MMeOw is currently down for the count, but please visit the LOTRO Combo Blog. It aggregates content from some of the best LOTRO-related blogs and podcasts on the net.

Adventures in Dolby and Technicolor

Hobbit and Redhead posted this on December 30th, 2009. It has 3 Comments »
Categorized as Captain, Classes, Rune-keeper.

Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw2476

While grind­ing out the quests in S. Mirk­wood (how sim­i­lar in pat­tern they are to those in Ere­gion) I’ve taken a break to try out two new-for-me classes: Cap­tain and Rune-keeper. On the whole, I am enjoy­ing both classes and the con­trast they make to my main.

Hith­erto I’ve only played tank roles. Cap­tain’s sup­port and jack-of-all-trades role is reward­ing, and Rune-keeper’s instant death strikes are, well, more sat­is­fy­ing than I realized.

This post’s title refers to the huge change in sound and visu­als that come with Cap­tain and Rune-keeper. Man, can my man Calen­bor shout! And—BZZT-ZAP!—there is no spe­cial effect too campy for Fig­galin. Stones for everyone.

MMeOw is currently down for the count, but please visit the LOTRO Combo Blog. It aggregates content from some of the best LOTRO-related blogs and podcasts on the net.

Rune-keeper Rumination: Volume 3

Tony posted this on February 22nd, 2009. It has 2 Comments »
Categorized as Classes, Editorials and Thoughts, Rune-keeper, Rune-keeper Rumination.
Tagged as , , , , .
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1180

MMeOw is currently down for the count, but please visit the LOTRO Combo Blog. It aggregates content from some of the best LOTRO-related blogs and podcasts on the net.

Dev Chat Thoughts

Tony posted this on February 4th, 2009. It has No Comments »
Categorized as Mines of Moria, Minstrel, News, Patch, Rune-keeper.
Tagged as , , , , , , , .
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1146

chatters-keyboard

I’m sure many peo­ple out there have read through the dev chat by now and have made up your own minds about it. I noticed on the forums that there was a good split between those happy with the chat and those who weren’t. I don’t usu­ally expect too much from these things for var­i­ous rea­sons .… Largely because they’re short, unstruc­tured, rapid paced and just ill-suited to thor­ough explanations.

As always, these are a nice pref­ace to upcom­ing Book patches and I have to say my inter­est in see­ing what will be in the next update has gone up. It’s always worth remem­ber­ing that there’s far more going on than what these chats detail … the Rune-keeper class comes to mind. The chat didn’t have much infor­ma­tion on the class (aside from them get­ting “buffs”), but there’s been a good amount of dis­cus­sion on Book 7 changes on the forums from the devs so far.

So we’ll see what hap­pens in the end. I’m not one to com­plain until I know what I’m actu­ally get­ting or not get­ting, par­tic­u­larly when I know that not every mem­ber of the devel­op­ment team shows up for these things. If the craft­ing lead isn’t there then we prob­a­bly won’t hear much about craft­ing changes, for example.

That said, there was some good infor­ma­tion in the chat and I got the impres­sion that most peo­ple involved had a good time. Some things that caught my attention:

  • Min­s­tels are finally get­ting Tier 6 instruments.
  • Pathing improve­ments for Lore–mas­ter pets. I never got very far with my Lore–mas­ter, but even early on this can be annoy­ing. Any fixes are good!
  • As has been dis­cussed before, Lothlo­rien will be filled out in Book 7. I’m really inter­ested in see­ing this area as Tur­bine seems par­tic­u­larly happy with how it turned out. I’m also inter­ested in see­ing how they’ve man­aged the rep­u­ta­tion sys­tem, as it sounds like it might be a change of pace from the oth­ers in the game. There will be a devel­oper diary on the area soon.
  • More three man instances are com­ing. This was one of the cooler fea­tures of the last update, I felt.
  • Yet another con­fir­ma­tion of a 12-person raid in Book 7. This should make peo­ple happy, although I’ve yet to com­plete a major raid in the game. Oops.
  • garian07 specif­i­cally asks about Kin­ship cloaks. I’m won­der­ing if this ques­tion was mis­un­der­stood, as it sounds like Floon was refer­ring to a sys­tem to upload pic­tures and turn them into cloak tex­tures. I assumed that the ques­tion was refer­ring more to a sys­tem where we could choose between cloak styles, col­ors and emblems to make a Kinship-unique cloak. I believe World of War­craft and Warham­mer Online both have this option and it seems like it’d be sig­nif­i­cantly eas­ier. Of course, I imag­ine bal­anc­ing this so that other cloak designs in the game aren’t ignored entirely is difficult.
  • I think many peo­ple out there are dis­ap­pointed with the hook sys­tem used for hous­ing and I was glad to see it brought up here. I know it’s low on the totem pole and I cer­tainly appre­ci­ate that hous­ing was added as an update in the first place, but I do hope they adjust this some­what soon. I’d really love for my house to be more of a focus for my char­ac­ter. I’d also really love if there was some sim­ple way to invite peo­ple over.

The chat didn’t really get into craft­ing or leg­endary item con­cerns, two things which are com­monly lamented on the forums as of late. I sup­pose we’ll see soon enough if either of these are adjusted in Book 7, but it sounds like mak­ing sign­f­i­cant changes to either (par­tic­u­larly the lat­ter) would be quite difficult.

In any event, I’m look­ing for­ward to hear­ing more about the next update. Now that the chat is over, I imag­ine they’ll be ramp­ing up the con­tent for its release soon.

MMeOw is currently down for the count, but please visit the LOTRO Combo Blog. It aggregates content from some of the best LOTRO-related blogs and podcasts on the net.

New Rune-keeper Items for Book 7

Tony posted this on January 23rd, 2009. It has No Comments »
Categorized as Classes, Mines of Moria, Patch, Rune-keeper.

Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1100

runesbloodstone

Zom­bie Colum­bus posted some­thing inter­est­ing con­cern­ing Rune-keepers in Book 7 today:

The Rune-keeper is gain­ing three new items in Book 7. As before, mag­ni­tudes are not being dis­cussed, as they change often, and any of these may change as Book 7 draws closer.

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.

I’m going on vaca­tion now, no posts for a week or so. I’ll be releas­ing some info about updated lega­cies later. These changes should bring the RK to a good place and allow me to work on other projects ;) Lata!

This sounds pretty inter­est­ing so far. I’m assum­ing Inlays and Enam­els are both con­sum­ables, so hope­fully they’ll last a decent amount of time and stack well. Hope­fully all you Rune-keepers out there know a nice Scholar or are in that pro­fes­sion your­self. It’s mak­ing me recon­sider the Explorer pro­fes­sion, that’s for sure.

MMeOw is currently down for the count, but please visit the LOTRO Combo Blog. It aggregates content from some of the best LOTRO-related blogs and podcasts on the net.

Upcoming Rune-keeper Changes in Testing

Tony posted this on January 9th, 2009. It has No Comments »
Categorized as Classes, Mines of Moria, News, Patch, Rune-keeper.
Tagged as , , .
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1067

the-lord-of-the-rings-online-mines-of-moria-20080708050006266-000

Late last night, Tubine’s Zom­bie Colum­bus posted a big update on trait and skill changes for the Rune-keeper that are cur­rently being tested for Book 7. He notes that changes to lega­cies, the ranged slot item and con­sum­ables are not included in this list. Test­ing will likely reduce the final list of changes, but for now this is what is being worked with:

Read the rest of this entry »