Tag Archives: update

Update 12.4: New Skills/Hero lvl/buffs/troops…

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Update 12.4 hit the stores a few days ago. And like most updates, it added quite some new features/additions to the game, or showcased what is to come shortly. In no particular order the updates are:

  • 3 New offensive Hero Skills: Spearhead II, Bullseye II, Close Quarters II. Their information has been added to the Hero Skills article.newskills
  • Permanent debuffs added, in addition to the perm buffs. Weapon Disarm (attack debuff) and Armor Exposure (life debuff) items function in similar fashion to BC/SW.newbuffs
  • New T4 wall troop: Stone Sheperds (elven) / Gates of Erebor (dwarf). Apparently they are set up as equivalent to Stone Giants for Wall Troops, with massive health, although first testing showed inconclusive results. At the moment, only six can be trained once. Adding to the Wall Troop article as soon as more concrete info comes out.newwalltroop
  • New Tactical Troop: Enchanters. A new troop sporting both high defense and offense stats. Although not shown anymore, lvl 120(!) is needed to train these. More info will be added to the TT article as soon as more info becomes available.new tt
  • Increased player lvl. There is good reason to think (see above) it won’t be long before the player level cap is raised from 100 to at least 120, to train the Enchanters.
  • Increased Hero lvl.  Another cap raised is Hero lvl. A glitch a few days ago enabled players to level their Heroes beyond 250. This was then revoked, but with the update it is now official: Hero levels now go up to 280!

So that’s it for now. Let me know how you feel about the new stuff, or share any information you might have 🙂

New Hero Skills!

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A small addition to the Hero Skill library came today (I presume as I just noticed), in the form of level II versions of the offensive skills: Close Quarters, Spearhead, and Bullseye. All three Skills seem to follow the same pattern as their defensive level II counter-parts, in terms of Skill % benefit and upgrade costs. Full information on the new skills will be added to the Hero Skill article asap.newskills

Hero Skills updated

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skill farming II have just released an updated version of the Hero Skills article. Although it was put out pretty soon after Hero Skills were released, no major updates have followed, leaving much of the diagrams on Skill overview and Upgrade costs empty. Took a while for me to realize this, so there you go. Only a few numbers are still missing, if you happen to know them, please leave a comment.

Next up is the Best Sets article. I am putting the new gear ** in my spreadsheets and will probably update the article tonight when I have time. Stay tuned and happy Hobbiting!

Update 12.2: Box sliders and Hero Skills!

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bard heroSo a rather late message on the newest update 12.2, which hit while a was on holiday, but too good not to mention anyways. This update brought some very cool changes to the game-play and added a completely new game aspect as well: Hero Skills. Starting with that, here are all the changes from the newest Hobbit update:

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Update 12.1(.1): Unstable start but new Gems

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smaug thumbnailSo a few days ago update 12.1 and later 12.1.1 hit the stores. First for Apple and Kindle, and later for Android. Many many Apple users erported highly unstable gameplay, sometimes not even being able to get in-game, prompting many to not update if they had a choice. Right now, the 12.1.1 patch seems to have fixed most problems and all versions are running as stable as we can expect.

In the 12.1 update preview I already posted a list of likely things to be coming in this patch, but now we know for sure. Here are the changes from previous versions:

  • 3D maps can now be toggled (2D/3D), hopefully removing some of the lag with the 3D map.
  • Heroes in Training position now defend wall and rein even when the city is closed. By far one of the biggest changes, meaning no more free wall TKs unless no Hero is assigned, and the option to simply close during TK without giving away rein troops for free.
  • Some changes to item orders and unpacking orders. I still hate the unpacking order. Just keep it as it was: add new chests to the bottom and do NOT have the screen jump around….
  • Two more slots for Oystering Boats. Useful? We’ll see..
  • And lastly: NEW GEMS! Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Citrine Gems are coming. I am confident they will work identical to Artamir gems, but simply have the type of buffs for each gear piece switched around, so it would be possible for example to get Attack debuff on every piece of your CHS gear instead of just the ring…Wil scores go up to 1.5B? Probably. Will it widen the gap between top and bottom players even more? Likely. Will it make TK comps even more tedious as noone is gonna stay open? I hope not….

More info on coming January update (12.1)

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oystering boatBesides the news about the coming World Mergers, Kabam also released some more info about other changes coming in the next update:

There are a number of popular requests making their way into the January v12.1 update

– 3D World Maps will now be optionable via an on/off toggle in the settings menu
– Incoming Attack Alert Icons will be added to the “My Cities” view
– Two new City tiles for Pearl Boats will be added to Lake-town
– The Battle Cry and Shield Walls cap will be raised to 150 (from 127). This will be the final amount of these items that can be applied per player.

So Lake-town is going to be slightly more useful, and all those extra perm buffs 😦 can be put to use now, for the select group who have them.

World Mergers: All you need to know

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openscreenYes they are coming: the World Mergers. Players going inactive means many servers are slowly dying out, which is bad news for active players. Luckily Kabam has come up with a solution: Merge a few relatively inactive worlds into one more active one. But this will of course have some consequences, especially for players playing in multiple worlds. I do not have all information yet, but Kabam has made an excellent post on the forum with a lot of useful information. For completeness I have copied the contents of that post below, and will amend any info I find that is not in there.

I urge all players, but especially those with multiple worlds to read it carefully and start preparing! Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll try to answer. The forums are of course also a good source for additional info, so check them out as well!

The following list are worlds that are confirmed to be merging with each other. Part of this information is taken from this website (hob-assist.com/), which also has timers running down showing when exactly each merge will take lace! Be sure to check them out! Merger list and Kabam info below the fold:

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So I’m back, finally, time to catch up

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First of all, happy new year’s to you all!! Second of all, wow! I had planned to do so much in the past two weeks, that seeing the fact I didn’t do much at all here is both depressing and good, as it meant I had an awesome time with family and friends over the holidays!

But, it is time to catch up, finally. I went through the posts index to check which articles needed updates and was appalled by the number that need updates or additions to be frank. Starting tonight when I get home I will start with the list and see how fast I can get rid of it. I will start with the ‘Quick wins’ and do the most intensive articles last. Here’s the list of articles in roughly the order I will tackle them:

  1. Hero Equipment. So many new gear, so little to be found here 😦
  2. Best Sets. Because some of the new gear is better than the old.
  3. Attack report and Inventory overview spreadsheets, for the new Tacticals.
  4. Gems article, for the addition of the lvl 7 and 8 gems.
  5. Alli Boss Battles for the Lake-Town bosses
  6. Alliance Shop, for higher levels of the buffs
  7. Lake-town article. Some unfinished parts need work
  8. Troop attack order. This one actually has high priority but I need some time to work this out.
  9. T1-5 attack/life modifiers. Because Kabam seems to have changed the attack/life values of these troops without me knowing….
  10. Tactical Troops article. For the same reason as above but also with the Lake-town troops.
  11. New Smaug. Additional info on drops and percentages
  12. Items list. Quite some new items but not completely sure I wanna add them. I regret this article.
  13. Sage Tower article. for the new trades that were added

That’s it for the existing articles, but like that list, the list of planned new articles also grows:

  1. The Tournament series articles….still
  2. Farming Smaug Tokens article (should be small)
  3. Bug/Improvement list article (should take a while)
  4. Legendary books/heroes article
  5. Article on superstition and chance in this game
  6. An updated article on the troops discussion, as people requested it
  7. Maybe something on Training Tacticals, just for completeness…

Given the above, please feel for me and have patience. I’ll try to update your most beloved articles first but as you can see, there is a lot to do 😉 See you soon and thanks for tuning in!

Lake-Town is released! Sort of…

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So, the good news is: Lake-Town expansion with the coveted Lake-Town 5th city has been released, hell yeah! The bad news? Instead of a AToM to win it first for a head start as promised, Kabam decided to shell out again.

You can now buy *sigh* the starter pack including Deed for 750 Mithril, or 40/50 euro/dollar….And if you do not? Wait one week and get it for free! I advise anyone to just stick it out for a week and get it for free, advantage is not worth the 750 mithril IMO. Unfortunately, that also means that my article on Lake-Town will be postponed for at least a week, but too bad….

Update: Just out of curiosity Im wondering what percentage of my readers will buy it now, so…poll 😉  

Update 2: Apparently, the Deed will also be available in shop separately for around 300 mith

releasefinal

So what do you think of the new Index?

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As you might have noticed, I have updated the Index page to look much better (IMO) and present the articles in a much clearer way. I have divided all the articles into 8 new categories, gave each category a  nice banner (again, IMO), and grouped and indented articles which belonged to each other.

Presenting the index as clear as possible was always a priority for me, which is why I added it in shortly after beginning this webpage, but with all the new game features and articles written in the mean-time, the old Index had to go. But of course, I want your opinion!

So what do you think? Does it help you find articles better and more efficiently? Does it look better to you? Or do you have suggestions of your own? I’m very pleased with the results myself, but would love to know what you, the readers, think of it. Let me know! 😉

Campaign: The new Smaug

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smaug thumbnailLast week we received news the New Smaug was introduced. It was highly anticipated, and  a lot of players took to the forum to explain Kabam how NOT to ruin the experience in the process of upgrading the dragon. Unfortunately, the new Smaug was highly disappointing and was met with a lot of negative feedback.

But in a surprise move, Kabam decided to listen to the critiques within a week and upgraded Smaug again. Read on to see what has changed form the old familiar lizard and a possible way to fix him once and for all…

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Update 11.2: Even more features

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Smaugs clawKabam seems to be really picking up the pace with releasing new content and announcements. Messages came from the forums and from the new 11.2 update of the game, which is available now in the Google Play Store. Today’s announcements:

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Update on new Tacticals and related issues

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LT pikemenIt seems the updates keep coming through. After yesterday’s updates, it seems preparations are being made for the inclusion of the two new Tactical Troops, namely the Lake-town Pikemen and Longbowmen. If you go to your Barracks, the building requirements (not rss) can be viewed, and they mention another few additions, seemingly connected to the new Tacticals. Continue reading to see what is known right now.

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Moved to a new domain

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smaugAs you probably have noticed, the blog has been moved to a new domain: BeardMonkey.net, instead of the old BeardMonkey. WordPress.com (You will just be redirected to the new domain when typing in the old). It makes the URL a bit more neat, but that is not the main reason why I did it.

The main reason should also have been noticed by regular visitors. It allowed me to turn on WordAds, the WordPress offered option for showing ads on my site. What it means in short is that I will be able to make some income from the efforts put into this site. Now please note, that with ‘some income’, I am not talking big bucks. What I hope to gain is around 100,- per month optimistically, so far from enough to make a living out of, but a nice compensation for the many hours I have put into this website, and I hope you can all understand my reasoning as such.

As I have mentioned before, this site started out really small, but has grown considerably over the past year. More work was steadily put into it, and the articles started to attract ever increasing numbers of visitors. I have now come to a point that enabling the Ads can get me something back for that, and people in my surroundings suggested I should do so. And why not?

What I do want to be careful of is that the main purpose of this site stays unchanged: Informing other players about as many topics about the game, out of my own passion for playing it. I do not want to ‘shell out’ for the money, and I hope you do not see it that way!

So what do the Ads look like? Well, there are 3 ads displayed throughout the blog:

  1. Underneath articles
  2. A banner on top of the page
  3. In the sidebar

Number 1 has always been there, even at the old address, I simply didn’t get paid for it. So for 1 nothing has changed for the viewer really. Number 2 is new, but I do not think it is hugely annoying or detracts from the website feel that much. Number 3, in the sidebar, is in my opinion the most annoying one, and which does sort of damage the look of the website, but for me personally not in such a way that I’m immediately inclined to remove it. Plus I do not really make use of the sidebar, so I guess it should be possible to sort of ignore it?

It is however also very important to me how you, the viewer, thinks this looks. Of course, it is not as neat as it used to be, but is it really too distracting to enjoy the website like you used to? I hope I have conveyed my reasons for doing it and hope for your support in my decision. But if you really feel it hurts the website, I could tone it down a bit.

So in conclusion, if you have any remarks about the changes, be it positive or negative, please let me know in the comments. Thanks you so much in advance, and happy Hobbiting!

Hero Equipment: Embedding Gems, all you need to know

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headerWith update 10.3, a new system of enhancing gear has been introduced, besides upgrading and enhancing, namely Embedding (Gems).  So what does this feature exactly do and what do you need to do this? As in the article about upgrading and enhancing, I will try to combine everything you need to know into this one article. For a run down of what gears to embed with Gems, see this article.

  • 1. What is Gem Embedding?
  • 2. Where can you find this function?
  • 3. What is needed to embed gems?
    • 3.1 Gem Shards
    • 3.2 Gems
    • 3.3 Combining Gems in Forge
    • 3.4 Embedding gems and unlocking more sockets
    • 3.5 Removing Gems from gear
  • 4. Gem Pouch research
  • 5. Available Gems and levels
    • 5.1 Artamir Gem

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Update 10.3: Hero 249, new TT and more!

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SC20140610-151127So a new update has hit the game and it seems promising in that it looks like a bunch of new features and troops are being introduced. Information given here is gathered from in-game mails primarily, but also from word of mouth, so stay tuned to see if those turn out to be right.

First thing I noticed was the ability to finally being able to donate more Vala stones at a time. I can now donate 60 per click…thank god for that Kabam, it was getting rather tedious. But there is more.

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Update 10.1 Overview

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SC20140610-151127Update 10.1 has hit our server a while ago, again bringing some new features to the game, although this time nothing as major as the previous updates (Hero equipment and equipment upgrading).

Read on to learn more about the new update, including an upcoming new campaign map, Tactical Troops training, and high level Vala stones. This and more, below the fold.

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Update 10.0: Not so Major yet…

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As promised in their forum post on future updates, Kabam just released update 10.0 (at least for Android) for Kingdoms of Middle Earth. The main feature of this update should be an Alliance center of some sort.

Although no actual implementation of these features can be found in the game yet, some information screens hind at what is coming. Read more to find out what I know so far, and check up regularly on future, more detailed posts.

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Future KoM updates and the new Tactical Troops

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woodland warriorSo the new minor update 9.3.0 has hit the game, introducing most prominently two new Tactical Troops: the Woodsmen and the Lyncaen Raiders. They serve as glass-cannon and fast reconn units respectively. I will update the Tactical troops article as soon as I come around to it. Also added are new ‘Open gates’ type items which add 5k (Roaming Refugees), 10k (Myrian Migration) or even 50k (Mass Settlement) to your population, great for speed training!

Meanwhile, KABAM also released a forum post which details what some of the future updates hold. I’ve posted these notes after the break for those interested.

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Game Update 9.1.0 overview

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Today version 9.1.0 was released on my world, bringing some new additions to the game. First of all, it seems some aesthetics have been changed, primarily in the icons in the lower bar in city view. A campaign and gear button have been added to the bar. Besides that, I have the feeling the graphics in city view have also been tweaked slightly. But the two major additions are:

  • Campaign boss battles
  • Moon runes

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