LOTRO Devchat

[RatherDonkey]

Here is the transcript from yesterdays (24.01.2013) Devchat, where the devs of LOTRO answered some questions from the community.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?498525-Transcript-LOTRO-Developer-Twitter-Chat-Thursday-January-24


Of special note:

Q1. Basically, any Update 10 info you can spare please.

A1. HoarseDev – We are removing Dread from defeat on landscape.
A1. RockX – In U10, Fate’s potency is increasing. Power pools are being standardized.
A1. RockX - Both the new instances/raids and existing Scaling Instances are receiving new loot.
A1. RockX - New Armour Sets are coming in, along with 1 st Age LIs.
A1. RockX - Wardens are being switched to use Agility as their main stat (there will be a grace period to allow you to get gear).


Q2. Any news of when you are going to release the 2nd part of the instance cluster?

A2. Sapience Update 10.


Q19. What can we expect for loot in older scaling instances in the future?

A19. RockX - Older scaling instances can expect to see their loot revamped with the opportunity to get rare through legendary gear.


Q39. Can we expect to get 2nd ages relatively easily once 1st ages arrive on the scene?

A39. RockX - Second ages will be available for Marks, Medallions, and/or Seals.

[RatherDonkey]

My thoughts:

Fate might finally be a stat worth having (I'll wait and see how they handle it before I start getting any gear with fate, though)

The recently scaled DG + Erebor-instances will most likely have their item-levels upgraded, making them better than the skirmish jewellery. Don't spend to much time/gold trying to acquire items now, as these changes will happen in about 25-45 days.

Wardens will start using agility as main stat; giving us 3 agi, 3 might and 3 will classes. All wardens should consider this, and pretty much stop any effort to acquire new items before U10 :P


Regarding when Update 10 will arrive, they've previously said that the raids would be released late February. Considering that they are releasing them on beta-server, Bullroarer, this weekend, I'd say that we can expect this to be the case.
Keep in mind that Turbine has a tendency to find new issues on a constant basis, though, and we might not get to see U10 until March.


"Older scaling instances can expect to see their loot revamped with the opportunity to get rare through legendary gear."

This will probably not be a part of Update 10, but will absolutely be a welcome change once it happens. I'm guessing we'll see GB, Annuminas, Sch/Lib and Fornost dropping usefull stuff now (even legendary/gold items), and so they will be rerun on a more frequent basis. Looking forward to it.


2nd age symbols will be available at skirmish camps with U10. This was pretty much a given for most of us, but at least now it has been confirmed.



Final notes from me:

They answered quite a lot of questions with "this will happen later this year", and it seems like they have a LOT on their plate for 2013. I think they are a bit too optimistic, and I wouldn't get my hopes up on too much of what they've said this time around.
However, they did manage to revamp all of Moria, rebuild Bree and scale the DG-cluster in 2012, so no reason to be completely pessimistic either.

From earlier, they've said that the "In Their Absence"-cluster will be scaled, most likely during spring 2013 (which means Update 11, coming sometime in May/June, I think).
They were a bit more vague when answering questions about it this time though, so the scaling might not take place until later, but we'll keep our hopes up

[Ladinia]

so they will do a lot of stuff and i see nothing about fixing servers again like usual.... big fail if they not fix it as everyday we keep getting transfers so this server is a bit overloaded so far :p

[maiki1978]

I do understand that the major changes concerning warden, power cost and new content are important but again they are not focused on other major problems. Lag of course as primary drawback as well as graphics generating in Rohan for example. the minimum requirements need to be like 80% up for the game or just do a major change in the graphics quality in general. The little time i spent in GW2 showed me that my computer can handle better but different style graphics. Ettenmoors is (depending on existence of raids) unplayable at the moment so the only hope we got is players transfering again to a different server and having a more shared amount of players equally on all worlds. Let see if the action we have atm on the forum about submitting tickets for the lag will bring something. Better do something than crying about it!