by Nicole163 on Mar 08, 2011
Remember the bad old days in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">the Lord
of the Rings Online when you could be working on
Volume
I Book 7 for days, even weeks, without being able to find a group for
the Gates of Carn Dum 6-man instance? Remember how awesome it
was when they made all of the Volume I instances soloable and you no
longer needed to wait? Well, according to
href="http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1075-update-2-epic-volume-2-solofication-pass-">Bob
"Maurath" Hess in his
first-ever developer diary, Turbine has worked similar magic
on Volume
II, making all of the Moria epic book instances soloable.
When we first began to look at a 'solofication' pass
of the Volume 2
epic, our team knew that it would be quite the undertaking. We ended up
breaking the task into two parts, with Jonathan Berephon Rudder
changing the battle instances in Chapter 5 into Skirmishes, and with me
working on the rest of the Volume 2.
Following the breakdown of tasks, we then went about gathering
feedback from internal and external sources regarding specific points
in the epic which are particularly difficult to solo. To add to my own
experience in attempting this content, the QA Department was kind
enough to lend a good deal of feedback regarding the 'soloability' of
the content using a wide array of classes and character compositions.
This feedback was invaluable for evaluating problem points within
Volume 2 and became indispensible as we proceeded to implement changes.
The newly-soloable instances are:
Note that Book 5, Chapter 5 is not included in this list.
That's because the three parts of this chapter have been converted to
skirmishes instead. These new skirmishes can be completed in a variety
of group sizes, from solo to 6-man, and can be replayed at will via the
Skirmish Join panel. Turbine has released a number of official
screenshots of these skirmishes, with a specific focus on the Battle
for the 21st Hall.
alt="Battle for the 21st Hall Official Screenshot"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/96206">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/96207">
alt="Battle for the 21st Hall Official Screenshot"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/96208">
alt="Battle for the 21st Hall Official Screenshot"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/96209">
alt="Battle for the 21st Hall Official Screenshot"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/96210">