While attending Codemasters Connect '08 in England this past weekend, MMORPG.com's own Donna Desborough had the opportunity to talk to Lord of the Rings Online executive producer Jeffrey Steffel about the recently announced expansion: the Mines of Moria.

By now everyone has read the press release about the new expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. We'll be getting a new expansion sometime in the Fall of 2008; so later this year we'll be wandering the mines of Moria and the regions outside of our current confines. With so much coming our way in Books 13 and 14 and the expansion, it's hard to find a place to start getting excited about it. All of it sounds too good to be true. Of course listening to Jeffrey Steefel talk about LOTRO always makes me very excited. He's so full of passion for this game that it's obvious in every word he says about it.

With the expansion will come several welcome features and new content. Ten new levels to everything. This includes crafting, which is good news for all those exuberant crafters out there. I did ask Jeffrey about the addition to the crafting and he has assured me that it won't just be more recipes, but genuine advancement and the ability to do more. He wouldn't give details of exactly how the crafting would advance 10 levels, but at least we have confirmation it won't be as simple as a few more recipes.

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