These changes will be in Thursday's update!
Of Special Note
Monster play is in!
Click here for more information!Players now have access to all of Angmar. Welcome to Carn Dűm!
The region of Bree-land has been expanded even further! Players can now access the north-eastern reaches of Bree-land. (Rumor has it that a horse stable and "Tag" fields can be found in the newly expanded areas.)
Food has replaced the rest skill. Be sure to stock up on tasty treats to keep yourself well fed and ready for action!
Cheers to the Beta Testers! Tavern Keeps throughout Middle-earth now sell beer, cider, and wine! Please drink responsibly, and no brawling!
Introducing Avatar moods! See the Graphics/Animation section for more details.
You can now open a window to the Encyclopedia of Arda by typing "/webjournal"
Gameplay
Lore-masters are now required to wield a staff; however, at higher levels they are able to dual-wield staff and sword via a Legendary Trait.
Fixed an issue with archery and conjunctions no working properly. Conjunctions now work with Crossbows.
Level 5 & 6 Conjunctions now have additional effects:
Might = Skill is now Area-of-Effect with level 6 having a larger radius than 5.
Guile = Skill now has a countdown effect that will slow the attack/movement of the target after 15 seconds and reduce the target’s power.
Conviction = Level 5 Conviction dispels fear effects; Level 6 dispels fear and wound effects.
Tactics = Level 5 & 6 Tactics Skills will now summon a temporary shade ally to assist the summoner in battle.
Conjunctions have undergone a rebalancing pass.
Guile Conjunctions (Yellow) now deal their overtime damage over a longer period of time.
Conviction Conjunctions (Green) now apply their HOT effects over a longer period of time and at a reduced total value.
Class Trainers can now be found in Gondamon.
Hunter traps, Goblin burning oil, Wight disease cloud, etc. can now be resisted as intended.
You are no longer able to execute conjunctions on players or monster players. This should balance out player vs. monster player battles in the Ettenmoors.
The conjunction assist button should be working again.
Power and Morale potions are no longer usable in combat.
Skills
Players will have their racial characteristics/passive skills again.
Song of Aid function change! Song of Aid now gives out combat events to your fellowship as well as enabling the Lore-master to temporarily act as a better healer, by lessening his skill reset time on Beacon of Hope.
The Hunter skill "Guide to Rivendell" should function properly now.
The Champion's Dire Need skill has changed.
It now is on a 30 minute reset timer.
It now takes half the Champion's Power and turns it into Morale.
You can only track things up to 1km away. Beyond that, tracking will stop.
Burglars can now deactivate improved versions of Sneak by pressing the skill hotkey button again.
Burglars can now track treasure.
Players can now queue up 'response' skills before the event that enables them is available. This should make Minstrel ballad 'twisting' a bit easier to manage, and improve the Guardian’s ability to execute block- and/or parry-initiated response skill chains.
Rollover states have been added to the skill trainer's list of active skills.
Flashing Blade has been renamed Tower Blade.
When you double-click on a trainable passive skill (and you have enough money), you will purchase the skill.
Traits/Accomplishments
Champion Traits had a balance pass.
The Hunter’s “Arrow Storm” accomplishment has been lowered to Tier 3, while “Hasty Recovery” has been raised to Tier 4. The numbers required to complete both have been altered to reflect this.
Titles can now display rank and surname correctly.
Corrected issues with executing skills that were altered by Traits, e.g. the Guardian’s "Vexing Blow" will now correctly act like an area-effect skill when transformed by the "Harasser" Trait.
When you receive a new title, the name of the title is included in the alert mouseover tooltip.
Double-clicking Traits when talking to a bard will slot or unslot them.
You can drag and drop (slotted) Traits out of the window and they will be unslotted.
You can drag and drop Traits onto existing Trait slots and they will be replaced.
User Interface
Items, Skills, and Traits that have no description no longer display a blank "Description:" in examination.
Fixed a problem where you wouldn't see the quantity of an item attached to a letter.
Fixed a bug where the pet quickslot bar would always show, even if you turned it off.
Potions and traps no longer appear grey when placed in quickslots.
The toolbar now shrinks to fit 800x600 screen resolutions.
A new keymapping has been added to allow for item sell locking from within your backpack. Locked items now show a lock overlay on their icon. Items that are unusable now have a red outline rather than being ghosted out.
When you go to sell items, the "show lock status" defaults to on.
The “Sell All” button will now gray out if you have nothing to sell.
If more than one tutorial hint pops up at the same time, closing the first one will now reveal the second.
You can close the options panel while creating a new character using the "close" button at the top of the panel.
You can no longer double-click to enter the game with a character; you must use the "Enter Middle-earth" button.
The class name in the character panel will now display and localize correctly.
/friend list and /friend remove will now work correctly.
Your opponent's vital text is now white (when numbers are toggled on).
You will now see a class icon for players (and monster players) next to their portrait.
You can click and drag your avatar to rotate it in the character journal, inspection UI, and dressing room.
Fixed the options on showing/hiding cloaks/helms/boots.
Sorting and layering of panels is better.
The bank display can move and remember its location.
When "Others’ damage" is toggled on, you don't have to have "my damage" also toggled on to see it.
The Alert Listbox can be moved.
The progress bar will reappear after moving it with ctrl-\
Quickslots with nothing in them will no longer block clicks.
Keyboard Commands/Mouse Controls
There are now keymaps for cycling through PCs (F9, Shift+F9, Ctrl+F9) and NPCs (F10, Shift+F10, Ctrl+F10)
More panels will respect the ESC key when pressed. “Respect mah authoritay!”
The left shift key will now show up as "Left Shift" instead of "Shift" in the keymap.
Some text fields have input filtering on them. For example, the crafting panel will not allow you to enter letters into the "make" field.
Tooltips for statistics on your character sheet are now displayed when you mouseover the label for the statistic as well as the numeric value.
Comparison tooltips now show the same information as regular tooltips.
The XP bar now has a tooltip!
If you are not the leader of your current fellowship, you can now see the loot rules by right-clicking on your portrait (just like if you were the leader, and were changing the loot rules).
Holding shift while right-clicking on corpses and other containers will auto-loot.
We now have master looting. When in master looting mode, all items above the current threshold will be sent to the leader of the fellowship (or raid). The leader will be able to assign the items to anyone in the fellowship (or raid).
Auction System
Changes to the Auction UI:
o It now properly keeps track of the number of bids on a given item.
o It now more accurately updates itself when a player has been outbid.
o The Search button should be more responsive when searching through categories.
o It’s now possible to unselect a search category by clicking on it a second time.
o Fixed an error which would cause the concede button to fail.
Crafting
Every starting area now has a quest to guide you to that region's crafting center.
The ovens by the Party Tree at Bag End are now crafting forges!
The fifth tier of crafting quests have been enabled.
Several crafting quests have been added to Combe and Bree. Craft the necessary items yourself, or barter with a fellow crafter!
Removed some erroneous quest rewards from crafting quests in Bree-land.
The Shire and the Ered Luin now have quests to show you the location of an early crafting center.
In the Crafting UI, Mastery Options no longer accidentally grey out until you log out and log back in.
When adding a new recipe, the recipe list will be updated immediately.
Craft Services (Trainers, Provisioner, Facilities) have been added to Gondamon.
A bunch of ingredient items were using placeholder icons. These have now been updated to use the correct icons.
Crafting ingredients and components can now be stacked to a maximum of 50.
Scholars: Crafting profession lore scroll effects no longer stack. A more powerful scroll's effects will override the weaker scroll's effects. Scrolls of equivalent power will simply overwrite one another.
Many Tier 4 & 5 Jeweller, Metalworking, Scholar, Tailor, Weaponsmith, and Woodworking critical result items can now be inscribed.
New craft recipes are now added to the game as rare treasure drops.
Medium crafted armor is now medium armor, not light.
New craft recipes have been added to all levels of loot!
New buttons exist on the crafting panel that let you add or subtract from the number of items you want to make.
The craft panel expands all of the recipes by default. New buttons exist to Expand and Collapse the whole tree.
Items
We now check loot permission of the fellowship (or raid) when looting chests. If an item above the current threshold is in the chest it will be rolled on or master looted like any other looted item.
You should be able to buy back items which were sold in a 21+ quantity stack.
Player weapons that were once doing Shadow damage are now changed to do Light damage.
Gladius has been renamed to the ever-so-classic, "Shortsword. "
Only the high level Neekerbreekers now have a chance of dropping Ichor.
Icons for earrings have been updated.
The wounding effect from weapons no longer does initial damage on top of the damage-over-time.
Descriptions on some elven heavy armor called it "leather," which is inaccurate and now fixed.
The Robe of Lothlórien’s min level has been updated to be level 33.
Kinships
References to "Guild" in options panel changed to "Kinship."
Kinship titles are now themed depending on the theme you have chosen, and titles are granted accordingly!
Kinships now have Lifespan Ranks. The longer your kinship has been around, the more features your kinship will have access to! The current and next rank can be found on the Kinship page in the Social Panel.
o Rank 1 – default rank
o Rank 2 – Leader and Officer can set Kinship message of the day
o Rank 3 – Kinship Only Titles are enabled
o Rank 4 – Officer chat is available
o Rank 5 – Kinship Only Auctions are available
o Rank 6 – Kinship Only Mail is available
You can now use the "add" button in the kinship panel to add any player, not just ones you have selected.
Character Creation
Players can now elect to have a surname (last name). When a Player reaches level 15, they can seek out a Notary in town. The Notary will allow the Player to set or change their surname for a small fee.
Graphics/Animation
The Green Dragon bartender no longer makes arcane motions with her hands (she was wiping an invisible bar, you see).
Avatar Moods: When players log in they can now set the "mood" of their character using one of the following commands (at present, these moods are not persistent across logins). The avatar’s mood determines their facial animation when idling:
/mood_surprised
/mood_solemn
/mood_sleepy
/mood_sad
/mood_mischevious
/mood_happy
/mood_fearful
/mood_confused
/mood_apprehensive
/mood_angry
Lore-masters are now set up to support sword/staff combat animations.
Crossbows should now function properly when used in combat.
Lore-masters & Hunters should now animate properly when using the following skills. Previously they were skipping parts of the animation sequence:
Leechcraft
Purge Poison
Tend the Sick
Texture smearing behind the Ram Duath defeat circle has been cleaned up.
Various terrain texture seams in the North Downs have been fixed.
The river running between Carn Dűm and Urugarth now has the correct terrain textures running its length.
Players will no longer sheath their weapons before finishing their last attack at the end of combat.
Players will no longer keep their weapons equipped after executing beneficial skills out of combat.
World
Monsters should be more lively now; they should wander the landscape again instead of standing around and staring at their feet (or paws, claws, etc.).
Fixed a bug where players could get trapped behind Archet.
Players should find more wolves to kill at Tham Gelair near Celondim.
Fornost finally got its animating doors.
Built and decorated the Helegrod Treasury dungeon.
Modifications have been made to the walls of Fornost to prevent players from getting outside of the boundaries of the world.
An inescapable pit in the Meluinen Etten Caves has been backfilled.
Various floating objects in the North Downs and Angmar have been grounded.
Some "Sulfur Cups" in Thorhad have had their placement adjusted to mitigate physics issues.
Floating Support beams in one of the houses in Trestlebridge now have a stone wall to support them.
Various objects in the North Downs have had their placement adjusted to prevent players from getting stuck.
The Circle of Blood in West Angmar has been renamed Fail-á-Khro as there already was a Circle of Blood in the Lone-lands. (Enough with the bloody circles already!)
Travel/Maps/Radar
All travel routes should have a reciprocal return route. No more long walks home!
Maps now have Fog of War for all major areas.
There is now a button you can press to end travel. Pressing keys will no longer interrupt your travel.
The icon for the Stable in Duillond should now appear on the radar.
The Uruk Cave dungeon map should now more accurately reflect its interior.
Fog of War remains discovered in dungeons if you switch maps to the world.
Fellowship directional (radar) arrows won't be displayed when the radar is hidden.
Miscellaneous
Goblins who wield spears are no longer called "Archer."
The Whitehand Archer name has been fixed.
Fixed a problem where monsters would get stuck spinning in circles.
You should no longer see the "world's full" message when you don't have to wait in the world queue.
Changes to the launcher have been made. It:
o should no longer error on operating systems that are set to use a comma as decimal point.
o will now continuously take a number after first launch if you are running in tray mode.
o will now shut down correctly if you close it while queuing.
Voice chat enabling/disabling will no longer loop on a short sound segment. Additionally, if a party member was voice chatting when you exited to character selection, you will not have a repeating sound there either.
The Raven is now immune to root effects.
Fixed a monster play exploit in which players received renown when they died from falling.
Fixed a bug where a player (in monster play) could get stuck in the Ettenmoors near Ost Ringdyr.
Fixed a bug where a monster player could get into Glan Vraig.
You can no longer use milestones until you leave the newbie area.
Fixed a bug with monsters that was causing some combat 'hit' sounds to play for the incorrect target material type.
Fixed an issue that was occasionally causing defeated monsters to remain standing for several seconds before falling over and becoming lootable.
Fixed another bug that could lead to 'standing corpses' of defeated foes.
Quests
General:
Quest rewards added for East Angmar and Epic Angmar.
Five new quests have been added to the new farm north of Bree.
Carn Dűm and Misty Mountains raids are now lockable, meaning they’re timed and reset at consistent intervals.
There’s a new fellowship quest for the Fornost instance.
Book 2 has been reworked to be longer, and provide more explanation for the events happening in the Lone-lands.
Icons will once again appear on the mini-map for hungry and nosey hobbits.
Many Lone-lands quest arcs and side quests have had their prerequisites removed or relaxed.
The brothers Eilig, Machar, and Torquil have been moved closer together at Aughaire, as they give related quests.
Class quests:
Class Trainers have arrived in Gondamon, and they bring with them their proper on-ramps for the Class Quests.
Superior Facilities Crafting Quests have been unlocked and should now be accessible.
Stumped on the riddles for “A Lore-master's Will?” Now, all the Lore-master trainers throughout Eriador (and those with a professional interest in riddling) can share their thoughts on the solutions with you!
The level 15 Lore-master quest has been reworked to use the new library, rather than the old “bookshelves in a cave” library. Phew!
Adjusted the levels of monsters involved in Level 15 and Level 30 Class Quests.
Rewards have been added to level 30 and 50 class quests.
The enemies involved in the Guardian, Captain, and Champion class quests have become less experienced, and the stalwarts opposed to them have become stronger.
Replaced use of “sulfur” with “brimstone” in items used by the Level 45 class quests.
Specific quests:
The following quests have been tweaked to be solo-able:
o “The Call of Precious Things, Part II”
o “A Taste of Skill, Part II”
o “The Heart of the Wood, Part II”
o “The Thickest of Skins, Part II”
o “The Strength of the Smith, Part II”
The "Snow-lurkers" of the Misty Mountains have been given the correct snowy appearance.
The quest “Beyond the Ram Duath” has had its challenge level raised to 42 to match the challenge level of quests in West Angmar.
We reduced the required quantities of plants for the “Herbs and Simples” quest by over 50%!
Cole Culvert's lackeys in “A Shield Against Adversity” are slightly more experienced than they were, and Cole himself is now a signature threat.
Slade Ransford is now Signature, and is no longer made of tissue paper. The orcs that used to walk down the stairs solely to pound him into mush are now on a permanent coffee break.
Removed the mention of keeping the sword at the conclusion of “A Burglar's Errand.” That was just a bad idea.
Added a new objective to the end of “The Ailing Hound” where you speak with Longo Daegmund again.
Edited the text of “The Quarry in Scary” to mention that you should bring friends.
Despite his inflated sense of importance, Mundo Sackville-Baggins will no longer give you “the Mundo's Letter.”
Added descriptions to items involved in the Shire Epic Prologue.
Ensured that Rollo Maggot has his name rather than the mysterious moniker, “Young Hobbit.”
Armed Rollo Maggot with a sword. Hoped it won't end badly.
Leland Underhill has been moved to the West Gate of Bree.
Fixed an issue with “A Song for the Company” that caused few of the enemies to appear.
Elves and dwarves set aside their differences and rejoice! “Assault on Rath Teraig” is once again completeable.
The “Honey-bears” quest has been updated for technical reasons and now requires you to defend Polo himself from the bears, not his beehive.
Halbarad, Nellie, Gildor, and Dori can now be found in the Esteldin library after a certain point in Book 3.
The goblins for the “Clear The Way” quest in the Ered Luin are now present in reasonable numbers.
The “Sharkey's Plan” chest location should now be a bit more solo-friendly; we thinned out the encounter there a little.
For the quest “Leaving Middle Earth, directions to the tree have been clarified, and the tree itself has been made more distinctive.
The NPC in the “Shadow of the White Hand” quest will now be present throughout the nighttime hours and will respawn rapidly after he is killed or after the quest is successful. No more waiting for him.
In the “Plundered Port” quest, the player can no longer pick up the same treasure box more than once.
The Bone Man wasn't respawning properly if people were present and waiting for him. He will now show up within 30 seconds of his defeat if someone with the quest is present. In addition, the Bone Man was improperly set to be a level 20 Signature foe -- he has been changed to be a level 18 Elite as is appropriate for a level 18 fellowship quest.
The Great Barrows instance has had minor changes to it, including:
o Bosses all reset properly and are no longer exploitable.
o Levels have changed from 20-25 to 18-25.
o Monsters have been thinned a little bit.
o 50% more fun added!
Level-up quests:
· The “Level-up” quests have been greatly changed:
They are now bestowed after the "Assault on Archet" or "Skorgrím's Tomb" instances have been completed. When the instance quest has been completed, speak to Celandine or Dwalin to receive the level up quest. This change was made to help with server performance. NOTE: These quests cannot be completed outside of the instance, so if you leave the instance you cannot get the level up quest with that character!
The level up quest no longer gives you money as part of its reward. This will prevent the game from getting flooded with free money and allow us to gather good economic data.
Now that you are no longer given money, you will receive all the skills you would have normally received had you leveled the character normally. You will also receive a suite of equipment to outfit your character.
The level up quest will also complete basic class accomplishments you would have normally done had you leveled the character up normally. Note, though, that you will still need to do your class quests to get your class accomplishments. You will also not be given any virtues.
Note that since you are not given any money, you will need to earn enough money to slot your traits.
To help with server performance, on completing the level up quest, the character will be teleported to one of four locations, depending on the character's class.
If your character has completed a level up quest, they will also have access to a crafting level up quest. After learning a vocation, speak to the Master of Apprentices again. They will now offer a level up quest for each profession in your vocation. Completion of this quest will give you Journeyman profiency and Apprentice mastery in that profession.
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