In a Q&A with LOTRO's executive producer Rob Ciccolini, the developer confirmed there will be a raid coming before the new Gundabad expansion this year with Update 30. Additionally, the developers discussed the Legendary Item revamp, stating it's coming "later this year."
In another Chat with Severlin, Ciccolini and community manager Jeremy "Cordovan" Snook took player questions on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook, addressing recent concerns and discussing some of what players can look forward to this year. Announced on the stream was the inclusion of a new raid coming with Update 30, though no hard date was given for the update. It was stated that it will be treated like a regular content update, unlike the recent War of Three Peaks mini-expansion released last year. Additionally, no date was set for the upcoming Wildwood content update, but also confirmed it too will be a normal content patch versus the mini-expansion format.
Additionally, Ciccolini addressed the long-awaited Legendary Item revamp that has been delayed multiple times, telling viewers to stay tuned for "later this year." Ciccolini apologized additionally for the delay to the revamp, something players have been clamoring for since...forever. Rob mentioned that is was due largely because of the engineering resources this revamp takes, including including UI changes to the system.
Also talked about during the live Q&A were potential Kinship changes, as well as the lessions the development team learned following the fallout from the mini-expansion launch last year. Ciccolini asserted that the goal wasn't to "squeeze" VIP and Lifetime account players for more money, and has said the team is lookng at ways to ensure VIPs get more value out of their subscriptions when it pertains to mini-expansions, including (but not promising) potential discounts for being VIP on the content. He didn't outright rule out not doing these in the future, but with the next two patches confirmed to be regular patches, it does look like the team is taking all the time they need before reintroducing the idea.
You can check out the full Q&A, which the team promises they will be continuing these live sessions in the future, in the Twitch embed below.
