Lord of the Rings Online

Here's a tip from your friendly One Shots coordinator: If you send in a screenshot from a game that hardly ever gets featured in this column, there's a better-than-average chance that I'm going to bump it right up to the top of the pack. Case in point: this groovy shot from Lineage II.

Reader Johnny said he played this game back in 2007: "Behind me we can see the endgame, the Baium Raid Boss. Baium resides on the 13th floor of a the Tower of Insolence, a massive, non-instanced hunting ground with 13 fully accessible and monster-packed floors. The weapon I am holding is a Flaming Dragon Skull, an A-grade blunt weapon."

Be prepared for A-grade awesome screenshots and B-grade commentary as you forge on in this week's repository of player-submitted pictures!

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One habit that I'm constantly trying to break myself of is assuming that everyone who reads this column or plays Lord of the Rings Online is going through (or has finished) the most recent content that Turbine's pumped out. Over the past few weeks, I've had discussions with Massively staffers, guildmates, and podcast co-hosts who all have admitted to being way behind the content curve in LotRO, many to the point where catching up to the endgame crowd seems like an insurmountable task.

As a particular person asked me, "But what if I'm three expansions behind? Is it even worth paying for all of these expansions and pushing myself to get to Rohan?"

This is a valid concern and obviously one that several folks have, so for today's column I want to talk to those of you who aren't level 85. Maybe you haven't even seen the interior of Moria yet, or maybe you have been following the most casual, sporadic path through Middle-earth possible over the years. Maybe the one-expansion-per-year pace is actually pushing you away from the game. Here's what I think will help.

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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.

I couldn't just sit back and let Justin Olivetti have all the fun, could I? When he published The Perfect Ten: My gaming pet peeves, I swept my fist to the sky and screamed "Sypsterrrr!" Literally a week earlier I had jotted down an idea for a similar column. I mean jotted down because I keep yellow pads around the house for late-night ideas or dog-walk eurekas.

Of course his will probably end up the superior article as he is the better writer (and has a good bit of facial hair), but I'm going to present mine anyway. In fact I'll do one better by listing 11 of my MMO pet peeves because, well, I jotted down 11.

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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!

If there's a class in Star Wars: The Old Republic that has a monopoly on the best lines, banter, and dialogue, it would have to be the Smuggler. Reader Danielle sent us in this nicely framed shot: "Here's my confident, sassy Smuggler striking a pose as he interrupts a conversation."

But isn't interrupting a conversation... rude? He shouldn't do that, then. He should wait patiently until both parties are finished, and perhaps raise his hand and wait to be acknowledged by his betters. Or he could totally interrupt their boring chit-chat.

The One Shots column is a time capsule of some of the most important MMO moments in history, and you're about to witness the latest entries into this hallowed vault. Steel yourself and prepare to gaze in wonder at the peak of human ingenuity and the print screen key!

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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.

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It's important to get this straight right away: Floid is the horse and Dewitt is the human. And no, I'm not giving you the principle cast of a Saturday morning cartoon; this is one of the more interesting Easter eggs that inhabit Lord of the Rings Online.

Floid the Mighty Steed and Dewitt the Explorer are an adventuring duo in the process of touring all of Middle-earth. Their journeys take them to out-of-the-way places, but if you stumble upon them you'll be given a deed to find the pair in seven different locales. Do so and you'll earn the incredible, the awe-inspiring, the magnificent... title of "the Wanderer." OK, it's just a title, but it's a title and a "Where's Waldo?" hunt for two oddballs. I'll take some time off of plowing through Update 11 to do this, yes sir!

While I've been aware of Floid and Dewitt over the years, I have never taken the time to hunt them down and finish the deed. Well, that ends this week. Come with me as I search high and low until all is revealed!

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In my Lord of the Rings Online career, I've played two classes far more than any others: the Captain and the Lore-master. Both scratch that "pet class" itch that I have in MMOs, both are quite group-friendly, and both seem to be somewhat unorthodox picks (at least compared to the plague of Hunters and Champions infecting the game).

I'll leave a discussion about Captains for another time, but today I felt like talking about the strangeness that is the Lore-master. It's such a unique class in feel and execution, and it's captivated me such that I'm actually leveling up my second Lore-master because I was dissatisfied with the way I handled my first one.

Maybe you've never tried one. Maybe you picked one up and just couldn't get a feel for what it was supposed to do. I'll admit that the LM is an acquired taste, partially because its skillset is all over the map and it doesn't settle into an expected template. However, it may just be the coolest class in the game. Here are six reasons why.

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Turbine has released the official patch notes for Lord of the Rings Online's Update 11: Treachery of the White Hand this morning, and in them, you'll find an explanation of the changes coming to the game with today's update.

In addition to a new launcher, new Wildermore region, continuation of the epic storyline with Volume III: Book 10, and an improvement to mounted combat, the most important thing to come to any LotRO patch since launch is the removal of Lalia from the cursed Barrow-downs. Seriously. Bob's aggro-magnet daughter and her cloak have retired from frustrating players and she now owns her own shop in Bree. Where she sells MISERY. Just kidding. I think she sells Beanie Babies or something.

Be sure to check out the entire patch notes in the official forums.

Snow-covered zones aren't exactly new to Lord of the Rings Online, but the upcoming region of Wildermore is a little bit different than the normal Misty Mountain ski resorts. How so? Well, for one thing, it's not supposed to be snowy at all. So what's up with the premature winter in this area of Rohan -- and what are you, the player, going to do about it?

That's the basic setup for Update 11: Treachery of the White Hand. The update, which should be going live next week, is what I call the intermission zone: It's the region that Turbine adds between expansions to keep veteran players from bouncing off the walls due to boredom. Lothlorien, Enedwaith, and the Great River are past intermission zones, but Wildermore might be the most fascinating one yet.

Thanks to technical issues, I wasn't able to get a first-hand tour of the new region. Instead, I nabbed a heart-to-heart chat with the devs about the intricacies of Wildermore, the next step of the epic story, and plenty of assorted goodies coming with the update!

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Hark! Is that a new update for Lord of the Rings Online on the horizon? It is indeed, my chums. And with any fresh LotRO patch comes an expected slew of developer diaries.

Today we have two dev diaries to report about for players getting ready for next week's Update 11. The first talks about the next addition to the epic story, Volume III, Book 10. The diary discusses the 15-chapter storyline as well as the optional "interlude" Ranger episodes that may be played in sequence or out of order. There's even a funny behind-the-scenes moment when the devs show how badly they messed up an NPC model.

Then there's a diary on what Turbine is calling "Mounted Combat 2.0." Sweeping changes are coming to mounted combat with Update 11, including retooling the movement tree into a class-specific one, the addition of more class-specific skills, and a ton of polish and iteration.

Massively will take a deeper look at Update 11 tomorrow, so stay tuned!

When Lord of the Rings Online's Update 11 drops next week, it will open the paths to a brand-new zone: Wildermore. While it's part of the Wold, Wildermore is definitely unlike anything seen in Riders of Rohan; for starters, the area is inexplicably covered in snow and jagged ice crystals.

So what's up with this area? Turbine's developers have put together a video to introduce the zone and explain the main storyhook behind it. It appears that Saruman has fused an ancient relic with a giant, creating a nasty foe that will be the main antagonist as players travel through Wildermore. Don't fret, as there are good guys as well attempting to fight the snow powers that be.

Check out the dev tour after the jump, and if you use the LotRO forums regularly, you may want to read up on the forum consolidation that's about to take place.

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Come next week, denizens of Middle-earth will have five new areas to explore and adventure in; Lord of the Rings Online launches Update 11: Treachery of the White Hand on Monday, May 13th. The epic story will continue in Wildermore, the remote area of Eastern Rohan, where players will attempt to restore the region from the icy destruction brought by the stone giant Núrzum.

The journey will take players through Writhendowns, The Fallows, Whitshaws, High Knolls, and Balewood where they will face Uruk-hai threats, marauding Warbands, violent Huorns, and Wood-trolls in an effort to protect the people and fight against growing evil and corruption.

Update 11 also includes a mounted combat revamp, daily Silver Hobbit Presents for logging in, and improved VIP benefits including an improved bonus experience system. The Wildermore Quest pack is free to VIPs. Check out the adventure that awaits in the gallery below.
[Source: Turbine press release]

Almost two years ago, Star Wars Galaxies players were rocked to their core by the news that their virtual world was to be sunsetted at the end of the year. Despite obvious SOE love for the title and player petitions, the call was already made: LucasArts didn't want to renew the contract with SOE, and that was that. Because of an IP, an entire galaxy was lost.

It's one of the "cons" of IP-based MMOs. Because there is licensing and contracts and other legal mumbo-jumbo involved, an online game that is completely wedded to an intellectual property has the added danger of being shut down completely if the IP is denied to the studio. SWG is a sobering lesson as to how this can happen to an otherwise healthy game.

If you haven't noticed already, Lord of the Rings Online is somewhat inspired by a certain IP. This IP can survive without the game, but the opposite is not true. So the scary question that we'd rather not ask is this: What if Turbine loses the rights have its game set in the Lord of the Rings universe?

It's not an unreasonable question. And what makes it even scarier is that it could conceivably happen as early as next year.

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