SoM Siege of Mirkwood information repository

[Overlord2]

LAUNCH DATE: 1st OF DECEMBER

- Official LOTRO the Siege of Mirkwood site -

4th September
- First article about the Siege of Mirkwood
5th September:
- Tenton Hammer Siege Of Mirkwood video pre-view
- Tenton Hammer Siege Of Mirkwood video pre-view part 1 - Youtube
- Tenton Hammer Siege Of Mirkwood video pre-view part 2 - Youtube
- Youtube video, showing some more of Mirkwood ingame.
9th September
-Interview by Massively
Lothlorien Revamp
29th September
Skirmishes dev diary part 1.
Shared Storage (Adventure Pack Only)
Mounts 2.0



The TenTonHammer link is fixed and is 22 minutes now.

Feature list with dev-posts, interviews etc. as sources below.



Summary of the Mirkwood features: (ALL credits for this go to Sandriell, - Orginal Post - - Ill use this as template and update when we find more information)

* Siege of Mirkwood will have a base price of $19.99. As with Moria last year, we're going to have a set of early upgrade offers that are very compelling. We're not quite ready to unveil those details yet, but we'll keep you posted.
* The epic story continues on in Volume 3 as a regular content update early next year. Sounds like a standard free book update, but hasnt been confirmed.
* Some of the improvements to the game coming with Mirkwood will benefit everyone, but the key features will require the Mirkwood upgrade.
* Skirmishes are PvE, and should not be directly competing with PvMP.
* Skirmishes are not session play.
* The new raid is not a one-boss raid.
* 100+ hours of new content
* Level cap increased to level 65 with access to new traits, virtues, skills and class quests
* Legendary items will now be maxed at level 60- no word on if this includes existing legendaries or only new ones.
* Legendary items will gain a 4th runic slot which are craft-able only, new legacies and new titles.
* Skirmishes reward experience-points, complimenting the level up experience, and can be accessed as low as level 30.
* You can name your horse.
* Whole new reputation faction for the Elves of Mirkwood.
* Dol Guldur, the place where Sauron was a Necromancer 'back in the day' and Gollum was tortured, as a huge vertical instance. After battling their way up this Moria-tech built behemoth of a fortress, players eventually fight a Nazgul placed there by Sauron, who's riding his felbeast.

.

[Overlord2]

What are Skirmishes, and how will they work?

The Skirmish system will allow all players - raiders, casuals, mid-level, high-level -- access to the same content.

Twelve new Skirmish instances will be available in addition to a pair of tutorial instances designed to introduce players to the system. Each of these instances is scalable based on the number of players; they each accept one, three, six, or twelve players at a time, with the deficit made up for by player-created NPC soldiers- to make a grand total of 24. Additionally, many of the instances are scalable by level; for instance, one skirmish which features an assault upon and defense of Weathertop will accept players from level 30 to 65. Each instance has nine optional challenges, each of which awards skirmish points -- more on those in a moment. These challenges are randomized, as are the enemies inside the instance (within certain logical limits, of course), so you will not likely have the same experience twice.

For example, Jeffrey Steefel demoed the opening of one of these Skirmishes in which a number of NPCs have been locked within the Prancing Pony, and Sharkey's men are threatening to burn it down. Your job is to defend the Bree-town landmark. The Pony itself has hit points during this Skirmish, and you are awarded Skirmish points based upon how well you defend the Pony. Let the building's hit points fall to zero and you fail your primary objective.

Now, Skirmish points: These are your rewards for completing your challenges -- primary and optional -- in each instance. They can be used to customize and advance your soldiers. Soldiers are quite customizable: You can assign them traits, just like a player character, and you can alter their cosmetic appearance.

You can enter a Skirmish from anywhere in the game world, as can your friends from their own locations in the game world. When you're done with the Skirmish -- each of them is designed to last thirty to forty minutes -- you will be transported back to your prior location in the world. [source]

Each player has 1 Soldier. A group of 12 doing an instance would have 12 Soldiers total. Bringing this upto 24-characters on screen. So the player group would be leading the equivalent of a second raid group in the 12 mans. Though each player would only have control of their own soldier. And yes, you can still use any pets/banners you would normally have in addition to your soldier. [source]

Skirmishes reward experience-points, complimenting the level up experience, and can be accessed as low as level 30. [source]

Skirmishes are PvE, and should not be directly competing with PvMP. [source]

Skirmishes are not session play. [source]

What is "Enhanced Combat Responsiveness"?

Here is a quick explanation from Floon:

Autoattacks will not delay firing a skill. What this does mean is that animation have a chance to preempt autoattack animations in such a way as to produce a pop in the anim transition that isn't there right now. [source1][source2]

What is "World Join"?

Zombie Columbus goes in to details about what it is, and what it will actually be called:

World-join is a bit of a misnomer. The name of that part of the overall Skirmish system is likely being changed to the more informative "Skirmish-join." Remember the way half the community calls Fellowship Maneouvers Conjunctions because that's what it was in beta? This is one of those situations.

Well, what IS Skirmish-join? There will be a dev diary on it (I'm working on it now) but the short version is it will be how players can enter the new Skirmish spaces. It's a UI that will allow players to select the group size, level, and difficulty of a Skirmish, and then be instantly transported to the Skirmish. Emphasis on "Skirmish", the system does not, as of now, interact with Instances, PvMP, Battle Instances or anything else.

The UI can be seen in the Tentonhammer video. The UI tracks everything, from group sizes to the amount of times you won a skirmish. Or to how many optional targets you have completed.
[source]

Epic Book 9 and beyond:

Under the command of Celeborn and Galadriel, players will fight through vast armies of Orcs alongside the Elves of Lórien in a battle that will take them to Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths. This update includes Book 9, which will have the most chapters of any book to date, and the Epilogue to the sweeping epic tale begun with the Mines of Moria expansion. No word yet on just how many chapters, or possibly books, the "epilogue" will contain. [source]

The epic story continues on in Volume 3 as a regular content update early next year. [source]

Epic Book 9 and much of its Epilogue take place in Mirkwood, so you'll need 'Siege of Mirkwood' for it. [source]

Epic Book 9 will be on-ramp, meaning you can start it without completing earlier books. You do need to buy the expansion in order to finish book 9.[source]

There's a lot of meat to Epic Book 9: instances, skirmishes, monster-hunting, and a few surprises. [source]

Legendary Items:

Legendary items will now be maxed at level 60- no word on if this includes existing legendaries or only new ones.

Legendary items will gain a 4th runic slot, new legacies and new titles.[source]

Overhaul to mounts and new mounts:

Mounts are being changed over to skills, not items. This means you will no longer be required to carry a mount in your inventory. In your skills panel, there will be a "mount" tab, which will list your current stable of mounts -- your horse, your other horse, your goat. And, because of mounts becoming skills, a number of issues with mounts will simply cease to exist: You will now be able to pass into instances and new zones while on your mount; you can now interact with NPCs (including vendors) from your mount; and you can now use emotes on your mount. In other mount news, there's a brand new goat, the Wild Goat. [source]

You can have multiple horses. Each is a seperate skill, but there is no limit I am aware of on the number you can have. There will be a Dev Diary on the new system, so that should give you a ton of info when it's published. [source]

NEW You can name mounts [source]

Even more importantly, mounts are being made more functional. No longer will they simply move players around the game world quickly. With Siege of Mirkwood you can talk to an NPC on your mount, buy stuff from a vendor, cross land block boundaries, enter large spaces on horse without dismounting, emote on your horse -- you can even name your horse. If this isn't Turbine hinting at their next expansion's setting then they've got a pretty cruel sense of humor.


Account-wide Storage Space

Also on the list of changes is the addition of shared storage space for accounts. Currently, shared storage space appears to be limited to 50 items, though this was likely to increase over time in a similar manner to purchasing further storage space for your character's Vault.

It is unconfirmed if this is a sign of "bind on account" items being on the horizon.

And just like vaults, what's put in at one vault NPC can be taken out at another. As long as the characters are all on the same account. [source]

New Raid: Dol Guldur:

The new raid does require Radiance. Not been stated how much and how easy/hard it will be to obtain the said amount of radiance. The primary raid will be in Dol Guldur, and will feature a multi-boss instance culminating with a fight featuring both a battle against a Fell Beast and, finally, the Lieutenant of Dol Guldur, second-in-command among the Nazgul. I urge you to wacch the TentonHammer video as it shows the raid ingame. [source]

The new raid will also contain a cluster of smaller instances with both 3-man and 6-man spaces. [/indent]

[Smithie]

why another topic for SoM?

this is starting turn out like the champion forums when the DN set was announced

but thanks for the info nonetheless

[Beleg Of Doriath]

Sounding good overall. Bit disappointed there isn't more to the combat changes but meh. Apart from that another goat mount doesn't sound too great.

[Overlord2]

Originally Posted by Smithie

why another topic for SoM?

this is starting turn out like the champion forums when the DN set was announced

Cant hurt to put all the info in one topic. Not a lot of people read the USA forums

And this also answers some people concern about wether the update will be free and how theyll be handeling Volume 3 ^^

Ill update this anyhow if intrestting tibits occur

[DavyDuck]

Skirmishes: I'll try them, but they doesn't sound interesting to me. I prefer other players instead of heroes. Um... I mean soldiers. Darn guild war...

Shared storage space: How is that different from the housing chests? (Dear God don't let them mean the inventory will be shared across all your characters...)

Increased level cap? Already?

Talking to npc's while mounted? What's next, mining and fishing while mounted? Geez...

All in all, not impressed...

[Beleg Of Doriath]

Sounds to me like this is a kind of 'round-off' to volume 2. They are finishing off the epic storyline, and adding the systems that they had originally intended to be with MoM and following book updates.

Not that bad tbh. Sounds like everything from the next free book update onwards after this 'mini-expansion pack' will be completely new stuff and the devs can get back on schedule.

[Jiro]

No more threads about people selling there horses, at least this solves the space issue of having a horse/goat. And allows us to have an entire stable of horses/goats to suit our mood.

Quite like the sound of skirmishes, at least you don't have to wait around for an entire raid team to turn up, can go in with a small band of friends and have fun, instead of trying to form big groups to do stuff.

[Turanian]

Originally Posted by DavyDuck

Skirmishes: I'll try them, but they doesn't sound interesting to me. I prefer other players instead of heroes. Um... I mean soldiers. Darn guild war...

Shared storage space: How is that different from the housing chests? (Dear God don't let them mean the inventory will be shared across all your characters...)

Increased level cap? Already?

Talking to npc's while mounted? What's next, mining and fishing while mounted? Geez...

All in all, not impressed...

- Did you read the article properly? The NPCs fill in the spaces left where real characters aren't. You load up a 12-man with only seven players, you have five NPCs to control.

-Talking to NPCs whilst mounted has long been asked for. Would you dismount a horse in RL to talk to the person next to you?

[Tolias]

Reading all this can't say im really impressed either by the amount of stuff changed/added in a expansion that u need to pay to....