LOTRO

WESTWOOD, MA –December 1, 2009 – Turbine, Inc. today launched The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™, the digital expansion to the award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Siege of Mirkwood expands the online world of Middle-earth where players join forces to press further eastward into the dark, foreboding and treacherous forest of Mirkwood and take part in the epic conclusion to Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online.

Today, Zombie Columbus finishes up his series of dev diaries about skirmishes with a summary, a list of thanks, and an FAQ. Here’s the summary. After you read it, click the link and check out the FAQ on the second page.

Skirmishes are short, repeatable instances that can be joined from most places in the world. They have a number of randomized elements in them to keep gameplay fresh, as well as the ability to scale to different levels and group sizes. Skirmishes are military fights against the enemy, allowing you to bring a custom trained Soldier to assist you.

Playing Skirmishes nets you Skirmish Marks, which can be redeemed for the rewards of your choice from options including; arms and armour, legendary items, crafting, reputation and Skirmish traits. With the scalability, ease of entry and personalized rewards, Skirmishes fit nicely into the rest of LOTRO and can compliment any gameplay style.

You’ll have to forgive me for the brevity of this post; we’ve had a number of power outages here over the past two days, due to lots of rain and high winds. For much the same reasons, I’ve also spent a fair deal of time today cleaning up a bit of a mess outside — the shed we keep our tack in blew apart last night, so we’ve been frantically moving saddles (and a bag of potatoes!) into a tent which is fairly well-shielded from the rain. This, combined with other responsibilities has had me quite well-occupied.

In any case, today is the big day: The Mirkwood NDA has been lifted. If you’re ready to wade into a sea of information, most of it hopefully correct, you can feel free to check out the official forum. If you’re not up to that, though, I’ll try to post a summary of information a bit later today, though it might get pushed back until tomorrow. I’m going to refrain from providing you with an actual review until release — I’m one of those people, one who thinks that pre-release reviews should not exist — but I will provide you with some thoughts.

In the meantime, if More >

Good news, everyone! We’re announcing a fancy new contest today! We’re giving away copies of Mines of Moria! And you don’t even have to brave space bees to get yourself one!

Why, you ask, would you want a copy of MoM with Mirkwood so close to release? Because you need MoM to play Mirkwood, of course. There are lots of other possible reasons, too, but you’ll have to check out the contest page for that.

How do you win a copy? It’s not difficult. You just have to possess a vast, expansive knowledge of the LOTRO game world and be able to take screenshots. If you’re from Landroval, you’re probably some ungodly lore monkey, and this will be easy. If you’re not from Landroval, you might also be a lore monkey, in which case this will also be easy.

In short, I will be posting a screenshot of one of my characters somewhere in Middle-earth, and it will be up to you to figure out where the screenshot was taken and submit your own screenshot of your character in the same location. There’s a bit more to the submissions than that, but you’ll have to go read the full details for that information.

Sounds like More >

European fansite The Madhouse Tavern posted a new screenshot gallery from a Mirkwood press event yesterday. Lots of good information. While I recommend checking out the gallery yourself, here are some information highlights:

• Our basic character stats will be separated into three tabs, including a "combat effectiveness" tab.
• Skirmish locations include, at the very least, Gondamon, Tuckburough, three in Dol Guldur, and the Prancing Pony; they also scale to level 70.
• There are in-instance (destroyed on exit) rewards in Skirmishes which provide debuffs to your enemies.
• Soldier traits have an almost identical interface to that of our characters.
• Rep barter items (looks like it’s some sort of leaf) can purchase, at the very least, Third Age LIs. It looks like Hunters and Wardens will also be able to purchase a level 62 travel skill to Mirkwood as long as they have achieved acquaintance with the Malledhrim.
• Skirmish barter rewards will include the following:
  • Shards
  • Mithril Flakes
  • Something called the "Compendium of Middle-earth"
  • Housing decorations, including:
    • Thorin’s Bust
    • Stonework Plinth
    • Fur and Shields painting
    • The Tale of Elendil painting
    • Relief from Gondamon painting
  • Armour sets (apparently at different level tiers)
  • CD/Urugarth class items, OMGOMGOMG!

Interesting, eh?