Bullroarer Update 21 (#4) - Preview and Release Notes

[Tybur]

Welcome to our fourth open preview of Update 21: Mordor. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Saturday, July 15th. Both these notes and the update are a work in progress, so you should expect things will change over time.

• New Epic Volume 4 Book 9 will not be available during the U21 open beta.
• 'The Black Book of Mordor: Where the Shadows Lie' is not available during this preview weekend.
• Mordor armour appearances are not yet in the game. New armour (including cosmetic armour) will appear invisible when equipped (defaulting to your underclothes).
• Due to special test server conditions, the Black Gate will not appear destroyed regardless of your quest status. You WILL however be able to walk up to and through the Black Gate without taking damage or being defeated (as of Monday 7/17 @ 3:30 am server time).

New since last preview:

1. Avatar updating has continued for the human models (the elf updates are not yet available). To control the appearance of your avatar on your screen, use the Options panel - Advanced Graphics - "Avatar Update Visible". To examine the differences between the old and new models, you will note a toggle in the character generation UI that allows you to see the original or updated appearance for each option. The barber will also now allow you to adjust the body size slider. We would love your feedback on the changes in the human faces and hair styles.
2. The High Elf race is again available and a number of cosmetic and animation alterations have been made since last weekend. We would love your continued feedback on the new racial starting area, racial traits, new animations, and the avatars overall.
3. The Allegiance system is now fully available for preview (although allegiance point granting items have not been added to the tavern). Once you reach level 110 speak to Eomer just inside the Black Gate to pick up 'Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits'. Join an allegiance and begin your quests. We welcome your feedback.
4. MonsterPlay - Creep Ratings and skills have been bumped up to level 115 equivalent. PLEASE give us your feedback on how the new values play; which things are now too powerful and which things still feel too weak - Fly my pretties! Fly!

• Featured Instances: Sammath Gul replaces Glinghant, Dungeons of Dol Guldur replaces Fornost: Wraith of Earth, Halls of Night replaces Seat of the Great Goblin, and StoneHeight replaces Sword-hall of Dol Guldur in the featured instance rotation.
• Grace of the Firstborn out of combat movement speed increase will no longer stack with other movement speed increases.
• The game credits have been updated.
• The last few lurking bog-lurkers have been removed from Udun.
• Off-hand weapons and shields have been hooked up as quest rewards.
• Crafted consumables and specific crafted gear have updated stats. Some missing crafting ingredients have been added to the crafting hall of the tavern.
• The human female forward run animations have been adjusted per feedback by changing the overall body mechanics.
• Barbers can now modify your character's body type.
• High elves now have different idles and the run while holding a shield has been adjusted.
• The male High Elf run animation has been adjusted to seem more grounded and to reduce clipping of cloaks by the right arm.
• High elves can enter and walk around inside hobbit homes.
• The incidence of High Elf specific class skill animations has been reduced for Hunters and Wardens. Shield-swipe animation will trigger.
• Set bonuses will no longer appear on future pelenor gear drops (existing pieces will retain their bonuses).
• Shadow of Mordor no longer wildly over-buffs ranged and tactal mob damage.
• Some incomparable Mordor Jewelery was missing an essence slot. This has been rectified.
• Fixed some incorrect values for outgoing healing on Mordor gear.
• The High Elf racial weapon bonus has been increased to 5%
• Weapon damage tables have been updated for Mordor. This included imbued legendary items.
• Doomfold hides now drop from mobs in Gorgoroth.
• New loot profiles have been added for all Gorgoroth monsters.
• Shadow effects visible on your character avatar will now only be visible to you.
• Increased the number of saved logins on the game launcher from 10 to 100
• Folks using Windows Vista, XP, and 2000 no longer need to download a TurbineLauncher.exe.config file in order to use the "legacy" game client that is compatible with those systems. If you previously downloaded the replacement config file, you can leave it alone or replace it with your original. There is now an option to "Use Legacy Client" in the launcher options. If you take no action, the legacy client will be used on Windows Vista and prior systems. This option cannot be changed if you have an overriden TurbineLauncher.exe.config.

Release Notes:
Explore Mordor

• Explore Gorgoroth, including:
  
• Udun, the entryway that holds great forges, quarries, and parade grounds of Mordor.
  
• Dor Amarth, the rocky plain holding the broken bones of Barad-dur
  
• Talath Urui, located south of Mount Doom, home to key fortresses, prisons, and military establishments.
  
• Lhingris, west of the Morgai ridge, home to Cirith Ungol.
  
• Agarnaith, a valley southeast of Barad-dur with a dense, pestilent, and bloody swampland.

Level Cap Increase

• The level cap has been raised to 115.

Allegiance System

• This new end-game system allows players to pledge their allegiance to one faction at a time. Pledge yourself to the Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, or Men, and unlock rewards through activities in Mordor, including a unique story arc! Currently you can access the system, but the items required to advance progress in an allegiance are not yet available in game.

Light of Eärendil/Shadow

• Areas of Shadow can be found in varying intensity throughout Mordor. These areas weaken visitors, but the Light of Eärendil can counteract this darkness. Your character will see a Shadow and Light Rating, which will help you understand the threat posed by the Shadow. Items that grant Light of Eärendil can be found in Mordor.

Classes

• Above level 105, class trait points are awarded at levels 108, 111, and 114.
• Beorning:
  
• Beorning skills no longer work through walls.
  
• Sacrifice bonus wrath generation now lasts 20 seconds, up from 12 seconds.
  
• Nature's Mend no longer behaves like a wrath consuming skill.
  
• Grimbeorn's Spirit and Bond of Trust no longer override each other.
  
• Vicious Claws will only refresh one instance of Bash bleed, and no longer remove others.
  
• Claw Swipe and Slash bleeds no longer replace each other.
  
• Expose now affects all Beorning damage skills.
  
• Fate stat contributions have been improved.

Crafting

• Tier 11 crafting is now available for every profession. A full new crafting tier is now available for level 115 items. No new Craft Guild tier is required.
• Five new resource instances are now available to help crafters acquire the ingredients necessary for Tier 11 crafting.

Emotes

• The Smoking animation will no longer hitch when starting, and the character will immediately move when breaking out of the emote.

Items

• Landscape treasure containers can be found throughout Gorgoroth, and can be found in both common and uncommon versions.
• Item levels in Mordor now range up into the 300s.
• Ash of Gorgoroth system: This system allows players to break down unused or unwanted Mordor equipment into Ash of Gorgoroth, which can then be used to purchase new equipment from a vendor. Some items cannot be deconstructed. Each Crafting Profession also has a new recipe to create an item that can be deconstructed.

Legendary Items

• The Imbued Legendary Item level cap has been increased. There are now ten additional levels for Legacies, five of which can be unlocked, and five of which are granted for free.

Monsters

• Some monster AI behavior has been improved.

NPCs

• Fixed the pose for Heburga in East Rohan.

PvMP

• Monster players can now be level 115.

Quests and Adventure Areas

• Several typos have been corrected in the Anniversary Scavenger Hunt.
• In the Quest: Scouting the Wild, the white stone marker being searched for is no longer obscured by a large bush.
• The waypoint teleportation horse in the Dead Marshes is no longer hiding in tall reeds.
• The name "Instance: One Hope Remains" is now consistent when replayed from the Reflecting Pool.
• Various floating stumps in the Pelennor Fields have been reintroduced to the ground.
• In the Wastes, a scrap deposit was lowered to within reach of prospectors, flickering water was removed, and some invisible physics were adjusted to match the surroundings.

UI

• A title and second 10 Year VIP Portrait Frame are now available to qualified players.
• Settings that are saved in the userpreferences.ini file, such as graphics preferences, are now saved to disk when the character options panel is closed. This should reduce the risk of settings being unexpectedly lost.
• There are four new options in the advanced graphics options page:
  
• Frill Density: Specifies the percentage of frills that are loaded. Use a lower setting for better performance.
  
• Dynamic Particle Rendering: This is an experimental setting that allows you to select which particle effects to render on dynamic objects such as your player and NPCs. Note that some effects will still play even when disabled and you may lose important feedback.
  
• Static Environmental Objects: Enables particle effects on motionless environmental objects such as braziers and lanterns. Disabling this setting will improve rendering performance in areas with many environmental particle effects.
  
• Precipitation Effects: Enables weather effects such as rain and snow.
• Updated the Overall Graphics Quality defaults for the Frill Density and Frill Distance settings:
  
• Very Low = 0.0
  
• Low = 0.25 ( Frill Distance has been changed from none to low )
  
• Medium = 0.5 ( Frill Distance has been changed from low to medium )
  
• High = 0.75
  
• Very High = 1.0
  
• Ultra High = 1.0

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a floating chest in East Rohan.
• A quest has been added to the E&G Tavern for auto-completing Volume IV Book 8, 'The Black Gate'

[The_Memes]

• MonsterPlay - Creep Ratings and skills have been bumped up to level 115 equivalent. PLEASE give us your feedback on how the new values; which things are now too powerful and which things still feel too weak - Fly my pretties! Fly!

good job, pre-ordering mordor today

[Theomur]

NPCs
Fixed the pose for Heburga in East Rohan.

YES! OMG! So good! Much feature! Hallelujah!

[Herwegur]

The barber will also now allow you to adjust the body size slider.

Awesome! Thank you for finding a way to implement this so quickly : never say never!

[BotLike]

We would love your feedback on the changes in the human faces and hair styles.

I am guessing facial hair will change in a future build yeah ?

[Joetzim]

Grace of the Firstborn out of combat movement speed increase will no longer stack with other movement speed increases.

This kind of removes any reason for me to want the High Elf. Any chance it can be reversed?

[Xhiu]

Grace of the Firstborn out of combat movement speed increase will no longer stack with other movement speed increases.

This kind of removes any reason for me to want the High Elf. Any chance it can be reversed?

yeah other than hunter/guard rez. Moreover, does that affect hunter speed in blue line?

Someone tell Jinjaah his trait trees are broken.

[Laurelinarien]

This is the head, mouth & hairstyle on my current live server Female Cappy (Man Race)



This is what it looks like on "avatar update"



Makes me sad.
Please, change the eyes options, *kneels & begs* please.

[finrod911]

The High Elf has improved so much since last week! The faces and hair look great now, especially on the female avatars. I'm still not crazy about the body movement while running-- it looks too stiff, like they have a stick up their backs. And the roll after jumping is still silly-- it should happen only if they are falling from a height that would normally cause falling injury. Rolling after a two-foot fall is ridiculous. But good work overall!

[Gandalphor]

Right off the bat... Log-in in Udun, ride towards Black gate, die for some reason of misadventure, be glad I didn't buy the pre-purchase.

[RazorsKiss]

[*]Due to special test server conditions, the Black Gate will not appear destroyed regardless of your quest status. Also, you will not be able to walk up to or through the Black Gate without being defeated. Please use swift stable or milestone travel to get beyond the Black Gate.

Right there.

[Macdui]

Right off the bat... Log-in in Udun, ride towards Black gate, die for some reason of misadventure, be glad I didn't buy the pre-purchase.

It's in the above notes^^

[stefan1988]

[*]The High Elf race is again available and a number of cosmetic and animation alterations have been made since last weekend. We would love your continued feedback on the new racial starting area, racial traits, new animations, and the avatars overall.

Cons:
Well,cappies still holds 2H swords that ugly way
also with the shouting phrases...why even male sounds like a woman?rather shall go back to normal yelling.

Pros:
At least high elves looks more interresting in appearance now.

[Joetzim]

The new hairstyles are kewl. I was able to make a full-on lesbian.

[wispsong]

This is the head, mouth & hairstyle on my current live server Female Cappy (Man Race)



This is what it looks like on "avatar update"



Makes me sad.
Please, change the eyes options, *kneels & begs* please.

I love the new hair but miss the old eyes. I don't know why they had to make them so much smaller.

[Gandalphor]

It's in the above notes^^

I know, but you die from the other side too.

[Herwegur]

Looking at new female avatar options...

...why do all the mouth options look botox-infused and full-on "smoochy"?

Is this because female avatar update is being catered towards male gamer basement-dweller demographic?

It would be nice to have some mouth options that are at least more - well, neutral. Please add at least a few that are flatter and more neutral-looking. Not all woman toons are pornstars or lesbians.

[Hzn]

The Allegiance system is now fully available for preview (although allegiance point granting items have not been added to the tavern). Once you reach level 110 speak to Eomer just inside the Black Gate to pick up 'Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits'. Join an allegiance and begin your quests. We welcome your feedback.

How can you speak to Eomer if you can't go near the Black Gate without being killed ? (even with the book 8 and "One does not simply" completed)

[Fenix43]

I love the new hair but miss the old eyes. I don't know why they had to make them so much smaller.

The old eyes are not realistic these are instead, that's the reason

[Laurelinarien]

The old eyes are not realistic these are instead, that's the reason

Realistic sure, but they need to do something so we don't all look like that... srsly, the eyes just don't match the faces, they look awkward. And the face shape for females is just manly. Big square chins.

[Crissaegrim]

[*]Barbers can now modify your character's body type.

It's PERFECT. Absolutely perfect. I would have paid $125 USD for this alone. THANK you, THANK you, thank YOU.

[Arestelle]

I love the new hair but miss the old eyes. I don't know why they had to make them so much smaller.

*Yes*

[dselden]

Ripyourpower scored a critical hit with Toxin on Aragod for 2,333 damage to Power. Get ready for next beta xD.

[Arestelle]

A lot of improvement in high elf appearance. Some of the head styles even make them look more angry/stern than sad, and I like more of the styles than I dislike now. The eyebrows have seen a world of improvement. That said, there are still bugs to work out.

Character creation (high elf female)

• Head 10 still has a lot of baldness issues and holes (albeit smaller holes) behind the ears.
• Hair style 7 has triangular holes/bald patches behind the ears across the different head styles.
• Hair style 10 has a smaller bald patch behind the left ear.
• Multiple head styles don't quite line up at the seams between face and neck or back of the head, so there are lines or small holes that the background shows through.
• Hair style 15 seems to leave the elves without a neck.
• Edited to add: blue eye colors are still too dark.

High elf intro

• The narrator's voice (& Harthalin's) is super nasally. It sounds wrong and is irritating.
• The errant quest ring over Gil-galad on the mini-map (after accepting the barrel-exploding quest) is still there.
• Amroth is a bald monk? https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...3VsRGhGME9IM00
• As you walk up to him at the end, the Witch-king is holding a spiky *mace*, not a sword. It morphs into a sword as he turns around.
• The stabbing animation is still completely absurd. It's the animation of the wraiths trying to kill hobbits in bed beneath them at the Prancing Pony, not of attacking someone who is standing in front of him. Watch until your eyes bleed: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...FhDOURHSEhUdEk
• Still floating above the bed when you wake up: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...UpzbzhsME92NDQ
• It's so bright where you wake up that light details are blown out: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...WhmZ3hvZ1M1aTA
• Time worn gear still has no appearance.

General

• Zoom on outfits panel and dressing room is still unusably bugged.
• Ranged weapon still appears on the ground in cosmetic panel and dressing room, and in landscape disappears when not in combat.
• Gorgoroth lootbox cannot be opened with Sturdy Steel Key: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...jR3OUttRVF2OVE

[AceDwarf]

I did some more testing on the instance difficulty. On last BR it was with a 105 toon in a 106 instance. This time I used auto levelled toon to try level 115 instances. I used the T2 armour set. No virtues and no scrolls of empowerment to improve the LIs. The essences and relics were mostly mitigation and finesse ones and my mits were above 45%

T1 difficulty level appears to have received a very small increase in difficulty compared to live and T2 appears to have received a reasonable increase in difficulty in terms of time it takes to kill the mobs (both very much welcome). Some screenshots from a solo SH level 115 T1 run -

First boss - 1 minute 26 seconds



Second boss - 1 minute 49 seconds



Third boss - 2 minute 34 seconds




Basically it takes about 5 minutes to solo a T1 SH level 115 run with an auto levelled toon. The DPS classes will probably finish it faster. T2 was more interesting and I ended up with all 3 bosses on me since I took too long to burn the mobs down. So the difficulty level of T2 appears to be appropriate. I did not attempt T2C since I was fairly certain that I would end up dead whereas it can be soloed on live without much difficulty.

I also attempted the Barad dur crafting instance. It took approximately 20 minutes on a warden (geared for mits). The difficulty of those instances seem appropriate.

I attempted Ost elendil on T1, but unfortunately it appeared bugged since the wraiths in the boss room were absorbing all the damage even when they were brought to the light. My attempts to open another window failed since the mobs kept interrupting. It took a fair bit longer when compared to live to get to the boss room. While people might do it once or twice for fun, I doubt it will be farmed solo considering the amount of time it takes (which is a good thing).

I couldn't find potions that would cure the debuffs level 115 mobs applied. So it was a bit of pain spending a lot of the time silenced or disarmed.

Overall it appears that T2 instances have received a reasonable boost to difficulty. However it will be nicer if the difficulty came from mobs hitting harder rather than it just taking longer to complete.