shall we? Number one: There is no set standard for being a "true" Tolkien fan. There's always someone out there who knows more than you, thinks that he is more faithful to the source material, and considers himself better than you in this regard. Like any fans, Tolkien-ites (Tolkkies?) are diverse. They may share the same passion, but they come to it from different backgrounds and with different standards. Number two: Turbine is not out to molest the corpse of good ol' J.R.R. by turning Lord of the Rings into a farce. Yes, it's all well and good to say as such when you want to be melodramatic on the forums, but the truth of the matter is that Turbine's done an excellent job sticking to both the lore and the spirit of Middle-earth as much as possible while still fashioning a game within those boundaries. It's not in their best interests to make a mockery of this franchise. These presuppositions converge on one of the most fiercely debated additions to LotRO, the Rune-keeper. Following the launch of the Mines of Moria expansion, fans responded with everything ranging from "Hey, it's a pretty cool class to play" to "IT'S THE END OF THE MIDDLE-EARTH!" hysteria. Seeing how passionate people are on this subject, I thought it would be worth looking into today, to answer the following questions: does the Rune-keeper have a place in LotRO, and does it break the lore and rules that Tolkien established?
RAmos T11 RK boasts 720p H.264 support, a stylish but all too familiar UI
Decent design, nice specs, bargain price, and a pretty poor chance of coming stateside? Yep, this must be RAmos. Its latest touchscreen media device, the T11 RK, sports the same Rockchip RK2806 processor as the Terminator T12, and also has a 5-inch, 800 x 480 display, 8GB internal memory, 720p TV out, FM radio, and support for numerous codecs including H.264 HD, DivX, XviD, MPG, and FLV. As you can tell from the picture above, it's also wielding the ever-important clock and calendar widgets, as well as a dock with some all-too-familiar, borderline KIRF inspiration, although judging by the other pictures, the UI is overall pretty classy. If you find yourself in China, this baby can be yours for 699 Yuan, or about $102 in US currency, and if not, feel free to live vicariously through the video after the break. [Via Cloned in China; hanks, xleung]
Okoro debuts new rack-mountable RK Series media servers
Rack-mounted media servers aren't exactly for everybody, but those looking to really go all out with their home theater may want to consider one of Okoro's new RK Series models, which boast some base specs that are sure to make almost anyone a little envious. That includes an Intel Core i7 processor, an 80GB SSD OS drive, a minimum 2TB of additional storage, at least 6GB of RAM, a built-in Blu-ray drive, multiple CableCARD TV tuners, and full support for multi-zone audio controllable from a UMPC or MID, among other equally high-end specs. Naturally, pricing appears to be on a need to know basis, but Okoro will throw in a free Quantum of Solace Blu-ray with each system -- which we're sure will be just the thing to push folks over the edge.
