Tag: Bullroarer

[CC] Guide to Bullroarer v0.1

With a new update on the horizon you will hear or read, Bullroarer is up or Bullroarer is live. In this guide  we’ll go quickly over what it is, why you might want to check it out and how do you get on Bullroarer if you decide to use it

*Updates when i can get some screenshots

What is Bullroarer?
Every new update introduces new things. Things that need to be tested before unleashing it on the people of Middle-earth. Bullroarer is the name of the server where the new version of lotro is active before it will be on the normal servers like Evernight or Laurelin.

Why would i want to check it out?
You’ll have access to the newest content a few weeks earlier. Class changes, crafting, areas, instances etc. What you choose to with that content is up to you. SSG is interested in your opinion, what doesn’t work or what works too well. A quest that won’t work, a skill that does not do enough damage or a boss that does too much. You can help to prevent this or use information and time to practice a bit.

Pro – what is in it for me?

  • Beta test/bug report
  • Test class changes or trait trees
  • Try out new content and quests

Con – might not be for you if you dont like

  • Time spent on characters is time not spend on the live server
  • Spoilers

How do i get to bullroarer?
Bullroarer is online for a limited time. Only during the testing phase for a few days at the time. And a few important warnings.

Important information regarding earning and using points on the Bullroarer Test Server

  • Points earned or granted on Bullroarer do not carry over to live.
    Do not use purchased point codes or cards on Bullroarer! Any points granted to Bullroarer by these cards will not be available to use on Live and will not be refunded!

  • Players who participated in previous preview periods may find they still have points attached to their accounts. You can use these points only on Bullroarer.

  • Bullroarer is a Test server. We wipe all data from this server between tests and at other times as our testing requires. As a result, any lost points, items, or upgrades will not be refunded.

Before server go live
Step 1 – Download the separate client from the offical forum 
Step 2 – Install the client before the server go up. Fesh and long installation

At the start of Bullroarer
When the server goes live (information provided by facebook, twitter or the Bullroarer forum. Currently it’s up during weekdays instead of the weekend.

When the login and transfer servers are open you can use an existing character or fresh (max level*) character to play. *To use the level up service it has to be a new character

  • Option 1 – Copy an existing character to bullroarer with the normal client Transfer. This will be a carbon copy of your character. Items will be cloned, not transferred. During this proces you can’t access your normal servers. Wait a few hours for the que to dissipate if you want to play
  • Option 2 – Create a new character and use “the Tavern” to equip and upgrade your character (to 120). Check out the guide and information provided by SSG. or read the Faq for some quick info

Read the patchnotes and/or the thread by the developers to see what is actually being tested or they want information for.

After/during Bullroarer

  1. Leave bullroarer installed. You can access it again the next time
  2. Report any bugs through the ingame Report Bug option or post it on the forum
  3. Use your newfound insights for the better of dwarf-kind or prepare yourself better for the next update

Perks you might not think of

  1. Change and test out class builds, dps with ease and no cost
    1. Tavern for best gear, free empowerment scrolls etc
    2. Test dummies for damage and healing (3 minute combat instead of 5 secs on live)
  2. Access to changes, areas and classes you don’t have (to provide feedback)
    1. Want to try a beorning before purchase or a max level warden? It’s free
    2. Revert and tweak changes you don’t like by providing feedback. Guardian was changed a lot based on feedback during previous the betas
  3. Head start on the new content
    1. Doing new quests, crafting or dailies before it goes live will give you a head start. Can also backfire cause you might be done earlier and get bored.
    2. Information you can use on the live servers. Focus on getting a new legendary weapon or a specific legacy. Don’t spend gold on items that will get replaced in the new area. Stock up on items that might go up in price soon.

See you all on bullroarer for the new update

 

 

Mordor 21.2: A brief look through the notes

 

Welcome to the open beta. (In case you didn’t notice that Bullroarer is an alpha test server). Let’s see what is going on in the Update 21.2.

 

Twenty new repeatable daily quests are now available! Find these new quests by speaking with the Expedition Organizers in each of the Allegiance halls (Vórthi, Tancram, Glórellas, or Aster Hayward.)

Oh, well, I guess repetition of the current daily quests wasn’t enough, so we needed also daily requests. Without a deed on BR, we will see if something changed there.

A new Main Menu item has been created to allow players to filter out sounds, quests, and items, either for the current player, or for your entire account! If you’ve got something you never want to see, hear or get again, you can access the Filter panel by pressing Alt+R (by default). To remove any filter, drag the item, quest, or sound off of the filtered list.

 Loot: To add an item to your loot filter, drag it from your inventory to the filtered list, or press the button in pending loot. Anything added to the Loot filtered list will not be awarded to you again. For Master Looter, the Master Looter will see an assignment dialog for items meeting the quality rating of the fellowship rule, even if the item is filtered. For Need/Greed/Pass, only players who do not have an item filtered will see the dialog option for items meeting the quality rating of the fellowship rule. For filtered items, players will not see the Need/Greed/Pass dialog, and the response will automatically default to Pass when the timeout for the response expires.
Quests: Filter a quest by clicking the filter or account filter button at the bottom left of the bestowal dialog or quest log. Quests you have filtered will no longer attempt to auto-bestow, no longer appear as quest rings on the Mini-Map radar, and no longer appear as a quest ring on NPC or mob heads. Quests that cannot be abandoned cannot be filtered.
Sounds: To filter a sound, go to a place or situation in-game where the sound is heard, click the Record button to see a list of all sounds currently playing, then drag the sound to the character or account filtered list. Sounds you have filtered will no longer plays as audio in your game client.

Finally a useful feature in this game. We wrote more about filters here. Looking forward to checking if they removed the item number cap in the list and if we can see all the audio files now.

Experience the new “Frightful Tales to Curl the Hair On Your Toes” at the Harvestmath Festival this year.

Can’t wait to try out the filters.

Talath Urui – Shackles have been excavated from the rubble, and can now be reached for the quest “Breaking the Chains”.
Talath Urui – The hiding spot should now be more obvious in the quest instance “Borangos the Horror”.
Gorgoroth Resource Dungeons – Allegiance bonus quests no longer go away after completing an Allegiance. If you have already completed one or more Allegiances, the bonus quests will return for you.
Gorgoroth Resource Dungeons – Barad-dur: Lore of the Past no longer has an Ancient Tome hidden in rubble. Barad-dur: Gathering Relics no longer has a relic hiding in a wall.
Gorgoroth Resource Dungeons – Durthang: Gathering Relics Durthang is no longer missing a Relic.
Gorgoroth Resource Instances: The following deeds are now available: Resources of Gorgoroth, Gathering of Resources, Gathering of Resources (Intermediate), Gathering of Resources (Advanced).
The Tales of Gorgoroth Deed is now visible in your Deed Log as soon when at least one objective has been completed.
Some actors in the Udun region now have the correct species or race listed.
Some minor typos in the Elf Allegiance storyline have been corrected.
Players who currently have the Court of Lothlorien Allegiance quest underway will now find Glorfindel in Rivendell if an older quest that requires him is not yet completed. If the character is not in the middle of an uncompleted older quest, then Glorfindel will continue to phase out of the area.

Only took a hotfix, a patch and 2 updates.

There is a new Allegiance Weekly in the rotation for completing the 3 person and 6 person instances.

Oh, great. So a bugged “cluster” of instances will now be a requirement for a weekly quest that probably not every class will be suited for. Great job, SSG.

There is a new Lost Lore for the three and six person instances.

They didn’t have the 5000 allegiance point relic in the BR build, we will see how that goes in the beta today.

Wildermore Endgame – All quests are now available as choices all the time.
The Battle of Ost Celebrant – Follower Doran will bestow all of the quests immediately when you enter Ost Celebrant
Evendim – Farmer’s Bane – The wolf is now always available to advance the quest.
Summer Festival – It is now easier to target and attack the Heat Wave mobs for the quest “Defeat the Heat”.
Baggins Birthday – All of the story quests will now be continuously available during the event.

Very important for the instance update. Class balance isn’t really an issue. *Takes the blue pill* (No, not that one.)

There is a new tier of crafting available. New recipes are available from the Quartermaster – Gorgoroth Crafting Vendor. These recipes require a special ingredient only found in the Instances. This item may be freely traded.

Didn’t spend much time on crafting in BR, but I think that ‘tier’ is a bit confusing, as it’s still Doomfold. But I’ll bet you anything that instance only items also drop from lootboxes.

When running the Pelennor Instances: Blood of the Black Serpent, The Quays of the Harlond, and The Silent Street, at level 115, you can now receive equipment that scales up to Item Level 315.

Still don’t know if there’s a 315 hilt and what it would give. LoE?

Crafting – Doomfold Healing, Milkthistle, Conhuith, and Lhinestad Draughts now remove negative effects up to a maximum strength of level 120.
Crafting – Captain Crest and Warden Carving recipes may be executed with Universal Ingredient Packs.
Crafting – Food produced from Doomfold Cooking now has a stack size up to 100.
Crafting – Woodworkers are now able to craft Strong Boards of Doomfold Wood, Weaponsmiths are now able to craft Quality Doomfold Ingots, and Tailors are now able to craft Well-treated Doomfold Leather.
Crafting – Doomfold Jewellery recipes now only require 1 Refined Black Adamant instead of three.
The Doomfold tier Woodworker recipe Superior Bow of the Doomfold no longer creates hammers, and the Superior Hammer of the Doomfold no longer creates bows.
The Empowered Shadow Essence Box is now unbound so that it can be traded or sold.

Still no essences for scholar or cook and no scaling up of Doomfold crafted class items.

Allegiances – Daily repeatable, weekly repeatable, and Resource Instances in Mordor now give a new type of Allegiance Point item. The value of allegiance points from these sources results in the same point grant, but the new AP items can be used to barter for a new tier of Allegiance Gear.
Allegiance point granting items now stack to 100.

And they kept the relic that you use for Allegiance level up to use for bartering and basically given up on Tokens of Service at the same barterer. So much for the feedback.

Allegiance Cloaks no longer have an armour class requirement to use, and can be used by any class.

Still didn’t get an explanation to what is a heavy cloak. Made of chain mail?

Gorgoroth Steel-bound Loot Boxes now provide item level 330 gear commensurate with the new instance spaces.

Most likely not true and is meant that the new lowest level is 330, since we already had items up to 333 that we know of, just the minimum level was 326. We will probably get a message that this is either a bug or the items can be obtained somewhere else. But then again…

Gorgoroth Steel-bound Loot Boxes now offer an assortment of new Mordor-themed pets, and a set of cosmetic weapons.

Interesting… Wonder if they used the beacon feedback to add Viznak in. The barterer had pets in shape of different crawlers, snakes and salamanders. Hopefully these are somewhat different.

To see the complete list of the changes, you can visit the forums.

 

The tale of the stale pretzels in Mordor Beta 2

 

I can’t say that the Mordor 21.2 Beta 2 gave anything much to talk about. There were some minor changes, some others were also made, but too late to implement in build 2. In regard to instances, the change they made from Beta 1 was that the instances now require you to have the Light of Earendil stat. The T2C content will have 200 shadow most of the time. In the Dungeons of Naerband you can get 240 shadow when you get 2 bosses after the first trash pull. Near the end of that fight you can even get 280 shadow. This is getting to be too much and hopefully won’t stay like that. The issue with healing the tank behind the bosses still persists since they create some invisible wall and line of sight the healer. But we found a nice strategy to clear the first trash pull in the Dungeons – use stale pretzels.

Good news for Beornings is that the cloaks no longer have any limitations by armour type, so the might cloak won’t be a heavy cloak anymore. More good news, actually. The plug-ins seem to be fixed and the instance gear which isn’t implemented yet will have finesse on light armour too, instead of evade.

Dungeons of Naerband also had Lost Lore pages introduced or I just didn’t come across them in the last build. For some reason the quest only appears once you get close to one. And the locations aren’t really obvious. Well, they’re lost for a reason, OK. I think there should be at least one of these at the entrance, since in the last build I was actually under the impression that only the small fellowship instance had these. The quest for now doesn’t have the 5000 Allegiance Point relic, which I’m not sure if it’s intended or not. Also, if you stay inside for long enough, and we had some breaks because of people losing connection and such, the mobs you have killed will eventually respawn. This is only an issue when they respawn beyond the first boss area, since you could just die to the mobs and have yourself ported to a spawn point, similar to Dome and Silent Street spawn points.

In the Court of Seregost there were also some minor changes. For one Dulgabeth is now acting like Illadan wannabe, it seems to me. They changed his appearance. And the other one, an annoying one for us, was that he has a rather annoying attack and a feature that you can not really identify when it happens, doesn’t seem to be interruptible, since there is no induction circle. This fight didn’t go from easy to hard, it went from easy to hard and most of all annoying. It’s a small fellowship for God sakes, people don’t need to stay in here like it’s a raid.

In other news, Faeron is fighting stress by doing some improv, his version of Shakespeare in the park and I killed my mount.

And I am still trying to realise why are the Tokens of Service being abandoned as a barter item for Allegiance vendors. If you have finished your 4 allegiances you would be left with around 200 ToS. Granted, this could be seen as accumulating, but so is saving up the relics. The reason I do not understand this is because the same vendor is now asking for different barter items and SSG is adding ToS as rewards to more quests now. Even the flower barterers asked for more flowers, they didn’t make up a new item to barter for. I have an impression that this is like going back to a country you already visited and having some left over currency from the last trip you try to buy something, but the currency doesn’t match for what you are trying to buy. The relics are Disney Dollars!!! I see this as punishing the people who have maxed more than 1 or 2 allegiances. I would have saved all the relics if the currency that was just introduced was going to be trashed in that short time.