Update 24 Release Notes


Here are the Release Notes for Update 24: Vales of Anduin, released on Tuesday, June 4th. 


Of Special Note

Vales of Anduin

Update 24 brings you to the Vales of Anduin, where the Great River courses down through Wilderland to the shores of Lothlórien. Help the Woodmen defend their lands from the goblins and wargs of the Misty Mountains. Delve into the region’s fabled past, when it was home to dwarves, Elves, and the ancestors of the hobbits and Rohirrim. Seek the aid of the Beornings and Great Eagles – as well as a certain Brown Wizard of some repute. But beware: foul things still roam the woods and marshes, some drawn by the legacy of the One Ring, which lay long hidden near the Anduin’s banks. Update 24 is Free to VIP players and Lifetime Subscribers and available in the LOTRO Store.

Black Book of Mordor

The storyline of the Black Book of Mordor continues with two more chapters! Pushed to the limit by the attack of Karazgar, the Weeping Warrior, and fearing his promised return, the Dwarves of Skarháld attempt to fortify their position in the Grey Mountains. If you have completed 'Chapter 8.7: The First Promise,' you can pick up Chapter 9 by speaking with Durin on the upper level of Skarháld. This storyline will guide you to the Vales of Anduin once your business with the dwarves has been resolved.


News and Notes:


Classes

  • The healing percentage for Vigilant Roar Legendary Item bonuses have been corrected.
  • Burglar:
    • Gamble Chance now provides a chance that any gamble applied will upgrade itself by a tier after application.
    • Even the Odds has had its buffs extended from 15 to 20 seconds, and had its progressions updated.
    • Clever Retort's Self-Adulation bonus has been increased from 20 to 25%, and it no longer incorrectly states that it provides a pulse bonus to Mischievous Glee.

  • Guardian's T5 Tenderize bonus has been corrected so that it is larger than T4.
  • Guardian's Fighter of Shadow no longer incorrectly grants an area of effect flash of light with the base spec.
  • The Minstrel's Mastery bonuses from the Trait Strength of Helm Hammerhand has been improved.
  • Melee range skills now have a base range of 3.5m up from 2.5m.


Items

  • Most items in the Ironfold and Grey Mountains can now be used while mounted.
  • Removed an unintended on-removal effect from the Hunter Essence of Freedom.
  • Armour and Jewellery of the Traveller, when received by a character level 105 - 115, will have Light of Eärendil.


LOTRO Store

  • Up to 200 Epic Battle Promotion points can be obtained via the Promotion Points +10 offer.


NPCs

  • A confirmation dialog has been added to the Vendor's Sell All button.


PvMP

  • Monster play melee skill range has been increased to 3.5 meters.


Quests and Adventure Areas

  • The old river woman in The Crone's Ferry is now taller.
  • A speed buff has been given to players during the quest Heritage Restored to make it more forgiving a run.
  • Rhus Cornchuthur in Enedwaith is giving out quests again.
  • Ivy Tunnelly is once again a barkeep in the Bird and Baby Inn after being fired as a Mote Craft Trader for failing to have any actual things to trade.
  • Albra Lowbanks is no longer invisible.
  • Unfriendly Eyes in Ost Forod now advances correctly for a Fellowship that carries the chest together.
  • The Battle Under the Trees Session Play for the Court of Lothlórien Allegiance has been updated:
    • Additional directions have been added to the quest to improve the flow of the instance.
    • Monster spawns have been thinned and moved closer to cut down on travel time.
    • Galadriel's animations have been adjusted.
    • Mirkwood Archers now lead the way up the hill during the second part of the instance.

  • The pace of Frodo's Burden has been greatly improved. Our Ringbearer still discusses the same subjects, but he doesn't take so long to get to the point.
  • If you have already completed all of his adventures, George at Sandson's Farm might just have something new for those feeling a bit peckish.
  • Bree, Michel Delving, Hobbiton, Duillond, Celondim, and Thorin's Hall all now have slow and swift travel routes to their nearest housing neighbourhoods.


Virtues

  • The Virtue system has been updated. The system now advances through Virtue Experience, allowing you to select the Virtue that will benefit from your Deed completions. Open the Traits Panel with (J) to navigate to the redesigned Virtues tab to examine your Virtues, select an earning Virtue, and slot any Virtues you would like active.
    • All deeds that currently grant a specific Virtue will instead grant Virtue XP that can be assigned by players to the earning Virtue of their choice.
    • A new Virtue, Wit, has been added to the game.
    • The stats given by actively slotted Virtues are in the vast majority of cases going to be better than they were previously.
    • All earned Virtues now grant a passive benefit that you will receive, even when the virtue is not actively slotted.
    • Players who earned Virtue ranks that could not be previously expressed will gain credit when Update 24 is released.
    • Virtue benefits will be capped based on character level, including the non-Slotted Virtues' passive benefits.
    • There are numerous ways to gain Virtue XP, including deeds, end-game repeatable quests, festival quests, and Featured Challenges.
      • Virtue Tomes and Bundles have been unpublished from the LOTRO Store, and are no longer available to purchase. All currently-held Virtue Tomes will convert into items that grant Virtue XP.
      • For other sources of Virtue tomes prior to the release of Update 24:
        • Virtue Tomes found in lootboxes will be replaced with an item that grants 1,000 Virtue XP.
        • The Gift of the Valar (Level 50) will give five items that grant 20,000 Virtue XP, and 10 items that give 10,000 Virtue XP.
        • The Blessing of the Valar (Level 95) will give 20 items that grant 20,000 Virtue XP.
        • The Aria of the Valar (Level 105) will give five items that give 70,000 Virtue XP, and 15 items that give 20,000 Virtue XP.
        • Note that the Virtue XP items from the Valars are acquired via a quest after consuming the Valar levelup item.


UI

  • Screenshots now save with a new timestamp format of "YYYY-mm-dd_HHMMSS".
  • Pressing the Escape Key cancels targeted item usage.
  • The Allegiance Tracker is now scalable.
  • The scroll bar on the Raid Lock panel has been fixed.
  • Fellowship Tradeable gear no longer loses allowed trade target information on Logout.
  • Fixed a bug where quest font size changes would revert back to default when quest update events were triggered.
  • Fixed an issue where zooming with the mouse scroll wheel would stop working when interacting with Lua plugins.
  • Added Lua event triggering of EffectRemoved and EffectCleared for selected targets.
  • Added binding to Lua for various Action definitions.
  • The Quest Grouping panel has been rearranged to have the Quest selection at the very top.
  • The Instance Finder panel has been expanded with a new Instance grouping section. The new section works similarly to Social Panel Quest Grouping in that you can create or join up to 5 entries that are persisted on your character. The new instance grouping section replaces the functionality of the Simple and Advanced tabs of the Instance Finder panel, and those tabs have been removed. Clicking "Show All" will show up to 100 entries. Clicking "My Instances" will show only the instances that you have either joined or created. Members are automatically removed from an entry when entering the specific encounter space for the first time.
  • Shift+F is no longer mapped to the Instance Finder.
  • Updated the Instance Finder tutorial, and added a tutorial hint button to the Instance Finder panel.
  • The player command /lfp has been changed to /lfq (Looking for Quest Grouping).
  • The Item Socket Replacement confirmation dialog now displays in the correct order.


Miscellaneous

  • The LOTRO game client can now be optionally run in 64-bit, which can improve game performance. By default, players will continue to run the 32-bit client unless they change the option in the launcher. This selection can be changed again if desired. A separate set of client preferences (userpreferences.ini) for the 64 bit client will be created to allow players to have different graphics settings for the different clients if desired.
  • The sky in the landscape during Character Selection has been fixed.


Known Issues:

  • Quest - Good to Be Home - Some NPCs will initially be phased out (despite their quest rings appearing on the radar), but after certain quests are completed you'll be able to advance this quest.
  • Quests - Befriending Critters - Knowledge of Taming items granted by Radagast during his Befriend Critters quests are missing text telling you not to remove the item from your inventory. Doing so will cause progress of the Tender of Beasts deed to be reset. Once both Tender of Beasts deeds are completed, the Knowledge of Taming items will be automatically removed from your inventory.
  • Quest - Dredging Up the Past - Sharkey's Orders quest item is currently able to be destroyed, which it should not be. Removing the item from your inventory will cancel the quest and block you from progressing further in the region. Please do not destroy the item! It will be removed from your inventory upon quest completion.
  • Quest - Rhosgobel: Cleaning the Anduin / Rhosgobel: Cleaning the Tributaries - Some of the items needing to be fished for these quests require a higher fishing proficiency, and some can currently only be obtained from other regions.