Lord of The Rings Online : book10

Book 10: The City of the Kings Patch Notes

Kody — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:59:50 GMT

Lord of the Rings Online released their latest patch - Book 10: The City of the Kings - to live servers today. The patch notes are massive, so Patience - LOTRO Community Manager - has broken them up into more readable chunks on the LOTRO forums. You can find links to all of the relevant threads below.

To read more, head over to the Lord of the Rings Online patch notes and get started.

Class Changes for Book 10

Kody — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:58:53 GMT

Book 10: The City of the Kings will introduce changes to the Captain and Hunter classes. The game systems team focused on these two classes to improve their mechanics and make them a more desirable class to play.

There are two articles up on LOTRO.com that delve into the changes to the classes, called The Month of the Captain and The Month of the Hunter.

Captains can look forward to a new option in their arsenal: Standards. If you're not entirely keen on being a pet class as a Captain, you can now opt to equip these special "Standards" which not only offer statistic bonuses to you, but also place a banner on the ground which provides the same group buffs your Heralds would. This isn't the only option, though - those of you that enjoy Heralds can choose to use them instead, but both cannot be used at the same time.

That's not all though, Captains are also receiving new Herald Armaments, improvements to their Healing capabilities, new skills and some tweaks and changes.

Hunters will see improvements to Travel - including Group Travel changes - as well as Tracking, Traps, Oils, and Bow Chants. Not only that, but there are changes coming to Bows and Crossbows to mix up their functionality, as well as new skills and tweaks and changes to the class.

Next free LOTRO content update announced

Kody — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:44:01 GMT

The next update for Lord of the Rings Online was announced this morning. The update, titled "Book 10: The City of the Kings" is tentatively scheduled to release August 20th, 2007.

"Our first update significantly expanded the world of Middle-earth with new story arcs, quests, and exciting new kinds of gameplay," said Jeffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. "For Book 10 we continue the epic story and introduce a ton of new content, but we also are introducing legendary play, a completely new way to experience monster play that enables you to play as a powerful Ranger of the North or a terrible Troll."

NEW FEATURES:

The Epic Continues! - Amarthiel, introduced in Book 9: Shores of Evendim, has reclaimed the palantir of Carn Dûm and is now seeking to make Annúminas her new seat of power as she searches for her lost ring of power: Narchuil. The Dúnedain stands against her as the Rangers mount a last, desperate attempt to wrest the palantir from Amarthiel. Before she can find Narchuil, a most dangerous opportunity presents itself that may give the Dúnedain the advantage they need to blind the eye of Angmar.

Legendary Play - Once in the Ettenmoors, players can experience monster play in a completely new way by spending their Destiny Points to play as a powerful Ranger of the North or a terrible Troll to offer a strategic advantage to their allies in the battle for control of the Ettenmoors.

Critter Play - Friendly barnyard animals love squawking around the landscape, exploring chicken coops, hunting for worms and more! Players can now explore Middle-earth from a different – and sometimes unexpected – viewpoint as a chicken, the first of many new playable critters that will be added to the game in the future.

New Reputation and Bartering Systems - Book 10 introduces the Reputation and Bartering systems. The Reputation system enables players to earn positive and negative standing with different races and groups in Middle-earth based on both monster kills and quest completions. The Bartering system allows players to trade trophies earned in battle for rewards such as armor sets or mounts.

Over 100 New Quests - The story continues for players as they aid the Fellowship and encounter new adventures, new dungeons and over a dozen new monsters.

Enhanced User Interface - The game's UI is now customisable. In addition to being able to skin your UI with a unique look, Book 10 will enable players to access sliders in their 'Options' panel to scale the size of individual elements of the UI to their liking.

"We are working very hard to deliver the most content and best experiences to our subscribers and it is extremely satisfying to see such a large number of players embracing the game and joining us in Middle-earth," added Anderson. "We intend to continue our long established reputation of delivering frequent and substantial updates to our players with the release of Book 11 this Autumn which will offer players the opportunity to live in their very own house in Middle-earth!"

To read more about this update, head over to the Book 10 Announcement on LOTRO.com.

Don't forget to visit our Image section to check out all of the Book 10 Screenshots as well!