New content for LotRO confirmed: Volume III and Riders of Rohan are on the way [Updated]

Well I just started playing it very recently Lemmo. It is not too late to join! You will find the starter areas still full of players. And the game is truly a lovely experience.
Completely different from any other MMO in that it is a journey, not the destination (as I am desperately grinding away at Aion *sigh*).
If you are all about end game, then this game is not for you. If you are all about enjoying the levelling and simply spending time in another world, you cannot beat it.

I couldn't get past the sharp edged UI graphics. I must confess, I am now too an Aion player, and I don't think I'll be jumping ship any time soon.

NOOOOO, WHAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU LEMMO?!!?!?!?! Whyyyy Aion? Whyyyyyy????

What do you mean by "sharp edged UI graphics"? Do you mean the interface is too pretty? Because LotRO allows you to use user-made skins for the interface if you don't like the current. If not that, then what do you mean?

I don't want to bore you with a play-by-play of what about the UI I don't like (I wrote it up, and then realized I was being "that guy" on the internet). I think the gist of it is that I grew up playing console (eastern) RPGs like Final Fantasy, and prefer their aesthetic over the classic PC RPGs like Ultima. i.e. I gravitated towards Aion over LotRO.

Heh. Sera, hit me up offline and we'll talk shop about games. As always, your opinion matters to me.

I don't get it, you didn't say exactly what you meant by "sharp edged ui graphics". You instead said something about liking the UI of console RPGs more, then saying you're playing a game like Aion, which has the same standard UI as Everquest and WoW and LotRO.

If you prefer the console Final Fantasy aesthetic, then FFXI would be up your alley. It doesn't use any of the typical action bars that the other games use. It instead uses one menu for all your combat actions, just like the regular FF games. But I'm not here to argue or convert you to FFXI. I was just trying to figure out what you meant about LotRO's ui.

RogueJedi86, Since you asked again, I'll pinpoint what I can. I don't like that the icon corners have a 3 pixel ladder instead of an antialiased bevel. I don't like that the action animation isn't fluid, and that the cooldown timer is just an alpha layer on top of the icon. I don't like the Magic Card style artwork crammed down to a 20 pixel icon that lack an artistic uniformity, and often showing european faces that, while thematic, I find unattractive. I dislike that the UI is pixel perfect, so if you rescale it it becomes blurry, unlike games like City of Heroes that keep the UI scaling consistent with the pixel resolution of the screen. These are all niggling elements to a gestalt, an overall je ne sais quoi. And it's not the only reason I stopped playing LotRO, it's just one of them. The UI is also not a reason I moved to Aion, but that tangent could fill an entire blog.

Lemmo, you *are* "one of those guys" :)

I suspect that Helm's Deep is the thing that's making life tough for them. Players would lynch them if they didn't provide some means to be involved in that epic event. But players would also not be happy with it being anything short of epic.

I suspect that the technology behind SoM's Skirmishes system is the test platform for what they're going to use with Helm's Deep. They would want to get the system working well and tested to death in order for it be able to really shine in key elements like Helm's Deep. (As well as the far off -- and even more epic -- war in Gondor.)

So they're using SoM as a test bed. Then they'll improve the tech for Rohan (or whatever it ends up called) and push it even farther for Minas Tirith.

That's just my guess. But it does make sense as a reason for the change in release schedules and for making SoM a mini-expansion rather than a full one like MoM was.

They did say we'd be getting to an expansion every year with quarterly free updates too. MoM was a full expansion because it came out 18 months after LOTRO launched. SoM is releasing 12 months after MoM so that's why it's a mini expansion. Turbine is not the size of Blizzard so you can't expect a full sized expansion once a year plus 3-4 free content updates each year too. Not even a giant company like Blizzard can get large expansions out every 12 months.

There are no giant purple mushrooms or helicopters in Middle Earth. The land is supposed to be green, grey, and brown as it's based on The Lord of the Rings. WoW has the high fantasy cartoon look if that's what you prefer.

The giant purple mushrooms are in the Foundations of Stone in Moria. No helicopters that I've seen, though.

Why would we liberate Gondor before Rohan? The books progressed through Rohan before getting to Gondor. We loosely follow the fellowship in their journey.