Random Events

Wildwood (March 17th - April 25th)

Wood Worries: A lot has happened since the release of Wildwood on March 17th, 2021. Missions received their new weekly box rewards, there were new overhead maps for the intro areas, there were a few new docks that people were finding even though they were already available since the expansion's release, and a long list of new deeds they squeezed into the Bree-land Deed Category. What many people were not informed about were the two new quest chains for the Wildwood instances that were designed outside the boundary of the level 45 region. Yet, there were many problems with the content. If you exclude the lengthy missions, the two factions with their own list of decorations, and the laundry list of daily quests inside and out, Wildwood simply doesn't have much of a story. Trestlebridge doesn't quite get completely rebuilt and you only receive one new story mission for every reputation tier. Similar to the Far Anorien tokens, you can use the new currency to quickly build reputation for any of your characters or exchange them for items at the barterer. There was an issue with converging quest phases and you were only given one or two Tokens of Resolution to upgrade your level 130 Remmorchant gear on T2. You need a total of 50 for one piece. Yes, you can get about ten tokens from a T3 run, but it shouldn't require you to own equivalant or better gear at that point. At least the spider pit in the mines made the whole thing worthwhile.

Story Missions (March 25th - April 16th)

Mountain of Missions: If you recall my review of the War of Three Peaks post, I was trying to finish up not only the reputation tiers but the main storyline quests of the region. There are a total of 6 story missions and I had "The Marked Target" and "The Assassination of Gorgar" to complete. After doing missions for a few weeks, I finally got to that very last mission for my Elderslade Steed (the one with the blue crystals sticking out of the pouches) when I encountered a problem. There is a point in the mission where you need to use a pair of lockpicks from Ausma on the door. You have to use the items approximately 10 times before Horin gets tired of your failure and shouts, "This is taking too long! Let me show you how to open a door!" before striking it with his axe. It is unfortunate the story missions are not repeatable (and not offered from the Reflecting Pool). The only other repeatable mission I found fascinating is when you revisit "The Heart of Kidzul-kalah" and take down a bunch of Dourhand Dwarves excavating the site right by the corpse of the final boss (since it takes place after you defeat him). They also recently added a mission stable to almost every major city that takes you to any current mission-givers in Elderslade, Erebor, or Trestlebridge. Bilbo Adventures in Rivendell still count toward the mission weekly, but are not included in the stable list. I guess dwarves aren't allowed there or something.

"Sounds good to me. I bet I'll get to knock some goblin heads together! Ha!" - Gundabad Captain

House Tour (April 9th)

Happy Houses: There came a day when I decided to take people on a little tour through the houses of Elaelin and Smellything. I used a physical microphone and actually spoke to the group while touching on some of the intricacies of the housing department in comedic fashion. The whole thing took approximately two or three hours. I'd like to setup an encore day sometime soon, perhaps after the long-awaited Housing Consolidation finally gets patched into the game.

"I think I fell off the edge." - Elaelin

Scourge Runs

Naughty Nazgul: One of the oldest weeklies available for 500 ember and an Ithilharn shard is offered after doing the meta deed for the Minas Morgul expansion. Despite it being a couple years old, the server still finds a way to get people into this activity. Killing 8 Nazgul in Mordor Besieged is easy enough with a handful of people. Although many people use the "sacrifice" ability on a medium steed to absorb damage, I like to live dangerously by toggling my "dash" ability on a light steed. Sometimes, I can even kill a wandering mob instantly in one blow with my captain. Though, there are still a couple times I got in over my head doing it this way.

"You know I can't talk and drive at the same time." - Elaelin

 

Technical Problems (March 17th - August 20th)

Call of the Crash: Lord of the Rings Online is known for being an old game with outdated tech. The company engineers continue to address issues as they occur and push the boundaries with more modern graphical features. Before Wildwood came out, I decided to do a clean install of the game. My files were so bad that I was still using TurbineInvoker. The only way I was able to obtain a fresh start was to boot up Safe Mode with Networking. I went the full nine yards by installing the HD bundle, enabling 64-bit, and turning on DirectX11 inside the game. The game looked incredible, but the game performed horribly. I was unable to see hazards on the ground, my client would crash anytime I switched to another program, and the amount of stuttering from entering into new zones was unbearable. Every month I would try something different with unusual results. Not only were there graphical hiccups, but I would tend to crash after teleporting inside or out specific regions. It seemed like everyone had their own time trying to figure out the problems that crept up like how Angmar now drags their computer to a crawl on the legendary server. I had issues loading some assets when the tweaks for Wastes came in for the legendary server on April 19th. One of these changes include the new modified behavior and The Battle for Erebor outfit for the Troll Gorgoth Roving Threat (click here for what he looked like before; check way down below in my blog for what he looks like now). There was one time we entered Shakalush, The Stair Battle and it snowed the entire time! Just last month, there was a day my entire screen turned pink for some reason while loading in Sword-Hall of Dol Guldur; everywhere else was fine. Eventually I removed all my new fancy options and downgraded to DirectX9 for a more stable experience. Haven't had any problems since.

"It's snowing! Look, it's snowing! It's really snowing in here, guys!" -Elaelin

 

The Abyss of Mordath (June 4th - August 23rd)

Lazy Light-givers: Unlike your standard raid, there is one that has constantly given players issues. The Abyss of Mordath requires a certain amount of the Light of Earendil property to combat the ever-present Shadow of Mordor. The suggested amount for the raid is 170 for T1 and 220 for T2. Unfortunately, the developers were only kind of enough to provide you with an additional 20 passive light for every level from 116 to 119 for a total of 80. Although this covers the deep areas of Mordor landscape where the dailies take you, it is not enough for the instances. The good news is the High-Elf Enchanter sells a pocket item with +24 light and necklace item for +14 light with a low rate of 330 motes. The Keeper of Mysteries provides Empowered Glowing Essence of Light for +16 light at the cost of 350 motes. There are some really nice crafted items that provide more light and quite a bit of items from Thrang in the Farmer's Faire seasonal instance. T1 was easy enough to get through, but T2 was giving us some problems. We nearly achieved the challenge of the first boss on our third attempt, but decided to progress further in the raid after Aspirer mentioned that it took them maybe 80 tries on level. I still regret crashing during one of those attempts. Unfortunately, the second boss seems to require the removal of a set number of corruptions before "completing" the encounter. We even managed to bring him down to 1% health, but was unsuccessful from the lack of moving bodies (we only had 8). It was thrilling to experience for my first T2 attempt of the raid, but it was also more difficult than I ever imagined.

"You just need to go up and punch him a bunch of times until he dies." - Ayarmeniel

 

Decoration Update (April 16th - June 8th)

Cosmetic Changes: With Wildwood came a series of fun decorations. I had tried my hand at obtaining a few of them from the Agoroth instance for awhile with limited success. The boat eluded me for so long until I received a mysterious tell from a rune-keeper named Bromurvn. Him and another hunter were filled to the brink with high-tier equipment that they reached a whopping 440,000 morale. I did manage to tank, even though I didn't have a shield, and managed to get through a T3 with the help of his explanations of the boss mechanics at that level. He even gave me his boat at the end! We also received a few changes with Blood of Azog in Update 30. Our typical housing chests have been upgraded to "strongbox" status. We can now view enormous decorations from a much further distance. The ones from our kinship island can be viewed from the mainland where the crafting center is in Belfalas Housing. The Beacon of Gondor actually has smoke coming out the top, which can totally be rotated in any direction. It is a little too bad that the new Gundabad Spire can't be seen from the same range. 

"You can have it. I have no use for it." - Bromurvn

Skirmish Raids

Silly Swarms: When you get a ton of people in a raid setting, there is bound to be a couple of skirmishes ran. They are easy, fun, and gets you a seal token that can be bartered for an Essence Reclamation Scroll. You could say that it is an Away Shall Fade tradition. And by some miracle you do defeat every single named side encounter, you earn the /bringiton emote. Despite my activity for Ill Omens, there were two encounters that evaded me: Shadow from the Heart of the World in 21st Hall and Golnauk from Stand at Amon Sul. Then one day I decided to continuously run them a dozen or so times until finally I had earned that stupid emote. But we had a brief moment right after Blood of Azog was released where the new strike essences were not working the way they were supposed to. Shannow was doing over a hundred triggers in a single hit for millions of damage (not an exaggeration) with the new essences. Let's just say that their capability was quickly patched in with some new functionality for more balanced results.

"That's ok El. We were just going to watch you take it all on by yourself." - Smellybear

Midsummer Festival (June 17th - July 12th)

Angry Accumulators: Midsummer Festival is something recently added to the game that has everyone's attention. Normally we would be spending our time flying kites and taking to the races for Summer Festival. That is now part of Farmer's Faire. Instead, we now have a chance to get easily lost while exploring Minas Tirith's multiple levels. There are a couple of nice guides out there that will help you with your endeavors. Even my very crude guide (http://www.shallfade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12058329&gid=17132) has been beneficial for a few. But this year they decided to exclude the decorations we received from the hobbit presents last year. Not only that but many were "claiming" that there were barely any new rewards at all! I guess they didn't bother looking up Cordovan's lovely post of every new festival item this year. Even though they didn't produce any new sounds, there was a nice list of wedding-themed instruments sporting a new beautiful white design not seen anywhere else. The festival also included a silver chipmunk! But a lot of angry people were quick to point out that the new horse stable decoration didn't allow swift travel. Like as if Standing Stone Games will allow people to earn an item like that right after putting them up to buy for 695 lotro points in the store. If they didn't allow people to use a decorative oven to cook food, then they certainly wouldn't that. As for Elaelin, she was merely happy in buying that Dappled Tri-colour cat pet for 595 lotro points during the Anniversary Event.

"I am backstage, yes?" - Daenar inside the Blue Theatre

 

Treasure Bugan (July 20th - July 26th)

Bad Buggy Business: One random day in the middle of July, we received news about a new event. It wasn't (and still isn't) on the lotro schedule. There was no word about it on the forums, in the previous beacon, or any of the social media platforms. The only way you found out about this event was if you read the patch notes that were posted a couple of days beforehand. It was only posted onto Twitter when it started. You were given 5 days to complete a 4-day meta quest. The information we were given regarding what level we could encounter the little goblins was wrong, some instances didn't even have him patched in, and it wasn't made clear what in Middle-Earth we were supposed to do. And that was only the beginning of the problems! There is an entire write-up about people's opinions on the forum regarding a lot of other things like how you couldn't receive another quest for 5 minutes, how the sneaky guy didn't spawn everytime, or how the coin effect on the cosmetic didn't work unless you equipped it. The event could be as popular as the Treasure Hunt Event if they smooth over their communication issues.

"That cursed Bugan must be somewhere!" - Theodore Gorse

Chicken Run (August 1st - August 31st)

Fowl Fun: Over at Sandson's Farm, there is a little chicken that wants to explore Middle-Earth. You transform as that chicken and visit creatures in various areas. After having a discussion with the animals within the Shire, you will be provided with 6 new quests that will take roughly about an hour or two each to do finding more critters outside the safe boundary of the hobbits. Well here on Landroval, where titles were given out for people attending the Weatherstock concert, The Bounders of the Shire Kinship has taken upon themselves to have "The Month of the Chicken" every August since the game came out. And this year, I decided to partcipate. They also have a very nice guide with pictures on how to do it and where you will go. You can even pretend to be a shark-chicken while swimming in Evendim. After you do the 6 quests, you earn Cloak of the Cluck with the ability to toss out feathers at people every minute. Then if you feel daring, you can take it upon yourself to spend a series of hours with the gang and visit places like Minas Tirith and Erebor to earn even more exclusive titles as a golden chicken!

Did you know... you can see a picture of a chicken in the class slot when selecting a chicken?

 

Server Modifications (May 19th - July 15th)

Abrupt Announcements: Let me preface this by saying that Lord of the Rings Online has always had some sort of database issue. August 3, 2015 was when they merged a lot of servers together. They allowed people to transfer their character over until a problem occurred in 2019. In March, Standing Stone Games moved to a new data center and migrated to Postgres SQL in October. On top of this, the company was having a crisis with people going over the ember cap. They disabled World Transfers and incorporated into the expansion patch that all ember would be converted into motes. In May 2020, they came up with new world transfer polices. Unfortunately, they did not apply to abandoned servers. To this day, people are still waiting for a chance to get their old characters over. Another part of the policy allowed character and shared item tranfer from Ithil to Anor for free. This was all-and-good until one year later on May 2021 they decided to close down Ithil altogether. This wouldn't have been such a terrible thing if it wasn't so poorly executed. Since they couldn't transfer people's houses, they allowed 100% premium housing refunds and one month to take care of business. Sadly, there are still some people who are still pleading to get their house back from the servers. The other major complaint is coming from the number of angry people who already transferred from Anor to Ithil when they could have waited to transfer to any server. I have no doubt this had some coorelation with the new legendary servers arriving at the end of June (which ironically had to have their own eye effect problem removed that following patch). The whole thing could have been handled better.

 

"Were you always wearing that?" - Fanrel

 

New Producer (May 20th - Current)

Interesting Interviews: Back in May of this year, we were greeted by Raninia. Apparently, Standing Stone Games received a new producer! And according to Beacon Issue 214 posted on August 6th, they are hiring even more people. Wasn't it just last year they were trying to hire some artists for the game? Despite the fact that the guy is new to the game (he is currently a level 20 heading into Lone-lands on a Free Account to check out how monetization works), he has taken upon himself to shake things up with the team and participate more in the forums and establish some very nice interviews with people. They stated that they wouldn't be able to develop any transcripts for their interviews, but there is a new social forum beast by the name of Harvain that has taken it upon himself to answer all questions since his return on June 23th, 2021. He has also spent hours writing up the transcripts for each of the interviews for Interview with the Twitch Streamer on August 18th, Q&A from Reddit on August 20th, and Cord of the Rings Stream on August 27th. The company also arranged an interview with the housing team on August 6th. Although the crew cannot answer directly to about 75% of the questions pertaining to when something will occur, people can definitely get impressions from their expressions what everybody is currently working on and what will be worked on later.

Did you know that... the entrance to Mirror-halls of Lumul-nar is at the far end of Zirakzigil?

2021-08-28