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Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria launches!

michael zenke
Updated ·5 min read

It seems like a long time ago that we were waiting on word from the Connect08 event about the possibility of a Lord of the Rings Online expansion. When word came down that we'd all be delving into the Mines of Moria we weren't surprised ... we were ecstatic! Even in our very first interview with Jeffrey Steefel about the expansion, you can tell our cup runneth over with excitement. Today the expansion finally goes live! The official patch notes are up on the forums, and the servers went live at midnight with all the new content! We've collected up all of our best pieces of news and information on Turbine's latest ... check it out!

Massively's Top 5 most-anticipated features of Moria
With Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria releasing in less than a month, there are quite a few things we're excited to see in this first expansion for the game. Most of these favorite changes are well-known for anyone following Moria news, but a few we discovered through the beta. Here are our five favorite!

Massively's exclusive Mines of Moria dev tour
Earlier last month, Massively was invited to get a hands-on look at Mines of Moria, the first-ever expansion for Lord of the Rings Online with Turbine's Adam Mersky and Moria Producer Mike Jablonn. During this special dev tour, we were treated to many of the features of the new environments, new creatures, certain landmarks and the Legendary Item system.

Exploring Book 1, Chapter by Chapter
As part of Massively's ongoing coverage of Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria, we're happy to bring to you this extensive look through the entire Book 1 of Volume 2. This entire article will be approached as a comprehensive venture through the Book, from Chapters 1 through 14.

Unboxing the Mines of Moria Collector's Edition
On Sunday's The Daily Grind, we asked if you had purchased the Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Collector's Edition. Some of you said you did, while others of you said that you didn't see the sense in paying extra for physical items that would simply collect dust or sit in a box.

Low-level guide to Mines of Moria: What's in it for me?
So you are enjoying Lord of the Rings Online, and are looking forward to the Mines of Moria expansion tomorrow, but you're wondering if it will actually have anything for you, as a low-level casual player.

Massively's exclusive Mines of Moria video tour
By this time you've scoured through our 43-image visual tour of Lord of the Rings Online's Mines of Moria, our PAX08 Moria preview gallery and our main Mines of Moria gallery, but you're ready for more! Guess what! You're in luck, because we now present to you an exclusive video of footage shot during our dev tour.

Hands on with the Rune-keeper
When The Lord of the Rings Online's new expansion, the Mines of Moria launches on November 18, two new master classes will be available to the player base: The Warden, a tank/dps class and The Rune-keeper, a healing/nuking class. The reason they are dubbed "master class" is that they are difficult to learn, but are powerful allies when mastered.

Hands on with the Warden
The Warden is one of the two new classes releasing in Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria on November 18th. It is considered a tank of sorts, yet uses medium leather armor instead of plate, and wields both a spear for melee combat, and a javelin for ranged combat.

PAX08: Hands-on with Mines of Moria
This weekend at PAX 2008, Massively had the opportunity to be a part of the first-ever public preview of Mines of Moria with Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel. During this showing, Steefel showed us many of the main features of this first expansion for LotRO, including the Legendary Weapon system, the two new classes, the vastness of the mines themselves and much more.

Life after 50: Progressing your Burglar, Hunter and Lore-master in Moria
Believe it or not, there's a lot more to Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria than just the Rune-keeper and the Warden. Chances are, if you already have a favorite class that you've leveled to 50, you're going to be more interested in getting that character through the mines and onto 60.

World of Warcraft LotRO dev diary looks back at creating the Warden class
Turbine's posted a new developer diary that exposes the creative and mechanical processes of designing the Warden, one of the new classes coming in Mines of Moria. There's something for everyone in the diary from the inspiration of the Warden to its gambit combat mechanic.

Life After 50: Progressing your Captain, Guardian and Warden in Moria
Finishing off their Developer Diary series for the Lord of the Rings Online classes progressing past level 50, Turbine has recently released their final article for the Captain, Guardian and Warden.

How the new combat changes will affect you in Mines of Moria
With Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria just around the corner, Turbine is piling up an unprecedented amount of dev diaries in preparation for this new expansion's launch.

Dive into LotRO's Legendary Item System
Turbine has put together an immensely deep look into the Legendary Item system coming in the Mines of Moria expansion. If you ever had any questions about, well about nearly anything regarding how the whole thing works, you should find your answers now.

LotRO PvP gets a revamp with Moria
Battling other players in Lord of the Rings Online's Ettenmoors will become a bit more balanced (read: challenging), once Mines of Moria releases next month. According to a recent dev diary, the devs have been aware of some issues with the PvP zone since the game launched, and have performed a complete revamp just in time for Moria.

LotRO Monster Play class enhancements
As promised, Turbine has delivered yet another informative dev diary regarding the changes coming to Monster Play with the Mines of Moria expansion to Lord of the Rings Online.