Tag: LOTR

Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings Series To Be Set In The Second Age

 

Amazon has been very tight lipped about there upcoming LOTR themed series, even going so far as locking writers in a room, with armed guards standing outside, I’m not kidding about that.

We finally got some small details about Amazon’s project based on The Lord of the Rings. One of the biggest question surrounding this series has been when in the history of Middle-earth it would be set. There were people that were hoping for the 1rst age, there were people that wanted the 2nd age, well, we know now which group is going to be happy. The 2nd age is coming.

 

 

The Second Age covers a time period of 3,441 years. During this time, Sauron forged the Ring Of Power, with the Second Age coming to an end following his defeat at the hands of the King of Gonder, Isildur.

This opens up a lot of stories for them to tell over the course of the series. Amazon also has a new website set up for the series, there is nothing there right now, but a nice map that you can explore.

Still no date for when we can watch this on Amazon Prime. But we will be sure to let you know!

 

New F2P Middle-earth MMORPG Coming Soon For Console And PC

 

A new Middle-earth MMORPG is coming to PC and consoles, even though Lord of the Rings Online is still alive and well, The new Lord Of The Rings MMO was announced by Leyou Technologies and will be published and partially developed by Athlon Games.  Athlon will not be the sole developer of the project as it will also be working in tandem with a currently unknown partner developer. The project aims to “to create an engrossing new AAA experience” set in the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien. The press release adds that players will explore “lands, people and creatures never seen before by fans of the Tolkien universe.”

Additionally, the game will be set prior to the events of the famous novel series. The press release also hints at what the MMO’s business plan will be. It notes that both Leyou Technologies and Athlon Games have a “deep expertise with free-to-play game design and service” suggesting a free-to-play model for the AAA online game. While waiting for its release, one can pass the time on other options such as those on guild games.

 

 

Details are slim to none at this point, but Dave Miller Presiden Of Athlon Games Said

“It’s a singular opportunity to work closely with Middle-earth Enterprises to create a completely new experience for fans of the landmark fantasy work of J.R.R. Tolkien, and we are excited about the resurgence of interest in The Lord of the Rings IP, This, along with several other major properties Athlon is working with, will help us to further our goal of creating AAA cooperative console and PC experiences that gamers will want to play for years to come.”

 

Fredrica Drotos, Chief Brand & Licensing Officer at Middle-earth Enterprises adds

“We are extremely pleased to work with Athlon Games to create a new, immersive game experience, exploring epic regions in Middle-earth during the years leading to the events of The Lord of the Rings, Athlon’s game will allow millions of Middle-earth fans throughout the world a unique opportunity for fellowship and epic exploration.”

 

If you haven’t heard of Athlon before, that’s because it’s a new subsidiary of Chinese publisher Leyou Technologies, the company that owns Warframe developer Digital Extremes as well as Splash Damage, the studio that most recently worked on the multiplayer for Gears of War 4. The Lord of the Rings will be Athlon’s first big project.

 

More news as we get it, I’ve also reached out to Standing Stone Game for any comments or statements they might wish to share, I’ll update this as soon as I hear back.
Story developing.

 

 

LOTRO Poems #20

Hail Friends! Hope you are all doing well. Happy 11th Anniversary to The Lord of The Rings Online. It is a joy to see such a wonderful game based on Tolkiens lore still going strong. While raiding is fun but the mere fact that we can just log into a game and go visit Prancing Pony in Bree or go see the Tower of Isengard or witness the destruction of the Black Gate of Mordor or walk around in the streets of Minas Tirith, the places we have read about since our childhood come to life, it is truly amazing experience. Not to mention the bond of friendship and kinship we have developed through this game and the wonderful community of players, casual and hardcore. Here’s to many more years of LOTRO! Cheers!

Casual Raiders are going strong as ever before. We recently completed Tier 2 Challenge in Abyss of Mordath Boss 1 and 2. Last night we went for a nostalgia run in Tower of Orthanc T2C. That raid is always fun and brings back so many memories. One particular memory from that raid is when I invited Layanor of MMO Reporter to our raid and he streamed our raid and many failures and eventual triumph on Twitch.

This poem is a continuation of “Estel” series of poems. Last time we met Aragorn, the fellowship had a little reunion and the good guys won the Battle of Helms Deep. If you haven’t read the previous 10 parts, first of all what is wrong with you? OK just kidding! Secondly I highly encourage reading them before this poem, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,  Part 4,  Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9 and Part 10. Here is “Estel” part 11. Enjoy!

Estel (part 11)

We found a Palantir of old, Pippin’s curiosity overcame,
He held it in his hands and witnessed the White Tree aflame,

Then he got caught by Sauron and he beheld the Dark Lord,
Who tortured him for information, hurt him with his sword,

But the Hobbit was pure of heart and bold,
By chance he saw the enemies plan unfold,

A fire burnt in my heart, I must go to Minas Tirith to defend the White City, I said,
But Gandalf had another plan, I must tread the pathless paths of the dead,

With my companions on my side, I called the Oathbreakers,
Showed them the sword that was broken, the forsakers,

Promised them their freedom, the release from their bond,
We went to Pelargir, to fight the corsairs in quays of Harlond,

We took their ships, to head to the burning city,
We slew the Orcs and Easterlings without pity,

So came Aragorn son of Arathorn, heir of of Isuldur and of Elendil the tall,
With blood of Numenor in his veins and the glory of the men before the fall,

South rode Eomer with the Rohirim, east rode Imrahil and the knights of Dol Amroth,
There came Legolas and Gimli and Elladan and Elrohir and the Dunedain of the North,

We fought hard and all the enemies were slain,
It was time for me to heal our hurts and pain.

 

Hope you guys and girls and its enjoyed this weeks LOTRO Poem. Feel free to let me know in comments. If you want to feature your poem on LOTRO Poems my email is legendraiderx@gmail.com.

My Twitter: @dgenxali.

My blog: dgenxali.wordpress.com.

My Kinship on Brandywine: Casual Raiders.

Be good and have a wonderful day, Namarie!

LOTRO Poems #19

Hail Friends! Hope you are all doing well. Spring is in the air, the sun is shinning bright, as winter comes to end and our paths lead us to Northern Mirkwood and Dale and to Erebor and it is finally time for the return of LOTRO Poems.

Casual Raiders recently celebrated their 4th year anniversary. Sometimes I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that a kinship I started 4 years ago has come to be one of Brandywines biggest kinships. Lately we have been having a go at the latest end game raid, Abyss of Mordath on tier 2 and it has been challenging and fun. Here’s to many more years of amazing times and beautiful memories with Casual Raiders! Cheers!

This poem is a continuation of “Estel” series of poems. When we last met Aragorn he was feeling hopeless in his pursuit of the Uruk-hai and the trail had led him into Fangorn. If you haven’t read the previous 9 parts, I highly encourage you to read them before this poem, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,  Part 4,  Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Part 9. Here is “Estel” part 10. Enjoy!

Estel (part 10)

Into the deep woods we went, legolas could hear the trees speak,
A white light blinding us, we found someone we did not seek,

Out of darkness, out of time, from timeless halls, from world end,
Came Gandalf, clad in white, leader of our company, our old friend,

Together we rode to Meduseld, to meet the king, grim and hiding inside,
To free him from the grip of Saruman, to show him the light outside,

His son had died, but there was no time to weep,
The hammer stroke was ready to fall on Helm’s Deep,

We prepared for battle, young and able, old and sturdy, grabbed a sword, to protect and guard,
There was Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli along with Theoden, fighting day and night, fighting hard,

Then we made our last onslaught, and Gandalf came down the hill riding,
Bringing light and death to fleeing uruks, into the forest they went hiding,

But the forest had come alive,the hobbits did their magic,
The huorns woke and were furious, the uruks end was tragic,

The battle for Helm’s Deep was a victory, a win,
But the battle for Middle-earth was just about to begin.

 

Hope you guys and girls enjoyed this weeks LOTRO Poem. Feel free to let me know in comments. If you want to feature your poem on LOTRO Poems my email is legendraiderx@gmail.com.

My Twitter: @dgenxali.

My blog: dgenxali.wordpress.com.

My Kinship on Brandywine: Casual Raiders.

Be good and have a wonderful day, Namarie!

 

 

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.