Turbine's published another biography of one of the popular characters of both Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Dori:
Of the thirteen companions of the great Thorin Oakenshield, Dori was often responsible for keeping an eye out for the Company's burglar, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Now Dori acts as an emissary to the dwarf-mines of Othrikar in the North Downs.
You can read more about him after the jump, or at Turbine's Lorebook entry.
Turbine announced the next in their series of web-based mini-games, in anticipation of the upcoming expansion, Mines of Moria:
Turbine, Inc. and Codemasters Online today announced the launch of Swig and Toss, the second mini-game on www.unlocktheminesofmoria.com. Registered participants can challenge themselves and their friends to earn special deeds that unlock unique rewards including exclusive videos, images, and in-game items that will aid them on their journey when The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria launches this fall.
Swig and Toss is an axe throwing competition with a bit of drinking and wagering to make things more interesting! In this 10-round game, players try to keep a steady aim while attempting to hit a target with their axe. Hit the mark and win! Miss and hear the Dwarves around you scoff at your lack of skill.
Between rounds, players can take a few swigs from their mug to help quench their thirst. This will help boost their confidence and loosen their pocket strings, increasing the amount they can wager.
Swig and Toss is available today at www.unlocktheminesofmoria.com. Registration is free!
Axes and beer - what could be better?
Turbine posted an announcement that the game servers will be restarted tomorrow:
The LOTRO game servers will be brought down for a restart on Thursday, May 8 from 9:00AM - 10:00AM Eastern (-4 GMT)* in preparation for Welcome Back Weekend. Thanks for your patience, and we'll have the servers back online as soon as possible!
* And as always, apologies to our Oceanic players for hitting their prime time!
Jim Moreno tackles the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: "Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!"
Lord of the Rings Online has announced some special pricing to welcome players back to the game. In celebration of their first year anniversary, here's how they're trying to lure players back:
The Lord of the Rings Online™ launched a year ago and we want you to help us celebrate! That's why we're giving you free LOTRO access from May 8-12, 2008!
Play your old characters, check out the LOTRO Anniversary celebration events, explore new areas, and tackle new quests. Just log into your LOTRO account from May 8-12, 2008 and we'll take care of the fun and adventure.
Click through to see the pricing and the information about changes since Book 13's introduction.
The official lorebook has been updated with an article that introduces the Sackville-Baggins family to LotRO players. The Sackville-Baggins family are NPCs in LotRO:
Otho Sackville-Baggins is the first cousin of the famous burglar Bilbo Baggins. He and his wife Lobelia were never on good terms with Bilbo, always bitter that Bag End, the beautiful hole of the Baggins family upon the Hill in Hobbiton, had not come to them. When Bilbo was presumed dead after leaving on the Quest of Erebor with Thorin Oakenshield and Company, Otho and Lobelia moved into Bag End and started auctioning off Bilbo's belongings; unfortunately for them, Bilbo returned just in time to stop them.
There's more...
Eurogamer is featuring the second article reporting on their recent conversation with LotRO Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel. This time round the discussion covered a wider variety of topics including PvP and lore.
Eurogamer: Are you planning to expand PVP as the war expands, across more of the land?
Jeffrey Steefel: I want to be careful not to be too definitive in this answer, but that's definitely, philosophically and from a high-level design perspective, what we talk about all the time - which is, you get across the Misty Mountains and that's where you're really getting to the martial part of Middle Earth, from Helm's Deep to Minas Tirith to the Ents marching on Isengard, war is always there. More will crop up once across the Misties.
Check out the rest at the link above.
The official lorebook for Lord of the Rings Online has been updated, this time featuring the NPC Goldberry:
Middle-earth holds many strange mysteries and enigmas, but none quite so unusual as the River-maidens. These beautiful creatures, Man- or Elf-like in appearance, are born of the waters of secluded rivers. What they are exactly is unknown even to the Wise, but they are old and powerful.
Perhaps the best known of these is Goldberry, daughter of the Withywindle in the Old Forest on the borders of Buckland. She once tried to snare the equally mysterious Tom Bombadil, and though old Tom escaped her grasp, he eventually returned and took her to wife. Now together they dwell in seclusion in the Old Forest, away from the rest of the world.
Goldberry is one of many NPCs in LOTRO which was drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings novel. Their depiction in The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ marks one of the first major appearances Tom and Goldberry have made outside of the novels.
There is an included map at the link above so, if you want to find Goldberry, check it out.
Turbine released a batch of new screenshots today showing off a new faction, the hardy tribes known as the Lossoth, as well as the new Defiler monster class, a healer that will round out any War Band in their quest to dominate the Ettenmoors.
Click below to check them out.
Eurogamer has a brand spanking new interview with LotRO's executive producer Jeffrey Steefel. Covering a plethora of topics about Book 13, editors also asked:
Eurogamer: You're introducing a series of new skills called hobbies in the game, the first of which will be fishing. Will there be high-end fishing in this arctic weather, like wading out into the ocean for extreme fishing?
Jeffrey Steefel: Legendary fishing, yeah! There's tiered access to fishing and this fits into the fat-path/skinny-path of our systems. We want to make sure that anybody who wants to craft can get through most of the tiers without having to craft for their life, but then there's mastery for those who really want to make crafting a big part of their experience. There's basic fishing you can do anywhere in Middle Earth that has water; you just need a fishing pole and the most basic bit of training. But then you can worry about the bait or pole you have, and there's certain very rare places in the world that have cool fishing spawn points and that's where you get the rare fish. And of course, every now and then you'll get something which might be a rusty dagger... though no tyres.
If it gets too cold, you'll have to gut him and crawl inside.
Eurogamer: ...or old boots? To a lot of players this will sound very similar to the WOW system. No offence intended, but lot of the little things you're adding in feel like checking off a list; WOW's got that, now we've got that. Is that unfair?
Jeffrey Steefel: Not entirely. Fishing came to be as a matter of... players really want fishing since they've done it EverQuest when the fish was like 4 pixels, so we know there's a base level of fishing they want, and it's bound to be similar to WOW. However, we can take it different directions by not making any requirements on you; you don't have to be in one spot, at a particular level, with this level of proficiency to actually fish. For us it's, how can we remove the barriers to make this a genuinely accessible, fun hobby. It's also the first implementation of a whole series of hobbies that are coming.
There's a lot more at the link above. Check it out.
