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.