A quick post to direct you towards Ten Ton Hammer’s video interview with LotRO boss Jeffrey Steefel. Its 40+ 14 minutes (and now works!). The video provides a ton of clarification to the confusion of the expansion press release. Additionally you get sneak peeks of:
- Dol Goldur (cool raid, but he states that you “will need a tonne of radiance to get through here”)
- Mirkwood (mist/fog in creepy woods!)
- maps (looks big, but could be deceptive)
- travel route to Mirkwood (boat from Lothlorien-Mirkwood)
- mount system (you can talk to NPCS from your mount and visually-emote from your horse!)
- shared storage (via Vault keeper)
- combat is more “punchy” (class moves over-riding auto-attack)
- legendary items (4th runic slot is for craftable runics!)
- skirmishes (each player creates just one skirmish NPC-partner which are highly customisable; skirmishes you enter from anywhere in the world;l you gain skirmish points for participating and completing tasks which can be used to upgrade your NPC-partner)
For now that is all I can share as the video cut off, but it is worth watching yourself: http://www.tentonhammer.com/ (then find the video sneak peek; direct linking doesn’t work)
Isy
Tentonhammer.com has restricted access to the video to “Premium” members only ($19.95 annually). I like LOTRO, but won’t be paying to see this video. I wonder if Steefel knew that they would be charging for access to the video when he gave the interview and sneak peek access. I seriously doubt it. Next time, Steefel, give the interview to someone that will get the information to your customers.
UPDATE: Search “Siege of Mirkwood” on youtube.com
The whole idea of the radiance gating system may be offensive to some, but the simple solution is to only partake in the first teir if you feel that it is “grinding”. Trust me, for the “hardcore” people, of whom my server has tons of, the radiance gating system keeps them playing, because otherwise they would only ever do the toughest content.