Lord of the Rings Online has taken the DirectX 10 plunge, according to a press release issued today. The popular MMORPG from Turbine, released the DX10 patch onto their live servers, which enables people with Windows Vista and the right graphics cards to take advantage of a lot of new visuals bells and whistles.
Read more after the leap.
Over on the official Lord of the Rings Online forums, Ramen makes note of a this special birthday today:
Born on January 3, 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien has become one of the most famous authors of our times, influencing an entire genre of literature and, now, games. Happy Birthday, Professor, and thank you!
Happy Birthday Professor!
As the year comes to a close, we thought we'd share some of the updates that have been made to the database recently. Also, a big wave to the kinships that have updated their information recently:
New Kinships
Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, The Grand Moot, Friends of Mithrandir, Flames of Arnor, Allies of Elessar
Follow the link below to view the updates we've made, including over 100 quests, over 500 items, 60 new and updated recipes, and much more!
LOTRO's Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel posted his thoughts about the past year, and a look forward at the coming year:
As the holiday seasons are upon us I wanted to take a moment to express the team's gratitude to all of you for making LOTRO a success and helping us to keep making it better and better. With Books 9, 10 and 11, we've grown the size and functionality of the game a great deal and tried to improve the things and places most important to our players.
Read more for the entire letter. It's hard to believe that the game has only been live for seven months!
Turbine's posted another diary for our perusal, this time focusing on Angmar:
Join Content Designers Amlug and MadeOfLions in their quest to improve and revamp the Angmar region! If you've been exploring or questing in Angmar, this update is for you. The Great Angmar Revamp will provide insight on the challenges of improving an existing area, as well as a window into the exciting world of content design!
You can read the entire article by clicking 'read more'!
Rumors abound in the Shire, but they're true! Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is the official Yule-planner for the Hobbiton Yule-fest. A lot of the residents of Hobbiton are not happy about it, but what can they do?
Visit Bogo Chubb in Hobbiton, and see if there's anything you can do to help create a happy Hobbiton for Yule!
You can visit our quest section to get all the details!
If you're an aspriring crafter, but don't have the time or the skills to gather the necessary materials for your profession, several residents of Middle-earth are more than willing to help you out...for a price!
We've put together a guide to the cosignment providers in Middle-earth to help you find them and plan ahead to fufill your crafting needs. Take a look!
This holiday, Turbine has a few surprises in store for their LOTRO players. Founders and lifetime members get a lvl 25 horse and everyone can enjoy a new reduced monthly fee.
Check it out.
Q. What do you get for the LOTRO player who has everything?
A. More LOTRO at a great price!
This season Turbine is excited to bring you a very special holiday offer. Now through January 31, 2008, you can start playing The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ for only $9.99 a month!
The Lord of the Rings Online special holiday promotion lets new and existing subscribers play for only $9.99 a month when they sign up for three months of service for the special price of $29.97, subject to certain terms and conditions.
Players who subscribe to the promotion will continue to be billed $29.97 every three months for as long as they maintain an active account with The Lord of the Rings Online or until they choose a different billing plan. Players who currently subscribe to The Lord of the Rings Online and select the special offer will be transferred to the Holiday subscription package once they have completed their current subscription plan.This special offer only lasts until January 31, 2008. To sign up for this limited time offer go to myaccount.turbine.com and join us in Middle-earth™!
Special holiday offer. Play for $9.99 a month when you sign up for a three month subscription plan. Participating players will be billed $29.97 for subscription plan. Offer valid from December 1, 2007 to January 31, 2008.
That's only the beginning as some online events will be taken place and more to be announced shortly.
Turbine has shared with us some of the details behind the problems yesterday, and what they plan to do in recompense:
On behalf of the entire staff at Turbine we would like to apologize for yesterday's extended downtime. The outage was a unique occurrence involving a combination of the hardware and software that supports our login servers and other related web services. This problem prevented players from successfully logging into the games, although the game servers themselves were unaffected and remained up.
You can read the entire article after the click.
The official LotRO site is featuring a contest for Direct X 10. Winning shots will be featured on the site!
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar: Book 11: Defenders of Eriador introduces DirectX 10 for the first time in a live MMO, and to celebrate, we're pleased to announce the LOTRO DirectX 10 Screenshot Contest! Send in your favorite pictures from LOTRO using DirectX 10 and it may be featured on lotro.com! We're looking for screenshots that really show off the dynamic lighting, beautiful water effects, and incredible shadowing that can now be found in LOTRO on machines running DirectX 10.
For more information, see the rules below. Good luck! We look forward to seeing your screenshots!
RULES:
To enter the LOTRO DirectX 10 Contest send your entry to lotro@turbine.com with the subject line LOTRO DirectX 10 Contest. Three (3) entries per player per week.
The rest of the rules can be found at the link above.
