Hands on with LOTRO's Riders of Rohan expansion!

The focus of our preview is Warsteeds: LOTRO brings mounted combat!

Pointing to the trees themselves, Aaron made note of the Configurations on the right-hand side. These allow players to save several ability tree builds and switch them on the fly, so that the player is ready to fill any role. However, it did seem that specific classes will have more use for some builds than others; as Aaron said, “Weapons you equip are used for attacks and skills while mounted are variations of class skills, so a champion will have a lot of brutal melee strikes while a hunter will do more ranged damage.”

Moving to the specific trees, Aaron said “as you level your mount you can spend points in each tree. At the top are your baseline stats, like endurance and power. Then you can specialize in different sections of the tree, which correspond to different stances relating to damage, survivability and utility. As you specialize deeply into any of these paths you gain new abilities that give bonuses to these stances. There are a lot of combinations players might go with; lighter armor classes might go with more survivability to augment their weaknesses.” The abilities on the mounts can be queued up before the opponent is even engaged, another feature designed to keep the combat fast-paced and the player free to take in his or her surroundings. Some abilities can also dismount opponents, lowering their danger significantly. There is also an ability called “Spur On,” which can be combined with an attack to basically become a “move-to skill” that will track an opponent and use the attack.

With the background complete, we set off into Rohan to find some mounted baddies. One of the first we discovered was a Warpack, a group of several orcs. “Here’s a Warpack… not really intended for solo players” Aaron began, after verifying my character currently had GM-invincibility, “One of the reasons they are more challenging solo is that they tend to cluster up and slow players down immensely, which kills fury generation and really hurts.” We were playing on medium steeds, and I could tell that on a light steed, the large grouping would quickly kill characters. Luckily, we won with little effort, and continued onward to find new opponents.

“This is a Warband,” Aaron pointed out as we came across a group of mounted goblins. “As you approach you should receive a quest. The idea is that they are an extension of the rare creature mechanic and will have unique abilities and loot associated with them. Warbands will roam across distances, but they will be laid out on the map so players can track them. And there’s no need to worry if someone else is already fighting them because we’re introducing a new system called ‘Open Tapping’ that will still give you quest credit even if somebody else initiated combat.” Most of the Warbands are designed to be done with a group, but some can be soloed, and there is discussion of creating Warbands that require an entire raid of coordinated players.

After showing off the combat, I asked Aaron a bit about the future; would there be other non-combat mounted features, such as obstacle courses or races between players? He said that while they are certainly possibilities, the current focus is definitely just on combat and making sure everything flows smoothly in Beta, as mounted combat will be a key part of the Rohan expansion. We ended the preview with a short teleportation tour through various new locations such as the city of Snowbourn, a city built upon the ancient architecture of Gondor, and the Entwash Vale, a marshy, lowland area. It was pointed out that there are some areas, such as enemy encampments, where players will automatically be dismounted. The very final area we visited was an enemy encampment called Thornhope occupied by a Ring Wraith, Carangam. I have no idea if this guy is supposed to be as powerful as he was, but every hit would have been an instant KO to a level 75 Champion without GM powers to protect him!

While mounted combat was undoubtedly the focus of the preview session, Aaron dropped hints and insights into many other aspects of the expansion, such as the rise of the Easterlings, the drama with Theoden and the factions fighting both with each other and against the orcs of Mordor. The Beta began sending out invitations last Wednesday, so select players will soon be seeing these sights for themselves; the rest will need to wait until the release in September. As Rohan boasts more than twice the physical space as the last expansion, there’s sure to be a lot to see… and ZAM will be more than happy to keep you informed about it!

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