Well, it is official, the patch notes have finally been announced for Book 11: Defenders of Eriador. So, what all can you expect to find in this exciting update? Well, for one thing, a Balrog! Not to mention player housing, the continuation of the epic books, Month of the Lore-master, and Month of the Minstrel to name a few. Want to know more? Then read on!

Introducing Housing!

Houses are more than an apartment interior floating in the ether.  Houses in LOTRO live in gorgeously landscaped neighborhoods, complete with yards! 

• Four different racially-styled homesteads, with distinctive architectural styles and environs.  (A "homestead" is a style of neighborhood - Elf, Dwarf, Man, and Hobbit.) 
• Neighborhoods can be accessed through a gateway located near Duillond, Thorin's Hall, Michel Delving, and Bree. 
• Options abound!  Up to 250 neighborhoods are available per homestead so you can settle down near your friends!
• Thirty different houses per neighborhood: 4 kinship houses, 10 deluxe personal houses, and 16 standard personal houses.
• Over 200 decorations to mix-and-match, including paint for walls and floors, rugs, bookshelves, welcome mats, scenic paintings, even background music!

New Areas

• High level world content
• Tâl Bruinen (in Trollshaws)
• Northern High Pass (in Misty Mountains)
• Southern High Pass (in Misty Mountains)
• Goblin-town (in Misty Mountains)
• And... introducing a new level 50 epic 12-player raid: in The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu
• In the far northeast corner of Angmar, the Angmarim in their desperation have opened a long-sealed door and begun mining for obsidian and iron in a place simply known as The Rift.  They have uncovered long since forgotten tales and evils.  The Rangers of Gath Forthnír, led by the Elf-lord Iorelen, are now keeping tabs on this expedition and need your help!
• This new area features:
  • 7 new Rift Class Armour sets
  • 7 new Rift Class-restricted weapons
  • And 7 new monsters!

Classes

• Month of the Lore-master
• Filled out level 40-50 skills
• Better skills for fighting Undead, Drakes and Creatures of Nature
• A new pet!
• Examine enemy weakness ability
• Cute "critter" pets - 8 non-combat pets
• Month of the Minstrel
• Filled out level 40-50 skills
• Enhanced music features:
• Minstrels will be able to train other players to use instruments both directly and via created items
• 3 new instruments
• More effective solo play:
• War-Speech toggle stance opens up new skills
• New damage-type instruments
• Better buffing and support
• Better healing

Of Special Note

• Epic Quests: The next chapter in the epic adventure, the 13-quest arc for Book 11, is now available -- if you've completed Book 10, speak to Calenglad to continue the story!
• Customizable Chat: User-defined chat channels (up to 4 slots) are now available!
• /joinchannel <name> [password]' will create a channel (or join, if already existing) in the next free slot
• /leavechannel <name>' will exit a user channel, if already in it
• /userchat# <msg>' or '/uc# <msg>' will send a message to the channel of the slot specified
• /userchat <name> <msg>' or '/uc <name> <msg>' will send a message to the named chat channel if you're already a member of that channel
• You can also use /1, /2, /3, or /4 to talk in your user-defined chat channels.
• Fear: Fear should properly break on damage.
• Fear effects were not causing monsters to call for help as they should have when the fear wore-off.

Gameplay (misc.)

• ll recovery/cool-down timers for skills, usable items, etc. will now count down and expire even while logged off.
• The camera position when mounting or dismounting will no longer return to its default setting. Using a mount, while mounted, will now dismount you.
• There were some small changes in monster damage mitigation due to an increased variability between monsters' weaknesses to specific damage types.
• You will no longer open corpses when auto-looting if the only visible remaining items are being rolled on or assigned to someone in your Fellowship.

Loot System

• Better loot feedback: Display Need vs. Greed selections, and toggle back to /Roll
• Roll/Pass has been re-added as an option for fellowship looting! This is in addition to Need/Greed. The default for a new fellowship is Roll/Pass.
• We now save the last setting you used when you were the leader of the fellowship. So if you start a fellowship and set the loot type to "Need/Greed" and Item Quality to "Rare," when you start another fellowship the initial setting for the fellowship will be loot type "Need/Greed" and Item Quality "Rare."

Skills/Classes

• Revive skills now list during examination the vital-stat adjustments that will be applied to the target.
• Fixed an issue with stealth skills that was delaying the application of attacks
• Fixed "Feign Death" so now monsters that happen upon you while you're playing dead will not attack.
• Added some error feedback messages to the Fellowship Maneuvers system.
• Fixed an issue with the Fellowship Maneuvers' display not showing what was contributed correctly.
• Fixed the skill description for "Paranoia."
• "Still as Death" and "Hobbit Silence" are now 100% reliable. Cool-downs have been adjusted to allow for this increase in the power of these skills.
• The slaying of squirrels, foxes, rabbits and other sweet and innocent critters of Middle-earth is no longer considered a heroic act worthy of enabling skills for Captains or Champions.

Burglar

• The Burglar's "Sneak" skill was missing a recovery timer to prevent repeated stealthing and re-stealthing. This has been given a 10 second recovery timer. (The Warg's stealth skill recovery timer has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds to match.)
• Now a Burglar's stealth after using "Hide in Plain Sight" should gain the benefit of the "Leaf-walker" Trait if it is slotted. The stealth skill will always be called "Sneak" (never changing to "Stalk")
• Fixed a bug where Burglar skills that did not deal damage were still triggering critical responses.
• There was an error in the amount of damage the Burglar's "Provoke" skill dealt, especially while in Sneak. The amount of damage dealt by the skill has been decreased, and two changes have been made to offset the decreased damage. First, the amount of threat added to the Burglar's target's current target has been increased by over 35%. Second, the skill damage of the Burglar's "Subtle Stab" has been tripled... yeah, as in times 3. "Provoke" should be more about directing threat, while "Subtle Stab" should be more about stabbing stuff.
• The name of the Burglar's legendary trait "Sweep the Knee" has been corrected to be "Sweep the Leg."  The prospect of a "Wax On, Wax Off" skill is still under discussion.
• The "Perplexing Riddle" Trait now applies a mesmerize with a 5 second grace period for damage versus a stun then mesmerize.
• Burgled loot will now frequently be more colorful.  Burglar, do your burgling!

Captain

• The Captain's "Cry of Vengeance" skill now has a range of 10 meters.
• Captain banners and armaments are now Bind on Equip.
• The skill description for "Grave Wound" now uses "real" words.
• Updated the Captain's Standard description text to better explain what they do.
• The Captain's Mark skills will once again bestow visual effects on their targets.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing Captains from using Cry of Vengeance on players outside of their fellowship.
• The Oathbreakers summoned by the legendary Captain skill "Oathbreaker's Shame" now visibly harass their target.
• Captain Standards now show their power costs.

Champion

• Fixed an aggro issue with the Champion's "Ebbing Ire" and "Rising Ire" skills.
•  "Controlled Burn" will no longer break on stuns and knock-downs
• The "Patience" Trait and "Call of the Wild" Trait icons have been updated with the proper colors for their crests.
• Legendary Champion deeds now state that Gimli can be found in the Misty Mountains rather than Rivendell.

Guardian

• Guardian Shield Spikes will now last longer
• "Small Shield Spikes" = 5 Minutes
• "Medium Shield Spikes" = 10 Minutes
• "Large Shield Spikes" = 15 Minutes
• "Westernesse Spikes" = 10 Minutes / 15 Minutes For Critical Success Version
• "Ancient Dwarf Spikes" = 10 Minutes / 15 Minutes For Critical Success Version
• "Beleriand Spikes" = 10 Minutes / 15 Minutes For Critical Success Version
• The "Turn the Tables" skill now invokes its recovery time correctly upon use.
• Created a Shield Spike Removal Kit to allow Guardians to remove their spikes if they want to change which spike type they're using.

Hunter

• When hunters use their "Track" skill, targets that are already tapped will show up in the list, but the button will be grayed-out.
• There have been several changes made to tracking for this update:
• Tracking a stealthed target will now automatically detect that target for the tracker.
• Tracked players are no longer shared with your Fellowship.
• Whenever a Tracking target enters stealth, it will cancel all tracking on that target. The tracker(s) will be notified that they have been eluded.
• Players who are tracked will be notified that someone is following them.
• You can no longer attack a stealthed target that you have not detected yet through skill forwarding.
• The "Tracking Guide" characteristic's description has been updated to reflect its new limitation. Only information about non-player tracked targets can be shared to fellowship members.
• Improved the Quick Shot's detaunt while in Endurance Stance
• The duration of the Fear effect applied by the Hunter's "Bard's Arrow" has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Critical Hits with the Hunter's "Merciful Shot" now deal 50% more bonus damage than normal criticals. Also, the skill damage has increased slightly.
• The second shot of the Hunter's "Swift Bow" was not using the damage type of applied oils. Now both shots will use the Fire or Light damage type if the appropriate oil is active and apply special effects if they critical.
• Fixed a bug where the Hunter's "Sturdy Traps" Trait would cause the "Set Snare" skill to drop the same kind of trap as "Set Trap."

Lore-master

• Month of the Lore-master
• Bane Flare - The Lore-master heaves a glowing orb into the sky that will detonate in an explosion of fireworks. Up to three undead will then be dazed and then mesmerized for a short duration.
• Warding Lore: The Dead - Your knowledge of warding lore enables you to create an area that is the bane of the chosen creature, creating an area where they will take more damage from tactical damage.
• Warding Lore: Creatures of Nature - Your knowledge of warding lore enables you to create an area that is the bane of the chosen creature, creating an area where they will take more damage from tactical damage.
• Warding Lore: Drakes - Your knowledge of warding lore enables you to create an area that is the bane of the chosen creature, creating an area where they will take more damage from tactical damage.
• Ancient Craft - This allows the Lore-master to prepare a concoction of magnetized metal fillings and other obscure materials. This makes wearing armor more difficult and heavily armored creatures irritated thereby rendering their armor ineffective.
• "Air-Lore"- Empowered air swirls around your target, inflicting damage on any who strike it.
• Sticky Tar Knowledge - The Lore-master smashes a vial of foul smelling and sticky tar onto the ground, causing an area that is 50% harder to move through, as well as making enemy creatures 10% more vulnerable to fire.
• Storm-Lore: Lore - The Lore-master can smash his staff upon the ground, causing a thunderclap which mesmerizes creatures around him for 3 seconds and causes weak damage.
• "Lightning Storm" - The Lore-master summons a storm which attracts electrical energy to targets that have already been coated with the mixture of materials from Ancient Craft. This bond of nature is difficult for the mortal races and is very demanding on the Lore-master's morale.
• Pets
• "Lynx-Speech" - Your understanding of the speech of the lynx allows you to call one to assist in your adventures.
• "Back from the Brink" - With some careful thought, the Lore-master can restore a fallen comrade to fighting trim, reviving a defeated ally at a small cost of fragrant herbs.
• Bears will execute flank effects when they perform a critical hit with their bear-specific skills.
• It is now possible to change the appearance of your lore-master pets!
• The Raven skill, "Distraction," now deals damage over time while in the channel state.
• Pets have been made slightly faster.
• Pets have been rebalanced.
• The skill "Sign of the Righteousness" can now be refreshed before it ends. However, "Improved Sign of the Righteousness" is not overridden by the lower version.

Minstrel

• Month of the Minstrel
  • War-speech – A new stance that concentrates on damage, but reduces healing power.
  • Call to the Elder King – Usable only while in War-speech – Deals damage in an AOE and makes enemies more susceptible to Light damage.
  • Call of the Second Age – Usable only while in War-speech – Deals damage to enemies near the Minstrel and gives a movespeed buff to your fellowship.
  • Chant of the Oathbreaker – A chant that summons an Oathbreaker’s blade to harry a foe, dealing damage over time and reducing resistance to Cry and Song attacks. War-speech empowers this skill.
• Tale of Battle – An aura that grants Vitality and Wound resistance. Can only have 1 Tale active.
• Tale of Warding – An aura that grants Hope and Armor. Can only have 1 Tale active.
• Call to Greatness – Grants a class specific buff to a fellowship member.
• Call to the Fellowship – Gives a bonus to your fellowship's next fellowship manoeuver.
• Gift of the Hammerhand - You have mastered Lay of the Hammerhand well enough to bestow a lesser benefit upon an ally
• Chord of Salvation – An instant cast heal, costs a lot of power though.
• Irresistible Melody – Out of combat only. Plays a tune so irresistible that nearby free people will break into a dance.
• Stack size has been doubled for Lute Strings!
• The Minstrel's "Song of Soothing" skill can no longer be used out of combat.

Monster Play

• Monster play class updates
• Warband Maneuvers: Monster players now have the ability to perform "warband maneuvers" on monsters and players. Also, this means players can now perform fellowship maneuvers on monster players.
• Diminishing Returns: We have implemented diminishing returns in player-versus-monster-player situations. This does not affect functionality in PvE at all. Let us reiterate again, no changes were made to the way that crowd control functions in PvE! The diminishing returns are only for PvMP interaction. Diminishing returns affect all spells and skills used by players excluding the spider's root. We are committed to getting this skill added to the list for diminishing returns at a later time.
  • Diminishing returns is initially being implemented to reduce the efficacy of skills/spells ratcheting downward on a slow slope. Example: A Lore-master opens with blinding flash and the player is struck by a second blinding flash within the effect cool-down timer allotment. The new application of the skill will last for a few seconds less. This continues downward to a zero second return over the course of repeated application.
• Players who bring their Freep into the Ettenmoors will be unable to log a Creep into the Ettenmoors for 2 hours' time. If you never take your Freep to the Ettenmoors, you can play your Creep as often as you want. Creeps can always leave their character and return to normal PvE play on their Freep.
• Players and monster players can right-click each other to attack each other.
• Because of the changes to monster play allowing MPCs to begin fellowship maneuvers, we needed to change the way that the skill Pounce from stealth worked for Wargs. Instead of a knocked-down effect from the skill, players who successfully complete the Pounce from stealth skill will stun their opponent. There is still a chance, on critical, for the knocked-down effect to take place.
• Taking Keeps in the Ettenmoors will now result in an announcement sent to both players and monster players in the area sharing the state of the area.
• All hot points in the Ettenmoors should now be functional and have defenders for both free peoples and monster players.
• Fixed an issue with Tracking skills/items not finding free peoples players or monster players.
• Guards located at the rally points controlled by the towers will now always spawn dependent on the correct player/monster player state.
• Morningthaw bears in monster play are no longer invulnerable to rally point guards.
• The fires left by dumping burning oil should no longer float outside of Tol Ascarnen, Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw.
• Cauldrons: Damage dealt from cauldrons was reduced drastically. Additionally, the bug with the cauldron at Tirith Rhaw has been fixed.
• Damage dealt from the murder holes was reduced drastically.
• Since Brittleleaf sprouts are no longer usable by players we have removed their ability to be tracked via the Burglar's "Track Treasure."
• Fear now has a greater effect in PvMP disabling skill play during that combat state. 
• You can no longer stealth at the hot point locations.
• The spider skills for "Entangling Webs" and "Poison Spray" are now on independent cool-downs.
• Spiders are now correctly identified as female.
• Some spawns that were not appearing all the time have been updated and should now appear correctly.

• Spiders can no longer use the skills "Lie in Wait" or "Trapdoor Sanctuary" while under stealth blocking effects.
• The Uruk Warleader skills, "On Your Feet!" and "Field Promotion" are now correctly fellowship skills.
• Warg's "Improved Pounce:" The knockdown effect of Improved Pounce has been changed to happen only when the warg critically succeeds on a hit; the critical chance was also reduced. The warg will now stun his opponent, instead of knocking them down. This change was necessary since the knockdown state induced the chance for a warband maneuver.
• You can no longer stealth while attempting to take control of a hot point in the Ettenmoors.

Rangers/Trolls

• Monster play: After looking at data and listening to feedback on Trolls and Rangers in the Ettenmoors, we have made the following changes:
• Troll and Ranger sessions will have a max number of two appearing at any given time. One session will always be present for either faction. The second session appears only when your faction is losing the fight in the Ettenmoors (ie. You control fewer than three locations.)
• Trolls are no longer immune to stun.
• Troll bestowers will no longer have faulty interaction with troll sessions.
• Troll session players will now obtain the Destiny they should for retaking the Grimwood Lumber Camp.
• Ranger sessions are now purchased with Tokens of Valour instead of Destiny points. It will cost 10 Tokens of Valour to start a session.
• Rangers' "Fly True" has been upgraded to never miss against on-level creatures.

Monster play quests

•  All quests involving the defeat of Captain-General or Tyrants now properly state that you must not be defeated when the Captain-General or Tyrant falls. 
• The quest, "Get to Grothum, Maggot" now correctly states that the goblin village is to the east of Gramsfoot.
• A text error in "Notice of the First Marshal" has been cleaned up.
• "Miners of the Forty-nine" is now bestowed from a Dwarf bestower within the Isendeep Mine and is now completable.
• "Wolves of the Grimwood" no longer has confusing objective information for the last stage.
• The quest "Wolves at our Walls" was missing its objective text. This has been remedied.
• Mash can now be turned into Soldier Graus at Gramsfoot.
• When completing the quest, "Cleansing the Hoarwell," players would receive a message that the Hoarwell was cleansed before using the cleansing agent. This has been fixed.
• The quest "Dwarfs in the Mine" will now direct players to the dwarf camp on the far side of the Isendeep Mine.
• The Isendeep quest "Bringing the Beasts to Bear" has been marked as a small fellowship quest.
• The Isendeep quest, "Hold the Mine" will now advance in the center of the mine.
• Old Goldhead will now talk to players while on the quest to bring him against Tirith Rhaw
• Killing Tortmund as a monster player will no longer fail the spider escort to the Grimwood.

Crafting

• The critical version of all crafted wearable gear (including jewelry, weapons, armor, and shields) should now have the same effective bonuses of the normal version but increased.  The tier 2-4 items have been increased in power to be more on par with other comparable rewards.   (Tier 5 items are already potent and were therefore not modified to the same degree.)
• Crafting recipes tied to quests that allow a profession to advance to the next tier were incorrectly displaying an amount of crafting experience to be rewarded upon successful execution. These crafting quest recipes should now properly display that they award no crafting experience.
• Fixed draw distance issues with crops that can be tracked using the "Track Crops" skill. In general, all trackable crops should now be visible from approximately the same distance, and should no longer only "pop" into view once you get close.
• Ingredient recipes used to process items for some reputation recipes were not available in game, preventing players from executing these recipes. The missing reputation ingredient recipes are now auto-granted to the Jeweller (1 recipe), Prospector (1 recipe), and Forester (2 recipes) professions.
• Inscriptions now show up on critical crafting success items
• Fixed an issue that was causing weapons to stay hidden after harvesting ore or wood.
• Misty Mountain Silver is now more common in the Misty Mountains (particularly in the High Pass)
• Boar intestines, used for some crafting recipes, were dropping too frequently and will now drop less often.  In other news, pork belly futures are through the roof!
• Corrected some ingredient inaccuracies in all seven crafting vocation guides.

Cooking

• Fixed an issue with the required ingredients for the "Serene Stew" recipe. The recipe should no longer require "Green Onions," and should now instead require "Yellow Onions."
• Fixed the display name for "Improved Lute Strings of Minor Subtlety."

Farming

• Recipes and seeds for Shire Sweet-leaf pipe-weed can now be purchased from Novice Farming vendor NPCs.

Jeweller

• Fixed typos found in the display names for "Sparkling White Gold Bracelet," "Glittering White Gold Earring," and "Brilliant White Gold Earring."
• Fixed a typo in the word "Jewellery" found in the Crafting UI panel
• New Lore-master amulet recipes can be found in loot!

Metalworker

• The recipes, "Steel Shoulder Guards Recipe," "Dwarven Steel Shoulder Guards Recipe," and "Elven Steel Shoulder Guards Recipe" were producing critical and non-critical armour pieces with identical stats. This has now been fixed so that the critical armor pieces are improved versions of the non-critical armor pieces.
• Fixed a typo in "Crest of Valour Recipe" display name.
• The craftable tier 1 tools ("Bronze" and "Superior Bronze") were not set to be Bind on Equip. This has been fixed, and these tools will now properly bind the first time they are equipped.
• Fixed typo & grammar issues with the reputation item "Icon of Heroes."

Metalworker and Tailoring

• Over 400 new armor recipes for Dwarven, Elven, and Westernesse variants of existing craftable armor can now be found in treasure. These new recipes add a ton of visual variety to the already large list of craftable armor types.

Scholar

• The descriptions for the dye colours that the items "Copper Salts" and "Onion Skins" can be used to create were incorrectly swapped with one another. This has been fixed.

• Some ingredients have been updated: Ruined Second Age Trinkets and Torn Craftsman's Diaries now appear at a greater frequency.

Tailor

• Corrected typos found in many of the descriptions on journeyman Tailor recipe scrolls.

Weaponsmith

• Renamed critical success shield-spikes so they are more easily differentiated from non-critical shield-spikes.
• Decreased the number of shield-spikes produced by all tier 2, 3, and 4 shield-spike recipes.

Woodworker

• Critical success-crafted Minstrel instruments are now named "Exquisite."
• New Minstrel instrument recipes can be found in loot!

Items

• Avast!  The hat, eye-patch and combo from "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Mariners" quest can now be dyed to be more col-arrrr-ful
• After numerous Council of the North members requested a "Sage's Wristlet" that didn't appear to be in stock, Hafgrím found an old crate of them hidden away. Prominent members of the Council of the North may now purchase this item.
• Summoning items provide use feedback when in and out of areas that forbid summoning.
• The Special Edition item "Glass of Aglaral" now has a 1 hour cooldown time (it was originally 2-hour cooldown time).
• Changes have been made to the curing of poison, disease, wounds and fear. Primary cures now have an advantage of being able to cure +5 level effects. Secondary Cures remedy +2 levels. The new curing potions are tiered by effectiveness as follows:
• Lesser Draughts and Salves are effective at level 10 and under
• Simple Draughts and Salves level 20 and under
• Greater Draughts and Salves level 30 and under
• Refined Draughts and Salves level 40 and under
• Pure Draughts and Salves level 50+ and under

Salves are also now usable while moving. All potions/salves can be found as loot and will be available in shops.  Existing curing potions/salves have been grandfathered in and will be unchanged. However, they are no longer available from shops or loot.

• Level 50 curing potions and salves will cure debuffs from level 50+ monsters during Book 11. In a future book, if higher level cures are introduced, current level 50 potions will not be effective against level 50+ debuffs.
• Belegrin has been updated to now increase Parry Chance by 1%.
• The Hope bonus from the Bounder Shirriff's Cap will no longer stack with other Hope items.
• The art for Warden's Wrap has been updated
• There were two rings named "Coblaiths Folly." The one from Book 10 has been renamed to "Strange Ring." No other aspects of the item have been changed.
• "The Tarnished Bracelet" should no longer show stringtable errors to players.
• Battle and Warding lore scrolls now work on fellow members at a slightly increased range.
• Rift reward hammer for the Champions has been renamed
• Removed the tactical crit enchantment on the Burglar's Rift Armour set and added max Morale
• Updated the cloak "Wig-feld" to use better looking art
• Invokable Heal and Power restore items have had two bugs fixed with them. The restore over time items were restoring much too much power and morale, and have been brought in line with the instant restores. Also, the cooldown of the items was not being applied to the restoration amount (longer cooldowns grants more restoration.)

Armour

• Armour rends from weapons of greater magnitude now override those of lesser magnitudes.
• Several rare helmets were updated to fix a problem with not accepting dyes correctly.
• The icon for the Helm of the Iron-Home has been fixed.
• Fixed some cases that led to stacking Armour Rend effects on target.
• The Race of Man versions of the Mirrored and Polished Ancient Shoulder Guards have changed appearance to be consistent with how they look on all other Avatars.

Weapons

• The following weapons have been given increased or additional stats: Cuthoron, Maethigil, Auger, Rogmul's Edge, Shatterbone, Rogmul's Disdain, Free-cutter, Thunderhead, Gilnor, Longond, Bognagol, Thindris
• The damage types on the following weapons were updated:
• Longond damage type changed to Westernesse
• Bognagol to Ancient Dwarf
• Elder Staff to Westernesse
• Auger to Westernesse
• Hill-defender to Ancient Dwarf
• Forvengwath's Despair to Ancient Dwarf
• Rogmul's Disdain to Westernesse
• Tollang to Ancient Dwarf
• Some invoked weapons now have a separate, shorter cool-down for when they are equipped.

User Interface

• The UI team has been working hard to provide further improvements to scalable UI as well as additional tooltip UI enhancements!
• Fixed alerts which were hanging outside of their drag box (in ctrl-\ mode).
• The global UI scale buttons now behave more intuitively.
• Backgrounds on some icons have been fixed. 
• The UI will now stay in the position in which you left it between sessions.
• Undocked toolbars once again show all their slots.
• Alerts now disappear when you click on them. Always.
• Frame rate display! Press CTRL-F to see your current frame rate.  Use ctrl-\ and drag the display around.
• Your UI will no longer move around by itself when you re-size your window or switch between full-screen and windowed mode.
• UI elements will be more properly placed for new players.
• Changing the "Raid Vital Class Color Location" option to Name or None no longer results in an all white background for member vitals.
• The character-generation UI now has a 'Movie Library' option. This can show all possible movies, or only those that are unlocked. Movies are unlocked whenever any character on that account views a new movie. Existing player accounts will be updated with unlocked movies (based upon previously completed quests) upon logging in.
• You can now try on items that are linked through chat in the Dressing Room. Ctrl-left-click on an item description in chat window.
• Added an option to enable or disable adoption requests.  This option is enabled by default.
• UI tree controls (such as the skills panel or the titles panel) should no longer expand (or collapse) the first category when clicking on the "empty space" within the tree control UI.
• The mouse scroll wheel now works correctly in the reputation page of your character journal.
• The Analyze Skill panel is now movable and had a small makeover.
• Skill names in trainers now fit two full lines; no more chopping off the second line.
• When parsing ABC music files, rests no longer report "Line 0, column 0" in error messages.
• Traits and characteristics no longer say "On Use" in their examination tooltips
• Certain skills that have the effect of transferring vital points from a target to the caster will now display the effect statistics when mousing over them. Some examples would include warband maneuvers.

Maps/Radar

• Map notes are now better about honoring your current filter setting.
• The area name under the radar would sometimes vanish after teleporting.  This has been fixed.
• The location name under the radar updates correctly now when moving between the various halls within Thorin's Hall.
• You can no longer access the filter or map menu from the world and territory maps.

Chat UI

• Deleting chat windows should no longer cause the game to crash.
• Teleporting will no longer remove keyboard focus from the chat window.

Deed Log/Quest Journal

• The "Race & Social" deed log page in session play is now labeled, "Session."
• Deeds can now be added to the quest tracker. On the Deed Log, there is now a button to manually add or remove a deed from the quest tracker; and from the Main Menu, under Options, choose UI Settings, and in the Panels section there is now an option to automatically add deeds to the quest tracker.
• Selecting a filter in the quest journal will remove any empty categories.
• If you are in a fellowship, we now show the quests that are shared among other members of your fellowship in your quest journal. An icon will appear for each person that has the quest and if you mouse over the icon you will see the name of the player. If you see 5 icons, that means everyone in your fellowship has that quest underway.
• A new quest journal filter has been added called "Shared." When selected, this will show only quests that are shared with other members of your fellowship.
• The time-left counter in the quest tracker is now wider to stop wrapping text.

Crafting Panel

• The crafting panel now remembers its location between log-ins.
• Fixed a bug where the "Hide When Crafting" option in the Crafting Panel would not always work correctly.
• In the crafting UI panel: The category color for recipes will now reset when all recipes in that category are uncraftable.
• Crafting recipe items will now truncate and show a tooltip if they get too long.

Kinship Panel

• You should no longer see players who just logged off in the Kinship UI if you are looking at only online players.
• Players will no longer see kinship recruitment requests from players on their ignore list.
• Increased response time for Kinship UI when toggling online/offline option.

Tooltips

• Examination tooltips have been revamped to be clearer and more useful. I'm talking new fonts, new layouts, and new colors here, people!
• There is now a clearer distinction between usage and equip effects when you examine an item.
• The non-functional option to disable tooltips has been removed.
• The tooltips for hunters' multi-traps no longer mysteriously say, "2 attacks" followed by nothing.
• Mouse-over of deeds in your deed log is much more consistent.
• Mousing over an entity's floaty text name now acts just like mousing over the entity itself: the entity will highlight and your cursor may change.
• Quest categories in the quest log now show tooltips if their text was truncated.
• The worth line in tooltips now uses the same font as the rest of the tooltip.
• The tooltips on items that need to be activated for buffs, heals, etc. should read much more clearly now.
• Items in the 'BuyBack' list for vendors will now show correct customization details, if applicable. These include: 'wear-and-tear' values; inscription name; manufacturer name; dye color.
• Clarified the examination information when mousing over monster auras.
• Fixed an issue that prevented tool-tip comparisons for Captain's Standards & Armaments, Lore-master's books, Champion's Runes, and Burglar Tools. Mousing over one of these items will now compare it with a similar item.
• Tooltips on the flags reflecting the status of building the cauldrons for each keep now use correct "Cauldron of <location>"

Kinships

• Kinship Recruits cannot post or bid on Kinship Auctions.
• The Kinship Successor button is now a toggle, so leaders can now un-name someone as their successor. Demoting your successor will also remove their successor status.

Chat/Social

• New feature - chat logging!
• Right-click on a chat tab and choose Chat Logging, Start Logging to start recording new chat entries in your chat tab to a file. Right click the tab, and choose Chat Logging, Stop Logging to stop recording to the file.
• If you want to capture text already in the chat window to a file, but logging wasn't on when you received the chat messages, you can right click on a chat tab and choose Chat Logging, Capture Chat to capture the text already in the chat window to a file.
• Alternatively, you can use the new "/chatlog on," "/chatlog off," and "/chatlog capture" commands to control chat logging for the currently active tab.
• You can log chat from multiple tabs at the same time into their own log files. Chat logging for the IM Sessions tab is per-session - you can log your chat sessions with individual people.
• The chat log files go into your My Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online directory.
• Added new command to enumerate all user-defined chat channels. Just type '/listchannels' to see which user chat channels you're currently in.
• LFP (Looking For Player) Want Ads are now removed when the fellowship becomes full

Pets/Companions

• Now when you order your pet/companion to perform an action, the order is displayed in the chat window.
• Players can now double- or right-click a pet to attack during a spar.
• Pets will no longer play random idle emotes while in the water
• You now track your own pet on the radar with a little blue blip. Also, you can find a new checkbox in the Social Options section of the Options panel, to have radar blips for all pets in your fellowship.
• Players can release cosmetic pets with either "/pet release" or "/pet releaseall"  A pet-specific context menu was added to the opponent's vitals, so masters can dismiss pets without using the commands.
• Players can issue pet skill commands on long distance targets now without the skill timing out.
• Fixed a problem where a player's pet/companion would sometimes teleport in with their master and never move or act again.
• A pet skill's remaining cool-down timer now appears in the skill examination window.

Emotes

• Players will now receive a message with a description and trigger command when a new emote is granted.
• Some existing emotes have been enhanced! /look will now have you peering forward into the distance, and /lookaround will have you looking to the left (to the left) and to the right.
• The emotes /brb and /oop now use the correct male/female pronouns.
• Quests that give emotes as rewards, such as the Spring Festival Dance Quests, will now show the emote you will receive in the quest display.
• Emotes are now blocked while crafting.

World

• Certain walls in the Great Barrow Instance would appear whole again if they unloaded and then reloaded on the client. They will now remain in their broken state.
• Numerous pathing issues in Angmar have been fixed.
• Certain "non-slime" areas of the Carn Dûm sewers will no longer kill players.
• Carn Dûm Instance: Players should no longer get stuck in an inescapable pit in the Gates of Carn Dûm instance. 
• Misc. fixes to the Annúminas tomb instance.

Town Services

• Hithlim in Esteldin is now labeled as a Supplier, not a Grocer
• A new Supplier is now available in Bywater's crafting center
• The Annúminas bartering NPCs now know their leg from their chest, and will give you the armour piece you request.
• Some items sold by Reputation vendors were priced low and have now been increased.
• Provisioners will now use the standard Vendor icon instead of the Crafter icon over their heads.

Music System

• Let the Band play on! Synchronized ABC songs! You can have everyone in your fellowship start playing a song at the same time. To do so, use the same /play command but add "sync" (but no quotes) to the end. For example, "/play awesome sync" will prepare to play the song awesome.abc. You won't begin playing until someone in your fellowship uses the /playstart command. A few seconds after someone uses the /playstart command, everyone who is waiting to play (using the sync flag) will begin at the same time.
• ABC songs can now end in either .abc or .txt.
• There's a new keybinding for stopping a currently playing ABC song. It defaults to '`' (the back-tick under the tilde).
• Added the /playlist command. With no arguments, it will list all ABC songs you have available. You can optionally supply a filter as well. The filter accepts the wildcards '*' and '?'. For example, to list all songs starting with an 'a': "/playlist a*".
• Chords! ABC files now support chords of up to 6 notes. Isn't that awesome?
• "//" is now supported in ABC files. It is the same as "/4" for a note's duration.
• There is now support for implied accidentals in ABC song files. In other words, an accidental on a note is applied to all subsequent identical notes in that measure, unless another accidental is supplied. You can now change key within a song, not just in the header.
• Due to music synchronization, ABC songs are no longer played immediately. Rather, there is about a 1 second delay before a song begins (and ends, if you cancel it).
• 3 new instruments

Adoptions/Notary System/Bios

• The default pedigree generation is now 10, making it easier to adopt or be adopted.
• Corrected an issue with the player inspection display which would cause players to show a child or parent when they didn't have one.
• You can no longer adopt a player by right-clicking on their name in the chat tab if they're too far away.

Reputation

• Tasks you complete for the Elves of Echad Candelleth will now increase your standing with the Elves of Rivendell.
• When you receive no reputation for killing a mob, you will no longer get a message saying your reputation has increased by 0.
• Fixed an issue where NPCs in Sarnur were not dropping reputation trophies.
• Fixed an issue with the Breeland Men crafting reputation quest text.
• All Reputation quests (even the ones that just require you to talk to a new NPC) now grant at least a small amount of Reputation.
• Monsters above Elite level will now give proportionately greater reputation rewards.

Auctions

• Cancelling Auctions: Auctions can now only be cancelled within the first hour after creation.
• Crafters rejoice! The crafting section in the Auction House now includes recipe scrolls which are sorted by vocation.
• The Auction UI is now updated to better limit the amount of numbers entered into a currency field.  You can now only enter two copper digits, and three silver digits.
• Added a "Reputation" search category to the Auction UI.  Note - Only newly posted Reputation items will appear in this search.
• The "Delete" key now works properly in the Auction UI's value fields
• The duration of an auction is now extended slightly when bids are made close to the end of the auction.
• The mail sent to the winner of an auction now displays the winning bid amount.
• The buyer's name will now appear in the mail to the seller of a kinship auction.
• When using the name field to search by an item's name, you must enter at least three characters of that item's name.
• You can no longer bid on auctions placed by another character on your account.
• Auction posting history will now reflect the pricing and duration used in your existing posted auctions when you log in.

Mail

• The Send Mail button should now be more consistent and be enabled/disabled appropriately
• The displayed cost to mail a stack of items is now updated when the size of the stack changes.
• The mail list now shows an indicator for COD mail.
• You can now examine mail item attachments from your mail list by mousing over the item attachment indicator icon.
• You can now see the amount of money attached to a mail message from your mail list by mousing over the money attachment indicator icon.

Graphics/Animation/FX

• Misleading aura effects are no longer shown as being applied to the monster that possesses the aura.
• There is now a visual effect when a player binds to a milestone.
• Players jumping in place while carrying a palantír will now move more naturally.
• 4/5 Scholars agree that lying down while in combat can be detrimental to a person's health. No more lying down (or fainting, or sitting) on the job!
• Fixed an issue that was causing Hobbit instruments to appear at the wrong scale.
• Fixed an issue with stealth skills that was delaying the application of their fx.
• Nazgûl/Wraiths no longer play hit animations
• Large animating objects that animate out of your field of view should no longer abruptly blip into existence when you look where said object used to be!
• The animation for the Racial Trait Skill "Hobbit Silence" is now smoother.
• Added animation to the collection part of the quest, "Stealing Stores."
• Terrain isn't all cellophane-ey under Very High graphics quality anymore.
• Terrain no longer looks super-shiny when landscape lighting quality is set to high.
• Fixed a male Hobbit Hunter animation bug

Audio

• Our NPCs have recently attended a group therapy retreat, and you will generally find the voice-over used by our Vendors, Stable-masters, etc., to be a bit less gloomy/angry/scared.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a crash which would frequently occur when flipping keeps in Annúminas.
• Right-clicking an item in your inventory will no longer force your character to face in the camera's direction.
• Incapacitated players used to lose the floaty text over their heads. If you have floaty text on, you will now see a player's floaty text regardless of incapacitation.
• Floaty text now updates correctly when players enter and leave fellowships and kinships, and when they retreat.
• There's new feedback when trying to access a reflecting pool that's not available.
• If you're travelling on a rented mount and your client is somehow closed down, travel will resume from where you left off the next time you log in.
• Tom Bombadil has given up running. Skipping is much more fun!
• Players can now cancel right-filling induction bars by pressing the 'Esc' key
• Improvements were made to the smoothness of movement of other players and creatures on the client
• The bug involving Castellan Wisdán entering an unattackable state at times has been fixed. 
• Grim Bark, already an old and twisted tree, has mastered a new technique. Beware those who try to run from him or take advantage of his deep roots!
• Fixed an issue where Will Tuffin would continue to spawn after he has been summoned.
• Fixed a stringtable error message on some NPC's in Duillond.

Questing

General

• Fixed an issue with quest rings remaining above the head of some NPCs after you have accepted all their quests.
• You should no longer see quest rings on the radar for interior locations that do not have quests for you.
• Trolls should no longer see Player quest rings.
• Festival dance quests now fail when you leave the dance area

Specific Quests

• Summoned spiders in Helegrod are now more "grounded," and will no longer spawn from the air
• Players can no longer get into the Helegrod courtyard without defeating the drummer encounter.
• The "Purging the Dead" quest is now listed in the Great Barrows category
• Fixed the Malloval Quest. The quest item given to you now tracks Malloval.
• Coldbear has become angry. You may not like him when he's angry!
• The "Beyond the Gloaming Falls" quest has been marked "Small Fellowship" due to its high difficulty level.
• Fixed the Arena Master encounter so Khurrakh spawns properly.
• The reward for the "Picks for Delivery" quest ("Ancient Explorer's Pack") is now set to Bind on Acquire.
• Ringlor had deserted her post at Tinnudir, and took an Annúminas quest with her. Now she's back, and feels really badly about the whole thing.
• "Thief-taker's Bane" has been made a little less unforgiving: the tomb-robbers are less hardy, and the rangers have toughened up a bit.
• White Hand Thrashers for the "Vengeance for the Lost" quest should now be easier to find.
• Salamanders in the "The Terrible Secret of the Salamanders" quest should no longer  appear instantly on defeat
• Champions will now have at least one chance at seeing a Blood-stained Tally Stick when they venture into Urugarth.
• Grishakrum didn't always want to come out to play in Urugarth, but he's managed to overcome his shyness through daily affirmations.
• Directions and descriptions for the Quest "Master of Barad Gúlaran" have been updated.
• The name of the Consignment work order for "Forgotten Lore" has been changed to "Ancient Lore."
• The "False Wards" quest will no longer remove the last ward from the world when it is used.
• The quests "Oakheart's Flight" and "Oakheart's Plight" should propagate to the entire group more reliably.
• In the Book 8 - Chapter 5 instance, Golodir no longer needs any power to make Mordirith vulnerable to attack.
• We have fixed a situation that was preventing a small number of people from being able to complete the instance, "A Road Through the Dark."

• Fixed a bug where users could collect multiple quest items from the quest "Sharkey's Plans."
• Misc. fix for the quests, "Wolf in Exile," "Herbs and Simples," and "Destroying the Hatchery."
• Players will no longer be knocked off their mount after the first hit in the "Fresh Steeds" quest arc. 
• Fixed an issue with the quest, "Proving your Quality."

• Respawn times for quest items in the quests, "New Trouble in the Old Forest" and "War-master Uzorr."
• Calenglad is sometimes confused when trying to remember precise details about things long past. He now properly remembers the fact that it was almost sixty years ago that he and Aragorn encountered the Blue Lady, not seventy.
• Candelleth has been moved to the ground floor of her camp, because the second story was a little too much out of the way. Translation: even after making the quest, the designer always forgot she was supposed to be on the second story and checked the ground floor instead. From Frustration springs Change!

Whew, thats a pretty big patch isn't it? Well feel free to discuss it on our forums here. You can also view it directly from Turbine here.