Santa’s bringing both coal and presents to Lord of the Rings Online players this Christmas.
First, the coal. Long-time Lead Designer Ben “Dr Octothorpe” Schneider announced on Twitter that he is no longer with the studio. “Over the course six (six!) good years at Turbine/SSG I incremented several core attributes and racked up scores of skill points,” Schneider said. “I wish the DDO and LOTRO teams smooth roads ahead and success both short-term and long.”
But the sting of his departure may be soothed by today’s Update 23.1.7. This surprisingly jam-packed patch includes major overhauls to the Beorning and Burglar classes, dynamic text scaling for quest windows, better Angmar gearing, more raid difficulty levels, an additional Angmar playable landscape area, and an essence socket control panel.
If that’s not enough, today also marks the beginning of Yuletide, which comes with new rewards and a pair of new seasonal instances: “In Battle at Frostbluff, players will help the children of Winter-home save their snow forts from a monstrous mountain cold,” the studio posted. “In Boss from the Vaults: Storvâgûn, players will again face the traitorous giant-lord atop the snowy cliffs of Helegrod!”
