A Word from the Dev’s

Yesterday saw a posting from Ransroth concerning an additional feature in the upcoming Mounts 2.0 system that didn’t make it into the recent Developer Diary.  The feature is a new key-binding that will become available that will mount a player (who has a mount they are able to ride) onto their “…last successfully-used mount”.  This fixes an issue in the upcoming system that would only allow players to dismount if they chose to use the same skill that the player used to call their current mount.  The reason that this became an issue, is that in the current mount system you can use any of your mount items (or a shortcut assigned to a mount) to dismount yourself; regardless of the mount that you are riding.  This change in the 2.0 system not only resolves this issue, but should also clear up a slot or two on players quickslot bars.  Ransroth also states that the team also has some ideas on some possible future features such as picking a “favorite” mount or the ability to have a mount selected at random.  I personally use the dismount button to get off the horse, but I very much like the idea of a key-binding as I have plenty of space on my Fang Gamepad for a new binding.

Today we saw a post from Orion titled Problems and Solutions #1 since he speculates that there may in fact be more problems down the line that he wishes to speak about.  However, the problem that he is focused on in this writing is the epic storyline requiring others to assist any player that wishes to complete the different chapters in the book; something which I think we can all agree is an issue, especially with Volume 1.  Orion stresses that the story is the central part of the game, and although having group content worked so well when it was new to everyone, 2 years down the road it becomes more of a challenge to find a group willing to go through the content that it does to complete the content successfully.  Turbine’s solution is the following:

The Solution? Moments of inspiration. These are the moments when your character digs deep into their reserves and finds something more. Whether this is drawn from the people around them or from their own sense of purpose these are the moments inspiring greatness.

Starting with Volume 1, Book 2 – completely revamped and restructured in the upcoming release on December 1st, the Epic Book series will be getting treatment to identify key moments in your character’s life. These types of moments will allow your character to don the mantle or heroism and fight against far greater odds.

Inspired Greatness does the following for a player:

Increases morale and power significantly, increases in-combat and out-of-combat morale and power regeneration, increases damage output from melee, ranged and tactical sources, increases healing output for all healing skills.

Through this we will be able address the problem highlighted above and apply the solution to all the Books comprising Volume 1 of the story of The Lord of the Rings Online.

From what it sounds like, completing Volume 1 will be possible for (hopefully) one person to accomplish on their own.  As someone who recently tried to duo 1.7.8 the other day with Goldenstar and myself both being level 55 and still failing we certainly hope this is what this means.  It looks to be exclusive to Volume 1, but I’m sure that once we all move to Volume 3 or their statistics point that people are not completing the epic storyline in Volume 2 due to difficulty appropriate changes will be made.   Hopefully though we will see the content created along the line of skirmishes where you can do the content solo or with a group.  (Turbine has already stated that some of the epic story line will be a solo quest that can later be revisited as a group skirmish.)

I for one am thrilled about this since I have found the task of completing Volume 1 not only daunting, but also an imposition that I am placing on others.  It also means that I can potentially complete these tasks on my alternates, which makes me very happy indeed.

Updates from Orion:

• It appears the changes have been made only for Book 1 and Book 2, which makes me want to throw a huge fit.  I know that there is a “time crunch” here with Mirkwood, but come on…Orion does say that more will be included in the future.  Waaaah!  Although one good point from a player is that if they update one book every 3-4 months then it’s going to take a while for people to actually finish Volume 1.  Here’s hoping that once Orion irons out the system it’s fairly easy to get things a’rollin’!
• This change implements both a solo version and a fellowship version of the instance.  So far completing one only opens that version for repetition via the reflecting pool.  Orion is working on a way to make completing one open both versions.
• You can still do the fellowship version if you wish.
• Only solo instances will get the the bonus. Meaning that you either have to solo the content or do it in fellowship mode.  No duos for Goldenstar and myself and although this upsets us some, at this point we’d rather just get it done.