LATEST LOTRO DEVCHAT FROM WARCRY

WarCry Network had a chance to chat with Turbine's developers on 11 November. The full transcript is available on their site. Nothing earthshaking was revealed, and in fact most of the responses were either disappointing or else offered nothing new.

Dev Orion clarified the new development he calls 'Inspired by Greatness', a mode which will enable players to solo Epic Quests by temporarily increasing stats: "In the current implementation, the buff increases your statistics to allow you to readily handle the foes present within instance spaces. What that means, in the short term, is that a player deciding to take the solo version of an epic quest that contains an instance will be bumped up to the approximate level of an Elite creature. This also includes some bonuses to regen that make it possible for players to survive against multiple opponents".

One of the most eagerly awaited elements of Siege of Mirkwood is the new multi-boss raid in Dol Guldur. In answer to a question about how many bosses this would include, dev jwbarry replied "The raid at the end of the cluster features multiple boss fights, it's a full raid not a lair raid. There will also be at least 8 skirmish raids launching. These are designed for 12 players and have been balanced as such, including custom built bosses for each" - so nothing really new, there.

Little of interest was said about legendary items, other than Graal reiterating "The addition of scrolls that allow legacy tier upgrades and various other improvements to Legendary items allows players to continue to upgrade their Legendary Items far beyond what is currently available. Initial ranks of legacies will be somewhat lower in Mirkwood to make room for these upgrades".

More fuel was added to the debate about whether Wardens make good main tanks by Belechannas' question: "A Warden who is defeated and then revived (with their threat reset to zero) lacks any aggro catch-up skill similar to Engage/Rising Ire. Is it intended that Wardens are the only class unable to function in their primary role after being revived in a long fight?". To which Graal responded, rather discouragingly for Wardens, "The lack of an instant threat catch up skill is one of the differences in tanking between Wardens and Guardians, just like Wardens dont have a easily used forced taunt. It is unlikely, but not impossible that this will change. Bottom line...Dont die".

To questions about the availability of new skills in SoM, Jalessa disappointingly responded "With Siege of Mirkwood, each class will get one skill upgrade at level 62", and "There are no class quests added in Siege of Mirkwood". So with five new experience levels, we get just one new skill - confirmation that current policy is for improvements to come largely through the acquisition of new gear. Unfortunately for those who aren't into raiding, or hate the radiance gating system, Jalessa also pointed out that "we're not looking to add radiance to crafted gear at this time".

jwbarry reassured a questioner that Skirmish rewards would be available to all, even those who were unable to take part in 3, 6 or 12-man skirmishes: "All items will be available for purchase for all players. Small Tokens come from and 3 man skirmishes. Large Tokens come from 6 and 12 man skirmishes. Some rewards require Small Tokens and some require Large Tokens, in addition to an amount of Skirmish Marks. Large Tokens can be downgraded into Small Tokens with no additional cost. Small Tokens can be upgraded into Large Tokens with an additional amount of Skirmish Marks. The goal is that with enough time, everyone, regardless of playstyle or preferred group size will be able to get all the rewards they are striving for".

Champions have been particularly worried about the loss of their Fervor stance legacies with the new SoM legendary weapons. According to Graal, "The Champion legacies were worked over the most of any of the classes due primarily to the reduction and consolidation of Stance based legacies. Champions gain several legacies that give damage bonus to individual skills, a critical magnitude legacy and several more utility type legacies. In addition all of the Ardour/Glory legacies have been combined to affect both stances".

Finally, to my mind the most interesting new feature revealed here (I may have missed an earlier announcement, however) was the "Immediate" skill execution type. Graal described this as "a new skill execution type that will absolutely interrupt whatever you are doing and execute the skill. We use this for interrupt type skills like Clobber".

---

EARLY MIRKWOOD BRIDGEHEAD ESTABLISHED!

At last it can be revealed! Astonishing photograph documents the first (non-beta) raid and hostile landing on the shores of Mirkwood, weeks before the official release of SoM. LOTRO Cronicles is proud to release this undoctored image of history in the making, as elements of the Western Alliance raiding forces establish an early bridgehead on the east bank of the Anduin, well in advance of the main Free Peoples' invasion.

---

I WAS A KING ONCE... NOW, I AM NAZGUL!

Turbine's publicity has always tended to be somehow unimpressively flat, as though they had some terrific material at their disposal but didn't quite know what to make of it. Now, however, they have just released the second Siege of Mirkwood pre-publication trailer, and it's first-rate. For once, they've made good use of all the elements at their disposal - mythos, background, epic quality - with genuinely impressive results. Oh, and congratulations to whoever did the voice-over for the Lieutenant of Dol Guldur, Lord of the Necromancer's Keep; I hope we'll be hearing lots more from him in-game.

---

WHITHER LEGENDARIES? WHO KNOWS...

Well, as anyone who was in the least bit interested will have realised by now, Turbine lied - I mean, was economical with the vérité - both implicitly and explicitly when they implied, or even in one notorious case claimed outright, that our legendary items would be with us forever, increasing in potency as we increased in level. So by next month, or a bit later, it's bye-bye l.60 First-Age Bow...

Despite the great number of leaks, official releases, forum posts and dev diaries, there is still much that is unclear or obscure about the future of Legendary Items post-Siege of Mirkwood. One question (or possibly hot potato) which as far as I know nobody has yet addressed, is what will happen to our hard-earned Bright Emblems of Nimrodel, otherwise known as First-Age tokens. It is just conceivably possible that come next month, it will prove possible to trade them in for the new SoM LIs, or perhaps exchange them for whatever barter currency will replace them - but if you believe that, you probably also believe in the Easter Bunny. Turbine has never, in the past, provided an upgrade system for outdated barter currencies, and I don't think they're about to; I mean, how many of us still have chests cluttered up with now thoroughly useless Vile Coins, Rift-iron Coins, Marks of Triumph and the like?

No. If you want my advice, take those Emblems of Nimrodel and run, don't walk, to your nearest class trader and hand them in for whatever level of First-Age LI you can afford, then waste no time shoving it into the Auction House for whatever insane price you can think of. Even though l.59 and 60 First-Agers now have a well-defined sell-by date, there will always be somebody who will pay good gold for them. You'd be surprised. And when you enter Mirkwood with a rapidly ageing First-Age weapon, you'll at least take comfort in also carrying a well-filled purse.

WARNING: The management take no responsibility for the consequences of following financial advice made public in this blog. Gondor's Financial Watchdog says: "The value of your investments can go down as well as up".

TOUGHEST BOSS OF THEM ALL?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, and there are certainly more strange and terrible things in LOTRO than ever see the light of day. Or, to be more precise, not everything in Beta eventually finds its way to the final release. In a recent thread on the Codemasters forum, Steelskin posted the following highly intriguing snippet: “There are quite a few mobs used in beta which make it into the final client but are not used, I remember a "Squirrel-King" but it apparently got deleted at some point”.

A piss-take? Quite possibly, though if it was, fellow poster Ganoderma must also have been on it, since he weighed in with “Ah, the good old squirrel king: see http://lorebook.lotro.com. Official entry is gone, page still exist though”. Well, Ganoderma is quite right; the page referenced is there but empty. However, a quick bit of detective work on the net eventually traced the original Lorebook entry, above. The full entry runs as follows:

"Ever since regaining access to Moria the dwarves have been trembling. The Watcher is not the only creature lurking in the depths and catacombs of the previously great palace. Far beneath the pool where the Watcher hides lies a hidden cavern, patrolled by NeekerBreekers and squealing spider queens lies the most fearful monster, surpassing even Balrog. Laying under the Mithril Mines for Aeons this creature lay trapped until the Balrog, released by the greedy (and hairy) dwarves tripped over a rock and broke through... releasing the Squirrel King.

Be aware that your average level 60 raid party has no hope of bringing down this Uber-Nemesis Level 70 boss who uses acorns to bring down even the strongest and most able warrior. Later in the year though the level cap will be lifted and you can leave turtle soup and calamari behind to get kicked in the nuts by this boss of bosses."

So did the dread Squirrel-King enjoy a ghostly existence in Beta? All one can say for certain is that Turbine, for reasons best known to itself alone, saw fit to delete every trace of its brief existence… Did I hear the muttered words “conspiracy theory”?

THE ADVENTURER'S PACK

There appears to be some confusion at the moment over what exactly the new Adventurer's Pack which is being released in North America at the same time as the Siege of Mirkwood will include. Apart from the two extra character slots, interest has focused largely on the promise of "shared storage" between characters on the same account. Unfortunately, expectations that this means all storage will be common to all characters must be dashed; according to the official Turbine publicity posting "Answer the Call of War", shared storage will consist of nothing more than "a storage space capable of storing 20 items accessible by all your characters on the same LOTRO server/world".

The obvious implication is that this will consist of an extra storage module of limited capacity over and above what is currently available - my guess would be an additional chest. And it's virtually certain not to accept bound items, including those quite unnecessarily BoA decorative items. Not really all that much help, then, in terms of housekeeping; you might store a small range of potions there, or perhaps a few crafting materials... Better than a kick in the pants, of course, but far from earth-shaking.

SOME DEATHS: AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

Library of Steel, Moria

Annuminas

Mordor's sentient servants are gifted with the power of speech; indeed, sometimes it's almost impossible to get them to shut up, other than by skewering them or blasting them with mage-fire or its LOTRO equivalent. Many of them also have their very own dying words, final messages of despair or defiance. This ongoing occasional series will record some of these utterances from the brink of extinction...

ENTERING THE NECROMANCER'S CASTLE

The Siege of Mirkwood, we have been given to understand by Turbine’s carefully calculated press releases, will culminate in a multi-boss 12-man raid on the fortress of Dol Guldur. This is something all LOTRO raiders have been waiting for, hoping passionately that in terms of variety, interest and replayability, it will turn out to be a Rift of Nurz-gashu, Mk II. This is particularly so in view of the fact that the latest and much-heralded multi-boss raid, Dar Narbugud in the depths of Moria, is just a tiny bit disappointing.

The million-dollar question is just how severely it will be gated – in other words, what the minimum radiance level will be in order to avoid cowering. The maximum possible would be +120 radiance, representing in effect a full set of Dar Narbugud tier 2 armour, each piece of which is worth +20 radiance (as, of course, are also the tier 1 helm and shoulders which drop from the Watcher) – but I don’t for a moment think the developers will set it that high.

At the moment, minimum radiance for the Vile Maw is +50, and for Dar Narbugud +70 (which means you can enter with +65, as it rounds up). My guess is be that you will need +85 radiance (down from +90 thanks to rounding up) for Dol Guldur, making a neat progression of +50, +70, +90 for the three 12-man raids. Currently, this could be achieved with one tier 2 item, all three tier 1.5 items and two tier 1 items - but the expansion will also offer other, new opportunities to build up radiance. It looks as though radiance, like death and taxes, will be with us for a while yet…

THE SIEGE OF MIRKWOOD

There's a number of sites where you can find a consolidation of all the currently available information on LOTRO's forthcoming expansion, The Siege of Mirkwood, so I won't bother recapitulating it all here (MMeOw has a good one). It's interesting to note that unlike the previous paid-for expansion (Mines of Moria), this one does not introduce a new volume, but "only" an new book (Book 9) of Volume II. It is to be a digital expansion costing around twenty dollars US, though I would guess it will soon be followed by a boxed edition for the retail market. Significant features include a level cap raise to 65, a legendary item cap raise to 60, a new runic slot for LIs, the eagerly expected Skirmishes, an apparently very large new area to explore and, above all, a new multi-boss raid culminating, it seems, in a battle with the Lieutenant of Dol Guldur. All good stuff...

Since this will not, after all, be a new volume, there has been some grumbling about having to pay for new content, but surprisingly less than might have been expected; most people, I think, realise that the content on offer in SoM will be considerably greater than we would normally have received from a free update. And to be honest, as one of the many players who paid for a lifetime subscription, I don't mind making an occasional contribution to Turbine's revenue stream, thereby ensuring that they continue to lavish time and attention on the game.

I TAPE-WORM MANY FRIENDS

In a lighter vein than some recent posts, I couldn't resist passing on the following wonderful communication gleaned from the Codemasters forum:

"Hello escrivo to expose what happens to me I am in the server evernight go 2 years in etten am rank 10 with my guardian a hobbit always I went to all the raid and tape-worm many friends until a few months ago I come a very big clan descendants of andurin, and one of his(her,your) members arcane harasses me non-stop(steadily) expels me without motive says lies of my and the last thing that it(he,she) made arcane is to get about myself tell to scare saying things like that Arcaned: I wish to KILL FRODO AND EAT HIS EYEBALLS Arcaned: Devils Arcane> arcane Cucuracha Rodin . he(she) hates me for that he(she) hates Frodo and Samsagaz and says that every deve of burning in the flames of sauron arcane it looks like to me a sick player and already not that to do before this harassment pardon for my bad(wrong) Englishman".

The exchange which followed had something to do with feuding and bad blood in the Ettenmoors (yawn), but the debate was of minor interest compared to the original glorious piece of prose - which may owe some of its surrealist splendour to the intervention of an online translator. The last word remained with Satine, CM director of community relations, who sensibly concluded "[Thread] closed before anyone hurts themselves" last Tuesday.