Amlug has a blog post that I think many have been wanting for quite a while now. It’s all about Turbine’s planned changes for how Radiance gear is bartered. I highly recommend reading the full post at its source and leaving some comments. The entire post is of interest, though, so I have 95% of it below as well:
Yes, we have listened to your concerns about the Book 8 changes and the previous instances not being changed. We have talked long and hard about what are the best ways to fix this system so it is works for as many people as possible and we also ultimately want it to feel…wait for it…rewarding!
So we have come up with a new plan. Meet Medallions — The new shiny barter token to use for bartering for your radiance pieces and some extra Legendary Item augmentations! Medallions will be replacing most of the tokens that you’ve seen since Moria. There will be unique Medallions for each cluster of instances that we release. Currently there will be two for the live content you guys are playing: the Medallion of Moria and the Medallion of Lothlorien. The Medallions will drop off of every boss monster in level 58+ instances. This means that killing boss one in Forges of Khazad-Dum will drop Medallions for everyone in the party. (Note: Make sure you all loot the chest!) I’m not going to get into how many, etc. here because we are still balancing the system. Players can use Medallions to trade for same things they were trading for — namely the Challenge sets, the other dungeon sets, and relics and Legendary Item XP.
Currently the Medallions of Moria will drop in: Grand Stairs, Forges, Sixteenth Hall, Fil Ghashan, Skumfil, and Dark Delvings. The Medallions of Lothlorien will drop in Waterworks, Halls of Crafting, and Hall of Mirrors. Future instances will drop a new Medallion.
The goal here is to not force you all to grind through instances in only the way we want. Also, players will still gain ground towards gaining their sets even if they aren’t achieving the Challenges. However, doing the Challenges will gain you more Medallions! In addition to this, we are going to be adding in some items to Challenges at a very low percentage drop. This means you’ll have a chance of getting something special. Finally, we are fixing it so there are new Challenge quests that work while you are inside the instances only and are on a daily retry timer. Orion has mentioned this tech and you can read his blog for more information. Oh and if that is not enough, we have some new Legendary Item goodies that you can trade for that we think you will like a lot. (But you’ll have to wait to find out what exactly!)
“But what about my old tokens? What do I do with them?”
No worries. There will be new npcs at the Twenty-first Hall and Caras Galadhon near the class trainers that will exchange those old crusty tokens for new shiny medallions! These Barter Exchange Traders will also hold all the Legendary Item goodies. They are your new favorite buddies.
I’m sure there is much more to talk about and we’ll be discussing the new instances we are working on shortly, but for now, I hope this comes as good news.
–Amlug
p.s. Radiance and Hope have been separated back out again. Radiance will no longer give bonuses to players on landscape, it will only be used to combat Gloom.
Happy? Unhappy? Indifferent? Unsure until it’s in effect? No matter what your opinion, I think we can all agree that it’s great to see Turbine addressing player concerns so directly. I am personally happy that they’ve taken the time to think about this rather than rushing something out to appease some of the more vocal forum members.
I have to say, I prefer this blog approach some of the team members are taking as of late. They can get all of their ideas out before others can interject or misconstrue. There’s also more time to edit and be sure of what they’re saying before they post it. I think this goes over better in the long run, honestly.
As reported via Jaxom (see ComboBlog), there has also been some clarification and follow-up on this issue by fellow Game Designer Orion: http://my.lotro.com/orion/2009/08/14/fridays-food-for-thought/
All very intresting thoughts. Generally feedback is positive, however, I think people are a bit surprised you could just keep running the easier instances (e.g. Grand Stairs) without ever stepping foot in the harder/more challenging instances (e.g. Dark Delvings).