Standing Stone Games shares a peek at the new Lord of the Rings Online expansion Before The Shadow which dives into tales from the past. After 15 years, LOTRO is bigger than ever!

Prepare for the latest expansion to the long-running Middle-earth MMO game Lord of the Rings Online (abbreviated LOTRO) with these early images from Before The Shadow‘s in-game engine. Two new areas to venture through: the reedy fens of Swanfleet and the moors of Cardolan. Features include:

  • Questing from levels 1 to 32 in addition to four new Books for new characters 
  • Two new regions: Swanfleet and Cardolan
  • A new Six-person Instance  
  • A new Skirmish  
  • A new Delving difficulty system: Higher level characters can increase the difficulty of new missions to earn great rewards!
  • New Themed Missions Wrapper: Earn rewards by completing daily and weekly rotating Missions!

The developers of the latest update will join us for TORn Tuesday tomorrow, Nov 15, at 5pm PT / 8pm ET.

First up have a look at Cardolan!

The new Swanfleet area!

Tune in on YouTube for a chat with the development team this Tuesday 5pm PT at youtube.com/theoneringnet. Be sure to Subscribe and turn on notifications for when we go live!

Peter Jackson Thank You Red Book
Thank You ‘Red Book’ sent to Peter Jackson

It’s been almost a year since The One Last Party, but we haven’t forgotten it, and we didn’t want Peter Jackson to think we’d forgotten about him either. As you may remember, one of the promises we made on the Indiegogo campaign was that we would send Peter a “thank you” card. To be exact, we said, “Your name will go on an EPIC ‘thank you’ card we will present or send to Peter Jackson, from fans everywhere, to express our appreciation for the immense effort he and his cast and crew have put into the epic journey of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.”

After the campaign ended, the TORn staff began brainstorming how to get all the names on one card – there were a lot of them! We decided to create a keepsake ‘Red Book’ for Peter. TORn staffer and designer, Mithril (Nancy Steinman), found a gorgeous leather journal and then designed and illustrated the interior pages and bound them into the book. Out of the 194 pages of the journal, 180 of them were the list of names!

Peter now has his journal, but we thought all of you deserved something to remember that fantastic night, too (besides your gift bags), so Mithril reached out with some questions to one of the party planners who was absolutely instrumental in making the party happen. Following is the interview with TORn Senior Staffer greendragon, and scroll down to see some photos of the journal and the party.

Continue reading “The One Last Party – One Year Later”

LOTRO-Logo-8.18.10Tubine, Inc. has announced that they will be shutting down 19 of the servers that host their Lord of the Rings Online interactive game. The worlds that are currently hosted on those servers will be consolidated to the remaining ten worlds. Characters that exist in one of the worlds being shut down will be able to transfer to one of the remaining worlds free of charge. According to gamer Lady_Celebrian:

“We’re losing 10 US and 9 EU servers. In the U.S.: Elendilmir, Riddermark, Firefoot, Nimrodel, Windfola, Imladris, Dwarrowdelf, Silverlode, Vilya, and Meneldor. In the European Union: Estel, Gilrain, Eldar, Anduin, Morthond, Maiar, Vanya, Withywindle, and Snowbourn. Servers remaining are: U.S.: Arkenstone, Crickhollow, Landroval, Gladden, and Brandywine. European Unoin: Belegaer, Gwaihir, Sirannon, Laurelin, and Evernight.”

You can read and lean more about it in the World Transfers article, which also contains a good FAQ.

“The Barliman’s group who play together on Imladris are all moving to Arkenstone. You can come join their kin if you wish. They include the chatters Lady_Celebrian, Delta, Pippin, wisey, Lord_Elrond, and LadyArwen. Shadowfax is currently on Firefoot, I think. Message me (Lady_Celebrian) If you have questions, and we’ll try to help any players who need it.”