A Casual Stroll to Mordor

Updated Developer Diary

Posted on 07. Oct, 2009 by Merric in General, LotRO News, Turbine

Doc Holiday and I were able to chat some last night while we playing on our Cor Pethroni characters and he made me aware that the Dev Diary posted yesterday concerning Legendary Items had been updated and was causing a bit of a stir. 

Here is was what was added:

Heritage Rune Changes (Legendary Item XP Runes)
Heritage runes found in Mines of Moria™ will have a maximum target item level of 60. You will be able to use these heritage runes on any legendary item of stat level 60 and below. Moria heritage runes *cannot* be used on stat level 61+ legendary items found in Siege of Mirkwood™.
We will be introducing a new set of heritage runes which can be used on all legendary items with Siege of Mirkwood.

Legendary items received that fit the following requirements will produce both a Moria heritage rune and a Mirkwood heritage rune upon deconstruction:

• The legendary item must be at experience level 60 (or 61-70 if a level unlock scroll was used on the item).
• The legendary item must be either a first age or second age item.
• The legendary item is stat level 60 or below.

This change will allow players to produce a Mirkwood heritage rune from deconstructing their maxxed out first age or second age legendary item from Moria for use with their new Mirkwood legendary item. Please note that the Mirkwood heritage rune received from these deconstructions will be a rune of lesser experience value than the Moria heritage rune received.

What is a Heritage Rune?

Heritage Runes are items that grant Item Experience to a Legendary Item and can be obtained either through deconstructing a Legendary Item or through random drops off of mobs.  The higher the level a Legendary Item is when it is deconstructed, the more experience a Heritage Rune is likely to grant.  Heritage Runes that drop off of mobs usually grant between one and four thousand experience.

What Does This Change Mean?

As Doc pointed out to me last night, this might upset a few individuals who have been stockpiling their runes.  As you can see from his post though, that he’s ok with the changes.

From my experience, it is not an uncommon practice for developers to make these kinds of changes upon the release of new content for several reasons:

1. It allows the developers a more narrow focus of concentration for the future.
2. It encourages players to move onto new content.
3. It ensures that players will get the maximum benefit from the new areas rather than having to spend more time “farming” old content (which may now be remarkably easier for the better geared and higher level characters).

Now I’m not sure if any of these reasons are part of Turbine’s reasoning, but it gives you some ideas as to maybe why these changes are forthcoming.  And also, those runes aren’t completely worthless either since the way I read the diary, the existing items aren’t going to be changed with the new/updated Legacies.  If this is true, then most people who are using a Third or Second Age who might switch to a newly dropped Moria weapon.  Unlikely, but possible.

Of course, I could be wrong, but like I said before… We’ll have to wait and see.

Update**

I want to thank Green Armadillo for pointing out the post was a little confusing.  I think what threw me off a bit was that the Dev Diary first said “item level” then it said “stat level”.  So my thought process was that the Moria runes would work on Mirkwood legendary items as long as they had not reached item level 61.  Now, this still could be true as I haven’t seen a Dev Tracker yet; however, upon re-reading it several times I think it means that if the item stat level is 61+ then you can only use runes found in the new land.

I told you I could be wrong!

Tags: legendary items, LotRO News, moria, Siege of Mirkwood