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So we learn more information about the upcoming Riders of Rohan release.

The mounts you can do combat on are a bit smarter than one would at first think.  These war steeds can be semi-autonomous so that you don’t need to grow an extra hand to be able to do mounted combat.

Also Turbine announce some bonuses for the pre-purchase packs, such as Turbine Points.

All was revealed on this post.

We’ve gleaned a bit from a few videos as well this episode.

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With the announcement of Riders of Rohan Ellandor and Sparthir talk about what is known at this early stage.

We’ve seen some interesting news around mounted combat and positive feedback from E3.

Here are some useful links to help you also find out more about this announcement.

Official Rohan Site

Turbine’s Announcement

Pre-order FAQ

Questions and Answers by Aaron “Rowan” Campbell

Also in this episode we found out that LotRO is on Valve’s Steam.  Casual Stroll to Mordor blog again has a good article on the news.

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In this shorter episode Ellandor introduces us to the Star-lit Crystal in Lord of the Rings Online.

These rare, hard to get little gems are useful for upgrading your Legendary Items.

The Star-lit Crystals were introduced in update 7 (see patch notes here).  However Champions and Burglars can not apply them to their Legendary tools.  Seems a shame but for now no joy.

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Ellandor and Sparthir continue their marathon recording.

In this episode we discuss Lord of the Rings Online history.

Timeline

• Shadows of Angmar was launched : April 24, 2007
• Mines of Moria was released on November 17, 2008
• Siege of Mirkwood was released on December 1, 2009
• Free to Play was successfully launched in North Aamerica on September 10, 2010 (delayed in Europe to November 2, 2010 [nearly two whole months late!])
• Rise of Isengard was released on September 27, 2011
• European Servers were taken over by Turbine from Codemasters and on June 1 2011 the servers were transferred, with all the data intact to Turbine. After a transition period of a few days the servers reopened under a unified Lotro global service.

If pre-ordered, early players could get a Lifetime subscription, which was again offered during the lead up to the release of Mines of Moria.

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So Ellandor and Sparthir sat down to record a short podcast going over the last 5 years of playing Lord of the Rings Online and it turned into a marathon recording.

In this episode the two of us go over our memories of the game in the early days and how it has changed.

Looking at our first characters, areas we started in and looking at our first experiences compared to how things are today we really go over the broad spectrum of experience in the game.

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In this episode Ellandor and Sparthir talk about how to get Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) running under Linux and Mac OSX.

Useful links:

http://www.winehq.org/
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=23486
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/LOTRO_under_Linux_and_Mac_OS/X

Here are some settings you might like to try for WINE.

Resolution=1280×700   (make sure that the resolution is the same for the window under wine as this is in the UserPreferences.ini file)
Under Wine this can be done with wine config by changing the settings under the Graphics tab.

Under the Regedit Command on Wine make sure to set the video card settings for Direct3D as seen below.

1. The location that this needs to be placed is:  HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/
2. At that point right click on the Wine folder and create a new key and name it Direct3D
3. Now open the Direct3D key you created Right click on the window in the right and select new String.
4. Name the string VideoMemorySize and after that is created double click on the string and put in the amount of video memory that your video card has in Megabytes.

And finally here is an example .ini file for LotRO running under WINE on a 13″ Macbook Pro :

[Misc]
PlayedIntroMovie=True
TooltipEnable=True
TooltipDelay=0.00
[International]
UseIME=False
[Display]
SyncToRefresh=True
AllowWindowResizing=True
FixedOutputScaling=Default
WindowedResolution=1280x700
ConfineFullScreenMouseCursor=True
AllowFakeFullScreen=False
ForceFakeFullScreen=False
FullScreen=True
RefreshRate=Auto
TripleBuffering=False
AllowDesktopCompositing=False
Antialiasing=2x
Resolution=1280x700
[Sound]
AmbientVolume=0.03
SoundVolume=0.03
DMTextVolume=0.08
SoundProvider=OpenAL
CombatVolume=0.03
MaxPlayingSounds=64
MusicVolume=0.01
SoundFeatures=
UIVolume=0.08
EAXEnabled=False
PlayerMusicVolume=0.03
VOVolume=0.08
MasterVolume=0.70
SoundDisabled=False
MusicDisabled=False
PersistentSound=False
[WebBrowser]
HttpsProxyPort=0
HttpProxyPort=0
HttpProxyHost=
InitialConfigDone=True
HttpsProxyHost=
[Render]
MemoryUsage=0.50
ModelDetail=High
EnvironmentStencilShadows=True
OverbrightBloomFilter=False
BlobShadows=True
VideoPostEffects=True
FarLandscapeNormalMaps=True
GraphicsCore=D3D9
Contrast=1.00
SurfaceReflections=Medium
AmbientOcclusion=True
BlurFilterQuality=High
MaterialDetail=High
D3DVersionPromptedForAtStartup=10
DistantImposters=True
AllowGammaChanges=True
InteractiveWater=Medium
GlowMapping=True
AnimationDetail=High
ObjectDrawDistance=High
TextureDetail=High
AtmosphericsDetail=Medium
AnisotropicQuality=4
MultiPassLighting=True
AmbientLightBoost=0.24
MaxHardwareClass=0
Brightness=1.00
BloomIntensity=0.78
LandscapeLightingQuality=Medium
ShadowMapQuality=1
LandscapeStaticObjectShadows=Medium
DisplayAdapter=0
PlayerCrowdQuality=1.00
FrillDistance=High
HavePromptedForD3D10AtStartup=False
EnablePortraits=True
SpecularLighting=True
LandscapeShoreEffects=High
TextureFiltering=Sharp
AlphaToCoverage=False
StencilShadows=Medium
MeshCombining=True
AspectRatio=16x9
LandscapeDrawDistance=High
Gamma=1.07
[Input]
TurnKeySpeed=150.00
InvertMouseLookYAxis=False
MouseLookSensitivity=0.10
JoystickDeadZone=0.25
PitchKeySpeed=60.00
MouseLookSmoothingAmount=0.00
[Voice]
DevicePlayback=
DeviceCapture=
MicVolume=1.00
NetworkLatencyThresh=250
HandsFree=False
MicCaptureThreshold=0.70
VoiceVolume=1.00
[Camera]
AlignToSlope=False
ResetYawWhenPlayerMoves=False
[Net]
BindInterface=
ComputeUniquePort=True
ConnectionSpeed=0.00
UserSpecifiedPort=0
[Troubleshooting]
MaximumFrameRate=121
EngineSpeed=VeryHigh
[HttpProxy]
HttpProxy=
HttpProxyBypass=
HttpProxyAccess=preconfig
HttpProxyAuthenticate=False
HttpProxyUsername=
HttpProxyPassword=
[UI]
FloatyTextScale=0.58
FloatyTextOnTop=False
BankRepositoryCharacterItemDisplayShowText=True
MapQuestListXScreenPercentage=0.00
MapQuestListYScreenPercentage=0.68
BankRepositoryAccountItemDisplayShowText=True
StatTreeShowAllStats=True
[CullSystem]
UseHardwareOcclusion=False

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Braki gives us some of his thoughts on the changes to the Guardian class since Rise of Isengard.  Here are our show notes as well for you to look over.

What has Changed?

1. Damaging shield based skills (shield smash, bash etc) seem to not generate quite as much threat.
2. Cry based skills (fray the edge, shield taunt, litany of defiance) generate massive amounts of threat, especially when using trait ‘Shield of Fire.’.
3. Unlike wardens even when DPS traited you can hold aggro fairly well and still take a massive amount of damage.  Especially useful in the moors.
4. Damage reduction has reached truly amazing levels, rendering Block/Parry/Evade almost unnecessary.
5. The need for a completely different set of armour/traits for DPS Vs. Tanking.
6. Whirling retaliation now first response on a parry resulting in it becoming a mass threat generator.
7. Block stance now comes with a 30% slow if a target doesn’t hit you for 5 seconds.

What has Not Changed?

1. General ability to take damage is very high.
2. Still able to solo very strong NPC’s.
3. Block still stays at cap/very close to cap.

How do you set up for Tanking?

1. Vitality, Vitality, and more Vitality. Before ROI I would of looked at that last statement and completely laughed at it, but seeing how vitality contributes huge amounts to tactical mitigation (all damage types but common) it has become the only way to gear.
2. The new system of damage with finesse means that Block/Parry/Evade is not as important. although the cap is raised finesse will still reduce it. the name of the game for guardians is damage reduction.  Where other classes will be hit for 8-9k you will be hit for 4.
3. As far as traits go I tend to get as much resistance and tactical mitigation rating first, then physical mitigation next. even melee attacks that are not common count as tactical so physical is far less important.  With fear/poison/wound/disease all being covered under the same rating it gives a huge reason to stack on resistance traits.

How do you set up for DPS?

1. I have had a really difficult time setting up for DPS so far. Hopefully the next update there will be more options for Guards as far as gear goes. The idea is to get as much might as possible without sacrificing too much Vitality.  Even when in DPS mode you don’t want to give up the primary strength of a Guard.
2. The majority of stuff at the moment you can get for DPS will be either crafted or instance drops.  Luckily the other heavy armour classes get plenty of what they need in their set pieces so the drops will very often be going to you.  I strongly recommend going to the moors to get the set of rings for Guards, its very effective for both DPS and tanking and only needs rank 4 to get.
3. Of all the guardian keen blade traits the one I will never use is raw power.  It reads nicely but there has been a massive drop in relative DPS for Guards and the extra power cost is just not effective.
4. One I will never go without is blocking force, paired with controlled breathing.  Basically an extra way to regain a good chunk of power, which will become a major problem in longer fights.
5. Because of the change to Whirling Retaliation you have to be extra careful with pulling threat off the main tank.
6. Stagger already generates a huge amount of positional damage and threat which can become problematic, not necessarily for you, but if a boss turns to hit you it will also hit the group a lot of the time, which can really hurt.

Braki gives us some of his thoughts on the changes to the Guardian class since Rise of Isengard.