Join us this Saturday for the Great Race!   This is a Turbine-sponsored event, organized by the Palantiri and our allies KWL and the Valar Guild.

On Saturday, May 12, meet up at the Party Tree near Hobbiton by 4pm if possible.

If you'd like to help out, dress in bright (Evendim) blue, something like this:

The Palantiri and allies took on Draigoch on January 21st and took him down.  There were a few deaths, but all in all, it went remarkably well.  Draighoch's lair is a long winding ramp around a central core perforated with holes from which the heroes must damage his claws to dislodge him from his perch so that they can kill his body.  Once he's down, you must weaken him with fellowship maneuvers before he regains strength and flies up again.  It's a fun quest, and challenging, but the rewards are very nice.

Huzzah to the Palantiri and KWL members who took him down.

On Monday, September 26th, the worlds were borught down for the newest LOTRO module, The Rise of Isengard.  Although it has only been a few days, already we have many near-75's and at least one level 75.  Players begin their quest by receiving a letter from Elrond that directs you to speak with Corunir at Thror's Combe.  

From there, players enter Dunland to the south.  The Dunlendings are a clannish people and you must help various factions to gain their trust.  A lot of these quests are "fetch-its" and "kill-its" which are not as suited to group play as some areas, but eventually you get to some quests that grouping is helpful.

Congratulations to all the 75s and those who are closing in on it!

We are proud to introduce a new fun feature for Palantiri members. Every week we will hold lotteries and raffles that kin members can participate in by purchasing "tickets" with in-game silver/gold. This is primarily a way for the kinship to earn money for paying for kinship upkeep (example: kinhall rent) and varies activities (example: helping fund the monthly auctions) and more fun than simply asking for donations. It is also of course a fun way for Kinship members to win some cash and cool items.

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Monday, May 23 from 6:00AM - 11:00AM Eastern (-4 GMT) to launch Update 3: Lost Legends of Eriador. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

Full release notes after the break.

Jonathan “Donkey Slayer” Reynolds provides some insight into the design of the “Inn of the Forsaken” instance in the latest developer diary after the break!

What secrets are locked away in the Halls of Night, and what Nightmares will be found waiting inside? Read more about this new instance in the latest developer diary after the break!

The release notes for Update 2, Patch 1 have been released!  This patch is primary to fix some of the bugs that cropped up after launch of Echoes of the Dead.

A sample of the corrections are:

• Rollbacks in the Entenmoors
• Burglar skills not funtioning
• Champion flurry
• Fixes to chests in Ost Dunhoth challenge mode
• VIPs can buy wardrobe space

Full patch notes after the break.

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have been enjoying the new Book 3 content and changes! We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on the new Instance Cluster for Eriador and Enedwaith, as well as on the changes to Evendim and the new additions to the LOTRO Store. I’ve been particularly enjoying the Northcotton Farm instance (who doesn’t love saving hobbits from poison pies?) and the Gorthoron Raid (thank goodness the wings stay unlocked once finished – I just can’t quite hack those all night raids anymore). The improved Morale potions and Battle potions of Restoration have also found permanent places on my hot bar, as have my new milestones.

Of course, along with the good things that we introduce with an update, we inevitably manage to release a few issues as well. Thanks to all who have been troubled by those issues for your patience and understanding – we’ll be doing a bug-fix patch in a week or so to get most of those resolved. As a reminder – if you ever run across something you think is a bug, please use the reporting tool in-game to let us know what happened so we can be sure to look into and get it resolved.

So you all know about Isengard coming in the fall, but a bunch of folks have been asking “what else is coming up?” The Spring festival is underway right now, so if you haven’t headed over to Breeland to check it out, you should make sure to! Lovely flower patches have sprung up, and it is clear that spring is in the air!

Once spring has been properly welcomed once again, we’ll be introducing a new Anniversary Festival, for players to enjoy as we celebrate our 4th birthday in April! I’ll be talking more with you then about what to expect in the Rise of Isengard release this fall. To answer one question about Isengard: some of you have been asking about the other raid we have in development – it’s going to be an amazing experience, as it has a monstrous dragon boss with custom voice-over and lip-syncing animation, but it’s also been challenging to get all those pieces intertwined so we’re going to keep working on it and it will now be a part of the Isengard release this fall.

We’re also working on Update 3, currently scheduled for late May, with 2 new mid-level instances and 2 new Skirmishes, all of which support scaling to level 65. We’ll also be introducing a new item to the LOTRO store that allows characters to reset the Skirmish Marks spent on Skirmish Traits. After that, we’ll be introducing a new festival-like event where players will get a chance to spend a few days frantically searching for buried treasure. It’ll have some cool in-game rewards, and will likely be open for play periodically over the year.

It’s been great to see so many new faces in Breeland and Ered Luin, and wonderful to see so many old friends throughout Eriador playing the new cluster! As always, please let us know how you are enjoying the new content and systems changes that have come in Book 3, and let us know what you’d like to see more of in the coming months and years ahead. Talk to you again soon!

Kate Paiz
Executive Producer, The Lord of the Rings Online