GDC '08: The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Updated Impressions

February 20, 2008 4:52PM PST

We got an update on The Lord of the Rings Online as it nears its first full year in the wild.

SAN FRANCISCO--The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar has done well for itself since it launched 10 months ago. Although the massively multiplayer game hasn't made much of a dent against the titan of the genre, World of Warcraft, executive producer Jeffrey Steefel told us The Lord of the Rings Online has done well for itself, clawing itself into second place. We presume that's in North America only, given that there are foreign MMOs that would certainly vie for the title of number two.

We got a quick update from Steefel about the past 10 months as well as future plans for the game. Turbine recently launched the fourth major update, called Book 12. This adds some interesting new content, such as user-purchasable housing, high-level content for veteran players, and a cool new underground battlefield that's tied into the monster-play system.

The new underground battlefield is called Delving of Fror. It's basically a cavern system full of high-level raid content designed for small parties. The kicker is that Fror lies beneath the Entmoors, which is the main monster-play section of the game. Monster play lets players temporarily play as monsters as they battle other players. There are five control points in the Entmoors. If one side controls three of the five points, they'll have access to Fror. They can go down and start exploring and battling the creatures there for loot. However, if the other side manages to take back three of the five control points, anyone who was caught down in Fror will be cut off from support from the topside. It should make for an interesting dynamic.

Other new features in Book 12 include a barbershop, which is a lot more complicated than it sounds. The barbershop will let you alter your character's hairstyle (and there are more than 50 new ones, to boot), but you can also change his or her physical appearance. This is the first time you can redo your character since character creation. Then there are more customization options in terms of cosmetic clothing, traveling clothes, and more.

Turbine is also working on the next updates, due out later this year. Book 13 will add a new region to the game, though Steefel was reluctant to name it just yet. All he said is that it's in the northern part of Eriador, which should set hardcore Tolkien fans scurrying to their atlases. Nevertheless, the message at GDC seems to be that The Lord of the Rings Online continues to build and thrive, and there's going to be no shortage of content updates in the future.

By Jason Ocampo

13 comments

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Riaz

It's funny how uninterested they are, it's spelled Ettenmoors.

Aaronls79

@Vortimous. I think this has been addressed there is new area that has a lot of content for lvl 30 ish Players North of the shire. Also there is quite a bit of content for the level around Esteldin.

Aaronls79

"game graphically was rough on the edges and just wasn't World of Warcraft " What!?! LOL I dont even know what to say to this... Wow cannot touch LOTRO for graphics. Wow of course does not need to be played on high end machines where as LOTRO does.

Kez1984

"game graphically was rough on the edges and just wasn't wow" lol

DeViLzzz

game graphically was rough on the edges and just wasn't World of Warcraft .... but I am done with pay mmorpgs ... I am thankful for breaking that addiction

Magusi

I love this MMO, and I'll be sticking with it for quite some time.

Citan76

It's acutally ettenmoors not entmoors I believe. You might want to correct that.

Glad_Dog

I played LOTRO for a couple of months, my main character was a Minstrel. I quit because I got tired of dying every time I cast an AoE heal. Have they fixed healing agro yet? And I tried a lot of different techniques to avoid dying, and no matter what I did, casting an AoE heal=death... Casting nuke heals on the tank was a little better, but I still had to be way too careful about how I did it to enjoy the game. If I don't enjoy playing, why should I keep tossing Turbine my money?

zandermod

To the point of soloing quests they did revamp the questing in this update. They changed quite a few group quest to be small group quests. they also took quests that were recommended for small groups to be solo-able by someone at the same level as the quest. But over all who can complain about a company that is spending so much time working to better their game. And Vortimous My entire first Kinship went back to EQ2 and I had to find another one wasn't to hard to find another good group of people.

mindless1987

i love this game, but i'm in the exact same boat as vortimous.

Pete5506

I never played this game, but these updates sounds cool, so I might start

Vortimous

I dont play anymore either, but one day I may return. My problem with it was that my whole guild just stopped playing one day. I like to solo but some of the advancing quests required you to have groups and there were so few groups left that I just gave up. I got up to a level 32 hunter and had a blast getting there, but then level 32 crawled for XP and I never got to 33 and lost interest.... I may pick up the game again sometime in the future, but not until I see that it is easier to solo quests instead of needs groups....