With the news emerging from Gamescom’s Devcom that Lord of the Rings Online is planning a mini-expansion called Before the Shadow for later this year, one might have a question. One might have many questions, such as “What is Devcom?” or “How will LOTRO sandwich in a new 1-32 leveling experience?” or “What did SSG talk about in its large panel on ‘The Joys and Challenges of Bringing Middle-earth to Life in a Persistent World?'”
To help answer those queries, YouTuber Druidsfire whipped up a 49-minute video recapping the panel and the various topics that this developer-to-developer discussion covered. If you’re primarily interested in the mini-expansion announcement, skip ahead to minute 30 for Druidsfire’s recap of the reveal.
However, SSG is still holding back a number of details about the release, including its date, price points, and how the alternate leveling path exactly works. On the forums, the studio addressed this last point in overview, saying, “It will be an alternate path, and the older story route will remain as well. Players will be able to run both if they want to, although obviously you’d be higher level than intended during the path you hadn’t run to that point.”
