Turbine dev chat transcript gives more info on Moria

by Shawn Schuster Oct 9th 2008 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, Academic

It's been quite a long time since we've reported on a House of Commons dev chat with Lord of the Rings Online's Turbine and Codemasters devs, so this latest one should come as a special treat. In it, we get word of a few new features for the first expansion, Mines of Moria, which was just announced today to have a release date of November 18th! In order to paraphrase this long dev chat, we've bullet-pointed what we feel is the most interesting answers to player questions:

No pre-Moria equipment will be part of the Legendary Items system.
After Mines of Moria, they'll "most likely" be heading south with future expansions. Although there's word of fleshing out Eriador as well.
Capstone skills are used in conjunction with Legendary Traits and Trait sets to make mega powerful skills. These capstones come in three different types: solo gameplay, small fellowship and 6-man instance gameplay.
You will get access to another Legendary Trait slot at level 60
Renown and Infamy will be changed to increase the amount gained in a full group and reduce the amount gained in raids.
The Elves of Lothlorien will not have accessible reputation until the first book update after launch
Suggested improvements to the kinship system include kinbank, plus stablemasters and crafting areas in the kinship house.
The entire Book 1 of Volume 2 will act as an introduction to Legendary Items, so you will get them early on.
Following the helpful dev diaries on the Hunter, Burglar and Lore-master, Turbine plans to release guides for the remaining classes from 50-60 as well.
Inventory problems will be alleviated with quest tokens and key rings. Quest items will be stored in a quest journal, instead of the player's inventory. Key rings will hold important keys for certain doors.
You will not need to finish Volume 1 to access Volume 2.
No new hobbies releasing with Moria, but there are others in the works for future book patches.