LOTRO Reporter Podcast

Chris, Cari and Layanor stumble their way through this weeks episode. Rabbit trails may have been followed. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- Didn't play much LOTRO this week. Did get into one of the new 12 men's The Battle for E...

Hello MMO Reporter listeners! We're going to PAX East! Here's a quick recap of our previous PAX coverage, to give you a heads up on what to expect. We'll be putting all of the content out on the MMO Reporter podcast feed, so make sure to subscribe (details here) to get all of the audio sent right to your computer. for our videos, check out the main site  or our Youtube Page to get them as soon as they're posted. But we also need your help! Harry and I want to record a video for the song attached below, but we need an acoustic guitar to borrow for a few hours on Sunday! We won't ACTUALLY be playing it, but we need Harry to mime along as we record the video. If you can help us, please send me a message at chris AT mmoreporter DOT com and let me know! See you in-game!

Chris, Layanor and Cari talk about Update 10, how mini's are gods, and Chris' fantastic fashion sense. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- Ran some older instances. Got about halfway thru the Rift raid. When level 85s can't get past a level 50 raid, things go bad real fast. Decided to farm some earlier areas in the game to get some rep items. Throw those on some new alts and get free turbine points! Ran a lot of the new instances. However the groups i'm with do not know how to work them. So I have not finished one yet. Cari- Hytbold Dailies Ran a Trouble in Tuckborough 6 man T2 for fun and profit Logged in on Cyn and did a few minutes of leveling. Ran the new 6 man Bell's of Dale with 5 people. http://mmoreporter.com/2013/03/06/cyborg-f-r-e-q-5-headset-review/ Chris- Ding 85 Hytbold Dailies   News Update 10 Patch Notes http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Update_10,_Against_the_Shadow,Part_II_Official The Stunlandings have been given a talking to and will behave better. Mithril Coins are now available. Instance loot has been revamped. Warden's have received a change to their primary stat. Wardens will now have Agility as their primary stat. “Dev Diary Below” All end game warden sets have been updated to Agility instead of Might Squares on the ground show the real effect boundary of hotspots. Fate has been updated. You should see good power regen inside and outside of combat. - Cari likes power as a mini with patch 10. Guardians not so much. Skill cost are now based on the amount of power you have. Cari likes power as a mini with patch 10. Guardians not so much. Four new instances. The Bells of Dale (6 Player), Flight to the Lonely Mountain (12 player), The Fires of Smaug (12 Player) and ,The Battle for Erebor (12 Player) “Dev Diary Below” "Enable Involuntary Emotes" has been added to your social options panel. Dread from dieing has been removed! No more waiting for a rez! Quests & Tasks can now be turned in while you're in a raid. No word on deed kills. The damage per second of level 85 weapons has increased, especially in regard to 2nd Age LIs. Players in a fellowship will now get quest item drops, even if they didn't hit the mob that drops it. Criticals have been adjusted. You can do more damage with them and defend from them better than before. A much more in depth Dev Diary can be found below. CJs have had their power restore magnitudes increased slightly. Power adjustments for all classes across the board. Should feel much better now. Freeps now gain a Battlefield Promotion. This means you do more damage the higher rank you are. Lone-lands and Angmar quest kills have been lowered. Dev Diary Update 10 Critical Defense http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/update-10-critical-defence-revision Dev Diary Update 10 Stat Change - Agility Wardens http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/update-10-warden-stat-change-agility-wardens Dev Diary UPdate 10 Instance Cluster http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/update-10-instance-cluster-developer-diary Update 10 Busted Things Patch Notes http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?503779-Update-10-Known-Issues&p=6699524#post6699524 If you summon a Property Guard twice, you can't summon pets or heralds unless you log Sammath Gul - Boss chests aren't spawning on both tiers Devastate Magnitude stat increases are not appearing in the Character Panel The Captain skill “Time of Need” now has a power cost in addition to its morale cost - This power cost has been removed for 10.1 Gandalf starts the new Instance cluster? Or... not... March 1st, Gandal had a new level 1 quest. This quest will open up the new raid cluster for everyone when it comes out. Be ready to do the three new 3 man runs. Run it as low as possible *lv 20* I have done this quest and it has reset after the patch. I did it again and the quest will not continue still.

We're very lucky to bring you this MMO Reporter Special Report with composer Chance Thomas. Composer, Audio Engineer and all around nice guy, Chance Thomas has been a staple in the video game industry for many years, with credits which include Quest for Glory V and Lord of the Rings Online. Check out this interview to find out about Chance's journey to composer extrordinaire. Listen now:

Cari, Chris, and Layanor talk about the latest Dev Diaries, how you can get Turbine Points, and Partying at PAX. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- I power leveled Brandywine! You should all be level 40 or higher. Congrats! Cari- Hytbold Dailies for a couple of days Cyn went from level 36 to level 46 this weekend. Thanks Layanor and Hallward the Warden who I grouped with in Eregion on Sunday night. Chris- Hytbold Dailies Hytbold Dailies Hytbold Dailies Hytbold Dailies Locations: Harwick, Cliving Eaworth Snowbourn http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Hytbold News  Issues with the Downtime TP Awards From Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LOTRO We are currently aware of an issue that is preventing VIP points from being granted as expected. Addressing this issue is a top priority and we will update you as more information becomes available. We apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this. Twitter Dev Chat http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?502317-Transcript-LOTRO-Developer-Twitter-Chat-Thursday-February-21-2013 Pros Devs are still planning to do a FM revamp. Cross Server is still something they want to do. Currently, the instance team is working on prototyping the Helm's Deep experience Mainly improvements and bug fixes this year for the Moors. New PvmP armour in u10.1 or u11. Mounted Combat instance is on the to-do list at some point. Lots of housing ideas on the table but they need to plan things out yet with players input. Warsteed trait panel for our characters? “Yes” This does not mean we are getting skill trees. Calm down minions! U10 will be in early march: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGaP1DRQU34&list=UUMwGAuVFnfqg8ufj6YDtfjg&index=3 Cons No new PvMP Zone and no plans for one. “Where did that new map go from the Isengard expansion?” Isengard Press Release - http://archive.lotro.com/news/pressreleases/910 “Expanded Monster Play – LOTRO’s monster play system will get a major revamp including opening up the feature to all players, changes to monster player skills and advancement and a brand new region for players to battle for or against the forces of evil.” A5 We’re looking at better ways to transfer items more efficiently. Multiple items in mails is on that list but we’ve got a lot to evaluate. - HoarseDev A10 JWB - Hytbold was much more successful than we anticipated. We'll continue to explore things like that and other options to give everyone something compelling, engaging, and rewarding to do at cap. #LOTRO Q34 @DaniAngione Why not make currency (money) shared like marks and such? Kind of annoying to mail money to yourself #LOTRO A34 JWB - We see as many requests not to do this as we do to do it. Update 10 itemization information http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/update-10-itemization-information All our scaling Classic Instances have seen their loot totally revamped. Each instance cluster now makes use of Remote Looting. Within 3-man and 6-man spaces the final boss chests will have the chance to drop equipment, while the other chests will drop LI related materials. Classic Instance clusters also have completely new loot, ranging from Rare quality all the way up to Legendary quality. Each instance cluster is now focused on a handful of different gear types, so DPS looking for a necklace would want to run instances and raids from cluster X, while Tanks looking for a necklace would want to run cluster Y. Each instance has its own Rare and Incomparable loot, while raids have only Incomparable loot. Sets will now give either stats or skill modifying effects as their set bonuses. By moving the skill modifying set bonuses to the 2 and 4 slots, we’ve opened up the ability to do far more “mix and matching” of set bonuses while also giving room to equip other items should you so choose. Each set had to give stronger and stronger doses of stats in order to be an upgrade.

Chris, Cari and Layanor discuss how we survived the LOTRO Apocalypse of 2013, and how circles make a square. Listen now: What We Did This Week  Layanor- Did lots of Ettenmoors. Talked to lots of players about the new update 10 video. It ...

Chris, Cari and Layanor go over the latest patch notes, and talk about the player rage over removing loot drops from Public Instances. Listen now: What We Did This Week  Layanor- Helped some lowbies level up. I loves to one shots! ...

Chris and Layanor join Producer's Aaron and Hannah, as well as PR guru Leo and Jonathan "Berephon" Rudder to talk about Update 10. We take a look at all the raids, and end with a quick Q&A. Audio Version:

Chris is back. He, Cari, and Layanor go over the most recent Producer's Letter, and talk about Update 10 in Bullroarer. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- Maxed out my legendary items with empowerment scrolls and star-lit crystals. Found a nice place to farm some gold for when i'm broke. Helped some more lowbie kin cause thats my favorite thing to do. Cari- Hytbold Dailies 4 Pieces of Song Protector Armour Cyn the Mini on Brandywine is up to level 35. She just finished clearing out that bandit Camp Across the Brandywine. Not my favorite area. Killed Bugud a couple more times. Chris- Half Way through 83 and working my way through Sutcrofts. News Producer’s Letter http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/letter-kate-paiz-executive-producer-lord-rings-online%E2%84%A2 Player’s Council   – We are doubling down this year on the conversation between Turbine and you, our players.  We are going to start a Player’s Council, a group of players who participate in more regular & structured feedback sessions with the dev group.  We want to make sure that as we grow and extend this game, that we are incorporating your likes and dislikes about what we are into what we release. The Community Team will be releasing more information about how we’re going to construct and run the Player’s Council in the coming weeks. Western Rohan – I am at this moment standing on the parapet of the Hornburg, looking out over Helm’s Deep as devs populate the landscape with hundreds (soon to be thousands) of Saruman’s Uruk-hai & Orcs.  We will be bringing you the rest of Rohan in two installments – Wildermore, a northern region between the Wold and Fangorn, will be released this spring,  after our 6th anniversary, and later in the year, you’ll be able to see Western Rohan, Edoras, and participate in battles of epic proportions. Much more on this to come… Housing – I am extremely pleased to say that this year we will be tackling a major revision to the Housing system.  In February and March we will be gathering information about how Housing should change, and then we’ll be releasing revisions to the system in the latter half of the year.  We look forward to leveraging our new Player’s Council to help shape and guide the extension of this feature! Class Adjustments – Later in the year, we will be making some significant changes to the skills and traits of the Free Peoples classes. We’ll be pruning out skills that just feel disappointing in play and increasing the potency of others. The end result will be fewer skills, but a more profound impact on moment-to-moment play. How you choose to specialize your class will make a real difference! Update 10 is live on Bullroarer http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?499276-UPDATE-10-PRELIMINARY-RELEASE-NOTES-Bullroarer-Only-%281%29-SUBJECT-TO-CHANGE The following NEW instances are now available The Bells of Dale (6 Player) Flight to the Lonely Mountain (12 player) The Fires of Smaug (12 Player) The Battle for Erebor (12 Player) In Their absence All of the instances in the “In their Absence” instance cluster have been scaled from level 65 up to level cap. Dread on Defeat effects removed. Players will no longer receive the dread effect when defeated. This applies to defeat dread only. Other forums of dead will continue to exist as before. Patch on Bullroarer http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?500173-UPDATE-10-PRELIMINARY-RELEASE-NOTES-Bullroarer-Only-(2)-SUBJECT-TO-CHANGE The Store now has three new property guards: the Rohirrim Knight, Shield-maiden, and Hound! Steed of the Khundolar Available 68% Speed 1995 TP War-steed Appearance PIctures can be found at http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2013/02/steed-of-the-khundolar-available/ There are surprises in the new Bree Revamp http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6653448#post6653448 Living Toys are Alive Go search for more The lotteries are back

Cari and Layanor were on their own this week. Will Chris never learn? They talked about Update 10, Sapience's beard, Twitter chats, and Layanor hummed a lot. Listen now: What We Did This Week:  Layanor-  Did a surprise Fornost run to help shake off some of the raiding rust we have. I am 50% for rank 11 in the moors. Cari- Finished up the Eaves of Fanghorn Quest Line - It was pretty fun. Still working on dailies for Hytbold. - An ent killed me in one of the public instances. Purchased my first Hytbold gear Piece Helped kill Bugud - Received a broken old ring. Broke down, bought keys and opened up my level 80 loot boxes. Got 5 Compendiums of Middle Earth IV, A really neat cloak, a universal tool kit, and some crafting crit scrolls. Ran some Moria Instances with the Wednesday night deed group. Finished Dark Delvings for the first time ever, Chris- Working through the Eaves of Fangorn. Got ahead of myself with the epic story. Started heading south before I was done Fangorn.  News: 9.1 Release Notes http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Update_9.1,_Official There’s a new “Find Items” dialog which allows you to find items by typing in part of their name. Space Combat has been removed from the game. Travel mounts are no longer invisible to players. Classic Instances Drop rates on Star-lit crystals and 2nd Age Symbols have been slightly reduced. Barad Guldur Reduced the quality of the regular boss chests for Durchest and the Twins on Tier 1 and Tier 2. They will no longer drop 2nd Age Symbols, among other things. Challenge chests and the Lieutenants chest remain unaffected. Reduced the chance of getting equipment drops for each player on T1 and T2 difficulty slightly. Mirkwood Vendors in Mirkwood and elsewhere have finally gotten the news that Medallions of Dol Guldur have been replaced, and are now willing to accept Medallions for their wares. Dev Diary: New Currency Mithril Coins: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/update-10-mithril-coin-qa Replacing some of the writs and tomes See picture revive will cost more than one Coin a travel writ will cost one. We should be able to see this on Bullroarer when it goes up. Dev Twitter Chat: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6635899#post6635899 Forced Emote Toggle is coming!!! For Free!!!!! Getting a new area that isn't the expansion. Wardens are switching to Agility Community asked if the Galuhad's Kinship proposal will be considered. Turbine replied with the order they will be doing requests this year. Class revamps, housing revamp, and kinship revamp. http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?385713-Kinship-Revamp-Proposal Turbine has no plans to use any of the faction rep mounts for warsteed cosmetics. They are looking for player ideas on how to update and change the character  models. Second ages will be available for Marks, Medallions, and/or Seals Sapience lost his face! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzGOsLq8VWk&feature=player_embedded https://twitter.com/rickheaton/status/295996539128668160/photo/1 Talks about update 10 this week on Bullroarer. Did You Know™ Crafting Toward Mordor with the Universal Crafting Kit http://www.danania.net/2013/01/crafting-toward-mordor-with-universal.html?m=1 The Universal Toolkit is Bound to Account. The Universal Toolkit can get passed through the Shared Storage or if you are lazy like me they are 150 TP. Crafters are getting quite a few levels Froma Danania's Post: At Yule festival 2012 a month ago, the five main lil-dana crafters were all level 25, now they are level 35 to 38. There is a level 38 farmer who has zero kills. She has been leveled by crafting alone. http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Dyes Community: Classic LOTRO Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-qrHFVMN8 Contact Information: email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com twitter: @lotroreporter

Chris, Cari, and Layanor talk about rumors, farming, Turbine Point value, skirmish soldiers, and how Chris will look in a dress. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- Farmed loot boxes. Helped a lot of kin with questing and deeds. And ran...

Galloping in at ramming speed is Riders of Rohan, the newest expansion to Lord of the Rings Online from Turbine. Legendary stories take place in these huge plains and are arguably the most popular area of all of Lord of The Rings books. Did Turbine capture the lore and legend of these epic lands? Lets explore with the Rohirrim and find out! Listen now: Pros and Cons Entering this expansion is very unique from the get go. The musical score brought Rohan to life instantly. It was indescribable the feeling I had when entering the new area for the first time. The music helped it feel like I had just stepped into Rohan. Then I got into combat and the game switched to battle music. I suddenly felt a bit reckless fighting to it like I was some sort of hero! It is amazing how a full orchestra can make you feel like something larger then life is about to happen. Chance Thomas did a amazing job composing this. The epic story picks up from where the Great River Region left off and tosses us into the breaking of the fellowship. You can play out some of those important moments from the book in session play. My favorite one was to play the fall of Boromir, where you try to slay waves upon waves of orcs as they try to take you down! The story then moves you into the Rohirrim plot and is well thought out. I think they did a excellent job with the epic story this time, and it reminds me that I'm not out here to just grind out ten wargs for the nearest warg eating npcs. The six new areas are The Wold, The East Wall, The Norcrofts, The Sutcrofts, The Entwash Vale, and The Eaves of Fangorn. These areas are all huge! I expected them to be very boring because they were mostly described as all plains in the books. That was not the case. Each town has its own charm. If you're like me, you will be exploring every corner of them. There are children running around, men chopping wood, soldiers practicing horseback formations, and women scolding their children. One woman is even shoveling horse poop! Who puts a poopsmith in their game? I was so happy to not see NPCs just standing around doing nothing. In Riders of Rohan, Turbine introduced a totally new mechanic, mounted combat. Riding across the fields at lighting speed and destroying your foes is the highlight of this expansion. There are three War-steed types: light, medium, and heavy. Light is made for speed and helps the caster type classes. Heavy is for the big damage dealing classes. The medium is a all around War-steed and is free for all players. They level up with you, and you spend points to make them work with your style. Learning to control your bucking bronco will take some time, kind of like driving a car on ice. You'll be sliding around for a while, but in the end, you'll fly! With each War-steed, you get three skill trees that are adjusted for each type: defense, damage, and speed. These change depending on what type of War-steed you choose, but most of it is the same. You can spend points on new skills, defenses, speed boosts or offensive bonuses. Or you can spend it all on buffing up your War-steed's stats. The best thing is, if you don't like what you spent them on, just hit refund and all of it goes back to zero and you can spend the points you earned again! You can do this whenever you like and as many times as you want. It only costs a few silver to make the change. Killing your friends has never been more fun with the updated Ettenmoors! The camps have been recreated with new graphics. The outposts now give damage buffs to the side that holds them. Keeps now give renown and commendation bonuses. Needless to say, anyone controlling all of them gets a massive bonus. Luckily there is a way to take all this back with stealth. Remember that underground instance through the Ettenmoors that was under-used? That is now revamped and is a underground tunnel system to the camps and keeps. Creep raids running into Freep raids underground is pure chaos.

Chris, Cari, and Layanor discuss LOTRO store sales, and space combat. We also talk about Chris' dearest wish to play as an Ent. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- I am highest rated warden on the server. Rating 2000. Doesn't mean much but I never had it before so thought that was neat. Was then killed and dropped to 1,430. I have screenshots tho! Max Audacity on my creep. Tier 13. Cari- Level 83 on Alinniel. Currently in Eaworth delivering blankets and food to the lazy no good er poor refugees of that community Attended the BBB Concert - The trolls are driving me crazy. Ran some of the Moria Instances for deeds. Leveled Cynniel on Brandywine to level 17. Chris- Norcorfts done. Ding 81! Going through the Entwash Vale now, and just got the quest to kill Orcs in the shadow of Fangorn. So excited to get so close to Ents! Maybe I’ll glitch out and become an Ent! News Turbine Tests Some Store Sales Changes http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?496638-Store-Sales-web-page-January-11th-17th Turbine decided to try out forcing us to log in to the game if we want see the sales instead of listing them. They solicited feedback. You can guess it wasn't positive. They will not be making a change to the store sales page on the website. Goldenstar said this was in response to making the store less in your face. Is Space Combat Coming to LOTRO? http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6621728#post6621728 Did You Know™ You can link multiple Free-To-Play accounts to your existing Turbine subscription. This is extremely useful when you want to own multiple houses, or create enough alts to make your own kinship. You can set up these accounts so that they are all accessed with a single login and password! Here's how to set it up: * Go to http://support.turbine.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=24001&task=ticket. This is the Turbine support center. * Choose the Account support team for LotRO. * Choose the Request Type: New Free Account Key Request. * Your key will show up via email in a couple of days. * Log in to myaccount.turbine.com and add the key to your existing account. * Restart LotRO and voila, the new login box appears with account selection! Not only can you buy another house through this linked subscription, it activates as a Premium account! NOTE: Premium status may be for a limited time.  If you are making alts to start your own kinship, try to create all of your alt characters, level them out of the starting zone, and invite them into the kinship within the first few days. Thank you to Kinnie Kiralynn of Rohan owner of the Windy Acres Ranch for sharing. Community Earning TP in ROR http://lotrostrategery.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/earning-turbine-points-rise-of-isengard-vs-riders-of-rohan/#more-1064 On the whole, the amount of earnable Turbine Points (TP) in-game from deeds is much less in Riders of Rohan than in Rise of Isengard. Exactly two-thirds less (380 vs. 570 TP). This gap is due in large part because Rohan’s instances do not award any Turbine Points whereas Isengard’s awards 5 TP for most of them, 10 TP for the meta-deeds. Cari: Why did I see three of the same character running one right after the other? It looked like a really weird. The first one would do something and then the other two would do it right afterwards. Classic LOTRO community video The Reaver Charge by Shanehere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ugLLurqEBs&list=UUxi5RqTiPKdqjpoNdUX8f0A&index=15 Were’ taking the Harry to PAX help us out. New show on the network. WoW Pet Battles Contact Information: email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com twitter: @lotroreporter facebook: LOTRO Reporter Voicemail: 616-666-6778 youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork www.lotroreporter.com Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Chris, Cari, and Layanor are back from the holiday break. We talk about letters from on high, news of the future and if Cari will remember to write the intro for next week's show. Listen now: What We Did This Week Layanor- I got to run all three - 3 man instances. They are well made and very hard to do on tier 2. However they have been overshadowed by the new scaled BG instance. This thing is dropping some great stuff. Stopped in on the moors for awhile and got a full set of gear.. Also played on creep side for a while to see what was new. Creepside has also been updated with auto looting rules! This made some pretty crazy farming sessions. I made rank 6 on my creep and brought the audacity up to 9. Finished the festival deeds on the very last day! And here is the big news. Around 6PM on 1/3/2013. Layanor turned 1 year old in game time. You have been playing for: 12 months 0 hours 37 minutes 9 seconds Cari- Festival, festival, and more festival, Reached More the Merrier Tier 3 on one character and Tier 2 on three others. I received a hobby horse from the sack of presents on one of my hobbits. Cutest thing ever. Leveled from 79.5 to 81 by just doing the festival only. Many of my other characters dinged twice. Reached level 82.5 Ran Sari Surma with two other kin members for deeds. I'm even more famous. Helped film the latest BBB video. Attended the 12th Night Ball hosted by the LMB I have a new favorite store item. Oh yeah I have a Pink War-steed Chris- Ding 79! Norcroft complete! The quest series at the north-east end of Norcroft is very Eowyn-ish. I love it. I really feel like I have a great handle on the warsteed combat now. I’m able to switch between stances, wheel around and fight very effectively, and it was fun. Saw The Hobbit twice over the break. Came straight home, Sallennia went to bed, and I HAD to log into LOTRO. News Letter from the Producer: Looking Back on 2012 http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/letter-producer-looking-back-2012 LOTRO’s fourth expansion, Riders of Rohan. resolved almost 8,000 bugs added another 500,000 words to the game. LOTRO’s 5th Anniversary Celebration The Great River region Open Tapping and Remote Looting Revised Moria quest lines and story Scaled Fornost and Dol Guldur instances Audacity and Ettenmoors keep capture updates Plans for the first half of 2013 Rohan Instance Cluster (Part 2) 6 mans and 12 mans in Dale Class Skills – looking into player feedback in regards to skills the class should feel different as you progress and grow your abilities. More Scaled Instances (“In Your Absence” – welcome back to Ost Dunhoth). More landscape quests and Epic Story. Rebalanced loot drops for skirmishes and scaling instances. No Ent play Issue With Some War-steed Cosmetic Bundles That Should Have Never Made it in the Store. http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6601295#post6601295 The cosmetic only war-steed appearance was never intended to be a player facing offer. This was intended for testing and testing only. As with all previous premium mount bundles, purchase of the bundle includes both the travel mount and the War-steed appearance. Offering an appearance only option was never intended. Because these appearance only options were published and had names very similar to the premium mount bundle, some players inadvertently purchased both items thinking they would receive different cosmetics. If you purchased both offers (the bundle and the stand alone cosmetics), please contact support to have your purchase of the cosmetic only appearance refunded. If you purchased only the cosmetic version and would like to upgrade your purchase to the full premium mount bundle, please contact account support. They will be able to assist you with this. Please note you will be charged the difference between the cosmetic only and full bundle price.

Welcome to the Predictions show. We drag Bill out of retirement to see who's predictions were better from last year. Listen now: Last Year’s Predictions: Chris - Ent play darn-it! It’s gotta happen this year! Chris - Content will be coming in 3 month intervals - Next major content release will be in March. Chris - New expansion announced in May-June. Released September/October. Taking us into Rohan. Chris - Mounted Combat. Chris - No new classes with any expansion. Bill - cross server Instance Finder queuing (not sure if this is a cave, or if devs will realize the ppl complaining about cross server instance joining are a vocal minority) Bill - New PVMP zone (it has to happen eventually!) Bill - Update 6 in February, another RoI - like expansion in June (incl. Update 7), update 8 in late 2012 (Nov/Dec) Bill - Shape of mounted combat will be a game-within-game, and not just swinging your sword/casting spells/singing songs from your horse Bill - Creep mail! (via Isanni) Bill - Legendary Item revamp (again).  Simplification trend - will make LI’s more cookie-cutter and easier to upgrade/replace.  Fewer relic slots, and simpler/tighter legacy lists Final Score: Bill: 2 Chris: 3 Predictions for 2013 Cari's Predictions: War Goats in mounted combat in Rohan  Rohirrim style cosmetics and hair styles will be made available in the store for purchase. PvMP will get some love in the next expansion with a tie in to Helm's Deep. Another instrument will be added. Perhaps a violin type. The Instance Finder will be cross server. There will be a store option to purchase summonable pets ala the style of the Avarc in Bree. Some kind of clickable summonable thing. Chris' Predictions: War-Steeds will get tons of emotes through the store Continued release schedule: Updates every three month and expansion in Late Summer/Early Fall Helms-Deep! Spring 2013 This year will see the addition of one more class with the expansion. Heavy Hobbit tie in post update 9. For F’s sake, I just want my damn Ent Play! Layanor's Predictions: The new expansion will be announced in April and will be the Wilderlands. This will include north mirkwood and new areas such as dale, and a explorable lonely mountain instance cluster. The Wilderland will be huge and will allow more warsteed combat. The new 12 man raids are already in this area. West Rohan will be an add on area and Helms deep will be a single 12 man raid. Much like the great river area. This will come out around July. The second hobbit movie 13 December 2013. So I am going to guess a flashback raid with Smaug. They have already with Durins bane The classes feel like they are just being rehashed over and over again. Even the revamps feel stale a few days after. There will be a new dwarf only class or elf only class. Everyone wants a housing revamp. And Turbine has said it is too big of a job to do it. So they will leave the old areas open as is. And open a new instance for higher level players. Houses in Moria, Lothlorien, Rohan, and Enedwaith will open up. Legendary items will get a update. Not a major one, just a UI update, such as a legacy tree of some sort to make the system make more sense from the casual player.