The next part of the epic story picks up where Volume III: Book I – The Oath of the Rangers left off. With the rangers assembled, players will be tasked with carrying a banner crafted by Arwen to Aragorn in the south and that is the focus of the next part of the storyline. The new lands in the south will be home to many tribes that Sarumon has yet to turn to his will. So players will have the chance to see the area before it has been heavily corrupted by Sarumon. This also leads to some possible changes in the future as Sarumon tightens his grip on the area and extends his influence.
There are also some new features that will be introduced with the Volume III: Book II update. Turbine Executive Producer Kate Paiz explained one of the most notable ones to us with a new system that will allow the dungeons of LotRO to scale by level. This will allow players to return to older dungeons such as The Great Barrows and experience it all over again at an appropriate level. Loot will also scale, so there should be plenty of shiny items to go around.
Another feature will involve new Session Play content that will allow players to experience the game as a Ranger and learn about Aragorn’s forefathers. Previously, Rangers could only be used in PvMP, so the new Session Play missions will offer a chance to experience one of the Rangers in PvE and learn more about the lineage of one of LotRO’s most notable characters.
Enedwaith will introduce four new dungeons to the game that will be associated with the new epic storyline. Three of those dungeons will be solo instances and the fourth will be an open world dungeon, much like the Bree reputation dungeon of Haudh Iarchith. While there won’t be a focus on the group instance game with this update, Turbine representatives ensured us that new instances are on the books for the following update.
The new content certainly looks interesting and the new land mass will provide between 80 and 200 new quests. And while it was a bit disappointing that the reveal was not the anticipated expansion into Rohan, this update will certainly set us on the path to get there sometime next year.
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June 17th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Two major updates are coming to Lord of the Rings Online this fall: the recently announced free-to-play conversion and the introduction of a new playable area just south of Eregion, Enedwaith. The new playable content is a good way to explain how free-to-play will affect the game. VIP members (those who pay a flat monthly fee and those who are Lifetime subscribers) will get access to the new area, the epic quest line associated with it and all the regular quests in the land. Those playing for free will be able to travel in the new lands and complete the epic quest line, but they will need to buy the regional quest pack to access that part of the new content.
The new cash shop is currently in testing. As it stands, no gear is being sold — not legendary items, raid armor sets, weapons, etc. Turbine wants to the cash shop to help along players who don’t have a lot of time to play, not to let them pay their way straight to the endgame. Health potions, cosmetic clothing and crafting recipes are what I saw. Turbine is going to watch the player reaction during beta very closely to gauge what should go up for sale and what should not.
No new Skirmishes will be added in this next content patch, but Turbine has something planned that utilizes the Skirmish system. Due to player feedback on their official forums, Turbine will make the old world raid instances available through the Skirmish interface for any group size, from solo to 24-man raid. These aren’t technically Skrimishes so you will receive no Skirmish Marks, but they use the Skirmish technology to set the instance difficulty, port you there and then drop you back into the world when you are done. No word yet on if you be able to solo the raid trophies, but they are working on more cosmetic rewards with the graphical look of the old world raid armor.
New skirmishes are being worked on, just not for this patch. VIP subscribers will get them automatically, others will have to pay for them. The Skirmish tutorial will be available to all.
http://www.massively.com/2010/06/16/e3-2010-lord-of-the-rings-online-vol-3-book-2-preview-of-enedwa/