Bonus XP through June!
Written by Mike Norton in: Offical News |
1 May 2009Patience just posted an update to the 2nd anniversary XP bonus.
To continue our 2nd anniversary celebrations, all players will continue to receive +10% bonus XP on mob kills from now through the end of June! Have fun, and thanks for playing LOTRO!
So, back to my new Guardian. Poor Paravell.
Nerf Bat Swings at Wardens – HITS!
Written by Mike Norton in: Classes, Offical News, Warden |
1 May 2009
Sorry guys, looks like a legacy bug that allows wardens lock agro tight will be fixed with the release of book 8. Here is the news right from Graalx2.
This is just a heads up that we found some issues with this legacy. It is adding much more threat than it is supposed to, especially at high ranks. This is going to be corrected in Book 8. As a result all Warden legendary items will get a refund on their legacy points spent allowing you to allocate them again any way you see fit. (its easier for us to reset everyone rather than just the affected weapons).
Sorry about this problem. I was told several times by multiple people that the legacy was too good, but I my tests were only at low ranks where the problem was not apparent. The days of auto-locking aggro from multiple l33t hunters in strength stance are over.
Personally I hope that this does not hurt wardens as a viable tank. Groups do need to learn how to play with a proactive tank as compared to a reactive. Best of luck my spear wielding friends.
Mirkwood, Instances, and Higher Level Caps
Written by Mike Norton in: LOTRO Daily News, Offical News |
24 Apr 2009The fine people over at Massively got to sit down with Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer of LotRO, Harry Teasley, Art Director for LotRO and Adam Mersky, Director of Communications for Turbine the other day on the phone. They spoke about the 2nd Anniversary of LotRO as well as the future.
Book 8 Content Patch will bring us into the southern Mirkwood area.
New game mechanic called Skirmishes. Basically a dynamic repeatable instance that will suit itself to your group size. Run it with 3 and you will get mobs and scenarios for 3. Come back and do it with 6 and it will be a ramped up for that group size.
And they where told that level cap will be raised by end of the year as well and a new Summer Festival in the next few months.
Read Massively’s full story here.
LotRO Gives us Web Tools! Some Issues.
Written by Mike Norton in: Uncategorized |
17 Apr 2009
I am very excited to share the announcement that Sapience made yesterday. The fan site and kinship web community has been waiting for over 2 years for tools to include on our own web sites that would allow us to display and link to official data on the lorebook. Well the wait is over!
Fan sites can now include mouse over tooltips like this:
If you mouse over the icon you will see a pop up of the item with stats.
It is very simple to add this functionality to your very own site or forums. Simply insert the following code into your htlm or php. I would suggest putting it in the footer in order to keep any slow downs from accessing the lorebook from slowing your site down.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://content.level3.turbine.com/sites/lorebook.lotro.com/js/onering.js"></script>
That code will turn any link to the lorebook into the rollover image.
Problems
Formatting issues. As you can see from the tooltip on UTB we have some formatting issues. The sides are being pushed out and repeated. It is more than likely a CSS issue with the end users templates. Turbine should be able to resolve this by using unique names for the css elements within the tooltip java code.
Incorrect data.
The Lorebook is still filled with incorrect data. For example, the Robe of Deep Lore above is not giving the correct stats as to what is in game. See below.
The left is from the lorebook, the right is a screenshot from in game. Lorebook is missing the armor value and shows a few inconsistency on stats.
Personally I hold out hope that with the new toolset that this data will be fixed. This is a great start and a very welcome inclusion for lotro web masters.
That’s one Dead Dragon, and a Munkiy’s Butt
Written by Mike Norton in: Kinship Watch, Places of Middle-earth, Through the Scrying Pool |
9 Apr 2009
Helegrod, oh how I wished to had seen you. I sadly, and foolishly, left the game just after the release of this 24 man raid a little over a year and a half ago. The only two times I saw the inside of this great dwarf keep was a solo run inside the instance on my Captain, and a pug. Both of which ended very tragically as you can imagine. So when I read on our kin’s raid calendar that we where going to take a trip back into time I jumped at the chance.
As we gathered for the run stories of old, the challenges, the fights where being spun in our ventrilo server. And let me tell you, Old Timers can spin some great tales. “I remember when I had to solo tank Thorog up hill, in the snow, both ways.” So I took this all to heart and prepared my now level 57 Rune-keeper Paravell for the worst. I farmed, cooked, made hope tokens, I was ready!
As we entered the instance one thing that has not changed; Lag. Snow effects take a toll on most systems. But we braved on, pushing past the snow and 10 frames per second draw rate. We began our march toward the first “trivial” boss, Coldbear. As our raid leader was trying to set up the pull for those who had never been in the instance before a little Rune-keeper thought about pulling a little cute bear cub with a small shock to its nose. The next thing we knew the setup was cut short and we where in the thick of battle. Ooops 
Movie Watch: Order of Middle Earth
Written by Mike Norton in: Kinship Watch, Machinima, Movie Watch |
4 Apr 2009I am a HUGE fan of user created art, both still and of the machinima variety. Coming back to LotRO from WOW one thing that has eluded my appetite is the amount of great movies made by the LotRO user base. You see, in WoW, the community cranking out wonderful videos is amazing. One could argue that it is due to the size of the user base. So when a wonderful video comes down the pipeline I share it as quick as I can.
This morning I discovered this gem, “Order of Middle Earth”. Coramaiir on the Brandywine put this together for his Kin. He did a fantastic job of composition, and music. Job well done.
You can watch the video here, but I highly recommend clicking the the full page link to see it in HD. Its worth it.
Order of Middle Earth from Roon3808 on Vimeo.
The PR Nightmare for Turbine, and, No, the Sky is not falling.
Written by Mike Norton in: LOTRO Daily News, Scuttlebutt |
1 Apr 2009
As many already know, Turbine was hit with some major network issues Wednesday. In the middle of a busy day most servers started to report rubber banding (when trying to move forward you got shot back and could not make headway). OOC and Kin chats started to buzz with reports of others being stuck and not able to move. If you logged out you found you where not able to get back in. Overall, it was a PR disaster.
The cries from the official forums was swift and scattered as MMORPG forums tend to be. Some simply reported what they discovered, others decided to beat a dead horse and whip out a laundry list of things they perceive makes LOTRO suck. Does it suck that you could not play? Yea. Does it suck that I wanted to spend some time working on traits now that I hit 50 with my Rune-keeper? Yea. Does it mean the world will stop turning? No.
What we know is this. Not much. What we can figure out is that a major network backbone, or router issue hit the main login and possibly game servers. Several of us in my kin, the Old Timers Guild, chatted and discussed the situation in vent. We ran trace routes to the gls.turbine.com address which houses the information about the login server and instructions. What we discovered is that somewhere along the line, the chain was broken. So from an educated guess it appears as if a major network failure has hit either the data center or backbone leading to our favorite games servers.
LotRO for WoW Players: What Class Should I Be?
Written by Mike Norton in: Classes, LotRO for WoW Players | Tags: Classes, lotro, mmo trinity, wow
25 Mar 2009
If you spend any time at all on the official Turbine forums, one question that comes up over and over by wow players coming to the game is:
What class is like (fill in the blank here)?
Most MMO’s are comprised of the trinity of class makeup for grouping. Tank, Healer, and DPS. The tanks job is to be the one that hits a monster and holds its attention. The healer is responsible for making sure the tank and other members of the party stay alive. And DPS is gamer slang for Damage per Second, or in this case, the damage dealers. With this combination you can not go wrong. I will spare you the long winded article on how this trinity is best used as to keep things running smooth. That will be another time.
Let’s take a look at the class roles after the break.
- (16) Comments
- Tags: Classes, lotro, mmo trinity, wow
LotRO on MSNBC
Written by Mike Norton in: Offical News |
24 Mar 2009
Check out LotRO Live Producer Aaron “Rowan” Cambell on MSNBC.com.
My first impressions where. . .hmm. . “I hope this is not to corny.” But I think they did a good job, great shots of the gaming world.
What do you think about in game interviews? Do you think the public at large will accept or even be drawn to the game, or put off by it?
- LuckyShot: Seeing how the balrog chain & Thorog axe have been changed from +3 hope to only +1, this is a ne [...]
- Josh W: Another very welcome change! The more I look at the preliminary Book 8 notes, the more I like them! [...]
- Mystwolf: My heart is heavy with this loss. I miss you my friend. [...]
- Seraphym: Good bye Iri - I miss you. [...]
- earthrowan: Wow, so sorry to the sad news. My condolences. [...]
- LotRO Mod Spotlight No1 - LotRO Hud
- Dev Chat hosted by Warcry - 6/3 @ 8:00pm EDT
- More Good News for Book 8
- Taking a Break: An Indepth Look at a Gamer’s Ennui
- Vile Maw - Need for Lower Rad in Book 8
- A Remedy for the D.O.T. Blues
- OTG Loses a Friend
- STOP with the 360 Missinformation allready!
- Book 8 Brings End Game
- Anti-Exploit is All Wet - How to Fix
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LOTRO is for Lovers
Written by Serielle in: Humor | Tags: commentary, couples
29 Mar 2009Ahhh… Spring is in the air, birds are twittering, and small furry woodland creatures are coming out of their cozy burrows to greet the sun. What better time to write about a couple’s perspective of LOTRO? I promise to keep the gag-inducing comments to that first line… really!
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