You may have heard that Lord of the Rings Online won Gamespy's Game of the Month award back in May. I was surfing the site recently and came across the article again... only this time, I clicked on what I thought was a mere promo for LOTRO.
Boy, was I surprised....
http://www.gamespy.com/video/av.html?dl ... _ID=012112
The first video that pops up gives us glimpses of some of the sights I have been running into recently in Angmar. And yes, that is actual in-game footage, not some faked-up CGI teaser. We did our first run into the place shown in the ending sequences (Carn Dum) last week, and are about to unlock the Shadow Gate itself. What is beyond? Dunno yet....
Those of you who have been asking, "Well, what is there to do in this game once you reach the level cap?" will soon have your answer. From what I am seeing, the short answer is, "a lot!" I just unlocked a bunch of raid quests into one of the end-game instances located in the Misty Mountains, and there's the afore-mentioned Angmar region, which, for those of you Tolkien geeks who recognize that name, will know it is the original home turf of Dark Lord Sauron's top lieutenant, the Witch-King, chief of the Nazgul.
And then, there's the monster play. I have only sampled that minigame, but it looks very interesting -- even more so since I delved into it in greater depth last weekend. Once a Free People character reaches level-10, you can create a monster. And once your freep reaches 40, he can travel to the PvM (Player vs Monster-Play) zone himself and fight player-created orcs, spiders, wargs, and (as of the last patch) trolls (the latter is a special session-play creature you can control for an hour via a large investment of "Destiny Points," the currency of the Monster Play zone -- and freeps have access to a corresponding Ranger session-play toon). The advancement system for your monster toon(s) is a minigame in its own right, in which you earn Destiny Points by completing quests, which you then spend to improve your monster's abilities. However, you have to defeat Freeps (the "free people" player characters) in battle to unlock higher tiers of advancement.
You also gain Destiny Points by advancing your regular toon(s) in the main game, by leveling them up. All DP's earned go into a single common pot for your account, and you can spend them on any or all of your characters, whether freep or creep.
Beyond all that, it's a thought that Turbine has only unveiled the northwest quarter of Middle Earth.
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