The Lord of the Rings Online's Update 41 launches today, bringing the new Birdwatching Hobby to Middle-earth Bird Enthusiasts everywhere.
Update 41, On the Wing, brings its tentpole feature, Birding, to the MMORPG, marking the first new hobby since Fishing was introduced years and years ago. The new hobby allows players to hunt for birds throughout Middle-earth, documenting over 200 different types of Birds around JRR Tolkien's world.
Update 41 also brings with it the new Hard Tack of Thorin's Hall Crafting Event. The new event, which kicks off tomorrow on August 1st, will see Cooks, Prospectors, or anyone who just wants to help, descend upon the Thorin's Hall region to craft up some exclusive recipes, keep the tables full of food and ale, while Prospectors keep the ovens of the cooks going with mined ever-burning Ore. Assistants will help out by delivering ingredients from the larder to the Cooks or deliver the ore from the Prospectors carts to where they need to go. The event will be on a rotation along with the Combe Forester event - running for ten days, then off for the next fourteen.
Update 41 also brings with it updates to the Loremaster in an attempt to differentiate playstyles for the three Trait specializations. This includes adding a new skill to dismiss your pet, while the update notes also detail changes made to pet summoning, as well as pet skills.
"Pet summoning skills retain their current cooldown timers, meaning you can re-summon pets at will in combat. However, in yellow line, pets do not support rapid pet cycling. In red line, pets have a reduced impact on player output. In blue line, pets play a key role with gameplay revolving around buffing your pets then using your pets to deliver most of your output."
General changes have been made to the class as well, including removing general skills and slotting them in a trait skill line, or removing skills (such as Sign of Power: Command) entirely. You can check out the full changes on the update release notes.
It's a busy week for The Lord of the Rings Online. Not only does Update 41 roll out today, but tomorrow will see the launch of the latest Legendary servers, Angmar and the EU-based Mordor server. These are the first 64-bit servers in LotRO and will feature a new world event, the Veil of the Nine, which will see Ringwraiths terrorize the Free Peoples of Middle-earth. Players will have to band together to take down the Nazgul, all while hoping one of twelve Ringbearers shows up to the fight to help turn the tide.
