fellowship of the ring
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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!
The Road to Mordor: A look back at Volume 2
Last year, I spent a column giving my reflections, thoughts, and observations on the entirety of Volume 1 of Lord of the Rings Online's epic storyline, and today I'd like to do the same for Volume 2. Since these stories are at the center of LotRO's player experience, it's important to see how they function and hold up in today's increasingly story-centric MMO environment. I've gone through Volume 2 twice, once before the "solofication" of the recent update and once after. The second journey was, by far, much more enjoyable since I didn't have to sit there for weeks hoping to find enough players on the same part of the Fellowship portions to continue the tale. Being able to go through it at my own pace was vastly more enjoyable, especially when I could dedicate huge chunks of time to knock out several chapters in one go. And this is a good thing, as this volume of the epic story not only gives you one of your legendary traits but greatly helps you build reputation toward a faction that will give you another one (the Iron Garrison Guards). As such, Volume 2 will continue to be an important part of any character's journey. So let's dig into this puppy (not... a literal puppy, you understand) and see what Volume 2 has to offer. If you haven't yet gone through this part of the epic story, beware: Here be spoilers!
The Road to Mordor: Re-evaluating Moria
When I first left Lord of the Rings Online, it was early in 2008 and we were constrained to Eriador and Eriador alone. Angmar was the most dangerous spot on the map, level 50 was the cap, and getting your legendary traits was an almost inhuman feat. When I returned in 2010, I discovered I had missed out on the release of not one but two expansions and a huge amount of new content in the world. As a previous player, I felt as though everything I had known was completely different, and there was nothing as unknown or intriguing as the Mines of Moria. Expansions have a funny way of making or breaking MMOs, you see. They can exemplify some of the best qualities of the genre: they represent the persistent growing world; they give our characters new challenges to overcome; and they can introduce new features that significantly change how the game is played. Of course, they can damage the game's reputation by creating a worse endgame than before, by screwing up the good aspects of the game, or simply by being unpopular. So how does Mines of Moria fare two-plus years after its release? Today, I want to take a look back at what will probably be the single largest expansion that LotRO will ever see and examine how its purpose has changed from 2008 to 2011. Also, we'll probably make fun of Dwarves.
The Road to Mordor: Finding the Fellowship
It's not uncommon for new players to come to Lord of the Rings Online with the full expectation that they'll be treated to a front-row seat of the Fellowship's adventures. The movies, the books and even other Lord of the Rings video games certainly feature Aragorn, Legolas and Gandalf practically non-stop, which is why LotRO's approach to showing these famous characters takes some getting used to. Instead of bending the lore so hard it breaks by shoehorning players into the Fellowship itself, Turbine decided to have the players go on their own epic quests that sometimes parallel the main story of the books. In effect, we the players are on the periphery of the Fellowship, and the Fellowship is on the periphery of us. Sometimes we cross paths, sometimes our actions influence each other, and sometimes we simply go our separate ways. Still, players may get frustrated when they spend a lot of time in the game without seeing any of these major characters, wondering whether some of them even exist at all. This is complicated by the fact that these characters appear in different places relative to the player's own journey through the story. So if you've ever been curious where your favorite character is and how you can go on adventures with him or her, hit the jump and I'll hook you up!
The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray set officially announced, arrives June 28th (video)
Warner has finally released the details on its upcoming 15-disc (six on Blu-ray, plus nine DVDs) Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy: Extended Edition Blu-ray package, setting a release date of June 28th. If the extra few hours of footage isn't enough for you to preorder the $120 MSRP / $84 Amazon set, there's more than 26 hours of special features included although most of them are restricted to the DVDs. Each movie is spread across two Blu-ray discs and has a 6.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack, while Fellowship of the Ring has been treated to a remastering from the original 2K digital files. It's a little disappointing there aren't more HD extras mentioned but each Blu-ray is BD-Live enabled, we wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of teaser hit before The Hobbit arrives in theaters. Check out the full press release and trailer after the break.
The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray discs are up for preorder on Amazon
It's taken a couple of years but the release of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray discs is finally drawing near, and now the set is available for preorder on Amazon. Adding a couple of hours of footage to the epic trilogy of films, they sport an MSRP of $120 (currently selling for $83.99) and there's a video trailer on Amazon too. According to TheHDRoom, it doesn't reveal any of the extra footage on the EEs, but if you've been waiting all this time for the proper discs we figure a quick taste of what's to come can't hurt. [Thanks, Mitchell]
LotRO's Yule Festival Theatre transforms players into actors
It started as a simple idea: To include an interactive theater experience with Lord of the Rings Online's revamped Yule Festival. However, as Turbine's "Rhidden" writes in a new dev diary, the simple idea became fiendishly complex in application. With the advent of next week's festival, players will be invited to Frostbluff Theatre in Winter-home to watch "The Curious Disappearance of Mad Baggins," the story of Bilbo's vanishing at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring told from the Hobbits' point of view. What's interesting is that Turbine wants players to be involved, both as audience members (throwing flower petals or rotten fruit, based on the performances) and as potential actors (who may "choose their own adventure" with emotes to complete the story). Because the LotRO team wanted this to be more than just a "Simon Says" game, they created an intricate script and whipped up a powerful, yet invisible, NPC called "The Audience" that handles the interaction and score-keeping. Based on performances, actors can be rewarded with titles for stellar performances as well as horrible ones. Rhidden promises that no two performances should play out the same. Read more about this truly unique festival event over at LotRO's site!
The Road to Mordor: Rise of Isengard is coming!
Tweet [Update: Made a clarification that there is no indication of "open-world" PvMP in the expansion.] Times are tough in Middle-earth, even after the inexplicable appearance of several hundred thousand new adventurers this fall. The Fellowship of the Ring is broken, Sauron is rising in power, and the White Hand of Saruman is marching across the lands. Even the bravest and hardiest soldier of the Free Peoples cannot be blamed for feeling disheartened, especially in the face of the monumental struggle to come. Welcome to the beginning of The Two Towers in Lord of the Rings Online. Welcome to Isengard. The rumors are true: Next year we will be venturing into LotRO's third expansion, titled Rise of Isengard, to confront evil in its own backyard. While this may not be the Rohan or Gondor expansion that we've anticipated, Turbine is fairly confident that it will be well-received by players and will represent an ambitious step forward on (wait for it) the road to Mordor. Turbine's Adam Mersky and Aaron Campbell were on hand to outline for us the company's near- and far-future plans with Massively, starting with the imminent November update and cruising all the way through 2011. Hit the jump as we look at interactive theater, busy bees, Monster Play improvements and, of course, Isengard.
1080i vs. 480p HDTV smackdown on Lord of the Rings
If you have a high definition TV this really isn't news for you, but for your friends and family who don't yet understand the difference this may be interesting. This guy took captures from Fellowship of the Ring, both on DVD and from a high definition broadcast to compare the two. On the first page is a mouseover comparison of the screens at DVD resolution, but if you click them, you can see the difference when the DVD is upscaled to match the high definition resolution.There's a lot to be said for additional visual information, but in the end, do you think this provides a powerful argument for upgrading to HDTVs (and high definition DVD's) or is 480p just fine for you?Thanks for the tip Tyler! [Also via digg]
