LOTRO

In today’s news, jwbarry has posted a new dev diary about skirmishes in book 1. Find out all about the new skirmish, learn about updates to old skirmishes, and read of duo skirmishes. For now, here’s a snippet:

You will find yourself staring across a moat of lava, attempting to gain access to the Coliseum hidden within. As you progress, several Torechs, ancient fumaroles, will erupt to block your path. Corunir will seek out their weaknesses as you protect him from the denizens of the Rift, new and old alike. Once he finds the weakness, he will call out for you to deliver a crushing blow by landing a specific Fellowship Manoeuvre. Corunir’s study of the fumarole will cause even the smallest of strikes to trigger an opportunity for a Fellowship Manoeuvre, but only the one he called out will successfully cause damage. For solo players, simply strike the Torech when the opportunity arises.

I’m going to enjoy seeing the Rift again, but duo skirmishes are definitely the most exciting thing to me.

I know you’ve all been waiting for another totally awesome contest from the LOTRO Vault, right? Yeah? Cool. ’cause we’ve got one for you.

Starting today, and running through Saturday evening, we’re running a Create-a-Valentine contest. It’s pretty self-explanatory. You take screenshots. You add captions. You submit them. Lots of fun.

You know what’s more fun, though? Prizes are more fun. Especially when the prizes are as good as the ones in this contest. You see, each winner (five in all!) gets a boxed copy of LOTRO: MoM and an upgrade key that will give them Mirkwood and an Adventurer’s Pack. So, if you’ve been holding off still, or if you want an extra account, or if you just want to give LOTRO as a Valentine’s gift, this is the perfect contest for you. (And, heck, all of the uses for Moria discs mentioned in our last contest are still valid. You can never defeat too many arch-nemeses with homemade, LOTRO-disc shruiken.)

So, have at it, why don’t you? It’s going to be a lot of fun. (Until Saturday night, when I’m going to feel like an English prof the day after finals. Never you worry about me, though.)

Like the alliteration?

Now, down to business. Sapience has this to say:

In specific circumstances where Players defeat the first boss of the instance at the same time the gauntlet is resetting (taking longer than ~45 minutes total to defeat the first boss) the gate will close and fail to reopen correctly.

Suggested Workaround: After defeating the first boss your group should immediately claim and distribute all loot and disband the raid while still in the instance. Once everyone is outside, reform it under a new leader. When you re-enter the instance you will have the correct lock and will not need to fight any trash mobs. The gates will function correctly from this point forward.

Got it? Good.

From Sapience:

The Tell the Community Team threads have returned! We’re looking for feedback on the Skirmish system. Is there something you’d like to see changed or added? Is there a region you think would be perfect for skirmishes? Let us know! Join the discussion here.

So, Turbine are curious what you’d do with the Skirmish system now that it’s in place. Lots of questions so far about LIs, too.

Personally, I’d like to see better rewards on the longer skirmishes. I’m making over 500 SM/hour on Dannenglor, personally, and even more when you consider token drops and dailies. Compare that to something like 200 SM/hour for Gondamon and Tuckburough. Sure, “fun” is important, but MMO content will always reach a point where it is no longer for for its own sake, and that’s when rewards need to take over. Right now, they’re not very even.

From Sapience:

Players who enter the Barad Guldur raid instance with a previously obtained raid lock may encounter an issue where, upon a group death, the gates earlier in the instance no longer lower. This will prevent the group from returning to their previous point of progression and continuing.

The recommended work around is for players to exit the instance, disband and reform the raid under a new raid leader. This will reset the instance and lower the gates. However, any ‘trash’ mobs prior to the next boss fight will respawn as a result of resetting the instance.

We are currently working on a fix to resolve this issue.