I managed to detach myself from a wonderful vacation baking in the Spanish sun and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea only to get back home and find myself underneath the usual Dutch overcast and heavy rain storms. Since the weather is so bad, I have a wonderful excuse to turn my computer back on and start up Lotro!
The day before I left on vacation I was one of the lucky winners in the Beta key contest from mmorpg. Of course I never got to use it until today and unfortunately cannot do or see much as European servers are excluded from the character copy feature and the E&G tavern is closed, perhaps permanently so I might not get a chance to preview Isengard after all. I don’t really care about seeing the areas as I’d rather keep those a surprise for life release, but I was and still am very curious about all the new armour and cosmetics, so at least I checked out what is new in the Exclusive section of the Lotro Store. Well in the Beta store there is nothing shockingly new in terms of cosmetics. There are three new cloaks that are merely a hooded version of the three Inn of the Forsaken cloaks that you can purchase with marks. The hooded versions are even ugly compared to the hoodless originals as they only added a grey hood on top. I would not recommend this item even though it is “store exclusive”.
I am usually not into doing previews as they are not very creative, nor am I ever the first one to check things out and put them on display, but since I haven’t seen them anywhere else, I add them here for those that are curious.
from left to right:
Dusty Hooded Seafarer’s Cloak, Stowed Hooded Threadbare Cloak, Recovered Hooded Sailor’s Cloak
They all cost 195 TP and can be found in the Cosmetics Store Exclusive section.
Other things that I have found out is that as it stands in Beta, armour proficiency requirements are lifted for the Wardrobe, but that is not all! LEVEL REQUIREMENTS ARE LIFTED AS WELL!! As a level 6 minstrel I was able to purchase a level 75 heavy chest piece from the Auction House and put it in my wardrobe!!
In my humble opinion it is fair and right to eliminate the armour proficiency requirement because it is not fair that you can use everything as a heavy armour wearer (including light and medium) but not vice versa if you are a medium or light user. It makes total sense in terms of gear but not regarding cosmetic looks. However to also eliminate the level requirement seems very odd to me and I don’t like it. I think the character that drags the piece into the Wardrobe should at least meet the level requirements, or else where is the achievement? In terms of cosmetics I always like to reach the next level just so I can use a new piece cosmetically. If those restrictions are lifted than the incentive to level for cosmetics sake is gone, with exception of perhaps class gear and quest reward armour. Any fresh new level 6 can just buy a few pieces off the Auction House to look cool without ever having set foot in the area where it dropped. It seems a bit unfair to me, but if that’s how it’s going to be than I’ll live with it.
If ever the Tavern opens up again I might be able to level my beta Minstrel, but until then I’ll just keep enjoying Middle Earth as it is now, and hopefully come up with some new outfits soon!
Cosmetic Lotro 
I completely agree with you when it comes to removing level requirements, thats just stupid and unnecessary.
welcome back from vacation hymne! 🙂
i get your point about the level restrictions being removed, but i don’t quite agree. and i’ll explain why 🙂
when i start a new character, i always tend to bond with it as much as possible and give a piece of myself into her personality (except for my outfitting dolls which i don’t even level up anyway). i can imagine if i just started playing now, i would want to look very cool and i might rush towards the goal. i would miss all the exploration part of the game. it’s great to have an awesomitely looking armour as a goal, something you can look up to, and i think this will stay so for most of the people. can you imagine new player level 10 buying a piece of armour for over 1 gold? 🙂 not even thinking of a whole set to equip cosmetically, while he still needs proper gear to actually use. alone, he wouldn’t have a chance to buy it off the AH until maybe 30-40ish.
and can you imagine the burst of joy if such a player, wanting to look awesome, receives his desired set of cosmetic pieces from a friend? i think it would greatly enhance his experience 🙂
my idea is – characters shouldn’t be developed because of some restrictions or just for the sake of outfitting. it shouldn’t be possible for level 6 to immediately look like level 65 pro, but i think this will be assured by the market itself.
but that’s just my opinion 🙂
I agree with putting a part of yourself into the characters that you are actually playing, I do that as well and even do that with my one AH character who is a unique level three because I ran him out of the introduction instance before it was changed to finish at level 6.
I think that purely cosmetic pieces should be available at any level. However armour is a different story, because I really wanted to enjoy the levelling experience up to lvl 75, knowing that when I reach that level 75, I will finally be able to equip “that chest piece”. Now I wont even really need to bother levelling. I can just craft them or buy them. The only thing I really need to level for now are the quest rewards, but I have no idea if they will be cosmetically unique. Our new class armour will probably be unique of course, so I’ll level for that, but I still regret losing the level cap on BoE and crafted armour pieces. I level purely for the cosmetic value of certain pieces so reaching that level is the achievement for me, but I also realize that most players play for stats and cosmetics are not an achievement. 😀
Anyway the only difference I guess is that I have heavy, medium and light armour wearers all at max level, so I can outfit any of my low levels with anything. To me that was/is the cosmetic achievement and satisfaction if you will. Outfitting with max level armour will now be possible even without having those max level characters. Not a lot of difference, but still…
Anyway, I just finished a very fun 6-man Rift Raid, and finally got my Rift minstrel robe!! Yay! So I’m happy no matter what anyway 😉
i understand your point of view and your reason of course – i think people will differ in opinions based on if they already have top level character for all types of gear or not :)) we all aim for uniqueness in outfitting and now we won’t have to “deserve it” (to some extend of course).
we will see what live brings 🙂
Welcome back and thanks for the wonderful news you’re giving us! 😀
I completely agree with you about the proficiency but not about the level restrictions. Here’s my opinion: Freyjuska said “characters shouldn’t be developed because of some restrictions”, I agree with that.
I’ve been playing Lotro for a very short time and I’m only level 20. For now I don’t buy cosmetics from the store nor from AH and I won’t do it when the changes you described will be released because *I* think there’s no fun in it.
I believe you can imagine my great satisfaction when I come up with something nice at my very low level, using only quest reward, common drops and low level crafting. Again this is *my* opinion.
If other people want to rush to the end and miss what I (and you) consider most of the fun, let them, it’s their choice. It won’t change the way *we* play 🙂
*zwaait vanuit Duitsland*
Welcome back
Hmm… EU servers excluded from the character copy, huh? So not so global are we after all, Turbine. Not really fair 😦
Do you have any pictures from the front of those cloaks? I agree that they look pretty ugly from the back. I never really was a fan of the old hooded cloaks anyway, but the longer trailing hoods are nice.
I have to disagree on the cosmetic issue. They did remove the level requirements a while ago for using armour from the wardrobe – my level 15 captain has been wearing Level 60+ Lorien armour for a while. I do think that at least one character should have to earn the privelege to put an item in the wardrobe. 🙂 The only thing I might change on that is that anything that’s already bound to you can go in there – such as a ‘clothie’ who chooses a heavy armour item from a quest as a reward should be able to add it to the wardrobe because it binds by default.
But that’s just me. 🙂
I agree that at least one character should meet the level requirements, but as it stands it’s all going to be unrestricted. No more requirements of any kind and anyone can use anything cosmetically. I could show you screenies of the frontside of those cloaks but really it’s not worth it…. just preview the Forsaken Inn cloaks (from the Skirmish Classic Barter) and imagine a regular plain dark grey hood on top of them.
I just wnted to see how they worked on the face, whether they shadowed asymmetrically like some of the newer ones do, or if it really is a basic hood. i think I’m going to stick with my hoodless one. My RK is quite attached to his shabby cap and feather 😉
Welcome back Hymne! Hope you feel very rested 🙂 Thank you for the ROI info. Love that they removed level and armour proficiency from outfits.
Ah so thats why you were away so long haha 😛 I hope the swimming in warm waters was revigorating 😛
Next saturday, if interested, Rift 😛 For the Minstrel set.
Yeah I almost swam to Portugal to say hello 😛 I’ll be there Saturday, you know that! 😀
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Just thought I’d mention that in Beta ALL wardrobe restrictions are lifted. That means that as a minstrel I can purchase a piece of Burglar armour from the skirmish barter and put it in my wardrobe.
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