Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Lord of the Rings Online: Update 2 Launches
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Turbine has announced that Update 2 for Lord of the Rings Online has been (or is being) deployed on all servers. The new update brings Volume III, Book 3: Echoes of the Dead online as well as a host of major updates to several important game features. There are new instance "clusters", new skirmishes, new content and the Spring Festival is live as well.
The Epic Story Continues with Volume III, Book 3: “Echoes of the Dead” -- At the conclusion of Volume III, Book 2: "Ride of the Grey Company," a great deal of intrigue surrounded the dwarf Nár: what compelled him to speak of the Paths of the Dead when he seems oblivious to everything else? The Rangers have decided to investigate the library at Zudrugund before continuing their journey south.
New Instance Clusters
Northcotton Farm – 3-player instance featuring two tiers of difficulty with an optional Challenge Mode quest
The Town of Stoneheight – 3-player instance featuring two tiers of difficulty with an optional Challenge Mode quest
The Lost Temple – 6-player instance featuring two tiers of difficulty with an optional Challenge Mode quest
Glacier Fortress – 6-player instance featuring 2 tiers of difficulty with an optional Challenge Mode quest
Ost Dunhoth – 12-player raid featuring 2 tiers of difficulty with an optional Challenge Mode quest6, two 6-mans and a 12-man raid
Read the full patch notes here.
Comments
This is arguably one of the best MMORPG's online today. I'm still having a blast playing it, for it's chock-full of great content. And here's more!
I agree with Oy-jord. I had been playing WoW ever since it first came out and yet I find Lord of the Rings Online one of the best MMORPGs ever made
So I'm guessing this patch is only for the US and the EU will be coming out later?
EU will get the patch tomorrow.
Mauri "Darkblade" Majanoja
By far my favorite MMO, so much content to play with, even for free players
Loving the new patch launched today. Some great polish and balance-work done to the already great game. Not to mention a lot of new content added for different playstyles like the themepark quests or the pvmp revamp or even some of the 100+ new pve quests in one of the revamped regions in-game. Huge update, and that is just the tip of it all in the update.
It's arguably one of the worst MMORPGs out there. I have a lifetime sub to it and almost never play it because there is so little to do in it.
Chock full of great content? Where? It's literally got 1/3 or less the content compared to WoW or EQ2. Even the standard generic F2P games offer as much as LOTRO.
And what's worse, every update instead of adding new content, they just add more and more ads for the store. "Buy now!" "Buy now!" "Buy now!" is all over the place on the UI. And if you should accidently click a button that you don't "own" (like for the 3rd outfits), the store automatically pops up.
It's not a huge update. They added one raid cluster and re-vamped one area slightly, and added a handful of new story quests.
No new landscape at all. Turbine used to add that all the time when the game came out. Now we go literally a year between land mass additions.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
I dropped in here to see if they were adding land mass... with the thinking that if F2P has perked up the finances they might actually expand the game properly and introduce places like Rohan and Fangorn.
It's academic anyway. I tried DDO and I simply loathe free to PAY games; even when you subscribe you are bombarded and pestered and manipulated, even given free points to spend so you can get into the habit of shopping instead of playing. Likely I will never play LOTRO again.
I'd go so far as to say that I have come to despise the people who fund the F2P movement. You are either a penny pinching free loader ($15 a month is almost trivial for the entertainment an MMO offers; even for a teenager) or you actually like paying to win. The former type provides the latter type a largish audience to witness the awesomeness that they paid for.
Yes, I am a tad bitter about the direction LOTRO went post release.
If you are a student, every penny counts! Well, £8.99 is not that much but i have friends who spend this much on food per week! Not sure how they manage that but still! So you have no right to judge people ^_^
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
At first glance there are a few good changes here:
1. Goodbye Radiance
2. You no longer have to bother folk to catch up on Volume II
3. 30-40 was always a pita so the Evendim update is good news
(The dev diary also claims that reputation gain in the zone has been increased so you don't have to hang around to finish it off once you out level the area which is good, the game definitely needs more updates along this line.)
4. More endgame group content
5. Reworked legendary system
This intrigued me...
...So I patch up my lifetime account, log in and take a look around. I open up the new character panel and chuckle at all the different paths that lead you to the store. After exploring the store and some of the new items I log out once again convinced this game is now designed for eejits with holes in their wallets/purses.
The way the powers that be in this game try to get their grubby mitts on your cash is truly shameless. Perhaps, the folks at Turbine/WB should take the time to actually read and learn from some of Tolkien's works, afterall, he had a lot to say about greed and its consequences.
In fairness, the game is a decent themepark mmorpg and this update made some good improvements to it, but the business model is a deal breaker for me.
Well, I seriously doubt that struggling students - who I DO have sympathy for - are the ones that have made the F2P movement successful.
Also, I still have to ask, If they have oodles of time to play MMOs, wouldn't they have time to tutor a high school student and earn $15 a week, which is 4 times what they'd need? This is what I did as a student so I am genuinely curious.
Cash shop ruined this game for me. Instead hybrid model they went double dip way by giving subscribers who use cash shop much better gameplay experience - including stats, potions, grind reductions like in regular F2P. Not to mention shop buttons...erm I mean UI "revamp" everywhere. What next - sad Mr. Frodo face popup that says "buy at store or Sauron will spank me"? If at least it'd mean more updates...cause so far it's even worse than pre F2P.
Since when is Lotro pay to win? Right, that does not exist in any Turbine product. If you come here making ridiculous claims, expect to be called on it.
Nothing wrong with the Freemium product Turbine introduced, I find it far superior to anything I have seen in other f2p games.
Radiance is finally gone? Well to late, I left the game ages ago.
Latest item in the cash shop is a scroll that allows you to keep your old slotted relics. So now if you want to keep your relics on decon of an LI you spend tp (turbine points) for this scroll.
This used to be free, you could go and decon any time, now they added that function to the store. So there finding new ways to milk TP out of the VIP folks.
From what I understand its pretty steep, I have not logged in to check it out, but I been reading the turbine forums, there's been a couple of threads about it that have been closed and pruned. Wondering if the new thread will be pruned.
Some folks view it as ok, other folks view it as I do, more greed from Turbine.
I look at it this way they were not getting enough cash and decided to go after those at end game to get TP, without really giving more content, well they added a new book and a new raid big deal.
Nothing that makes me want to even go back.
I can't say that I like where they went with the game but they already announced the next expansion Rohan. They already stated that they used their time to revamp the game for the f2p conversion.
Was it because their new WB overlords, while in talks to acquire Turbine, wanted to this to happen (after seeing how much more DDO made with the conversion) or was it simply common sense that they as a company could make more money which is what companies do.
I, like the rest of the long time players, have been sitting on a lvl 65 character and I've pretty much been playing since beta (with a few breaks). I wasn't aware players had to marry these games. If players have done all the content then come back when they have added significant content and do something else in the meanwhile.
In any case they are making more money and they are working on a large expansion which will have Rohan.
The game is not pay to win. sorry. It's tacky the way they advertise the store but one can do without EVERY item in the store and still do raids and skirmishes and instancs and whatever else is in the game with no problem.
The store is about cosmetic items and convenience. The convenience comes in the form of mitigating travel, mitigating some of the "grinds" in the game and essentially allowing players to speed up leveling if they chose to do so.
But in the end a player could pay a sub, not pay for any of those items in the store and still do as well. You might have to travel by horse a bit or actually take a bit longer to do some deeds but the only advantage in that is time. You dont' need to buy the health potions, those in the game world work just fine.
or if one is more patient one can play for free and just earn the turbine points over time.
Even with the legendary item changes the point still stands. You dont' need top legacies to do any of the content in the game. It makes it "a little easier" and that's about it. I've done some Moria instances NOT using a legendary item but just a good teal sword. Didn't die and we were successful.
@TJeremy: Really Jeremy? LOTRO doesn't offer any more than games like Archlord or Shaiya or perfect world?
Having played those games I can say LOTRO it's a better game hands down. Music system, cosmetic items, better written quests (for those who read quests) etc.
For the most part, my issue is the direction they took with the game not how they implemented that direction.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
F2P games = Lowest common denominator....
Glad I'm not the only Lifetime sub unhappy with the game. I too can only stand to stay logged in log enough to click a few buttons and then log off. Last time I played for any length of time was when they launched Mirkwood. Which is where the game shines. New Lands are just fun to explore. That being said. Its the ONLY aspect of the game that is awesome and that needs to change. Combat alone is the most boring and non visceral experience. It also doesn't help that one must grind monsters for deeds, which would be fine IF the combat were fun enough to merit it. It's not.
But yeah, alt play is tedious. I find I log into other characters and just can't play for long due to how slow everything feels and how I've seen it all with one character. After playing VG, Rift, WoW, Darkfall, in the last year and then coming back to Lotro, the difference in how combat feels is like night and day and makes me wonder if the combat is THE reason the game never became as successful as it should have(I mean its Lord of the Rings!) and still doesn't gather as many people as it could.
Just saying.
Coincidentaly, this is the last day of my premium sub, as I canceled it. Once you hit 65 there isnt anything to do. And with the solo focus, no one is running groups.
There is a lot to do at 65....if you like grinding, PvMP and/or crafting.
And, there are plenty of people seeking groups. Sometimes it is just a matter of asking yourself and doing it by actaully ASKING and not simply inviting.
And while you can play LOTRO without spending a dime (including sub fee) you miss out on a lot of content if you so choose that route. There are some quests you can do but they are few.
If you play LOTRO and spend one dime on any part of it, then the game is not "free" or "freemium"...it is pay to play. I dare say that if LOTRO had no one spending money on the game or if few spent money on this game that it would shutter in short order. It is not free to play.
Let's party like it is 1863!
The fact that people still like to pull the "It's a FTP" card tells people are willing to complain about anything without the facts. You can make this game a "PTP" game buy just buying a vip and get pretty much everything the game has to offer.
Anyways, good update and the instances are quite fun so far. Loving the new changes to LI's and the removal of rad.
No patch for Europe. It's delayed because of a bug in relic breakdowns, crit result don't advance the relics. New date is 24th.
Glad the patch is finally, almost, here as I've been waiting for this a long time.
No your not the only person who has a lifetime sub who is unhappy with turbine. I felt that I got my monies worth before they went free to play having been around since the game was in beta a2. I watched this game flounder for a long time.
Now it seams they are more about redoing old content every time you turn around. Folks talks about how much content lotro has, lol they not played other games.
I too log in for a few minutes a month to pay maintenance, that's about it. In fact yesterday was the first time I posted in the official lotro forums in over 2 or 3 months.
Oh well, I guess I will keep watching and waiting, but not playing.
I personally don't think full-time students have that much time to spend on MMOs. At least I don't. I just came up with an example of people who might be struggling to pay the monthly sub.
But yeah you can easily earn some money by working part-time. The minimum wage is £6 per hour so in less then two hours you will have your £9 for your monthly sub
That is if you can find a part-time job ^
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
LOTRO was a great game when it first launched (IMO). Was my favorate MMO, in fact. They used to add content at a pretty decent clip the first year or so too.
However, it's gone significantly downhill since then. Most of thier efforts recently have seem focused on making content easier to do AND more grindy at the same time. While seemingly trying to find ways to make you pay extra for stuff that used to come as part of your subscription.
It's still a pretty decent MMO.... but I think they are really loosing sight of ALOT of what made it unique and appealing in the first place....and that wasn't grinding instances over and over again to get "tokens".