f13.net

Linky. (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Volume_3_Book_2_Official)

:drill:

oh, I missed that, thats nice.

Oh hell yeah, no more inventory tetris!

Good changes overall, I like. (still sad about the removal of swift travel, though)

Swift Travel's gone in the same the Moors are.  It's a VIP-only thing.

Now, that makes a Premium account slightly terrible, but I think that's part of the point.

From the chat transcript: (http://www.casualstrolltomordor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Turbine-Volume-3-Book-2-WarCry-Chat.pdf)


:ye_gods:

 :oh_i_see:

I want to hear more about this. Way to drop a bomb and then leave.

Seems there is no more to say, its going away, nothing else has been confirmed. Like what, if anything will replace it.

I'm more interested in when, though I imagine that it ends up being the obvious Isengard expansion answer.

Best I have read is somewhere in the next few updates, but not this week.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=4954520#post4954520

You have acquired [24,201 Skirmish Marks].

Yeah. Didn't know where to put this. That's what met me on login with my main, followed by 5-8 minutes of new deed awards popping up, many with associated Turbine Points.

Its awesome.  Unless you get no TP :/

According to the store, I have ~350.

I've been told the skirmish marks were returned because skirmish soldiers were re-leveled.

Mine was at 68. This is going to be a lot of clicking to reconstruct. >_<

I only managed to log in for a tiny bit before wife aggro.  I saw the bit about opening the store in the character screen before entering the game, did anyone not do this and is it tied to mislaid TP?  I opened the store interface and it was indeed slow as shit, never actually loading up My Account before I had to log (the stuck brightness bug is still there for me).  Of course, that's probably why Turbine gave us the head start, so the serious players could sort their inventories before newbies arrived.

I have actual work to do today that I can't shirk so :heartbreak:

Played a bit at lunch. Didn't notice a lot of difference, but I'm in Moria, still have all my bags and quests, didn't access my bank at all and only had about 45 minutes to play. The client does seem a little laggier at times, just weird graphical hitches instead of smoothness. Supposedly got a bunch of Turbine Points, but the store said I only had 10. Got Skirmish marks and legendary item points refunded, though didn't know what for.

They redid how the soldier levels are broken down, in addition to adding those first ten levels at the bottom, so they reset all your solider traits to 1 and refunded the marks.

Item XP's LIs are a similar story.  They redid a few legacies so everyone's IXP spent points were reset.

I spent some time moving shit around various inventories and eventually decided "fuck it" once I had my wardrobe filled.  Wondering when I'm going to get my TP deposit from being a VIP.  Looked at buying some TP but I'm not ready to spend $20 on ten wardrobe slots.

I got a horse for Fatwing.  I then forgot about the soldier reset and jumped into Trouble at Tuckborough.  There was trouble, alright.

The animations and whatnot are smoother for me, which I'm attributing to DX11 and the ATI 5870, somehow.  Combat animations in particular are smoother, and I'm very sure I am not imagining it.  Although I do like doing that.

Some jerkwad complained in OOC (forgot to drop out of it on my mule apparently) that this is the worst inventory system in any MMO ever.  I'm guessing he's new to the genre.  In any case I approve of the change, it's definitely a step up from the prior system.

And, holy crap at the deeds!  I got a semi just looking at them.

I had my 4500 points or whatever from the get-go. The first things I bought were the various Return to <Place> skills I didn't have.  :awesome_for_real:

Are you a hunter?  Or can we buy permanent transport skills for non hunters?

I am avoiding spending any TP until they figure shit out.   I have had different amounts everytime I log in!

Not a hunter. I'm talking about the things like Return to Thorin's Gate or Return to Rivendell - they're normally tied to the big factions, but you can buy them through the store if you don't already have them.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1725660/LOTRO/CraftInstiancePort.jpg)

 :drill:

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1725660/LOTRO/Maptobree.jpg)

Forums look back up - http://forums.lotro.com/

So far my rule of thumb is only spend points on things that are permanent. Return skills, the passive permanent stat boosts, maybe a mount, that kind of thing. The X for Y minutes or 'do this thing once' things strike me as a bad deal. Once I have all the permanent stuff, then my 500 free points per month can go to other stuff maybe - or maybe they'll go to getting an alt all that permanent stuff too.

Sad thing is, the store will not show you things you already have or cant use. So i can find how much the riding skill thingy is.

Man, my 150 TP looks pretty sad next to yours.  Stupid Turbine!  I was in the alpha!  I need reparations!  Rabble!  Rabble!

TBH, I would not spend anything right now. Let them sort out the totals. I'm sure you have more than that.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1725660/LOTRO/Levelandtype.jpg)

Level and type now displayed on the quest window at the top. Kinda fancy.

I'll have more than 150 when it's all sorted, pretty sure.  That 150 is from completed deeds, and presumably quests but I only verified some deeds give TP.

Also, yea, more fancy.  The indicators under skirmish allies look better, my skill effects look better, my combat animations look better, and my horse looks less plastic.  Some of that is DX11, I'm sure.  Quest level/type is great, those old icons were ass.

Screen shot? sadly, I don't have a dx11 card :(

I am 99% sure they improved combat even more.  Very noticable if you play a warden - response is like BAM.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/f2p-queue.png)

Under DX10, the new chimney smoke looks really, really bad. 'Shopped over the rest of the game bad.

I'm someone else who hasn't gotten all their TP's.  Also, it sounds like a Premium player can buy the Return To skills and have insta-travel of a sort.  Going to look into that. 

Maybe it's teh shiny of a new patch, but in DX10 the game looked better somehow. 

Requested screens.

Here's where I see the Skirmish Ally rings more clearly:

Here is a case where the effects look better for me.  Some are more detailed and some are new, like the small blue shield over my head:

More effects plus a smoky fire in the background:

Better-looking ring at Fatwing's feet.  Note the target ring appears to be less detailed:

A great shot of how smoke appears better to me.  The drake swooping down on Gondamon through smoke:

The result seems a bit fuzzy even though I didn't resize these, just crop.  Paint.NET.  Looks better in motion.

I am still missing points, but looks like they got all the ones in that I earned in the last 24 hours at least.  Just waiting on those sweet, sweet retroactive ones!

Damn.  Wanted to exploit - I mean, run it some more - this evening.  I wonder if the other branches are as profitable as the first one?

I wonder what it was.  I was in there for two hours and got one lousy mark.

Stealing from the LotRO thread on Elitist Jerks: