We all are aware of the extended downtime that LOTRO experienced last week that caused their servers to be unavailable for much longer than expected. Premium and VIP players will be receiving compensation for the loss of playtime but Celestrata came to the forums today with an extra bonus we all can enjoy from now until February 26, 2013.
As a way of saying thank you for all of your patience, we will be offering a welcome back 100% bonus experience boost and a boost to lootbox drops from today until February 26th. So don’t wait; walk the lands in Middle-earth today in search of adventure and treasure!
So what do these in-game bonuses mean?
Welcome Back Experience Boost
What it means is that we have an experience boost in game automatically applied to our characters. How this works is you will have a buff applied to your character that grants +100% boost to monster kills. It will not affect quest turn-ins or legendary item experience.
To my knowledge it cannot be turned off so if you are the type that refuses to use any kind of boosters, you’re kind of stuck or use the experience disabler item available in the LOTRO Store.
This buff will stack with all other forms of experience boosters such as rested experience, store bought XP boosters and pocket item XP boosters.
Lootbox Drop Boost
What it means is they are increasing the drop rate for the lootboxes and their keys.
Lootboxes can contain a varied assortment of goodies within them.
We assume the increase is across the board meaning the Monster Players will also see an increased drop rate for the sigils of battle they are looking for the special creep looks.
Horse collectors will be interested in the opportunity for the Marrow Painted Steed with lootboxes.
February 19, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Since the CHARACTER XP you get from crafting is based on the monster-rate multiplier, it’s also an excellent time to craft. The fact that there’s a free rapid-craft accelerator this week makes it even better!
February 19, 2013 at 3:45 pm
Nice if you’re not at level cap, otherwise not much here. Would happily take some keys but no L85 drops from beasties anymore sorta kills that for me. Having said that, I’m fine with getting the 250TP whenever that shows up, and deeply thankful at this point that downtime didn’t mean my toons have been screwed up somehow or another (patiently waiting for Update 10 for that!). Baby Hobbit Rocks.
February 19, 2013 at 5:01 pm
another good morale boost from turbine. nicely done
February 19, 2013 at 6:05 pm
The game is the leveling up process and going through the story so this is actually a nice boost for people. Would like to see a price drop in keys like to 50tp. I could see them selling tons of them.
February 19, 2013 at 6:50 pm
The lootbox increase applies to both lootboxes and keys.
February 19, 2013 at 5:31 pm
I’m currently in-game but I don’t see an XP buff icon anywhere. It is on right now though?
February 19, 2013 at 6:29 pm
Although the icon doesn’t appear, killing mobs was still netting me double XP. I believe Celestrata has confirmed this to be the case too on the LotRO forums
February 19, 2013 at 6:04 pm
I was just in and didn’t see any boost in anything… and I was farming keys and loot boxes.
When will this be active?
February 19, 2013 at 6:39 pm
It is active. The icon is not showing. I’m not sure if this is on purpose. From Celestrata on the forums, it sounded like she was expecting the icon, too.
“The experience boost should be enabled on your server. I noticed that the buff icon did not appear, but I was getting double experience on my kills when I was just on my character.”
February 19, 2013 at 10:10 pm
I can see where the open tapping combined with a high respawn rate can really allow people to level up quickly, plan on dusting off my lvl 38 warden and see where I can take him.
February 20, 2013 at 8:23 am
Nice about the drops and the xp. I cannot get a lootbox to drop to save my life! I do have a nice collection of keys and they sell for around 10g on the Silverlode server AH.
- Camgilnel from Silverlode.
February 20, 2013 at 7:09 pm
I have a nice collection of lootboxes and no keys.