If you think people have forgotten about the LOTR universe, you are mistaken. As the MMORPG LOTR Online continues to bring in new gamers everyday, they are continuing adding new areas to explore thus creating more quests. We can now explore the Mines of Moria, the once great halls of the Dwarves. Who knows what lurks inside the deep and dark crevasses but one thing is for sure. Now we can find out.
Pandemic is rocking a new Lord of the Rings game and it sounds pretty damn cool. There’s going to be both a good and evil campaign, so you get to choose whether you want to save or destroy Middle Earth. It’s been confirmed you can be a Ring Wraith and kill Frodo.
And then right after the Sam / Frodo suck fest, right before the credits roll, Sam fuckin’ flat out bricks in Frodo’s mouth.
In case you were worried that Lord of the Rings Online would lose it’s license with Tolkien Enterprises, Turbine announced today they’ve extended their license for online games until 2014. This means that LoTRO and future expansion packs and sequels will all be available for the next six years.
“We’re thrilled with the global success of The Lord of the Rings Online since its launch in 2007,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “With the recent announcement of what are sure to be two blockbuster films based on The Hobbit and a sequel, we expect the success of the license and our relationship with Tolkien Enterprises to grow for years to come.”
Turbine is doing one hell of a job already, so I can only imagine how it’ll be once The Hobbit is released. If you haven’t checked out Lord of the Rings Online, there’s a free 7 day trial, so get on it.
Fans of Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online can sit back and enjoy the newly released content update for the game today, as Book 12 has been officially released. Here’s what you can expect from this new free update.
Did I mention this update is free? Gotta love Turbine pumping a ton of content regularly into the game. This is probably the most played MMO over at Loot Ninja headquarters, easily surpassing WoW.
Turbine sent out a press release today to let us know that Lord of the Rings Online, their flagship MMORPG, will be the first of it’s genre to support DirectX 10 and NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Processors.
Players can now experience Middle-earth™ like never before with major improvements to The Lord of the Rings Online’s graphics, including upgraded shaders for water, particle effects and lighting for distant terrain. Players will also be treated to new levels of immersion with the new DirectX 10 exclusive dynamic shadowing features which render realistic real-time shadows in the vast outdoor environments of The Lord of the Rings Online.
This is one of the best MMORPG’s on the market, and our personal favorite here at Loot Ninja. Sadly, none of us have DX10 hardware to take advantage of us. If you’re a LotRO player and have DX10 with Vista, let us know how much better the game looks.
The ever growing LoTR Online game has launched their 11th Book today, Shadows of Angmar. Here are the highlights from an email sent directly to Loot Ninja from the developers themselves. We saw the housing beta at DigitalLife and I have to say it looked really awesome. Hit the more button for all the goodies:
Today The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar announces that players will get Book 11: Defenders of Eriador, another free expansion to the already deep LOTR MMO. THis update brings 100 new quests, a new 12 player raid, more areas to squish hobbits and a new house system, so now you can stuff your orc in a hobbit house. Book 11: Defenders of Eriador will be available to subscribers of The Lord of the Rings Online on October 24, 2007 in North America and October 25, 2007 in Europe.
For full details hit the jump!
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At Digital Life this weekend, we got a chance to sit down with Adam Mersky of the development team at Turbine who works on Lord of the Rings Online. We talked about the general aspects of the game as well as new features in the upcoming Book 11 update.
If you’re not familiar with the game, Lord of the Rings Online allows you to immerse yourself in the Tolkien universe as a member of one of the main races in the game. You interact through a storyline that takes place during the Lord of the Rings books. You’ll get to meet up with Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and even Gandolf. The game is much more about exploration than player vs player combat, unlike many other MMO’s out there.
Adam walked up through the updates in Book 11 and what we can expect from the game in the coming months. The update will bring housing to the game for yourself and your kinship. You’ll be able to settle down in a town with your kinship and create your own house and yard and decorate it to your pleasure. Each player can own one house, but anyone in the world can visit your home. You can give other players permissions to make changes in your house, so don’t be surprised if you come home and find your walls a different color. The options for changing the interior of your house are very simple, and each element can be changed on a room by room basis. You can add many different types of furniture and artwork to each room. If you want to add a stone troll head on your wall as a trophy, it’s there for you to put up. Pricing for housing and different items will be determined in the next few weeks as development wraps up on the update.
