Tony posted this on January 22nd, 2010. It has No Comments »
Categorized as News, Patch.
Tagged as Hounding Fear, Patch, Skills.
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw2607
Hounding Fear is one of those mob skills that has always been a center of debate. In the past I would say it was overused, but Turbine has made an effort to change that over various updates. Today I came across this post on the forums from LOTROSystems with some clarification on how Hounding Fear currently works and what is planned for the future:
Hounding Fear.
This has been the subject of many threads, complaints, frustrations, and arguments. We’ve responded in the past to some of these threads trying to explain things a bit (feel free to hunt them down if you wish). We also made a significant adjustment to Hounding Fear with Moria: reducing the chance of it landing on you when fighting mobs lower level than you. Currently, you actually have a 0% chance of getting hit by Hounding Fear when being attacked by mobs that are gray to you.
The reason we’re responding to this (newest) thread is because the game has changed a bit: Skirmishes, specifically soldiers. We want soldiers to be able to protect players the best they can, and we also want players to be able to protect their soldiers the best they can. Hounding Fear hampers that a bit. If you’re able to heal your soldier and trying to run over to him but get slowed by Hounding Fear, you might not get in range in time to save him. Therefore…
The effect “Hounding Fear” is being removed from Skirmishes AND from Landscape.
Now, you might be saying: “Protecting your Soldier? That is your reason for removing it when there’s so many better ones that have existed this whole time!?” What it comes to is that this was the final straw. We’ve debated back and forth for a long time now about the merits and flaws of Hounding Fear: what we were trying to achieve with it, how we were successful and unsuccessful with our goals, what the consequences will be if we remove it.
We hope this change will be for the better in the short term and the long term. We feel this is the right choice to make (though, to be fair, we always make the choices we make thinking they’re the right ones). Should it have been made sooner? Maybe. Will it backfire horribly because of some unforeseen consequence? Hopefully not.
Thank you for all of your feedback. We do pay attention to your concerns and try and act upon them when we are able to (assuming we agree with you, of course
).
So things appear to be changing for the better for all you Skirmishes out there.
Tony posted this on January 21st, 2010. It has No Comments »
Categorized as News.
Tagged as Bonus XP, Stables, Welcome Back Weekend.
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw2600
It’s another Welcome Back Weekend in LOTRO, but this time there’s something different going on. The bonus XP for mob kills has been reduced to 5%, but to make up for this all stable travel is free. FREE!
I honestly like this a heck of a lot better, as it’ll benefit everyone across the game. It also encourages returning and new players to see more of the world and the things that have been changed.
The event starts today and runs through January 25th.
Tony posted this on January 21st, 2010. It has 1 Comment »
Categorized as Editorials and Thoughts, Eluveril in Moria.
Tagged as Deep Descent, Delven-view, Editorials and Thoughts, Eluveril, Moria, Return to Moria.
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw2591
Eluveril made her way through the Great Delving and on to the Dolven-view today. The trip there was a little confusing, but there were helpful dwarves along the way willing to give directions. On subsequent trips, the paths almost became second nature … particularly if you notice that you can largely follow an old, crumbling stone road most of the way.

The entrance to the Dolven-view.
The Dolven-view was a welcome sight after all of the darkness and creepy noises Eluveril had to pass. A surprising number of dwarves resided here, including envoys for two major factions in the area: the Guards and the Miners. Both had good causes, but the Guards won her over and have received most of her support, receiving several strange relics she had collected on her way over. The hope is that someday soon she’ll be able to trade for a Rune-keeper book the Guards are holding.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tony posted this on January 20th, 2010. It has 2 Comments »
Categorized as Guides.
Tagged as Braiglad, Bree-land, Cordofoneth, Deed, Dorollin, Flowers, Lenhwest, Map, Merillif, Nedorlas, Old Forest, Rhosthon, Silloth.
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw2583
This site gets a lot of searches related to the Old Forest flower deed. Nowadays you kids have it easy. Back when I had to first worry about this, I had to run around with 2 wolves, 3 bats, a bear, several spiders and some evil trees on my tail. We didn’t even have a detailed map! But I digress …
I thought it would be helpful to put together a map of the flower locations (Nedorlas, Braiglad, Lenhwest, Silloth, Merillif, Dorollin, Cordofoneth, Rhosthon). I didn’t bother with coordinates, as I think this is easy enough. I’ve labeled by name, which should be helpful for those of you with a few flowers leftover.

Map the the flowers of the Old Forest. Click for a larger version.
This deed honestly drove me nuts, as a lot of the flowers are in areas you have no real need to enter. Stick it to the Old Forest by completing this, which is a reward in and of itself.
Tony posted this on January 19th, 2010. It has 1 Comment »
Categorized as News, Patch, Siege of Mirkwood.
Tagged as Legacy Tier, Patch, Skirmish Marks.
Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw2580
Graalx2 posted on the official forums today, confirming that legacy tiers will be fixed soon:
We have found the issue with all of the legacies costs not decreasing as the legacy tiers up. It will be fixed in the next major patch (not tomorrow’s). There was a problem with rounding off that caused the numbers not to change as they should. This will correct all legacy costs for all classes.
If you’re not familiar with this issue, Ferdinand the Great has posted a brief summary on LOTRO Vault:
Unaware of what the issues were? A number of legacies (at least eight of them confirmed for Wardens!) did not reduce in cost at certain upgrade levels. (In particular, T4>T5 and T5>T6 were being miscalculated.) That means that, given a rate of something like 500SM/hr (taking into account dailies), you were looking at about four hours of wasted gameplay upon purchase of a Scroll of Entitlement, because your legacy tier upgrade would net you zero points. Oops.
I’ve not dealt with that issue yet, but it’ll be something to watch out for … sure sounds like a pain in the butt.