Erebor Housing Has Arrived

One of Smaug’s last treasure hoards has been opened and the Dwarves of Erebor have moved to reclaim it! Join them in owning a piece of Middle-earth, in the Great Hall under the Mountain.

New premium player and kinship housing is now available in Erebor! To learn more and tour the available homes, visit Gárthi Lockwarden in the Broker’s Office in Bree as well as within Erebor in Tumnu-dûm, The Dwelling-halls NOTE: Players can own as many personal premium homes as they wish, but Kinships can only own one premium house. Erebor Housing includes:

• Twelve Base Premium Houses, one Special Base Premium House, six Deluxe Premium Houses, and one Premium Kinship House!
• A full suite of Town Services and social spaces for you to enjoy with your kinship and neighbors!
• New exterior music and Ambient Environment hook types to allow you even more customization options for your homes!
• Swimmable gold coins!
• Life-sized chess/checker boards

Legendary Items Reward Track Now Live

The Legendary Items Reward Track is now available to all players starting at level 45! This track can be accessed through the Menu (Character → Reward Track). As you play the game and collect Item XP it’ll progress the track throughout the season, and if you get all the way to the end there is a repeatable goal for more rewards! We’ll refresh the track every season, and the frequency, drop rate, and kind of rewards will change over time. The Legendary Items Reward Track is Account-based, so all of your characters on each world will contribute to the Rewards track, and you can select the rewards on whatever character you prefer. Read more in an article about the Legendary Items Reward Track on LOTRO.com.

New Area: Angle of Mitheithel

Stretching south from the Trollshaws to the junction of the Bruinen and Mitheithel rivers is a wild land of rocky hills and deep pine-woods, and a graveyard of ancient kingdoms. The ruins of Elves and Men alike crumble among the trees, and the Rangers steal through the shadows of the trees, ever watchful, carrying out secret assignments as the north grows more dangerous by the day. The Angle of Mitheithel is a new area for levels 40 to 45. The Angle of Mitheithel is free to VIPs and available in the LOTRO Store under the Quest Pack called “Rangers and Ruins”.

New Raid Coming Soon

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Crafting Carry-all Bag

The first major one being Carry-alls, a new inventory item that doubles up as a crafting material storage bag, and goodness knows, LOTRO has needed this for a very long time. Once in your inventory, simply open the bag, hit the gather button or set it to auto gather if you’re out questing in the landscape and watch the magic happen. Look at all those mats disappear! Currently there are three versions available, small which can hold 10 items, medium with 25 and large with 50, and all items within stacks to 2000-5000.

Besides just clearing up inventory and bank space, you can also do your crafting with mats in the bag, which is awesome. And since it’s account wide, you can toss it in shared storage and throw it around, just don’t send it via mail, I learned that the hard way as the mail fee counts every item in the carry-all.  So basically for comparison, it’s kinda like the crafting bag in the Elder Scrolls Online, except you don’t have to pay a subscription fee to access it, it’s a physical item and it does have limitations. It’s also not a free item obviously, and can be purchased with LOTRO points from the store, or you can get the large on for free from the 130 dollar version of the Minas Morgul expansion. And at present time if you missed the news, LOTRO is giving out a limited-time Carry-all selection pack to VIP subs that allows us to pick a new type as well. There’s one for task items, housing decorations, musical instruments and essences, which means we should expect to see more of these roll out in the LOTRO store soon.

Character Virtue Changes

Up next is the Virtue System.  Every virtue now has its own XP bar that must be filled to rank it up, and you no longer earn Virtue tiers from completing landscape Deeds. If you need a refresher, Virtues are equip-able passive stats and Deeds are zone,class or race-specific objectives that you need to complete in order to get rewards, which previously were Virtue ranks and LOTRO points alongside titles and what not. These days, completing Deeds will grant you Virtue XP instead of direct ranks, and on the panel you can now select which one you want to place in earning status, which is where the XP gets distributed to. Most of the stats on these Virtues have also been reworked, plus it’s now easier to identify which Virtues offer survivability or DPS stats at a glance, and there’s even a new one called Wit as well. What’s cool is that now, you even get small passive bonuses from the virtues you haven’t equipped, so it gives players and especially min-maxers at the end-game a reason to actually go out and farm the XP required to level everything up.

64-bit Client

This has been one of the most requested features for LOTRO in recent years, alongside calls for a graphical or engine upgrade. But the new 64-bit client absolutely rules! Like if you’ve been away for two years or more, you’ll really love the 64-bit client. You can select it from the launcher itself, and most of the annoying technical issues I used to have like crashing to desktop when changing zones or super slow-load ins to the town of Bree are now gone for me.

Stout-axe Dwarves Race

And then there’s the Stout-axe Dwarves, a new playable race of Dwarves that was introduced with the Minas Morgul expansion last year, and can now be purchased separately on the LOTRO store. So naturally I rolled one  to check it out, and I absolutely love the new introduction story this race gets, made more meaningful of course if you’ve completed  2017’s Mordor expansion and the subsequent stories that explores the these Dwarves of the region in-depth.

Without giving it all away, you start in Mordor at a period when a very important character to the story is there and it tells an important plot point too, and it’s an adventure to escape to the Blue Mountains, where the game’s original introduction begins. I had a lot of fun with it and it ties in nicely too for a starting narrative. As for the race itself, you can be male or female, and they do have more mellow but different battle cries.

Better Daily Hobbit Presents

Let’s also talk briefly about Daily Hobbit Presents, one of LOTRO’s most forgettable features before I stopped playing, because while you get daily freebies, some of the things you get will just make you cringe and its hog inventory space, unless its Mithril coins or Mathom’s armor. Well not anymore. The gifting system has been given a facelift and while its slot machine function remains, you can now clearly see the different tier rarities and what they offer, and most importantly of all, they give you free Virtue XP which is useful for reasons we’ve already covered, even if they are small in value, because if you play every day it all adds up.

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The first major update will be Update 32, which is expected to arrive mid-February, alongside the game’s 15-year anniversary. Players can expect a new 12-player raid from the update, in addition to new Erebor housing, if you need a change of scenery.

Beyond that, the Legendary Item system will also be getting some new changes, with the addition of the Legendary Item Reward Track. Each season of the Reward Track is planned to run for three months, and will give rewards based on your play that will help you progress your Legendary Items and a few other goodies as well. After each season, the rewards will refresh and you’ll be able to progress anew. All of your characters on a world will contribute to your reward track progress on that world –that means your main and your alts all help towards earning awesome rewards.

Learn more about all the things coming to LOTRO in the letter here.

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World of Warcraft: 9.1 Chains of Domination (June 29)

In what felt like forever, we finally have the first major update for WoW’s Shadowlands expansion, Update 9.1, the Chains of Domination. The update will arrive with a new area of the Maw – Korthia, a new mega dungeon Tazavesh, and flying unlocked for Shadowlands. Don’t forget the new raid, The Sanctum of Domination, and both normal and heroic difficulties unlock on the 6^th of July.

Black Desert Online: New Corsair Class and Summer Season (June 29)

This is going to be bittersweet for BDO players, because the Corsair will be last new class that we’ll see in the game for the foreseeable future, according to Pearl Abyss at the Heidel Ball 2021. The Corsair arrives this week with all new ways to play, alongside the new Summer Season which means more leveling servers, unique rewards and more to grind for. Graduating from the Summer Server will be better this time around, as Pearl Abyss has promised better buffs and additional rewards that carries forward onto the live servers.

Guild Wars 2: Return to Season 3 (June 29)

If you own 2017’s Path of Fire expansion but weren’t around when Season 3 was the live content, this week Guild Wars 2 will be giving an episode of Season 3 away for free. More episodes will be given away for free until August 2021, so be sure to log in weekly and play through the Living World Story if you haven’t. Season 3 bridges the narrative gap between the post-events of Heart of Thorns, leading into the Path of Fire.

Lord of the Rings Online: New Legendary Servers (June 30)

For old school MMORPG fans and LOTRO fans, the good news is two new Legendary Servers will be launching on the 30th of June. The Shadowfax server will offer super-fast leveling and progression, while Treebeard will be much, much slower. Keep in mind that to access and play on these legendary servers, a VIP subscription to LOTRO is required.

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5. RIFT

Trion’s RIFT has had something of a resurgence this year because of its Prime server. Cosmetics aren’t the reason people play the game – that’s down to unique class Soul system, the challenging Raids and the landscape content. But we sure do appreciate the cosmetic system that RIFT has.

On your Hero panel (C) players are able to bring up the Wardrobe tab. It is from here that you can customize what you wear. It’s a very simple system where you pick from armor and weapon choices – skins that you have unlocked account wide. Dyes are also the same way, each armor will have two dye streams, and you simple choose which ones you want based on what you’ve unlocked.

The cool part is you can also save your creations into multiple Wardrobe sets, allowing you to swap them on the fly from anywhere out in Telara.

4. LOTRO

If there’s one thing that players love about The Lord of the Rings Online, it’s the outfits. LOTRO is renowned for having the looks, style and feel of an authentic Middle Earth. And that’s impressive considering its lore and fantasy world caters to races such as Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits and of course the race of Men. LOTRO’s outfit system begins with the Wardrobe tab in your bank. You are given limited slots to store and save all kinds of armor for every slot in there, including weapons and caps. You can then apply dyes to them right there.

Once done, simply open your Character Panel (C) and drag and drop which look you want into the slots on your Outfit tab. It’s that simple, and handy too. You are also given a few Outfit tabs to start with but can purchase more if you wish.

3. World of Warcraft

Up next is World of Warcraft’s transmog system. Player characters are able to visit one of the Ethereal Transmogrifiers to use the service. Once a player speaks to the NPC, the transmogrification interface will appear. This interface displays the character’s item slots on the left, and a collection of all available appearances on the right. Players select the “skin” of the new appearance by clicking on the item slot they want to change (on the left), then selecting the desired appearance from the right. The appearance will be previewed on the character within the interface, before players commit to the change by spending gold.

The thing we love about Transmog is that it pulls all the skins from account wide. Dying unfortunately, is not a big thing in WoW and one must do the challenging content to unlock a different color of their favorite pieces.

2. Elder Scrolls Online

The Elder Scrolls online would not have been on this list had they not included the brand new outfit system earlier this year. A new addition to ESO in 2018, the game added Outfit Stations everywhere in game to replace the old Dye stations. Previously, ESO didn’t have a robust outfitting mechanic, and had all you could do was just dye cosmetic outfits/costumes or change equipped armor color.

Now however, ESO has gotten the memo and included a fairly good system when compared to what other big MMORPGs have done. With the new outfit system, you are able to change every part of your armor based on what Motifs – both racial, store and other that you currently have. And it’s also account wide which is cool. Once done, you can save it into an Outfit slot for Gold or a token, and then swapped between them whenever.

1. Guild Wars 2

And last but not least, we arrive at Guild Wars 2. The Wardrobe system at the time was way ahead of the curve. Much of what GW2 did to stand out from the MMO crowd in 2012 is add more player convenience to many systems. This includes outfits and dyes. For starters both are account wide and are easy to get as a long term of short term progression. Every weapon and armor skin in-game becomes and unlock able skin. Once you have that, simply open your Hero panel (H) anywhere out in the world. Then, just select which skin you want and spend a Transmutation token to change the look.

Dyes work the same way too. And the real awesome thing is there’s no stations required, and no NPC to talk to. All of this can be done anywhere as long as players are out of combat.

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All LOTRO players can expect a brand new zone to quest in, containing plenty of fresh Middle-Earth stories to continue your adventures.

Besides that, the patch notes indicate a ton of tweaks to items, Virtues, PvMP, quality of life issues and classes. Check out the full release notes here.

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Both studios have confirmed the new ownership, and in LOTRO’s and DDO’s case, an official post on the forum states that no impact would be had on these game’s developments, and new content is still on track in 2021. Check out the post here: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?684810-Daybreak-Acquisition-News-and-Standing-Stone-Games

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Elder Scrolls Online, Alinor

First up is the Elder Scrolls Online, which has plenty of marvelous, looking alliance cities, but nothing captivated me more than the city of Alinor in Summerset, which was introduced in 2018’s Summerset Chapter. Why are my characters parked here all the time? You guessed it, it’s convenient for a multitude of reasons and for my personal needs. This little area in the bottom corner of the city is where all the crafting stations are placed in a horsehoe shape, and of course you have the daily task boards inside. So my usual routine is to pick them, up, make the rounds to craft what’s required, and then the drop off point for deliveries is just right outside to the left, and it barely takes 30 seconds to get there.

For banking, I’ve made it easier for myself having purchased the mobile banking NPC, but for those who haven’t, a short travel up the stairs north and you’ll reach the bank, and guild traders too for your market-place needs. It also helps that the Wayshrine is really close by, and Summerset itself isn’t too big of an island so you can head out of the city and go kill some daily World Bosses or get rid of some geysers if they pop up. All round, Alinor is my current favorite city hub in The Elder Scrolls Online right now until I find something better.

Guild Wars 2, Lily Elon Lounge

In Guild Wars 2, it was really hard to pick a location because one of the core tenants of the game is player convenience, meaning most places are usually fantastically designed with the players in-mind. For starters, every major city of the game’s main races offers everything you need, and while large, traveling around using waypoints or mounts these days makes it easier, but Guild Wars 2 does have these things called lounge passes, that takes you to an exclusive location which offers crafting stations, banking, economy, vendors and more, all in a small enclosed space with literally no travel downtime.

Out of all these premium mini-hubs and lounges, my go-to location is the Lily of the Elon, a small lounge located on an artificial island south of the free city of Amnoon, in the path of fire expansion. The design is circular, with vendors, banks and auction house on the lower outer level, crafting stations on the first level, and the mystic forge on the outer third level. Not only is the lounge great for the basic stuff, but it’s also convenient for getting to the content. You have all the crystal oasis bounty boards within, plus the lounge is close to the Amnoon city events, especially the casino coin collection one that leads to the Choya piñata, which drops an item that will make you rich. Alas, the only way to get in here to my knowledge, is you have to have purchased the deluxe or ultimate edition of the path of fire expansion in order to receive the invitation item, that teleports you to the Lily Elon whenever clicked.

SWTOR, The Fleet

In a galaxy far, far away, the choice for the most convenient hub is an extremely easy one. If you haven’t guessed it already, it’s the Fleet for your chosen faction. Both the Republic and Sith Empire fleets are pretty much designed similarly, with there being one massive level you’ll zone into from your ship’s hangar bay or from the fleet pass, and you can make your way around the fleet clock-wise or anti-clockwise to get to what you need. The fleet has pretty much everything on the main level, and it’s conveniently placed in sections that you can easily see on the map, so there’s no getting lost.

Taking the elevator down you’ll get to the another level or rep vendors and other traders, there’s the group content bay to pick up FP quests and more, and the inter-ship travel is also available for other content. Your own ship and stronghold aka housing in SWTOR are decent shouts but as SWTOR lets you place mailboxes, banks and auction terminals within them so you never really have to set foot on the fleet if all you need to do are just the basic things, which is super convenient.

LOTRO, Bree

The town of Bree is probably the most popular spot for majority of players, doesn’t matter if you’re a new player under level 30 or an end-game player, everything leads to Bree, and Bree leads out to everywhere quite literally. The town’s design is neat, and split into three distinct sections. You have the west part of the town which has its own stable-master that connects to a good variety of other cities, towns and hubs, and there’s also a bank and some crafting stations nearby. You’ll  also find a festival horse taking you to the horse-fields when in season. The North and mid-section is really for the RPers, musicians, and when the anniversary festival rolls around, the fireworks show. You’ll also find the prancing pony and a stage for bands here.

The middle section is home to the Bree crafting hall and it’s probably the best place to craft besides Esteldin or wherever else the new crafting guild masters are, simply due to the fact that the bank and auctioneer are just a turn away and you can grab whatever you need to carry on crafting or clear your bags. The southern part is the Uber heaven, because the stablemaster connects to every important location known to man, hobbit, dwarf and elf. It’s also got another bank and auctioneer across the street, some more crafting stations and the relic masters for your LI weapons. All round, the town of Bree has something for everyone of all levels, and it’s not a nightmare to navigate on foot or steed.

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Prince Durin, son of King Thorin Stonehelm, leads his armies to reclaim Gundabad, the Mountain-home of his people! As the Longbeards, Zhélruka, and Stout-axes assemble to lay siege to the great fortress, Orcs led by Gorgar the Ruthless, son of Bolg and brother of Mazog, meet them in battle — the War of Three Peaks begins! 

Amdân Dammul, the Bloody Threshold

“The final battle of the War of Three Peaks has begun. Prince Durin Stonehelmson of the Longbeards leads the Gabil’akkâ , a great host of united dwarves, to the very gates of Mount Gundabad. But Gorgar the Ruthless, son of Bolg, has one last surprise in store for those who would seek to usurp him….”

• This up to 12 person raid is now available to run from difficulty Tiers 1 to 3! Tiers 4 and 5 will be released in the future.

Shakalush, the Stair Battle

“It is on the stairs of Bagûd-mekhem, the Gate of Winds, that a decisive battle of the War of Three Peaks is to be fought. There, caught between those loyal to Gorgar the Ruthless and Hrímil Frost-heart, the Gabil’akkâ hope to deal a devastating blow to both of these forces in a single stroke.”

• This six person instance is now available to run from difficulty Tiers 1 to 3! Tiers 4 and 5 will be released in the future. 

Elderslade: Missions

“Prince Durin Stonehelmson of the Longbeards has declared his intention to retake Gundabad for the dwarves! He needs heroes like you to aid in the war effort if there is any hope of succeeding against the Orc army.”

Missions are a new way for one or two people to play together between levels 20 and 130! Players can access the Missions hub by visiting a Gabil’akkâ Stable-master, located near other stable masters including:

• Thorin’s Gate
• Gondamon
• Bree-town
• The Twenty-first Hall
• Othrikar
• Gabilshathûr
• Glóin’s Camp
• Hrimbarg
• Galtrev
• The Dolven-view
• Magh Ashtu
• Járnfast
• Erebor
• Minas Tirith (Midsummer).

The Gabil’akkâ stable-masters will take you to the Annâk-khurfu (War Room) in Elderslade, where you can begin your experience with Missions. Missions are a great way to earn leveling loot and more, and are also an excellent way for players to level regardless of what level they are in the game. Check them out!

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The post Lord of the Rings Online Launches War of the Three Peaks Content Update appeared first on Mmos World.

5. RIFT

Trion’s RIFT has had something of a resurgence this year because of its Prime server. Cosmetics aren’t the reason people play the game – that’s down to unique class Soul system, the challenging Raids and the landscape content. But we sure do appreciate the cosmetic system that RIFT has.

On your Hero panel (C) players are able to bring up the Wardrobe tab. It is from here that you can customize what you wear. It’s a very simple system where you pick from armor and weapon choices – skins that you have unlocked account wide. Dyes are also the same way, each armor will have two dye streams, and you simple choose which ones you want based on what you’ve unlocked.

The cool part is you can also save your creations into multiple Wardrobe sets, allowing you to swap them on the fly from anywhere out in Telara.

4. LOTRO

If there’s one thing that players love about The Lord of the Rings Online, it’s the outfits. LOTRO is renowned for having the looks, style and feel of an authentic Middle Earth. And that’s impressive considering its lore and fantasy world caters to races such as Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits and of course the race of Men. LOTRO’s outfit system begins with the Wardrobe tab in your bank. You are given limited slots to store and save all kinds of armor for every slot in there, including weapons and caps. You can then apply dyes to them right there.

Once done, simply open your Character Panel (C) and drag and drop which look you want into the slots on your Outfit tab. It’s that simple, and handy too. You are also given a few Outfit tabs to start with but can purchase more if you wish.

3. World of Warcraft

Up next is World of Warcraft’s transmog system. Player characters are able to visit one of the Ethereal Transmogrifiers to use the service. Once a player speaks to the NPC, the transmogrification interface will appear. This interface displays the character’s item slots on the left, and a collection of all available appearances on the right. Players select the “skin” of the new appearance by clicking on the item slot they want to change (on the left), then selecting the desired appearance from the right. The appearance will be previewed on the character within the interface, before players commit to the change by spending gold.

The thing we love about Transmog is that it pulls all the skins from account wide. Dying unfortunately, is not a big thing in WoW and one must do the challenging content to unlock a different color of their favorite pieces.

2. Elder Scrolls Online

The Elder Scrolls online would not have been on this list had they not included the brand new outfit system earlier this year. A new addition to ESO in 2018, the game added Outfit Stations everywhere in game to replace the old Dye stations. Previously, ESO didn’t have a robust outfitting mechanic, and had all you could do was just dye cosmetic outfits/costumes or change equipped armor color.

Now however, ESO has gotten the memo and included a fairly good system when compared to what other big MMORPGs have done. With the new outfit system, you are able to change every part of your armor based on what Motifs – both racial, store and other that you currently have. And it’s also account wide which is cool. Once done, you can save it into an Outfit slot for Gold or a token, and then swapped between them whenever.

1. Guild Wars 2

And last but not least, we arrive at Guild Wars 2. The Wardrobe system at the time was way ahead of the curve. Much of what GW2 did to stand out from the MMO crowd in 2012 is add more player convenience to many systems. This includes outfits and dyes. For starters both are account wide and are easy to get as a long term of short term progression. Every weapon and armor skin in-game becomes and unlock able skin. Once you have that, simply open your Hero panel (H) anywhere out in the world. Then, just select which skin you want and spend a Transmutation token to change the look.

Dyes work the same way too. And the real awesome thing is there’s no stations required, and no NPC to talk to. All of this can be done anywhere as long as players are out of combat.

The post Top 5 Fashion Systems In MMORPGs appeared first on Mmos World.