Check out the new video released by Turbine!

Turbine has released another great Dev Diary for everyone to enjoy!

Developer Diary: The Ettenmoors Re-vamp, Part 2

In our last few dev diaries we spent some time explaining the new additions to the classes, landscape, and general gameplay of the Ettenmoors, and now we�ll delve into more specific details to prepare you for the new world you�ll face when The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria launches. This developer diary highlights the changes that will have the most impact on your moment�to-moment experiences in the Ettenmoors, and provide a clear understanding of how the �new� Ettenmoors is meant to work.

You can check out the rest of the Dev Diaries at the LOTRO Vault!

Take care Middle Earth!

The LOTRO Game Servers will be offline for maintenance on Monday, November 3rd from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern (-5 GMT). The forums and Lorebook will remain up, but players may not be able to log in. Additionally, the Turbine Account Maintenance site at http://myaccount.turbine.com will be offline from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

Taken from the Official Forums

Check out the new video released by Turbine on the new Classes!

Good Morning Middle Earth!

Today we have two brand new Dev Diaries for everyone to take a look at!

The first one up is all about Monster Play!

Developer Diary: Monster Play Class Enhancements

Calling all Creeps! Get ready to dust off your empty quickbars and open your destiny wallets; we have a lot of good things in store for you! This dev diary will focus on the new skills and traits that have been added to Monster Player classes. Dive on in!

-Jalessa

Check out this dev diary to see what is in store for your favorite Monster Class!

Next up we have a Dev Diary on Legendary Item Instances!

Developer Diary: Legendary Item Quest Instances

Hey folks! For those of you who may not know me, my moniker is Vastin, and I have had the honour of serving as one of the content designers on The Lord of the Rings Online since its launch last year. I've been in the game development industry for many years � some of you may have played some of my older projects, such as WarCraft 2: Beyond the Black Portal, or Heroes of Might & Magic 2: The Price of Loyalty, but for the last few years I've been quietly and happily toiling away here in the world of LOTRO.

My usual role is in the design of most of the Deeds and supporting the system of Landmarks that helps you find camps and points of interest throughout the world, with a secondary role in quest design within each of our releases � my more significant quest contributions in the past have been the quests in the eastern Misty Mountains and in the western forests of Evendim.

For our first expansion, I have once again done many of the core Deeds and Landmarks for Moria, but got a hand from some of our other designers to fill out others, such as the Instance-based Deeds. This left me a decent chunk of time to try my hand again at the art of quest design, particularly the content that was needed to help support the Legendary Item system introduced in Mines of Moria.

This is a great read! Definatly check it out!

You can also check out the rest of our Dev Diaries at the LOTRO Vault!

Take care!

Turbine has released another set of screenshots for everyone to enjoy!

The Water-Works:


The Flaming Deep


Check out the rest of the Moria Screenshots at the LOTRO Vault!

Take care Middle Earth!

Turbine has released another Dev Diary! Take a look at what is in store for us with Moria!

Developer Diary: PvMP Enhancements

Welcome, fellow Freeps and Creeps, to a brand new day in the Ettenmoors! This dev diary will give you a brief glimpse into the mechanical changes we have made for PvMP in The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria expansion. So grab a bag of popcorn, find your desk chair, and come along with me for a wild reading adventure!

-Jalessa

Take a look at the rest of the article! And while you are there, take a peek at the rest of the Dev Diaries at the LOTRO Vault!

Take care Middle Earth!

Fork Particle Licenses Visual Effects Toolset to Turbine

For Particle announced today that it has licensed its Visual Effects Tool and SDK to Turbine, Inc. the company behind The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Pleasanton, CA (PRWEB) October 29, 2008 -- For Particle announced today that it has licensed its Visual Effects Tool and SDK to Turbine, Inc. the company behind The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Founder and CEO of Fork Particle, Inc., Noor Khawaja, welcomed Turbine as a customer. He appreciated the work that the Turbine development team had done and said Fork Particle remained committed to raising the bar for particle effects technology in video games. "We are excited that Turbine has decided to deploy the Fork Particle solution. We expect that their talented team will find the user-friendly interface and powerful toolset key to the production of quality particle system visual effects."

Turbine CTO Christopher Dyl explained the rationale behind deciding to use the Fork Particle technology. "Fork Particle has the essential features we need to build complex and advanced special effects that will give our games that extra kick to dazzle our loyal gamers while cutting down on production time."

The Fork Particle Visual Effects Tool & SDK cross platform solution streamlines the production pipeline for high quality particle system visual effects and enables real-time simulation of effects in-game. Artists enjoy reduced iteration time and instant updates while customizing and tweaking particle effects. The user-friendly authoring tool interface is the key design element of the system: it enables artists to forego programming considerations and focus their creative energies on developing top quality special effects, immediately enhancing the graphics quality of their product.

About Turbine
Turbine, Inc. is a premier creator, operator and publisher of massive, persistent online worlds that foster powerful social gaming communities. Turbine is one of the largest privately-held online gaming studios in North America and was recently chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies, a power list of the top private emerging technology companies in digital entertainment and media. Turbine has created some of the world's most popular and award-winning online games, including The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online and Asheron's Call. For more information on Turbine, its products and services please visit www.turbine.com.

About Fork Particle
Fork Particle is the leading tools and middleware provider of advanced real-time visual effects simulation software development studios and authoring solutions to video games and virtual simulator software developers. The Fork Particle solution streamlines the effects production pipeline and enables developers to create next generation visual effects to enhance the graphics quality of their products. The Fork Particle technology is licensed by Microsoft, THQ, Turbine, other major game developers. Visit our website www.forkparticle.com.

Good Afternoon Middle Earth!

We have a new comic for everyone to take a look at today by Eochain!



Enjoy!

New Feature article is ready for everyone to take a look at over at Lotro.com!

Feature Article: Forging Legendary Items, Part 1

Weapons of eldritch power and memorable names are sprinkled throughout the lore of The Lord of the Rings. They are legendary creations of such arcane might that tales of their greatness are spread across all the lands of Middle-earth.

Consider these�

The sword Narsil, the blade wielded by Isuldur that was shattered by Sauron and Men and was used to cut the One-Ring from the finger of the Dark Lord.

Hadhafang, the weapon of the Elf princess Idril, Elrond�s ancestor, wielded during the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and later given to Arwen.

And lastly Glamdring, the defender of Gandalf that glows in the presence of an enemy and is inscribed with runes created by Elves for Turon, the King of Gondolin.

Now players of The Lord of the Rings Online can forge their own fabled items by adventuring in the Mines of Moria expansion. Having a special �named� weapon is an important part of Tolkien lore, and you can customize your own one-of-a-kind item using the Legendary Items advancement system.

Check out the rest of the article!

Take care Middle Earth!

Turbine has released a new Dev Diary for everyone to check out!

Developer Diary: The Ettenmoors Re-vamp

There have been many changes to the face of monster play since we launched The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar: the addition of the Orc Defiler class, changes to class functionality, the institution of diminishing returns, and delicate rebalancing of classes. Now it�s time to talk about the many changes to the field of battle in Mines of Moria. These changes are varied, and are all designed to give a variety of gameplay options to participants in the battle for the Ettenmoors. This developer diary will cover the additions and alterations that have been made to the Ettenmoors for The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria so you will know what to expect when you enter territory both familiar and somewhat unfamiliar.

Check out the rest of the article! And in case you have missed the others, check out the LOTRO Vault Dev Diary page!

Good Morning Middle Earth!

Today we have a brand new Dev Diary for everyone to take a look at!

Developer Diary: Introduction to the Legendary Item System

Introduction

Hello there! This is Chris �Hakai� Clay, and I have the pleasure of introducing you to the Legendary Item system.

When Bilbo set out from Bag End, he was but a simple Hobbit with potential. There was no aura of legend surrounding him, yet through his actions and deeds he became a legend of Middle-earth. The Legendary Item system works in much the same way. Each Legendary Item contains the possibility of greatness. While they�re typically less impressive than comparable items of their initial level, they have the potential to grow into the most powerful items in the game. The power of your Legendary Items will depend greatly on the effort you put into them and the story you build around them.

Come check out this article along with the rest of the Dev Diaries!

The LOTRO Game Servers will be offline for maintenance on Monday, October 27th from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT). The forums, website, and Lorebook may have short periods of downtime during this window. Additionally, the Turbine Account Maintenance site at http://myaccount.turbine.com will be offline from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

Taken from the Official Forums

Turbine has released another Feature Article for everyone to enjoy!

Equipping your characters with armor and weapons isn�t enough�not when sending them out to battle the evil forces of Middle-earth. To give your characters the best chance for survival and advancement, you also should equip them with Traits.

Traits are among the greatest treasures your characters can gain. They make the game more enjoyable and add a little complexity. You can also mix and match them to personalize your characters and optimize their skills and combat abilities. If you�re curious if other members of your Fellowship are so equipped, you can view their Traits by highlighting a character in question and using �inspect� from the drop down menu.

Check out the rest of the Article!

Take care Middle Earth!

Turbine has released another Dev Diary for us to enjoy!

Dev Diary: Trait Sets

As The Lord of the Rings Online expands its systems with the Mines of Moria, characters now have the ability to create Class Trait Set pairings that build upon class themes, allowing players to specialize and making them more effective at a chosen class role. As such, Trait Sets represent a way for players to shape their gameplay and enhance their character�s performance. If you want to focus on the Hunter�s secondary ability to crowd control their enemies, Trait Sets enable you to focus on that aspect of the Hunter gameplay and bring it to the fore-front.

Come check out the rest of the Diary!

Want to see all of the trait sets available? Come check out the Mines of Moria Patch Page!

Take care Middle Earth!

Check it out!

Turbine has released 4 brand new screenshots for everyone to enjoy!



Check out the rest of them in the Vaults' Mines of Moria Screenshot Gallery!

There is a brand new Dev Diary on combat changes coming with Moria!

Looking at the combat system as it has grown over the last year, the Systems team has learned a lot from player behaviors, playstyles, and how they interact with all the different types of monsters in The Lord of the Rings Online.

Our data has shown that on the whole, the core player base interacts with our system in expected ways. Heroes of Middle-earth large and small are winning the war in Eriador against the servants of the Witch-king of Angmar.

When the game began, we aimed at making it as understandable as possible to the average player. One thing that meant was trying to keep the numbers as simple as possible. Nothing is simpler then percentages: if you have 100% of a pie and you eat 50%, you are left with half, right? It�s easy to understand. Well, the funny thing about trading simplicity for extensibility is that it becomes a tricky thing to navigate in a successful MMO. Why is it tricky? We�ll get to that later on in the article.

Check out the rest of the Dev Diary!

Don't forget! You can also check out all of the other Dev Diaries at the LOTRO Vault!

Take care Middle Earth!

There is a new feature article over on the Official Forums!

Dwarves and Elves�the eldest races of Middle-earth�long ago discovered the powerful secrets trapped within Runes. The Rune-keeper is a masterful linguist, both fighter and healer, who can readily inscribe words of savage fire, cutting ice, wards and protection, and welcome healing in defense of his fellowship and against the shadowy forces of the Dark Lord Sauron.

Beginning Levels

Rune-keepers are not armed with the traditional sword or staff, and they are limited to wearing only light armor. They start their adventuring careers with a Rune-stone�a weapon far more versatile than anything a smith could forge. On such a stone a Rune-keeper inscribes words of power that ultimately affect the surrounding world.

Check out the rest of the Rune-Keeper article!

Take care Middle Earth!

Turbine has released 3 brand new Dev Diaries for all of us to take a peek at! Lots of new things coming for each class!

Developer Diary: Warden Advancement Beyond Level 50!

Developer Diary: Guardian Advancement Beyond Level 50!

Developer Diary: Captain Advancement Beyond Level 50!

Enjoy!