A new digital expansion for The Lord of The Rings Online has been announced today. The new expansion, entitled "Siege of Mirkwood", will bring the culmination of the epic storyline that began with the Mines of Moria, or more specifically bring the game to Book II Chapter 9, and will include the Epilogue as well. In addition to the story content, the expansion will bring a level cap bump to 65, introduce a new 12 man raid, and a smattering of three to six man instances.

A new game system will be introduced as well, called Skirmishes. Some information on the skirmish system is available below:

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.

The official Siege of Mirkwood site can be found here.

Wow...I know that they didn't release that many details about this expansion yet,,, but this is making me want to come back to LOTRO...looks like they are taking the game in a good direction...and not copying others...doing some unique things with the epic battles and skirmishes and things... I've been game hopping for months and haven't been able to settle down for more than a week in any MMO,,,but i haven't played LOTRO in about a year and i think i may come back and continue... Way to go Turbine...

 I am thinking the same thing. Might have to head back to Middle-Earth soon.

LOTRO = epic storyline (emphasis on "line")

Middle Earth = vast open world begging to be done right

Originally posted by pencilrick

LOTRO = epic storyline (emphasis on "line")

Middle Earth = vast open world begging to be done right

I know, I miss MEO, I still think they will make it someday. Not Restart the original project but make it new and fresh.

-Jive

Originally posted by Theos244

 not copying others...doing some unique things with the epic battles and skirmishes and things...

lol.

Awesome

yes yes yes

lord of the rings has always been my second back up mmo  ( given i have a life time sub ) suddenly it may become my main mmo .

bah I wish blizzard would announce their ex-pacs a few months before release.

Very little info considering the ex-pac is out in a month or 2.  But reading into whats included.. its not on a scale as big as a wow ex-pac (and thats not a troll comment).

Very nice. I always look forward to the addition of more content in this game. They always deliver.

Originally posted by coffee

bah I wish blizzard would announce their ex-pacs a few months before release.

Very little info considering the ex-pac is out in a month or 2.  But reading into whats included.. its not on a scale as big as a wow ex-pac (and thats not a troll comment).

When one considers the  free content that turbine has added through the years i find it a good value.

so is this an expac or a book or somewhere in between?

For an expac, it seems a little underwhelming...

For a book, looks about on par with what Turbine has done in the past...

Will this cost as much as an expansion or will it be cheaper? 

I get the impression from the press release (digital expansion, conclusion of volume 2, etc.) that this is more of a large DLC than a full expansion.  Guess that does confirm that Rohan will be the target for the next expansion though.

A new zone will be good to get, especially since Lothlorien was underwhelming. I hope Dol Guldur is as big and epic as Carn Dum was - the Moria instances are a bit short for my taste. What I'm most excited about is the Skirmish system: group content that scales to the size of the party. That should help give the game a lot more replay value at level-cap, which is the biggest problem with LOTRO in its current state. The LI system really needs an overhaul too. I'm really looking forward to this update!

Now is this a paid expansion your talking about or another free content update, they need to clairify that, cause the expainsions on LoTRo are fairly big. They been saying for a while we would get a lvl cap up in an upcoming update.

well, at least to me, it seems as though turbine is positioning this somewhere between an expansion and a book - hence the term "digital expansion".

It also doesn't have near the marketing heft that MoM had - so is this a new type of deployment from Turbine?  Which is fine if they charge a reasonable price.  IMO, outside a few design oversights, Turbine has managed LotRO right by me so I'm thinking this is similar to the adventure/booster pack sized content we saw with EQ2 and AO(for those of you that don't remember or know, funcom turned AO's first expansion into a small "booster pack" and a fullfledged expansion that came out later).

They have stated that it is going to be a $20 dollar expansion, with a new Volume coming out. Since they priced Moria at $30 if I remember right, that means that this probably won't be as big.

But they are making a lot of great changes, like the whole skirmish thing, and making mounts skills, not items so you can interact with vendors and enter instances. Here is an article about it that the writer got from talking to Turbine during PAX today. lotrovault.ign.com/View.php

As a LOTRO fan, I'm really looking forward to this!

sounds cool, but it does seem more like a one of there regular free updates, and not an expansion. unless mirkwood is really freaking massive.... i was under the impression, each of there expansions would actually focus on the books. thus, the next one, was going to be book 1 of the two towers, hence, the rohan....  but mirkwood is good too heh

Would like to know how much they will charge for this, $10 sounds reasonable.  I would prefer smaller expansions every 6 months than 1 big ass expansion ever 1.5-2 years or so.

There must be more content in this unless Turbine plan for players to ding 5 levels in the new raid dungeon and the new skirmish system.

Or did they add the 5 levels as a way to validate a fee?

Remove the extra 5 levels and Compare this to WoW futures 3.3 free content patch and I find it hard to justify a fee, hell even compared to 3.2 its hard to justify.

Either way I'm downloading the trial now, been almost 2 years since I tried Lotro, worth a another look I think.

What they really needs is a new character model and better looking armour expansion.

---

Originally posted by pencilrick
LOTRO = epic storyline (emphasis on "line")
Middle Earth = vast open world begging to be done right

---

This.

Some nights I cry because of LOTRO.

Originally posted by coffee

Would like to know how much they will charge for this, $10 sounds reasonable.  I would prefer smaller expansions every 6 months than 1 big ass expansion ever 1.5-2 years or so.

There must be more content in this unless Turbine plan for players to ding 5 levels in the new raid dungeon and the new skirmish system.

Or did they add the 5 levels as a way to validate a fee?

Remove the extra 5 levels and Compare this to WoW futures 3.3 free content patch and I find it hard to justify a fee, hell even compared to 3.2 its hard to justify.

Either way I'm downloading the trial now, been almost 2 years since I tried Lotro, worth a another look I think.

Considering that every LotrO update have been bigger than every WoW update we can guess that its going to be pretty big.

How many updates have 1 new raid + several 3 and 6 man instances + a new zone (we dont know how big it is) + this new skirimish system which we dont know much about yet. Also increasing level cap to 65 and LI cap to 60 and revamping the whole system. For $20 I guess its going to be pretty big.

They have also stated that they have 2 zones in pre-production and that volume 3 will start with as a free update.

Originally posted by Papadam

Originally posted by coffee

Would like to know how much they will charge for this, $10 sounds reasonable.  I would prefer smaller expansions every 6 months than 1 big ass expansion ever 1.5-2 years or so.

There must be more content in this unless Turbine plan for players to ding 5 levels in the new raid dungeon and the new skirmish system.

Or did they add the 5 levels as a way to validate a fee?

Remove the extra 5 levels and Compare this to WoW futures 3.3 free content patch and I find it hard to justify a fee, hell even compared to 3.2 its hard to justify.

Either way I'm downloading the trial now, been almost 2 years since I tried Lotro, worth a another look I think.

 

Considering that every LotrO update have been bigger than every WoW update we can guess that its going to be pretty big.

Your wrong ( wow patch 3.2 vs Book 8 ) but lets not de-rail an otherwise troll free post.

How many updates have 1 new raid + several 3 and 6 man instances + a new zone (we dont know how big it is) + this new skirimish system which we dont know much about yet. Also increasing level cap to 65 and LI cap to 60 and revamping the whole system. For $20 I guess its going to be pretty big.

The new Zone would need to be huge to have 5 levels of content, but then again Im looking at this with my WoW head on.

They have also stated that they have 2 zones in pre-production and that volume 3 will start with as a free update.

LOTRO for the most part is doing ok but I wasnt a big fan of moria... why?  because it was just more of the same just bigger rats (mobs) and static quests,, this mirkwood thing just sounds like more track at the end of the line  and still a never changing world,, worse yet "random generated" sounds too much like revolving door mob grind.

what they need is some diversity

here are a few sugestions i have made over the years..

public works projects like major bridge, walls, fortresses ect

siege weapons balistai, cantapults rams towers

zone attractions (organic)  slippery ice,, waterslide,  ore cart coaster taxi ext.

ship action, battles 

player adopted villages   the village is kinda treated like a large  pet or  henchmen  (the better the village does the more it can offer the player)

interactive terrain, destroyables, climbables

I would really also like to see them overhaul housing and make it usefull  like puting in a garden or workshop or other usefull structures,, when they put this in it was their first attempt  but its getting anoying now that they havent  corected the defects by now. currently the housing zones are just rented bank space. itel slots in houses is far too ridged and limited.

fishing has allways been a WOW wannabie insult  that turbine dumped on us  this "click and wait" fishing system

now im not trolling,, ive been a loyal subscriber since BETA  but moria didnt impress me, and so far mirkwood sounds like just a quest grind raiding content  so its beginning to loose ground with me

oh ya BAG SPACE doods!!!  this is really pissing me off that you have gone this long without a bag space increase with all the new S%*T we are supose to haul around now  legend weapons, faction stuff  crafting stuff... and so on!

like to see crafting get more player choice  would actually prefer  a full open skill based system  but id settle for a "pick 3"

i want to take yoeman  but it has no producer craft  i take explorer  but id love to drop prospecting and pick up cooking.