LotRO Releases More Enedwaith and F2P Details
Turbine has been very busy lately working on their big update to Lord of the Rings Online, due this Fall. The update will not only include a lot of new quests and content, such as the Enedwaith zone and Volume 3, Book 2 of the epic quest, but will also switch LotRO players from a monthly subscription model to a free-to-play game.
This week Turbine sent out a number of new screenshots showing the in-game icon for paid quests and the new character screens. The company previously successfully moved Dungeons & Dragons Online from a subscription to F2P model, and it will be interesting to see how smooth they can make the transition with this AAA MMO title.
The LotRO team also released a Developer Diary about Enedwaith. The Diary talks about the design decisions for the zone and how they balance the lore of Tolkien’s classic books with fresh gameplay, which one can imagine is an ongoing challenge for developers. The Diary also has a number of screenshots of new creatures and NPCs. (I would not want to encounter that Gwiber in a dark alley!)
Finally, Turbine gives a few more details of what players can expect from the Enedwaith update, including more quests and deeds than any other zone in the game, two new factions, and level-scaling added to 12 existing dungeons, making them relevant to high-level characters.
The Lord of the Rings Online team have taken a lot of flack from players for waiting so long between expansions, but it looks like the Enedwaith updates will happily contain much, much more than just a cash store.
