Hi all, Ransroth here! I’m a Game Systems Engineer working on LOTRO and today I’m here to tell you about the changes that are coming to a vault near you when Volume III, Book 2 launches!

Before this release, there was quite a bit of dissatisfaction internally with the existing bank. Managing items within it required a lot of hovering over them to see the tooltips, and finding a particular item was very difficult. Additionally, it wasn’t feasible to increase the capacity for the users, which we knew was something we wanted to do.

So, for Volume III Book 2 we decided to convert the bank to the same system the current Shared Account Storage uses. Let me briefly go over the key features of the Shared Account Storage, which have been incorporated wholesale into the new vault.

Dynamic Filtering

Each item in the vault has an item class associated with it. As we load in the items, we collect all these classes into a dropdown menu which allows you to then restrict your view to only items matching the particular class. For example, you can select “Legendary Item XP”, and immediately see all the IXP Runes stored in the vault, or select “Craft: Component”, and see all the crafting components. As part of the Volume 3 Book 2 update, we have reworked a lot of the item classes to make the names make more sense.

Sorting

You are able to select the sort method for the items in the vault. You can sort your items alphabetically, or in reverse alphabetic order. With the new vault, we will also introduce a new sorting method: “Chest,” described below.

Automatic Stack Merges

When adding a stackable item to the vault, that item will automatically combine with an existing stack if there is one. For example, if you have 40 Sturdy Hides already in the vault, and you come back with 20 more, you don’t have to hunt for the stack. You can just drag in the 20 Sturdy Hides and find a new shiny stack of 60 Sturdy Hides waiting for you.

One of the improvements in the new vault is that you can now do this even if your vault is full.