Les serveurs sont UP !
LOTRO Beta Release Notes - 29th March, 2007
Of Special Note
* Error messages are now localized.
* The XP curve, has become less mountainous, but does have a longer run distance. However it has very little (if any) effect on the low levels. Never fear however, heavy quest support will be released (as quoted by Made of Lions) within a month to support the hardcore achievers who’ll be out ahead of the curve.
* Lutes for all! Due to the popularity of the music system in general, and the relative lack of popularity of the clarinet in particular, all classes can now use Lutes at level 5. In addition, Minstrels can get their additional instrument proficiencies at level 5 instead of 20.
* When inviting players into a fellowship in the same newbie experience, but different layers, we now teleport the invited player to the same layer as the leader of that fellowship. This means newbie players will now be able to meet up with their friends right away. However, please note the following exceptions:
o A player that has completed the newbie experience can no longer invite a player to fellow if the other player is still in the newbie experience.
o A player in the newbie experience can no longer invite a player to a fellowship if the invited player has already finished the newbie experience.
o Players can no longer invite players that are in different newbie experiences into their fellowships. (Archet cannot invite players in Ered Luin and vice versa.)
* Large cities throughout Middle-earth now have NPCs who will appear and tell you the current state of the battle in the Ettenmoors.
* Burglars can now track many chests in which quest items are found.
* Armour points have been redistributed and rebalanced, so expect a change in the armour value of all armour suits in the game.
* The repair cost of heavy armour has been addressed, and we addressed some repair cost inconsistencies with armour in general. The overall change here is that heavy armour should cost less to repair, light armour has seen a slight increase, and there is no change to medium armour.
* Mouse steering and looking can now be done even when the focus is in the chat entry window.
* For all dialogs, you can now press the enter key to perform the "Accept" response.
* We've added support for the Logitech G15's LCD panel. When you're in character generation and selection, you'll see the name of the game. Once you've logged in, we show your morale (numbers and progress bar) your mood (number) your power (numbers and progress bar) and the landscape area you’re in. Nifty!
* Rewrote the way all static content (buildings, trees, etc.) gets managed on the client. This should significantly improve client performance.
* Travel to and from the Ettenmoors is now available from East Bree, Michel Delving, and Thorin's Gate.
* Celondim is now part of the Postal system!
* Monsters are able to reach you when you're in water. You are no longer safe.
* A great number of changes have been applied to reduce the amount of money in the game.
* An ambient sense of Hope in the recently expanded-into portions of the Shire and Bree-land is now present, bringing these areas in line with other previously hopeful areas.
* Reflecting Pools now always allow you to join your fellowship in an instance.
* Friends lists are now shared across all of your characters per shard; monster players will have a separate friends list that is also shared across all of your monster players per shard. Your friends lists will be cleared for this change.
* Bree-town now has a bank!
Gameplay
* Lore-masters using staff and sword now properly attack with both weapons during auto-attack.
* Fixed a race condition that could lead to an NPC being stuck permanently dazed.
* Fixed an issue that caused monsters to become stuck and unable to attack if they aggro'd while idling during a patrol.
* Multiple active toggle skills which increase focus or fervour will not override each other.
* You now lose all focus or fervour when you're defeated.
* Monsters should stop being quite so easy at level 40 when you are a higher level than they are.
* Fixed a bug that was causing players to occasionally lose all accrued rest bonus experience.
* Fixed a bug that was causing some items to show as busy (hourglass icon) on the quickslot bar when the player was executing skills.
* The Fellowship manoeuvre assist button will no longer show up for monster players, or for players who have not yet earned their Fellowship skills.
* Fixed how auto-attack works with the "skill target forwarding" option enabled so the correct attack (melee or ranged) is used. This will be most noticeable for those trying to use ranged auto-attack with this feature.
* Tracking distance has been decreased to 360 meters.
* Tracking ends when your target is defeated.
* AIs will fail path-planning much less often.
* Monsters should enter anti-exploit mode less often.
* Monsters will no longer attempt to move to you if they cannot get to you.
* Pets are more loyal, and will be less likely to stop following you.
* Players can no longer attack Dirk's sheep in the Archet newbie area. That includes shouting at them, you mean Captains, you.
* Casting multiple auras works!
* Targeting numbers for AOE damage for the Minstrel has been adjusted, as well as the cooldown on his AOE damage skills.
* Attributes have been re-examined. In general, they should have more impact depending on class and choice. However, some skill buffs have also been adjusted to take these new changes into account.
* Rebalancing changes and cooldown channel modifications have been made to the Minstrel.
* We’ve made some new updates to regeneration times, and pet damage has been impacted by the regeneration rebalance.
* Attribute curves have been changed for all classes for rebalancing.
Skills
* Champion:
o Blade Storm now does twice as much damage, costs additional power and has a longer cooldown
o Blade Explosion now does additional damage, costs additional power, and has a longer cooldown.
o Dire Need now heals 2 points of health for every point of power consumed.
o Clobber can now be used as soon as the previous skill finished. It no longer waits for you to recover.
o When Fervour is toggled on, the Champion cannot block, parry, or evade, but receives a 15% bonus to damage and increased power regeneration.
o While dual-wielding, Savage Strikes only costs 2 fervour to activate and Brutal Strikes only requires 3 fervour to activate. While this change is small, it does provide a tempo boost to Champions that choose to dual-wield instead of using a 2-handed weapon.
o Brutal Strikes now does 5% more damage per attack, and uses the off-hand weapon for the final attack when dual-wielding.
o Sudden Defence can no longer be used while fervour is active.
o Merciful Strike can now be used when the target is at less than 20% health, and now does 100% of weapon damage instead of 150%.
o The Bleed associated with Cleave now only applies 50% of the time, but does over double the amount of damage it currently does per tick.
o Wild Attack, Savage Strikes, and Brutal Strikes have been adjusted to reduce the amount of time they prevent you from performing other actions.
o Sudden Defence and Hamstring no longer flash on and off out of combat, and cannot be used out of combat.
o Hamstring now slows targets by 30%.
o Updated the Cleave skill description to reflect the fact that it only applies its DOT half of the time.
o Champion - The Action Contribution Duration of his buff skills (Flurry, Exchange of Blows, Sprint, Battle-Frenzy) has been reduced. This reduces the global reset after their use, and keeps them from blocking other skill plays.
o “Sprint” is now a flat 35% speed increase instead of being on a progression.
* Guardian:
o Shield Taunt has had its reset time extended to 10 seconds.
o Thrill of Danger has had its reset time extended to 7 minutes by default and 5 minutes when improved.
o Stamp now animates more quickly and delivers its attack hook nearly instantly.
o Guardian's Promise now requires the Guardian to perform an induction when he is summoned.
o “Thrill of Danger” is no longer useable outside of combat.
* Hunter:
o “On the Move” has been renamed to “Press Onward,” has been given a new animation, and is not useable while moving.
o “Intent Concentration” and “Needful Haste” recovery were reduced to 3 minutes and can be further lowered with the “Swift Recovery” trait.
o “Quick Shot” while in Strength Stance movement debuff increased from 30% to 40%
o Endurance Stance no longer penalizes damage, but its power cost reduction is lowered to 10% (20% with trait)
* Minstrel:
* Captain:
o Captain Trainers now offer the Rank 2 Evade Passive Skill at level 21, as opposed to the Rank 1 Evade Passive Skill (which was already being offered at level 13)
o There is no longer a cooldown for summoning a Herald.
o The cooldown for all of the Captain's Mark skills has been reduced to 10 seconds.
o The skill descriptions for Command: Focus, Last Stand, and all of the Captain’s Marks have been updated to be 105% more accurate and 27% less misleading.
o The descriptions for all of the Captain Herald’s skills now mention their cooldown timers.
o The Herald skill Coordinated Attack now has a chance of stunning the target, as opposed to being a guaranteed stun, and is now on a 60 second cooldown. It also does slightly more damage.
o The cooldown on the Herald skill Infuriating Tactics has been reduced to 15 seconds.
o Words of Courage no longer has a cooldown, has a 3 second induction, and costs slightly more power to use.
o The Herald skill Lend Will now has a 90 second cooldown.
o All of the Captain's Mark skills now enable the Herald's skills Coordinated Attack and Infuriating Tactics.
o "Herald's Mark" has been renamed to "Noble Mark" and now applies a small light damage DoT to the target.
o Known Issues: **Captains please read**
+ Captains were being given a Block Passive Characteristic before they could use shields. Yeah, we thought that was weird too. We have since reordered when Captains will receive their Block and Parry Passives. Unfortunately this change may require you to visit your Trainer to repurchase these Characteristics.
+ Pressing Attack and Noble Mark are now bestowed at levels 10 and 12, respectively. This change may require you to revisit your Trainer to retrain these skills.
* General:
o Fixed a bug preventing the out-of-range indicator from showing up on some Skill quickslots when it should, e.g. the Warleader "Field Promotion" skill.
o “Runic Use” passive skill has a new icon.
Traits/Titles/Accomplishments
* Fixed a bug that prevented a player’s active title from being cleared when hitting the "Clear Active" button inside of the Title UI.
* Fixed a bug that would display the player’s title even if Show Titles was turned off in the Options UI.
* Fixed a bug that would prevent a player’s active title from being displayed when they first entered the game.
* Player characters who join a raid and defeat targets listed as an accomplishment while in a raid will now properly receive credit for these kills.
* You get a much clearer error when you try to drop a trait into the wrong kind of slot.
* We have reduced the maximum number of Virtue trait slots from 8 to 5. Virtues are not lost, but you may have to visit a Bard to reconfigure your Virtues as you see fit.
* Fixed items to show as usable when a trait that changes the player’s allowed equipment categories is slotted.
* Updated the Shield Expertise Trait so it now modifies armour.
* The bonus for the trait “Defensive Line” is now +10 Vitality instead of -2% to the Fervour damage penalty.
Adoptions/Notary System/Bios
* The Character Bio page will now properly update when adopting or abandoning relationships.
* The chat window now displays feedback when a player sets their surname in the Notary UI.
* Fixed a bug that was preventing the player’s name from showing up in the Family Tree.
* When a player selects a surname from the Notary, they are now granted a title to go with it.
* The Notary UI now properly enables and disables the Abandon button.
* The Notary UI now displays the proper fee for abandoning a relationship.
* Changing your generation via the Bio UI will now generate the appropriate chat feedback.
* The Change Generation button on the Character Journal’s Bio Page will now enable and disable itself if a player adds or removes relationships.
* The Generation Menu on the Character Journal’s Bio Page now displays the character’s current generation by default.
* Added a tutorial hint for the Notary UI.
Monster Play
* Title system fixes to update title correctly when PvMP rank changes.
* Monster players can now use the maps they earned by completing monster quests.
* Monster players will now correctly receive credit and begin working toward the slayer achievements available in the Ettenmoors upon successfully killing a player of any race.
* Troll Tyrants in the Ettenmoors will no longer hide the fact that they are members of the Krahjarn Tribe.
* There was a bug where creatures in the Ettenmoors were continuing to drop normal loot. This has been fixed. Creatures in the Ettenmoors will now drop only the special Ettenmoors items that were created for monster play.
* Rangers and Uruk Iron-defenders in the Ettenmoors, who defend the respawn locations, are now rooted to the ground and will see players attempting to approach close enough to attack recently rescued warriors. Be cautious - they pack a punch from a distance!
* The Krahjarn guards protecting the respawn points in the Ettenmoors took a few too many blows to the head and thought that they were members of the Ongbúrz Tribe. After a severe beating from the War Tyrant, the Iron-defenders once again understand their true allegiance. Right, Uruks? They're cowering. I swear it.
* Snowreap trolls now support the Goblins of Grothum from the valley below the Isendeep Mine in the Ettenmoors.
* Trophy drop rates on items needed for quests in the Ettenmoors have been adjusted to drop more frequently.
* We made another pass at the quests obtained in monster play. These quests now have two-hour, ninety-minute, and one-hour long delays between completions. You will also find the items needed to complete these quests more often.
* Ettenmoors Guards stationed at Glan Vraig for players and Gramsfoot for monster players, as well as guards for both near their rally points, will detect stealthed players.
* Addressing some crowd control concerns for monster players by making changes the monster player side of things:
o The Orc Reaver's "Resilience" skill's recovery was reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes (allows recovery from any negative state)
o The Uruk Warleader's "Snap Out of It!" recovery was reduced from 60 seconds to 20 seconds (helps others out of negative states)
o We’ve introduced potions for monster players that allow them to break free from roots and stuns. These consumable items have recovery timers, and can be purchased from a Tarkripper Quartermaster near you!
* Map notes in the Ettenmoors for keep control now contain the name of the location.
* Monster player “Slay Player” accomplishments should be working now.
Auctions
* The Auction UI now properly lists "Armor" as "Armour".
* Fixed a bug in the Auction System that was preventing more than ten bids from displaying in the Auctions UI.
* The number of allowed active auctions has been raised to thirty.
* Cancelling an auction now sends the correct mail message to the player who cancelled the auction.
* Fixed a typo in outgoing auction mail.
* Fixed an Auction UI bug that would cause the Bid and Buyout buttons to stay enabled even if the auction list was empty.
* The "Name" search field on the Auction UI is now correctly labelled "Item Name" search field.
* Fixed a bug that was preventing the Auction UI's Sort menu to work properly.
* The chat window now displays a message when an auction is cancelled.
* The Auction UI will no longer display zero value for buyout on auctions when no buyout has been specified.
* Added a tutorial pop-up to the Auction House, which will be displayed the first time the Auction House is opened.
* The Auction UI will now update the Bids page when the user places a bid.
* Auction UI: Inside of the Auction Category Tree, the Light Armour "Back" category has been removed and replaced with a "Cloak" category, located under Armour.
* Auction UI: Fixed the "Book" search category to search for Lore Master Class items.
* Auction UI: Fixed the "Oil" search category to search for Hunter Class Items.
* Auction UI: Fixed the "Tool" search category to search for Burglar Class Items.
* Replaced the Auction UI's "Pennants" search category with "Armaments.”
* Added "Runes" to the Auction UI's search category tree, to search for Champion Class Items.
* Added "Shield Spikes" to the Auction UI's search category tree, to search for Guardian Class Items.
* Fixed a bug that was preventing players from buying out an auction they were already the high bidder on.
Mail
* The cost of mail has been increased: 50 copper for mailing a basic message. Mailing items will now cost a great deal more!
* Fixed a bug in the Mail UI which could cause the compose mail button to stay disabled for the remainder of the play session.
* Fixed a bug in the Mail System that would cause two error messages to be displayed when attempting to mail a bound item.
* Using a Mail Box for the first time will now popup a tutorial hint.
* The Mail UI now displays the time remaining to the nearest hour or day, depending on how much time is remaining.
* You can no longer delete mail with attachments.
* Returned Mail now has its own status icon.
* Fixed a bug in the Mail UI which would prevent a letter from opening on double-click.
* Fixed a bug in the Mail System that was preventing “Return to Sender” mail from actually being returned to the sender.
* The Compose Mail UI will now clear its subject when removing an item from the attachment field. This will only happen if the player has not specified a subject.
* Fixed a bug that would prevent the Delete Mail button from being enabled.
* It is no longer possible for the Free Peoples to send mail to the Forces of Darkness, and vice versa. They’re hardly on speaking terms, anyway.
* Fixed a bug that could cause the Send button on a letter to become permanently disabled.
* Fixed a bug in the Mail UI that was causing the postage cost to be truncated.
* The Postage cost of sending a letter with an item attached is now 50 coppers + 20% of the item’s vendor value.
* It is now possible to send mail with extended ASCII characters in the subject field. This fixes a problem when sending items through the mail with accented characters.
Crafting
* Jeweller
o Execution of Jeweller recipes no longer requires the player to be near a Study or Superior Study. These recipes now require the player to be near a Workbench or Superior Workbench.
o Updated the names of many Jeweller products and recipes.
o Some tier 4 rings and necklaces were equipping to the wrong item slots. This has now been fixed.
o Fixed the plural display names for both "Beryl" and "Polished Beryl."
o Some of the re-balanced Jeweller recipes were using incorrect quantities of ingredients. This has been fixed.
o Updated the descriptions on all Edhelharn tokens to include spell effect durations.
o Tier 4 jewellery rings/necklaces can now be worn in the correct inventory slots.
* Tailoring
o All Light Armour Boots are now "Shoes." Also updated the names of related Light Armour recipe scrolls.
o All Light Armour Helms are now "Hats," "Hoods," or "Caps." Also updated the names of related Light Armour recipe scrolls.
o All Light Armour Gauntlets are now "Gloves." Also updated the names of related Light Armour recipe scrolls.
o The tier 3 tailor recipes for the "Traveller's" armour set were producing the wrong armour pieces when a critical result occurred. This has now been fixed.
* Woodworking:
o Stout Ash Hammers were incorrectly giving their weapon type as "Mace." This has been fixed, and they are now correctly identified as "One-Handed Hammer."
* Metalworking:
o Updated icons for the tier 3, 4, and 5 Component ingredients.
o Updated the names of most crafted shields. Also updated the names of the recipes that produce these shields.
o Increased the level requirements for all tier 2 metalworking crafted heavy armour sets. This change may cause some armour pieces currently equipped to be removed to the player's inventory if they are no longer high enough level to wear the armour.
+ "Iron" armour set: Increased level requirement to 18 (was 15).
+ "Thick Iron" armour set: Increased level requirement to 18 (was 15).
+ "Crafted" armour set: Increased level requirement to 21 (was 19).
+ "Well-Crafted" armour set: Increased level requirement to 21 (was 19).
+ "Heavy Iron" armour set: Increased level requirement to 18 (was 15).
+ "Hardened Iron" armour set: Increased level requirement to 18 (was 15).
+ "Forge-Crafted" armour set: Increased level requirement to 21 (was 19).
+ "Temper-Crafted" armour set: Increased level requirement to 21 (was 19).
* Farming:
o Adjusted the experience values for all farming recipes. Recipes that produce vegetables, fruit, and pipe-weed have had their experience rewards increased slightly. Recipes that produce harvestable fields, and recipes that produce seed have had their experience rewards decreased slightly.
o Changed induction bar to read "Working..."
o Updated the names of all pipe-weed, vegetable, and fruit fields.
o Updated icons for pipe-weed seeds, fair pipe-weed plants, poor pipe-weed plants, bushels of fair vegetables, and bushels of poor vegetables.
o Poor plants are no longer valued the same as good plants.
* Scholar:
o Updated the icons for all metalworking, tailoring, weaponsmithing, and woodworking lore scroll effects.
o Increased production quantities for Fire and Light Oil recipes.
o Scholar resource nodes can no longer be tracked using the Forestry "Track Wood" skill.
o Replaced placeholder icons for the effects bestowed by the following scrolls: Scroll of Minor Battle Lore, Scroll of Minor Warding Lore, Scroll of Battle Lore, and Scroll of Warding Lore.
o “Ballad of Aiglos” and “Chant of the Stalwart” have had the following changes:
+ They now have a 30 minute cooldown.
+ The magnitude of the effects has been reduced (no longer 100+ % to attack or defense).
+ Increased the duration on these effects to 5 minutes.
+ They are no longer capable of stacking with similar item-effects.
+ Updated the effect icons on both of these effects.
+ “Chant of the Stalwart” now buffs the fellowship instead of debuffing them.
* Weaponsmith:
o Updated the names of many Weaponsmithing products and recipes
o Increased production quantities for Beartraps, Multi-Traps, Shield Spikes, Caltrops, and Stun Dust.
* Woodworking:
o Fixed a problem with some ingredients not displaying correctly in the Expert (tier 3) "Etched Yew" recipes group.
o Updated the names of many Woodworking products and recipes.
o The Yew Bow and the Heavy Yew Bow were essentially identical. These items are now slightly different.
* Cooking:
o Corrected a type in the descriptions of "Hobbiton Omelet" and "Superior Hobbiton Omelet."
* Prospecting:
o Cleaned up tooltip description for the Mine-tracking skill.
* Forestry:
o Cleaned up tooltip description of the Wood-tracking skill.
* General:
o Crafting Solutions quests are now more rewarding!
o Beginner's tools will be given to players when choosing a vocation!
o Updated the icons for "Adamant" and "Polished Adamant."
o Crafting guides can now be deleted from your inventory
o Fixed issues with Jagged Aurochs Horn, Very Sharp Aurochs Horn, and Broken Neekerbreeker Horn not mentioning they were used in crafting in their descriptions.
o Fixed an issue where several professions did not unlock tier 5 mastery after completion of tier 5 proficiency.
o Revised the minimum level requirements for many crafted weapons, shields, jewellery, and armour pieces. In general, the minimum level requirements for these items have been decreased.
o Fixed level requirement for all crafted mining picks.
o Fixed level requirements for all Tier 2 crafted tools.
o Crafting recipe examination is much more consistent now.
o Plants gathered from the landscape and used in craft recipes have seen a reduction in value.
o All of the light crafted helms have been converted to hats.
o Woad plants and other such things found on the landscape are now selectable by the player.
o Tier 3 War & Defence Captain Armament recipes are now sometimes found in loot.
o Critical success versions of the Champion Horns function at a greater level of skill. This means they have a greater chance of stunning monsters a few levels higher than the minimum usage requirements.
o Recipe scrolls now include text to tell whether they are for single use recipes.
o Players will no longer get a confirmation dialog when they train their first craft vocation.
o Usable Forge hotspots can now be found in Thorin's Halls.
o The Crafting Area in Esteldin has been cleaned up and arranged a bit better than before.
Emotes
* Changes and fixes to many emotes:
o /sit now works properly for all avatars and no longer conflicts with other persistent states
o /liedown now work properly for all avatars and no longer conflicts with other persistent states
o /faint now works properly for all avatars and no longer conflicts with other persistent states
+ These emotes will fail if you attempt to perform them while already playing another emote animation, and will be interrupted by all other emotes.
o /eat, /cry, /pose, and /smackhead now work properly
o /afk now properly plays an animation, though it is not persistent
o /firebreath emote now plays its fx properly
o /smoke1 will now equip a pipe if you aren't currently in the persistent /smoke state
o /smoke no longer has a pipe showing up on monster players /smoke now works properly for Hobbit Males
o /drink now properly displays a mug in your hand.
* Movement now properly interrupts one-off emote animations, preventing sliding.
Music System
* Basic musical horns can now be equipped correctly.
* Ignoring a player once again prevents you from hearing his/her music.
Items
* We're not certain how a crate becomes so enraged that it calls itself a Crate of Uncommon Ire, but it happened. After a warm, drawn bubble bath and a good smoke, the chest filled its belly with mutton and Moor Boar Beer and was sated, happily returning to a Crate of Uncommon Ore.
* Previously in the Orc camp behind Weathertop, War Master Uzzor kept papers on his desk and an oddly shaped sack that looked out of place. Strangely, this odd sack was supposed to be a group of parchment containing hidden orders. We suppose making them look like an odd sack is one way of hiding them, but still, we made it look right now.
* Name and description updated on light Elven helms to clarify that they are light armour items.
* Champion Runes now show value when examined.
* Values on Champion Runes, Captain Armaments, Lore-master Books, and Burglar tools have been reduced in value.
* The repair cost of Incomparable gear has been greatly reduced.
* Items that reflect damage have been updated to reflect damage less frequently, yet for more damage when they do.
* Basic trophy items called "Hides" that were not used in crafting have been renamed.
* Champion Horns are now less effective; they have a longer cooldown & increased chance to miss.
* Some uncommon jewellery that boosted out-of-combat power regeneration has seen a reduction in the magnitude of the enhancement (regeneration reduced).
* Cave Claw Claws have been renamed to Cave Claw Talons, according to a directive from the Department of Redundancy Department.
* High-level basic rations no longer appear better than some of the high-end cooking items offered up by crafters.
* The stack size for most trophy items has been reduced to 10.
* Further reduced the frequency at which common equipment and common trophy items were dropping. This change doesn't affect the drop rate of items used in crafting.
* The Acorn Item, Guardian's Create for Guardian's Promise, now has no value and cannot be sold.
* Weapons
o Incomparable weapons have seen a reduction in the amount of damage they can inflict.
o Slayer weapons have seen a large reduction in the bonus damage they can inflict.
o Minstrel musical instruments have seen a reduction in worth, and can no longer be sold for large sums of money.
o The intrinsic critical hit bonus on daggers has been updated to only work during auto-attacks, similar to bows. These bonuses do stack, so wielding two daggers will give a higher critical hit chance while auto-attacking. Because of this change, dagger DPS has been increased.
* Armour/Wearables
o Repair cost for most shields have been reduced.
o Fixed some instances where Damage Reflection on jewellery wasn't operating at the correct level of the item.
o The majority of rare jewellery found in loot has seen a second enhancement (if it was already lacking a second enhancement).
o Icons on crafted armour should now better match the actual item.
o Crafted shields "Heavy Iron Small Shield" and "Hardened Iron Small Shield" have the correct armour level (both increased).
o Cloaks are no longer considered Light Armour. They are now known as "Cloak,” so please keep this in mind as you shop for items or visit your friendly neighbourhood Solicitor (auction house).
o New icons were added for some hats.
o The Drakeskin Cuirass is using a different appearance now.
Kinships
* The names of new kinships are now limited to 32 characters or less.
* You can now sort kinship members by level.
* You will see a proper error message when creating a kinship with a name that already exists.
* Kinships require 6 or more members to be a valid kinship. If you have less than 6 members, you will be warned through in-game mail that your kinship will be disbanded within 24 hours unless it has at least 6 members.
* The kinship member tooltips now update your rank correctly if your kinship theme has changed.
* Rank is now included in the tooltip when mousing over kinship members in the social panel.
Character Creation
* In character creation, your chosen appearance won't change unless you change race or gender.
* Fixed some visual glitches / popping during character creation.
* Exciting new tooltip for the "Create Character" button in character creation.
* Character creation zoom buttons no longer swing the camera around to the front of your character.
* The Create Character button is properly greyed out now when your account is full of characters.
User Interface
* Rank and Surname can now be disabled inside of the Options UI.
* Updated the tooltips on the paper doll weapon slots to be more consistent with one another.
* The Key-mapping Option "Toggle Accomplishments" has been renamed to "Toggle Deed Log On/Off."
* Both Shift Keys are now labelled "Shift" in the Options UI.
* Mouse-steer users everywhere - rejoice! Your mouse cursor now comes back when you die instead of leaving you stuck without a cursor, pining at the 600 seconds you need to wait until you retreat.
* When talking to a bard, the reset and confirm buttons are now grayed out if you haven't made any changes.
* The tooltip for a trait that grants a skill will now include that skill.
* When you're in a kinship, you can now examine your kinship's lifespan rank (and next rank) and get a tooltip.
* Floaty text should now fade out at the same distance indoors as it does outdoors
* You now receive a clearer error message when you join a fellowship if the chat server is down.
* Class Icon and Race info has been added to the Character Journal Stats page.
* Fixed problems with rotating the avatar in the dressing room UI.
* Updates to the fellowship manoeuvres journal UI.
* Added Custom UI info to the UI Settings section of the Options menu.
* Fixed mouselook to work after entering an instance.
* Perks in the Perk Vendor UI now have tooltips.
* Fixed the chat log to stay scrolled to the bottom when resized.
* Fixed floaty names for inanimate objects.
* Skill and trait entries that are higher rank than you are will now be grayed out until you meet the requirement.
* Quickslot skills will now act like other UI's. When activated, they sort in front, otherwise, they sort in back.
* Added tab handling for Who and Open Fellowship panels.
* Race has been added to the character panel.
* Made a fix to the Who UI to stop logged out players from showing up in the list.
* Added class icons to entries in the Who UI.
* When equipping an item, the tooltip will now refresh automatically if it needs to.
* You can now close LOTRO by right-clicking on the task bar button and choosing "Close.”
* Advanced Graphics options will now gray out options based on other graphics settings.
* If you select an escort, you should see the vitals display properly in the UI.
* Added notification to players in the raid when an assistant is promoted or demoted.
* You will no longer lose escort vitals if you go link-dead in a private encounter.
* Context menus are now available in fellowships and raids for members that are out of range.
* Context menus are now available from the Raid UI.
* Right clicking on your portrait while portraits are disabled (either explicitly, or because of global settings) once again brings up the context menu. Also, selecting yourself by clicking on the portrait works once again.
* If you use ctrl-# (CTRL* for French client) to move the UI elements around, the move bar for the player vitals will no longer continue to display. Also, it now saves its position.
* You will now see a visible indicator when dragging a chat window or tab into the docking area to attach it to another chat window.
* Bringing up any backpack will now show all of your quickslots, to make it easier to set them up.
* Fixed a bug that caused the 3D opponent portrait to show at incorrect times.
* Fixed a bug that could cause you to temporarily not be able to drag items to the main shortcut bar on the toolbar.
* Changed the range of floaty text to 40 meters, matching the longest-range attack in the game.
* Fixed a rare occurrence where quickslot bars could show skills that weren't representative of what was there.
* Improved performance when toggling the status of floaty names.
* Fixed a rare bug that could cause you to not see tooltips over your avatar.
* Fixed a potential cursor weirdness when naming your character.
* Large performance increases in the UI on lower end machines.
* On open, the vendor UI will now appear on top of any other UIs that are currently open
* The Bank UI is now known as the Vault UI.
* Friends list now has the level and class in the correct order.
* The Locked overlay should not appear on items that were sell-locked and then traded.
* Opening the vault for the first time will give you a tutorial hint.
* By popular demand, the sell-locking option is back in the vendor UI as well as the Options page.
* You now get a helpful tutorial hint when you learn your first vocation!
* There is now an error displayed to the billboard if you try to add too many friends to your list.
* If a player is online, and it is their first time in, the time online will appear as "Online" again.
* Friends list sorting should sort correctly now.
* Removed some duplicate entries in the options panel key mapping.
* No more redundant display in the tooltip of a skill that requires another passive skill.
Graphics/Animation/fx
* Spiders and Wargs all throughout the game now have much more appearance variation.
* Quivers now properly show up on NPCs’ backs when they are practicing with a bow.
* Drake Breath Weapons now properly fire at their targets.
* Shields will now appear on your back when you use a ranged attack with one equipped.
* Boars now have a taunt animation.
* Drakes no longer blip while patrolling.
* Dark-waters now correctly use water-based ranged attacks.
* You will now salute with a sword when you perform… what else? The sword salute emote!
* Fell Spirits now properly animate and use fx at range.
* Stealth Movement has been updated so that players in stealth don't slide while moving around.
* Your horse will now fade in and out properly when you teleport using the travel network.
* Monster play Wargs now strafe forward and to the left correctly while in stealth.
* The Minstrel's Lute no longer sticks around after casting Cure Fear.
* Quest icons no longer appear several meters above some NPCs; they appear correctly now, hovering just over the NPC’s head.
* Tom Bombadil will now move properly in the Great Barrow.
* Fell Spirits now handle movement over water correctly.
* Star Glass Items now have fx associated with their use.
* Lore-master's “Give Hope” fx now properly target the skill's target.
* Lore-master's “Light of the Rising Dawn” now properly deletes the book after use .
* When cancelling a Lore-master induction, the book prop is now properly removed.
* The Minstrel's “Still as Death” skill now properly has the Minstrel "dying" and playing dead, until the minstrel moves or the channelling state ends.
* The Hobbit's “Throw Stone” skill now properly throws a stone.
* The Dwarf's “Head-butt” skill now properly animates as a... head butt!
* The Human's “Upper-cut” now properly animates as an unarmed uppercut punch.
* Turning restrictions added to some induction actions. You can no longer turn while:
o using objects such as the crate at the beginning of the Archet Raid.
o burying objects such as the bodies following the Archet Raid.
o digging.
o unlocking.
* Giants now properly throw rocks at you in combat. Duck and cover!
* Particle fx now play properly when you're mining.
* Urugarth: The final boss, Lagmas, now engages in combat properly.
* A number of problems that NPCs were having with firing bows have been fixed.
* The Nazgûl Rider no longer slides along the ground during the Hobbit Newbie Instance.
* The blue icon for Tactics now shows up properly when preparing a Fellowship Manoeuvre.
* Lore-master – “Cracked Earth” now has its own root fx.
* Half-Orcs now properly use their Crossbows.
* The Lore-master's “March of Ents” skill now plays properly for human males.
* Avatars now have landing animations for when they jump left/right.
* NPCs no longer impale themselves with their weapons while standing with their arms crossed or while talking. “Doctor, it hurts when I do this…”
* The various Edhelharn Token types now have visual fx associated with their use.
* Fixed issues with NPC Human Female movement rates being too fast during escort quests.
* The Burglar's “Reveal Weakness” fx no longer plays persistently on the target.
* Fixed a number of animation hitches associated with moving around while carrying objects with both hands (like pies).
* Stable-masters and the monster player trainer now have overhead iconics for those that have them enabled.
* All avatars now have a specific hit animation for when they are wielding a 2-handed axe or hammer. This will prevent interpenetration issues, where one seemingly solid object passes through another.
* Fixed an issue that was causing the Silverdeep's entrance door to blip.
* The Taunt fx now plays properly on the first hit of Shield Swipe and Bash.
* Fixed an issue that made the strafing while carrying objects animations blend incorrectly.
* The Uruk monster player avatar now has all of his jumping animations.
* Shields will now appear at their proper size when carried by Hobbits.
* Fixed an issue with the Lore-master “Ents Go to War” legendary skill. The Ent was not fading away on skill failure.
* Fixed an issue that caused the selection decal to not draw on some monsters.
* The Hobbit Male & Female now animate during auto-attacks when using 2-handded-weapons.
* “Bard's Arrow” now has its own fx.
* Streaks will no longer erroneously play on shields.
* Slayer Weapons under level 25 no longer play the "sting" fx.
* All the avatars are now set up to use 1-handed attacks for their auto-attacks, instead of sharing the 1-handed shield attack.
Graphics/Animation/fx continued...
* Hunter Trap decals now show up properly for the Hunter and the Hunter's fellowship, and are invisible to non-fellowship members and monster players.
* Class skill particle fx should now play right on all races.
* Fixed the knee-popping in the hobbit female dance where it was occurring.
* Created a Huorn combat stunned animation.
* Fixed where the scaled sack sits on the hobbits’ shoulder.
* NPCs in the Esteldin library no longer clip through the ground.
* Other players don't play the swim animation when they aren't moving in water.
* Other players won't get into the situation where they are running in place.
* Guards in Eastern Thorhad will no longer have weapons sticking through their bodies while they are playing their emotes. Ouch!
Camera
* Fixed a problem where the camera would clip through the landscape when the player was in water, but the camera was over land.
* The player’s avatar will now fade out when the camera is too close to it.
* The camera has been adjusted for players when riding a mount or traveling.
Audio
* The running sounds change speed immediately when the Captain skill Make Haste is used.
* The "Mute Game Sounds" option in the Audio options panel now mutes video sounds as well.
* The "Target is Dead" message will no longer generate a sound.
World
* Bag End now has a tile floor, instead of wood, in accordance with descriptions in the books. Changed the floors in some other hobbit interiors as well, including a few taverns and Great Smials.
* Fixed a broken door in Fornost.
* Suppliers have arrived at crafting centres, bringing with them many of the items that Provisioners used to carry.
* Provisioners, Suppliers, and Grocers now have separate inventories and sell crafting supplies and food.
* Guests attending shows at the Methel Stage near Bywater will now find more comfortable seats.
* The area around Celondim should no longer be named after the town of Duillond but should simply be "Falathlorn."
* The door going out of the Brockenborings Post Office should no longer open onto a blank wall.
* Players should no longer get stuck if they jump off a cliff while within the "To Avert A War" instance.
* Malenhad has received a decoration pass - mist hovers above the eerie blue waters, and wisps of steam drift up from many of the geyser cups throughout the swamp.
* All resource nodes are now using appropriate artwork.
* Morroval in the Ram Duath have been downgraded from Elite to Signature.
* Wargs should now be more common in eastern Kingsfell.
* Duillond has been redecorated!
* Nan Amlug East (a division of the North Downs) has been reworked to have a more unified set of terrain textures and scene assets (trees, bushes, etc).
* Various locations in the North Downs where players could escape outside of the impassable boundaries have been fixed.
* Several NPCs in Bree were tired of living outside. Be sure to visit the Bree Town Hall, the Bree Jail House, the Lowbank's Estate and the Scholar's Stair Archives!
* Portions of the Fields of Fornost are now actually the Fields of Fornost (and not the Greenway, as they would have you believe).
* Players should no longer be able to get stuck between bookcases in Radagast's Tower in Agamaur.
* Slightly increased the number of Goblin Sappers in the Southern Midgewater Marsh mixed spawns.
* Repositioned some deco to prevent players from getting stuck in the Bree Auction House.
* The Short-cut Barrow from Andrath to the South Barrow-downs now has a 'magic door' on both sides.
* The Trollshaws once again has the appropriate set of chat channels (instead of four trade channels - we figure one is enough to promote trade in the area).
* Fixed a floating book in the Silverdeep.
* Some of the buildings in Bree should now be visible from far away.
Town services:
* Some travel costs have been adjusted.
* The Esteldin heavy armour vendor now sells heavy armour.
* Senga, the Provisioner in Aughaire, now sells provisioner items.
* Morale & Power potions are no longer sold by shops. They remain as crafted items and items found in loot.
* Trainers now repair items for the same cost as other vendors.
* Bartenders no longer sell craft ingredient items, but now provide potions and basic rations.
* Vendors and Trainers in Michel Delving have decided to move indoors.
* Craft Vendors can now be found in Trestlebridge.
* The Craft Vendors in Esteldin have been consolidated. Expert Craft Vendors now have the inventories of their lower-tiered counterparts. Lower-tiered Woodworker and Leatherworker craft vendors have been removed.
* Gondamon now has a bard!
* Peg Pruner, Bogi, and Gailthin have recently received a large supply of rations. New players should visit them for all their food needs in the newbie instances.
Travel/Maps/Radar
* Solicitor locations will now show up on town maps.
* Enabled the mapnote filters on the radar for Settlements, Scrying Pools, Reflecting Pools, and Auctioneers.
* You can now filter mapnotes on dungeon maps. In addition, crafting and auction halls will show mapnotes on their 'M' maps.
* Some incorrectly placed mapnotes (in the dwarf starter area, for instance) have been removed.
* You can now see the Bree-town stable masters on the Bree-land map.
* The Stable masters no longer call Bree's South Gate "East Bree" but refer to it as "South Bree.”
* Discovered Mapnotes will now appear on your radar and map as soon as they are discovered.
Mounts
* Mount prices have been increased.
* All mount items have an induction time before your mount is summoned.
* Mounting a horse now breaks stealth.
* You can no longer mount while swimming. Sorry, water polo enthusiasts!
* Mounts can now be sold back to vendors. Warning: If you buy a mount and later visit a vendor, you could accidentally sell your mount if selecting the 'sell all' option. Use the lock-item feature if you don't want to accidentally sell your mount.
* Fixed a problem that was allowing players to travel while mounted.
* Horses using the travel route from Hobbiton to Needlehole should no longer get confused and circle wildly at the crossroads in Waymeet.
