LOTRO Reporter Podcast
LOTRO Reporter Episode 238 - We Survived Weatherstock
Cari and Layanor talk Weatherstock, update 14, and giant shrews.
Audio Version:
What We Did in Game
Layanor
- Moors 40%
- Weatherstock
- 3 mans
Cari
- Â Weatherstock VI
- Leveling my baby warden (she’s a hobbit)
- 3 Mans
News
20% off a Year of VIP
20% discount price:
USD: 79.99
EUR: 71.99
GBP: 63.99
Standard Recurring price:
USD: 99.99
EUR: 89.99
GBP: 79.99
We’ll be refunding anyone that paid the higher GBP price, the difference, within the next 3-5 business days.
Official Shield Rules and Schedule
You have to get him in the in the Path of the Fellowship Deed too
Update 14 Patch Notes
Level up to 100!
You may now level your character to level 100.
New Regions
Three new areas have been added to the game! Explore and enjoy West Gondor! These areas are free to VIPs!
Epic Story Volume IV
The Story continues! Volume IV is free to all players!
The Essence System is here!
New gear found throughout the world can be upgraded and enhanced by placing Essences into available slots. These Essences are currently earned as drops.
Join the City Watch of Dol Amroth
Upon reaching level 100 you’ll receive a summons from Beriadur, head of the city guard of Dol Amroth. He has heard of your travails through West Gondor and wants to see if you are interested in joining the watch. The city of Dol Amroth is broken into 8 districts, each focusing on a different important building. Only once a watch-men has earned the trust of the residents of a district, are they allowed to patrol and be responsible for that section of the city.
The people of Dol Amroth have much that needs to be done and each day you can aid them in their tasks. These tasks range from threats in the Paths of the Dead, to corsair camps on an island, to a 3-man instance, to fishing, and more. Two of these sections, the Paths of the Dead and the caves and tunnels beneath Emyn Ernil will be need to cooperatively unlocked by the server before any trust may be earned with some of the districts. Upon completing a quest you’ll be rewarded with Silver Tokens of Dol Amroth or tokens for a specific district. Using the token will provide rep with that district. The tokens can also be bartered for armour, essence, and housing rewards. The tokens may also be freely traded with other characters.
Upon completing your quests for the day, Beriadur will ask if you wish to join the watch-men in some training exercises. Returning from these exercises, you discover corsairs have snuck into the city under cover of night. You are able to select which district you wish to free, based on those you have earned the trust of, and together with the watch you may attempt to retake the city. This is an instance that can be done once daily and rewards Gold Tokens of Dol Amroth and tokens for the various districts.
Log out Changes
It now takes 30 seconds for players to log out if they are in combat (while out of combat, the 10 second timer remains unchanged): preventing the log-out mechanic from being abused in certain situations.
Inventory Sort
- Slotted Legendary Items are now sorted before others.
- We will now group together all your food and all your potions. Within each group, the items will be sorted by level, then quality.
- We now sort items in order of increasing instead of decreasing quality for consistency
Player Council Contributions to Update 14
- The maximum number of friends you can have on your friends list has been increased to 100.
- The maximum number of characters allowed in the Kinship Message of the day has been increased. (Currently 80, increased to 132)
- A new global chat channel has been added. This channel is /world or /wd. You are automatically added to this channel when you log in and it is active throughout the game world. Monsterplayers have their own version of this chat.
General
- Fixed a bug which prevented fellowship members from being able to see each others’ emote text and hear each others’ music under certain circumstances.
- Chest slot items that affect both the upper and lower body are now only affected by dyes applied to the chest slot.
- Shield of the Hammerhand once again stacks with Derudh’s Stone and the Outrider’s Token.
LOTRO Dev Chat
http://lotroplayers.mymiddleearth.com/2014/06/13/june-12-developer-live-chat-notes/
Cythrith typed these up.
Executive Producer Aaron Campbell, Lead Systems Designer Matt Zimmitti, Art Director Todd DeMelle, Designer Trevor McEwen, and Community Manager Rick Heaton take player questions.
What lead to creation of Essences and socketable items? How is this intended to impact the game?
Every Time we have a release there’s a ton of gear put out (some of it that people want and some of it that people aren’t really interested in). We figured the best way to put out gear that people want is to let them choose it. It’s not going to completely get rid of itemization. Different rarities will give more sockets to put Essences in. Currently Essences cover 17 different stats and there is 5 types of socketable gear. It’ll give lots of opportunity to fine tune your characters. Also people can use it to backfill for changes made to how stats give mitigations.
When is the Treasure Hunt going to be turned on this month?
Next weekend (June 21 and 22)
What additional details can be shared about Beornings?
The three specializations are tank, damage and a sort of support based on off heals and crowd control. The tank line is all about becoming a big bear, absorbing damage and mitigating damage and protecting your fellows. The damage line is about managing time between human and bear forms to optimize damage, getting damage over time rolling when building up wrath and then cashing it out. The support line uses a marking mechanic, with either offensive or defensive marks that alter skills in different ways. Beornings have no power. Instead once they enter combat they start building up wrath and then once they go into bear form that wrath starts draining away.
What other parts of Gondor can we expect to see? Will we see more Western Gondor? When will we see Minas Tirith?
West Gondor is only the starting point. Next still will be Eastern Gondor with Pelargir which is under siege. Then Osgiliath and then rounding out next year with Minas Tirith.
Why start Beornings at level 50?
The challenge of a game that started out huge and continues to get more huge is that with the Beorning if we went back and started at level 1, players wouldn’t be able to play the class for another year and a half. There’s already a huge amount of work on it as it is since it is an advanced class. Sure it can do all the roles of tank, DPS and support but it is light armour so it’s best for people who already have the game down but want to be able to get to end game faster.
1v1 Hobnanigans?
We’ve tested it and it’s not as fun as you’d think.
With the new Essences, will they be all over the game?
The first batch you’ll be able to find them from levels 50 and above with various tiers. They’ll only be available for 5 armour piece types. Eventually we want to have Essences and socketable items available from level 10 and up.
Did You Know
Fixing the login issues
3-Mans
Monday’s at 9PST 12 EST.
Will be on twitch replay.
Webs
School
Community
Weatherstock VI
6 hours
Crashed the Server
1,000 people
800 votes
Free Peoples Choice: Rock and a Hard Place
Lonely Mountain Cup: The Shades
Fashion: The Remediators
Brandyjam
September Sunday the 14th
All bands are welcome to join us on Brandyjam!
More details as the plans get more worked out.
Mail:
Now that we have Ent Play, I want session play as a giant shrew!
AmAvocet
Layanor – If you’re looking for a new PC, then check out doghousesystems.com and use the coupon code MMOREPORTER to double your RAM! Go to audibletrial.com/mmoreporter to get a one month.
Contact Information
Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
Twitter: @lotroreporter
Facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.
YouTube: Â http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork
Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac
Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor
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