Turbine Drops New LOTRO Crafting Screens

Goodness... While I don't play LOTRO, Turbine is just one of the few truly dedicated developers that are constantly churning out new material for their players.

I have to say that LotRO had just about the best and most fun crafting of any MMO I've tried.

The only thing I didn't like was how you had to pick crafting specialties in sets of three per "Vocation", rather than being allowed to pick and choose from among the various crafts to get the combination of skills you really wanted. If you wanted to be a Scholar, for example, you would also get stuck with being a Farmer and a Weaponsmith, whether you wanted those abilities or not. I always thought that was rather odd.

Still and all, the game gets high marks from me generally on its in-game crafting.

The "new" recipes for cooks are simply recipes that have been missing in-game for about 18 months (food that improves Will), or in a few cases, since the original release of the game (campfire kits that don't require you to gather level 1 wood when you're level 65).

The remaing crafting changes are equally underwhelming. The "new" class items made by woodworkers and weaponsmiths are for the most part exactly the same as the previous items, with no difference in stats or effects.

The revamp of jeweller recipes has "nerfed" many sought-after items, while adding a handful of new options for low level items.

For the most part, none of these are level 65 recipes.

On the whole, the screenshots of characters crafting are much more exciting and engaging than actually crafting in-game yourself.