The LOTRO game servers will be brought down on Tuesday April 21 from 6:00AM - 12:00PM Eastern (-4 GMT) for an update to the game. (Click here) to read about changes.

Patch 2 goes live Tuesday April 21

• The turtle raid you already know is coming next week. As for any actions taken. We do not discuss diciplinary actions. Ever.
• Gift Boxes. Despite some opinions to the contrary these haven't been dropping the correct items from day one. Even on Bullroarer (especially on Bullroarer) they had the wrong loot. Like a slot machine always set to pay max winnings. So while it was great loot, it was still broken (broken in your favor is still broken). The live boxes are also not dropping the correct loot. The question of when will they be fixed is one of priorities. Right now the number one priority of every member of the team is returning the game servers to a reliable and stable state. We know the gift boxes are important to you and we will address them as soon as we get the stability issue under control. But I think everyone would agree that server stability is of higher priority. Imagine if we had fixed them and you got the loot you wanted only to lose it in a roll back due to server issues.
• What about the Lothlorien reputation crafted item recipe crit trophies? Are they being added during the patch also? Or will they come in the next patch?   They are not in patch 2.
• Lothlorien gift boxes never worked as intended, even on Bullroarer, if so is it possible to know what is their proper function? They're serving their 'function' but their loot table is wrong. On bullroarer they were too generous and on live they're a bit stingy. I think the goal is something in between.

Sapience

Clover, Frelorn, Patience, Sapience, Tarrant, Tolero

You'll find Tarrant and Tolero primarily on the DDO forums with Tarrant popping up here to address specific things and Tolero steps up to handle things when we need her as well.

Frelorn splits his time between addressing PvMP issues here and the overall community on AC1.

Clover handles most of our content updates on lotro.com and is our general 'go to' person for anythng that needs going to, regardless of franchise. She hangs around here a lot, but pops up everywhere from time to time.

I (Sapience) spend the bulk of my time gracing you all with my amazing self. If I'm needed I show up other places to help out.

Patience Is like air. She's evderywhere and we need her to survive. She's our boss and there's no telling when and where she'll show up. If you see a flying boot, it's probably too late.

Sapience

Codemasters Online - The Lord of the Rings Online, will be celebrating its second anniversary next week on April 24th, 2009. The celebrations will include a series of exciting in-game events, competitions and giveaways.

To mark this special occasion, Eurogamer is teaming up with Codemasters Online to give away two thousand LOTRO digital keys totally free! The first 2000 lucky individuals to claim a key when the giveaway goes live at 3pm UK time (2pm GMT) on April 24th can grab the full, original game (no retail box required) as part of an exclusive promotion.

These are not free trials - these are 2000 a fully paid-up download copies of The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, complete with 30 days' free play.

Continue reading

The newest episode of LOTROCast is up and running! You can find it at lotrocast.blogspot.com

In this episode, we take an in-depth look at the loremaster, pass on some tips for new players, discuss the newly revamped starter areas, and more.

Volume II Book 7 Patch 2 is currently scheduled for next week. We’ll announce the exact date and downtime as soon as the schedule is firm. The following release notes cover what is included in Volume II Book 7 Patch 2

Gameplay

• The Quest Guide system is now out of Beta! The system will automatically be turned on for all players by default. If you would not like to use the system, you can toggle the system off in the options panel under the UI settings page.

Quests and Epic Story

• If you had Volume II, Book 2, Chapter 4, 'Enemies in the Ever Dark' underway in your quest journal, it has been removed to correct an issue with the quest automatically completing before you return to the bestower.

Raids and Instances

• The Strange Happenings raid is once again available. Turtle is back on the menu!
• We have made a number of changes to the resource instances. This required they be versioned. If you currently have these underway they will be removed from your quest journal during the update.

• "Kill Boss" quests must be underway in order to enter their associated instances.
• "Kill Boss" quests can no longer be cancelled.
• "Kill Boss" quests now have a 1 hour failure timer attached. If the quest fails, there is a 2 hour retry cooldown before you can accept the quest again.
• All “Kill 20” and “Collect” quests now require the appropriate “Kill Boss” quest to be active in your quest journal before they are made available.
• “Kill Boss” quests are exclusive and players will only be able to have one of the six active at any given time.

General

• Several changes have been made to address server performance and stability.

Source

This site aims to be a resource for any 3rd party developers interested in creating their own applications that need actual game data to power them: web applications, forum integration, operating system widgets, and so on. The site uses a simple REST-ful API to access various methods to retrieve XML data. Currently, guild rosters and character sheet data are available though we have plans to continue adding more services as time permits.

The first step you should take is to send Bracket a private message on MyLOTRO or on the forums requesting an API key.  Please include a short developer name and Bracket will generate a key for you as soon as possible.  This is currently a manual process, so it may take up to a couple of days to get a response back.

Continue reading Developers: Introducing data.lotro.com and also data.lotro.com Usage Guide

More often than not - mobs going into anti-exploit seem to be caused by path-finding issues where the mob seem to be on a different vertical plane than the player. So - when you experience it. Here's a few tips to get it killed regardless.

1. Check the environment around the mob. Is there a different ground type or a different ground height that differences you from the mob. If so - move onto the same ground as the mob.

2. If there's any objects near the mob (crates, campfires etc.) try to jump on top of them (and if that is not possible - jump close to them and strike in the air).

3. And finally - if you can't find any terrain differences that causes the exploit - try standing on top of the mob and jump constantly. If you are a melee class you can jump and strike in the air - if you're a ranged mob - you're not as lucky I'm afraid.

In example - all the Annuminas camp-mobs that always go into anti-exploit can be killed by some crazy jumping.

Of course - it would be better if there were no mobs in anti-exploit. But that's not gonna happen, so remember, anti-exploit is always caused by path-finding issues (the mob's ability to find its way to you), and can more often than not, be corrected by the player.

Zomb

Watcher guide or The Vile Maw Instance is the last and the most difficult Lotro Instance. Before you even try to kill this boss you should obtain specific gear, bring potions, tokens, scrolls and prepare for three hard phases.

Continue reading Watcher Raid Guide 

Okay, I think we're going to be able to turn the festival back on through the weekend, but due to some resource constraints we won't be able to get it turned on until tomorrow.

The festival will be coming back without the horse race. The horse races have been a constant source of pain for QA, customer service, and the developers who have tried to fix them since the very first one. The spring festival race, which broke in a completely different way, was the last straw and until it's fixed once and for all, the decision was made to keep it down. I cannot promise anything, but we've been discussing the best way to make the horse available through other means.

Once again I want to apologize for the lack of communication. I hope this makes up for it a little bit, and I promise we'll keep trying to improve in the future.

It's scheduled to turn off at 12:00PM Eastern on Monday, April 13!

Meghan