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The Lord of the Rings Online News
Lord of the Rings Online: New Wardrobe System Detailed
Aug 25th
In the latest Lord of the Rings Online developer diary, Elliot Gillman takes a look at the Wardrobe System. With the new system in place, players can separate their clothing type items into a virtual closet of sorts. Players start with 10 slots but can store up to 50 items in the wardrobe if space is purchased. These items are stored in appearance only, sans stats, and can then be worn cosmetically if the player has sold or deleted the original. Think of the items in storage as doppelgangers.
It’s important to note that the wardrobe does not copy an item’s stats. Gear moved to wardrobe will look like the original but it can only be cosmetically worn, giving no benefit aside from making you look fabulous.
The wardrobe can be accessed by talking to any of the Vault-keepers. Clothing already stored in your vault and shared storage will have to be moved to your pack prior to being placed in the wardrobe. A simple drag-and-drop from your pack to the wardrobe will copy the item’s appearance and information to it.
Read the full Wardrobe System diary entry here.
Developer Diary: Volume III Book 2 Quest Notes – news from LOTRO
Aug 20th
It’s that time again, time for another edition of Quest Notes, your up-to-the-minute source for the latest and greatest news about quests in general and the Epic storyline in specific. Today’s topics include a sneak peek at Book 2 of Volume III, a behind-the-scenes look at some of the new tech and new content that you’ll be seeing there, and the unveiling of a popular feature from the Suggestions forum. So let’s peer into the near future and see what awaits our heroes!
Read more in the latest Dev Diary from Jeff “MadeOfLions” Libby!
The Lord of the Rings Online™ Will be Free to Play Starting September 10, 2010 – news from LOTRO
Aug 17th
WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE™ WILL BE FREE TO PLAY STARTING SEPTEMBER 10, 2010
Turbine and Codemasters to Release Free-to-Play Version of Award-winning Online Game Across North America and Europe
WESTWOOD, MA – August 18, 2010 – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced today that Turbine’s The Lord of the Rings Online™ (LOTRO) will introduce its innovative new pricing model, allowing players to download the game and play for free and purchase expansions, quest packs, items, and account services a la carte from the new LOTRO Store starting September 10, 2010.
Beta Journals: Class Changes – news from LOTRO
Aug 9th
Running a Beta Program can be a tricky thing; everyone who isn’t in the beta wants to know what’s going on, but due to NDA restrictions no one in the program can tell them. So how do you let players talk about what they’re seeing, without violating their NDA? The answer is the LOTRO Beta Journal Project! Even though the NDA has been lifted we have one last set of Beta Journals to share with you.
This week we asked players what they thought about the upcoming changes for their class.
Comic-Con 2010: F2P Promo Shots
Jul 25th
Our good friends over at Turbine Entertainment recently released a dozen or so new promo shots just in time for Comic-Con 2010 for the upcoming Free-to-Play version of Lord of the Rings Online, which is currently in the beta phase of development.
Be sure to check out our screenshot gallery for all the latest.
LOTRO’s VIP benefits
Jun 4th
Take a look over here to see what, exactly, a VIP membership gets you in LOTRO. Or a premium account.
Just so’s ya know: If you’re subscribed right now, you’ll have a premium account. If you’ve got a lifetime sub, you’ve got a VIP account forever. At least we’ve got that.
[Update: Those are VIP benefits for the beta program, mind you, and they may change for release. I’m guessing we aren’t all going to have our levels reverted to 50!]
LOTRO goes Free to Play
Jun 4th
I know I said I was leaving, but this news is too big not to post. Press release below, if you’re interested.
How do you think free-to-play LOTRO will work out? I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. One of the things that makes free-to-play DDO work is that quests all have multiple difficulties, which means you can repeat single quests over and over again. If you don’t repeat quests, you’re more or less forced to pay if you want to reach much above level 4 — once you get to that point, you’ll find that leveling becomes difficult as a free player, as so much of the game is locked behind a pay wall. Without repeatable quests, LOTRO will struggle to emulate the DDO model.
Further, LOTRO’s strength has been its community, and I really question the effect this will have on our current community.
Let me know what you think. Click that comments link and post.
[Update: The e-mail I received from Turbine’s PR agency notes that LOTRO f2p will be playable at E3. While I’m not attending, I’ll try to get information for you from the Vault folks who are.]
WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE TO More >LOTRO Celebrates 3rd Anniversary
Apr 27th
WESTWOOD, MA April 26, 2010 – Turbine, Inc. announced today the start of the celebration of the third anniversary of The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), the award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The LOTRO Anniversary celebration will run from April 26, 2010 to June 30, 2010.
“It’s been another incredible year of growth for LOTRO and Turbine highlighted by critical and consumer acclaim,” said Jim Crowley, President and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “Since its launch, LOTRO has consistently been named Game of the Year by leading MMORPG sites and the overwhelmingly positive response to the game from millions of players who have adventured in Middle-earth has firmly cemented the game as one of the worlds premier online entertainment experiences. The game’s player base grew over 15% over the past year and our anniversary is a chance for us to celebrate with our past and present players to enjoy everything that is special about Middle-earth and thank them for their wonderful support with some special subscription options.”
The Lord of the Rings Online Third Anniversary Celebration includes:
- Play for $9.99 a month!: The party never has to end! During LOTROs Third Anniversary Celebration (April 26th to June 30th), you can More >
Lord of the Rings Online: LotRO Update
Apr 8th
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller recently spoke with the team at Turbine about Lord of the Rings Online, where the current game is and what the team has planned for the future.
At PAX East Turbine was not pulling any punches. They had a massive booth and games for players to check out. With DDO continuing its drive in the FTP market we got a chance to ask about LOTRO and talk about the latest Volume along with Oath of the Rangers. The LOTRO team is going strong with lots of plans for the future. They stick to their goals of keeping players in the epic story lines of Tolkien's world and making them feel like a part of the journey as well as participants in the War of the Ring.
Oath of the Rangers focuses on Aragorn gathering his allies for the battle with Mordor. Players are asked to go out and align forces with the free people of Middle Earth. One of the great things that the team talked about was the Inspired Greatness Buff that is now part of the game. Taken from story elements like Samwise Gamgee and his heroic rescue of Frodo, the inspired greatness allows fewer players to More >
Goodbye
Mar 28th
When Angelina Rayne left the LOTRO Vault at the beginning of February, 2009, I was left as the only active staff member. I soldiered on, regularly updating the front page, trying to provide not just news, but some personality. By May, I found out I had been promoted to site manager (not that anybody told me — I found out by reading our staff page!), and had learned that running a fansite was a difficult thing to do, especially in the case of a game like LOTRO, where so much information is centralized.
Still, there were some things missing from our community. When I took over the LOTRO Vault last year, there were two types of fansites: There were monetized fansites, like ours, which were updated on a semi-regular basis, and there were blogs, most of whom posted interesting thoughts on the game, but almost never provided real information. Trouble is, the monetized sites had no personality, and little interest in interacting with their community. They didn’t work to provide exclusive content or early content. If they posted a guide to a festival, it was just a copy-and-paste of last year’s festival. They didn’t give us screenshots of rewards we could More >