Today Turbine has announced new Developer Diary: Volume III: Book 1 Skill Upgrades by Brian "Zombie Columbus"

The goals for this project were:

1. Enhance underused skills.
2. Give bonuses that are exciting.
3. Don’t greatly alter relative class balance.

Burglar: Mischievous Delight replaces Mischievous Glee and gains a 20% chance to add a Power over time restoration in addition to the heal over time. All buffs that increase Mischievous Glee’s healing, will also increase the Power restoration!

Captain: Watchful Shield-brother replaces Shield-brother and gains a buff to morale and power regen. The skill now provides a moderate amount of in-combat morale and power regeneration. This buff is not massive, as it is on a maintenance free toggle skill, and will assist with both healing and power costs on a lucky fellowship member!

Champion: True Heroics replaces Heroics and gains a self-buff based on your active stance. In Book 1, True Heroics will also grant the Champion 30 second self buffs, based on the stance they are in.

• Fervour - +30% incoming healing
• Glory - +15% melee damage
• Ardour - +60% to in-combat Power regeneration

PS: Using this skill with no stance will give no buff. So don’t do that

Guardian: Warrior's Fortitude replaces Warriors Heart and gains a self-buff based on your stance

• Block – Increase block and partial block by 1% each (not rating, a flat increase that will stack with everything!)
• Parry – Increase parry and partial parry by 1% each
• Threat – 2% decreased incoming damage from all sources
• Overpower – Increase melee critical by 2%

Hunter: Beneath Care replaces Beneath Notice. The power cost of the skill has been removed and now restores power over time.

Lore-master: Continual Air-Lore replaces Air-lore. This skill is now a toggle skill with a power upkeep cost. For the level 64 version of the skill, Turbine removed the need to remember to re-apply the buff by making it a toggle. To keep the skill balanced, an upkeep cost was added which is lower than the power cost of re-applying the skill once every minute.

Minstrel: Lyric of the Hammerhand replaces Lay of the Hammerhand and will now negate all induction knockback. Note this does not prevent interruption effects. Remember that Lay has a long cooldown, drains a lot of power to keep active, drains even more power when you are hit and is turned off if you are stunned.

Rune-keeper: Armaments of “Element” replaces Weapon of “Element” and adds a bonus to tactical and ranged damage. You can now choose to spend some power on upkeep to gain a bonus in tactical damage.

Warden: Unerring Strike is a new 5 Spear gambit that is difficult to block, parry or evade and leaves a damage over time effect that stacks with other Spear gambits. This skill is very much an upgraded version of Mighty Blow. It has the same Gambit requirements, with one more spear on the end to make it 5 (Spear, Shield, Fist, Spear, Shield). It bypasses enemy avoidances, and leaves a common damage DoT on the foe. This damage over time effect will stack with the other two spear-based DoT’s, Mighty Blow and Power Attack, to help fulfill all your DoT stacking desires!

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From February 2nd through February 23rd Mirkwood players can invite friends to a fellowship and play in four different Skirmishes exclusive to the Siege of Mirkwood Expansion, even if they haven't upgraded to Mirkwood yet.  Play as many...Click here to read full

From February 2nd through February 23rd Mirkwood players can invite friends to a fellowship and play in four different Skirmishes exclusive to the Siege of Mirkwood Expansion, even if they haven't upgraded to Mirkwood yet.  Play as many times as you want!

Haven't upgraded to Mirkwood? Get ready for the war! Any Mirkwood player you meet in game can invite you to participate in four Skirmishes:

• Survival – Barrow-downs
  
• Thievery and Mischief
  
• Defence of The Prancing Pony
  
• Ford of Bruinen

A few days ago Zombie Columbus wrote a Mini Diary about Skirmish changes and fixes with latest Patch 1. Item wear on defeat has been reduced while inside Skirmishes. While individual results may vary, we feel overall Skirmishes are...Click here to read full

A few days ago Zombie Columbus wrote a Mini Diary about Skirmish changes and fixes with latest Patch 1.

• Item wear on defeat has been reduced while inside Skirmishes.

While individual results may vary, we feel overall Skirmishes are providing a reasonable amount of rewards. As jwb has implied, we will be making more adjustments in Book 1, mainly focused on Tier and group size. For patch 1, we wanted to take the step of reducing the amount of gold lost when getting defeated in a Skirmish. We believe this will not change the high end amount of gold players can achieve, but will raise the average. If in the past, high item wear kept you out of Skirmishes, now is a good time to try again!

• The monster kill XP buff inside Skirmishes now has a buff icon associated with it. The Skirmish Monster Kill XP buff will remain in effect until the release of Volume 3 Book 1.

Monster kills in Skirmishes have always granted 25% more XP then landscape. We put this buff in place because we were concerned that questing would be too lucrative relative to Skirmishes. In retrospect, this 25% bonus was not needed, and has helped make Skirmishes a bit too efficient vs. other gameplay styles. To combat this, we changed the XP bonus to be a visable buff, the "Skirmish Boon." This buff will be in place until Book 1, when it will be removed. It will come back from time to time during promotional events.

• Herbalist and Bannerguard healing will no longer be reduced by armour.

As was pointed out, and confirmed, Soldier healing was being treated as "negative damage". This led heavy armour wearing classes to gaining less healing then light armour classes. The bug has been globally fixed, and should greatly benefit heavy classes who pair with a Herbalist or Bannerguard.

Besides that, I just want to re-iterate that we have been working or tails off to cram lots of goodness into Book 1, and I can't wait for the dev diary on it to drop. The Skirmish system is here to stay, and we will be updating and adapting it based on player experiences.

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Codemasters Online and Turbine Inc. today announced details of the next free content update for subscribers to The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood. The War continues to rage in the North and your skill and bravery is still needed...Click here to read full

Codemasters Online and Turbine Inc. today announced details of the next free content update for subscribers to The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood.

The War continues to rage in the North and your skill and bravery is still needed in Mirkwood. Return to Dol Guldur and fight in four Skirmishes with new 12-person mode in the shadow of the Necromancer’s Tower:

• Breaching the Necromancer’s Gate, at the Necromancer’s Gate, a powerful Olog-Hai thinks he’s king of the hill, and your force must prove him wrong. 
• Assault on the Ringwraiths’ Lair, before the Gate of the Ringwraith’s Lair, creatures of nightmare seek to lay a deadly trap.
  
• Protectors of Thangulhad, man the catapults! A powerful force seeks to capture the outpost at Thangulhad, and you must drive them back into the darkness.
  
• Strike Against Dannenglor, in the dungeons of Dannenglor, captured elves face torment and destruction, unless you can rescue them from the Enemy!
  

Plus, fire and madness waits in the Depths of Nurz Ghashu, an additional new Skirmish where you must rescue a brave fighter from flame and shadow. To help you meet the dangers ahead, you can now craft items up to level 65.

In this deadly new Skirmish, you must brave flame and madness to rescue a Ranger of the North who has been called to aid his future King. The Rift of Nurz Ghashu, otherwise known as just The Rift is a twelve-man raid found in northeast Angmar and was designed for level 50 characters.

New level 65 recipes and crafting updates:

• Make your own power with new Level 65 recipes and updates to crafting abilities.
• New icons and updated stats for all Jeweler recipes
• New recipes and more powerful products for Cooks
• New class items for Weaponsmiths and Woodworkers
• New crop recipes for Artisan, Master, and Superior Farmers

Volume 3: Allies Of The King, Book 1: Oath Of The Rangers will be available to subscribers of The Lord of the Rings Online soon.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions about new Skirmish System you can share them with the Lotro Community Team.  The questions are: Question 1: If you could make 3 changes to the Skirmish System, what would they be? Question 2: If...Click here to read full

If you have any thoughts or suggestions about new Skirmish System you can share them with the Lotro Community Team.  The questions are:

Question 1:
If you could make 3 changes to the Skirmish System, what would they be?

Question 2:
If you could add a new Skirmish to the game, what existing area or instance would you base it on?

Question 3:
We'd like to know what you would ask. If you could pick the questions for the Tell the Community Team, what would you ask?

Remember, tell the community team questions are questions Turbine asks the community to gather feedback about the game. Not questions you’d ask the Dev Team.

If you want to join the discussion click here for US players, and EU players can post their answers here.

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Tuesday, January 26 from 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) for a server side hotfix to address the Barad Guldur Gate Issue. Players who enter the Barad Guldur raid instance with a previously...Click here to read full

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Tuesday, January 26 from 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) for a server side hotfix to address the Barad Guldur Gate Issue.

Players who enter the Barad Guldur raid instance with a previously obtained raid lock may encounter an issue where, upon a group death, the gates earlier in the instance no longer lower. This will prevent the group from returning to their previous point of progression and continuing.

The recommended work around is for players to exit the instance, disband and reform the raid under a new raid leader. This will reset the instance and lower the gates. However, any ‘trash’ mobs prior to the next boss fight will respawn as a result of resetting the instance.

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Today, Turbine has announced new Welcome Back to LOTRO Weekend from January 21st through January 25th. We’re inviting all former LOTRO subscribers to play for free* from January 21st through January 25th! Jump back in and play one of your...Click here to read full

Today, Turbine has announced new Welcome Back to LOTRO Weekend from January 21st through January 25th.

We’re inviting all former LOTRO subscribers to play for free* from January 21st through January 25th! Jump back in and play one of your old characters, or start a new one. Plus, to help celebrate, you’ll get a +5% XP*** boost for all mob (monster) kills and free travel at all Stable-masters!

That’s right – we did it again! Come celebrate with us for free* during our Welcome Back Weekend from January 21st through January 25th and see why critics are naming The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ the Best Expansion of 2009.

Discover for yourself all of the exciting new updates to LOTRO including the new Skirmish System - action in Middle-earth has never been so intense! The Skirmish System offers endless action on demand for 1, 3, 6, or 12 players. With the Skirmish Join feature, you and your friends can instantly travel to the fight from anywhere in Middle-earth**. Plus, you can lead your own customizable soldier into battle for more thrilling adventure than ever before!

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Due to an increase in the reports of compromised LOTRO accounts and hacked accounts in other games, Turbine strongly encourages all players to change their passwords immediately. To help reduce the likelihood of having your account compromised...Click here to read full

Due to an increase in the reports of compromised LOTRO accounts and hacked accounts in other games, Turbine strongly encourages all players to change their passwords immediately.

To help reduce the likelihood of having your account compromised Turbine suggests players create a different username and password for each site they visit and each game they play. To change your password, please visit http://myaccount.turbine.com

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Do you remember the Hobo's Guide to Money-Making? This is one of best guides I've ever read, which helped me to get enough gold for me and my alts. Today I've found an interesting discussion about a "secret" way to make money in this...Click here to read full

Do you remember the Hobo's Guide to Money-Making? This is one of best guides I've ever read, which helped me to get enough gold for me and my alts. Today I've found an interesting discussion about a "secret" way to make money in this game.

These are some secret ideas:

• Kill Undead and Trolls of Lonelands.Trolls drop 3-6s and w/e stuff. Take about 30-50mins to get 700s-1G. Undead can go better, but you'll fill bags up faster.
• Bandits in Evendim is nother of mine, lots of items and quick trip there with 3-4 empty bags get you 600-800 silver for under hour work.
• Grind green mobs for cash (and finish deeds as a bonus)
• Any time anything new is added it sells for many times more than it will a few weeks later. Sell high, buy it back low.
• Sell Symbols of Celebrimbor
• Learned how to use the AH efficiently
• Sold NPC vendor buyable outfits for inflated prices
• Once mobs become grey in a certain gathering area, it becomes much easier to farm resources
• Hit level cap and then quest. When you can't earn XP, you get extra silver for the reward

These are all really good ideas, but man do they sound like a lot of work. Here's my trick:

1) Target self.
2) /coin add 99999999
3) Profit.

Oh... you guys don't have admin clients? Well isn't that a shame.

Raskolnikov

Codemasters Online invites you to Login to Win in fantastic Festive LOTRO Giveaway competition sponsored by Alienware. All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is: Successfully answer one quick question Login to the...Click here to read full

Codemasters Online invites you to Login to Win in fantastic Festive LOTRO Giveaway competition sponsored by Alienware. All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is:

1. Successfully answer one quick question
   
2. Login to the game between 23rd - 30th December, 2009

Prizes
The fantastic prizes on offer include:

• Alienware PCs (laptops)
  
• nVidia 8800GT graphics cards
  
• Siege of Mirkwood hoodies
  
• Logitech keyboards and headsets
  
• Siege of Mirkwood Special Editions

and much, much more!

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