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The Road to Mordor: Ranking LotRO's expansions
I'll admit that Helm's Deep has really started to grow on me as of late. Perhaps it's the dev tours, the increase of official posts on the expansion, or the fact that my Captain is finally done with Wildermore and ready to go, but I'm excited about the next chapter of the game. More than anything else, I'm dying to see how the class changes and trait trees are received. But any time that we're anticipating a new expansion, there's a natural desire to want to look back and see where we've been in Lord of the Rings Online. It amazes me just how big this game's gotten since 2007, and now that we're on the cusp of seeing a full Rohan, I feel like I'm almost at the summit of an important mountain in the game. So for fun and debate, I'm going to rank LotRO's four expansions to date, from best to worst, and share what I liked and disliked about them. This list comes with a caveat that I've never been much of a dungeon runner, so instances and raids do not factor into this ranking.
The Road to Mordor: The Age of Men
There's a movie poster tagline that I've seen copied numerous times. It goes along the lines of, "No matter who wins, they lose (or we lose)." This implies that the best-case scenario in the film -- the heroes emerging triumphant -- will still result in a bittersweet moment of defeat, despair, or doom. This is how I've always thought of the Lord of the Rings in regard to the Free Peoples. Even through this enormous struggle against the Enemy, we know that winning still means losing something precious. In this case, it's the ascension of Men during the Fourth Age and the fading of the other races: the Ents, the Hobbits, the Dwarves, and the Elves. This grand fight for Middle-earth ultimately will preserve and strengthen just one of the races, and the most boring one at that. For Tolkien, this is because LotR is a mythological past history of our world, and we just don't see a lot of Elves walking around today except at Starbucks. In a way, I feel as if we're starting to get into the Age of Men a bit prematurely in Lord of the Rings Online. The time for Hobbits, Elves, and Dwarves is past; the time for Men is just beginning.
The Road to Mordor: Helm's Deep calls!
While I'm quite excited to hear the news of this year's Lord of the Rings Online expansion, Helm's Deep, there are two small nits that I must pick, two little peeves that I must pet before moving onward. The first is that Turbine could not have worse timing; I've been prepping for a vacation and pre-written a couple of weeks of this column, and now this announcement's forced me to scramble last-minute to write a new one. The other issue is that Turbine's abandoned the "[something] of [place]" title structure it's had ever since Shadows of Angmar. A vain, egocentric part of me thinks that this might've happened because a developer read my expansion prediction column and decided to spite me. With that out of the way, let's digest the official announcement and see what we'll be doing this fall when LotRO's fifth expansion hits!
The Road to Mordor: LotRO's next four expansions
With under a month to go until Riders of Rohan hits the digital starting gate and gallops past the horse metaphor, expansions are weighing heavily upon my mind. I'm excited about horse combat and a break from traditional questing (to a point), but I'm also hoping that Lord of the Rings Online's fourth expansion will prove far more compelling than its previous one turned out to be. LotRO may be coasting into its middle-age years (in MMOs, every year in real life is like nine for the game), but it still has quite a bit of life -- and journey -- ahead of it. Unlike every other MMO out there, this title has a specific story it's following from beginning to end. Maybe we get off the beaten path of Tolkien's works now and then, but our fate as players is intertwined with the fates of Frodo and the One Ring. It gives us the advantage of knowing more about our future in the game than we would have otherwise. So today I'm putting on my prognostication cap and giving you all the skinny on Lord of the Rings Online's next four expansions past Riders of Rohan. I have no insider knowledge, just a gut feeling and a time-traveling buddy named Soren from the year 2020.
E3 2012: Exploring the freedom of LotRO's Riders of Rohan
Saddle up, pard'ners: Riders of Rohan is coming! Lord of the Rings Online's fourth expansion in its full equine glory at this week's E3. At Turbine's booth, we got a first look at the expansion's highly touted mounted combat and were able to ask the crew some of our burning questions about the differences between the editions. It's apparent that Riders of Rohan has a ton to give LotRO subscribers. Turbine's chosen to release the east side of Rohan first, leaving out the west side for future development. The expansion features customizable mounts, impressive graphical upgrades, a slew of customization options, new NPCs, new content, and even a new orchestral soundtrack. Without further ado, let's dive in to explore the freedom of Rohan!
The Road to Mordor: Rise of Isengard report card
It's been a half-year since Lord of the Rings Online's third expansion, Rise of Isengard, opened the doors to Dunland and beyond. It was an interesting expansion compared to what came before in several ways: It finally took us into the pages of The Two Towers, it introduced Rohan and the Rohirrim, and it introduced what I consider to be the most compelling villain this game has seen to date. While the game's hinted and alluded to Saruman and his White Hand back-up dancers leading up to RoI, the expansion finally unveiled the mastermind behind many of the machinations of Middle-earth's mischief. His was not an overt city-crushing type of evil; instead, he's a crafty politician-type who attempts to woo and seduce minds to his cause. More than the Witch-king of Angmar or Sara Oakheart, Saruman gives us a perfect target for our justified outrage. This is a guy we don't want to see succeed, ever. So with six months under our belt, I thought it would be a great time to evaluate as much of Rise of Isengard as I've experienced with the ol' report card treatment. Where does it get good marks -- and where does it need tutoring?
The Road to Mordor: Ride to ruin and the world's ending!
Mounted combat's been on my mind a lot lately, particularly when I was galloping around Dunland and various clansmen knocked me off my horse. It was then that I wished I had a skill called "Trample to a Bloody Pulp -- For Rohan!" and that Turbine would finally earn that AO rating it's always craved. Barring that skill, I would just love a massive war horse that would send enemies fleeing from me instead of making a beeline for my knees (which are a prime target for arrows). I'm both excited and nervous about the mounted combat system coming in Riders of Rohan. I'm excited that it will open up a new style of gameplay in this five-year-old game and nervous that it'll drag Lord of the Rings Online down if it's not done right. Whatever type of horseback combat we might envision will surely be different than the final product, and that uncertainty leaves me feeling in limbo. More than anything else, Riders of Rohan is about mounted combat. Turbine's centering the expansion around it, dedicating an entire zone to it, and developing loads of assets and skills for it, and the company will undoubtedly be hyping it strongly over the course of the summer. It's a bold step to take but a necessary one as well, as the IP and nation of Rohan are steeped in mounted combat, and it's been a little weird that we've had to dismount to swing a sword ever since leaving the shire. So will mounted combat prevail, fail, or muddle in the middle?
The Road to Mordor: A soldier to call my very own
So how are you liking Update 6 so far? No, I can't hear you right now -- you're probably going to have to leave a comment or something. Maybe I should do the talking for a while. With its new zone, massive PvP upgrades, class rebalancings, Landscape Soldier ability, updated barter wallet, and the Instance Finder 2.0, there's so much to chew on with Lord of the Rings Online's latest patch that it's going to take most of us some time to figure out what's what. I've heard a lot of praise for the new epic storyline, in particular the dream sequence, and it's definitely good that players who had tapped out Rise of Isengard's content now have more world goodness to explore. I am not in The Great River, not yet; I dug my level 65 Captain out of retirement and am plugging my way back up through RoI quite happily. However, I was incredibly curious about two of the most debated features of the patch -- the barter wallet and the ability to bring skirmish soldiers out into the world -- and I spent some time evaluating each. While I question the way Turbine's handling the cost of these features, I definitely came away impressed with what the wallet and soldiers do for the game.
LotRO's Great River update flows today, patch notes released [Updated]
Strike the tents and put out the campfires, Middle-earth adventurers; it's time to move on... north? That's right, Lord of the Rings Online is taking players on a journey back to an old familiar location -- Lothlorien forest -- as it releases Update 6: Shores of the Great River today. It's an absolutely massive content update for the game meant to span the gap between the Rise of Isengard and Riders of Rohan expansions. While players patch up and wait for the servers to come back online, there are patch notes and then some to be read. If you lack the hour or so it might take to really get into the notes, just know that the update's highlights include a brand-new high-level zone (The Great River), the next book of the epic story, the addition of Landscape Soldiers and a fleshed-out barter wallet, several major class updates (such as the Warden and Rune-keeper), an improved Instance Finder tool, and plenty of PvP improvements. Massively recently sat down with the developers to tour through the new content in Update 6. [Update: Added the trailer for the update after the jump!] %Gallery-149032%
The Perfect Ten: Free-to-play shopping strategies
"Nothing is ever truly free," my grizzled Uncle Trigger once told me. "So you got to pay for that there air! Pony up, boy!" While Uncle Trigger was overlooking a few aspects of this philosophy, the sentiment is an important one to grasp, especially when it comes to the growing wave of free-to-play MMOs. Even though the first word is "free," it should be followed up with several paragraphs of tiny lawyer disclaimers that basically say, "Nevertheless, the studio is going to look for other ways to tempt you out of your hard-earned cash." F2P is often funded by microtransactions, which offer players some variety in how they customize their game experience at the expense of a subscription's simplicity. It's often not better or worse; it's just different. Because nothing is ever truly free, and because F2P is loaded with more shopping options than a Walmart supercenter, being a savvy customer is more vital than ever. Anyone who's waded into a F2P store probably has experienced buyer's regret due to a hasty or uninformed purchase, not to mention those who end up going broke because of poor impulse control. So today I'm going to get downright practical and offer up 10 strategies that will safeguard and strengthen your F2P shopping trips (also, random plug for Beau's Free For All column in the hopes that he doesn't get mad I'm treading on his territory here!).
The Road to Mordor: Fording the Great River
At 1388 miles, the Anduin is the longest river known in Middle-earth, hence the name The Great River. If I put that into real-world perspective, it would vie for the 52nd longest river on Earth, somewhere between the Colorado River and China's Pearl River. Impressive, if not a record-breaker. The Great River flows from the Misty Mountains down out to the Great Sea (lots of "greats" in Middle-earth, which is great), and it's on this waterway that the Fellowship of the Ring traveled from the solace of Lothlorien to the tragedy at Parth Galen. The river represents transition in many ways: from safety to peril, from unity to dissolution, from north to south, from The Fellowship of the Ring to The Two Towers. For Lord of the Rings Online players, the Anduin will mark another transition: the bridge between Rise of Isengard and Riders of Rohan. Seeing as how we got a major taste of this brand-new zone this week, I thought we should take a gander at what The Great River will add to our journey toward Mordor.
The Road to Mordor: Purveyor of Odd Things
Out of all of the factions in Lord of the Rings Online, I'm most partial to the Hobbit's Mathom Society (the Ale Association is my next most favorite). I love the concept behind finding quirky little objects that nobody really wants to keep, so the community set up a museum to hold them all. Plus, the benefits from gaining reputation are terrific, from a jar full of fireflies (great in Moria!) to a pretty decent rep pony. But it's perhaps the title gained on reaching Kindred that tickles me the most, as I can thus be called Purveyor of Odd Things. LotRO has a lot of weird titles, but this one takes the cake. It says that I'm just as likely to go jaunting off if a sparkly stone catches my eye as I am to fight that big dragon you guys are struggling with over there. It says that I am to be shunned at parties and talked about to children in a low, urgent tone. In the spirit of collecting odd things, this week's column will be a hodge-podge of topics instead of one overarching theme. Minstrel melodies, buried treasure, and Mithril Editions lurk just around the corner. Are you prepared in mind, body, and soul to hear what I have to say about them?
The Road to Mordor: A fresh start
I don't know about you, but sometimes I fall into the trap of forcing myself to do something in a game because I feel internally obliged to do it. Somewhere along the line, "setting a goal" became a Bataan Death March that absolutely had to be accomplished before I'd allow myself to do what I truly wanted. In my case, it was the stubborn determination to get through the remainder of Rise of Isengard's content even though I had slowed to slogging through it, feeling burned out on my Lore-master after well over a year of constant play on the character. So I sat back and re-evaluated. My reasoning for finishing Isengard was to make sure I was at the top of the game and could evaluate any new high-level content that came along for you guys, which was a noble reason. But the truth was that in so doing, I was playing something that was leeched of enjoyment for the time being and really needed to be put aside. Once I realized that, the solution was obvious. A fresh start. That's what I wanted: a completely fresh start to the game. Hey, it's still (sort of) a new year, so why not? And once I gave myself permission to do that, my adventures in Lord of the Rings Online brightened up considerably. I might be weird in this, but I absolutely love starting over from scratch in long-term games from time to time, even though it means scrapping (or putting aside) a whole heap of achievements and the effort spent acquiring them. This week I'm going to look at my fresh start with LotRO and why it has me buzzed to log in for the first time this year.
The Road to Mordor: Riders of Whoa-han!
This past week we heard from Turbine about its general plans for Lord of the Rings Online in 2012, and while it may not have hit everything on my personal wish list for the year, it was a good start. I was mulling over the question of whether it's better for MMOs to show all of their big cards up front like Turbine or to parcel them out over the course of the year. Both have advantages, of course. Front-loading the year with a broad overview like this gives players long-term reasons to stick with the game, but it also can steal the exciting thunder from these events down the road. On the other hand, measuring the big news out during the year would probably give Turbine more publicity, but it could frustrate players who might feel "in the dark" about the company's plans. In any case, we got what we got, and there's a lot to chew over for this week's column: unbound skirmish soldiers, Riders of Rohan, the Great River, and the fifth anniversary. So let's get started!
Riding into Rohan: LotRO maps out 2012
In the words of Frank Sinatra, 2011 "was a very good year" for Lord of the Rings Online. Executive Producer Kate Paiz and Director of Communications Adam Mersky sat down with us to talk about the future of the game, but before they got to the juicy details, they wanted to give a quick recap of the previous year for the game and the studio. The big emphasis for LotRO in 2011 was the unifying of the global community and the release of the game's third (and best-selling) expansion, Rise of Isengard. While the aforementioned unification of the NA and EU sides of the game presented many challenges for the team including localization, it paid off in spades. Turbine plans to continue to add more payment options for those used to methods other than the ones currently available. The team was most proud of unveiling Saruman "in all of his glory" and the inclusion of free players into the sphere of Monster Play. "The game definitely grew last year," Mersky said in response to a question about the current number of players. He noted that the playerbase has changed somewhat in the past two years, becoming more casual in some respects. But it's time to move forward! Turbine is prepared to take LotRO players on a dizzying chase around the wilds of Middle-earth with a few significant changes and additions to the game -- and the release of the brand-new expansion later this year, Riders of Rohan. Mounted combat, ho!
The Road to Mordor: Resolutions, Baggins and Took-style
Mmm... smell that? It's the smell of a fresh new year, that is! Rolled right off the factory floor with no dings, the warranty still intact, and a tank full of gas and dreams. Makes one want to abandon the routine and head out onto the open road, does it not? I'm one of those old fuddy-duddys who actually does New Year's resolutions, whether or not I'm actually capable of keeping them. I think it's important to try to better oneself and keep reaching for higher goals and standards, and if a new year is a convenient excuse to get my butt in gear, then I'm not complaining. So right now I'm staring at a field of endless potential for Lord of the Rings Online in 2012. I've actually been giving it a lot of thought -- what do I want out of this year? As LotRO heads toward its fifth anniversary, is there really anything new left that I haven't experienced? And what the heck am I going to write about for 52 more weeks? Never fear because the more I pondered, the more I realized that there's plenty of content yet to plunder (plus, of course, whatever Turbine has up its sleeves for the year). So for today's column, I sat down and drew up a list of resolutions in two parts: "Bagginsish" resolutions that are all about fluff and creature comforts and "Tookish" resolutions that are more concerned with high adventure.
The Road to Mordor: Wish lists, past and future
Hobbits love making lists, don't they? In The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo had a lengthy list of friends and relatives to invite to his eleventy-first birthday party, and he didn't have the luxury of Facebook to help him out. I love lists as well, although I try to save most of that for my Perfect Ten column. At the beginning of the year, I sat down and drafted up a "wish list" for Lord of the Rings Online's 2011 year, populating it with 11 changes and additions I was hoping to see by now. To my surprise, Turbine actually pulled off quite a few items on the list, and I thought it'd be a good idea to go back and examine which of my goals the team met and which remain elusive. Also, since 2012 kicks off tomorrow, I'll look forward as well and draft up a dozen -- yes, one more over the year before -- wish list items that I'd love to see come true in the new year. It's my column; I can cry if I want to, after all. Let's get this party started!
LotRO's Update 5: Armies of Isengard storms servers today
It's Big Honkin' Patch Day for Lord of the Rings Online as a platoon of content is double-timing it to a server near you. Update 5: Armies of Isengard is the game's first post-Rise of Isengard release, and it's been highly anticipated as it will finally add the long-awaited instance cluster to the endgame. This cluster contains five new dungeons: three three-person, one six-person, and one twelve-person. In addition to the cluster, Update 5 is including the next book in the epic storyline, The Prince of Rohan. Through it, players will gain a nifty set of Ranger cosmetic armor and participate in an epic battle at the gates of Orthanc. The update also will add an instance finder, unified currency, a LUA plugin manager, a reputation update, and far, far more. Oh, and there's finally coffee in the game. Mmm... coffee. Turbine has posted the official patch notes for Armies of Isengard on the site, so you can read up on all of the changes while you're patching the game!
Lord of the Rings Online's Update 5 invading Dunland next week
Turbine's asking you out on a very special date next week -- December 12th, in fact. That's when the studio will show up to your door dressed in a sharp-looking tux, bearing flowers, and eager for you to head out on a magical tour around Middle-earth on a carriage ride. It's on December 12th that Lord of the Rings Online will be releasing its first major post-Rise of Isengard patch, Update 5. The update comes loaded with endgame activities, including a huge instance cluster, an instance finder, and a new book in the epic storyline: Volume III, Book 5. You can read more about Update 5 with our Turbine interview, head over to A Casual Stroll to Mordor to listen to what questions fans have about the patch, or check out the gallery below for five new screenshots of one of the instances, The Foundry. [Source: Turbine press release] %Gallery-9579%
The Road to Mordor: A prisoner of Isengard
With Update 5 on the horizon, there's certainly plenty to look forward to in Lord of the Rings Online, especially if you've exhausted all of Rise of Isengard's content to date. Personally, I'm still trucking along: level 73, in the middle of the Gap of Rohan, picking flowers and pontificating on Hobbit meal schedules. As you can tell, I haven't been in any particular rush to get to the end. However, I realized this past week that somewhere along the line I had abandoned my pursuit of Volume III, Book 4, so I went to pick it back up. It turned out that I was on the verge of some of the most interesting and gripping quests in the game, and for the first time since forever, I stayed up really late to see how the questing would pan out. Obviously, there's going to be some serious spoilers in this here column, so if you haven't finished Book 4 of Rise of Isengard, you may wish to just bookmark this for later reading. I'm not typically eager to spoil story points, but this quest line got me so worked up that I simply had to talk about it this week.
