Lotro Lookout: Back from the dead issue : LOTRO - Discussions

The Bounder’s Bounty will run until the release of Helm’s Deep. Unlike a more traditional festival, you participate by simply by logging in and playing LOTRO just as you normally do. You’ll just need to include some occasional trips to Michel Delving.
As you are out questing and defeating mobs, you will find that Bags of Bounder's Tokens will drop periodically. You can also obtain Bags of Bounder’s Tokens from festival quests, Hobbit Presents and Locked Loot Boxes. When you first open a Bag of Bounder’s Tokens, you will be directed to see Meg Proudfoot, the Bounder’s Token Collector, who’s standing by the statue in Michel Delving center. She’ll be collecting all of your donations of Bounder's Token throughout the event. She accepts donations in stacks of 50 tokens at a time.

Hobbit Presents are free daily and weekly rewards that you receive by logging into LOTRO on a daily basis.
Note that the "Free Present" is defined "by Account by server!" Any toon can claim the rewards for that day or week for your account on a particular server. (One set of presents per server.) Subsequently log-ins by additional toons on that account will NOT be offered "free" presents.
All presents are Bound to Account.
The possible rewards are split into tiers every 10 levels just like Steel-bound Lootboxes and the Lottery.
All players will receive one free daily Silver Hobbit Present. This is per Server, not per character.
The daily reset occurs at 3am EST every night.
VIP players will receive one free weekly Gold Hobbit Present in addition to their Daily Silver Hobbit Present. This is per Server, not per character.
The weekly reset occurs at 3am EST every Thursday.
If you skip logging in for one or more days, your free Hobbit Presents do not carry over.

Sapience stated lotteries would not be a regularly scheduled feature like they were previously.

Instead they will be a random lotteries, where there maybe no lottery for an entire week. The next week might have five lotteries. One of which is 3 days. Another is one day. The remaining three are 1-6 hours.

You will have to bookmark the lottery page. Keep checking for lotteries. Good news is that login is not required to see the lottos. You can see all lottos even if you have no eligible characters.

A word about Lottery Support
Please do not contact GMs, Tech support, or customer service if you experience an issue with the lottery. They will be unable to assist you with any lottery related issues. Items lost, misdirected or sent to ineligible characters cannot be replaced, restored, or moved to other characters .
None of my characters are displayed
If the lottery page shows no characters, you may need to switch to a different subscription. At the top of the page, look to the right of the "Logged in as "; if you see a drop-down arrow there, mouse over it and select the other subscription listed. This will switch you to that subscription and should have your characters listed and allow them to enter any running lotteries they are eligible for.

Some characters aren’t showing up or are showing up with the wrong level.
The lottery system relies on data pulled from the game to determine which characters are able to enter a lottery. This data may take some time to update through the lottery system. As a result your character may not be eligible for a lottery despite it being high enough level in game. In some cases, certain characters may not be eligible for the lotteries at all.

Transferred Characters
Transferred characters may continue to report their previous world as their current world. If you enter one of these characters into a lottery, you will not receive your winnings.

Deleted Characters
Deleted characters may continue to appear on the lottery entry page. If you enter one of these characters into a lottery, you will not receive your winnings.

Archived Characters
Characters that have not been logged into the game recently will not appear on your selection screen. These characters cannot enter the lotteries, if you would like to insure that all of your characters are eligible, please log them all in on a regular basis. In some cases Characters will display in your list, but will generate an error when you attempt to enter them into a lottery because they have been Archived. Simply log all your characters in before trying to enter them into the lottery. This will resolve the issue.
I can't tell if I entered the lottery
When you click "enter" to enter your selected characters into the lottery the check marks in the boxes will gray out. This is currently the only indication that you have successfully entered the lottery. If they check marks are gray, you're entered.

So what are big battles?

The big battle of Helm's Deep will be an instanced experience where players will jump into the fray at several different points along the timeline. The developers wrote that they wanted to come up with a system that had visual impact, strategic decisions, victory and defeat standards, interactive environmental objects, and plenty of choices as to how players could approach the battle

Players can jump into a big battle either solo or in group (3-man, 6-man, or 12-man) and run through part of the battle in under an hour. One of the interesting aspects of these big battles is that players will be auto-leveled up to 95 (presumably the new cap) even if they're as low as level 10. Players will earn medals based on performance and group size, although there will be just one difficulty level.It's purely PvE, won't be replacing standard instances or skirmishes going forward, and will be integrated with the epic story.

Replacing the current trait system will be trait trees in much the same vein as the mounted combat trees. Players will get a point to spend every other level, although they will be able to get additional points through deeds. Early on, players will choose a specialization that will affect how points are spent, such as a Hunter's Bowmaster or Huntsman specializations, and by fully investing in a tree will a player be able to purchase a legendary skill. Players can save multiple builds; the studio is providing the first two saved build slots for free with additional ones available for purchase.