Friday, May 23, 2008

Book 14 and the Mines of Moria

Quick Lotro update here: http://tentonhammer.com/node/31782

Highlights from the interview:
The Runekeeper is magic based and is the official dwarven loremaster
Monster players will get some type of advancement, alludes to leveling them from 50-60
Players will be getting dynamic player lighting (torches)
There are several new concept art pictures
Eregion for book 14 will go up to the Hollin gate (place where tentacled monster similar to Helchgam lives)
The Hollin gate will be opened for those who buy MoM
The encounter with the Balrog of Moria is couched by the devs as a flashback for your players near the time when it is awakened.
There are many other flashbacks to the dwarves
more character slots added in the expansion
info on buying game
and much much more...

I still want to know what a "Warden" is.. I hope it can turn into a bear...

6 comments:

Bildo said...

Hmm... if WAR ends up biting, and Lich Kings fails to impress, I might resub to LotRO when this hits to see what's changed.

My Champion's still sitting at 38 where I stopped without any solo quests to progress. :(

Thallian said...

:) well I hope you do whatever you think is best Bildo of course but I doubt WAR will out and out bite since they have put so much effort into it.

Whether it has the "grab me by the horns and play forever" value that WoW had for the first two years I played it, that remains to be seen yeah. And Lich King sounds like more of the same with some marginal improvements to me.

I'm actually pretty optimistic for WAR to be my awesome pvp(Realm vs Realm) game and Lotro to be my awesome pve (player versus environment) game :) Capital & Keep battles in particular sound like something I've always wanted in an MMO, and I couldn't understand why Warcraft didn't have em. We'll have to see what my friends enjoy playing too, including Anton :P (yes, your my friend too bud)

I recommend the lifetime sub to Lotro if your gonna play it since they are gonna keep expanding it for a long time and that way you can go play the other games when you need a break.

P.s. I got stuck at lvl 20 forever with my first dwarven champion until I was playing with my bro and then my other bro too. It just didn't have the smooth solo leveling treadmill to 50 until the recent two books. I totally agree with that. I think I've rolled at least 3 or 4 champions now but never past lvl 22 :P (and lots of hunters and burglars also, dps ftw!) My bro has one at lvl 36 or so and hes a killing machine.

Anonymous said...

Flashbacks! Yay!
That was something I'd DREAMED of them putting in.
I played LOTRO and for a while really enjoyed it, but recently (last few months) they lack of content has really gotten to me, so I left.
I'd always thought... maybe I'd go back with MoM, and so far it sounds quite good. Dwarven LM sounds fun too.
Battling in the Mines of Moria is probably up there among my top 5 fantasy fighting locations if I'm honest!

Thallian said...

:) Some extra things I have learned that were not mentioned here in my summary: Lothlorien and environs will of course also be in the expansion and in the next few months they will expand out Eregion.

I'm excited too. :) Especially if Rune Keepers are neat and fun. The game still needs a good fun caster class that does more then be a battery and CC things ad infinitum.

Moria is going to incorporate some new technology they have developed for making Ultra large 3D multi layer/blending layer terrain.

Your weapon goes up levels with you. Like You make a totally unique weapon that no one else has.. beyond just a simple single enchant or whatever, it becomes a quest hub and gets a name and continually gets more powerful and gets more character to it. I miss Lilarcor, the talking sword in Baldur's Gate 2 :P. He was so funny. Yelling stuff out in the middle of combat. :)

Unknown said...

ben,
ho provato a leggere qualcosa ma non ci capisco nulla...comunque che bravi che siete...ora hai anche commenti in italiano, il vostro blog รจ arrivato in italia...:)
ora ti saluto ciao ciao
ilaria

Thallian said...

forte! ciao ciao :)