Update 13: The Breaking of Isengard Release Notes

Well here we are. After five rounds of Beta testing notes, the final set for Update 13 are here. For the most part they are unchanged from Bullroarer, but it could be worth a look see just to refresh some of the details. Regardless, I will paste the bigger titbits below:

Of Special Note

Epic Book 14
The conclusion of Volume three is here! Please note, you will need to complete Book 13 before you can begin Book 14. You can read the ‘Quest Notes’ Diary for more information.

Players can now explore the following new areas

• The Entwood
• Flooded Isengard

Inventory has received a facelift!

• Bags can now be resized by dragging the resize bar on the right-hand side left or right.
• There is now an “Edit Mode” feature that allows you to drag/drop inventory space from one bag to another in pre-determined chunks of space. This can be toggled on or off via the new “Edit Mode” button on the bags. To leave “Edit Mode” and return to normal bag usage, you must press the edit mode button again or hit the escape key.
• Bag 1 now has a toolbar for purchasing more inventory space, searching for items, turning “Edit Mode” on/off, and toggling sell lock on items.
• Going forward, when purchasing additional inventory space the space will be added to bag 1.
• Bag 1 cannot be emptied out completely due to the special toolbar located in it but all other bags can have all inventory space moved out of them. This will cause them to not display except when you are in edit mode. Effectively, this will allow you to put all of your inventory into a single bag if you so choose.

Addressing new Lootboxes causing inventory overflow on first login post Update 13.
Item rewards from completing Deeds will now go into your pending loot if your inventory is full or if you have the “Always Loot All” option set to off. These rewards are exempt from the maximum size of the pending loot list, but as you acquire future items, they can be knocked out if they are the oldest items in the list. They will expire from pending loot after an hour of game time.

Region Revamps
The following regions have been revised and adjusted. You can read the developer diary for more information.

• Misty Mountains and Goblin Town
• The North Downs
• The Trollshaws

Moors level scaling and free player access

• F2P and Premium players may now take their Freeps to the Ettenmoors by purchasing a temporary moors pass from the stable master using Mithril Coins.
• The Free Peoples may now enter the Ettenmoors at level 20 and have their characters scaled up to level cap.

Resource Instances
New level 95 resource instances have been added.

Mail Update

• In-game mail sent to you by players on your ignore list will now be returned to sender, along with any attached money or items.
• You may now attach up to 10 items or stacks of items to your mail.
• VIP players may now open their mail directly from the notification icon wherever they are on the landscape.
• Certain items purchased in the LOTRO Store may now be emailed to others for a small Mithril Coin fee.

Akamai Netsession
With today’s release of Update 13: The Breaking of Isengard, we have introduced a replacement for our Pando-enabled client and downloader. We now use a non-peer-to-peer version of the Akamai NetSession client for the LOTRO launcher, and wanted to update you on how we plan to utilize this service in the future.

The Akamai NetSession client allows us to quickly and reliably deliver fresh LOTRO client installations to you, and assist in the repair of missing or corrupted files in current game installations. The client utilizes Akamai’s large network of edge servers to deliver this content to you from a location which is deemed geographically closest to you, and ensures that we are able to efficiently and effectively get you what you need to play LOTRO.

Although some versions of the Akamai NetSession client used by other software providers utilize Peer-to-Peer technology, we have decided not to use P2P for LOTRO. What this means is that Akamai NetSession will NOT use peer-to-peer when delivering LOTRO-related content.

Once you install the LOTRO client, or patch your game to Update 13, it will be possible to uninstall Akamai NetSession from your computer, and NetSession will not reinstall unless it is necessary to deliver a deleted file or a fresh installation. Typical game updates will not require the use of Akamai NetSession.

Balance and Difficulty adjustments

• As part of our efforts to adjust difficulty, we have Removed Primary stat contributions (might, will and Vitality) from Tactical and Physical Mitigations.
• As part of some balance changes, we have slightly modified the contributions of Primary stats to mastery and avoidance ratings for all classes.
• All classes now receive 1 point of Tactical Mitigation per point of Will and Fate.

Character Model Adjustments

• Elf Male, Human Female, and Hobbit Male Idle stances have been updated.
• Hobbits and Male Elves have less curvature of the spine.
• Humans have a more natural waist line and smaller human male feet at ‘buff’ end of slider.
• Dwarfs have a more natural waist, legs, hips, and arms (very minor tweaks).

Epic Battle Rewards
For Update 13, Legendary Quality Rings, Bracelets, and Earrings have been rotated in as rewards and will now have a chance of being awarded for Platinum rewards. Legendary Quality Pocket Items and Necklaces have been rotated out of the Platinum rewards. In future releases, these rewards will continue to rotate between the available possibilities.

Confirmation Checkbox Updates
Added a “Do Not Show Again” checkbox to the confirmation dialogs for certain confirmed actions. If you check the box, then the next time that you would have been prompted for confirmation for the given action, confirmation will be suppressed (bypassed). Henceforth, the action will succeed without requiring confirmation.
Also added a button to the UI Settings Options that you can use to reset all suppressed confirmation dialogs (all actions for which confirmation was suppressed will require confirmation once again).
The actions which now support confirmation suppression are:

• Legendary point spend
• Relic combination
• Legendary item deconstruction
• Switching trait spec (class/big battle/mounted combat)
• Heritage runeuse
• Scroll of Renewal use
• Starlit crystal use
• Mail deletion

A special thank you to the LOTRO Players Council for their help on a number of issues including the Mail changes, Checkbox update, and Balance and Difficulty updates as well as brining a number of smaller issues to our attention.