Volume II of LotRO is coming this Fall — Mines of Moria.
Speak Friend, and Enter – Moria, called Khazad-dûm by the dwarves, was their capital and the grandest of cities. This enormous underground cavern in north-western Middle-earth, comprises an immense network of tunnels, chambers, mines and huge halls that run beneath and ultimately through the Misty Mountains. For the first time, players of The Lord of the Rings Online will enter this ancient city which has served as the foundation for the modern-day dungeon-crawling adventures to battle the hordes of goblins and the Nameless of the Deep and journey through hundreds of new quests within six new kinds of stunning environments.
Cooooool … new quests, new environments, new niftiness.
The Epic Continues! — The Mines of Moria represents the beginning of Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online. Players can experience six new books as part of this update and participate in the release of Durin’s Bane, battle the Watcher, aid Galadriel and more!
Sounds keen!
Increased Level Cap — Players will be able advance their characters up to level 60, gaining access to new traits, virtues, skills and class quests. The crafting system will also expand, giving players the ability to craft even more powerful items.
Increased level cap good!
Discover Two New Classes — The Rune-keeper and the Warden, the first new classes to be introduced since the launch of the game, allow players to build exciting and powerful new characters in The Lord of the Rings Online in diverse new ways.
Interesting. Not clear (by name) what they new classes do, actually. But new classes are a good way to enable replayability, even of the older content.
Forge Legendary Items – The Mines of Moria will introduce Turbine’s new item advancement system to The Lord of the Rings Online. Players will be able to forge weapons and class-related equipment and evolve them to build a legacy the likes of Bilbo’s Sting and Gandalf’s Glamdring. These legendary weapons will level-up along with the player, allowing customization by advancing the item’s virtues, adding runic legacies, modifying its titles and forming fables.
Oh, spiffy. I love the idea of items that level up with you.
I’m new enough to the game to not quite understand why this is a new “volume” / “expansion” vs. being another “Book.”
There’s also some contest site to learn more and unlock this and that. I will have to look at it.
You can bet I’ll be pre-ordering!
I wonder what we’ll get by unlocking the mini-games. Well, we’ll just have to wait a couple of weeks and then see.
Let’s hope that the addition of new classes will be accompanied by the addition of character slots. We don’t even get enough per server for the existing classes. 🙁
Each free update, called a “Book,” included the addition of a Book in the Epic quest category. That is, a line of quests centering on a particular story, and usually fairly lore-heavy. The expansion will be adding a Volume of six Epic Books. As for the “why,” I’d say that they want the expansion that we pay for to be similar in scope to the original game, which included ten Epic Books.
Book = CoH Issue
Expansion = City of Villains expansion.
Right. It wasn’t immediately clear from the announcement (for us n00bs) that this is a paid expansion.
In case your interseted, the last ‘Gamers with Jobs’ podcast had the LotRO creative director and engineering head particpate in the podcast, lots of LotRO talk…
For whatever reasons, Podcasts give me hives.
I’ve tried listening to a few LotRO podcasts, and found them all to be without merit (although I did learn how to get rid of two of the LotRO splash screens before you had the option of turning one of them off). I’ll give the GwJ one a try.
A video of the the unveiling at a con is on YouTube, and has much more information. They even discuss Book 14! It’s a shaky hand-held video, and the sound isn’t great, but it’s definitely worth a look.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
And remember that the “Unlock the Mines of Moria” minigames start tomorrow, March 31st!