The Patching of LOTRO

The DVD pre-order copy of Lord of the Rings online installed easily enough.

I launched the application (it’s icon is that of the “one ring,” a motif that I imagine I am going to tire of before long in this game.) and it first patched the patcher application, then gave me an alert that the application needed to be restarted.  Once I did that, it then began patching the actual game.

The count was 5840 files to be downloaded.  I let that run and went off to watch TV.

One episode of Law & Order later, I came back and found the patcher apparently stuck. 

It wasn’t, actually, but it looked like it was.  When the screen saver kicked in on my machine, the UI stopped updating, so while the patching was complete the progress bar still said 6%.  I restarted the launcher application and it passed through all of the updates and went to the log on screen.

I put in the account I had setup for the beta and I was in the game.

Rumors of Kunark

So the best thing about the discovery of SOE trademarking the name “EverQuest II Rise of Kunark” is that it gives the EQ2 community something new to talk about.  Since we are only constrained by a potential expansion name, we are free to speculate wildly. 

I made my own guesses back in early December and I am willing to stick with them for the most part.  I am going to go out on a limb and add one thing, which is what Tier 8 will look like.  In my heart, I get the feeling that jumping 10 levels per tier is at an end and that the level cap will be raised to 75. I think that 5 level tiers will be the new standard going forward, being introduced every other expansion, with compensating items like improved and varied AA experience to give players at the level cap something to work for.

Naturally, there is a very active thread in the official EverQues II forums.

And some other people have started to weigh in with speculation on what the expansion may or may not contain. 

Ogrebear has expanded on his predictions in the EQ2-Daily forums with a post on his site about the potentials of a Kunark expansion. 

Tipa has written up “Waiting for Kunark” on West Karana.

Kfsone has weighed in with his own thoughts. 

And judging from some of the “Referrers” report WordPress gives me, there are some active discussions linked on other sites, including one in Japan. (Something about me really digs being quoted in Japanese!)

Does anybody else have some visions of the possible expansion to share?