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The Patch
Wanted to give some immediate first impressions, and tonight is the night long awaited. I arrived home filled with anticipation! Then I had to patch. Started the patch at 9:30 central and ended at 10:19 pm. Also, when the patch concludes you get a great new EULA, which I know you all will read – especially the French version.
“Last updated September 10, 2009
En français: <http://www.lotro.com/support/policies/eulaf>
Be sure to read and understand all of the rights and restrictions described in the current End User License Agreement (“EULA”). You cannot copy, use, access or play The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™, The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria™ or The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ unless or until you accept the terms of the current EULA.”
First Impression: Why couldn’t this have updated when I was at work?
After I loaded into the game, I noticed I had to patch again for high level textures. Since I wanted to offer observations about skirmishes, I thought I would skip that and patch as I go to bed. To be fair, this was a very smooth upgrade, and I really am excited about the potential of ladling on heaping helpings of new activities to an already rich universe of choices.
My First Moments:
The first thing I did was check my mail box, and I found two notes:
“As darkness creeps across the stricken lands of Middle-earth, none are safe from the peril in the East. Skirmish Camps have appeared throughout the lands as rallying points for those who will stand together to fight the shadow. Stout soldiers gladly lend their weapons, but they lack a leader. What hero will answer the summons?
I beseech you to visit one of our Skirmish Camps and speak with its captain. Camps can be found in towns throughout Middle-earth, such as Bree, Thorin’s Hall, Brockenborings, Esteldín, and many others. Under your banner, we shall follow your command. Hope is not yet lost for the Free Peoples if a warrior of your class stands with us.
I hope that one day we shall stand together on the field of battle! The skirmishes await your sword.
Idhrinnion
Skirmish Captain of the North Downs”
This mail came with a map. Detach the map and learn how to skirmish! You click on the map, and you receive instructions to report to the skirmish camp:
You also immediately get awarded a new title to add to your plethora of titles: Skirmish Recruit.
When I arrived in Bree to start my questing, I realized that they are also taking my mounts out of my inventory and turning them into skills. It appears that mounted activities are much more flexible than in our recent memory. 
With the new steed system, you can
1) Talk to people (quest givers, merchants)
2) Eat food
3) Rename your steed: 
4) Ride through portals (such as in Shire housing back to Michel Delving) without a dismount / remount.
5) When you do an emote, you actually see the emote on horseback – here is Caradin doing a mounted /cheer
I named my horse Stewie – in honor of one of my favorite popular culture icons. I know there is more to it that, but so far it is all I have experienced. I just had to get moving on to play a skirmish!
There are other two interesting things. First, there is a new mounts tab in the character skills section of your character profile:
Second, you actually get a Nimblefoot goat in your inventory that you can add to your repertoire of mounts.
Skirmishes:
The initial quest took me to the Bree skirmish camp where I turned in the quest that I received in the mail. Of course you can’t just set to skirmishing. You have to start a few quests before you get down to the good stuff. The first quest after check is to kill enough orcs, goblins or trolls. However, you can’t kill greys. I went to Moria and went down to Dolven View, but they were still a mix of greens and greys. So, I goat’d my way back to the 21st and dismounted in an orc camp.
[To glff] ‘I am outside 21st @ 8.0S, 103.9W .. they drop pretty well here.. 20 kills 7 orders’
After you finish the 10 War Orders, you have to collect a “target list” – so basically you need 11 items. Then you return to the captain.
You will then be transported into an instance with a tutorial in Bree entitled “Thievery and Mischief.” This will teach you how to call your new soldier and direct him. Your goal is to take key locations around the battlefield.
Typical victory response:
The monsters at the South-gate have been cleared. Use the banner to claim the Control Point
The South-gate of Bree has fallen to your control. The next valuable location is the Auction House just ahead
I received 625xp per kill! This seems to be an XP waterfall.
There was one more tutorial after this entitled “The Defense of the Prancing Pony”
After this, you actually get into the skirmish system! Now, I am going to have to spend a lot of time on this system, but let me say that it is a neat system of progression for both you and your solider. In each camp there are a series of vendors and skills trainers. There will be a lot of skirmish marks award and exchanged for these traits and skills. The skills and traits are the same as equipping your traits at a bard. This will require a lot of exploration, and it really seems to enrich the system of managing your soldier.
First Impression: Turbine should not have forced me to engage tedious activities to unlock skirmishes. Did these quests really move a story forward or was it busy work to throw an unnecessary gate (or keep servers from overloading)? The gate should have been the fact that I paid $19.99 for the expansion and adventure pack. I may just be cranky after a 12.5 hour work day, but I shouldn’t be doing more work on top of the work I do in my day job for my subscription entertainment. However, I love the skirmish system. I finished at almost 0200, so that means Turbine had a win! They did an outstanding job. Very impressive system with lots of progression. I will be looking at the skirmish system in more detail over the coming weeks.
The Guardian Nerf
Looks like they really nerfed the Guardian class – this is the class of my main and only level 60, Caradin. Biggest nerf according to the patch notes:
“Guardians may no longer retain the benefits/bonuses of shields while in Overpower stance. When Overpower is activated, your shield is automatically disarmed until Overpower is deactivated.”
Each class faces some sort of modification. Check the release notes above to determine how you might be impacted.
First Impression: Indifference – the guardian is a tank – not a DPS. You want DPS, roll a Hunter or a Champion. I already did both, and I love the different play styles.
Legendary Respec
First thing I had to do was respec my legendary weapon due to the nerf.
The Level Cap Increase
I posed the question to /glff “what is the highest level you’ve seen?” – 63 was common. 64 was one response, “[glff] Convic: ‘64′” – not sure if he witness or if it were urban myth. So tomorrow, we will see a lot of Level 65s after the all night marathons.
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