Lord of the Rings Online

I recently returned to Lord of the Rings Online, and one of the first things I did after reinstalling was hunt down all the old plugins I had a couple of years ago. Some are more important than others, but one is basically indispensable.

Without TonicBars, the LotRO interface is a horrific jumble of 27,000 hotbars and 127,000 abilities, but with TonicBars these abilities are kept neatly off my screen until I roll over the appropriate button and unfurl the underlying bar. You can also configure the plugin to display a hotbar only when various gameplay conditions are met, like, say, your health dropping below a certain percentage.

So that's my indispensable add-on. What's yours?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

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!

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The Lord of the Rings Online player council members have been chosen for 2013 and a post on the official forums names each of the 69 players who have been selected.

These players are said to represent "many play styles, countries, and walks of life" and will work to facilitate feedback between the dev team and the rest of the playerbase. But as community manager Rick "Sapience" Heaton reminds us, these council members "cannot discuss their actions or activity as a member of the council."

We'd like to throw out a hearty congratulations to everyone selected!

Over at Lord of the Rings Online fansite A Casual Stroll to Mordor, Andang gives us a nifty walkthrough video of the incoming Wildermore region for Update 11. The 19-minute video shows off the snowy mountainous region near Dunfast down to the plains near Norcrofts.

Take note that this tour is done on the public test Bullroarer server, so things may change before the update is officially launched. Still, it's worth watching the whole video if you're a LotRO fan anticipating the new content.

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Lord of the Rings Online is one of those MMOs, at least for me. You know the ones I mean. They're great games for the most part, but for whatever reason you've quit and returned and quit and returned to them more times than you can count.

With yesterday's announcement of the forthcoming Helm's Deep expansion, I'm finding it harder than ever to keep to my pledge of staying away from Turbine's Middle-earth.

What about you, morning crew? Assuming you're a LotRO expatriate, will Helm's Deep bring you back?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Lord of the Rings Online's fifth expansion has been announced, and Middle-earth explorers will travel to Helm's Deep sometime in the Fall of 2013. Turbine is raising the game's level cap to 95, while the epic storyline will continue through the western plains of Rohan and allow players to directly participate in the battle at Helm's Deep.

Additionally, Turbine's press release mentions new skills and "completely updated class specializations," as well as locations including Edoras, Dunharrow, and the fortress of the Hornburg.

[Source: Turbine press release]

It's time once again to take a week off from looking at specific MMO soundtracks and open ourselves up to a theme instead. The topic? Battle music. Yeah, it can be some of the most obnoxious music in the game, especially after hearing it for the 3,000th time, but every once in a while I hear a piece that has some merit to it. These are the ones we want to examine today.

What makes for a good battle music track? I think it has to get you excited without being annoying or grating and not so loud or incredibly noticeable that you can't help but get tired of it sooner rather than later. It was actually pretty tricky to pull together six such tracks for this column, but I managed to do with with the help of Colonel Bugle up there. He's got the best MP3 collection around.

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Uh, seriously guys, it was just yesterday that I was celebrating the third anniversary of Lord of the Rings Online with you in this column. At least it felt like yesterday. Really, has it been six years already? I guess it must be. It just seems like time moves so rapidly in MMOs, especially ones you've been in for years.

Even if you don't count my first six months in the game prior to and after the game's launch, my current stint in LotRO is the longest period of time that I've ever played an MMO. It's been a little over three years now that I've been playing and covering this game for Massively, and my interest in it has yet to wane. That amazes me; just when I think I might burn out on it, I find something about LotRO to rekindle my interest and passion.

There's something special about this game world that I haven't found elsewhere, I've concluded. Perhaps it's the IP restrictions and continuity that makes Middle-earth more "real" to me than other virtual worlds. Maybe it's the sheer breadth of content or the goofy hats. I can't decide. But I'm happy to raise a glass to LotRO as it turns six and look back at some of my favorite moments over the years.

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Hobbits love getting gifts, and Turbine loves players being in its game, so now everyone will be rewarded with daily and weekly presents for logging into Lord of the Rings Online. The so-called Hobbit Presents will be awarded daily, with VIP players getting a better version once a week. Each present is held only for 24 hours, after which it is gone forever (but don't cry, Argentina; a new day brings a new present).

The Hobbit Presents will drop a variety of goods, including gear, gold, boosts, and food. The weekly presents have a higher chance of dropping rare rewards. Turbine says that the system will factor in a character's class and level when generating the reward and that only one free present per account will be given daily.

A double-XP weekend began today to celebrate the game's sixth anniversary, and Update 11 is scheduled to go on the test server tomorrow.

The snow crunches angrily beneath my boots. It's a hard snow, beaten down by the winds and the constant sub-arctic temperatures. On top of it is a light powder that stings when it is whipped into my eyes. Fortunately all is calm and quiet at the moment, and I move on.

I'm a pioneer in Forochel, or so my title tells me, but I still feel as if I don't know this untamed land. It's the roof of the world, or so they say, with odd peoples, strange languages, and frozen ruins. I see sights there that I never would anywhere else in Middle-earth, and it almost feels like an alien world removed from all I've known because of that.

I walk toward a distant fire while the snow falls behind me and covers my footprints. Too often I think of how far away I am from the safety and warmth of home, and it frightens me. Am I a fool to forge into this land? To go in the opposite direction of the One Ring? Or is this my destined path?

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Lord of the Rings Online is celebrating its sixth birthday this month, and to honor the occasion, the game is holding an anniversary festival from April 16th to April 30th. To say thank you to its loyal fans, Turbine is giving away special gifts based on each player's account status. These gifts will range from a set of fireworks for everyone to more exclusive items for VIP players, depending on how long they've maintained VIP status.

Be sure to log in to the game during the festival to claim your prize, and check out the official FAQ to learn more about each gift.

[Source: Turbine press release]

Without a doubt, Riders of Rohan is one of the best expansions Lord of the Rings Online has delivered to date. True, it's not without its rough spots, but overall I'm impressed. The storytelling is excellent, the landscape is engaging, the mounted combat is pretty fun, the music is incredible, and the amount of stuff to do is mind-boggling.

But it wasn't until a week ago when my slow-but-steady Captain finally encountered my favorite aspect of this expansion: the Eves of Fangorn. I wasn't expecting to be so enchanted and engaged, but LotRO threw me for a loop and there I was -- grinning at the zone design and happy that the game can still produce a sense of wonder and adventure in my soul.

Why is it so good? What won me over? If you're thinking, "He's got a tree fetish, he does," then you might not be too far off base.

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Out of the four primary goals that the Lord of the Rings Online team has stated for 2013, the promise of class revamps has proven to be the most nerve-wracking -- and intriguing -- among the populace. After all, when you say that "significant changes" are coming to classes and don't follow up with any sort of significant details, speculation and worry is going to run amok.

Last September I argued that classes did need a shakeup. While the whole structure isn't without its redeeming (ahem) virtues, I believed that it wasn't intuitive for new players, that there wasn't really any growth in the abilities or builds of characters post-Moria, and that much of the deed system was simply too grindy.

That's why I'm cautiously optimistic about the "coming class apocalypse" in 2013 -- I'm tired of the status quo. LotRO has an opportunity to cut the dead weight and make leveling interesting all over again. Let's take a look at a few statements by the dev team to deduce what we'll be looking at when it happens.

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I vividly remember a conversation I had with my then-girlfriend's parents back in 1996 about the potential of this growing "internet" phenomenon. With my limited understanding, I made it sound downright noble, a Library of Congress available at the fingertips of the average Joe or Jane. What I really should have said that it would be a tool for the distribution of pornography, nerd rage, and cute animal pictures.

I have no idea how big the cute animal picture industry is, but there have got to be millions of aspiring photographers daily who prod little baby critters with encouragement sticks in the hopes of eliciting a few "awws" out of strangers. Even when the serious business of MMOs came a-calling, cuteness infested fantasy lands near and far.

Whenever I see something absurdly cute in an MMO, I always smile because I know that somewhere, some uber-elite, way-too-serious player is developing facial tics from being in the same game world as it. So twitch away, as here are 10 of the cutest critters as seen in-game!

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