I am calling a Council Meeting for kinship officers this Friday at 8.30 pm UK time (9.30 pm Central Europe, 10.30 pm EEST) on Discord in Council Chambers.

Following the rollout of Riders of Rohan on the progression servers, Lord of the Rings just started testing Update 25.4 on the Bullroarer server.

The centerpiece of the patch is a new 12-player raid named Remmorchant, the Net of Darkness. “Far beneath the Ephel Duath, in the deepest caverns of Torech Ungol, lies the Remmorchant, the Net of Darkness. There, wreathed in webs of shadow only the Light of Earendil might hope to penetrate, lies the lair of Ungwetari, the last child of Ungoliant.”

So LoE becomes a thing again...

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Tuesday, November 5th from 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM Eastern (-5 GMT) to launch Update 25: Minas Morgul.

...but not by very much - to Tuesday November 5th!

The release of LOTRO's Minas Morgul expansion has been announced for October 29th (with a few reservations in the fine print). This will be the most substantial update to the game we will have seen in a long time, and hopefully it will bring more players back; it certainly looks as though there will be plenty to occupy them.

Minas Morgul will include two entirely new regions: Minas Morgul Vale, and what SSG are calling “Mordor Besieged”. There was little explanation about the latter in official press releases, but last Friday's Livestream by Community Manager Jerry Snook revealed that "it will take players on a time travel trip to the Second Age and the last time Mordor got trounced by the Free Peoples. Here’s a fun twist: You’ll be able to store all of the loot you get in the Second Age part and then dig it up to keep on your main character!" (a direct quote from Massively Overpowered, as I find life too short to waste on watching promotional Livestreams). The other novelty, of course, will be the new playable race of Stout-Axe Dwarves, which will no doubt excite hardcore altaholics. Following a long-standing request the new dwarves can be male or female but (surprise!) the sexes will look identical.

In terms of numbers, there will be a 10-level cap increase to 130, a new virtues cap of 65, and "at least" two more class trait points. No significant changes to the legendary system, though presumably caps will rise there as well.

Good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to explain why the kinship site was unavailable to all members from about the middle of July for over a month, and why no explanation was forthcoming even after it came back online on August 8th.

Basically, the entire site was taken down for non-payment of dues by MyBB in early July; this was largely my fault for having been offline and travelling for almost three weeks, which means I only saw the warning message literally 24 hours too late to do anything about it.

Thankfully, it turned out that Crucio had kept a complete copy of the site on his hard disk, even though, as he wrote to me, he no longer logs onto the game. We also discovered that Ingaras still owned the Northern Alliance name, so it was possible to open a new account under the old name. This has been due very largely thanks to the sterling efforts of Grimdoin, who has continued to be my go-to person every time I am baffled by the intricacies of forum mechanics.

As it happened, even after the site became operational again, I was unable to post an explanation because every time I tried, the forum page went ‘all funny’ (as we scientists call it). If anyone has been having the same trouble, the answer is “deselect the ‘Show the MyCode formatting options on the posting pages’ under Your profile/ Edit Options in the User Control Panel” (thank you, Grim).

Do NOT attempt to log into LOTRO until it is confirmed that everything is back to normal. There appears to be some damage to the database, and there is a strong suspicion that (some) accounts may be compromised following the screwed-up server transfer.

Update 23.2, with the new raid, The Anvil of Winterstith, is now active.

Full notes here!

I'm AFK for a few days, but I hope to get a first look at the raid soon, and will report back.

Just in case anyone is worried that I might have committed treason, Meth pointed out to me that the "Usurp" button had appeared on the kinship page, which only happens as a warning that the kinship might be disbanded when the kin leader had been absent for a long time. So this is a purely temporary usurpation...

Vacation in Frostbluff

A new quest has arrived in Frostbluff called Stolen Sweets! Visit snowy locations throughout Middle-earth to recover stolen treats for the poor children of Winter-home, and earn the rewards of a white Yule Rabbit and the title "Bringer of Sweets"! The quest is bestowed by the Frostbluff Stable-master. This new quest can be completed once during the run of the Vacation on Frostbluff event, and does not require visiting regions above level 50. Additionally, the other activities available during the Yuletide Festival are now available! Vacation in Frostbluff begins at 10:00 AM Eastern on July 31st, and runs through August 7th!

Miscellaneous

• Corrected a chat issue that was causing problems on some servers.
  
• All characters who have completed, or will complete, The Armies of Isengard meta deed will now receive a second steed reward called the Steed from the White Wizard's Tower. This steed features an Isengard banner and new colors for the caparison and head piece shimmer. Characters who previously completed the Armies of Isengard meta deed will receive the Steed of Many Colours and the Steed from the White Wizard's Tower in their pending loot when first logging in after Update 22.4.1.
  
• All Isengard icons and motifs have been removed from the caparison, bridle, and saddle of the Steed of Shifting Hues. The Steed of Shifting Hues mount granting item now binds to account on acquire, and will not auto-consume. Icons for the Steed of Shifting Hues have also been updated.
  
• Festivity Tokens now have a cap of 40 in the Barter Wallet. If you already have 40 or more Tokens, you will need to spend tokens before you can gain more. Festivity Tokens are now named correctly if you have more than one, and can be found in the Festival Wallet category.
  
• Thrang's Vault Tokens now always go into the Barter Wallet, and have a cap of 40. Thrang's Vault tokens can now be found in the Instances and Skirmishes wallet category.
  
• Newfound Coins can now be found in the Instances and Skirmishes wallet category if you have the Premium Wallet upgrade.
  
• Additional diacritics have been added to the game filter, to allow for these diacritics to be used in Kinship, IA, Bio, Mail, Item, Message of the Day, and Chat messages.
  
• Joining the Northcotton Farm instance AFTER the first boss has been defeated will no longer block you from completing its instance quest.