Here’s hoping that all you Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online players have alternate sources of entertainment today because pretty much none of you will be dipping into these fantasy MMOs all Wednesday. This is due to Standing Stone Games taking both titles offline for 23 hours to roll out the new-and-improved storefronts.
When LOTRO comes back up, it’ll also return with Update 36.2. This patch will mostly be laying the foundation for the upcoming Legendary Items reward track season 7 (August 16th) and the Farmer’s Faire (August 17th), the latter of which will include new rewards such as “Blazing Firmament character cosmetics, steed, and war-steed cosmetics, a Blazing Firmament Centrepiece housing decoration, and a Fire-fox Bandit cosmetic pet.” The update also increases the storage limit of the essence and tracery carry-alls.
In other LOTRO news, the studio heard fans clamoring for a separate River-hobbit starting instance, and thus developer Jeff Libby worked to create one:
“I think the years of interest in playable River-hobbits made us overestimate how much players would want to come up with their own backstories for their new Hobbits. As a result, the plan had been for River-hobbits to arrive at Mossward with their histories a blank slate — you could decide for yourself what brought you to Mossward and the adventuring life. Turns out that was unpopular! So I burned some midnight oil and made a new introduction for River-hobbits. You can still get the original vision for River-hobbits by selecting ‘Before the Shadow’ at character creation, and you’ll play through ‘Mossward, the Border Village.’ Otherwise, by default (or by choosing ‘Shadows of Angmar’), your new River-hobbit will play through my new introduction ‘Humble Beginnings,’ which provides you with some more backstory and explains how you came to be at Mossward.”
