This is a continued post about the updates to Lord Of The Rings Online since today. Click here for Part 1.
On August 20th, 2007 the second free content update was added called “The City Of The Kings” which features book 10. Watch the trailer here.
The book 10 quests start in Evendim and occurs mainly in Annuminas. I haven’t started on this book but the quests look challenging and interesting. Annuminas has plenty of hard enemies and instances for the higher level players. Other quests have been added throughout the world for all levels. This new update also changed the user interface. Players can resize the controls and icons to fit better on their screens. Some of the classes got more skills like the captain and hunter. This update seems like it gave some needed stuff for the higher levels but not enough to satisfy some.
Players can now play as a chicken in a separate session. You have different quests to do and you can gain a new cape and some destiny points. As a chicken you can walk among the other players but you can’t attack or talk to them. A chicken starts at level 1 and can not gain any experience. This is actually a fun little side part of the game and I hope they expand on this idea for the future. Trying to run in places where wolves and bears try to kill you is hard! At least a chicken can evade and run really fast to get away.
Reputations have now been added to the game which allow players to gain some nice rewards. A player can do quests for a particular group to gain points. These points will gain favors and rewards which can be bought or traded. The amount of stuff you need to collect is a lot and becomes a big grind to get more reputation. I find the hobbit reputation the hardest due to very rare drops. More vault space for your items have now been added for a price at certain levels. This was a needed addition but they still need to add more bag space either from crafting or buying them. With all these quests, players need more space to hold items.
Crafting has also been updated with jewelers making earrings and bracelets. I hear that jewelers are making lot of money from these new recipes by selling stuff at the auctions. Scholars can now track their resources which was was very much needed. So this update gave some nice stuff for crafting including plenty of new recipes to find.
Monster play had plenty of changes implemented. All the keeps can now have defenses like boiling oil. This could have been a great idea but in my experience it isn’t working as it should. It kills too many people all at once when it should at least slow the attackers down. The creeps had some of their damage increased and health increased. It actually makes ranked creeps a bit better at fighting freeps. The biggest change is that they allowed players to play as a troll and a ranger. Now this could have been great for some great battles but the trolls seem like they are just too powerful. The trolls have massive AOE attacks which scatter the players. The rangers on the freep side can stealth and kill creeps with one shot. The rangers can be handled if they have no backup. The trolls can be taken down easily with a really good group of players. Before this patch the freeps could easily take the map when they wanted to. Now they can only take keeps with good tactics and less creeps around. This patch needs to be fixed so it becomes a bit more balanced for monster play.
In my opinion this update introduced more bugs and less needed content. Some of these bugs were awful and easily should have been seen on the test server. Having a whole building disappear with lower graphics on is one example. The game is still fun and the higher levels have some new content but I am hearing that they are getting bored. I have paced myself and don’t have plans of getting to level 50 any time soon. So for me this game is still entertaining enough for me to continue playing. The next update might happen in October or november. I’m hoping they will add more quests for us solo players and better stuff for the players at level 50. They better fix monster play or this part of the game might not entertain players anymore. I give this update a 6 out of 10. The bugs and poor planning with pvp really brought me down. The next update looks promising with player housing! Fun Fun!
