f13.net

TURBINE UNVEILS
THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE™: SIEGE OF MIRKWOOD™

New Digital Expansion to the 2008 MMO of the Year Launching this Fall
 

WESTWOOD, MA – September 4, 2009 - Turbine, Inc. today unveiled The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™, the digital expansion to the award-winning massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG).  Siege of Mirkwood will expand the online world of Middle-earth where players will join forces to press further eastward into the dark, foreboding and treacherous forest of Mirkwood and take part in the epic conclusion to Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online.  Siege of Mirkwood will be available as a digital download this Fall with an increased level cap, a new region including the legendary evil fortress of Dol Goldur, major enhancements to combat and Legendary Items and the introduction of Skirmishes, a new system where players will train customizable soldiers and take them into battle as part of the War of the Ring.


“2009 has been a year of unprecedented growth for The Lord of the Rings Online and the launch of Siege of Mirkwood will end the year with a bang,” said Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online.  “As the game expands east of the Misty Mountains, players will face the raging war and shadow that has spread across Middle-earth and the new Skirmish system will thrust players and their soldiers into the War of the Ring.”

NEW FEATURES:

    * The Epic Conclusion to Volume II: Mines of Moria™ – Under the command of Celeborn and Galadriel, players will fight through vast armies of Orcs alongside the Elves of Lórien in a battle that will take them to Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths.  This update includes Book 9 and the Epilogue to the sweeping epic tale begun with the award-winning Mines of Moria expansion.
    * Increased Level Cap — Players will be able advance their characters up to level 65, gaining access to new traits, virtues, skills and class quests.
    * Answer the Call of War! – Jump into the heat of battle with the new Skirmishes feature.  Skirmishes offer endless action in repeatable, randomized instances where players can create and lead customizable soldiers into battle, training them to greater skill as they earn victories against the forces of shadow.  Answer the call of war wherever violence erupts with the new “World Join” function that lets players and their fellowships band together to fight in various locations throughout Middle-earth.
    * Take up Arms! – Infiltrate the dark jails, deadly arenas and savage stables of Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths, and strike a blow against Sauron’s forces in new 3 and 6-player instances.  Call upon your fellows to adventure into the most deadly 12-player raid yet and face the ultimate challenge – the Nazgûl Lord!
    * Major Gameplay Enhancements – Turbine continues to improve the award-winning experience of LOTRO with major improvements to the combat and Legendary Items systems.  Players will experience improved responsiveness when in the heat of battle.  Players will also be able to create and craft their own customized Second and Third Age Legendary Items from raw materials and grow their weapons’ power to level 60.  Achieve new Legacies, new titles, and a fourth Runic slot that will make Legendary Items even more unique and powerful.


The Lord of the Rings Online is an award-winning MMORPG that delivers an interactive experience brimming with life and filled with the familiar people, places and monsters from the most beloved fantasy adventure of all time. From the picturesque surroundings of the Shire to Moria, the great underground realm to the menace of Mirkwood, players will experience the world of Middle-earth as never before.  The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood will be available as a digital download this Fall.  Details regarding Siege of Mirkwood’s pricing and availability will be unveiled soon.  For more information or to download a free trial, visit www.lotro.com/mirkwood.

Am I paying for every update now?

:headscratch:

So this is a paid expansion, right? And then we'll get Volume III, which will also be a paid expansion? Am I paying for every update now? Well, I don't do any recurring payment, but still.

I'm curious what the combat improvements will entail. On one hand, like Yego, I like the combat the way it is. On the other hand, a WoW-level of responsiveness in combat would lift LotRO's overall standard from great to awesome.

I wonder if they plan to alter between dital expansions and box expansions.

That's mostly it. Autoattacks will not delay firing a skill. What this does mean is that animation have a chance to preempt autoattack anims in such a way as to produce a pop in the anim transition that isn't there right now.

There's a line somewhere between "responsive combat" and "frantic buttonmashing".  I like the combat already due to the slow pace, although now that I'm well-versed in it I would be OK if it was sped-up a bit.  Devil's in the details, though.

    *  Siege of Mirkwood will have a base price of $19.99. As with Moria last year, we're going to have a set of early upgrade offers that are very compelling. We're not quite ready to unveil those details yet, but we'll keep you posted.
    * The epic story continues on in Volume 3 as a regular content update early next year.
    * Some of the improvements to the game coming with Mirkwood will benefit everyone, but the key features will require the Mirkwood upgrade.

That said, some interesting details here. (http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view=CommunityArticles.Detail&id=18)

Also on the list of changes, and an answer to the prayers of many LOTRO players, is the addition of shared storage space for accounts.
...
Perhaps my favorite is that mounts are being changed over to skills, not items. This means you will no longer be required to carry a mount in your inventory. In your skills panel, there will be a "mount" tab, which will list your current stable of mounts -- your horse, your other horse, your goat. And, because of mounts becoming skills, a number of issues with mounts will simply cease to exist: You will now be able to pass into instances and new zones while on your mount; you can now interact with NPCs (including vendors) from your mount; and you can now use emotes on your mount.

To my own surprise, I'm not pre-convinced to buy. What they've talked up so far is pretty raider-oriented, and I'm Not That Guy.

That said, some interesting details here. (http://lotrovault.ign.com/View.php?view=CommunityArticles.Detail&id=18)

wish they would also nerf the old 40-50lvl epic book and instance content.  No reason for a full grp for CD or URU.  Or at least give us an inventive (IXP) to run those places.

There is like, only one raid in the expansion.  :headscratch:

I'm not even sure how you can read it as raids.  It's 30-40 minute instances that can be run in groups of 1, 3, 6 or 12.  How is that raiding?

Are you suggesting that 3, 6, and 12 man raids don't exist in LotRO?

I define a raid as an complex instanced fight that requires multiple players to complete. Skirmishes are raids with the option to use NPCs to replace some players.

How are you defining "raid?"

What this feature ultimately does is make a 12-man raid feel more like a 24-man in practice, since everyone can have one of these soldiers running around. It's obvious that this has been done to give the game a very epic feel, as many of the battles were in fact quite gigantic in size. Turbine is calling this a foundation for their Epic Battle System, which was something Jeffrey Steefel was keen to add a note on by mentioning that this system would be great for a battle where players controlled "both sides" of the action.

Skirmishes sound more akin to warhammers scenarios, with an npc mercenary.

Well if they were actually adding real PvP, this expansion would be exciting.

I think "adding" was the operative word there. :-) As far as they've told us yet, they aren't adding ANY PvP.

Well, I assume you can see how a good portion of the features in this expansion is laying the ground work for things like Helmsdeep, something i suspect will be PvMP. As we get closer to Mordor, I fully believe we will see the monsters become more of a fleshed out advancement line like that of the player characters.

As for "Real PvP", your going to have to define that one, because PvMP is real Pvp. It just may not be what you see in other titles.

Still not sure what makes PvMP not PvP.

PvMP could be PvP, but currently it is not.  Too be real PvP there has to be some sort competition between players.  PvM is destiny point farming.  There is no competition.  EvE's economy is more PvP than PvMP.

PvM has some other be big flaws:
The two sides are mechanically unbalanced.  Freeps need to be canned classes like Monsters or Creeps need to be re-skinned PCs.
The two sides will have a population imbalance because people always identify more with Freeps.  Both the lore and structure of the game promote this.
No commitment from devs aggravates the first two issues.  Funny how this a self-fulling prophecy.  Dev pushes out shitty PvP.  Since no one wants to play their shitty PvP, Devs write it off because "players hate pvp."

Well, I assume you can see how a good portion of the features in this expansion is laying the ground work for things like Helmsdeep, something i suspect will be PvMP. As we get closer to Mordor, I fully believe we will see the monsters become more of a fleshed out advancement line like that of the player characters.

Actually, one of the neat things about 'Siege of Mirkwood' is that the Epic makes use of skirmishes, so you can adjust the difficulty of some of the instances based on what challenge you'd say you're up for. A happy medium, hopefully.

MoL

I have picked up in LotRO again and with the talk of the expansion I began to ponder really large battles like Helms Deep. How the hell are they going to do that besides cut scenes?

Turbine is calling this a foundation for their Epic Battle System, which was something Jeffrey Steefel was keen to add a note on by mentioning that this system would be great for a battle where players controlled "both sides" of the action.

This is related to what Bloodworth and Tazelbain are arguing about. As I quoted upthread from Massively regards the Skirmish System (emphasis mine):


As for Helm's Deep specifically, I doubt we'll see it. Thus far they haven't directly shown events from the books. We've traveled parallel to or behind the Fellowship.

So, let's take a quick and dirty look at what a player's 20 bucks gets them:

    * Level cap raised to 65.
    * New skills, titles, deeds and traits.
    * Raised level of legendary items.
    * Several new instances.
    * Fourth crafting runic slot on legendary items for master crafters.
    * New Skirmish system. (read below for more)
    * Updated horse mechanics. (read below for more)
    * Mirkwood zone, a dark and ominious forest unlike any other seen thus far, with Dol Guldur looming in the distance.
    * Whole new reputation faction for the Elves of Mirkwood.
    * Dol Guldur, the place where Sauron was a Necromancer 'back in the day' and Gollum was tortured, as a huge vertical instance. After battling their way up this Moria-tech built behemoth of a fortress, players eventually fight a Nazgul placed there by Sauron, who's riding his felbeast.


Skirmishes

Turbine's goal was to take the concept of their story-based instances and improve their replay value. So these are more accessible randomized, repeatable and customizable instances for you and your friends with the same level of storytelling quality as any other LotRO instance.

Players can create a Skirmish directly from the user interface, invite their friends and all be in it almost immediately. Then, when it's over, the game will put everyone back where they were before. Upon creating your Skirmish you can choose its level, the degree of difficulty such as easy, medium or hard and also your party size of either three, six or 12. The game will then create an experience that's proper for the settings you give it.

What we found particularly cool was that each player can bring their own fully customizable soldier into a Skirmish. You can choose their role, which are fairly obvious analogs to classes and select their appearance just as if you were making a new character for yourself. They even have skills and ranks that you can improve as you use them in battle. Jeffrey was keen to point out that you don't have control of your soldier in battle, because Turbine felt it was just too much stuff to be doing at once. Instead, each battle you equip them with traits based on how you want them to act. We think it's a good decision, especially for the pet class players.

What this feature ultimately does is make a 12-man raid feel more like a 24-man in practice, since everyone can have one of these soldiers running around. It's obvious that this has been done to give the game a very epic feel, as many of the battles were in fact quite gigantic in size. Turbine is calling this a foundation for their Epic Battle System, which was something Jeffrey Steefel was keen to add a note on by mentioning that this system would be great for a battle where players controlled "both sides" of the action.

These all happen in areas that should be familiar to any LotRO player. Places like Bree, Tuckberry and Weathertop -- except that since the War of the Rings is beginning, there's something new going on. A couple examples given to us were scourge of the Shire-like event happening at Tuckburrow, or an attack at Bree where people have been locked in the Prancing Pony with the invaders outside ready to set it on fire. Plus, every Skirmish has nine randomizable alternate objectives. Basically, Turbine is doing everything they can to make these just as fun on the hundredth time as they are on the first.

Loot drops and Skirmish Points will probably help extend the replay value. Those points can be spent on various rewards ranging from ways to improve your soldier buddy to actually getting meaningful rewards typically gained elsewhere in the game. Jeffrey did point out that these rewards are meant to compliment, not supplant, the ones already in place throughout the other activities in LotRO.

There are limitations to how often you can do some of them, because Turbine doesn't want them to become too grindy. They don't want it to become so involving that people stop playing the rest of the game. However, we will point out that the game tracks all of your accomplishments in Skirmishes and puts it all in a big in-game window and publishes it into leaderboards at MyLotRO just so you can show everyone how awesome you are -- we can't imagine that those limitations aren't going to be too restrictive.

Updated mount functionality

The first time you summon your horse after getting Siege of Mirkwood, the game will prompt you to turn it into a skill. No longer will mounts take up inventory space, which tells us that Turbine is planning for mounts to become much more plentiful and central to LotRO in the future.


"If this isn't Turbine hinting at their next expansion's setting then they've got a pretty cruel sense of humor"

Even more importantly, mounts are being made more functional. No longer will they simply move players around the game world quickly. With Siege of Mirkwood you can talk to an NPC on your mount, buy stuff from a vendor, cross land block boundaries, enter large spaces on horse without dismounting, emote on your horse -- you can even name your horse. If this isn't Turbine hinting at their next expansion's setting then they've got a pretty cruel sense of humor.

Odds and ends

Shared account storage will allow players to move items between characters of any level on the same server. We were told that there are some limitations to what a player can put into storage in order to avoid a "mulefest" which sounded like a pretty awesome name for a band, to us at least. We were also told that in the future players who've filled up their storage may have an opportunity to earn more space.

Combat has gotten another upgrade as well, and according to Jeffrey one of the largest updates to the system that Turbine has ever done. The changes are being made at a base level, so nothing changed in what a player does in any given battle. Essentially their whole effort was to make combat feel much snappier, and the biggest change is that auto-attack is now completely interruptable by skills. Other adjustments have been made to the timing of animations, but we were assured these changes would only alter the feel of the combat and not the result. If you're still worried or confused on the topic, Jeffrey informed us that a dev diary is coming out about this very topic, so that should clear the air.

As we said in our post, the expansion is coming this Fall for 20 bucks as a digital expansion. For everything we just discussed above, that seems rather like a fair price to us.

Linky (http://www.massively.com/2009/09/08/pax-2009-turbine-tells-us-all-about-siege-of-mirkwood/)

There an echo in here?  (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=17784.msg701961#msg701961):P