LotRO Shores of Evendim Update Released

Turbine has announced the release of Shores of Evendim, their first major content update for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. The extensive patch notes:

Of Special Note

New World Content

We’ve added an entire new region to the game: Evendim! Roughly the size of the Shire, players can venture here from roughly level 25+. Located north of the Shire and west of Fornost, this new region has loads of new quests, monsters, items and more! Here are some cool facts on this brand new region:

• Dúnedain of the North once inhabited the lands of Evendim. In fact, it is here that the capital of Arnor,is built by Elendil after the fall of Númenor.
• The remains of the great city of Annúminas sprawl along the southern shore and islands of Lake Evendim, or Nenuial as it is sometimes called.
• At some point the city was abandoned by the Dúnedain of the North when the kingdom of Arnor was sundered into three realms: Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur.
• The reason for this sundering involves a dispute between the three sons of Eärendur over the fate of Annúminas.
• Since the city did not fall in war but was abandoned, many of its ruins remain nearly intact and rumors of great lost wealth are told throughout Eriador. The lure of ancient riches attracts many unsavoury types to Evendim.
• Angmar is not ignorant of Annúminas, and has sent scouts to discern if there is anything of value to them.
• At the same time, in Rivendell the Fellowship continues preparing to leave while Aragorn decides that now is the time to re-forge Narsil. For the light to be returned to this blade, a great gem, long since missing from the hilt, must be replaced. Such a gem may reside in the tombs of Annúminas.

New Instances

Deep in the northern regions of the Misty Mountains lies Helegrod, the location of LOTRO’s first 24 person raid!

The ancient keep of Helegrod was home to mighty dwarves during the times of Moria. The dragon Thorog coveted the riches that lay within and assaulted the city, slaying dwarves beyond measure. Durin the Fifth strapped to his back Mírdanant, a gift of Eregion to his grandsire which passed from father to son through the long years. He strode with a small company of dwarves to the gates of Helegrod. Durin bellowed a challenge, and Thorog responded in kind! The battle was joined! So fierce was the fighting between dragon and dwarf that the very gates of Helegrod were split asunder.

After weary days and nights, Durin began at length to tire; all those in his company lay dead or dying, save Bruni who was called Yellowbeard in later years, whose wounds were too severe for him to continue waging battle. Still, mighty Thorog fought on, refusing to surrender the treasures of Helegrod to their rightful masters. Thorog prepared a white-hot jet of flame with which to roast Durin, whom he judged to be near death, but too late he realized his error. Too late! For lo! Durin swung Mírdanant with all that remained of his strength, and there ended Thorog’s cruel reign.

Durin would not live to see victory, for Thorog’s final gout of flame proved too strong for the dwarf’s stout shield, and he was ended. Mírdanant was lost with Durin; it remains to this day buried in the neck of Thorog’s corpse.

Additional new instances in this update include:

• The Tomb of Elendil
• The Blade that was Broken
• Twisted-heart
• Barad Gûlaran
• A Formal Complaint
• Thief-taker’s Bane
• Amarthiel’s Friends
• Oakheart’s Might

New Quests & Deeds

Over 100 new quests (including over 75 in Evendim) and over 20 new Deeds have been added! New quest arcs include:

• Book 9: The Twilight Shores
• The Reforging of Narsil
• Farmer’s Bane
• A Formal Complaint
• Missing the Meeting
• Threat from the North
• Befuddled Titans
• The Twisted Forest
• Breakfast in the Ruins
• A Plague of Efts
• Treasure Hunt

Introducing 7 sets of Epic Armour!

• Each class now has a unique set of class specific Epic Armour! Each set is specifically tailored to the class giving great bonuses to the stats that matter most.
• Numerous additional sets are also available at lower levels, ranging from level 30 to 50.
• The new Epic Armour comes in the form of “sets”. As you gain more pieces of the set, new bonuses are automatically unlocked for your character. Now, being statistically cool also means you are visually cool!

Additionally (see the full patch notes for more detail):

• The Music system received several major improvements!
• The Raid UI was given a revamp!
• Battle in the Ettenmoors is now persistent. The tides of battle will now shift and remain in their state regardless of server shutdowns or outages.
• Rain is back! Long have our players pined for the rain which was so cruelly removed from them.
• Travel routes throughout the game have had their costs adjusted to be more consistent.
• Certain monster attacks that applied damage-over-time effects were overriding one another. Now, each monster should be able to apply their own effect which should not replace another’s. This was already occurring with normal DOTs, but should now also be in place for others, such as Poison and Fear DOTs.
• Farming has had a major overhaul! Please see the crafting section for more details.
• Auction hall money displays now show all denominations except for leading zero ones. For example: “1g 0s 100c”, or “5s 0c”, or “41c”, etc.
• Crafting resource nodes can only be opened by one player at a time! No more having your node mined out from under you.
• The winning cloak designs from the cloak design contest are in!
• Any crafted item that wasn’t bind-on-equip is now set to be so.
• Reduced the cost of posting kinship auctions from 30 silver to 3 silver. Too many zeroes!
• Time of Day indicator added to the radar. This contains both the local (computer’s) time when moused over and the time of day the game is currently experiencing (as an iconic).
• Tweaks and balance passes to all major adventure instances.
• Added an option in the Repair UI to only show equipped items.
• We now allow position and size replacement when modifying the UI. Additionally, more keywords have been added to the SkinDefinition.xml file to allow you to change the default location and size of many elements on the screen.

Gameplay

• We don’t support changing from one kind of Stealth to another (say from the Racial Trait Hobbit Stealth to a Burglar Stealth). So, to prevent players from accidentally switching and revealing themselves to nearby monsters during the transition, we made a change to prevent switching.
• Stealth detection distances have been updated slightly. Now, the distances that Players detect AI-Monsters who are close to or below their level has been slightly increased. AI-Monsters will also alert to Players at a slightly increased distance.
• Look out! Now, Monster Wound debuffs can also disable your defenses!
  • Injury – Debuffs Might. Now, it also disables “Parry” chances.
  • Sprain – Slows movement speed. Now, it also disables “Evade” chances
  • Dislocation – Slows attack speed. Now, it also disables “Block” chances
• Halberds now produce more threat than before.
• Fate’s contribution to power regeneration in combat has been raised.
• Fixed a bug that would cause ranged attackers to switch to melee weapons and stance briefly after their first shot in combat.
• Improved target detection for all area-effect skills for both players and monsters.
• You can no longer summon players to you with the “Hewn Rallying Horn” (Captain) or the Guardian’s “Acorn Whistle” if you are inside of a private instance.
• Improved combat feedback when the target is immune to some aspects of skill effects or weapon procs, e.g. “fear” effects.
• Out-of-combat only skills that are in progress when the player enters combat will now be interrupted immediately, e.g. the Lore-master’s “Raven Lore” skill.
• Items and objects in the world that cannot be used in combat will have their usage countdown interrupted immediately if the player enters combat while trying to use them, e.g. food.
• Fixed a bug that was causing stealth to break occasionally when the player won a roll on dropped loot.
• When combat ends, any harmful skill that you have queued for execution will be canceled.
• You are no longer able to change equipment while performing some actions, e.g. mining or carrying mail in the Shire.
• Updated auto-attack to help prevent unintended attacks when combat ends.
• Fixed a bug that could result in players being stuck contributing to a Fellowship maneuver until they logged out and back in again.
• Throwing daggers/axes have increased range (was 20 meters, now 30 meters).
• When sparring, the clock now starts counting down seconds immediately.

Skills/Classes

• General
  • The purchasing cost of level 2 skills has been reduced slightly.
  • Common skills and Racial skills will now be listed in their own groups on the skills tab.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing mount items and instruments from updating their ‘usability’ border when the player earns the required passive skill to use them.
  • Fixed a bug with “Mischievous Glee” (Burglar) and “Sign of Power: Wizardry” (Lore-master) that was causing some enemies to assist the player in combat.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing skill quickslot buttons to remain grayed out after the player was knocked down, stunned, etc.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing stealth-only Burglar skill quickslot buttons (e.g. “Burgle”) from graying out while not in stealth mode.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing Guardians from contributing to a Fellowship Maneuver started with their “Turn The Tables” skill.
  • Quickslot skills will now act like other UI’s. When activated, they sort in front; otherwise, they sort in back.
  • Added an option to show only trainable skills in the skill trainer window.
  • When examining a skill that has a minimum level above your current level, it will now show stats relative to that level instead of your current level.
  • Skills missing a required trait will now be shown grayed out in the skills panel until the trait is slotted.

• Champion:
  • The trait Blood-lust no longer gives +25 morale.
  • The Traits Vicious Strikes, Deadly Strikes and Deep Strikes have had their tooltips updated to more accurately represent what they do. Wild Attack never received bonuses from these traits.
  • The Traits Call of the Wild, At the Ready, Patience, and Heavy Shield Use have had their tooltips updated to more accurately represent what they do. They have not decreased damage taken during Fervour since Beta started.
  • Many skills and traits have had their tooltips updated to more accurately reflect what the skills or traits do. No skills or traits have had their functionality changed by this fix; only the tooltips have been changed. Please note that other patch notes may indeed change the functionality of some skills and traits.
  • The Champion has a series of new skills available between levels 40 and 50.
    • Heroics (40) – This skill costs a lot of power, and heals the power of all nearby fellowship members. This skill requires a defeat event.
    • Rising Ire (42) – This skill transfers monster threat from a target fellowship member to the Champion. It is on the same cooldown timer as Ebbing Ire.
    • Ebbing Ire (44) – This skill transfers monster threat from the Champion to a target fellowship member. It is on the same cooldown timer as Rising Ire.
    • Glory (46) – This is a toggle skill that increases power and fervour regeneration at the expense of melee damage output.
    • Blocking Blades (48) – This skill raises the Champion’s Parry rate, and will remain active for as long as he stays in combat. After he drops out of combat the effect will dispel in 10 seconds. This skill requires a defeat event.
    • Red Haze (50) – This skill provides a fervour pip upon use, and an additional fervour pip every 7 seconds, and will remain active for as long as he stays in combat. After he drops out of combat the effect will dispel in 10 seconds. This skill requires a defeat event.
  • Ferocious Strikes – Has had its critical damage multiplier increased, its power cost slightly increased, and its reset time increased to 30 seconds. Ferocious Strikes previously blocked all skill actions for a long time after use. This time has been reduced significantly.
  • The Champion’s Multi-Hook attacks were not applying a multiplier on any attack past the first on critical hits. The 2nd and 3rd attacks now have a small damage multiplier and will apply bleeds if the associated Champion trait is slotted.
  • Champions should no longer see two rank 4 Accuracy traits. Having more was an error.
  • The Champion “Fervour” skill no longer generates Fervour when the player is not in combat. Fervour will decay a little slower when out of combat to compensate for this change.

• Guardian:
  • The Guardian skill “Protection,” when paired with the trait “Selfless Defence,” was not working as the tooltip described. The trait now correctly reduces the threat on the Guardians target by 10%.

• Hunter:
  • Hunters’ melee critical passive traits have been upgraded to ranged critical traits.
  • Hunter Stances were disabling auto-attacks, which could be undesired if switching stances in combat. Now, using a stance will not affect your auto-attack (it will either stay on, or stay off).
  • The Hunter’s crafted “Bear Traps” now remain in the world longer, increasing from 60s to 3m
  • The placement distance of traps is now slightly closer to the player
  • The Hunter’s campfire now remains in the world for 3m (and the cooldown has been increased to match)
  • The movement speed debuff for Strength Stance + Quick Shot is no longer overridden by the Champion’s Hamstring
  • Desperate Flight no longer has an induction timer; to balance this, the cooldown of the skill has increased to 30m
  • Hunters should no longer be stuck in combat mode if they manage to defeat an opponent by placing a trap on them.
  • New icon fix for the Hunters’ Stance skills.
• Minstrel:
  • Lay of the Hammerhand, Herald’s Strike and Cure Fear have been moved into the “Theater and Inspirations” Skill category. No changes have been made to the skills.
  • The Minstrel’s Instrument Power cost benefits have been changed for clarity.
  • Minstrels now can find lute strings that lower their healing threat. String them on your lute for a more subtle play!
  • Song of Soothing now reduces more aggro.
  • Updated the Drums Instruments to now do more damage, but cost more power.

• Captain
  • The Captain’s Summoning Horn cost has been adjusted.
  • The Captain’s Last Stand skill no longer protects him from falling damage.
  • 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)
  • Command: Relentless Attack, Command: On Guard, and Command: Focus are now consistent with their skill icons
  • Noble Mark now has a proper icon
  • The Captain skill Defensive Strike now has a 3 second cooldown.
  • The damage from Pressing Attack is now skewed more heavily towards the second attack (The overall damage of the skill still remains the same).
  • Critical hitting on the second swing of Pressing Attack will now enable your defeat response skills.
  • The Herald skill Coordinated Attack will now do 50% more damage if executed from behind the target.
  • Captain “Command” buffs have been renamed to “Tactics” and can now be used on yourself.
  • The damage dealt by crits with Devastating Blow has been increased slightly.
  • Tactic: Relentless Attack now improves your Melee, Missile, and Tactical Crit Chances by 3%
  • Telling Mark now increases the amount of damage dealt to the target, instead of your chance to crit.
  • The Max Morale and Morale Regen buffs of your base Banner of Hope are now stronger.
  • The Power Cost of Defensive Strike, Rallying Cry, Shield of the Dúnedain, Oathbreaker’s Shame, and all of the Captain’s Marks has been reduced.
  • Captain Marks from multiple Captains should now stack properly.
  • Decreased the damage variance on Noble Mark (the overall DPS remains the same)

• Burglar
  • It’s a bummer for Burglars when you use a Conjunction Starter skill just when a monster is entering the post-combat state immunity phase. We’ve updated both Trip and Exploit Opening, as well as Marbles, so they cannot be used while the target is immune to negative states. They can still be used if a monster is immune to conjunctions — because you might still want the skill to use as a stun — but that immunity always follows a conjunction and comes after the overall immunity state. (So it should be easier to anticipate that and not accidentally use the ability.)
  • The Burglar “Hide in Plain Sight” and Warg “Disappear” skills have been updated to end any channeled attacks on the player when they are activated, e.g. the Lore-master’s “Power of Knowledge” skill.
  • The Burglar’s “Find Footing” skill will now properly clear “Riddle” effects from another Burglar when sparring.

• Lore-master
  • Purchase price for Lore-master’s skill Blinding Flash has been reduced.
  • Test of Wills now has a greater chance to crit and a larger magnitude crit multiplier.
  • Blinding Flash has had a tweak to its resistance rate. Inner flame, although can now only be used when you have a pet summoned, now heals the pet as well as the Lore-master.
  • Your window for performing “Flanked!” attacks has increased its duration.
  • No more missing Improved Staff Strike windows or Sign of Wizardry heals.
    • Bear skills have been improved.
    • Bear stuns now last longer.
    • Bear Force Attack now lasts longer
    • Bear Hug is less likely to miss against on level creatures.
  • Healer trait now raises the output of all your healing skills by 10%.
  • Lore-master’s Blind Flash works on Ancient Evil.
  • Bear Treats! Want to make your bear tougher? Feed him honey! These treats raise mitigation and threat.
  • Bears won’t stun on crit anymore but will do 2x damage and have a raised crit chance.
  • Sign of Wizardry Damage has been increased.
  • Burning Embers’ initial pulse of damage has been increased.
  • Raven’s Aura of Protection Shadow Mitigation has been both raised to 15% but now also starts from the beginning with that level of protection. Protect your party from the Shadow magic wielding Undead!

Traits/Titles/Deeds

• Deeds Log
  • When you click on an alert which brings you to the Deeds Log, the Deeds Log will update its Show Completed button to ensure you can see the Deed you received the alert for.
  • The Deeds log now has two tabs across the top: “Class, Race, Epic” and “Eriador”.
  • The decorative, specific tabs are now located across the bottom of the UI, each under their appropriate subsection.
  • A “Set Rewards” check box has been added to each page. Checking this box will expand the Deed entry on the left hand page to display all the rewards for an Deed set (e.g. Barghest Slayer 1, 2…).
  • The Reward Display on the Right Hand page has been changed to be a list box. Deeds with multiple rewards will now display all of the rewards associated with the deed.
  • The Deed Log will now properly remove deeds that are completed while Show Completed is unchecked and the Log is opened.
  • Fixed a bug where the Class Tab in the Deed Journal would vanish when holding down the left mouse button over it.
  • Monster play Deed Log has new art for class and race pages.
• There was an issue with monster play Deeds and Tol Ascarnen. You could achieve the third Deed without finishing the second. This has been addressed.
• Fixed a typo in the description of the “of the Quick Post” title.
• There was a bug in the “Strength of Man” race trait where it wasn’t randomizing the correct values. This has been corrected.
• Headbutt text is now clearer.
• The Trait “Justice” had its morale improved at level 4.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing some Burglar traits from improving some skills, e.g. “Mischievous Glee.”
• The number of successful critical attacks required to advance the “Strike From Shadows” deed has been increased substantially. The original number did not take into account the Burglar’s auto-crit ability.
• Deeds that had their requirements changed and were unable to be completed have now been fixed.

Adoptions/Notary System/Bios

• Fixed a problem where the Notary UI would not display its fees properly.
• The proper error message will now be displayed when trying to adopt a third child.
• Added a context-sensitive menu option for Adoption.
• Fixed a bug with Surname Validation which would reject a surname if it started with two consonants and the player’s first name ended with two consonants (the game interpreted this as 4 consecutive consonants).

Monster Play

• Monster players completing the tier five deed for defeating Burglar players will now properly see an alert when the Deed is complete.
• Monster players who complete the tier four Deed “Slay the Enemies of Angmar” will now unlock only the tier five deed, not the tier five, six and seven Deeds.
• We discovered that the leaders of Angmar’s Army only valued the defeat of the Free Peoples’ leaders as a level one Deed. This has been adjusted to the fitting level of 50.
• Guard-Captain Unnarr has decided to no longer appear in multiple places in Thorin’s Hall when certain portions of the Ettenmoors were being controlled by the Free Peoples.
• A whole bunch of monster play class changes!
  • Overall
    • Some high-effectiveness skills have had their power costs increased
    • Some skills were not being affected by the Disarm or Ranged Suppression debuffs and now are.
    • The recovery timer on the “Odorous Salts” and “Solvent of Painful Freedom” has been reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes.
    • The cost of tracking charms and talismans has been significantly reduced.
  • Spider Weaver:
    • The Spider has learned to spit! She now has a ranged auto-attack and ‘Tainted Bite’ is now ‘Tainted Kiss’ and is usable at range! ‘Tainted Kiss’ has also become more deadly. (Sometimes I feel I’ve got to run away, I’ve got to get away…)
    • The Weaver’s “Trapdoor Sanctuary” has gotten better. Now the spider can stay below ground for up to 60s (but can leave sanctuary earlier if she wishes).
    • The Spider Weaver’s out-of-combat-only ambush skill “Lie in Wait” now has a shorter recovery time and allows the spider to stay underground for up to 15 minutes before emerging.
    • Weavers, like their spider-brethren, now have a slightly enhanced chance to detect stealth
  • Orc Reaver:
    • Reaver base damage has been improved by approximately 5%
    • The recovery timer on the Orc Reaver’s “Resilience” has been reduced from 3 minutes to 1 minute.
  • Uruk Blackarrow:
    • Blackarrow base damage has been lowered by about 5%
    • “Flaming Arrow” was dealing damage twice on application, now only the effect deals an initial, larger burst than its subsequent damage ticks.
    • The Blackarrow’s “Enhanced Skill: Hindering Shot” trait will now enhance the base skills so that it applies both a short root and the normal movement speed debuff as was intended.
    • The Uruk Blackarrow’s ranged auto-attack was usable while moving, but should not have been. This has been fixed.
  • Warg Stalker
    • The Stalker’s “Sprint” skill recovery time is increased from 5m –> 10m (reduced back to 5m with a trait).
  • Uruk Warleader:
    • The power cost of his group heal has been reduced
• Fixed a bug that was preventing some food from increasing out-of-combat vital regeneration rates for monster players.
• Increased the range and amount of items that can be found inside the Chest of Glâin Vraig (Ettenmoors reward chest).
• Map notes in the Ettenmoors for keep control now contain the name of the location.
• Added race and class to monster play character panel.
• Updates to social UI for monster play. No more fellowship references.
• Monster play icons will now show up in the grouping panel tooltips.
• Time to awaken after a PvMP defeat is now the same as a normal defeat.

Auctions

• Added the ability to sort auctions by level.
• Sorting will now persist between queries.
• The Auction UI search category “Jewelry” is now spelled “Jewellery”
• The Bid and Buyout buttons on the Auction UI now disable themselves when the player selects an auction they have posted.
• The Next and Previous page buttons on the Auction UI’s Auction page now enable and disable along with the search button when executing queries.
• When sorting by Buyout in the Auction UI, items without a buyout specified will now appear at the bottom of the list instead of the top of the list.
• The Auction UI’s search tree has had some more organization work done to it. All class-specific and crafting items now appear under their own drop-down categories.
• The “Eligible Only” checkbox on the Auction UI will now persist between character sessions.
• The Auction UI will now re-execute the player’s last query after buying out an item in the Auction House.
• The Auction UI will now scroll to the top of the list when switching between query pages.
• Fixed a bug in the Auction UI that caused a scrollbar to display in the Auctions List Box even when the list box was empty!
• The “Eligible” search category is now known as “Unrestricted”.
• The “Key” Category in the Auction UI search tree has been removed.
• The Auction UI will no longer enable the Bid and Buyout buttons for an auction in which you are already the high bidder.
• The Kinship Only button now properly enables itself if the player’s Kinship is the correct lifetime rank.
• “Tool” category has been renamed to “Burglar Tool” and a new category, “Craft Tool,” has been added for craft-tool listings.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing players from buying out an auction if they were already the high bidder.
• When a player has bid on an item, and the item is then bought out by another player, the following message is now displayed in the chat window: “An auction you have bid on has been bought out.”
• A new four-hour auction duration has been added, while the seventy-two hour duration has been removed. The fee for posting a four hour auction is 3% of the item’s value.
• Mail sent from the Guild of Trade to a seller about successful auctions will now include more detailed information about the winning bid and the Auctioning Fee! Please note these changes will not reflect on already received auction mail.
• Chat Messages received from the Auction House will now include the name of the item the auction is associated with!
• Shields now appear in the armour listing when doing a general search.
• Healing category has been removed from the auction house listing.
• Removed unused category “Crafted.”
• New category “Lore-master Book” added to show books usable by Lore-masters. The current “Book” category will now list all other books found in-game.
• Thrown weapons now appear in the correct auction house category (Weapons -> Thrown)
• You can now do global searches on Crafting Items and Class specific items in the auction house.

Mail

• It is now possible to send mail with extended ASCII characters in the subject. This fixes a problem when sending items through the mail with accented characters.
• Fixed a bug in the Mail UI which was causing the postage cost to be truncated.
• The Postage cost of sending a letter with an item attached is now 50 copper + 20% of the items vendor value.
• The proper error will now be displayed when trying to send mail to a monster player.
• You can no longer use a mailbox while mounted.
• Added Cash on Delivery to the Mail UI. You can now perform trade transactions through the mail by selecting COD when sending an item. Just specify the price of the item and send it away.
• You can no longer attach items or money to a Kinship Letter.
• The postage cost of sending items has changed. Postage is now calculated depending on the rarity of the item. Common items have been lowered to 10% of the item’s value, uncommon and rare remain 20%, incomparable and legendary are now 30%.
• Open letters inside of the Mail UI will now display their sent date and time below the Reply Button.

User Interface

• Oh multi-tasking players! How targeting used to spite thee when playing with other windows. Now, closing windows with the mouse will no longer cause your target to be unselected.
• The “loot roll zone” section of the UI is now moveable.
• The Auction UI, Mail UI and Notary UI now hide with the rest of the UI when hitting the Hide UI button.
• Confirmation dialogs will now be displayed when trying to
  • restore defaults in the Options UI.
• • map an action to a key which is already mapped.
• Both Shift Keys are now labeled “Shift” in the Options UI.
• You now receive a clearer error message when you join a fellowship if the chat server is down.
• You can no longer queue up multiple actions on an item. i.e., you cannot queue up two dye kits on the same item. You’ll have to wait for the first one to finish.
• Better error message when you click a fellowship skill too many times.
• You can now bind the Auto Loot All (initially shift-right button) and Dressing Room (initially ctrl-left button) actions to any key or mouse button your heart desires.
• Right clicking now activates quickslots (just like left clicking does).
• If a pet skill can only be toggled, either mouse button will activate it. Correspondingly, if a pet skill can only be executed immediately, either button will execute it. If the skill can do either, left will execute immediately, right will toggle.
• You can no longer use the /stuck command while traveling. You must dismount first.
• No more sneaky mounting, where you could end up stealthed on your horse.
• Only the ESC key will stop movies now. You’ll have to aim instead of mashing the keyboard now, son.
• You’ll now get a warning that your skills are unusable and disabled when you begin interacting with a bard.
• Hitting ‘ESC’ will stop playing theater movies.
• You’ll get an error if you try to dye an item with the same color the item already is.
• You will now see the in-combat and out-of-combat regeneration rates in the tooltip for each vital in your Character Journal.
• Added a new UI component to show your queued skill and the global delay that must expire before it will execute. The new component will not be shown by default, but you can hide or show it via the “Show Skill Queue Display” option in the UI Settings panel.
• Fixed a bug with the examination of some types of applied effects that was causing the wrong total duration to be displayed, e.g. “Falling Injuries” always showed a duration of 6 seconds regardless of the magnitude of the injuries.
• Fixed error messages with some helpful skills that you aren’t allowed to use on yourself, e.g. the Lore-master’s “Beacon of Hope” and Minstrel’s “Song of Restoration.”
• Fixed a bug with examination of some consumable items that was masking details about some of their effects, e.g. the Champion’s Horn.
• Updated the descriptions used when examining some applied effects.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the character panel to show parry and/or block chance as N/A even when the player was eligible for those results.
• The character journal will now show N/A for your Evade percentage when your chance to evade attacks is disabled for any reason.
• Users can now specify sizes and positions for our UI elements
• Logitech G15 users can read their Area without it being truncated.
• There is a new floaty text option “Selection Name”. Now, when you select an entity, you can determine if you want the selected name to display. The selection reticle at the creature’s feet will display regardless of this setting. This new toggle is only available when the “Toggle Floating Names” toggle is set to “off”.
• Added /time, which is now an alias of the existing /localtime command. This can be used to query what time it is locally.
• Class Icon and Race info added to Character Journal Stats page.
• Race has been added to the character panel.
• When equipping an item, the tooltip will now refresh automatically if it needs to.
• Added a fix to the Who UI to stop logged out players from showing up in list.
• Equipping an item will now cause the current tooltip to refresh.
• Shields are now shown in the item wear display.
• Stablemasters that have not been discovered yet have new pulsing icons above their heads.
• Added “Show surname” and “Show rank” options to title UI.
• Added search filter for recipes in Craft UI.
• Added tutorial hints for rest xp and item binding.
• Option page default and revert buttons will now ghost out when nothing is changed.
• Interacting with floaty text should now act the same as when you interact with the associated entity.
• Added a range indicator on item skills.
• Skill and trait entries that are higher rank than you are will now be greyed out until you meet the requirement.
• Fixed a race condition that could cause vertical quickslot bars along the right side of the screen to get pushed to the left when logging out and back in.
• Fixed a stringtable error in the /inspect command
• Quickslot backgrounds no longer disappear after dropping an item.
• Fixed a bug which would cause option values on sliders not to save between logins.
• Quickslot timers should be more visible under more circumstances.
• Many of our examination tooltip strings have been updated to be more concise. For example, “Adds 10 to Might” now reads “+10 Might”.
• Players can remove the new overlay more clearly when they hover over the skill icon in the skill tree.
• The ignore list can now be reverse-sorted in the same way as the friends list.
• Secure trades no longer require you to stand uncomfortably close to your trade partner.

Chat/Social

• /afk can be used to enter the AFK mode. Typing /afk again will exit you from the AFK mode.
• You can now use the player context-sensitive menu when players send messages over the chat channels.
• Sending a tell to a player that does not exist will now close your IM tab with that player, and modify your retell history so you will not accidentally retell that erroneous player.
• There are now different errors displayed when trying to send a tell to a player that is offline verses sending a tell to a player that does not exist
• There is now a Tell and Invite button present on the Friends page for those who do not want to use the context-sensitive menu.
• Friends list now mimics the LFG panel when showing the fellowship status.
• Friends tooltip now lists the friend’s kinship.
• The friend’s name in the tooltip will color green if that friend is online.
• Fixed the formatting on chat tabs so that it won’t extend the label over the end of the tab in certain cases.

Raid/Group UI

• The Raid UI will now display the class of a raid member when hovering over their class icon.
• Adds the “Raid Target” UI window. You can now flag raid members as “Raid Assist Targets” and monitor their health, along with their current target, and that target’s health.
• You can now see the target of your current target underneath your target’s selection. – There is now a slightly different reticule shown in the 3d world under your target’s target. – You can toggle the visibility of this additional set of vitals in the options pane.
• Fixed Raid UI to continue to show assistant icon on an assistant that is moved to a different fellowship.
• Fixed problems in raid mini vitals around linkdead members (linkdead icon was not always showing correctly).
• Target Marking Icons: The leader of a fellowship can now use visually upgraded target markings.
• Group Leaders are now able to mark players, pets, and monsters with visual marks to aid in raid coordination.
• The Raid page in the Social Panel now has a convert to raid button.
• Players can adjust the group vitals (mini, fellow/micro, raid) to show only the effects that are dispellable or they cast themselves. This will allow them in group situations to manage the effects on the rest of their fellows.
• Players that are leaders of raids (only) can now perform a /raidshout to the entire raid group.
• Group leaders can now ask if their fellow members are ready to go via /readycheck.
• Players in raids now have voice chat amongst the raid group. The leader has the ability to gag an individual fellow.
• Fellowship/raid leaders can now mark fellow members and monsters with symbols to help designate who is who and what is what.
• Switching the looting type to Master looter no longer resets the loot quality to “none.”
• Raid/Fellowship leaders that are trying to target mark entities no longer have trouble when the menu hides behind the main entity.
• The fellow/raid mini vitals will now display “defeated” over the vitals when a fellow member is incapacitated.
• You can now click anywhere on a raid member’s pet vitals to select that pet.

Crafting

• General
  • Novice & Expert cook NPCs no longer sell: Blueberries, Cabbage, Taters, Green Onions, Broccoli, Strawberries, Blackberries, and Raspberries.
  • Fixed Farming and Cooking instructions in “A Yeoman’s Guide” crafting guide.
  • Improved the descriptions for all seven crafting guides.
  • Fixed numerous typos, grammatical errors, and incorrect instructions in the seven crafting guides.
  • Updated the message shown in the Crafting UI for when the player has not yet taken a crafting vocation. The message now directs players to seek out a Master or Mistress of Apprentices.
  • Fixed an issue where several professions did not unlock tier 5 mastery after completion of tier 5 proficiency.
  • Updated art for many, many crafted weapons!
  • 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.
  • Fixed quality issues with “Ancient Steel Mining Pick.”
  • Capitalized the words “Jeweller” and “Tailor” in all of the titles for these two crafting professions.
  • Cleaned up item category sorting in auctions for all crafting components, resources, and ingredients.
  • Fixed recipe ingredients listed for “Padded Armour” in the following vocation introduction letters: Armourer, Explorer, and Yeoman.
  • Corrected information in the crafting guide, “A Tinker’s Guide.”
  • Corrected minor typos in the names of some crafting components.
  • Fixed a typo in the Armsman vocation crafting guide.
  • Quest items produced by quest recipes can no longer be sold, auctioned, or traded. In addition, destroying these quest items will also cause the quest to be abandoned.
  • Added more descriptive descriptions to all crafting recipe scrolls! Profession name, profession difficulty, and recipe type (where applicable) are now given in each recipe scroll’s description.
  • All critical crafting tools are now know prefixed with the title “Superior,” to easily distinguish them from normal crafting tools.
  • Fixed meta-tags for many crafting tools. Messages sent to the player regarding the tools should now use proper grammar.
  • Craft tool durability has been reduced slightly and repair cost adjusted so you never pay more to repair it than its value.
  • Removed the chance of getting monster trophies from crafting consignments and increased the amount of resources.
  • Crafting components & ingredients now use a green background in the icon.
  • Increased the bonuses on Polished Westernesse Dagger, Polished Westernesse Mace, Polished Westernesse Halberd, Mirrored Westernesse Sword, Mirrored Westernesse Greatsword, Mirrored Westernesse Axe, Mirrored Westernesse Headman’s Axe, Mirrored Westernesse Halberd
  • Fixed a few cases where crafted halberds were not getting the correct amount of bonuses applied to them. These halberds now grant larger bonuses to might or vitality.
  • Forged Dwarf-craft Axe and Tempered Dwarf-craft Axe now give a bonus to in-combat power regeneration instead of Might so they no longer conflict with the weapons learned from the Master of Apprentices.
  • Solid Light Bronze Buckler now has the stats of a rare item.
  • Quests that allow you to progress to higher crafting tiers will now always have a gold ring, no matter what adventuring level you have reached. Other crafting quests will use the normal rules for quest icons.
  • Level 45 Class Quest Trophies for the third wave of the “Implements” and “Articles” quests are no longer Bind On Pickup.
  • Fixed an issue with the Crafting Solutions quests where the quest would fail to update.
  • Each of the “Part 3” crafting quests should now bring up the appropriate “superior facility” quest when completed.
  • When crafting multiple items, you will see the current and total number in the progress bar.
  • When crafting multiple items, the animation will now stay between creations.
  • Names of items in craft panel are now colored correctly according to rarity.
  • Heavy branches and Rich ore deposits can now be found in the world. These uncommon resource nodes are higher yield than normal resource nodes, giving a bit more variety to their respective harvesting systems.
  • Fixed an issue that was preventing players from using Superior Forges (right-click) to open their craft UI.
  • Rich Ore Deposits and Heavy Branches can now be found rarely on the landscape. These resources are less common but yield greater returns than their normal counterparts.
  • For many months (well… one month) crafters have scratched their heads over the location of the mysterious beast known as Sagrurz. Puzzle no longer! Sagrurz can now rarely be found on the landscape (though where he can be found we’ll leave up to you to discover )
  • The Superior Workbench that was hanging out beneath the ground at the farms north of Hobbiton has been removed.
  • Crafting Quests should follow the quest consideration levels just like all other quests. Quests that advance your profession will always show a gold ring now.
  • Skinner Grubb, for the consignment quests, no longer has the title Leather Worker. We realized that this could be a bit confusing to all the real Leather Workers out there.

• Farming
  • The farming vocation has been updated to allow the possibility of small profits when selling finished products back to a vendor. Only selling products created from fair plants will turn a profit, depending on the amount generated by the field. There is no profit in selling poor plants to vendors, yet they can be converted back into seeds.
  • Some pipe-weed seeds are now available to players via loot drops.
  • Added recipes for brewing beer!
  • Cooking and Farming vendors now sell components/recipes required for brewing beer.
  • Lowered the cost of seeds used by farmers to produce items used by cooks.
  • All pipe-weed varieties now have a max stacking size of 50.
  • Oats can now be grown by farmers, which can be used by cooks to make treats for the Lore-Master’s bear-friend. Farmers should visit their local Novice Farmer for oat recipes and seeds, while cooks should seek out Novice Cooks to pick up a new recipe and craft ingredient. More powerful Bear Treat recipes can also be found elsewhere!
  • Pipe-weed seed recipes that award seeds which cannot be purchased from vendors will produce a total of two seeds per recipe execution.
  • Adjusted the output of some pipe-weed seed recipes to produce three seeds instead of two.
  • Decreased the quantity of Fertilizer, Earth of Erebor, and seeds needed to create all pipeweed and vegetable “field” recipes.
  • All tier 4 and 5 farming recipes that previously required superior workbench facilities now require normal workbench facilities.
  • Crop tracking has arrived again for the first time! Farmers can now toggle the ‘Track Crops’ skill, just like the ‘Track Wood’ and ‘Track Mines’ skills. Tracking crops will allow all landscape crop spawns to appear on your minimap.
  • Fixed the plural names for “Cauliflower Seed,” “Bushel of Fair Cauliflower,” and “Bushel of Poor Cauliflower” incorrectly showing up as “Broccoli.”
• Scholar
• • Scholar vendors sell new ingredient items used in the making of Morale & Power regeneration potions.
  • Increased production quantities for Fire and Light Oil recipes
  • Changed the ingredients used in two Scholar quest recipes, “Ballad of Aiglos” and “Chant of the Stalwart.” They should now be using ingredients appropriate to the difficulty of the recipe.
  • Fixed an issue where the tier 3, 4, and 5 recipes for power and morale potions were producing the wrong items when executed (Morale potion recipes were producing power potions, and vice-versa).
  • Scholar potion recipes now have the chance to produce an improved potion when a critical result is achieved. Previously, two regular potions were produced on a critical success.
  • Changed the ingredients for all scholar power and morale potion recipes, reducing the focus on rare-drop scholar components and shifting that focus more over to store-bought ingredients.
  • Novice scholars now sell the “Hand-Bound Journal” item needed for some journeyman scholar recipes.
  • New scholar recipes have been added! Lore scroll recipes for Cooking, Jeweller, and Scholar have all been added to the Scholar profession. These recipes are automatically granted to you.
• Cooking
  • Lowered prices of all cooking ingredients.
  • Changed the singular name of “Salt” to “Bag of Salt.”
  • Rebalanced the required ingredient quantities for many cooking recipes. For the majority of recipes, the number of required ingredients has been reduced.
  • Fixed issues with effects getting double-listed on tooltips for the following items: Hornblower’s Pie, Superior Hornblower’s Pie, Stuffed Cabbage, and Superior Stuffed Cabbage
  • New recipes for lute strings have been added to Cooking! Cooks may now create lute strings for Minstrels that temporarily reduce threat generated when healing.
  • The “Serene Stew” recipe (a tier 2 recipe) was previously using a crafted tier 3 ingredient. The required ingredients have been changed to replace the crafted tier 3 ingredient with a crafted tier 2 ingredient.
  • The “Serene Stew” recipe (a tier 2 recipe) was previously using a crafted tier 3 ingredient. The required ingredients have been changed to replace the crafted tier 3 ingredient with a crafted tier 2 ingredient.
  • Fixed a typo in the plural name of “Complete Hobbit Breakfast.”
  • Fixed a typo in the description of “Juicy Blackberries.”
  • “A Taste of Skill, Part Two” is completeable again, after the great Hearty Stock Shortage of 3018. Enterprising hobbits have come up with new ingredients for the recipe, and all agree that the new stew is both stewier and more serene.
• Weaponsmith:
  • Two tier 3 crafted weapons, “Bright Steel Dagger” and “Shining Steel Dagger,” have been changed into granting an increase to vitality instead of agility. Other tier 3 daggers give an increase to agility.
  • Fixed issues with some Forged Dwarf-Craft weapon recipes requiring the wrong type of forge.
  • Fixed issue with some Polished Westernesse weapon recipes requiring the wrong type of forge.
  • Fixed instructions in “A Bounty of Blades” crafting guide.
  • Increased production quantities for Beartraps, Multi-Traps, Shield Spikes, Caltrops, and Stun Dust.
• Prospecting
  • Fixed a few instances where the name “Barrow-Iron” was displayed without the hyphen (“Barrow-Iron Deposits” and “Rich Barrow-Iron Deposits”).
  • Fixed an issue with the “Refine Elven-steel” recipe using the incorrect type of ingot. This recipe now uses Ancient Iron ingots instead of Dwarf-steel ingots.
• Jeweller
  • Cleaned up naming issues with both the normal and critical versions of the Striking and Vanquishing Runes.
  • Jewellers are now directed to find a workbench instead of a study.
  • Jewellers should now be able to receive Superior Workbench access.
• Tailoring
  • Fixed the display names of some Tailoring recipe scrolls.
  • Fixed the decription for crafting component Leather Guard.
  • Tailors now sell recipes for crafting cloaks.
• Metalworking:
  • Increased the level requirements for all tier 2 metalworking crafted heavy armour sets:
    • “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).
    • Note: 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.
• Woodworking
  • The tier 2 “Stout Ash” weapons were using the wrong quality level. This is now fixed.

Emotes

• The mischievous emotes now have proper spelling.
• The /sigh command now has the proper tense when directing it at a target.
• The emotes /pose and /smackhead now function properly

Music System

• Players now have access to two additional music instruments: Drums and Bass (Theorbo)!
• You now get sustained notes when playing music! Go ahead, hold those keys down.
• You now have three full octaves of notes to play with player music! You’ll have to change your key bindings to access the full range. Hit ctrl-o, click “Key Mapping” and then scroll down to the Music section.
• You can now use /play to play an ABC notation (Google it!) file located in your My DocumentsThe Lord of the Rings OnlineMusic directory. Note that certain ABC features aren’t supported – notably chords, slurs, gracings, repeats, changing key mid-song, tuplets, staccato, among others.
• There’s now an optional key mapping for entering or exiting /music mode. It isn’t set by default, but you can set it to whatever you want.
• You can now enter and exit /music mode using the right-click menu on your own portrait.
• We’ve roughly doubled the speed at which you can play notes.
• No more playing music with broken instruments.
• Other players will no longer see music system errors when you’re teleported while playing.
• You can now use musical instruments once they are equipped to toggle music mode.
• The music tutorial has been changed so it begins when you acquire your first instrument.
• Depending on latency, players are allowed to either synchronize their notes with the server, or hear their note instantly. The later option should be appealing to solo musicians.
• Basic musical horns can now be equipped correctly.

Items

• The following armours have had their rating increased:
  • Reinforced Leather Gauntlets – 30
  • Reinforced Westernesse Leather Gauntlets – 50
  • Reinforced Leather Boots – 33
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Boots – 43
  • Reinforced Leather Leggings – 38
  • Reinforced Leather Shirt – 22
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Shirt – 45
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Jacket – 32
  • Reinforced Leather Shoulder Pads – 37
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Shoulder Guards – 50
  • Reinforced Elven Pointed Helm – 41
  • Reinforced Leather Gauntlets of Rallying – 30
  • Gleaming Leather Gauntlets – 50
  • Treated Leather Boots – 33
  • Reinforced Leather Boots of Fleetness – 43
  • Reinforced Leather Leggings of Determination – 38
  • Reinforced Leather Shirt of Vigour – 22
  • Reinforced Leather Shirt of Fate – 45
  • Shining Leather Jacket – 32
  • Reinforced Leather Shoulder Pads of Might – 37
  • Reinforced Leather Shoulder Guards of Fate – 50
  • Gleaming Dwarf Leather Gauntlets – 30
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Gauntlets of Courage – 50
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Boots of Fleetness – 33
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Boots of Fleetness – 43
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Leggings of Courage – 38
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Shirt of Fate – 22
  • Shining Dwarf Leather Shirt – 45
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Jacket of Determination – 32
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Shoulder Pads of Might – 37
  • Reinforced Dwarf Leather Shoulder Guards of Fleetness – 50
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Gauntlets of Might – 30
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Gauntlets of Rallying – 50
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Boots of Vigour – 33
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Boots of Determination – 43
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Leggings of Fate – 38
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Shirt of Determination – 45
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Jacket of Vigour – 32
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Shoulder Pads of Vigour – 37
  • Reinforced Elven Leather Shoulder Guards of Fate – 50
  • Reinforced Westernesse Leather Gauntlets of Rallying – 50
  • Shining Westernesse Leather Shirt – 45
  • Reinforced Westernesse Leather Shoulder Guards of Determination – 50
  • Bargserk – 43
  • Horse-shift – 50
  • Nail-treaders – 30
  • Hard-heels – 50
  • Grundbog – 50
  • Stanhelm – 50
  • Sterklófi – 50 From Crafting
  • Tough Skirmisher’s Helm[e] – 31
  • Tough Skirmisher’s Gloves[ps] – 31
  • Tough Skirmisher’s Armour[n] – 31
  • Tough Skirmisher’s Leggings[ps] – 31
  • Tough Skirmisher’s Boots[ps] – 31
  • Tough Skirmisher’s Shoulder Guards[ps] – 31
• Brooches dropped by Hillmen for the “Hillmen of the North” quest are now correctly identified as Hillman-brooch/Hillman-brooches.
• Shield of the Stalwart Tower had its description updated.
• Throwing axes now have the proper graphic.
• Slight increase to the power of the quest rewards from “Queen of the Host.”
• “Demoralize” was misspelled on morale transfer weapons.
• The Burglar’s Badge has its stealth bonus replaced with an evade and parry bonus.
• The Skull Key received from the quest “Forging Anew” cannot be destroyed now.
• Changed the tooltip information on a number of bows and crossbows. The text regarding induction time and threat reducing effects was incorrectly representing what the items did.
• Buffed Coruthor, the level 30 minstrel class reward helmet.
• Items that give stealth bonus have been rebalanced. Now “pocket” items also can give stealth bonuses in addition to cloaks.
• Many of the class quest weapons and jewelry received a small buff.
• Made a different necklace reward for “An Ancient Story of Evil.”
• Swifthelm: Fixed a typo in the description.
• Replaced the placeholder graphic for rhubarb. It should now appear as a leafy green object.
• Fixed typos in the display names of some Battle Axe weapons.
• Replaced icon for “Drake-egg.” It now looks like an egg!
• Fixed a typo on heavy shields which resulted in the % sign showing up before the number. No functional change.
• Ningaim (rare light gloves) has seen a minimum level increase to 37.
• Minimum requirement for Leggings of the Lost Master updated to 25.
• Fixed the plural name for monster trophy item “Mangled Spider Mandible.”
• Treatise of Valour icon updated.
• Cloaks with special patterns on them were not meant to be dyed and are now restricted.
• Icon for the Sparkling Platinum Necklace has been updated.
• Common elven heavy armour is more common.
• Light Gondorian Kite Shield had heavy shield stats. The light shield now has light shield armour class.
• Many small changes to item descriptions or names to fix typos or inconsistencies.
• Some prefix/suffix names on uncommon items have been updated. There were no functional changes to the items affected.
• Description on axes updated: Armour lowering effect doesn’t apply to the wielder, but a proc which affects the wielder’s target.
• NinGaim gloves are now level 37. If your player is currently wearing these gloves and you are not the correct level the item will be put into your back.
• Reduced the repair cost on some weapons.
• Some trophy items found off Aurochs have been renamed to correct and incorrect spelling of Aurochs.
• Neeker-breeker horn trophy no longer drops frequently.
• Intermediate quest items now show the icon in the tool-tip display.
• Reduced the frequency of trophy drops from Midgeclouds.
• Made some positive updates to some items dropping from bosses in the Great Barrows.
• Guardian’s Ward shield is now a Heavy Shield and has stats to match. Warning: If you are not a Guardian and you are using this shield, it will unequip from you upon login.
• Belegolf (staff item) has an added benefit now: Increase to Power.
• Increased the stats on the following items: Laemír, Hard Heart, Belegolf, Laingarab, Stannafl, Hefna, Rodgor, Halfur, Gelhar
• Gelhar is a Burglar-only item that was light armour. This item has been updated to be medium armour. The appearance of this item has also changed.
• Increased the stats on the following items: Ragebrand, Swift-talon, Bear-claws, Stanhelm, Sharptooth, Quickhands, Hill-defender, Sterklófi, Rodhathol
• The reward chest from the Neeker-friend quest is now more rewarding.
• Increased the stats on the following items: Longond, Gilnor, Thindris, Mithranc, Ornadar, Ironshanks, Cloudmantle, Stoutwall
• Some hooded cloaks were using incorrect icons and have been updated.
• Adjusted the scale on a couple of shields so they no longer dwarf the avatar.
• The Steak and Kidney Pie item included erroneous quest restriction information which prevented some players from picking it up (or using it). The pie is now obtainable!
• Some rare one-handed clubs have been changed to become two-handed weapons: Head-breaker, Woodman’s Friend, Willows-arm, Goblin-knocker, Hermit’s Rage, & Athelsloff. If you currently own one of these items it will continue to work for you as a 1-handed club. All future versions found in loot will be the 2-handed version.
• Spider spinnerets and legs were too pricey and have been reduced in value.
• Level 13-17 bears and boars now drop medium hides. In fact, all monsters that drop hides should be dropping medium hides at those levels.
• “Light Westernesse Shield” and “Superb Light Westernesse Shield” are tier 4 light shields that had heavy shield armour values. The shields now have the correct armour for their type.
• Adjusted the drop rate of Putrid Fingernails from high-level Decayed.
• Added a more clear error message when you try and trade items with a full backpack.

Loot System

• Roll/Pass has been updated and is now Need/Greed/Pass. This is an alternative to the Master Looter system.
• Fellows in a Fellowship/Raid can now /roll or /random to perform a roll from 1 to range, and this will print out on all fellows screens and then the master looter can give the item rolled on to the one with the highest roll value, or lowest… Completely up to the master looter.
• You will now be prevented from opening corpses that do not contain loot that you can pick up or roll on while in Fellowship.
• You will no longer get a container cursor and mouseover highlight for corpses that do not contain any loot that you can take.
• Chests and corpses will no longer close if you use them while you have them open, you must close the UI instead.
• There was a bug that caused extremely high level monsters (51+) to not drop loot. This is fixed!
• More pipe-weed seeds have been added to the loot system.
• You can now press ‘Enter’ to ‘Loot All’ in a loot window.

Character Creation/Selection

• When you hit the character select screen, your last used character is automatically selected for you.
• When picking a race in character generation, you’ll now see, and be able to examine, all racial characteristics.
• Fixed character generation so it sends you to race selection when you delete your final character.
• Global broadcasts can now be seen more clearly when in the character selection UI.
• The last known location is now displayed for any characters you have logged in with previously.

Graphics/Animation/fx

• Fixed a bug in the Character Journal, Inspection UI and Paper Doll which would cause more than one weapon to appear in the same hand.
• Female Hobbit Scouts in the Ettenmoors were twisting their legs into some really frightening positions. This has been fixed.
• Shield racks in the Angmarim camp bordering the Ram Duath will no longer sort through the top of tents at this location.
• Defenders of Ost Guruth located at Agamaur were trying to show off by wielding halberds, shields, swords, maces, harps, Hobbits, monkeys and loaves of bread while on duty. We told them, you’re standing in place called the Red-swamp…that’s good enough for most.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing NPCs from hiding their cosmetic props such as books and farming tools when they entered into combat.
• Enabled the option to toggle Combat Fx on and off.
• Fixed some minor issues with loot sparkles not showing up on corpses correctly.
• Added loot sparkles to chests on the landscape when they are opened while in a fellowship.
• You can now set the anisotropic filter quality in the options menu.
• Fixed ‘stutter-step’ issues when NPCs and monsters stop moving.
• Added different background colors for mini vitals for each class.
• Fixed a problem that would stop the hand from lightly clipping into the Elf male’s head.
• The Dwarf drinking animation now does not clip into the face. (Dwarves all over Middle-earth rejoice at the news that they won’t be spilling as much ale onto their shirts.)
• Fixed the beards so they do not clip. (But did not clip the beards)
• Fixed /cheer for Elf females to make them more cheery.
• Made sure that Storvagun’s mace stays in his hand when he swings and attacks.
• Celondim guards will no longer be super shiny with specular lighting.
• Users will no longer clip through Gimli’s door in the Silverdeep mine.
• Snow has had some visual improvements, and should look much nicer now.
• The lightning effect doesn’t go off when you’re inside anymore.

Audio

• Many crafting vendors who were silent now have voiceover.
• All players should now be able to hear their mounts as well as those of other players.
• Fixed a footstep audio bug that caused the footsteps to be heard in the wrong stereo channel when strafing.
• Players will now hear the appropriate footstep sounds indoors.
• Sounds have been placed on critical combat maneuvers.

World

• There were some invisible walls appearing on the slopes of Weathertop. We made them…disappear. Come on, who writes this stuff? Invisible walls are invisible how do they – what? It’s still on? Oh, umm. We removed the offending walls.
• Bag End now has a tile floor, instead of wood, in accordance with descriptions in the books.
• Changed the floors in some hobbit interiors, including a few taverns and Great Smials.
• The herd of deer kept within Tornstones in the Lone-lands should no longer flee when approached. Gone are the legions of northward facing deer outside of Ost Guruth.
• The Decayed of Imlad Balchorth are now more common.
• Several stuck locations in Bree-land, the Great Barrows and the Misty Mountains have been fixed.

Town services

• Grocer “Graham Larkspur” now buys items from players.
• Minstrel trainers are now selling musical strings which can enhance instrument abilities further.
• Fixed a repair-cost bug in a quest NPC that allowed players to repair equipment at 50% off.
• Thorin’s Hall vendor “Hagan Storm-Sword” now sells two-handed swords.
• Gondamon now has a bard!
• The Bree-town Crafting Hall has moved across the street to a new, much larger facility.
• The Combe Crafting Trainers, sick and tired of standing outside all the time, have moved inside.
• Mailboxes have been added to the Michel Delving Auction Hall.
• Ost Guruth now has a bard, a supplier and a full set of craft facilities.
• An Armour vendor has been added to the outpost of Gabilshathur in Angmar.
• There are now interactable Superior Studies in Elrond’s Library.
• Celondim is now part of the Postal system.

Travel/Maps/Radar

• The costs of using the Travel System (via Stable Master NPCs) has been balanced globally:
  • Newbie Travel Routes (1s)
  • Travel inside of Lowbie Regions (5s)
  • Travel between Lowbie Regions (10s)
  • Travel inside Mid-level Regions (15s)
  • Travel between Mid-level Regions (15s)
  • Travel to High-level Regions (25s)
  • Travel to the Ettenmoors (45s)
  • Travel from the Ettenmoors (10s)
  • Express Route: Rivendell <> Bree (35s)
  • Express Route: Esteldin <> Rivendell (20s)
  • Express Route: Esteldin <> Bree (35s)
  • All previous level restrictions on travel routes have remained intact.
• Lowered the cost of traveling between Celondim and Duillond (was 10 silver, now 3 silver).
• Using your map home before you have picked a home location will now send you to the proper racial home.
• New Area – Evendim – is now clickable from Shire and North Downs Maps.
• Crafting resource map notes are now filtered by the “Craft Mine” option, instead of “Tracked Animal.”
• The tooltips for overlapping map notes now show all the map notes’ text, instead of just the top one.
• The map’s fog of war will no longer become completely opaque after looking at a different region’s map.
• Wood, crop, and mine tracking only show up on your radar, not your map.
• Map notes won’t randomly disappear now.
• The filter and map menus no longer get tiny in some dungeons and interior locations.
• No more will an NPC’s map note (on your radar) say “Interior Quest Location” and imply a gory conclusion to the quest.
• Your fellows’ mapnotes will now appear over the radar’s fog of war.
• Fixed a bug in the cost of swift-travel from Celondim to West Bree.
• Cost to traveling to the Ettenmoors has been lowered to 20 silver (was 120 silver). Also lowered the cost of traveling from the Ettenmoors to some locations (now 10 silver).
• Horses on the travel route from Esteldin to Aughaire should no longer get stuck partway.
• When at a stablemaster, only discovered locations will be shown.
• Travel and mounting is blocked during some emotes (sitting for example).
• No more disappearing “Interior Quest Location” map notes.
• Added a new option to show quest icons for trivial quests on the radar. This can be found under (CTRL-O) Options->UI Settings (last option on the page).

Performance/Client

• Client memory improvements: sounds were adding to the bloat. So, out of our memory old sounds!
• x64 OS users will now gain the benefits of their added memory and OS.
• Fixed an issue where players are seeing a message that says “Cleaning up old connections” indefinitely. The same message may still happen, but the player will be able to log in again normally within 10 minutes.
• Fixed a loading screen hang that can occur when logging in.
• Rewrote the way all static content (buildings, trees, etc.) gets managed on the client to significantly improve client performance.

Creature AI/Pathing

• The Craban that attack Fredagar Bolger in the Book 1 – Chapter 7 quest should no longer go into anti-exploit mode on flying in.
• Monsters should have an easier time moving through doorways.
• Significant pathing issues in Torech-i-Bogbereth have been fixed.

Miscellaneous

• Updated a number of misspellings of Aurochs to be Aurochs.
• Players can no longer stand while defeated.
• Tag beacons now accurately tell you if a game of Tag is active or not.
• Monsters who are in the process of fading out and leaving the world will no longer try to attack you.
• Fixed two typos in the loading screen tips.
• Changed tutorial hints to reference “companions” instead of “pets.”
• Changed tutorial hint to reference “Quickslot Bar” instead of “toolbar.”
• No more trying to spar with someone who’s traveling.
• When you logout, your channeling skills will be stopped.
• Players will be dismounted if they fall from too high.
• Added more tips to the teleport screen! Now you can garner sage advice while you are waiting patiently at a loading screen.
• The Stablemasters no longer call Bree’s South Gate “East Bree” but refer to it as “South Bree.”
• Pets will no longer aggro a monster already in combat with another player by running by them in a passive pet stance.

Quests

General:

• Certain instances like Carn Dûm and Helegrod are instances with “stages.” Players that play and defeat certain encounters in these instances will lock to certain “stages,” and now will be able to see their own personal completed stage information as well as what instances the fellowship/raid have accomplished. The UI shows which instances are available or unavailable based on the completed stage, and for available instances it shows the stages that will be completed if this fellowship/raid group enters the instance.
• All quests that are cancelled are now subject to a twenty-minute cooldown timer.
• All pending quests (Quests under a retry / cooldown timer) now display their cooldown timer in the NPC Action Picker UI.
• When using the quest link on the Quest Tracker, the Quest Journal will now always display the selected quest, regardless of “Show Completed Quests” being selected.
• Private Encounter Quests were erroneously displaying bestowal text when looking at the Quest History. This has been corrected.
• Money rewards from quests have been reduced.
• Added a fix for the quest tracker not auto-filling when a quest count is updated.
• There are new quest icons above the NPCs’ heads for crafting advancement quests and for quests that have a retry timer.
• Private encounters should properly reset if you go linkdead for too long.
• Fixed a problem where a private instance quest would break if all players went linkdead in the encounter.
• Players will no longer receive the “Do you want to travel with your fellowship?” dialog when an instance is started by your fellowship. Each player must talk to the NPC or go to a Reflecting Pool to enter the instance.
• Fixed a problem where quest rings would not appear on escort NPCs.
• Fixed an issue with raid locks not saving on the instance correctly.

Player quests:

• When you are defeated in the “Assault on Archet” or the “Skrogrím’s Tomb” instances, you will now reappear at the beginning of the instance space.
• The “Proving Your Quality” quest has been updated. If you had this quest you will need to revisit ‘Eogar, son of Hadorgar’ to re-obtain it.
• Collecting the objects needed for the quest “Foray into the Barrow-downs” has been made easier. Beware still stirring the Dead who dwell in this dark place.
• Players can again complete the quest “A Greater Theft” given by Hunulf Munce at the Forsaken Inn.
• Players carrying the statue for the quest, “Our Greatest Find” will no longer see the statue protruding through their hand.
• We have made it more difficult for players to hop the top fence at the apex of the Retake Weathertop instance, blocking themselves from completing the quest.
• We set the invisible walls used to constrain you in the Retake Weathertop Instance to the correct instance layer. No more invisible barrier stopping you from following the Fellowships climb.
• Ranger Candaith should no longer become a statue on the lower slope of the Retake Weathertop instance. You should only ever see one version of him at a time.
• War-Tyrant Akulhun is back in his correct make-up. Someone spilled foundation on his helm. He was none too pleased.
• The Consignment Quest for Rare ore will no longer refer to common ore in the second part of the quest.
• The perfect lynx hide and other lynx hide dropped in the Trollshaws now mentions that it begins a quest in its description.
• Krithmog’s Collar in the North Downs now mentions that it starts a quest.
• We took a look at the orc camp on the border of the central and eastern Lone-lands and decided that some changes were needed. It should be more friendly to the solo player now.
• The Keys to the Chest at Glan Vraig are no longer unique. You can hold more than one in your inventory at a time.
• Raugzok, a quest target in Dol Dinen was double spawned. This has been fixed.
• Craban Sentries perched on a rock were not able to path to players. This has been fixed.
• Players can no longer exploit their way to free tokens of valour at Dar-gazag…not that they were.
• You will no longer receive string table errors when talking to Soldier Fandmau while in the middle of the quests he offers.
• This is a sad story of two Elves who suffered from premature hair loss. Both our subjects, Lieutenant Ovorestol and Seargant-at-Arms Gwendis suffered from this decidedly terrible affliction. Fortunately, their time in the Ettenmoors brought them a cure for the debilitating disease and both Ladies are now blessed with full and luscious hair! In other news, Lieutenant Ovorestel realized that someone spelled her name in the same manner that Graham Greene spoke it for the first time in Dances with Wolves and requested a spelling correction. Her wish was granted; she is now known as Lieutenant Ovorestel.
• The consignment quest for Uncommon ore was errantly referring to common ore in the quest objective step. This has been addressed and will now appear as uncommon.
• To avoid confusion, we added a billboard event when receiving the letter from Lily Sandheaver during the quest, “Candac’s Delivery”.
• Weathertop has seen a small change to the functionality of the final encounter. Candaith will no longer close the gate on players entering the arena to face Rigûl and friends. If players attempt to lure Rigûl down the hill, the encounter will return to its beginning state. If players attempt to drag any other final encounter boss beyond the gateway, the encounter will return to its beginning state.
• Players attempting the “Drawing the Pack” quest should no longer find themselves unable to complete or advance the quest.
• Assikko, the Earth-kin tribal leader was being very crafty and selfish when he thanked you for recovering the book he requests in the Techniques of the Masters quest. He refused to return the book but ushered you on to Gondranc anyways. He has been reprimanded and will return the book as needed to advance the quest.
• Fell spirits summoned by Forvengwath during the second stage of his battle will no longer open the door to the Rogmul’s room.
• Forvengwath ate his Wheaties, He is now a nemesis level boss.
• The quest assistance from bears should no longer have FIX ME: text in the quest tracker.
• Uruk-orders appear at multiple locations in Dol Dinen, however only one location allowed players to use the orders while on the quest “Orders from the Front” We addressed the issue and all orders should now be useable.We’d been hearing for a while that the Dwarf Leader targeted in the quest, Enemy of the Eglain had a lot of friends. We visited the Dwarf and he just kept calling in these dwarfs to kick our shins and smash our heads with axes. We decided…this was too much and reduced the rate at which his friends rejoin the final fight.
• Wargs throughout the Lone-lands will still drop the trophies needed for the “Iron Jaws” quest but the lower level wargs will be more stingy. On the other hand, the stronger wargs will drop their trophies more often.
• Boars throughout the Lone-lands will still drop their trophies for “Well Prepared.” Those in the western sections will be more stingy.
• Collecting the crates from the goblin camp for the quest, “A Greater Theft,” will now properly inform you that you have collected the item you need.
• Dannasen will now examine the filled urn when you return to him for the “Vessel of Purity” quest. He’ll give it back for the next stage, he just won’t leave you with two of them in your inventory.
• Prologue: “An Urgent Summons” from the prologue no longer displays as a fellowship quest.
• There was an issue in the North Downs quest “The Stolen Ornament” which made the final boss un-lootable. This could lead to the quest being broken and that isn’t very fun. We re-inserted the fun. Meaning, we fixed the loot issue.
• Crafty players wishing to avoid the daunting task of locating the Orc camps strewn throughout the North Downs can no longer swipe the flags posted by the ranger Daervunn at Esteldín. You guys are crafty!
• All summoned pets within Barad Gúlaran no longer drop loot when they are slain.
• “Cleansing the Hoarwell” now displays the correct advancement dialogue.
• The quest “Angmar’s Scouts” in the Ettenmoors now tells the player to collect 20 objects, matching the quest tracker display.
• The quest “Angmar’s Soldiers” in the Ettenmoors now tells the player to collect 10 objects, matching the quest tracker display.
• The quest “Angmar’s Taskmasters” in the Ettenmoors now tells the player to collect 5 objects, matching the quest tracker display.
• First Marshal Moror, defender of Tol Ascarnen, now is correctly identified as a Dwarf, not a Man.
• There was a bug with a drake in the Isendeep mine that was making the drake within become an NPC. This will no longer happen.
• Captain-General Makán has a name and now Lieutenant Stolvi will use it while bestowing the quest Liquid Courage.
• General Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw boss resets have been updated. The bosses should now return to their spawn location if dragged away from the place where they begin their fight.
• If Alf is killed while trying to get away from the goblin camp it now displays that he was defeated.
• Updated the quest to kill Angmar’s Chieftains to say you need the requisite one item.
• Players making their way through the Retake Weathertop instance could sometimes run into issues where gates that were previously opened closed and could not be re-opened. We have fixed this issue.
• We fixed an issue with the quest “Drawing the Pack” in the Lone-lands. This eliminates the chance for the quest to fail due to a warg being unable to path.
• The quest “A Bounder of Great Merit” was not giving out the reward that was designed for it. It has now been fixed and has been removed from players’ completed quest logs, so it can be done again for the new rewards. If you have finished the Deed “The Life of a Bounder (final),” go find a Bounder to give you this quest.
• A few spots where the drama in the Hideout instance could break have been fixed.
• You can no longer stand on the platform that Lubach the Goblin spawns on, you dirty ‘spoilters!
• The “Wisdom of the Thrushes” quest now fails when Nos is defeated.
• The “Hiding in the Dark” quest now collects Elladan’s notes when it is completed.
• A problem where the “Wolf in Exile” quest could get into a strange state and not be completeable has been fixed.
• The completion drama for Book 7 – Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 has been moved off of Dwalin onto a new NPC. If you were working on the Book 7 – Chapter 5, 6 or 7 quests, you will need to restart them.
• The damage done by the Spike Traps in the “Thrór’s Hammer” instance now do significantly more damage.
• The Bone Man in the Barrow-downs now only respawns if someone nearby his spawn point still needs to kill him.
• The “Missing Guard” quest can now be accepted by characters of races other than Dwarf, and the “Unlike Avornthal” quest can now be accepted by characters of races other than Elf.
• The chest next to Roderick Neeker-friend no longer deletes itself when someone loots it.
• The pathing was fixed in the “Rescue by Moonlight” instance so that monsters will no longer take a flying leap into the water off the boat.
• We’ve done a pass on flow and logic in the “Assault on Rath Teraig” instance and it now works more reliably.
• The “Unwanted Guest” quest now fails automatically when you complete Book 1: Chapter 11.
• The Fireworks crate in the “Flare for Danger” quest now respawns much more quickly.
• We’ve addressed a few issues with the “A Blade for a Life” escort quest so that it should work more reliably now.
• Radagast now pauses at the base of the stairs prior to Dannasen leading the players to Elsa the Bold.
• The Shades now pass through doors properly.
• Simplified the drama sequence with Skrogrím and the Brigand Captain. This should resolve issues with the drama sequence not starting if the player got too far ahead of Constable Underhill.
• Lowered number of ruin-piles required in Relics of Rhudaur quest to 10.
• Adjusted the challenge levels of several Garth Agarwen quests
• Increased XP and money rewards for many of the quests pointing into Great Barrows, Garth Agarwen, Fornost, Urugarth, and Carn Dûm
• Added new quest journal categories for Great Barrows, Garth Agarwen, Fornost, Urugarth, Carn Dûm.
• Players are no longer able to get the “Heading West” quest without the ability to access the area to complete the quest.
• Fixed doors in “A Leader Unveiled” quest so players no longer get stuck behind them.
• Players will now be able to finish “Servants of Angmar” quest properly.
• “The Strongest Back” quest now fails when the escort is killed.
• Many of your favorite NPCs have leveled up! Woot! Ding! Grats!
• Distributed the quest drops for Garth Agarwen so all collectible items aren’t dropping off of wights only.
• Fixed bugs with the Watcher in Carn Dûm.
• Gagi Cloudbrow now wants Bronze Leggings instead of Bronze Scale Leggings.
• The radar icons for the hiders in the “Hiders and Seekers” arc will no longer appear. Mr. Odo Pipes was quite insistent that showing them defeated the purpose of the game, and was both unsporting and a right shame. Our apologies to Messr. Pipes!
• Updated the “Path to Learning” quests to use more tier-appropriate ingredients.
• Jon Whetstone now knows the proper amount of ingredients you’d need to make an Elven Hunting Dagger, and his note reflects this newfound knowledge. How did this guy get a reputation as a skilled weaponsmith, anyway?
• “A Burglar’s Errand” – the sword Medhrod now appears in your inventory when you find it.
• “A Thief in the Night” – Maggot’s Mushrooms now appear in your inventory when you collect them.
• “A Well-Ordered Mind” – Using the correct bookshelf actually gives you the book now.
• “Assault on Rath Teraig” now has unique descriptions for every objective.
• “A Champion’s Courage” – now has unique objective descriptions
• Slade Ransford no longer has multiple personalities.
• “A Captain’s Standard” – Jarl Copperbrace actually gives you the Standards of the Free Peoples, and takes the extras from you at quest’s end.
• “The Will of the Iron, Part II” – Fixed the drop rate of the Ancient Emblem.
• Lowered the level of the drakes in the Giant Valley area of the Trollshaws.
• Reduced the difficulty of “A Shield Against Adversity”
• Book 2 – Chapter 8 has been updated to eliminate confusion for players not currently on the quest. As a result, if this quest was currently in your quest log, you will need to speak to Radagast in Ost Guruth to receive it again.
• Modified the structure of “The Last Ingot” to solve the problem of what happens if you defeat Hjortur but didn’t take the ingot. If you had this quest underway, you will need to revisit Halmur to receive it again.
• The main Introduction quests are now unable to be cancelled. No more waiting for twenty minutes to continue with the Introduction if you cancel one of these main Intro quests.
• The “Ruins of Arthedain” quest was restructured to display all its objectives properly. This will cause the quest to be cleared from the log of anyone who currently has it underway.
• Book 9, Chapter 1 is now bestowed by Gandalf, since the players are at Rivendell not Gath Forthnír at the end of Book 8, and are sent to Golodir in Angmar.
• The Breeland quests “Horses for Hire,” “The Forgetful Dwarf,” and “Stolen Notes” have been dropped to level 15. Directions for the quests have been revised, and the appropriate orcs will now actually drop the stolen notes.
• The “Cave Slayers” quest in West Angmar was specifying the wrong orcs and Uruks for the revamped and beautified cave.
• Two dwarves in Gabilshathûr could wind up standing on each other’s feet. They now respect one another’s personal space.
• Added better quest failure messages for the “Cairn of Honour” quest in West Angmar.
• Placement of the banners for the “Water of Life and Death” quest in West Angmar have been changed.
• Leofwenna was running too darn fast in “A Daring Rescue” in the Lonelands. Slow down, girl, slow down!
• The Ongbûrz Defiler has applied for a transfer from Merenost SE of Lin Giliath to Gurzlum NW of Lin Giliath. Angmarim High Command says: Transfer Approved.
• After an unprecedented 3 months in a prolonged abdominal crunch posture, Nathan Hodges of Amon Raith has finally assumed an upright, locked position. As a result of his amazing accomplishment he has been awarded a North Downs Abs of Steel commemorative plaque.
• Mysterious evil near Starmere eradicated. Film at 11. Some north Bree-fields and Bree lakes area monsters were improperly set to be Barrow-Downs types, they have been reset to be more appropriate to the area.
• The re-revised Shield-brother quest has been re-re-revised so that it is easy to continue if the wight-slave is sniped in the middle of the quest.
• Once again, sanity triumphs in the Shire, and thus small field-stones are no longer bigger than large field-stones.
• Two quest arcs in Bree-land relating to Sharkey and Sharkey’s Men have been connected, so that you don’t wind up doing the later quests before the early ones and getting the story confused. Specifically “Shadow of the White Hand” is now a prerequisite for “Sharkey’s Plan.”
• Neeker-breekers in the Southern part of the Red Swamp are more likely to have legs.
• Sad elf Golhador, victim of alopecia, has purchased a toupee, and is happy again.
• Several quests in Thrasi’s Ered Luin lynx arc have been revamped to avoid making players queue to wait for the mother lynx to return. Players with one of these quests under way have had them canceled automatically, and must get the quest again from Thrasi.
• Book 1 Chapter 1 has been changed so that after completing the instance you return directly to Strider instead of having to run all the way back. Players who had this quest active and under way will find it has been canceled and must be restarted.
• In the North Downs quest “Scales of the Earth Bound Foe,” drakes will no longer mug worms to steal their scales, so worms are therefore more likely to have them.
• The North Downs quest “Touch of Corruption” received a bug fix that will automatically cancel the quest for any player who has it under way. Affected players may wish to regain the quest in Lin Giliath.
• Lizbeth Honeymeade has got her washcloth back!
• In the West Angmar Bloodstones quest, drakes will no longer drop bloodstones, but the gnawed bones have been changed so that multiple players can use them without deleting them.
• The Shire quest “Refurbishing the Town Hole” has been switched over to use the client-side item despawning technique, so any number of people can do it at once. As a result of the change, the quest will automatically be canceled for anyone who has it under way, and the quest must be re-bestowed by the NPC.
• The East Angmar “Hidden Gems” quest has been changed to use our client-side item-hiding feature to allow a whole fellowship to get the quest item at once. This quest change will automatically cancel the quest for anyone who has it under way, and so affected players should get the quest again from the NPC.
• The North Downs quest “Techniques of the Masters” has been updated to use client-side item-hiding tech instead of despawning. This change will automatically cancel any under-way quests, so affected players should return to the NPC to get the quest again.
• We’ve removed the more annoying of the two guards who comes to the base commander’s aid in the Blood-price quest in West Angmar, as a signature + 2 solo guards in the middle of an armed camp is not a fair fight for a solo quest.
• In the Ered Luin quest “Cat’s Meow,” the spawn of hendrevail is no longer only triggered by a quest event. Instead there will now be a flock of hendrevail in the area all the time, respawning in the usual way, and so griefing or kill-stealing should no longer be an issue here.
• The Ered Luin quests “Sickening Land” and “A Grisly Task” have been completely revamped. The former quest sent you after nonexistent insects in Haudh Lin — it now sends you after spiders, and requests fewer kills. The latter quest sent you rather anticlimactically after bears, but now has been rewritten to direct players to the evil Wights of Haudh Lin, far more suitable foes.
• The East Angmar quest “Deluches” should now be completeable.
• The “Spider Plague” quest has been changed to use client-side item hiding instead of despawning for the trade goods. No more waiting for respawns! The change will automatically cancel this quest if it is underway, however, so affected players must get the quest again from the NPC.
• The Shire tavern quests: Bird and Baby, Golden Perch, Green Dragon, Plough and Stars … have been updated to use the client-side item hiding feature, so there should be no waits for respawn for barrels, recipes, gypsum, and yeast. Players with these quests underway will have the quests automatically canceled, and should get them again from the respective tavern keepers.
• The Shire quest “Honey Bears” will now autoshare to make it easier on a fellowship doing the quest together.
• The Ered Luin quest “Hallowed Ground” no longer authorizes you to kill pretty much any bird, beast or bug anywhere in the world; instead you must actually clear the threats in Tham Gelair as you were instructed.
• In the Ered Luin quest “Preparations for the Assault,” certain Rath Teraig goblins were not counting as kills. Also reduced the kill requirements from 20 to 16.
• The West Angmar quest “The Second Challenge” has been revamped.Players with this quest under way will have to get it again from the NPC Arzhur.In addition, the side quest “Another Challenge” has been removed from the game.
• Treasure chests and scholar resources have been removed from the Epic Book 5, Chapter 5 Instance in the Misty Mountains.
• Monsters in Asht Shapol should now be able to better navigate its tunnels.
• Some shades in Imlad Balchorth have had their difficulty reduced.
• Fixed a rare problem where a player would log in without any quests.
• “Book 4 – Chapter 5” and “Water of Life and Death” can now be completed in any order.
• Fixed a rare occurrence when the player would go linkdead in the Archet or Thorn’s Hall raid and end up in the world with no NPCs.
• Players can no longer loot multiple copies of the letter in quest “Mason Thorne’s Letters.”
• In “Many Happy Returns” the final toad should now run away at the end of the quest.
• NPCs will now comment on quests once again! NPCs will no longer show quest rings while helping other players. This fixes Constable Bolger and Jolly Smallburrow.
• Fixed a problem where a player would attempt to enter a Private Encounter, be teleported back to where they entered the encounter and not be able to enter again.
• The quest, “A Dwarf Made Blade,” will now show the correct dialog when you talk to the smiths.
• The third orc boss in Urugarth has had his name changed to Dafrim.
• The woodcutter of Combe is slightly less crazy than before.
• Added some miscellaneous fixes to the “Fresh Steeds” quest arc.
• The quest drop heart-stone has been properly named stone-heart.
• The quest “Treasures from the Fields” has had minor bug fixes. If you were working on this quest, you should abandon it and start it again.
• For players having trouble (very rarely) with the minstrel class quest “A Song for the Company,” this is now fixed.

Monster play quests:

• The “Tasty Little Legs” quest will no longer result in the NPC calling you MonsterClass when completing the quest.
• You will no longer receive a string table error when talking to Mazauk and not having completed his quests.
• Soldier Gazlup and Gorgoris the Gorger will no longer spew string table errors when speaking to them after accepting, but not completing, their quests.
• We removed a duplicate word -named- from the dialogue in the Ettenmoors quest: “Goldhead Must Die”.
• What a worht? Apparently, one of the orcs in the Ettenmoors had a bit of a speech problem. We realigned his jaw with a swift crack and he now correctly says -worth- for the “Footmens’ Badges” quest.
• Monster play: We got an angry letter from a troll located at Tirith Rhaw. It read: “Dear Turbine, I appreciate that you are fluent enough to tackle the difficult naming convention we trolls use. I would, however, like to voice my displeasure at being referred to as Taskmaster Galinzarza in your quest: ‘Goldhead Must Die.’ I am Taskmaster Nursufum and I would appreciate it if I were referred to correctly.” We made the corrections…because no one really wants an angry troll chasing them around.
• The bestower to recover the Grimwood Lumber Camp for the glory of Angmar was caught on lunch break. After tearing a Leg of Man, a Hobbit Foot and our fingers free of his jaws the Orc, begrudgingly returned to duty.
• “Taste of Elf,” an Ettenmoors quest was incorrectly reporting that it was for the Tirith Rhaw location. In a preemptive strike, we fixed
• the area before we received another well-written letter from the trolls.
• Unlike the trolls, the orcs still appear to be ornery. One such orc, Soldier Gazlup, kept trying to pronounce “not” as “nto,” so we beat him silly until he said it correctly. The trolls clapped in approval.
• Weapons of War, a quest for monster players in the Ettenmoors directed you to get wood and metal from the Grimwood Forest in Hitlad. We updated the quest to reflect wood comes from the forest and metal comes from the mine.
• The quest, “Feather for His Cap” in the Ettenmoors now properly displays that you need to collect Sun-touched Tailfeathers, not Sun-touched Feathers. Sorry about that, Creeps!
• Goldhead now tells players that they should collect Tokens of valour when on the quest to gain the bears’ assistance.
• One of the Taskmasters at Tol Ascarnen displayed a name which was squished together. This will no longer occur.
• There was a possibility of Tyrant Uzulthrang not communicating to monster players when they return to him before collecting all those nasty bits of the enemy. This was fixed.
• The quest ring for the monster play quest, “Get to Grothum, Maggot,” will now appear on the radar.