Chris, Layanor, and Cari ramble on about about War-steeds, warbands, soundtracks, one rather colourful horse, and whether Chris should level a Champion or a Captain.

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What We Did in Game

Layanor

  • Finished the the 27 quests in the Rohan pre-order horse quest line. I now have the heal skill for my War-steed.
  • Did a Foundry and had three members bail after almost beating the boss.
  • Played even more of the beta. I am starting to get hooked!
  • Purchased the Steed of the Minstrel. That makes mount number 83.

Cari

  • Had to load LOTRO onto a different computer due to laptop issues. My LUA plugins were missing.
  • Participated in the Harvestmath Festival. I’m so proud I remembered the layout of the Haunted Burrow.
  • Ran Roots of Fangorn.
  • Ran the Foundry of Isengard finished it for the first time.

Chris

  • Great River, finished with the Brown Lands, but quit before moving on.
  • After our discussion last week, I made a couple of Alts on Landroval, a Champion and a Captain. Not sure which I’m going to continue with…(Chris need the listeners to help him decide if he should level the Champion or Captain Leave a comment, please).
  • Had a great run through with Aaron “Rowan” Campbell of the new Rohan Content. We’ll talk more about it next week.

News

Dev Diary: Mounted Combat:
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/2467-riders-of-rohan-developer-diary-mounted-combat-

  • They touch on the development of horses in LOTRO from beta 5 years ago, to Rohan.
  • They had horse attacks but removed them in favor of constant moving combat.
  • If you are dismounted in combat, you can get right back on your War-steed and it will be fully healed.
  • XP will be for all of your War-steeds. Not just the one you use the most.
  • Quests will have War-steed XP just like Legendary XP.
  • There are no fellowship maneuvers while riding a War-steed. They can still be initiated and participated in while not riding, but their effects on a mounted monster will differ, in that they will not be stunned or rooted.

Tidbits Layanor noticed about Rohan in Beta

  • LOTRO store is full of War-steed items like: XP Boosts, Stat Boosts, Cosmetic Slots, Cosmetics, and Trait Line Slots.
  • All quests in Rohan give War-Steed XP.
  • If you are on your War-steed or not, it still gets XP whatever you do.
  • War-steeds are FAST! Riding past a mob is so fast that most of the time the mob has no time to react to hit you.
  • It is very hard to run away from a fight. Mobs will run a long ways to get you and your chances of running into other wandering mobs is very high!
  • War-steeds can be used anywhere outside of Rohan, but not for combat.
  • The heal skill for your War-steed from the legendary pre-order has been reduced from 24 hours, to 15 minutes.

Warband Dev Diary:
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/2491-riders-of-rohan-developer-diary-warbands

  • They wanted to capture the feel of roving packs of monsters traveling across the plains.
  • Warbands are much like the wandering shard dropper mobs in the old areas. They cover more ground and have other mobs with them.
  • They will show up on your radar when one is near.
  • Once you are close to one you can take the daily quest to kill them for a Gift Box. These boxes contain crafting materials, including rare materials, housing items, potions, marks, medallions, jewelry, shards, relics (including mounted relics), 2nd age symbols, and exclusive War-steed appearances.

XP Disabler is on Bullroarer:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?480247-XP-Disabler-is-in-LOTRO-store-on-Bullroarer

  • Current Bullroarer price is 700 TP
  • It’s for 7 days real time. That means once you use the item you have seven earth days before it expires.
  • You can be toggled on and off.
  • Turns off monster and quest XP when on.
  • One argument is that VIP have rested XP whether they want it or not.Why should they have to pay to turn that off.

LOTRO Update (but no patch notes):
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?481071-Where-s-the-patch-notes&p=6441571#post6441571

  • Default message got posted by accident.
  • Adjustments to the performance tech to address lag issues. This is the tech crashed Windfola last week.
  • 627 client fix files. No extra Rohan files were added.

Steed of the Minstrel is in the Store:

http://www.lotro.com/lotrostoresale/1537-lotro-store-exclusive-steeds

  • 1995 Turbine Points
  • Available until October 18, 2012
  • Cari thinks it looks like a Jester steed not a steed for a Minstrel.

Did You Know

You can earn 33 festival tokens a day during a festival just by doing the Inn League Delivery Repeatable Quests.

  • Inn League starter quest starts at the party tree with the table full of beer. It is a pub crawl and you have to run to seven different inns while drunk during a time limit.
  • If you want, you can turn off the drunk screen effects by lowering your graphics.
  • After you do the quest, you can do the rest of the daily quests in the guide.
  • You need to be friend status with the Inn League to turn in the Badges of taste

Inn League guide http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2010/11/guide-to-the-inn-league/

Ale Association you get 33 tokens as well for the delivery.

  • Ale quests start in Thorin’s Hall in the festival basement.
  • After that you can do any of the Ale quests.
  • You can be any reputation level to turn in Badges of Dishonor.

Ale Association guide http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2010/11/guide-to-the-ale-association/

Combined guide to get them both!

  • Both factions use the same NPC for delivery quests
  • You gain 700 rep and lose 300 rep in each. So doing both is slower but you still gain more then you lose.
  • You get 22 badges to turn in. That’s 66 festival tokens in a hour. And that can be 110 consumables for those festival emotes you always wanted.
  • Doing both used to get you to Kindred in both in one festival. However the festivals seem shorter this year.
  • Each faction also has their own cosmetics and steeds to get at kindred along with new titles at every rep level. Such as (The Do-Gooder, and The Sinister)
  • You can keep doing the quests to get badges and have them ready to turn in for any festival that comes along.

Ale and Inn guide http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?329700-Ale-Association-and-Inn-League-Repeatables-Guide

Guide to Inn League Quests without a Hunter: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?364289-Guide-Inn-League-delivery-quests-w-o-a-hunter-in-less-than-an-hour.&p=5043898#post5043898

Community

An Unexpected Screenshot Winner’s Announced:
http://www.lotro.com/news/latestnews/2466-an-unexpected-screenshot-contest-winners

Pineleaf Riders of Rohan Beta video: The Lore Master in Mounted Combat:
http://cstm.mymiddleearth.com/?p=68969

  • He outlines the five combat techniques he’s found for mounted combat.

Benefit for Charity:
Turbine is doing an Extra Life Marathon to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital in Boston, MA.
http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&teamID=9175

MMO Reporter is doing this as well. There will be a post this week. Were not doing an event, just participating in Extra Life

Riders of Rohan Official Music Score is Almost Ready:

Turbine teased on twitter asking what they had in the box. http://ow.ly/i/ZcOb  Layanor tweeted a guess. *It is the music soundtrack to Rohan* and then Turbine confirmed it. It was indeed the soundtrack to Rohan. http://ow.ly/i/ZdtF They will be sent to Chance Tomas to be signed. Then they will be given away when Rohan comes out.

Turbine also plans to put it on sale later in both CD and digital download formats.
Follow @ROHANSOUNDTRACK on twitter because they just may start a contest.

From War Horses to Hobby Horses: A Ride Through LOTRO’s Rohan:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/09/30/from-warhorses-to-hobby-horses-a-ride-through-lotros-rohan/

Massively blog by MJ Guthrie

  • Joe Barry emphasized that the people who play hardcore in instances and raids are not the majority of LOTRO players. Instead, more players solo or duo as they play, have shorter play session times, and are just generally more casual. Joe pointed to those players who simply want to be in Middle-earth, not necessarily grind out uber gear and “win” the game.
  •  She was able to start the Hytbold daily quests.
  •  There are 50 different daily quests, and a random 16 of those 50 will be offered each day. Players can then choose to complete any five of those proffered 16
  •  After 150 upgrades to the town, you will be able to do the rest of the Eastern Rohan storyline and be named an honorary noble of Rohan.
  •  Joe also explained that there is a new quest type. It will pop up when you are near something. Such as finding some bandits to kill.

War-steed Website Has Opened!
http://warsteeds.com/

  • The site is new. More will be added soon.
  • It will cover any new War-steed skills, cosmetics, and guides.
  • We begged very hard for them to add the regular steeds to the site as well.

Contact Information:
Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
Twitter: @lotroreporter
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Voicemail: 616-666-6778
Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

Website: www.lotroreporter.com

Cari Twitter: @thecarimac
Layanor Twitter: @Layanor

 

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