Turbine sent us a press release today, saying that it and Codemasters have launched a "new social gaming website" at unlocktheminesofmoria.com. Actually, that's the official website of the Mines of Moria expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online, and it's been running since the expansion was announced earlier this month, but fret not -- there is something new here!
The site has been updated with the first of its social games, called King Under the Mountain. It's a "tactical strategy game," and the schtick is that it's derived from a game played by the dwarf lords of Khazad-Dûm. It involves very Dwarven things like "caverns, gems, and fighting." You can play it alone or against your friends, and it's pretty cool.
Actually, we're just assuming the "pretty cool" part because unfortunately before we could check it out for ourselves, the site was shut down for maintenance. Apparently it was hosed "due to overwhelming response" from interested LotRO players. It'll be back up at some point though, if it's not already by the time you read this, so keep checking back if you're interested.
[EDIT: Site's back up. Enjoy!]
Reader Comments (2)
Posted: Apr 1st 2008 1:30AM Sjohn said
The site is now back up, and seems to be working much better.
Posted: Apr 3rd 2008 2:13PM (Unverified) said
Pretty bad dice-based risk. It has two major issues:
* Uses d8, meaning it is not only random, which Risk is not, it is VERY random. It is a quite high chance for a 4-dice stack to lose against a 2-dice stack, which just is very bad game design. Which leads me to my next complaint...
* On a tie (when rolling the dices)... the attacker wins! What is up with that? It makes it highly imbalanced. Whoever has the upper hand, ie controls which piece goes where at the current moment, should not also have the upper hand when it comes to deciding a winner.
They might know how to make MMOs, but boardgames? No way!
_Zexion
* Uses d8, meaning it is not only random, which Risk is not, it is VERY random. It is a quite high chance for a 4-dice stack to lose against a 2-dice stack, which just is very bad game design. Which leads me to my next complaint...
* On a tie (when rolling the dices)... the attacker wins! What is up with that? It makes it highly imbalanced. Whoever has the upper hand, ie controls which piece goes where at the current moment, should not also have the upper hand when it comes to deciding a winner.
They might know how to make MMOs, but boardgames? No way!
_Zexion







