The 25 Days of XPACS

This week, LOTRO Players received an email from Bludborn about a community event he is hosting through the month of December on his Twitch channel:

What: The 25 Days of XPACS
Where: http://twitch.tv/bludborn
When: Monday-Thursday and Saturdays in December
Streams start at 10p EST

I have been playing The Lord of the Rings Online for 10 years and streaming on Twitch for 4 years. Without the community of players that come in and support my channel and the game, there would be no reason for me to do what I do. This year, I wanted to give back to the community that has been there for me over the last decade in game, and 4 years on Twitch. We have 25 copies of various expansions excluding Mordor that I will be giving away each stream during December. This is in addition to the 50 and 100 viewer goal giveaways already active on the channel!

The only thing you have to do to be eligible is follow twitch.tv/bludborn and be in the stream when I do the drawing. That’s it!

Thank you again for all that you do for me and best of luck in the giveaways!

See you in the stream and in Middle-earth!

Bludborn

 

Mordor 21.2.1.b?

 

It has been a busy few days in SSG and here on our website. The instance update has taken care of this. First, we reacted to Cordovans first announcement to the mistake that has happened. Then, with a great community effort, we announced the different solution that SSG has come up with. And ultimately, we announced the update they released today.

Sadly, this update comes with a different set of kinks in the build. The one that was quickly noticed is that the instance and loot box armour (but not the jewellery) has also been reduced in stats, not only the Ash barter armour we had traded for.

Cordovan

Today’s hotfix incorrectly reduced the power of Level 330 Incomparable items acquired through the new Instances and Gorgoroth Steel-bound Lootboxes. We are working on a fast correction to this issue, and expect to release a hotfix this weekend. Players with incorrectly-reduced items will see those items automatically returned to their proper power level after the hotfix.

But another one has also happened. As I feared, given the experience with down and upscaling in LOTRO, the downscaling didn’t really go well. It has been actually great news to see that we didn’t lose too much light, but it wasn’t that great to see that now level 330 armour is lower in stats than our lower level items.

 

 

Bad news for players who bartered for new gold rings is that there has been some change there too. The rings with the barter price of 3300 are now also available through an upgrade of the old gold rings for 800 Ash of Gorgoroth. The upgrade is only available for the 326 gold rings, not the rings from the loot boxes, which may have been of a higher level.

Now, all of this keeps me wondering what kind of Inception-like story is behind this. A hotfix in a hotfix in a hotfix. What do you call a hotfix in a hotfix? Does it get hotter or colder? A lukewarm fix? I really have no clue. And while I do support SSG when it comes to people actually figuring out the mechanics of the game, I am not sure if they really did adjust the damage dealt by bosses properly. As per other player’s testimony, the Dungeons of Naerband last boss hits too hard. I won’t speak more to this since I didn’t yet have the time or a chance to test it. I did test Court of Seregost t2c and the last fight there reset on our group several times. Not a failed instance because of too many bats got away or something, just a random reset. If someone has a clue why this is happening, please let us know.

In any case, the solution they did come up with the gear was a good middle ground, I’d say, but another bug and inadequate scaling aren’t doing SSG any favours.

I hope you’re not all fed up with this topic, but I feel now that we have started covering it, we also need to follow and cover it until resolved.

A different day, a different solution

 

To remind you, if a reminder is even needed, I have had an article about how SSG wanted to address the issue they have created by not putting the correct Ash value on the elf-enchanter. Some people were happy to see the discounted gear, thinking it’s the correct price because there were so many ways to get more pieces of gear. The teal barter items had a +14 Light of Earendil stat, while the crafted purple items had a +16 and it was only natural to think that is the reason it was cheaper and because of the eventual gear from the instances.

The first idea was to strip the people from their newly received gear and have them left without any gear, which cause a massive uproar on the forums. I have been following the community for a while and it has been a long time since I have seen the people there so in sync with who has made a mistake and what needed to be done. I haven’t seen a greater display of a community effort that great and I applaud them for that. As much as some people do not like the tone of some of my articles, I’d like to think that it played at least one small part of it.

The current solution that SSG has come to is that they would offer two solutions. Either turn in the gear and receive the ash that you spent and shadowed essences, the number to be determined by the number of slots of the armour piece you turn in. Or keep the gear, but it will be downscaled to the old level 330. I hope this means that the stats stay the same, but we lose the extra +4 LoE. This would be tolerable and what I would prefer because I’d hate to see SSG try to downscale or upscale anything since it doesn’t really work that good in LOTRO. Downscaled BB’s and upscaled PvMP is a proof of that.

Cordovan

When Update 21 Patch 2 was released to the live worlds on October 10th, the cost for Incomparable items from the High-Enchanter Barter Vendor was incorrectly set when compared to the rest of the gear on offer. Once we recognized the issue, we temporarily disabled the vendor. We are working on a hotfix to correct this issue.

 

For players who already purchased Item Level 330 Incomparable gear, we have several options available. When the hotfix is released, already-purchased level 330 Incomparable items will be able to be disenchanted with the Flame of Ancalamir to return the full Ash of Gorgoroth cost, plus a number of Shadowed Essence Boxes equal to the number of Essence Slots on the gear. Already-purchased Item Level 330 Incomparable Gear will also have its stats adjusted to be approximately equivalent to the level 330 rare gear available through the High-Enchanter, and the Essence Slots will remain. This allows players to utilize the gear if they choose. Following the hotfix, Incomparable gear will have its correct vendor cost.

 

Cordovan

The essences will be retained in the gear, unless you disenchant it, in which case you’ll want to use an Essence Reclamation Scroll prior to disenchanting it.

Since they want to downscale the gear, but keep the essences in it, I hope this works. Because we couldn’t slot the new essences in old gear and this might create some issues if another oversight would happen.

Another issue this creates is that people have paid Ash for an upgrade and now are getting downgraded. In a sense. If done correctly we may actually end up with higher level gear and more stats than we had, since some gear we had before was lower than 330, but higher than 326, but we would get less light too. And to get the Ash back one would need to turn in the item. Would this warrant for players to ask for a certain amount of Ash now too? I’m not sure. What do you think?

Of course, this being the mistake of SSG many think that they are not supposed to be downgraded and still expect to keep the gear as it is now. This is what I would prefer too, because it makes no sense to me to have the instances roll out and now go and do Ash farms. Drops aren’t good enough to spend too much time in t1 instances preparing for t2c, hoping for crafted items that may or may not crit. I guess what could be considered positive from all of this is that we may get the Ash of Gorgoroth to be account bound. Eventually.

Cordovan

Additionally, we are looking into making the Ash of Gorgoroth account-bound, although that’s not specifically a part of this announcement (but is pretty big news).

Once again, I can’t praise the community enough for what they have achieved. With the community being against this solution it was a smart move of SSG to not push the first solution they offered and now we can only wait and see how they implement their new plan and when. Hopefully soon, since with the ash vendor being blocked people can’t get the Flame of Ancalmir and follow the quest chain if they are only now entering Mordor.

Vote LOTRO For Best Community MMOSite Readers Choice Awards

 

mmosite

 

LOTRO is one of the games that are up for the MMOSite Readers Choice Awards, In the best community award.

You can vote HERE Users can vote 1 time per 24 hours.

Voting will End December 20th. LOTRO (As of this posting) has 3 votes. And is last place!

 

LOTRO Seeks Streamers

Turbine is looking for regular streamers of Lord of the Rings Online to join a new LOTRO Community Stream Team. Benefits to streamers include promotional support from LOTRO, codes for giveaways, and access to developers. Benefits to LOTRO include increased exposure within the live streaming community. Community manager Frelorn posted the following  in the official LOTRO forums:

Do you stream regularly? Are you looking to grow your audience? If you answered yes* to any of these questions, we want you to join the Lord of the Rings Online Community Stream Team! (*or if you stream regularly and feature Lord of the Rings Online or are looking to introduce the game to your existing audience.)

 

Members of the Lord of the Rings Online Community Stream Team will gain access to certain benefits designed to help grow their audience including:

  • Free Turbine Point codes and items for giveaways
  • Opportunities to have some of the game’s devs join your stream
  • Promotional support

We’re looking for players of all levels who stream regularly each week. Send your Twitch username, Community name, server and the normal times that you stream to stream@lotro.com for consideration. We will be watching and reaching out to potential streamers to join our team.

 

Good on LOTRO for tapping into this vibrant and growing community!

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