If you couldn't attend last Saturday's Lotro Weatherstock event don't miss a follow-up event known as Ales & Tales. This event is held every Monday at 10:30pm EST. It usually goes for 1-2 hours. Moonday, 1st Lithe (June 21st-1030pm est)

We shall meet at Adso's Camp and march together to the ancient tower of Ost Barandor. Bring Ale, bring a tale of elder days, and listen to my song of stars and their portent for our current battle and the ages to come.

Every Monday night 10:30pm EST the LMB will gather at a different location in Middle Earth; pubs, inns and occasionally places of notable lore. The time together is devoted to simple celebration of music, fine ale, tales and more... This gathering is open to non-members or those who wish to inquire about kin membership or meet other kinships who attend, or just hear a merry tune or tale. Anyone may volunteer to tell a tale, sing a song, recite a new poem, anything you wish to share with others in an RP setting. Feel free to strike up conversation with other adventurers, plan your next quest over a pint of mead! Think of it as a travelling pub, a place to meet new friends and share heroic tales. "Ales & Tales" is an open-ended RP gathering that provides a weekly setting for RP'ers of Landroval to gather and share the lore of Tolkien's world, and find new friends to embark on quests.

[Source]

The account management system at myaccount.turbine.com will be offline for maintenance on Monday, June 21, 2010 from 6:00AM - 10:00AM Eastern (-4 GMT).

In addition, the Brandywine Server will be unavailable from 8:00AM - 10:00AM Eastern (-4 GMT). All other worlds, the forums and wikis will remain up, but players may not be able to log in.

[Sapience]

The previous weeks can be described as a hurricane of craziness, interviews and  exclusive peeks to Lotro Beta Model. We have already collected additional information from official forum about Lotro Store, new Enedwaith area, Beta screenshots and Beta Sigh-up but that's not all 🙂

• Beta is for all of the new content and updates, including Enedwaith and Free-to-Play [Sapience]
• All items in the Beta store are subject to change. Nothing is final.
• Virtue buffs do not allow you to go past level 10. This is exactly how they work in game now. [Sapience]
• Virtues cap at 10. They do not stack beyond that. As with all current additional virtue buffs in game, if you exceed 10 they have no effect. [Sapience]
• The "slayer deed completed faster" item is not a permanent buff [Sapience]
• Anything you see in screen shots is more than likely place holder. This applies to costs as well. [Sapience]
• Deeds are one of the ways you will earn Turbine Points. [Sapience]

The LOTRO Store
We sent out a number of screen shots last week that were mock ups of the store. If you look carefully you can tell they're only for illustration purposes and don't reflect any actual items. For example there is a shot out there that shows a "Helm" with a really nice image of a helmet and a description that says it's a potion.

Some of the item descriptions aren't even related to LOTRO at all. So I would say take much of what's shown in the screens as placeholders. As we progress through the beta process, everything is being constantly reviewed. Beta players are already providing some great feedback, even though we've only been in Beta for 1 day!

Scaled Instances
To clear up any misunderstandings; Instances will be scaled by the player, not automatically. It works like the level setting for Skirmishes. So for something like Helegrod you could choose to run it at level 61 if you wanted. I know some are worried about a 'solo raid'. The instances will not scale in terms of group size. Fighting Thorog is still going to take 24 people.
Also, not every instance will be scaled at launch. The team is working hard to get as many in as they can, but time is finite. The plan is to revist them all, but they're not all going to happen in Book 2.

To give you some idea of how major this change is, JWBarry is currently writing his first novel, also called the Instance Scaling Dev diary. Seriously, it's a book.

Enedwaith
It's a level 62-65 area with a lot of new content. Berephon is really excited about this area! So much so he's going to write a Dev diary all about it. Enedwaith, not his excitement.

[Sapience]

The latest information about Lotro Free-to-Play content and Volume 3 Book 2 Preview of new region Enedwaith can be found on massively. They had an interesting interview with Turbine team on E3. We will share with you several main points and if you want to read the entire interview just follow the link massively.com

1. Enedwaith will go live with the Volume 2, Book 3 launch this Fall
2. VIP members will get access to the new area, the epic quest line associated with it and all the regular quests in the land
3. F2p will be able to travel in the new lands and complete the epic quest line, but they will need to buy the regional quest pack
4. Health potions, cosmetic clothing and crafting recipes can be found in new cash shop for the moment
5. No new Skirmishes will be added in this next content patch
6. The last feature coming with the new patch is DX11 support

While we are waiting for our beta invites, Turbine has released several interesting screenshots of the new LOTRO Store. Enjoy!

Lotro Store Additional Character Slot 1	Lotro Store Additional Character Slot	Lotro Store Additional Vault Storage
Lotro Store Head Helmet	Lotro Store Purchase History

Weatherstock is a concert of Epic proportions held on the summit of Amon Sul on June 12th, 7pm EST, Landroval server. There will be a dance area, lots of ale and pipeweed to consume and for the first time hope tokens for a candle effect will be passed out. If you want to participate the first step is to make band registration but you also have to fulfill some minimum requirements:

1) Performed in public as a band before
2) Be familiar with the abc system and using /play sync
3) Commit to playing anytime during the 3 hour event

Each band will have a 3 song/10 minute time slot to perform. In addition, each band may return to the stage for an encore if the audience reaction is favorable enough.

Security

Security will be provided by Lonely Mountain Band for the duration of the event. Any who need escort through the dangerous lonelands should contact one of the security staff. Transportation will be provided from South Bree and the Forsaken Inn.  Should you need assistance Verdic is in charge of the security detail.

Graphics and Lag

Come to Weatherstock with your graphics turned to low before you reach the summit. You will be surprised what 100 characters in all their armor can do to even the mightiest of GPUs.

Some hints:

• Reduce resolution
• Turn off shadows
• Reduce draw distance
• Turn off on-hit combat effects
• Take off your hat! (They are usually graphically complex objects)
• No campfires or fireworks are allowed at the summit of Amon Sul except by official LMB stage crew.
• Please refrain from "Forced" emotes, such as the Minstrels Irrestible Dance, Captains kneel, Burglar's Sneeze, or Champions cheer. It contributes to lag and causes systems to freak out.

Prizes

There will be 3 prizes awarded:

Light in the Darkness
This prize will be presented to the band who inspires the most participants to raise "hope" tokens immediately after their performance.
Lonely Mountain Cup
The Lonely Mountain Cup will be awarded to the band judged winner by a panel of Lonely Mountaineers.
Free People's Choice
This is the most coveted prize, as the free peoples of Eriador will elect a winner at the end of the concert. All bands will return for a final number, while the free peoples show their preferences by standing with the band they believe should win.

[Source]

Today I have noticed an interesting post on casualstrolltomordor.com about Lotro Game Time Card Deal. On amazon.com you can buy The Lord of the Rings Shadows of Angmar Prepaid 60-Day Game Time Card for only $18.99. A smart way you can save $11.00 🙂

These game time cards are even able to be used after LOTRO goes Free-to-Play to pay for your VIP account. However, Sapience says they will not work with Trial or F2P (free player) accounts.

[Source]

In DDO the VIP's are NOT able to buy any of the quest packs that they already have access to as VIP. This means that when those adventure packs go on sale the VIP's cannot buy them in preparation of dropping their subscription and becoming Premium. The store tells them "You cannot buy this content you already have access to" or something similar.

This essentially forces VIP's to stay VIP since if they cancel their sub, by the time their sub expires and they CAN purchase the content it is no longer on sale and they'll have to pay full price for it or go back to the VIP subscription. This situation HAS upset many VIP'ers who intend to go Premium some time in the future.

Yes, it works like DDO; if you're a VIP, you can't buy content that you already have access to. If you're planning to drop your subscription at some point, bank your points until then and then wait for things to go on sale again if you want them at a discount! [Patience]

LOTROster 1.4.0 is now available for download. Here is the list of changes in this new version:n

• NEW: Custom fields. You can have up to 5 custom fields to hold user-entered data (edit access can also be restricted to the administrator on a per-field basis). Custom fields can contain text, images or clickable links (the last two are restricted to administrators only).
• NEW: Added functions to the configuration interface to delete the activity log or the user claims..
• NEW: Integration with external DKP management tools to display DKP values on your roster. Currently supported: eqdkp and eqdkpplus. Use the 'dkp' field to insert into your roster.
• NEW: EQDKP-Plus authentication support (when used as a Portal)
• MPROVED: Added a fourth optional stats page, to accomodate the addition of new custom fields.
• IMPROVED: The additional stats page no longer require the Extra Data option to be enabled.
• IMPROVED: Dropdown menu will now let you sort by any field, not just by those currently displayed.
• IMPROVED: Destructive database operations in the configuration interface will now request for confirmation.
• IMPROVED: Improved log readability (highlited old/new data, sorted entries)
• IMPROVED: Characters with no extra data (i.e. archived by Turbine) will only be logged as such when logging verbosity is set to the highest level (debug).
• IMPROVED: Removed "Force Update" from the roster menu. You can still force a roster update from the Configuration interface.
• IMPROVED: Can now use Grouped display sorted by username.
• IMPROVED: Code cleanup to help maintaining the code.
• FIXED: Flatfile support was broken on the Win32 platform.
• FIXED: Potential warning when claiming a character.
• FIXED: CSS issue with roster header (custom CSS users need to update the .rm_headerrow class in their custom stylesheet)
• FIXED: Tribes level charts now begin at 50 (the lowest level a creep can be)
• FIXED: Warning if using flatfile storage with an empty roster.

  More information and the download link can be found at www.lostrealm.ca