More information has come out detailing some changes to LOTRO in Book 11. I’m not sure at this point of these changes are leaked or not, and given that lack of info for all I know these could be inaccurate. They are however very interesting changes and for the first time detail what changes the Lore-Master and Minstrel will be receiving. The information on housing has already been covered here at Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog but a little rehash is always nice.
Lore-Masters
Lores of Warding.
LMs get a number “Lore of Warding skills. Basically a LM sets up a warding field against a certain kind (creatures of nature, the dead, etc etc) of monster. This field does damage to monsters if the monster type corresponds to the Lore type. These skills have cast timers and affect the area around the LM, and are stationary.Sticky Tar
Elves and Dwarves already know this ability, the one that the goblins use on you and Dwallin in the beginning instance. Only where as the goblin tar stops you from moving completely until the dialogue is over, LM tar slows creatures down in its area of effect (50% snare, I saw). This skill has a cast timer and affects the area around the LM, and is stationary.Thunder Clap
The skill description was something like “The Lore-Master strikes the ground with his staff, causing lighting to bla bla bla.†I didn’t get the details of this spell but I saw that when the mouse was hovered over the icon, the description of the spell had 3 rows of damage, so I figure this is chain-lightning type of spell.Lynx Speech! (Super cool DPS pet)
Yup. The fourth LM pet is a Lynx. A stealth using, DPS oriented, high-level pet. The lynx has 3 skills: stealth, an AoE attack (I saw this baby hit a light blue troll for 730ish damage) that strikes 3 targets in front of the lynx. And another one I didn’t get to see.A Rez
Yup, LMs will be able to rez those who died.Scan-esque ability.
This casted ability shows you the stats of the opponent on which you use this skill. It basically brings up a window, which has useful info about the target. This info includes, but is not limited to, the damage mitigation for each type of damage, the resistance rates for each type of status ailments, and whether the target is susceptible to conjunctions.Minstrels
War-Chants
New types of songs, which afflict your enemies. There were a number of was chants, but I remember only one, and not even the name of it. This war chant cut the healing done to the target by 50%.New Tales
These are variations of the currently existing Tale of Heroism. The couple I saw included Tale Of Battle, which increases agility and might, and Tale of Warding, which gives 1 hope and increases morale or vitality (can’t remember which).Weapon Chants
Minstrels will be able to increase their fellow’s effectiveness with skills like the Oathbreaker’s Blade. Oathbreaker’s Blade adds some damage to every attack, but also causes the weapon to do additional damage in the form of a DOT (which will be a % of the initial hit). There are other weapon chants, but I saw only this one.Gift of the Hammerhand.
Yup. You will be able to give the shiny bubble to your friends now! Only this is a lesser form of the spell which you can cast on yourself, and thus eats up more power, faster.Minstrels get MORE COWBELL!
Seriously. No joke. Minstrels get to play the cowbell (the item’s name is “Moor Cowbell”) and the bagpipes as new musical instruments.
Clicky to read more! –>
Housing.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about housing, but as people seem to to think that a MMO is not complete until it has housing, here is the info:Housing is mostly a cosmetic feature with the added bonus of giving people more storage. It is a system of “neighborhoods†where every neighborhood is an instance in one of the three regions (Ered Luin for both Elves and Dwarves, the Shire for Hobbits, and Bree-land for Men). A neighborhood has a set amount of set types of houses (from small cottages to large kinship manors). If one neighborhood has no houses for sale, a prospective buyer needs to go look in another neighborhood. You zone into neighborhoods from set points in the three regions.The houses of each region have their own architectural style. Humans have the practical but still attractive “human†architectural design. Hobbits have, you guessed it, hobbit holes! Dwarves live underground, while elves live in skyscrapers. That is, elves have soaring type of houses with many floors.
You can customize every part of you home from your garden troll, to your furniture (which is sold by vendors but can also be crafted), to artwork that hangs on customizable walls. The only thing you CAN’T customize is the architecture, for this you have to buy a new house.
There is rent you have to pay, and if you don’t pay it, your house will lock you out and everything that you poured in it will be sucked into the astral (that’s the word the reps used, lol). You have a grace period during which everything you own is held in the astral, but if you don’t cough up the money in a set amount of time, everything gets sucked into a black hole.
New Areas!
Book 11 sees a big expansion to the Misty Mountains region (I saw the High Pass) and the Trollshaws region.Epic Quests
A fisherman has seen a strange creature at night and has had trouble catching any fish recently….Miscellaneous
With Book 11 LotRO will support DX10!The Future (not book 11)
We will have Legendary Play, or so I was told. That is, we will be able to take “Legendary†(the term being loosely defined) characters and take them for a spin in certain situations. I wasn’t told more than that.When asked whether we will have new MvMP regions, the answer was “Yes.â€