Learning LOTRO: Lesson Forty-Eight - Class Poll Discussed

 

In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.

In February of 2020, I decided I needed to infuse some Lord of the Rings Online content into my blog because it's been my primary MMO for 8 years and there isn't a game I know better. Since the endgame content, raids, trait trees, and annual events all had plenty of coverage, I thought it would be good to get back to basics for the ever-present crop of new players that give the game a try and are left to fend for themselves in a sea of information. I put out a poll asking people to rank their favorite to least favorite classes and said I would cover them in whatever order resulted. As I'm wrapping up a full year of Learning LOTRO, I thought it was a good time to finally discuss those poll results and how it helped to shape the series.

Learning LOTRO: Lesson Eleven - Hunter Class Quests

In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.

It's time for us to check back in with our first character, the elven hunter Glasbren. Our girl has grown up a bit and has had to face Hunter-specific Class Quests. These quests rely on the unique talents of the Hunter Class and put every Hunter to the test!

Learning LOTRO: Lesson Four - The Hunter Class

In this new series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.

Back in February, I sent out a poll asking LOTRO players to rank the classes from their favorite to least favorite. Not surprisingly to me, the #1 favorite class of the bunch turned out to be the Hunter class with 28.1% of the vote. Not long after I closed the poll results, I created a new baby Hunter and named her Glasbren, which means "sapling" in Welsh.

The following is a basic summary of the creation process and some of the things you'll encounter when you start out in LOTRO with a Hunter.

LOTRO Executive Producer Letter: Classes, Festivals, Dwarves, and a Spider

Today's letter from Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini (aka Severlin) left me with some mixed feelings, but overall pretty excited!

Classes

If you play LOTRO and keep up with the notes for Bullroarer, then you've likely already seen some of the initial plans for tweaking classes. I am generally not happy about the proposed changes to Hunter and Lore-master, and admittedly don't play enough of other classes to weigh in on them -- but some people are happy and others are not. I just hope all the people who can actually access Bullroarer and give quality feedback will do so! The good news about this process is that they plan to stagger it and work in gradual phases instead of massive, sweeping changes across the board all at the same time.

Update 23

This part doesn't really get me excited because I haven't even made it to Mordor yet, but it still sounds very awesome! The Lonely Mountain, the Iron Hills, and the Grey Mountains will get the dwarf fanatics pumped up -- and the instance cluster, promise of a new raid later in the year, and level cap increase to 120 will take care of everyone else.

Minas Morgul & Shelob

I am sad this has been pushed off to 2019, but also kind of happy they want to devote more time and size to it. Anyone who's played Shadow of War but is also a LOTRO player is probably twitchy with anticipation of this part of the game.

Festivals

I'm intrigued by the Seasonal Instances that will accompany the Summer Festival. It reminds me of the special raids in RIFT during the Anniversary event, as well as Instant Adventures. I just hope SSG does it right (so far, their track record is pretty good). The fact that they mention the instances being able to be done solo is a plus in my book. Group content in the game is plentiful (especially with Mordor, I hear), so giving some love to the solo/duo players is great to see.

Tidbits

• The ability to see sheathed musical instruments? I'm on the fence here. I hope they make the visibility optional, or set it up with cosmetic options the way they have standard weapons. Not all instruments look good dangling from your back or waist!
  
• Harvestmath additions? I hope this isn't just talking about the continuation of the Bingo Boffin quest they started last fall. That was great, and I look forward to the next leg of it, but something new that can be done every day of the festival would be great!
  
• And all I can say about tying off loose ends in North Rhovanion, including Gundabad...