Under the Banner

The following is a summary of LOTRO news and events for Thursday, May 31st.

Today’s highlights include news of more dungeons in the future, a highlight of the elven refuges of Ered Luin, a bunch of interviews, and more!

Middle-earth
~ from the farms of the Shire to the killing fields of the Ettenmoors

• Exploring Middle-earth: The Refuges of Ered Luin
  Hundreds of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, the Elves of Lindon founded a refuge upon the slopes of Ered Luin, where wood for the White Ships was gathered and elven wine was made. Read more,,,

Quests
~ information and updates about quests in Middle-earth

• Retake Weathertop
  Keth confirms that the closed lower gates preventing players who released from coming back is indeed a bug and has been fixed in the upcoming update (or one after it).
• Where do you find Frostmantle the Auroch?
  Keth talks about where to find Frostmantle: “Frostmantle does wander a bit from the obelisk, but you should generally find him in that area”.
• Annoying quest “features”
  Keth takes time to address a couple of things. In regards to quest spawns he said that in the majority of cases they tried to switch it so that the items only disappeared in the player’s client and not the whole world. That’s cool! Not fully implemented everywhere as players point out later, but possibly something that could be fixed if people /bug it. He also addresses the subject of forcing quests on people (the example being the horse quest) and said “I think certain “rites of passage” feel better when they are part of a quest”.

From the Developers
~ what the LOTRO developers are talking about

• Real $$ for in game items the future?
  When a player posted an incorrect statement regarding the direction of where LOTRO is headed, Patience steps in to clarify what Jeffrey Steefel was talking about. She also states that LOTRO is not designed to support RMT. So basically, don’t expect to see RMT in LOTRO (evah!). End of discussion.
• Can I Take A Break From My lifetime Sub?
  What?! I can’t believe that this was even a serious question, but Patience answers it anyways. The only way to lose your lifetime account is to cancel it (why?) or if you’re banned.
• Dungeon Crawling
  A good post by Scenario regarding the development of the game. In it he says that for the initial release of LOTRO they wanted to focus on the landscape, spending a lot of time fine tuning the look and gameplay of the landscape. While they do have a number of instanced/non-instanced dungeons, from what he says we can expect more in the future.

From the Community
~ what the LOTRO community is talking about

• LOTR Online boss talks gold-farming
  Here’s the article that was the topic of discussion in the forums. In the exclusive interview with Eurogamer, Jeffrey Steefel discusses how he believes MMO business models will change in the future in regards to RMT.
• Jeff Anderson Interview
  Shacknews posts their interview with Turbine’s CEO Jeff Anderson.
• Whatever Happened to Middle-Earth Online?
  TenTonHammer brings us a news of Joe Ludwig’s post about his experiences with Middle-Earth Online.

From the Roheryn Preview Server
~ news and information from the Roheryn preview server

• Evendim patch note: node harvesting change is bad
  With the new patch notes (on Roheryn) there’s concern that players could tap the nodes and not complete them, leaving other players unable to mine them. Patience says that it’ll time out if they don’t complete it. So no worries.
• Catch A Breath
  Turns out that Catch A Breath is already 60 seconds on the Live servers and this was a duplication in release notes per Patience.
• What level is Evendim
  MadeOfLions tells us that Books 1-8 takes us up to Level 50 and Book 9 continues the story at Level 50. He recommends to the players on Roheryn that if they haven’t done Book 8 on the real servers, then to just focus on Evendim and save Book 9 for later. Oh yeah, Evendim he says is in the Level 30-40 range. However, I’ve also seen references to the high Level 20’s and up to Level 45 included in other discussions.

From the Postmaster
~ avoiding those nosey hobbits

• Warhammer Online Beta Sign Ups!
  I know we’re all busy playing LOTRO at the moment but this is one MMORPG that a lot of people are watching with eager anticipation. If you’re one of them and have missed the news, Warhammer Online has announced their beta sign-up. Now of course you already knew this cause you’re signed up on their newsletter. You are, aren’t you?