14 DAY TRIAL // So, Turbine is delivering on its promise of bringing yearly episodic content to its massive Lord of the Rings Online project. With a release date of late 2008, the expansion is called Volume II: Mines of Moria because of the amount of content that it delivers and because of the chronology of the series, as it takes place immediately after the characters from the movie have gone through the Mines of Moria.
Of course, the most important addition to the game will be the mines themselves. Developers say that the mines will play out like one big battle sequence, from the initial easy skirmishes against goblins to the appearance of cave trolls and the final showdown against the Balrog, which executive producer at Turbine, Jeffrey Steefel, says will be "unforgettable." The mines will be accompanied by the marshes that lead up to them and some environments around the exit point of the mines, which the players can also explore.
Character caps for the expansion are raised to level 60 and there will be new skills, traits and spells to make the high-level players more powerful. Two new characters classes, the Rune-Warden and the Warden, will be added for the first time since the game went live on-line. But the biggest chance to the game, other than simple content, added is the introduction of a new crafting system.
Moria was the home of the dwarfs and they were the creators of many of the epic weapons that feature prominently in the world created by Tolkien. After the mines are cleared of enemies, new crafting options will become available. Skilled-enough players that also have the necessary materials can forge legendary items, weapons and armor that will level up as the player levels up and that will become some of the best equipment in the game.
As if all of this wasn't enough, there's a chance that a good enough player can join up with the Brotherhood of the Ring in Lorien and then play a part of the game with them. And developers also say that this year will be seeing more free updates to the game, in the form of Books 13 and 14.
LOTRO seems to have hit a nice period in its history. Apart from the planned extensions to the game, Jeffrey Steefel has revealed that LOTRO is going live this year in Russia, China and Korea, with fully localized versions of the game.