Patch Notes - February 13th, 2008

From Lotro-Wiki.com

Contents 1 Welcome to Book 12: The Ashen Wastes! 1.1 Of Special Note: 1.1.1 Class Updates 1.1.2 Player Customization: 1.1.3 Monster play 1.1.4 New/Updated Content 1.1.5 Angmar 1.1.6 Continuation of the Epic Storyline 1.1.7 Spring Festival! 1.1.8 Housing 1.1.9 New Systems 1.1.10 Miscellaneous “You asked for it!” features: 1.2 Classes/Skills 1.2.1 Burglar 1.2.2 Captain 1.2.3 Champion 1.2.4 Guardian 1.2.5 Hunter 1.2.6 Lore-master 1.2.7 Minstrel 1.3 Monster Play 1.4 Crafting 1.4.1 Cook 1.4.2 Jeweller 1.4.3 Metalsmith 1.4.4 Prospector 1.4.5 Tailor 1.4.6 Scholar 1.4.7 Weaponsmith 1.5 Items 1.5.1 General 1.5.2 Armour 1.5.3 Weapons 1.5.4 General Loot 1.6 Pets/Companions 1.7 World 1.8 User Interface 1.8.1 General 1.8.2 Fellowship 1.8.3 Tooltips 1.9 Systems 1.9.1 Housing 1.9.2 Reputation 1.9.3 Auctions 1.9.4 Chat/Social 1.9.5 Emotes 1.9.6 Music System 1.10 Audio 1.11 Graphics/Animation/FX 1.12 Legendary Accomplishments 1.13 Miscellaneous 1.14 Quests 1.14.1 General 1.14.2 Specific Quests 1.14.3 Monster play Quests 1.14.4 Angmar Quests

Welcome to Book 12: The Ashen Wastes!

Welcome to the latest free content update for The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™! Among the many items featured in Book 12 are a revamp of the Angmar region, updates to the Burglar, Champion, and Guardian classes, improvements and additions to the Reputation system, social clothing, a new cosmetic inventory system, barber-shops (and new hairstyles to go with them), and the introduction of The Delving of Frór! Read on for details on all this and more!

Of Special Note:

Class Updates

• Month of the Burglar
  • With new skills granted as low as level 20 and with many filling out the top 10 levels, the Burglar gets new stealth skills, Fellowship Manoeuvre response skills, a positional damage buff, shared stealth, and a new mode of play called “Mischief” which emphasizes the Burglar’s Tricks and crowd control… just to name a few. For more information, please see the release notes below and the accompanying developer diary, “The Month of the Burglar” at http://www.lotro.com/article/483.
• Month of the Guardian
  • The Guardian has received new tanking related skills and has had some additional adjustments that should improve its tanking role. For more information, please see the release notes below and the accompanying developer diary, “The Month of the Guardian” at http://www.lotro.com/article/481.
• Month of the Champion, part 2
  • The Champion has received another pass, with several new skills added, updates to Legendary skills, the addition of a new stance (Ardour), and changes to the Glory stance. For more information, please see the release notes below and the accompanying developer diary, “The Month of the Champion, Part 2” at http://www.lotro.com/article/484.

Player Customization:

• New player housing Decoration and Taxidermy items
• Cosmetic-only Inventory
• Travelling Clothes
• Post-character creation “haircuts”
• Housing Neighborhood “improvements”
• Non-weapon wieldables/wearables

Monster play

• Troll and Ranger session play is back!
  • Troll and Ranger sessions will have a max number of two appearing at any given time. One session will always be present for either faction. The second session appears only when your faction is losing the fight in the Ettenmoors (ie. You control fewer than three locations.)
• New class skills!
• New armor, weapon, and jewellery sets!
• Introducing The Delving of Frór, a large PvMP dungeon
  • The Delving of Frór is a dungeon controlled by the faction – of monster players and players – currently winning the battle in the Ettenmoors. An aggressive reward system serves as the central theme for The Delving of Frór using the bartering system implemented in Book 10. Uniquely flavored wings, new monsters and encounters highlight the dungeon space.

New/Updated Content

• Level 10-20 content
• Many Fellowship and Small Fellowship quests downgraded in difficulty to be Solo or Small Fellowship.
• Several Instance and Escort quests reviewed and modified to be less difficult for solo players
• Quest arcs smoothed out to have more logical level progressions

Angmar

• Polish and fixes
• New content!
• For more information, please see “The Great Angmar Revamp” at http://www.lotro.com/article/473 and details on specific quests at http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=113878

Continuation of the Epic Storyline

• 10-Quest Arc for Book 12

Spring Festival!

• Celebrate spring in Middle-earth with a series of fun quests and surprises
  • New dance steps!
  • New foods and drinks!
  • New mini-game – Bullroarer’s Challenge!
  • There’s lots more, but we’d rather not spoil the surprises!

Housing

• Now all characters on your account share in the privileges of home ownership! All characters get the fast travel to personal home skill, and all characters get a discount at the neighborhood vendors. Note: Only the character who purchased the house can abandon it.
• Usable Hooked Items
• Light candles in your home!
• Decoration Rotation – rotate objects!
• Bound-item Support
• Better Housing Ownership Identification
• Owner’s Name displays as you approach their house – never wonder if you’re at the right house again!

New Systems

• /reported! New anti-spam tools
  • A new button on the Mail UI allows players to report a selected mail message as spam.
  • A new entry in the Player -> Chat context-sensitive menu allows players to report chat messages as spam.
  • Note: If you report another player for chat spam, the alleged spammer is automatically added to your Ignore list.
• Introducing the new Outfit System! LOTRO now supports cosmetic outfits so you can configure your appearance separately from your main inventory. If you have reached level 20, look for the new options in your character journal.
  • You can map keys to select which outfit you want to present to your fellow inhabitants of Middle-earth. Look under Options/Key Mapping/Cosmetic Outfit Selection.
  • Added new options for turning off shoulders & gloves. All the slot visibility toggles are now available from a checkbox on the character journal next to each slot. The options to turn off your helm, cloak, and boots are no longer available from the options menu.
  • New cosmetic (i.e., stat-less items intended for your cosmetic inventory slots) hauberks, backpacks, quivers, and social clothing are now available!
• Barber NPCs have been added to major towns in the game. Choose from all Eriador’s latest hairstyle trends!
• Generic Equipables - items that can be equipped by all “regular” players, regardless of class and equipment proficiencies. These items are visible to other players!
  • Pitchfork
  • Shovel
  • Bouquet of flowers
  • Backpacks and quivers!

Miscellaneous “You asked for it!” features:

• The LOTRO opening cinematic movie is now only played the first time the game is launched. If you wish to watch it again, it can be found in the movie library at the character select screen.
• A wonderful new product called Dye Wash is now available at your local tailor! Dye Wash will remove dye colour from a piece of clothing or armour, returning it to its base color. Don’t delay, get yours today!
• Item wear is removed when you’re revived after losing a sparring match.
• The Epic armour sets are now dyeable!
• Added a new option to allow players to always auto-loot corpses and other containers when opened. You will find the "Always Loot All" option in "Misc" section of the UI Settings tab on the Options panel.
• By popular request, we have placed a mailbox near the Auctioneers in the Rivendell Valley – no more schlepping up and down that hill!
• All 5 quick-slot bars can now be docked at once.
• Added a new command, /reclaim, that can be used to recreate some of your promotional items (Ring of Agility, The Fallen Star of Gil-galad, etc.) in your inventory once per week if you accidentally destroyed them. Please note that not all promotional items can be reclaimed. You must have enough space in your backpacks for all eligible items in order to execute the command, and you can only run this command once every 7 days.

On to the Release Notes!

Classes/Skills

• Ranged Attacks
  • All players (including monster and session players) with ranged auto-attacks can now right-click or double-click to start attacking from a distance.
  • We have changed ranged auto-attack to allow you to shoot while moving, but with a significant miss chance penalty. Previously you were required to be stationary to use your ranged auto-attack. A new option has been added to the "Combat Options" tab on the Options panel to allow you to use the old requirements instead of accepting the miss chance penalty while moving. The new option is called "Enable skill miss chance penalties while moving", and it is checked by default.
• Fear
  • Fear has changed in a few ways. Previously, it would break on any damage received. Now, damage from pre-existing DOT has only a very small chance to break the target out of Fear. Any attacks made on the target after 2 seconds of entering Fear will still break the target out of Fear. Additionally, the radius of the target's call for help has been halved and at most one add will respond (though pets and their masters will still pull together). This means that targets suffering from DOTs are very unlikely to break out of Fear if they are not attacked while running and they are less likely to bring adds.
  • Monsters affected by Fear will now generally run further from the source of the fear. They will also choose a narrower path away from the source, giving more reliability to the direction Fear-affected monsters run. However, cornered monsters may still choose to run past their attacker to get away.
• The elf skill “Eldar's Grace” now overrides and suppresses most of the effects of the Champion class's “Fervour” and “Ardour” stances. These stances will return to full effect once “Eldar's Grace” has expired. A side effect of this change is that “Eldar's Grace” will no longer stack with the Champion's “Sudden Defense” skill.
• Players will be able to mark Fellowship Skills (Warband Skills for monster players) as active, so a fellowship can have a target group skill to perform. The fellowship leader can select the desired skill in the Fellowship Skill panel.
• Fellowship Skills can no longer be used during spars.
• Perk Hope Buffs purchased with Destiny Points will no longer be affected by effects which dispel normal hope buffs.
• Skill trainers now display two full lines of skill information - no more chopping off the second line!
• Skills that transfer vital points from a target to the caster will now display the effect statistics when moused over. These include the monster play warband maneuvers.
• Skills that require passive skills were incorrectly identifying the need to have a trait slotted.
• “Disarm” has been changed to give a Wound resistance check to negate its effects instead of just automatically working. This change also allows players to dispel Disarm like any other Wound effect.
• Players using tracking can now right-click an entry in the entity tracking window to begin tracking it
• It is now possible for skills which apply Improved Dazed to a target to renew it before it has ended. However, it is not possible to renew Improved Dazed in the first 15 seconds after it has been applied. This is to prevent chain stunning using the first 5 seconds of the Improved Daze which does not break on damage.
• Previously the term "Characteristic" was used for "Passive Skills." For consistency, we've changed all references to "Characteristic" references in the game to "Passive Skill."
• Fixed a bug that was preventing players and monsters alike from observing skill recovery times in some cases.

Burglar

For even more information, please see the the accompanying developer diary, “The Month of the Burglar” at http://www.lotro.com/article/483.

• Improved the effects of the Burglar's Class Trait "Overwhelming Odds."
• Increased duration of all effects bestowed upon successful fellowship maneuvers.
• Increased the boost to “Mischievous Glee” healing for successful fellowship maneuvers using Conviction.
• Improved the amount of power reduction for successful fellowship maneuvers using Tactics.
• Increased the melee damage boost for successful fellowship maneuvers using Strength.
• Extended the added pulses for DOTs to "Well Placed Strike" for successful fellowship maneuvers using Guile.
• Fixed a bug where the positional damage bonus from traits was not accruing to the “Cunning Attack” skill.
• Fixed a bug where the miss-chance reduction bonus from traits was not accruing to the “Trip” skill.
• Burglar items which reduce the power cost of Tricks now also reduce the power cost of Trick-removing Twists.
• The buff to Stealth level conferred by Burglar's "Hide in Plain Sight" and the Warg's "Disappear" has been replaced with an outright protection from detection for the 10s duration of the effect. The protection from damage breaking stealth is still present. Note, however, that abilities or effects that specifically break stealth will still disrupt the Burglar or Warg's stealth.
• Fixed an issue where the Burglar’s “Riddle” skill was failing to tap when the Burglar was aggro’d by a monster.

Captain

• The Captain’s summoning horns now have nicer-looking icons.
• Increased the range of the Captain’s “Shield-brother” skill by 10 meters.
• Increased the range of all Shield-brother skills by 10 meters.
• Reduced the cooldowns of all Tactics to be negligible.
• The animations for “Noble Mark” and “Revealing Mark” are now faster.
• The Herald skills “Coordinated Attack” and “Infuriating Tactics” no longer require your target to be Marked.
• Reduced the cool-down of “Coordinated Attack” to 30 seconds.
• The Captain's Rift armour has been updated so Heralds now grant a 1% shadow mitigation buff similar to that gained by the Standards. Heralds still get their self-buff of 5% shadow mitigation.
• The cool-down on “Wrath of the Oathbreakers” has been reduced to 5 minutes.
• The cool-down on “Shield of the Dúnedain” has been reduced to 10 minutes.

Champion

For even more information, please see the accompanying developer diary, “The Month of the Champion, Part 2” at http://www.lotro.com/article/484.

• The Champion’s "Guardian's Axe" has been renamed "Champion's Axe."
• The description for the Champion’s "Braced against Defeat" trait no longer inaccurately claims to increase the amount of healing based on nearby enemies.
• Special effects used by the Champion's “Fight On” skill are now more appropriate to the effects of the skill.
• The tooltip for the Champion’s “Exchange of Blows” now displays the duration of the effect, and the effect icon now matches the skill icon. Its description has also been made more clear.
• Fixed an issue where the Champion’s skill “Boast” did not have the appropriate trainer cost.
• Corrected a spelling error for the description of the Champion trait, “Stalwart Blade.”

Guardian

For even more information, please see the accompanying developer diary, “The Month of the Guardian” at http://www.lotro.com/article/481.

• Guardians have a new level 48 skill, “Charge,” which increases run speed by 50%.
• The Guardian’s “Thrill of Danger” skill will no longer be resisted by monsters.
• The Guardian’s “Catch a Breath” skill now delivers its heal at the start of the animation.
• When using a Guardian's Acorn, the induction bar now says "Summoning Guardian..."
• The Guardian’s “Thrill of Danger” and “Warrior’s Heart” skills will now properly apply their enhanced effects when trait-slotted.
• Guardian Item Wear Updates:
  • Heavy shields now cost as much to repair as normal shields, about half what they used to cost.
  • When the “Guardian's Ward” trait is slotted, the Guardian's Ward effect will prevent 10% of all hit-based item wear. Un-slotted, it will prevent 5%.
  • “Guardian's Defense” will prevent 5% of all block-based item wear.
  • “Guardian's Parry” will prevent 5% of all parry-based item wear.
  • “Guardian's Threat” will prevent 5% of all hit-based item wear.
  • “Overpower” will prevent 5% of all parry-based item wear.
• Increased the power cost per second for the Guardian’s “Shield Wall” from 10 power per second to 25 power per second.
• The Guardian’s traited “Thrill of Danger” now has the correct cool-down time of 5 minutes.
• When wearing 4 pieces of the Hlifworth PvP set, the Guardian’s “Turn the Tables” skill recovery time will now properly reduce by 25%.
• The Guardian's “Braveheart” trait will now heal more of your morale when invoking “Warrior's Heart.”
• The Guardian’s “Thrill of Danger” skill no longer breaks mezzes; “Catch a Breath” is now blocked by Silence instead of Disarm.
• The number of uses required to earn the “Strong Lungs” trait was cut to 30% of its previous value of 100.

Hunter

• Melee Attacks/Combat
  • Most of the Hunter’s melee skills damage has increased; some skills have recovery timer increases as well.
  • Low Cut has had a slight increase to damage.
  • Agile Riposte - Significant damage increase, recovery timer increased.
  • The Hunter’s “Blindside” skill has had a damage increase, now adds 3 points of focus on use, and has an increased recovery timer from 10 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • The Hunter’s “Agile Rejoinder” will now begin execution much faster. Also, it cannot be parried, blocked, or evaded, nor will it miss against targets of your level.
  • The level where Hunters can purchase the Dual-Wield trait has been lowered from 15 to 10.
• The Hunter’s “Swift Stroke” now applies a short-term self-buff to Parry chance.
• The Hunter’s “Scourging Blow” has been given an increased chance to critical on both the melee attack and Barbed Arrow removal damage.
• Barbed Arrow - Halved the number of pulses and doubled the damage per-pulse.
• Reduced the rate that Hunters lose Focus for moving from 1 focus per second to 1 focus per 3 seconds. Example: If you use Low-cut and then run for 6 seconds you will lose 2 points of Focus. If you run for 4 seconds, you will still lose 2 points. If you run for 3 seconds or less you will lose 1 point.
• The Hunter’s “Merciful Shot” may now be used on targets below 50% health (rather than below 25% health). The recovery timer has been increased from 10s to 30s.
• Fixed a minor Hunter FX bug.

Lore-master

• The Lore-master's "Test of Will" skill now has accompanying sound.
• Lore-master pets have returned from temperament training and will no longer cause an auditory ruckus when summoned.
• Storm-Lore now has a new icon.
• A sound will now play to indicate that a Lore-master's pet has flanked an enemy.
• The sound for the Lore-master's “Knowledge of the Lore-master” skill has been replaced.

Minstrel

• “War-Speech” no longer toggles off when silenced.
• “Chant of the Oathbreaker” and “Call to the Elder King” have had their names and descriptions changed. No gameplay effects have changed as part of this modification.
• “Silver Tongue” now properly reduces the cooldowns of "Song of Restoration," "Lay of the Hammerhand," and "Fellowship's Heart."
• “Chord of Salvation” is now effected by the “Life-Singer” trait.
• “Song of Aid's” power cost should now be properly affected when instruments are used.
• “Song of the Hopeful Heart’s” power cost has been adjusted to be more in line with the power cost of a buff, rather then a toggle skill.
• “Anthem of the Wizards” is now impacted by the “Glorious Anthem” trait.
• The minstrel class instruments referred to "Chant of the Oathbreaker" instead of "Echoes of Battle". This has been fixed.

Monster Play

• Session play
  • The Ettenmoors quest "Aid from the Rangers" should now be functional.
  • Session-player Rangers could communicate in-game with monster players. This has been fixed!
  • The session-play Troll should no longer slip when moving backwards.
  • After looking at data and listening to feedback about Trolls and Rangers in the Ettenmoors, we have made the following changes:
    • Troll and Ranger sessions will have a max number of two appearing at any given time. One session will always be present for either faction. The second session appears only when your faction is losing the fight in the Ettenmoors (ie. You control fewer than three locations.)
  • Troll bestowers will no longer have faulty interaction with Troll sessions.
• All session quest wrappers will now fail when the player or monster player fails to complete the session quest. This will result in the failure retry timer of 12 hours kicking into effect. This will also result in the loss of Destiny Points for monster players and tokens of valor for regular players.
• Fixed a bug with quests including failure cases on session quests that were displaying and telling you to fail the session instead of telling you to not fail the session.
• The "Tactical Crit" label no longer overwrites its value in the monster player character journal.
• Monster players no longer have "Legendary" traits. Instead, they have "Appearance" traits. All Appearance traits which were formally in the Race category have been moved to Appearance. If the Appearance trait was slotted before, it will remain slotted in the new category.
• The Reputation tab is now grayed out when in monster or session play.
• Freeps and Creeps can no longer adopt each other. We’re sure your hearts were in the right place, but no consorting with the enemy!
• Monster play Morningthaw Bears are no longer invulnerable to defeat circle guards. The guards will now kill them, and pretty darn quickly.
• The spider skills for “Entangling Webs” and “Poison Spray” are now on independent cooldowns. You can use “Poison Spray” and your web abilities one after the other.
• Ranged spider skills will now correctly receive damage bonuses from corruptions slotted to increase the damage yield of skills.
• Spiders are now correctly identified as female. Girl power!
• Hatchlings have been improved. They are now normal level creatures - still uncontrolled - lasting for 45 seconds on the battlefield. Hatchlings walking through their mommy's webbing will no longer suffer a movement penalty.
• Some spawns that weren’t appearing all the time have been updated and should now load correctly. (This includes the new Nemesis dwarf in the elf camp near Tol Ascarnen.)
• You can no longer stealth while attempting to take control of a hot point in the Ettenmoors.
• There was an issue where the settings on the Warleader skill “Banner of Terror” was sometimes reacting with players in a positive manner instead of a negative manner. This has been addressed.
• There was an issue with the settings of the Warleader skill “Command Post” that was applying the wrong buffs to monster players and also applying a debuff to monster players. This has been fixed.
• Trolls can now be stunned and stunned to open fellowship maneuvers. They cannot be stunned into daze effects (Improved Riddle/Perplexing Riddle).
• Hot Points
  • Tol Ascarnen Hot points: The hot points at Tirith Rhaw will now correctly call Free Peoples defenders when under the control of the Free Peoples. (Reminder: You must remain within the immediate vicinity of hot point flags to capture them for 30 seconds. The area is roughly 6 meters from the center of the flag.)
  • Players can no longer stealth while near hot points.
  • We have also enhanced the hot point recognition system and players should no longer see oddities when trying to reclaim a hot point. There were certain conditions where players/monster players could enter at the same time, one leave and another stay within the area and never see the flip occur. This will no longer happen.
• The tooltip for the Uruk Warleader enhanced skill “On Your Feet!” now correctly states a 60 second reduction in cooldown for the skill.
• The Warg skill “Crippling Bite” now correctly displays "Slows target's movement by 25%."
• Completion of the Blackarrow skill “Vital Target” now results in the Blackarrow entering combat mode.
• First Marshal Moror now displays that he is a dwarf. It was a confusing time in his life.
• Murderhole events at Tol Ascarnen should now function correctly.
• First Marshal Dembent will now only appear when Freeps control Tol Ascarnen.
• Freeps can now flip the hotspot near Tol Ascarnen.
• The Spider skill “Ensnaring Web” is now a root ability lasting for 16 seconds, and has a chance to break on damage dealt.
• The recast timer on the Warleader “Banner of Terror” was increased.
• Fixed a bug that could leave players stuck in a bad location when revived or awakened from defeat.

Crafting

• A new Craft-hall has opened in Esteldin! Most Crafting-associated NPCs have moved inside.
• Common supply vendors (including those in Reputation areas) will now have expert tailoring components for crafting.
• All expert crafting vendors now have novice crafting vendor stock in addition to their own expert supplies
• Recipes that produce class items (such as tricks, traps, lute strings, etc.) can now be purchased from the appropriate profession vendor/trainer.
• A new crafting animation has been introduced for farmers performing actions at a workbench
• Corrected issues with low-level recipe scrolls appearing in higher level loot.
• Crafted items for the Crafting Advancement quests can no longer be accidentally destroyed.
• Corrected a typo in the description of "Log-holder Decoration Recipe." The description now properly states that it is a Journeyman Forester recipe.
• Corrected the description of the craftable reputation item "Bree-spear" to accurately reflect the type of wood used in creating the item.

Cook

• The "Campfire Materials" recipe can now be purchased from Novice Cooking vendor NPCs.
• Reduced the required ingredients for all 'Honey and Oats” recipes. Craft experience rewards for these recipes have also been slightly reduced.
• Slightly reduced the craft experience rewards for all ”Lute String” recipes (difficulty did not match craft experience reward).
• Added two new cooking craft components to novice and expert cooking trainer-vendors: "Small Clay Pot" and "Large Clay Pot."
• Updated the required ingredients for the tier 2 cooking recipe, "Crude Honey and Oats." This recipe now requires the Small Clay Pot as an ingredient.
• Updated the required ingredients for the tier 4 cooking recipe, "Smooth Honey and Oats." This recipe now requires the Large Clay Pot as an ingredient.
• The Expert recipe, "Vegetable Medley," now has a more appropriate icon
• The journeyman Cooking recipe "Complete Hobbit Breakfast" was not using the correct required ingredients. This has been fixed.

Jeweller

• Corrected issues with two Jeweller decoration recipes that were not set to "Bind on Acquire." These recipes will now be bound to the player upon purchase: Pointed Chandelier Decoration Recipe and Silver Candlestand Decoration Recipe.

Metalsmith

• Removed the following items from treasure. These recipes are now sold by Novice Metalsmith trainers:
  • Bronze Smithing Hammer Recipe
  • Bronze Woodworking Tools Recipe
  • Bronze Mining Pick Recipe
  • Bronze Forester's Axe Recipe
  • Bronze Cooking Supplies Recipe
  • Bronze Scholar's Glass Recipe
  • Bronze Jeweller's Tools recipe
  • Bronze Tailor's Tools Recipe
  • Bronze Farming Tools Recipe
• Tier 3 Heavy "Gondorian" armor is now called, "Defender's" armor.
• Tier 5 Heavy "Ancient" armor is now called, "Knight's" armor.

Prospector

• The names of all "Mining Pick" tools have been changed to "Prospector's Tools." This is merely a change in the name of the item, and does not alter their functionality.

Tailor

• Novice Tailor vendors now carry Spools of Rough Thread.
• Corrected the required ingredients for the following six Tailoring decoration recipes (these recipes were previously using only store-bought ingredients):
  • Small “Tree Shadow” Rug Decoration Recipe
  • Large White “Leaf Border” Rug Decoration Recipe
  • Small “Ring and Leaf” Rug Decoration Recipe
  • Large “Dragon-fly” Rug Decoration Recipe
  • Small “High Seas” Rug Decoration Recipe
  • Cushioned Bench Decoration Recipe.

With the exception of the Cushioned Bench, the above recipes were also incorrectly set to be “Bind on Acquire.” This has been fixed.

• The Rangers of Esteldin reputation vendor was previously selling two Tailoring recipes that incorrectly required faction standing with the Wardens of Annúminas. This has been fixed so the recipes now require the proper faction standing with the Rangers of Esteldin.
• Master Tailors may now inscribe Intricately Woven Grand Master Standard of Hope, Victory, and War upon successful creation:
• Tier 5 Medium "Rangers'" armor is now called "Campaigner's" armor
• Tier 5 Medium "Galadhrim" armor is now called "Protector's" armor

Scholar

• Removed all Fire-oil, Light-oil, and Bow Chant recipes from loot. These recipes can now be purchased directly from Hunter vendor-trainers. Their required ingredients and craft experience rewards have also been slightly reduced.
• Removed Gold Dye Recipe, Sienna Dye Recipe, Lesser Essence of Athelas Recipe, and Lesser Celebrant Salve Recipe from loot. These recipes are now sold by Novice Scholar trainers.
• Added two new scholar crafting components to novice and expert scholar trainer-vendors: "Small Glass Phial" and "Large Glass Phial." Some ”Fire-oil,” “Light-oil,” ”Essence of Athelas,” and ”Celebrant Salve” recipes have been updated to use either the new "Glass Phial" or the "Large Glass Phial" items as required ingredients.
• Corrected issue with Scholar dye recipes using incorrect optional ingredients. Dye recipes found in tiers 1 through 4 will now use more level-appropriate optional ingredients.

Weaponsmith

• Removed all trick, shield-spike, and trap recipes from loot. These recipes can now be purchased directly from burglar (trick recipes), guardian (shield-spike recipes), and hunter (trap recipes) vendor-trainers, as well as the appropriate crafting profession vendors.
• Reduced required ingredients and craft experience rewards for all trick, shield-spike, and trap recipes (with the exception of lure trap recipes, see below). In general, these recipes now require significantly fewer ingots to execute.
• The required ingredients for lure trap recipes were slightly increased to bring these recipes in line with all other trap recipes (these recipes now require two Bundles of Straw).
• Corrected issues with two Weaponsmith decoration recipes that were not set to be Bind on Acquire. These recipes will now be bound to the player upon purchase: Leaf-blade Chandelier Decoration Recipe and Leaf-blade Candlestand Decoration Recipe.

Items

General

• Codemasters ONLY: The Welcome Mat has been updated to be bound to the player. The item can no longer be traded or auctioned off, but will still function as a decoration item for your home.
• Updated the icon used for the Adamant gem, Basic Cowbell, Moor Cowbell, and Basic Bagpipe.
• The shield Threkrand should now be a more appropriate size.
• Changed the name of the light armor reward from the quest “Shadow of the White Hand” to Saeradan's Leggings.
• Several rare and uncommon items from the Misty Mountains have had their visual effects changed to more appropriately match their damage type.
• Calenthon's Whistle will now properly display its cool-down timer of one minute.
• Equipment that requires a specific virtue rank will now take into account any racial traits that increase your virtues.
• The following Great Barrows items have been improved: Death-Puller, Death-Splitter, and Wind-Raker
• Fixed the description on Forvengwath's Fragment to say what it does when used.
• The following quest reward clothing items have seen an increase in stats:
  • Tirithol
  • Naerandir's Gauntlets
  • Skunkwood's Coat
  • Wight Guard
  • Sambrog Stompers
  • Hanhar
  • Amarion's Padded Gauntlets
  • Zanthrug's Fall
  • Krithmog's Stompers
  • Faervaib
  • Túrcham
  • Swift-riders
  • Zanthrug's Foe
  • Zanthrug's Foil
  • Zanthrug's Fall
  • Shield Finders Legs
  • Emelin's Leggings
  • Goldberry's Hope
  • Ivar's Defeat
  • Oakheart's Shoulder Guards
  • Oakheart's Leggings
  • Oakheart's Thanks
  • Dannasen's Shirt
  • Dannasen's Duty
• The following quest reward shields have increased enhancements and upgrades:
  • Brecthann
  • Longamath
  • Manathan
  • Guard of the Eglain
• The following quest reward jewelry items have seen an increase in stats:
  • Isgor
  • Naerandir's Necklace
  • Golugor
  • Oakheart's Earring
  • Bregechor
  • Necklace of Rhudaur
  • Oakenbark's Redemption
• The following quest reward weapons have seen an increase in stats:
  • Anorchathol
  • Urn Finder's Staff
  • Sambrog's Bane
  • Leafcutter's Edge
  • Maedhrusc's Mace
  • Widdup's Spear
  • Túrhigil
  • Warmonger
  • Saeradan's Bow
  • Relentless Staff
  • Celegdram
  • Oakheart's Dagger
  • Dannasen's Oath
  • Bloodhand's Doom
• The following items have added or increased stats:
  • Celethlos
  • Carchol
  • Avorphadanir
  • Saelphadanir
  • Stalwart Breastplate
  • Victor's Shirt
  • Brawler's Arms
  • Bronwecham
  • Tirithmaib
  • Glossy Ring
  • Small Shield of the Barrows
  • Horde-hunter's Gauntlets
  • Great Shield of the Barrows

Armour

• Helegrod armor can now be dyed
• Fine Radiant Robe leggings now dye along with the robe
• The light shields Small Metal Buckler of Might (lvl 31) and Bronzed Round Shield of Vigour (lvl 43) now have the appropriate armour levels.
• Updated the icons for "Silver-voice Robe" and "Beast-master Robe"
• The “Disperse Shadow” effect on Rift Armour has been improved to absorb incoming shadow damage more often.
• Removed the tactical crit enchantment on the Burglar's Rift Armour set and added max Morale
• It’s wabbit season! It’s duck season! No, it’s cloak season!
  • Updated the name of the Twimmed Cloak to Trimmed Cloak.
  • Fixed some grammar issues in the description of the Cloak of the Cluck.
  • The cloaks Wig-feld, Cloak of the Dutiful, Defender’s Cloak, Cloak of Ancient Ruins, and Trimmed Cloak all have new and improved artwork
• Fixed many cases of incorrectly used icons and/or appearances for the new dwarven, elven, and Westernesse crafted armour.
• The Hope bonus on the Bounder Shirriff's Cap has been fixed to no longer vanish 10 minutes after equipping the cap.
• Fixed some cases where low level uncommon armour items didn't have any buffs on them.
• The following rare clothing items have received additional enhancements:
  • Hammertap
  • Cloak of the Galadhrim
  • Silfdraum
  • High-hope
  • Leggings of Barahir
  • Orthol
  • Brechenn
  • Swifthelm
  • Faerthoniel
  • Rockscaler
  • Cafliss
  • Celebnil
  • Boldheart
  • Sterkur's Glory
  • Huntsman's Cloak
  • Cloak of the Western Sky
  • Angbellas
  • Cliffstriders
  • Ramsteps
  • Tancthelui
  • Golucham
  • Leggings of Mirath
  • Cloak of the Rangers
  • Hooded Cloak of the Rangers
  • Stanhelm
  • Leggings of Dragonscale
  • Anmédla
  • Wig-leggar
  • Gelhar
  • Togniranc
  • Thaliodhranc
  • Herodhranc
  • Thenidhranc
  • Cloak of the Two Hammers
  • Robe of the Shire
  • Stonemason's Shirt
  • Lightstep Shoes
  • Boots of Mirath
  • Gladden-guards
  • Tirithar
  • Ambronad
  • Wilg-herthar
  • Burglar's Cap
  • Helm of Rohan
  • Helm of the White Horse
  • Breastplate of Dorthonion
  • Tugharn
  • Shoes of Lossarnach
  • Langwere
  • Cuirass of Dragonscale
  • Ironshanks
  • Shoulders of the Citadel
  • Leggings of the Rangers
  • Hat of Tuckborough
  • Langstalks
  • Breastplate of the Citadel
  • Leggings of Baldor
  • Shoes of Eriador
  • Edge-blunter
  • Bog-walkers
  • Shoulders of Lossarnach
  • War-dancer
  • Cloak of Lothlórien
  • Cap of the Shirriff
  • Helm of Eriador
  • Horde-hunter's Leggings
  • Leggings of the Crossroads
  • Gloves of the Mark
  • Curiass of Tharbad
  • Leggings of Tharbad
  • Shoulders of the Northlands
  • Gloves of the Crossroads
  • Hat of Arthedain
  • Cuirass of Lossarnach
  • Jacket of Kings
  • Boots of Kings
  • Hat of the Mark
  • Shoulders of Meduseld
  • Helm of the Took
  • Shoulders of the Tower Hills
  • Boots of the Tower Hills
• Feldskyn Armour, the Lore-master PvP set, will now appear on the avatar when worn.

Weapons

• A new weapon category, "Implement," has been added for cosmetic weaponry. Implements can be used by all classes, but have little combat use.
• Updated the description on crossbows to clarify that ranged auto-attack block chance is affected.
• The dagger “Nenhigil” has increased stats and damage and the fire damage has been replaced with Beleriand.
• "Wind-raker" has been updated, replacing the out of combat Morale regen with an in-combat power regen, and adding a Vitality enhancement to this weapon.
• The following rare weapons have received additional enhancements:
  • Hefnar
  • West-wind
  • Bone-splitter
  • Fargraf
  • Bitbrand
  • Oakenfist
  • Frostvin
  • Dúnglamor
  • Gilnaith
  • Erdram
  • Hope-bringer
  • Jarnbrot
  • Swift-doom
  • Iron-head
  • Peace-bringer
  • Thokbrot
  • Hermit's Rage
  • Woodsman's Club
  • Greyclaw
  • Isenring
  • Marcho's Edge
  • Stalwart
  • Thunder-fall
  • Goblin-knocker
  • Hálli's Hand
  • Creeping Staff
  • Fire-tip
  • Deadly Defender's Bow
  • Southron's Tusk
  • Huntspritt
  • Thenindúr
  • Avalgeis
  • Alagostúr
  • Axe of Léofa
  • Red-hew
  • Ruin-breaker
  • Back-breaker
  • Dólghart
  • Dagger of Khazad-dûm
  • Blade of the Valiant
  • Starkstál
  • Avorrod
  • Bone-breaker
  • Dólghart
  • Head-breaker
  • Butterbur's Cudgel
  • Doronolf
  • Aegrist
  • Steel-share
  • Changer's Club
  • Bargbrót
  • Stanhart
  • Woodsman's Friend
  • Thumper
  • Ranger's Edge
  • Thunder-hammer of the Mearas
• The Rift items Elder Bow, Rod of the Bronze Eagle (now known as Amber Staff), and Deep Cutter and the Annúminas Spear of the Bloodless have new and improved artwork.
• The Annúminas items Spear of the Bloodless and Mighty Mace now have an additional bonus applied to them.

General Loot

• Players can now auto-loot bind-on-acquire items without confirmation when they are the only ones allowed to loot a given corpse or container, e.g. for solo victories.
• A corpse with items being rolled on can no longer be opened.
• Some items “of the West-lands” were using the incorrect icon and have been updated with the correct one.
• Rodlúg no longer drops the trophy items usually found on wolves.
• Updated the names of the pocket items dropped by non-sentient elite monsters to now reflect their benefit(s).
• Arch-Nemeses may drop more money now.
• Non-sentient elites now have a greater chance of dropping some types of trophy items.
• Loot items found on corpses no longer auto-stack on the corpse. For example: if 2 potions drop, instead of seeing 1 stack of 2 potions you will now see both potions displayed individually in the loot window.
• Items being rolled on or assigned by a master looter will no longer be auto-stacked together. Example: If two exceptional hides drop, you will roll once for each of them instead of rolling once for both.
• Items not being rolled on or being assigned by a master looter will remain stacked on the corpse. Consignment, mining, forestry and scholar nodes should always display stacked items.
• Corpse and cocoon "chests" on the ground now follow the same fellowship loot rules as normal chests.
• Fixed a bug in the treasure system that was allowing old versions of the wound-curing potions to appear in low-level loot.

Pets/Companions

• When using the ctrl-\ interface to move UI elements, the Pet Manager and the Pet Shortcut Bar will henceforth be known as the Companion Manager and the Companion Shortcut Bar.
• Player pet floaty names will now show up only if their master's name is shown.
• Companions set to assist will do so against their master’s selection from AOE skills.
• Players will now receive an error when trying to execute a companion (pet) command while mounted, instead of silently failing.
• Fixed the following bugs:
  • A pet belonging to a player riding on a mount and in a fellowship would be displayed on the mini-map off to the side.
  • Over-zealous companions (pets) would attack a non-threatening mob when their current target was mesmerized.
  • Some fellowship-related companion tracking issues.
  • Companion (pet) chatter is no longer displayed in the regional channel.
• Fixed a rare issue with companions assisting against mesmerized targets.
• A skill UI issue where companion skills would not grey out when using a non-combat companion skill.
• Fervour-related and companion skills were not displaying their greyed-out state correctly.
• PvP kills accomplished by a pet now count towards deeds.
• Pet Summon Skills no longer unghost when you select any entity (the pet has to be summoned.)

World

• Locust swarms near Oatbarton are now level 27 to 28, instead of level 30 to 31.
• Although a generally pretty cheerful guy, we've decided that Pippen is not quite as inspiring as Gandalf or Elrond, and assigned him hope more appropriate to his stature. He’s remained upbeat about it!
• The wicked gangs of Green River-toads in Tal Bruinen will now threaten before they lay their special brand of smack-down on unwary passers-by.
• The Dread Turtles in Angmar now warn you before attacking.
• All monsters that warn before attacking now wait a minimum of 5 seconds before attacking.
• Fixed a stuck in combat issue when fighting trolls that disappear at day-break.
• Braziers outside of the entrance to Fornost are now burning all the time

Numerous terrain seams and pathing issues in Angmar, Evendim and the North Downs have been fixed.

• A number of sickle-flies have set up permanent nesting grounds in Meluinen.
• Numerous floating objects have been grounded in accordance with the laws of gravity.
• A new swift travel route between Esteldin and Tinnudir has been added
• Tyrn Luig has been given an overhaul. It now covers a greater area and offers a small number of repair and re-supply vendors
• Turtles have been removed from the random landscape spawns of Malenhad. To balance this, new Turtle-y points of interest have been added.
• Rare monsters in Angmar have been modified to take advantage of the event system. These rare monsters have not gotten more powerful, but their spawn mechanisms have changed significantly.
• Fixed an odd placement issue in the Free People's Camp outside of Fornost
• A Reflecting Pool and Vault-keeper have been added to Esteldin.
• Warg Hunters now have a handful of static spawn locations in Nan Amlug East
• The healer Tweggi in Vindurhal now sells high-level curing potions.
• Ettenmoors slugs will no longer block attacks. Their parry and evade rates have been increased to compensate for the lack of a block skill.
• Ost Guruth now boasts both a staff vendor and a useable cooking campfire near the town oven, solidifying its place as the vacation destination for the Lone-lands!
• Whelan Appledore in the Bree-town Hall now sells Grocer items instead of Provisioner items.
• We've reduced the number of patrolling Boggart swarms in Tham Andalath in Evendim.
• Fornost: Monster spawns have been thinned out and many monsters have had their aggro radius reduced.
• Garth Agarwen: A number of spawns have been removed and aggro radiuses have been reduced on a number of monsters.
• Festival NPC map notes will no longer display when the festivals are inactive.
• Cosmetic changes to the Dark Lynx, which will now be called "Onyx Lynx."
• We've updated our vitals for level 50+ creatures to begin to pave the way for future content. This change may impact some creatures who are above level 50.

User Interface

General

• Quickslot bars which are not visible (because they're docked or not set to always be visible) no longer show a drag box when in ctrl-\ mode.
• The Alert panel now hides correctly when you hit F12.
• Your traits are now listed alphabetically when viewed through a Bard’s trait interface.
• Long descriptions in the progress bar for skills are now truncated with an ellipsis (...).
• The “audio options” section now has categorized options.
• The "stack-split" dialog box has gotten some attention:
  • Handy buttons to add or subtract from the current amount
  • The "Full/Half" button has been split into three: Full, Half, None. Pushing one of those buttons puts the full amount, half of the amount, or (you guessed it) zero into the amount field
  • The "Enter" key is the same as clicking the "OK" button
• Fixed some previous UI items with no skinning tags.
• Added new UI Options for enabling/disabling Floating Experience, Floating Reputation, Floating Destiny, and Floating Renown/Infamy.
• Added the level requirement for bank upgrades to the text on the bank UI to eliminate confusion.
• Fixed a UI issue when the bug submission UI was opened while the help UI is open.
• We've shortened the message for entering and leaving a chat channel. Instead of "You have entered the..." or "You have left the..." it now says "Entered the..." and "Left the..."
• Map notes are easier to mouse over now.
• The maximum ignore list size has been reduced to 200 entries. If you’re already above this number, you’ll need to remove entries until you’re below the new limit before you can add any new names to the list.
• Character, cosmetic inventory, and barbershop panels have been updated.

Fellowship

• You can now map the fellowship target marking commands to specific keys in the Options panel (ctrl-o) under the Key-mapping tab.
• Fixed: Map tracking of fellowship members would occasionally become inconsistent for a player who joins and leaves a fellowship quickly.

Tooltips

• Traits and characteristics no longer say "On Use:" in their examination tooltips.
• The vital bar in tooltips is no longer overly wide, and doesn't have vertical lines in its background anymore.
• Word-wrapping and truncation has been improved in many tooltips.
• Skills which have an additional effect when you attack from the correct position now include this information in their tooltips.
• Various potions including Fire and light oils now display duration in their tooltips.
• The tooltips for some virtues no longer have their rank split across multiple lines.
• The tooltips on invokable items should read much more clearly now.
• All instances of skill tooltips that have a radius now correctly display that the radius is measured in meters.
• The tooltip of skills requiring a material component, such as the travel skills, will now highlight the missing components in red.
• Clicking on a title alert will now show you the new title when it opens the title panel.
• You can now click on your mount to dismount while in combat.

Systems

Housing

• Pride of ownership! Now when you purchase a home, your name will be displayed in the billboard, under the radar, and in the Housing Info panel, along with the house address. If you don't want your home to display your name, you can turn the display off under Options->Social Options->Housing->Display my home ownership information
• Housing decoration items now have a unique background icon color.
• Songs in The Prancing Pony and Silent Hope player housing jukeboxes will no longer endlessly loop.
• Housing Decoration Mode Update: All objects that you can edit via decoration in your home will now highlight and have a slow pulse when you enter decoration mode. The hook that you are currently editing will have a quick pulse to it.
• Added the ability to rotate decorations. Now you too can change the position of your chair, your bed, even your trees! Put a crooked sconce in your house today!
• It is now possible for housing decorations to be bound to a player. Bound decorations will work as usual for the player they are bound to when attached to a housing hook.
• It is not possible for players to remove bound decorations that are not bound to them from housing hooks.
• The housing hook UI now has a return to owner button; this button is visible when viewing a bound decoration that is not bound to the viewer. The return to owner button will return the bound decoration to the owner’s escrow storage.
• The Homesteads map cursors now have proper tooltips.
• Housing: Foreclosure letters now specify the time that decorations will be allowed to exist in escrow.
• Added a Tutorial pop-up when opening a housing storage container for the first time.
• Fixed a bug where deleted items would still take up space in housing storage.
• New drops can be obtained from several quest bosses and turned in at Whitethorn's Taxidermy in Bree-town for housing trophy decorations.
• Housing decorations: Updated the descriptions for all of the trophies available from the taxidermist in Bree.
• Added information to the descriptions of some floor and wall pattern decoration items to notify players which floor & wall patterns are the default patterns used in housing.
• Corrected the names of some housing decoration recipes that did not match the names of their resulting items.
• Corrected the names and descriptions of many house decoration items.
• House descriptions have been updated to reflect available interior and exterior hooks, including hooks for walls, floors, and music.
• Housing decorations and items in housing chests that are sent to escrow will now stay in escrow for 2 weeks before being deleted. Previously, they would stay for 1 week.
• Players that are already in a housing permission list can not be added a second time anymore.
• Only kinship leaders have access to the kinship house “Abandon” button.
• Persistent emotes like /sit and /liedown will now be interrupted when a character uses /music.

Reputation

• Reputation gains and losses will now be displayed over the players’ heads, just like experience!
• Reputation gains for kills are no longer divided by group size. Raids will gain considerably more reputation than they used to, while 6-Man groups will remain approximately the same.
• The UI for turning in Reputation tokens has been changed to use the Bartering interface rather than the quest interface. You'll still need to complete the introductory quest for each type of reputation token before you can use the bartering interface to turn in additional tokens.
• The old repeatable Reputation quests have been removed from the game. You can now turn in your reputation items at the same NPCs via the barter system once you have completed the introductory quests.
• Reputation vendors are no longer locked by Reputation requirements (but their inventories are), and repair vendors have been added to each faction with their own, stricter, Reputation requirements.
• Certain quests in the following locations will now award the specified faction points (applied retroactively to players who have already completed these quests):
  • Bree-land and Trestlebridge - “Men of Bree” faction points.
  • North Downs – “Rangers of Esteldin” faction points
  • Evendim – “Wardens of Annúminas” faction points
  • Trollshaws and Misty Mountains – “Elves of Rivendell” faction points
  • North Downs and Misty Mountains – “Thorin's Hall” faction points
• Many Shire quests will now reward the player with a ”Gift Mathom” which can be turned in at Michal Delving to earn faction with the Mathom Society (again, players who have already done these quests will be retroactively awarded reputation points).
• New reputation reward items have turned up for sale from the Men of Bree, the Elves of Rivendell, the Ered Luin Dwarves, and the Shire Mathom Society!
• Mousing over vendors will now display faction requirements (if any) to interact with that vendor in the tooltip
• Some quests for the Rift have had their reputation rewards re-evaluated.

Auctions

• Auction House: A “Ceiling” and “Special Furniture” category have been added to the Decorations listing in the auction house.
• The auction house now has a new category for cosmetic equipment: Implement "Weapons" - now you have a place to sell or buy pitchforks and shovels!
• When you buyout an auction on which you're the highest bidder, you no longer receive a message saying that you've been outbid.
• The Auction House now displays your post count, bid count, and the maximum number of allowed bids and posts.
• Double-clicking and right-clicking in the Mail window now consistently opens the letter.

Chat/Social

• The “error” channel appeared twice in the context-sensitive-menu for chat filters, and has been fixed.
• Typing characters in the chat window alongside embedded items occasionally caused text corruption.
• User-defined chat channels and player notes in the fellowship panel now conform to your profanity filter settings.
• User chat-channel names are now restricted to a maximum length of 50 characters. Existing channels with longer name lengths will be dropped.

Emotes

• Typing /yell will now have the same effect as /shout.
• Participatory emotes like the Minstrel's “Irresistible Melody” should no longer adversely affect players on horseback.
• You will now wield a small torch during the /firebreath emote.
• Amateur levitators take note: performing the /sit emote while standing on top of a chair actually sits you in it, instead of leaving you floating in the air, and now everyone knows how you did it anyway!

Music System

• Bagpipes may now be played at level 25.
• When parsing ABC music files, rests no longer display a "Line 0, column 0" error message.
• Some inaccurately generated "note is already sounding" errors should no longer display.
• The "Show Vitals" checkbox now stays checked.
• Ignoring another player once again prevents you from hearing their music.
• The word “Equipped” will now appear above an equipped Instrument when comparison tooltips appear.
• Crafted flutes will now sound more like flutes when played.
• Fixed an error in the tutorial hint for musical instruments. The hint said shortcut keys 1-0 are used to produce music when in fact it’s keys 1-8.

Audio

• An In-depth music pass added over an hour of brand new music to the game!
• Complete EAX overhaul. Make sure to enable EAX if your sound card supports it to get the full environmental audio experience!
• Added Music/Sound for Gwindeth's hang out.
• Added music to the "Defense of Trestlebridge" instance.
• Improvements to landscape/combat music fades.
• Trolls and Rangers will now be able to hear music in session play.
• The background music would continue playing for a few seconds when launching a movie from the movie library. This has been fixed.
• Binding to milestones will now be accompanied by an indicator sound.
• OpenAL version 1.1 is now live in LOTRO!
  • Fixed a common client crash seen on Vista.
  • LOTRO now utilizes XRAM on cards that support it (XFI).
  • Tweaks and improvements to audio memory usage.
  • Users may now select soundcard in client independent of control panel.
  • Users may now select native OpenAL drivers (Creative and nVidia hardware).
  • Several improvements to audio performance.
  • LOTRO now supports 5.1 surround sound for Creative sound cards on Vista.
  • Tweaks and improvements from Creative video cards.

Graphics/Animation/FX

• Fixed problems with some trees casting incorrect shadows in DX10.
• Improved performance under DirectX 10 when the Fellowship UI and Pet UI were up.
• Blob shadows are much faster now, reduced overall graphics loading-related hitchiness.
• We’ve made some minor texture adjustments to pony mounts to improve system performance when displaying them
• Minstrels have discovered that they can sling their shields on their backs when activating skills with a lute-based animation. Shield-smiths no longer need to custom-cut those little holes for the lute neck to poke through!
• Player characters have some new animations to entertain themselves with when they are left standing around AFK.
• Monsters that are immune to stuns no longer have permanent stun FX floating around their heads after a Champion blows his horn.
• Short peoples of Middle-earth rejoice! Weapons no longer grow to unmanageable size when sheathed. They will stay the same size they are while in use.
• Players attacked while harvesting now regain enough composure to fight with visible weapons.
• Disarmed characters no longer have visible weapons in hand while the disarmed effect lasts.
• Characters may no longer turn in place while dancing.
• Lore-masters who fail when using their “Back from the Brink” skill are no longer stuck with pipe in hand.
• Equipped shields will now re-appear on a player’s forearm after engaging in ranged combat.
• Fixed a bug with 2-handed axe animations when the player was hit while performing an attack.
• The Earthkin “Santtu” will no longer blip when standing up after kneeling.
• When using the various racial Return to X skills, avatars will now perform a “reading map” animation.
• Improvements have been made to the jumping logic when running backwards, though it is not a particularly logical thing to do!
• Your personal mount will now properly turn its head left and right while moving forward and turning.
• Fixed an FX problem where a melee weapon remained visible during some animations that aren’t supposed to use it.
• Characters will no longer play idle animations while in the /music state.
• A small percentage of armor which appeared green for Dwarves and Elves was showing up as neutral or beige on Hobbits and Humans, when they should have been the same across the board. They should all show up now as green for all avatars. This only affects items that have never been dyed, or have had the dye washed out of them. Items dyed either by hand or when found in treasure should not be affected.
• Some visual issues with terrain on High and Very High graphics settings have been resolved.
• The lava fall at the entrance to the Balrog chamber doesn't blip anymore.
• Improved the examination of countdown effects to include details about what will happen to the target if the effect is not removed in time

Legendary Accomplishments

• We've updated the Legendary Accomplishments listed below so that the needed pages are found on more creatures. Instead of being on very specific creatures in very specific parts of the world, all the pages can now be found in either Angmar or the Misty Mountains on Evil Men, Evil Dwarves, Ancient Evil creatures, Giant-kind, Orc-kind, Troll-kind, or Wights.
• Burglar
  • The Book of Knives Pages 3, 5, 12, 17 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 18, 23, 26, 31 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • Knee-breaker's Manual Pages 1, 3, 4, 8 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 10, 15, 16, 19 - Found in the Misty Mountains
• Captain
  • The Candle's Flame Pages 4, 7, 13, 16 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 25, 26, 31, 35 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • The Treatise of Valour Pages 2, 3, 5, 10 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 12, 15, 18, 22 - Found in the Misty Mountains
• Champion
  • The Tome of Swords Pages 1, 4, 7, 12 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 13, 17, 21, 25 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • The Joy of Battle Pages 11, 14, 18, 24 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 25, 28, 32, 36 - Found in the Misty Mountains
• Guardian
  • The Best Defence Pages 2, 3, 5, 9 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 12, 16, 17, 19 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • A Shield-maiden's Song Pages 1, 8, 11, 12 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 15, 19, 25, 26 - Found in the Misty Mountains
• Hunter
  • A Shot in the Dark Pages 5, 10, 14, 16 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 19, 22, 23, 25 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • The Way of the Hunter Pages 1, 3, 4, 8 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 17, 20, 21, 28 - Found in the Misty Mountains
• Lore-master
  • The Book of Beasts Pages 3, 6, 8, 14 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 14, 25, 26, 33, 37 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • Lore of the Blade Pages 5, 11, 18, 26 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 35, 45, 56, 68 - Found in the Misty Mountains
• Minstrel
  • Melodies of the Valar Pages 12, 14, 23, 24 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 27, 29, 30, 32 - Found in the Misty Mountains
  • The Rising Chord Pages 3, 4, 11, 14 - Found in Angmar
  • Pages 16, 23, 27, 28 - Found in the Misty Mountains

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue that was preventing some characters from entering the world.
• Players who attempt to play any movie from the character selection screen and then madly pound the escape key should no longer crash.
• Locked movies in the Movie Library will now appear grayed out.
• Your last-used character will now be highlighted when you log out to the Character Selection screen.
• A player in fellowship who was incapacitated, then re-logged could no longer be seen on their fellows’ radar and map.
• Typing /unstuck will now have the same effect as typing /stuck.
• All movement speed de-buffs will now slow mounted movement.
• When you teleport while sitting in a chair, you will no longer bring the chair with you. Shame on all you chair-thieving criminals!
• Fixed an issue where a fellow member summons you… right into a wall. Ooof!
• Fixed a bug with the raid-assist target window not populating when rejoining a raid.
• Fixed /damagetext to allow floaty damage from other players to be seen.
• The Dun Horse/Pony has been renamed Ashen Pony.
• Pressing the left mouse button while holding the right mouse button now puts you into "move forward while mouse-steering" mode, the same way pressing the right while holding the left always has.
• Resolved some performance/stability problems with the Intel 945 chipset.

Quests

General

• All items from class-specific quests now have the appropriate class requirements.
• The time remaining counter in the quest tracker is now wider to stop wrapping text.
• Items that can start quests will now display the name of the quest in their descriptions.
• Certain quests may now be flagged as “Not Shareable” with other members of a group.
• Certain quests will now show the gold ring icon despite being much lower level than the player.
• Quest Tracker: The quest tracker menu option "Open" has been reworded to say "Show In Quest Log"
• NPCs that have comments about quests you have underway will now display a gold ring icon with a blue feather inside it. If you talk to these NPCs, you might gain some helpful insight into a quest!
• Quests that require crafted items will now show up with the Crafting Ring above the NPC instead of the normal gold ring.
• Quests in the Quest Tracker should update properly now when acquiring items.
• Quests can now be shared among members of the same raid.
• Previously, in the level 45 Class Armor and Weapons quests, if you had lost one or more of the items to be turned in, the quest would not always reflect that change. We have updated all these quests to now accurately reflect if you have all the items you need to turn into the NPC.
• We sat Legolas and Gimli down and explained to them the importance of "not breaking mezz." They've promised to mend their ways and will honor Mezz more. (Although Gimli does swing his axe around a bit, he might still snag a mezz'ed target in his zeal.)
• We've modified Thaurlach, the Balrog's, response to Glathlírel's death. The moment she dies, the Balrog will become unattackable and will lose any negative effects he may have on him. This should prevent the Balrog from dying after Glathlírel has died.
• The majority of Aurochs in the North Downs and Trollshaws are now signature monsters, instead of elites. Quests that were targetting these monsters are no longer flagged as recommending a fellowship, and since the difficulty of these creatures has been reduced, the experience and money rewards for these quests has been reduced.
• Using stealth while fighting the Great Goblin will no longer lock the goblin into NPC mode.
• Fixed an issue where the triggering mechanism controlling the Great Goblin would disable itself and lead to breaking the battle event against him.
• Fixed a Barz and Zurm bug that caused the wrong wave of adds to spawn.

Specific Quests

• We have added chests for all the major bosses in Helegrod and the Rift. These chests will not de-spawn on you, and include fabulous cash incentives! Thaurlach and Thorog will still have some loot on their persons as well as in their chests so make sure to check both!
• "Siegecraft" quest: Added induction bars to the siege weapons and made the pins stack properly.
• Players can no longer get into the Helegrod courtyard without defeating the drummer encounter.
• The quest rewards from "Thunder in the Mountains" have been upgraded.
• The Dwarf Dance leader no longer rushes you through one of his dance steps.
• “Mushrooms for Rivendell” can now be completed in a Raid.
• Added more solo-friendly quest targets for the quest "Destroying the Hatchery."
• Minor text edit to “Book 5 Chapter 5.”
• A reset has been built into the quest “A Leader Unveiled.”
• Fixed a grammar error in the description for "Gandalf's Thanks."
• Players on the "Low Food Stores" quest will find an increased drop percentage for boar meat.
• “Blood Price” Angmar quest arc has been substantially revised.
• “The Assault on Rath Teraig” escort quest can now be completed as a solo experience.
• Reduced the difficulty of the “Book 1 Chapter 7” Crebain wave encounter
• The Book 1: Chapters 1, 3, and 10 quests can now be completed by solo players of the appropriate level
• The quest level for the “Retaking Weathertop” instance has been increased from 20 to 21. Boss encounters have been reduced substantially in difficulty, both in level and general statting.
• “Rescue By Moonlight” can now be completed by a solo player of appropriate level for the quest.
• The Great Barrow (“Book 1, Chapter 11”) can now be completed with a small fellowship.
• Isferon has a new animation and will no longer clip through the floor during “A Lore-master's Will.”
• The quest "Miners of the Forty-Nine" can now be completed.
• The quest "Herbs and Simples" should now display a message when you pick up the items.
• Tarlug can now follow you into all of the side rooms in his chamber.
• Frûz will no longer go into Anti-exploit mode when dragged into corners.
• The quest "Setting the Trap" has had its level increased to level 28, while Bonefang, the wolf who completes the quest, has had his level reduced from level 30 to 28.
• The drop rate of Boar Stomachs in the "Well Prepared" quest has been increased.
• We've reduced the power of Helchgam's heal by 75%. This heal is used when his line-of-sight to you is blocked and he has no other skills that can be used on you.
• We've flagged the "Hobgoblin's Recipe" as a small fellowship quest.
• We've reduced the respawn rate of the goblin camp near Oatbarton from 2 to 3 minutes to 4 to 6 minutes
• We've increased the levels of all the quests in the "Missing the Meeting" quest arc from level from 29 to 31.
• The "Terror in Ost Heryn" quest has now been flagged as a fellowship recommended quest.
• The "Treasure in the Ruins" quest is now flagged as a small fellowship recommended quest.
• “Book 5 - Chapter 3” is now flagged as a small fellowship recommended quest.
• You no longer have to have completed the "Provisions for the Glade" quest to receive "The Stolen Ornament" quest in Lin Giliath.
• The following quests from Gabilshathûr have been updated and versioned. If you had these quests underway, they will be removed from your quest log and you must talk to their bestower NPCs to receive them again.
  • Into the Arena - Now called "The Arena of Maethad."
  • Champions of the Arena - Now called "The Champion of Maethad."
  • Master of the Arena - Now called "The Master of Maethad."
  • The Northern Cousin
• We've fixed a problem where Brudhaw, the Wight-lord needed for “Book 2 Chapter 6,” would not respawn.
• We've fixed an issue with the "Fallen Apples" quest in the Shire where it could get into a state where it could not be completed.
• The quest "Counting the Clutch" has had its challenge level increased and has been flagged as "small fellowship recommended". The XP and money reward for this quest has been increased. It has also been renamed as "A Dire Need." This quest has been versioned, so if you had it underway, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• The quest "Scaled Menace" has had its challenge level increased and has been flagged as "small fellowship recommended." The XP and money reward for this quest has been increased. The quest has also been broken away from "Counting the Clutch" (now "A Dire Need") and can now be done at the same time as that quest. This quest has been versioned, so if you had it underway before Book 12 went live, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• The quest "Rampage" has had its XP and money reward increased. It has also been renamed "Gaeruan's Rage." Gaeruan, the mother-turtle, has been given some new skills to make her especially deadly to Orcs and Trolls. We suggest you try the quest and enjoy the carnage! This quest has been versioned, so if you had it underway, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• The challenge level of the "Scouting the Mountains" quest has been increased from 43 to 45.
• The challenge level of the "Giant Country" quest has been increased from 45 to 47. The quest is also flagged as a small fellowship recommended quest.
• The challenge level of the "Thunder in the Mountains" quest has been increased from 45 to 47.
• The challenge level of the "Alliance with the Dwarves" quest has been increased from 45 to 47.
• We've modified “Book 6 Chapter 6” to be more solo friendly. The fell spirit summoned is now a normal-grade mob instead of signature, and you will be able to find more ancient watching stones in the Ram Duath.
• We've modified Sorcerer Tath, who is required for “Book 6 Chapter 5,” to be more solo-friendly. He is now a normal-grade mob, and his minions have had their level reduced to level 41.
• "The Lost Dwarves" quest has been versioned and is now bestowed from Tyrn Lhuig.
• The "Breathing-space" quest has been versioned and its challenge level has been increased from 46 to 47. If you had this quest underway, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• The level of the "Pre-emptive Measures" quest has been boosted from 31 to 33.
• The level of the "True Intentions" quest has been boosted from 33 to 34.
• "The Orc-raid" quest has been versioned and its challenge level has been increased from 47 to 48. The quest is now flagged as a solo quest and the guards have been made a bit beefier. If you had this quest underway, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• The "Axe to Grind" quest has been versioned and renamed "Tools of the Orcs." It is now bestowed by Avar in Gabilshathûr and has had its challenge level reduced from 48 to 47. If you had this quest underway, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• The "Engineering Destruction" quest has been versioned and renamed "Weapons of the Orcs." It is now also bestowed by Avar and has been flagged as a fellowship recommended quest. Its experience and money reward have been increased as well. If you had this quest underway, you’ll need to talk to the NPC again to receive it.
• We've modified “Book 6 Chapter 6” to be more solo friendly. The fell spirit summoned is now a Normal, instead of a Signature, and you will be able to find more Ancient Watching stones in the Ram Duath.
• We've modified Sorcerer Tath, who is required for “Book 6 Chapter 5,” to be more solo friendly. He is now a Normal, and his minions have had their level reduced to level 41.
• To prevent players from using the Reflecting Pool as a way of getting to Gath Forthnir quickly, we have removed the door that leads out from the “Book 8 Chapter 5” instance. However, you will still be able to exit the instance at any point if you cancel the instance quest.
• Removed the leech-flesh requirement from “Value of Vermin” quest, as leeches no longer exist nearby.

Monster play Quests

• The quest “Dwarfs in the Mine” will now direct players to the dwarf camp on the far side of the Isendeep Mine.
• Mash can now be turned into Soldier Graus at Gramsfoot. He won’t like you being that lazy though.
• Fires left by dumping burning oil should no longer float outside of Tol Ascarnen, Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw.
• Since Brittleleaf sprouts are no longer usable by players, we have removed their ability to be tracked via the Burglar’s “Track Treasure” skill.
• “Bringing the Beasts to Bear,” a quest for summoning drakes in the Isendeep Mine, has been marked as a small fellowship quest.
• “Hold the Mine,” the quest to kill players or monster players within the Isendeep, will now advance in the center of the mine.
• “Get to Grothum, Maggot!” now correctly states that the goblin village is to the east of Gramsfoot.
• Old Goldhead will now talk to players while on the quest to bring him against Tirith Rhaw
• Killing Tortmund as a monster player will no longer fail the spider escort to the Grimwood.
• “Poisoning the Hoardale,” one of the monster play quests, no longer appears in the Tol Ascarnen tab. Since the quest does not contribute to the deeds associated with the location we thought it best to move it to the Ettenmoors general heading.
• First Marshal Án was caught lounging at a local eatery when he was supposed to be watching the state of affairs at Tol Ascarnen. After a severe beating with a sock full of quarters, the First Marshal begrudgingly admitted his mistake and has returned to duty. After returning to work, First Marshal Án was told that he would not only need to watch Tol Ascarnen, but now be responsible for recovering the keep should it fall to enemy hands. After he beat us with the sock full of quarters again - wait...you thought we beat him with the sock full of quarters? He's a mean-spirited Dwarf! I mean - well anyway, he decided that he would storm the castle because he’d get to hit things.
• Forvengwath, the first boss within Barad Gúlaran, is no longer afraid of people. Castellan Wísdan sat him down and explained that people were far lowlier than he was. He will no longer be afraid of you, pitiful fear-bearing players!
• Fixed a bug in the Barz and Zurm quest that was causing the wrong wave of monsters to spawn.

Angmar Quests

The following Angmar quests have been versioned as part of the Great Angmar Revamp. If any of these quests are currently underway in your quest log, you should aim to finish them before the update goes live; once it does, these quests will be removed from your quest log and you will need to start the quests over at the bestower. If you have already finished these quests, there will be no impact on your quest log.

• Dark Raiders
• Trophies of War
• Bloodstones
• Strange Beasts
• The Drake-queen's Brood
• The Winged Host
• A Tenuous Thread
• Bogbereth's Brood
• The Secret of the Swords
• The Lost Dwarves
• The Arena of Maethad
• Water of Life and Death
• Dark Hunters
• Dark Standards
• The Bloodstone Trove
• Queen of the Host
• Raid: Bogbereth
• The Tincture
• Deluches
• The Keeper of Books
• Breathing-space
• The Blood-bond
• Buried Treasure
• Bloodwing
• The Silent Judge
• Purification of Death
• Banishing the Darkness
• Further Upstream
• Master of Maethad
• Prospector of Angmar
• Blood-pact
• The Northern Cousin
• The Scent of Mithril
• Raid: The Master of Imlad Balchorth
• The Brimstone Swamp
• Oppression's Yoke
• Stealing Stores
• Fuel for the Forge
• Herbal Essence
• Pease-pudding
• False Orders
• Counting the Clutch
• The Light of Hope
• The Gate-keeper
• Scaled Menace
• The Beast

The following Angmar quests have been replaced as part of the Great Angmar Revamp. You'll have the option of getting the new versions of these quests, even if you've already completed the old version.

• The Free Folk
• Black Incantations
• Worse Than Death
• Ancient Lair
• The Drake's Egg
• The Great Beast
• The Champion of Minas Angos
• The Champion of Minas Maur
• The Champion of Minas Agar
• The Champion of Minas Caul
• The Sword of Arvedui (all of the Sword quests)
• The First Challenge (the entire Challenge arc out of Aughaire)
• We have increased the spawn locations for the Ancient Ironscale, needed for the "Swamp-dweller" quest in Angmar, to three.
• Fixed a reset issue for Gurthul in Carn Dûm.