Volume 3 Book 2 Patch Notes (aka Free-to-play patch!)

[Mythor]

The download isn't available via the patcher yet but if anyone wants to read the extensive patch notes: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_ ... 2_Official

Of most interest to me were the following:

Instance Join
For Volume 3: Book 2 we've renamed the Skirmish Join panel to Instance Join panel. Within it are two tabs, Classic and Skirmish. The Skirmish tab has all the functionality of the previous Skirmish Join Panel. The new Classic tab includes every replayable instance in the game, including all instances from Shadows of Angmar through Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood - 39 entries in all! Every 3, 6, and 12 man replayable instance in the game is now accessible through Instance Join.

Skirmishes are now available at level 20!
The Skirmish tutorials can now be completed as soon as a character reaches level 20. Once a character completes the tutorial they will have access to The Siege of Gondamon and Trouble in Tuckborough. The Stand at Amon Sûl Skirmish is now available at level 25.

The former because WoW's Random Dungeon Finder is one of my favourite additions to the game. Never really ran any instances in groups before it, have done heaps of them since.
Now LOTRO has it! Or something sort of similar, at any rate.

The latter change interests me because my main character is only level 21 so he's not had a chance to try Skirmishes yet. Can now!

Lots of other interesting changes as well, including some big changes to the Captain class.

So who else is looking forward to this?

[Rega]

I want to play F2P.. So what download should I get? The one off the LOTRO website that says "High-Res or Low-Res"?

[coder61]

I downloaded the Low Res as i did not know if the High res was suitable for my card.

Kinda feels like DDO in a way now. This F2P makes the game a good comeback issue ,i got 50 Turbine Points and VIP status. Still have to pay for Siege of Mirkwood expansion or gain nearly 2k of Turbine Points.

[Rega]

I downloaded the Low Res as i did not know if the High res was suitable for my card.

There is debate on whether my PC can run the High-res version, I was just wondering can I download one of the clients that GON provide? Or have to go to the official website?

[Mythor]

As Mekon quoted in the other thread here there'll be a new full install download available for newcomers.
You could download one of the old versions from GON but you'd have to do quite a bit of patching from there. Or you could download via the official downloader, which would probably take a while even if you go with the standard resolution.

Personally I'd wait a little longer and keep my fingers crossed for the full install download to be available. And then suggest it to the server monkeys for hosting.

New players can't play yet, only existing/returning players or people who already have trial accounts, I think.

[Rega]

As Mekon quoted in the other thread here there'll be a new full install download available for newcomers.
You could download one of the old versions from GON but you'd have to do quite a bit of patching from there. Or you could download via the official downloader, which would probably take a while even if you go with the standard resolution.

Personally I'd wait a little longer and keep my fingers crossed for the full install download to be available. And then suggest it to the server monkeys for hosting.

New players can't play yet, only existing/returning players or people who already have trial accounts, I think.

Cheers Mythor

Any idea how big the High-res version is? I am on Internode, on the Telstra port Easy BB so I don't have the biggest quota in the world

[Sathias]

As Mekon quoted in the other thread here there'll be a new full install download available for newcomers.
You could download one of the old versions from GON but you'd have to do quite a bit of patching from there. Or you could download via the official downloader, which would probably take a while even if you go with the standard resolution.

Personally I'd wait a little longer and keep my fingers crossed for the full install download to be available. And then suggest it to the server monkeys for hosting.

New players can't play yet, only existing/returning players or people who already have trial accounts, I think.

Cheers Mythor

Any idea how big the High-res version is? I am on Internode, on the Telstra port Easy BB so I don't have the biggest quota in the world

If GON host it on their file mirror like they have for the previous clients, it will be free data for anyone with a Node account

[Rega]

As Mekon quoted in the other thread here there'll be a new full install download available for newcomers.
You could download one of the old versions from GON but you'd have to do quite a bit of patching from there. Or you could download via the official downloader, which would probably take a while even if you go with the standard resolution.

Personally I'd wait a little longer and keep my fingers crossed for the full install download to be available. And then suggest it to the server monkeys for hosting.

New players can't play yet, only existing/returning players or people who already have trial accounts, I think.

Cheers Mythor

Any idea how big the High-res version is? I am on Internode, on the Telstra port Easy BB so I don't have the biggest quota in the world

If GON host it on their file mirror like they have for the previous clients, it will be free data for anyone with a Node account

Will it auto patch?

[Mythor]

Will it auto patch?

It'll be somewhere around the 11GB mark to download then it's 12-13GB when installed. But so long as you're with Internode and you download from the Files section here, it'll be free quota as Sathias said. Just takes a long time to download that much.

It'll autopatch each time you load it from then on, but that'll be in the region of hundreds of megabytes rather than thousands. And generally less, if it's just fixing some stuff.

Still no link available. Partly because the whole site is down for maintenance at the moment!

[Cyrinno]

The skirmisher system lets you start the dungeons and teleport to them once you've found a group that wants to go, to remove the travel time. I don't believe it'll match you up into a group.

The games engine has been buffed, when running in dx11 mode it no longer crashes my win7 system, the load times for terrain when moving around and 75% of the jerks because of hard disk activity have been removed. Load screen times are also 50% faster.

Alert system that goes bing when you can do reactionary skills so you don't have to watch bars on melee chars.

[Cyrinno]

and yes I'm looking forward to it, especially with the lack of content on wow at the moment, everything is running smoothly with the two day sneak peak so far.

I've also noticed the latency seems to be less of an issue, in wow you can barely notice it, but lotro had some mobs running around like mad sometimes, this also seems to be reduced up to 50%.

[Rega]

Will it auto patch?

It'll be somewhere around the 11GB mark to download then it's 12-13GB when installed. But so long as you're with Internode and you download from the Files section here, it'll be free quota as Sathias said. Just takes a long time to download that much.

It'll autopatch each time you load it from then on, but that'll be in the region of hundreds of megabytes rather than thousands. And generally less, if it's just fixing some stuff.

Still no link available. Partly because the whole site is down for maintenance at the moment!

Ok,Thanks Mythor . I'm really excited for this game.. I love Lord of the rings!

[Mythor]

The skirmisher system lets you start the dungeons and teleport to them once you've found a group that wants to go, to remove the travel time. I don't believe it'll match you up into a group.

Nope, there's no group matching like in WoW. But I'm hoping now they have the system up and running they might add that feature at some point.
You can run the skirmishes in solo mode, at least the two you can access around level 20. I did the one where you reclaim the Great Smials for the hobbitses a couple of times and the Siege of Gondamon once.

Pro tip for newcomers to Skirmish mode: The "Tier" selection box is a difficulty selection thing. Tier II is much tougher than Tier I. I got through Tier I of the hobbit skirmish with little trouble. Main issue was a double pull at one point.
I died twice trying to finish Tier II.
I'm no pro-Warden though. But if you die you'll have a bigger repair bill, so fair warning.

Alert system that goes bing when you can do reactionary skills so you don't have to watch bars on melee chars.

Do you know where this option is in the settings? I only have one reaction skill with Warden and I know when it might be triggerable but I'd like to hear the sound, find out if it's annoying.

[coder61]

Has anyone checked their Deeds yet? On mine some have been reset ,mostly the ones to Enter Moria. Good thing though is you 20 TPS per some deeds now.

Also i am having a issue launching Lotro ,after entering username and password it starts to load. Then i get a message about Windows 7 Basic compatibility mode and it switches into minimize run mode. Then it dropouts and i have too relaunch Lotro then it runs ,ok.

[Wrangl3r]

wish there was a file for node to host! can't take the 10 gig hit this month