So, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion hits tomorrow. I’m nowhere near being finished with Book 13, so I’m pretty unprepared to continue the Epic quest line. Maybe I should get that done before Mines of Moria hits, huh?
There’s an awful lot being added or changed. The release notes contain over 8,400 words totaling in at about 17 printed pages. I could see most people skipping reading these things entirely. So I’ll save you the trouble!
Turbine has already identified what they consider the highlights:
- Eregion: Journey to where the Elven Rings were forged!
- Epic Quest: The epic quest continues with world events that open up the adventure to every player across all servers!
- Moria Prelude Quests: Aid the Fellowship of the Ring as they prepare to leave Rivendell and make their way toward Mordor.
- Dungeons: The loot dropped in all instances and raids is being upgraded, and bosses and mobs are being adjusted to make for even better play experiences! Now is the time to prepare for the dangers that dwell in Moria!
- Animation Improvements: LotRO continues to polish the experience!
- Animations and sounds for each Minstrel skill using their equipped instrument (no longer just the Lute!)
- Monster play emote animations for Orc, Uruk, Spider and Warg
- New animations for 12 emotes – plus three new animated emotes!
Obviously the continuation of the epic quest line is interesting in and of itself. The notes mention that world events will somehow effect this. I guess some of us will find out what that means exactly tomorrow.
We’ve heard a bit about dungeon changes and tweaks. My brief foray into the forums a while back revealed that most people are appreciative of these adjustments.
Turbine has also made a pretty big deal about the Minstrel’s instrument changes. All instruments will now have the proper animations and sounds associated with them if they’re used for a skill. It’s just a cosmetic change, but I think it’ll go a long way in tightening the overall experience. Popping out a lute when you don’t even own one is kind of bizarre.
There were a few other things that grabbed my attention.
- Dye changes can finally be previewed in the Dressing Room. Previously this was a bit of a crap shoot as it was never obvious which sections of your equipment would actually be colored. Orange, Grey, Burgundy, and Turquoise dyes have also been added… Hopefully this will help drown out the insane amount of Violet and Olive dyes on the Auction House currently.
- More Fishing deeds are being added, this time focusing on collections of fish. What this means exactly is unclear. Maybe catching all of rare variations of certain species?
- Finally! “You will now see “INTERRUPTED” over the head of the target of any attack which interrupts a skill warm-up or channeled skill that is in progress.”
- Misty Mountain Silver is being renamed Ancient Silver and will now also show up in Forochel, Angmar and Sarnur. Thank you! Riding up to the Misty Mountains – which contains zero travel points – solely for ore was a huge pain.
- When crafting, a visible effect will be played whenever the crafter has a critical success. Small, but nice … particularly when you consider how much you might craft at once.
- “This fish can be used in Cooking.” added to cookable fish. I don’t cook, but considering how annoyingly vague the game can be about crafting items this is a good isng.
- This is a long one: “Reduced the number of common equipment items dropping from sentient monsters (ie: Brigands, goblins, orcs, etc). They now drop trophy items which are stackable. Also increased the chance of these types of monsters to drop potions and other consumable items.” Basically, we shouldn’t be coming back with a ton of items that don’t stack that sell for marginal amounts of money and don’t suit or level. Good!
- You can finally ctrl+click an item to add it to the chat, rather than perfectly dragging it into a specific section of the chat window. Now if they’ll only do this for quests!
- Three more looting options were added: Roll/Pass with Free For All, Need/Greed with Free For All, and Master Looter with Free For All.
- “Added a new music jukebox for player housing. “Neat.
- The Icereave Mines in Forochel have been adjusted to me more solo-friendly.
- “Myrkworth (in Angmar) now has a provisions vendor.” THANK YOU!!!
- “You can now drag items from your inventory into the “Item Name” field of the “Auctions” tab on the Auction UI to populate it with the name of that item.” I’ve been hoping for this one for a while since it’d be the easiest way to check prices on items you want to put up… plus the game also searches for singular names, despite using plurals as well.
Some of the more exciting things to me are just simple “Duh!” types changes that make the game more user friendly.
As a Champion I was a bit disappointed to see there will be no specific class changes for my character. All other classes will see some changes, however. Be sure to check out the notes to see what specifically affects you.
Anyway, beyond all of this we’ll be seeing the addition of Sages (that allow you to help others or redo previously completed epic quests for new rewards), the reopening of the Summer Festival and the addition of battlefield instances.
As mentioned, there’s also the opening of Eregion. That’s been teasing us on the Trollshaws map for way too long.
