In this epside Chris, Josh and I discuss the new expansion announcement, the near apology for stat armour in the store, fashion tips for the fanshionless and more!

What we did this week

Bill
- More skirmish runs
- Education by Layanor – skirmishes suck for medallion earning. Run instances instead. Need to test this theory. If only I had someone else level 75 to run instances with…..
 
Chris
- Didn’t play much this week, as every time I was about to log in, Josh and Bill’s voices rang in my head, mocking me for not being 75. Just joking.
- Volume 3, book 3 done. Dunland, I am in you.
- All I have to say is this: You stupid [censored] ranger. What the heck where you thinking??????
 
Josh
- Warden – dailies
- Captain – marsh questing, mid 70
- Minnie – task leveling

News

New expansion on the way!
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/01/25/muster-the-rohirrim-lord-of-the-rings-online-rides-to-rohan/
 
Apology / explanation for low-level gear sale
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?442106-A-word-about-the-new-gear-offerings-in-the-LOTRO-Store
 
2011 Review with Ten Ton Hammer (gunky), Kate Paiz & Adam Mersky
http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/features/interview/2011-look-back
 
New subscription selection prompt; VIP status problems?
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?441179-Seeing-quot-Select-a-Subscription-to-Play-quot-When-Logging-into-the-Game

Did you know

 
Guide to looking good in game
http://lotrostylist.wordpress.com/
http://cosmeticlotro.wordpress.com/
http://lotrofashion.blogspot.com/

Community

Contact Info

email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
twitter: @lotroreporter
facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778
Reddit:  reddit.com/r/mmoreporter
www.lotroreporter.com
 
 

]]> http://lotroreporter.com/2012/01/25/lotro-repoter-episode-121-rohan-ho/feed/ 1 cosmetics,expansion announcement,more stat gear in the store,Riders of Rohan,subscription select In this epside Chris, Josh and I discuss the new expansion announcement, the near apology for stat armour in the store, fashion tips for the fanshionless and more! What we did this week -   Bill - More skirmish runs (http://lotroreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pinbox-lotro_reporter2.jpg) In this epside Chris, Josh and I discuss the new expansion announcement, the near apology for stat armour in the store, fashion tips for the fanshionless and more! What we did this week   Bill - More skirmish runs - Education by Layanor - skirmishes suck for medallion earning. Run instances instead. Need to test this theory. If only I had someone else level 75 to run instances with.....   Chris - Didn’t play much this week, as every time I was about to log in, Josh and Bill’s voices rang in my head, mocking me for not being 75. Just joking. - Volume 3, book 3 done. Dunland, I am in you. - All I have to say is this: You stupid [censored] ranger. What the heck where you thinking??????   Josh - Warden - dailies - Captain - marsh questing, mid 70 - Minnie - task leveling     News   New expansion on the way! http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/01/25/muster-the-rohirrim-lord-of-the-rings-online-rides-to-rohan/ (http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/01/25/muster-the-rohirrim-lord-of-the-rings-online-rides-to-rohan/)   Apology / explanation for low-level gear sale http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?442106-A-word-about-the-new-gear-offerings-in-the-LOTRO-Store (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?442106-A-word-about-the-new-gear-offerings-in-the-LOTRO-Store)   2011 Review with Ten Ton Hammer (gunky), Kate Paiz & Adam Mersky http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/features/interview/2011-look-back (http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/features/interview/2011-look-back)   New subscription selection prompt; VIP status problems? http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?441179-Seeing-quot-Select-a-Subscription-to-Play-quot-When-Logging-into-the-Game (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?441179-Seeing-quot-Select-a-Subscription-to-Play-quot-When-Logging-into-the-Game)     Did you know   Guide to looking good in game http://lotrostylist.wordpress.com/ (http://lotrostylist.wordpress.com/) http://cosmeticlotro.wordpress.com/ (http://cosmeticlotro.wordpress.com/) http://lotrofashion.blogspot.com/ (http://lotrofashion.blogspot.com/)     Community   Free People’s Press http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Free_Peoples'_Press_1-20-12 (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Free_Peoples'_Press_1-20-12)     Contact Info email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com twitter: @lotroreporter (http://twitter.com/#!/lotroreporter) facebook: LOTRO Reporter (http://www.facebook.com/pages/LOTRO-Reporter/130934809030) Voicemail: 616-666-6778 Reddit:  reddit.com/r/mmoreporter (http://reddit.com/r/mmoreporter) www.lotroreporter.com (http://www.lotroreporter.com/)     MMO Reporter Network clean 56:49 http://lotroreporter.com/2012/01/25/lotro-reporter-episode-120-brought-to-you-by-no-sopa/ http://lotroreporter.com/2012/01/25/lotro-reporter-episode-120-brought-to-you-by-no-sopa/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:30:05 +0000 Bill http://lotroreporter.com/?p=5601

In this epside Chris, Josh and I discuss the new low level stat gear in the Turbine store, Warden changes, the January 17th patch notes and more!

What we did this week

Bill
- Skirmish runs for medallions
- 12 man skirmish – joined on the fly.  Great fun, though I have much to learn about large group captaining
- Helping Isanni run through volume 3 quests (read:  farming skarn ore while she does solo-only quests)
 
Chris
- Continuing with Volume 3, almost finished book 3.
- Did a run of Attack at Dawn, and was angered by the lack of a final boss after I died on my first attempt and ran back. Not only did the GM not help me, but he/she closed the ticked and told me to /bug it and leave the skirmish.
- Ding 67
 
Josh
- Festival – new stuff
- Captain Leveling

News

Stat Gear In The Store
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/13/lotro-reverses-policy-plans-to-sell-pve-stat-gear-through-the-s/
- “[Update: On the official forums Sapience commented about the sale saying, "It's lower level gear. Many players have given us feedback that there is a sparsity of gear on the AH at these levels and they wanted an alternative. We're trying to accomodate that."]”
As usual, Ravious from Kill 10 Rats has an interesting take:
http://www.killtenrats.com/2012/01/13/lotro-new-in-store-armors
 
Jan 17th Patch notes and known issues
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Update_5.1,_Official
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5933828#post5933828
 
Steed of the Rune Keeper – advance lotteries being held
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5927406#post5927406
- pic – http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/Aniethen/ScreenShot00006.jpg
Borrowed from Alianne_EU in the forums
 
Warden chat again – because you didn’t get enough the first time
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5922113

Did you know

(care of Layanor)
 
Damage types – valuable information (especially later in the game)
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mechanics:Damage_Types

Community

Free People’s Press
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Free_Peoples%27_Press_1-13-12
- Link to a story on LOTRO community in PC Gamer by some guy

Comparison spreadsheet of all level 75 armours
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkAfY_yVZ7_edHlwZ1JpeFVSOHVheVpGQm15SjVVYlE#gid=11
via http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?440862-Level-75-Armour-Set-Comparison-Spreadsheet

Yule festival 2011/12
http://www.casualstrolltomordor.com/2011/12/lotro-yule-festival-guide-2011/

- new cosmetics in the new patch http://www.casualstrolltomordor.com/2012/01/new-yule-cosmetics-added/

What we’ve done in game

 
 
Bill
Just skirmish runs.  Doing tier 2 skirmishes on my captain again with little trouble
New computer being prepped for LOTRO awesomeness

Chris
Continued my (slow) trek through Volume 3. Completed Book 2 chapter 7 (I hate Minus Elendur). Thanks to Layanor for the help. I don’t think I could have made it through the maze without him.

News

 
 
Orion talks Wardens
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5922113#post5922113

Update 5 instance review
http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/05/update-5-instances-review/

Did you know

 
 
Nearby quests
You can have your quest tracker auto-fill with nearby quests.
Steps to track:
1) Clear your log of all but one quests (to maximize the amount of quests it will track for you)
2) Right click on the quest you left in your log
3) Choose “Track Nearby Quests”
4) Your tracker auto-fills with whatever LOTRO thinks is your closest quest.

Community Report

 
 
Free People’s Press
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Free_Peoples%27_Press_1-6-12

Goldenstar and Syp’s LOTRO Resolutions
http://www.casualstrolltomordor.com/2012/01/lotro-resolutions/
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/07/the-road-to-mordor-resolutions-baggins-and-took-style/

Contact Info

email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
twitter: @lotroreporter
facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778
Reddit:  reddit.com/r/mmoreporter
www.lotroreporter.com

In this episode Chris and I toast the Professor’s birthday, discuss other people’s 2012 predictions, go over the new mark conversion system and more!

 

What we’ve done in game

Bill
- Winter-home festival.  I sided with the rich folk and got a top hat!
- Helping Isanni level and work through story quest.  Finished Vol II with her
- Solo & duo skirmishing.  I find I can duo skirmish at about 72 with Isanni (lev 68 now).
- My old tokens turned into over 800 medallions, and I’m pondering my next piece of epic gear.  Leaning towards 1035 medallions for new legs (old ones are my last piece of yellow gear), though the temptation to spend 835 medallions on boots is tempting…
- Switched to sword & board captain when I upgraded to a level 75 1hander legendary weapon.  DPS up marginally.  Old weapon was a level 71 2handed hammer

Chris
- Continued my journey through Volume 3, now into Book 2. Really enjoyed gathering all of the rangers together.
- Tried the dungeon finder for skirmishes.

News

Toast to J.R.R. Tolkien
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/toast/
“The Professor”

Producer’s Letter – Dec 2011 (Aaron “Rowan” Campbell)
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1678-producers-letter-december-2011
Bold Statement – “ In 2012, you can expect more content that you’ve seen at any time since our launch in 2007.”
Also 5 year anniversary coming up.  Do they owe us a wooden gift, or do we owe them?

Other 2012 prediction articles
http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/features/palantir-2012?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/31/the-road-to-mordor-wish-lists-past-and-future/

Thoughts on the new dungeon finder
Bill – Good addition; little clunky to start; haven’t queued for random groups yet – only solo/duo premades
Chris – Next logical step to the instance launcher. Super simple to use, and very intuitive. Next evolution = picking dungeons.

Did you know

 
Final words on mark conversion in Update 5
Upgrading Marks →  Medallions or Seals; Medallions → Seals is not possible
Seals downgrade Medallions at 1 to 2 (1 seal = 2 medallions)
Medallions downgrade to marks at 1 to 3 (1 medallion = 3 marks)
Superior 4th marks convert to either medallions or seals
1 S4M = 2 Seals or 50 Medallions
Note – Class gear costs:
Helm & Shoulders – only available via raids
Chest & Legs cost 141 seals or 1035 medallions
Hands & Boots cost 94 seals or 725 medallions

Solo skirmishes through randomizer return about 7-10 medallions per run.  By my calculations, getting top gear through solo skirmishes will take 8 zillion skirmish runs

Community

 
Free People’s Press – Dec 30
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Free_Peoples’_Press_12-30-11

My Favorite Forum Thread In Quite a While (Spoilers for those who haven’t completed Vol 3 Book 4)
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?424232-The-Idiot-Ranger-Awards-Celebrating-the-Best-(or-Worst)-the-Dunedain-have-to-Offer
- tease that Lothrandir’s story is not complete

Fun contest idea – more GM interactivity
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5905811#post5905811
- I like this trend.  More interactive human avatars will complement an already active community.

Emails

From Mike,

Hey guys, been enjoying your show… just heard you give a blurb on running lotro on a mac. I’ve been running it on my mac through wine from a link i found in the lotro forums: it links to file planet.

http://www.fileplanet.com/218758/210000/fileinfo/The-Lord-of-the-Rings-Online-Client-%28Mac—Unofficial%29

I downloaded it, clicked the patch button, and it literally works flawlessly. I was pretty excited since I have no access to a pc any more. Running it on a macbook air 1.4 ghz core 2 with 2g of ram. Keep up the good work!

From Ratstew Withthyme,

Hello LOTRO Reporter. You guys are probably somewhat distracted by SWTOR, but just in case you will be podcasting tonight, I had a question for you.

With reputation barter items now clickable to apply, all the Moria items that were in my bags & vault prior to update 5 have been turned into Iron Garrison Miner faction. Who cares about Miner faction? I want Guard for the class book!

The skirmish Curiosities barterer only offers the Miner reputation item, too. Players have quickly caught onto this, and are listing items offering Guard rep (which do drop from monsters) for close to a gold per item.

So my question is: since I can no longer skirmish to barter for these items and my stacked items are now the wrong rep, what repeatable ways do you recommend for earning kindred rep with the Iron Garrison Guards?
Crafting instances? Main quest skirmishes? Repeatable Moria instances?
What’s the most efficient way? I am one sad dwarf.

Thanks for the podcast. May the force be with you.

Ratstew Withthyme, Purveyor of Odd Things Windfolaf

 
 

 
 

This week’s episode is our annual prediction show!  Chris and I reviewed our LOTRO predicitons for 2011 from last year, and made more for 2012!  Join us to see what a sprinkling of wild speculation and a dash of willful ignorance can produce when trying to predict the future!

Contact Info:

email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
twitter: @lotroreporter
facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778
Reddit:  reddit.com/r/mmoreporter
www.lotroreporter.com

Our sponsors:

What we did this week

Bill
Skirmishing with Isanni
Tried out the new patch

Layanor
Some client issues
Attempted to join treasure event on patch Monday

NEWS

Update 5 on Dec 12th
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/08/lord-of-the-rings-onlines-update-5-invading-dunland-next-week/

Currency dev diary
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1631-update-5-currency-consolidation-developer-diary

New instance cluster Dev Diary
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1640-update-5-instance-cluster-developer-diary

Yule Festival Dec 20th
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5863543#post5863543

Battle in the Ettenmoors event
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=5861493#post5861493

Reputation change Dev Diary
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1627-update-5-reputation-item-revision-developer-diary

Email

From Isaac

The method with doing this on Mac is almost identical to doing it on Linux. They both use Wine and create a wrapper around lotro to get it to work.
Crossover games has made the process very simple and they have a nice little script that will do almost everything for you without too much fiddling. I’ve tried both ways, however the Crossover games method is the only way I can get it to run nicely without crashing randomly (for me it’s necessary to turn off hardware vertex shading but I cannot figure out how to do so when I set it up manually in Wine)

So how does it run? Not bad really. It runs at 1680×1050 resolution however the quality is lower than on my PC and so it’s not as pretty to look at. I’ve also noticed that when I first login the ground surface looks like a discoball until I travel a few meters in any direction and it loads some new textures. Perfectly playable and definitely recommended for anyone with just a mac!
Crossover also comes with a 2 week trial so you can get it up and running and test it out before committing to purchase.

I Enjoy the show! Thanks for getting rid of that hobbit section!

Contact Info:

email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
twitter: @lotroreporter
facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778
Reddit:  reddit.com/r/mmoreporter
www.lotroreporter.com

Our sponsors:

 

 

In this episode, Chris and Bill discuss the dungeon finder dev diary, the new instance round-table article, a Volume III Book IV review from Syp and more!

What we did this week

Chris
Nothin’ but skirmishes for me. Trying to level up my skirmish soldier.
Fear it’s going to be more of the same. Busy!
That’s why skirmishes rock, popcorn entertainment.

Bill
Skirmishing on Warden
Holding pattern waiting for Update 5
No lottery wins this week :(

News

Dungeon Finder Dev Diary
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1614-update-5-instance-finder-developer-diary

Update 5 Dev Round-table
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1609-update-5-developer-roundtable

Interview with Aaron Campbell
http://lotroreporter.com/2011/12/04/lotro-reporter-episode-113a-aaron-rowan-campbell-interview/

Syp’s review of Volume III book 4 (spoilers)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/03/the-road-to-mordor-a-prisoner-of-isengard/

Did you know?

LOTRO on Mac & Linux guide
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/LOTRO_under_Linux_and_Mac_OS/X

Community

Free People’s Press – Dec 2
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/The_Free_Peoples%27_Press_12-02-11

Contact Info:

email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
twitter: @lotroreporter
facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778
Reddit:  reddit.com/r/mmoreporter
www.lotroreporter.com

Our sponsors: