ACCESS FORBIDDEN

By the great wheel in the north-east corner of the Waterworks, just off the passage running northwards from the Rotting Cellar to the Deep-way, a bridge leads to a great building with a colonnaded portico. In the centre of the portico is a massive door; unlike the doors in the Rotting Cellar, this one appears "usable", suggesting that it can be opened to gain access to the building!


Alas, clicking on it, even if you are at the maximum level of 60, produces the message "Your level is too low". Now this is intriguing. Other locations or sites may at times be placed in the game with a view to activation at some point in the future, but they do not normally respond in any way at all - certainly not by appearing usable at the present time. So we may assume that this location is due to be activated in the near future; probably as part of the "back to Moria" quest thread which is supposed to be part of the forthcoming Mirkwood expansion.

However, I will pass on, will all due reservations, the following entirely unsubstantiated rumour. A kinsman who happened recently to ask a GM when this door would become accessible claims to have received the answer "At level 80". If true, this is truly astonishing. We have all been assuming that the level cap would be raised to 70 with the release of the third volume, presumably entitled Riders of Rohan, towards the end of 2009. Finding that level 80 has suddenly appeared on the event horizon is, to put it mildly, disconcerting.

LIES, DAMN LIES & STATISTICS

"BCamlost" started an interesting poll on the Codemaster forums a couple of days ago. The question was "What is the current level of the character you currently spend the majority of your LOTRO time playing? (i.e., NOT your 'main' if that main's retired, and not your 'alt' if you just happened to log it today for the first time in months . . .). One choice only please".

Of 201 players who responded by the morning of Sunday, a full 134 declare their principal character to be in the level 46-50 range, and there is good reason to believe that most of these are probably level 50. This amounts to 66.67% of the total; adding characters in the level 41-45 range, we find very nearly 80% of the respondents are above level 40. On the other hand, apparently less than 2% of the sample are under level 15. Does this mean that virtually no new players are joining the game? Of course not. As at least two players point out in the subsequent thread, what we have here is a good sampling of forum users, not of players as a whole. And as "Rem" sensibly notes, "Forums are a place where naturally long-time players hang out. This is not a representative cut through the player-base, it only shows what it shows - forum crowd tends to be high level".

So what conclusions can be derived from this poll? Essentially, that the hard core of dedicated players have (long since) hit the current experience cap, something that we probably knew already.

Full details on http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=273029&page=2&pp=10