So I’m a little late, but a busy weekend with Thanksgiving, holiday decorating, and recovery taking up a bunch of my time. A bunch of folks have already covered this, but I wanted to do a quick recap and summary of what’s coming. For me, this is a very welcome revamp as not only was the Lone Lands a horrible travel zone but there were some ugly jumps in the Epic line that made it tough to follow. As a whole, the main areas of focus on the revamp were smoothing out the travel issues, polishing and evening out the epic line, and making the area still challenging but more solo/small fellowship friendly. I think my favorite part is the change to Weathertop as that was a really fun instance but I’m sure many missed out as they couldn’t find groups. Now to some of the specifics.
First, for the epic line:
- moving Book 2 earlier in levels such that it flows better with Book 1
- there’s now a travel route from Gandalf to the Ranger Candaith
- Candaith has some quests for you before heading to Weathertop which can either be a solo or group instance.
- After finishing there, you’re sent to the Forsaken Inn to continue the book which is pretty much unchanged from there until Angamaur
The new faction line, the Eglain:
- retroactive such that higher level toons will get credit for quests done
- reputation will be required to finish Epic quests
- At Acquaintance you get a crafting quest which will reward a small bit of coin and an increase in faction with the Eglain.
- 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.
- By doing normal content, you should get you to friend without stepping foot inside of Angamaur
Instances in general:
- challenge mode – “new hard mode” requirements for this will show in quest log and reward more coin, reputation, and possibly barter coins. These are daily quests.
- There are also optional encounters which are similar to challenge but usually only reward more coins and reputation, also daily.
Garth Agarwen revamp
- NPCs to barter for items including hope tokens using the barter token drops
- They broke the original GA into 3 sections, so if you’ve done GA before you should have a feel for which areas are which
- Arboretum – The Arboretum boasts one alternate boss creature, four optional objectives, and one challenge against Grimbark. Instance is designed for 4 players and should take between 15 and 40 minutes.
- Barrows – Another “4-man” instance which contains Ivar, another boss, and 4 optional encounters which is expected to take between 35 and 45 minutes.
- Fortress – 6 man instance with boss fights against Edan and Esyld, Vatar, Dúnlang, and of course The Red-maid, Naruhe. Challenge modes in the space include a survival battle against the Créoth leader Dúnlang, who has captured some Eglain and is attempting to convert them to the service of the Red-maid, and the Red-maid herself. Expected to take 40-50 minutes.
There also was a general revamp of the zones themselves as they have been broken out into 5 sub-zones, or quest hubs:
- Forsaken Inn changed a bit with some of the NPCs moved
- Central lone-lands hub near Minas Eriol with Hunulf Much and the old mugwort now there instead of the Forsaken Inn. The goblins and spiders in the area have dropped in difficulty meaning they’re now normals or signatures instead of elites. Refr Quicksilver stands near a new public instance with some new quests
- Eastern lone-lands – still centered around Ost Guruth, but also some new NPCs in the ruins of Dol Vaeg
- Southern bog – trolls down there are now signature mobs with Eglain just south of OG still sending you down that direction. Also, 3 new bounty quests from the ruins in the SW area of this zone
- Agamaur – dropped mobs to signatures, more solo friendly. There’s still a group zone but that’s now in GA proper.
Check out the full post on LOTRO.com.