River-hobbits are back on the menu in Lord of the Rings Online, as the much-anticipated new racial variant was put on the test server this week for the first time. Reactions to the race are mixed, with some appreciating the new looks and others docking it for a lack of a specific introduction and an appearance that looks more human than hobbit.
As for the introduction, SSG addressed it by saying, “The Before the Shadow introduction was specially-designed to support the addition of River-hobbits, since one of their primary defining traits is that they’re not from the Shire: you’ve arrived in Mossward from ‘elsewhere’ and get involved in an unfolding adventure that takes place far from lands with which the Shire-hobbits are familiar. There’s still a lot of work to update quests that assume you know what the Shire is all about, and some special River-hobbit text throughout the entire game, but that’s the plan.”
River-hobbits are more flexible than traditional Hobbits in terms of class choice, as they can pick any class (including Rune-keeper and Captain) other than Beorning. As one player noted on Twitter, the race comes with a handful of new hairstyles despite the concept art featuring many more:
These 4 are entirely new hairstyles for River hobbits + the styles that had been added to the Race of Man AND the old short straight hair & ponytail options have seen an update that makes them look a lot better too!#lotro #lotrocosmetics pic.twitter.com/7eGVKCpXwS
— Laurelinarien🎻 (@MinstrelbyNight) July 26, 2023
In addition to River-hobbits, this round of testing includes the new Lyndelby premium housing neighborhood, the revised LOTRO storefront, and a reversion of the recent stat squish. Of the latter, the studio said that it yanked part of the stat squish for more work. “[We’ve] reverted most of the mainstat changes as we’re not going to be able to do proper itemization support for them in the short term,” the devs said.
