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Massively's LotRO Riders of Rohan launch-day roundup
When you first heard about Lord of the Rings Online, you probably had an idea of which areas from the Lord of the Rings lore you'd want to visit and which events you'd like to take part in. Not all of the areas in Middle-earth were part of LotRO when it launched, but with each expansion the game world gets a bit more complete. Developer Turbine has been hard at work developing iconic areas like the Mines of Moria and Isengard, but the zone players have been anticipating the most is the Plains of Rohan. The Riders of Rohan expansion goes live today, opening the visually stunning Plains of Rohan area and introducing tons of new content, class updates and gameplay changes. Developers have been careful to capture the feel of the plains in not only the area's art style but also its impressive musical score. The Riders of Rohan expansion adds a new mounted combat feature that lets players fight on customisable war horses. The open plains are filled with roving warbands of orcs and other challenges to be overcome. Read on for a run-down of all the latest news on the Riders of Rohan expansion.
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.
LotRO's Great River update flows today, patch notes released [Updated]
Strike the tents and put out the campfires, Middle-earth adventurers; it's time to move on... north? That's right, Lord of the Rings Online is taking players on a journey back to an old familiar location -- Lothlorien forest -- as it releases Update 6: Shores of the Great River today. It's an absolutely massive content update for the game meant to span the gap between the Rise of Isengard and Riders of Rohan expansions. While players patch up and wait for the servers to come back online, there are patch notes and then some to be read. If you lack the hour or so it might take to really get into the notes, just know that the update's highlights include a brand-new high-level zone (The Great River), the next book of the epic story, the addition of Landscape Soldiers and a fleshed-out barter wallet, several major class updates (such as the Warden and Rune-keeper), an improved Instance Finder tool, and plenty of PvP improvements. Massively recently sat down with the developers to tour through the new content in Update 6. [Update: Added the trailer for the update after the jump!] %Gallery-149032%
LotRO dev diaries take a look at upcoming Rune-keeper and Hunter changes
With the launch of Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard just a short week away, Turbine is beginning to round out its pre-Isengard dev diaries. Today, we've got a double-whammy for you in the form of some new information on what will become of Rune-keepers and Hunters when the new expansion hits. On the Rune-keeper side of things, the devs have a variety of goals for the class, such as refining the class' trait trees, allowing the class to perform as a "hybrid AoE damage dealer," and buffing the class' AoE healing slightly. Chisels and rifflers will be seeing big changes in order to allow all of them to be used by Rune-keepers of the DPS and healing variety rather than gearing them toward one or the other. As with all other classes, the team is focusing on improving existing skills rather than introducing new ones, and as such the greatest changes are coming to the Rune-keeper's trait lines. Each trait line's four-set bonus is seeing changes to some degree. Meanwhile, in Hunter land, the goals for the class are much more concise. The devs want to give players further incentive to use all three of the available combat stances while performing "general cleanup" on the class. All stance-specific bonuses have been removed from all trait lines and redistributed elsewhere, thereby keeping Hunters from being locked into a specific stance based on their choice of trait line. Hunters will also be granted the ability to dual-wield and to wear medium armor from the get-go, which should help new players immensely. Of course, a variety of Hunter abilities have been improved, and the class is also gaining two new skills to round out its repertoire. For the entire set of changes to both classes, head on over to the dev diaries and soak up all the juicy details. And remember, Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard launches in just a week, so prepare yourselves accordingly.
The Road to Mordor: Just around the bend
It's been a few months since the November Update in Lord of the Rings Online, and the natives are restless -- as usual. Some folks are despairing the long wait until Rise of Isengard while others are itching for more challenges to their currently level-capped characters. Then there are the players who are hopelessly lost in Moria and would give their eye teeth for a flashlight. Happily, a new update is just around the bend, code-named Echoes of the Dead. The actual name is Echoes of the Dead too, so I guess that's not such a great code. Over the past couple of weeks, we've started to get a feel for just how large this update is, and after reading through the Bullroarer test notes on Wednesday, I think we're in for a tsunami of a patch. Of course, these patch notes come in the middle of Turbine's carefully spaced dev diaries dealing with each major change or addition, which means that we're a little in the dark as to the specifics of half of this update. That's not going to stop me -- or any of you -- from analyzing, speculating and gesturing excitedly to no one in particular. So let's dig in to this hearty meal of mushrooms and patch notes to see just how deep LotRO's rabbit hole goes!
The Road to Mordor: A year in Middle-earth
What a difference a year makes, eh? One year ago, and you didn't have to put up with me yammering at you every Friday like a hyperactive badger with a personality disorder. One year ago, and we weren't free-to-play-anything, Turbine was its own company, the festivals were nowhere near as cool as they are today, and shrews freely roamed the land without fear of reprisal. So in my last Road to Mordor (of the year, stop rejoicing over there!), I thought it'd be great to look back at the wild rollercoaster that was 2010 in Lord of the Rings Online. I also thought I'd get an easy column out of all this, but that was before I had to read through 1,337 posts and my eyeballs began to lose pressure. January Stuff happened. Let's move on.
The Road to Mordor: Bits 'n' pieces
Three wolves. A full moon. One incredible cloak in the Lord of the Rings Online store. As a forum poster asked, is the Cloak of the Mountain Wolves too powerful and too intrinsically sweet? I think it is a distinct possibility. I already own six and have Sauron on farm status because of them. Forget piddly rings -- this is the one cloak to rule them all, and in the darkness, blind them. I'm a bit all over the place in today's column, so bear with me as I spew forth a 427-line stream-of-consciousness poem devoted to Aragorn's stubble. You totally know you want to hit the jump to read it. I triple-dog-dare ya. [Editor -- No, Justin, you have to write a normal column. Don't make me get the fire hose.] Darn.
The Road to Mordor: Rise of Isengard is coming!
Tweet [Update: Made a clarification that there is no indication of "open-world" PvMP in the expansion.] Times are tough in Middle-earth, even after the inexplicable appearance of several hundred thousand new adventurers this fall. The Fellowship of the Ring is broken, Sauron is rising in power, and the White Hand of Saruman is marching across the lands. Even the bravest and hardiest soldier of the Free Peoples cannot be blamed for feeling disheartened, especially in the face of the monumental struggle to come. Welcome to the beginning of The Two Towers in Lord of the Rings Online. Welcome to Isengard. The rumors are true: Next year we will be venturing into LotRO's third expansion, titled Rise of Isengard, to confront evil in its own backyard. While this may not be the Rohan or Gondor expansion that we've anticipated, Turbine is fairly confident that it will be well-received by players and will represent an ambitious step forward on (wait for it) the road to Mordor. Turbine's Adam Mersky and Aaron Campbell were on hand to outline for us the company's near- and far-future plans with Massively, starting with the imminent November update and cruising all the way through 2011. Hit the jump as we look at interactive theater, busy bees, Monster Play improvements and, of course, Isengard.
LotRO Veteran's Day sale slashes expansion costs in half
Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, and you know what that means: Incredible savings on MMO expansions! Well, that and honoring the brave soldiers that fought in wars. But also the expansion thing. For 11/11, Turbine is offering a few great deals for Lord of the Rings Online players. First up is a new exchange rate of $11.11 for a 1111 Turbine Point bundle (locking in a decent 1:1 TP-to-penny ratio) for the LotRO store. For any players lacking one of the expansions, both Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood are half-off at 1248 TP and 998 TP, respectively. Shrewd shoppers can also pick up a Moria-capable goat mount, the Valour virtue, two fun emotes and XP boosts for 50% off the normal price. Mines of Moria unlocks all of the quests and deeds for this level 50-60 zone, as well as the Rune-keeper and Warden classes, while Siege of Mirkwood opens up the titular area and increases the level cap to 65. This sale ends at midnight EST on November 11th, so move quickly if you want to take advantage of this offer!
LotRO's (re)writs of the Rune-keeper
Considering how effective the Rune-keeper class is, the developers at Turbine have made a lot of changes to its skills. This class' strength lies in damage and healing -- a nuker/healer, if you will. This fit the plans for Lord of the Rings Online quite well, but there were some things missing in the flavor of the advanced classes. As Designer Brian Aloisio explains in the November Developer Diary, "The Rune-keeper currently sits at top tier in both damage and healing output. Because of this, the goals we have set for this update did not focus on increasing or decreasing net effectiveness, but on adding variety, customization and more dynamic skill interaction to achieve these results." He adds that the changes are adding more "advanced" to the advanced class. Aloisio also confesses that the Trait Set bonuses were bugged, and instead of fixing bonuses, team has reinvented the Trait Sets. To give you an example, the Words of Grace-traited Rune-keepers were capable of healing in any instance, but they lacked non-healing options. So the advanced class' skills were extremely flat. To spice things up, heal-based RKs will now have a slightly different power rotation and have a couple of non-healing abilities, yet they are still an efficient healing class. Be sure to catch the full Developer Diary to see the specifics about your favorite advanced class changes.
LotRO producer's letter hints at new "Task" system and more for the future
Since the launch of Lord of the Ring Online's F2P version, there's been an air of both optimism and uncertainty as to the game's future. How will Turbine handle updates from here on out? Will the epic storyline continue or go stagnant? And when oh when will we see giant flying eagle mounts? While she doesn't handle the eagle mount issue, LotRO's Kate Paiz tackles many of these questions and more besides in her first producer's letter following the recent update. Paiz says that the team has shifted the way they're approaching updates: In an effort to get more frequent content to players, not every future update will contain an additional book of the epic storyline -- but the storyline will continue. Paiz then laid out several upcoming features for the November update, including a new "Task" system for low-level players, another revision to the player vault and a fine-tuning of the Lore-master and Rune-keeper classes. Turbine will also be unlocking the two expansions (Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood) for all players to travel through and experience the epic storyline, although the free-to-play crowd will still need to purchase the expansions to unlock quests and deeds in those zones. The future is looking up for LotRO, so head on over to the official site to read the full producer's letter!
PAX 2010: Counting down to LotRO's relaunch with Turbine
TweetWith the launch of Lord of the Rings Online's biggest patch to date a scant few days away, we touched base with Turbine's Aaron Campbell, Brian Aloisio, and Bob Hess at PAX Prime to see how their nerves are holding up at this point. It is, as Aloisio laughed, akin to launching the game all over again, and LotRO is definitely under close scrutiny because of it. Many players were surprised to hear that LotRO's free-to-play update was going live much sooner than anticipated, and we asked Campbell whether this was due to a preset schedule or better-than-anticipated beta feedback. He said that they weren't going to release it until it was ready, but by the team's reckoning, the beta process went so smoothly that there was no reason to delay any further. Compared to the betas for Shadows of Angmar, Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood, the F2P beta -- according to Campbell -- was the most upbeat Turbine's ever had, with far more positive feedback than negative. Hit the jump to hear more and see the latest screenshots and video from PAX.
The Road to Mordor: Putting the "lass" back in "class"
With the not-so-recent NDA lift on the beta, LotRO players are fast at work discussing, analyzing, dissecting and pouring over all of the information coming from testers. Like a double Shire rainbow, the main question on everyone's lips is, "What does it mean?" We want to know how this is going to impact us, our future, and our gameplay, and the massive scope of this change is both unsettling and heady. Last week we sifted through the LotRO forums for testimonies about several aspects of the beta, which was treated with a stony silence from the lot of you. Oh, I kid! Nothing gets the tongues wagging around here like a good mouthful of free-to-play, although I've been informed by the leaders of the Global Conspiracy Against Gamers Having Fun that this topic has three days left on the clock until it's locked away in a vault forever. So even though I tried to touch on the relevant points of the beta last week, there's simply so much of it out there that I had to leave some behind. It's easy to forget that this fall's update contains more than the LotRO store, like a whole barrel of additions and fixes to the game -- including class tweaks. Grab my hobbity hand, and we will venture into the land of the unknown... the land of class changes.
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?
The Road to Mordor: Shopping for your skirmish soldier
Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis. Breaking up, as the song goes, is hard to do -- but sometimes very, very necessary. I'll admit that I have recently settled into a bit of a skirmish funk, firing up a session here and there merely for the XP and the privilege of filling my bags with 576 different types of marks (seriously, Turbine, couldn't we switch from this confusing British-like currency to something more streamlined, like the Euro?). When I couldn't find a partner for a skirmish, the sessions seemed like a drag, and even though I dutifully stabbed my way through them, I grew to resent their length and my death-prone Herbalist soldier. It wasn't until the other day that a friend challenged my choice of soldier, and in so doing, freed me up for a more enjoyable skirmish experience. "Why are you sticking with the Herbalist?" he asked. I shrugged -- I thought that's what you picked when you were DPS-y and lacked a lot of self-heals. After doing a bit of research on the forums, I made the switch from the decaf healbot to 100% caffeinated Archer goodness, and I couldn't be happier. Pew pew, stab stab, win win. The choice of a soldier companion for skirmishes may be the tipping point between a painful slog and a joyful battle, as it was in my case. If you're still trying to figure out which soldier might work best with your class, then hit the jump and see what other players recommend you try.
The Road to Mordor: A class made just for you
Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis. In some MMORPGs, picking a class to suit your taste and playstyle is as uncomplicated as buying your favorite beverage. Do you want something fizzy? Then get a soft drink. Something to make you think you're way more witty than you actually are? Beer will do. Something to fill your bladder in under 0.2 minutes? Ice tea, baby. So it is in many MMOs, where players find that game's version of their favorite class and hit the "play" button without thinking. It's a sad commentary on the tired and bland class design that's come from the Holy Trinity of game design, but that's a discussion for another day (or column). Instead, I want to devote today's Road to Mordor to sorting out the nine playable classes of LotRO, because they are very often not what you'd expect from MMORPG class stereotypes. I've met a lot of players who end up playing -- and falling in love with -- a class that they would never touch in another game, due to that unique Turbine Twist™ that's put into each class. So whether you're rolling your very first character in LotRO or thinking about taking a walk in another class' shoes, hit the jump for a handy guide to these nine classes.
LotRO's Book 7 will introduce new items for the Rune-keeper
If you play a Rune-keeper in Lord of the Rings Online, we've got some good news for you. According to a recent forum post by a Turbine employee, the Rune-keeper will be enjoying some brand new items with Volume 2, Book 7: Chisel: This Ranged slot item can be crafted by Metalsmiths and will be sought after by all Rune-keepers. Higher quality chisels allow a Rune-keeper to etch more detailed and intricate runes on their stones. Doing so will passively increase damage and chances of avoiding resistance. To be clear, this is NOT a range weapon, just a item that resides in the Ranged slot. Inlays: Various metallic inlays can be created by Scholars and quickly applied to a Rune-stone. These are not simply cosmetic, as they will harden the Rune-stone, allowing the next induction skill to have reduced power cost and to be uninterruptable. Enamels: Enamels of a few different colours will also be craftable by Scholars. These enamels brighten the colour of a rune-stone, making it attune further in whatever direction it is already moving.
The Digital Continuum: Moria or Wrath?
Standing in the tiny store, I found myself at a crossroads. I'd put a lot of thought into this, but now that the decision was starting back at me, it seemed much more daunting. The question kept repeating in my head, "Do I buy Wrath, or Moria?" The financially devoid part of my brain enthusiastically yelled, "Both!" while the logical part reminded me that my time was already stretched fairly thin and that trying to dive into two new expansions would probably not be a wise move.Decisions, decisions.
The Digital Continuum: Moria or Wrath? Pt. 2
For all my enjoyment since getting Moria, something begin to bother me while I created a trail of dead bandits, bears, spiders, bats, wolves and tree roots. My time with Warhammer Online has taught me this: The easier I can find quests and complete them, the better my overall experience. After some discussion with Shawn Schuster -- our resident LotRO player -- there were a few new bookmarks nestled in Firefox.
The Daily Grind: What are your plans for Moria?
On Tuesday, players will be able to experience Turbine's eagerly-anticipated new expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online, Mines of Moria. With two new classes, the Warden and Rune-Keeper, tons of new content and lore to explore, and new monsters to slay, players are excited about all the goodness about to come. With new classes, a trip into the dark and foreboding Misty Mountains, and new legendary items, what's not to love?Of course, with any new expansion comes a few questions. Will you be shelving your beloved adventurer(s) to roll one of the two new character classes? Will you stick with the character you've worked hard at and continue onwards? Perhaps take a couple of days off to really sink your teeth into all the delicious newness that Moria has to offer and do both! What are your plans for Moria's launch?
