LOTRO: Coming Changes to Race and Class Choice
Standing Stone Games are currently testing the second beta build of Update 33.2 on their The Bullroarer Test Server. The latest patch notes indicate that there are some major changes coming to the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online. The proposed Minstrel class changes are proving controversial and I suspect that there will be a strong degree of pushback from players. As I have not played this particular class, I am not in a position to express an informed opinion but reading comments both on the official forums and on Reddit, I think players have legitimate concerns. Changing and rebalancing class skills and in any way altering the status quo, never goes down well as you can never please everyone. It will be interesting to see if SSG take on board player comments or push ahead with their proposed changes regardless.
However, there are some positive changes included in Update 33.2 such as the removal of racial restrictions to the class system. To date the various classes in LOTRO have been subject to a specific set of race restrictions (please see the image below), which have been justified over the years on lore grounds by SSG. This has always been debated by some of the player community, who feel if the game can be “flexible” with the lore in some areas, why not in others? It would appear that SSG have listened and the update now allows for the following race and class permutations. Dwarf/Stout-axe Captain and Warden. Elf/High Elf Burglar. Hobbit Lore-master and Champion. Human Rune-keeper. The Beorning race remains unique These changes bring the remaining classes inline with the Brawler which is available to all permutations of Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit and Man.
Naturally, there are some players who object to these changes, considering them non-canonical, but I feel that LOTRO departed from lore purity a long time ago. I am just happy that players are getting more choice. Hence, in the spirit of such change, I created a Hobbit Lore-master on Bullroarer last night and played through the first few levels of the game. It was interesting to see all the bespoke Lore-master skills induction animations as a Hobbit and I really didn’t think it an odd addition to the game. The first Lore-master pet is the bear and it is rather comical the way it towers over its Hobbit companion. So far I haven’t encountered any issues, although other players have found some minor anomalies when playing the new Dwarf/Stout-axe class variants. But that is the entire point of beta testing.
