Welcome Back to the Lone-lands

Foreword

In Siege of Mirkwood™, I continued with a re-vamp of early game content in what has become a personal crusade for yours truly to improve player experience from beginning to end. For this milestone, I returned to an area in which I am well versed; I started here when I made my way onto the LOTRO team many years back. Here I am again…the Lone-lands.

 Epic Story

The Epic storyline is getting spruced up as a result of the changes to the Lone-lands. There has always seemed to be a disconnect between Books 1 and 2 of Volume 1. There are roughly 15 levels worth of disconnect, as finishing Volume 1 Book 1 starts you on a quest far above your level. Further, you are told to go to a location far, far away from the Prancing Pony and through what used to be treacherous territory. The disparity in level has always been difficult for players to handle and it’s one of the first issues we decided to rectify with the Lone-lands update.

With the release of Siege of Mirkwood, all players following the Epic storyline will find that Gandalf now sends them to Saeradan to enlist the aid of the Rangers, to assist with finding another of Gandalf’s order. After making their way to Saeradan, players will find that he will now offer them a free ride to Candaith’s camp in the shadow of Weathertop. Be careful and watch out for any folk in need of assistance on the ride to Candaith! Once at his camp, players follow Candaith’s tale through the battle at the peak of Weathertop and learn of a new faction within the Lone-lands, the Eglain. (This is discussed further in the diary.)

To ensure that we continue forward with the same practices that we attempted to utilize in the Bree-land revamp, there will now be two versions of Weathertop. There is the group version, which remains unchanged, and a new solo version that will enable players to assail the great hill alone against the forces of the White Hand.

The Eglain

Living in the harsh clime of the Lone-lands, the Eglain are an untrusting people. This was evident in the initial storyline, as the brothers Gadaric and Hunulf were quick to set players to tasks before allowing them to know the location of their home at Ost Guruth. While revamping the Lone-lands, we took the opportunity to introduce a new concept and direction for the faction system. This direction highlights changes that we hope to incorporate throughout the game at some point in the future.

All quests that have an impact on the Eglain will reward the player with Eglain faction. Any players who have previously completed quests that are being retrofitted with Eglain faction will have the appropriate faction added to their character upon logging into the game once Siege of Mirkwood is released.  In addition, there are several new quests that will feed into this new reputation. The goal is to provide players following the natural course of questing in the Lone-lands the ability to obtain Eglain ranks without putting in too much extra effort. There are, of course, some bits of assistance that should help.

In addition to being part of the requirement to continue the Epic storyline, there are other incentives added to the equation. Once players achieve acquaintance status they will be able to purchase quests from a faction vendor in Ost Guruth. These quests directly relate to a vocation and can be completed as often as the player desires. The rewards are a small bit of coin and an increase in faction with the Eglain. The items the Eglain desire are already craftable by those vocations. You won’t need to learn new recipes for these items. These quests can be completed as often as the player wants and will not diminish the amount of faction received at any point. At Friend standing, players gain access to a pocket item unique to their class that is of rare quality and requires level 32 to wield. At Ally, they have access to the first part of a special jewelry set created with the healer, tank and damage dealer in mind. At Kindred, they can purchase the second piece of the jewelry set.

The number of quests prior to Agamaur, including the Epic Story, should allow players to progress to the Friendly tier of Faction without much trouble at all. Vocation quests can be used to attain the next tier or players can use the newly revamped instances of Garth Agarwen as a way to earn faction with the Eglain.