The zone of Northern Mirkwood is split into two regions: Eryn Lasgalen (Wood-elf forest) and the Dale-lands. “A new Lake-town has been built, Dale has been re-settled, and the Kingdom under the mountain thrives, but change has not lessened its pace,” the devs said.
Quality-of-life improvements are also in the works for Update 22, as noted by Lina’s Biscuity Burrow. And musicians are going to flip over the fiddle, which all players will be able to enjoy.
LOTRO Players took players on a tour through the new area with several videos, including a look at the Elfking’s Hall, Lake-town, Dale, the Lonely Mountain, Raven Hill, and Erebor. There’s even a trip to Smaug’s bones, if Hobbit history is important to you. Go there and back again after the jump!
only just hit lvl 76 and wandering around the outskirts of Rohan. The game world is so freaking huge. You simply cannot play through all content with one character. The amount of work and passion poured into this game is phenomenal.
Won’t watch the videos to avoid spoilers, but considering the areas mentioned I suppose we will have to teleport there, which is a bummer.
That aside, I’m super excited for this!
btw: anyone know if this update will include a level cap increase?
no, whole zone for 115
YES! FINALLY WE GET ZONES FROM “THE HOBBIT”! ! !
As always, the world building looks great and I’m pleased that the remaining LotRO population will continue to receive content. I was particularly impressed with the insides of the Elf King’s halls, that all looked stunning.
That said, isn’t this about 4-6 years too late? Surely content from The Hobbit should have been developed and released to coincide with the movies? Wouldn’t that have helped with some lovely free marketing and big boost to the player population? “Love the films? Why not see the Lonely Mountain for yourself in LotRO!”
It was because the copyrights were split between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings IPs. I believe that got settled, and they now can add Hobbit stuff.
Whilst not wanting to detract from what looks like some fantastic new areas, why has SSG not filled out Mordor? So far we’ve only covered Udun & the area around Orodruin? Not least so that we can continue the Black Book but also to fill out the map. It feels too rushed. Also from what I’ve read on the beta forum, I’m not too keen on yet another stat hike via the new gold essences.
Worry not. :-) In update 23 we’ll be returning to Cirith Ungol, Minas Morgul and a Shelob raid among other thing.
That’s good news! Thanks :)
Look’s like SSG make NM as a rest between Mordor updates to lower ‘Mordor weariness’
Lake-town looks absolutely amazing… this actually got me to download the game again.
LotRO has never failed in the world building department. It’s everything else that they fall short. So while these new areas look (typically) good (they did a great job with Laketown), it’s the actual content in those areas that prevents me from ever coming back. The introduction of new loot-boxes (sigh) doesn’t help matters either. For those that still play the game, I’m happy for them that they are finally getting to see N. Mirkwood, Dale, Laketown and Erebor (small as it is).
Side note: the barrels were a bit excessive, no?
but they have fiddles for all now! that kind of impressed me on the “still developing stuff” front
This is exactly what everyone expected them to do back when the Hobbit movies were fresh in people’s minds, but instead they gave us a lame instance.
This looks like a great follow up to the “darkness” of Mordor (which I loved as well). Can’t wait!
PSA — Mordor has been available for points for a while now, SSG pushed up the date for its community
Don’t know about “pushed up the date for its community”. It was always supposed to come out around winter. I guess it could’ve been more of the 2018 winter than 2017.
Ah, finally, the ability to buy Mordor with points :D
… was added back in December with Update 21.
Even earlier