The Lord of the Rings Online has been gearing up for its trek south of Gondor, keen to take in the more southernly climes of Umbar, however, players will have to wait a smidge longer as the next expansion has seen a delay.
During the latest Cord of the Rings, executive producer Rob "Severlin" Ciccolini announced that the release of Corsairs of Umbar would be hit with a delay. Originally slated to launch on November 1st, the next expansion will now be released on November 8th. This move allows the developers a bit more time to add additional polish ahead of the launch.
"Umbar is not going to be released on November 1st," Ciccolini announced towards the end of the hour-long stream. "If everything goes well, we're more looking at a November 8th timeframe, but keep in mind, if the quality isn't there, I'll push it."
Severlin described a scenario where bugs, especially thanks to all the new tech the Standing Stone Games team is throwing at Corsairs, are going to crop up. Many of the new areas, including the new city, aren't quite ready for testing just yet either. As a result, the current trajectory to get everything tested and ready for release is the 8th.
This edition of Cord of the Rings also touched on many engineering questions, namely that the team is still hard at work on LotRO's much desired 4K update, a 64-bit client, a new launcher, and possibly even revamped VIP benefits if the current testing with Dungeons and Dragons Online goes well. You can check out the full conversation in the embed below.
In case you missed it, last week, we released the second part of our interview series with the LotRO team, detailing the process of building an MMO expansion, this time focusing on the approach to world-building.
