The Lord of the Rings Online Update 3 Preview

With Turbine’s Update 3: Lost Legends of Eriador content patch for The Lord of the Rings Online due out on May 23rd, it’s probably not a bad idea to start familiarizing yourself with its contents. And you can do just that with Ten Ton Hammer’s two-page, hands-on preview:

You start off drunk as a skunk after a hard day’s drinking, waiting for the place to close down for the night. Heading down into the basement, one finds a sleepless dwarf complaining about strange noises issuing from a suspicious bookcase – actually a secret door into an underground labyrith. Story-wise, the players are asked to assist Umin, a shady character lurking in the tunnels, find his way through the place, following in the footsteps of Captain Rabghul, a no-goodnik pirate who hoped to use the secluded cove to stash his booty and whatnot. As you collect pages from Captain Rabghul’s journal, you learn of the terrible secret history of these trap-filled tunnels.

This instance is very unique in the world of LotRO, more reminiscent of D&D-style dungeon crawls when the group has a sadistic but creative DM. There are some interesting mechanics at play here: riddle-locked doors (read the riddle and use the proper /emote to unlock it), evil whirling-blade traps activated by pressure plates, and objects throughout that can only be used by specific classes. For example, the rune-covered plaques on the walls can only be deciphered by the more “scholarly” classes (Lore-masters, Minstrels, Rune-keepers), certain levers and complex mechanisms can only be triggered by “support” types (Burglars, Hunters, Captains), and heavy lifting must be done by the strong-of-arm classes (Guardians, Champions, Wardens). A good group balance is important here, and there’s actually deed for completing the instance with “the perfect group,” which can only be completed on Tier 2 difficulty and involves interacting with or destroying basically everything in the dungeon.

The fun part of this – for me at least – was not feeling like a total noob when trying to decipher the riddles on the doors. Aaron and Bob were likewise stumped by a few of them, so I didn’t feel like a total moron when I /burped instead of /coughed. “You’d think that, as a dev, I should know all the riddles off by heart, but I don’t,” Aaron admitted.

After riddling your way through doors and sidling past the devious traps, you are rewarded with a breakneck ride down a waterslide and find yourself in a place that, according to Aaron and Bob, is “totally not from Goonies at all, no way”: a water-filled cave containing a ramshackle pirate ship. Here you encounter the boss of the place, and the fight on the main deck of the ship again emphasizes a strong class balance and group coordination. The by-now-obvious trap mechanisms can be used against the boss, and the activation triggers are class-specific. On Tier 2 (which we didn’t do on this run, but which I did try later), this fight gets even crazier, and doesn’t end when the boss goes down. Conserve your power, because you’re going to need it for stage 2, in which the traps play an even greater part – the fight gets pretty busy and you will probably want to make good use of the tools available.