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The Road to Mordor: Saying goodbye to Casual Stroll to Mordor
If you're a Lord of the Rings Online player, then chances are that you've heard of Casual Stroll to Mordor. The husband-and-wife team of Merric and Goldenstar have been podcasting and blogging about LotRO for four years as they played together, and their insight and guides have become quite sought-after in the LotRO community. I was saddened to hear that CSTM is shutting down today after 200 episodes and countless blog posts. It's a lot of hard work and time running a fan site like this, and while I don't begrudge their decision to step down, they will be missed. I struck up a friendship with both of them several years back, and we've since been in the same kinship, hung out at conventions together, and podcasted together. I reached out to ask Merric and Goldenstar if they'd like to share some final words about LotRO and being a big part of the fan community. From running a fan site to thoughts on the direction the game's taking, it's all there after the jump!
A Casual Stroll to Mordor ending after 200 episodes
Among the serious and exciting news coming out of E3 this week, we're sad to hear that the long-time-favorite Lord of the Rings Online podcast and fansite A Casual Stroll to Mordor will be ending at the end of this month, just in time for the podcast's 200th episode. We once named CSTM our favorite MMO blog in 2010, and the site's quality hasn't dropped since. Fortunately, the podcast episodes will remain up at least until the end of the year and the site itself will remain hosted on the Middle-earth Network. If you've ever been entertained by Merric and Goldenstar on the show or have been helped by one of their wonderful LotRO guides, head on over to their farewell announcement post and let them know how much you've enjoyed what they do.
Is Turbine's shadowofmordor.com for LotRO?
As first reported by Kotaku, Turbine's previously registered assortment of Tolkien-related domain names has just been moved over to the Turbine servers. These names include several variations of something relating to a trademark for Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor by the Saul Zaentz Company. From here, we can do nothing but speculate, but Goldenstar over at the A Casual Stroll to Mordor blog can't help but point out some interesting possibilities for a connection to Lord of the Rings Online. For one, this is the same pattern we saw when riderofrohan.com was first trademarked. Another domain, firesofmordor.com, was originally thought to be our ticket to the dark lord's land way back in 2009, but this may actually be a revision of that. Even if this has nothing to do with LotRO and is for an entirely new game, we're happy to see Turbine growing as much as it has in the past few years. I just want to pinch its little cheeks!
