Announced today is the official launch date for the Rise of Isengard expansion, details of the expansion, and a pre-order offer! The Lord of the Rings Online™: Rise of Isengard™ will launch on September 27, 2011. Players across North America and Europe can pre-purchase Rise of Isengard to receive special benefits starting today at http://www.lotro.com/isengard.
“Our journey through Middle-earth is now taking us to one of its most iconic locations,” said Aaron Campbell, Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine. “The new regions are going to be truly epic in scale, story, and challenge. In addition to the wealth of features and content coming in September, players who pre-purchase the expansion will be able to use their bonus items immediately as they prepare for the launch of Rise of Isengard.”
UK-version, French-version, and German-versions of the trailer
Explore Three New Regions! — The time has come for you to turn eastward, toward the vale of Isengard. Where ancient forests once flourished, a corrupted waste of metal and wheels suffers under the thrall of the traitorous wizard Saruman. Here, in the shadows of the tower of Orthanc, gathers an army of Orcs and Uruk-hai, toiling to make ready for war. Forge ahead into these devastated lands and uncover new quests, skills, and traits as you strive to thwart Saruman’s ambition.
- Dunland – Adventure amidst the bright forests in the foothills of the southern Misty Mountains. Beware the Dunland Clans, rugged warriors tempted by the dark promise of power.
- Gap of Rohan – Battle over the legendary pass between Eriador and the plane of Rohan. This key strategic point must be defended against the ambitions of Sauron.
- Isengard – Explore Orthanc, one of the iconic Two Towers as it rises over the once beautiful Isengard valley. The once beautiful vale now desecrated beyond imagination by the Wizard Saruman the betrayer.
Advance to Level 75!
Face new challenges and continue to forge your own legend in Middle-earth with all-new epic quests, skills, and deeds as you fight new enemies on your journey to level 75!
Master the Legendary New 24-Player Raid!
Face the ancient evil of Draigoch, one of the most powerful creatures in Middle-earth! Prepare for the ultimate challenge where nothing less than the strength of an entire force of 24 heroes stands the chance of victory.
Pre-order Offer
Starting today, players can take can take advantage of three special pre-purchase offers to celebrate the release of the third major expansion to LOTRO:
Rise of Isengard Base Edition $29.99
Includes the full Rise of Isengard expansion plus:
- Steed of the Gap, a new in-game mount with matching red cosmetic cloak for every character on your account
- In-game title – Guard of the Isen
- 25% XP boost for all characters on an account up to level 65
Rise of Isengard Heroic Edition $39.99
Includes the full Rise of Isengard expansion plus:
- 1,000 Turbine Points for use in the LOTRO Store
- Steed of the Gap, a new in-game mount with choice of matching cosmetic cloak and armor in your choice of red, white or green for every character on your account
- In-game title – Guard of the Isen
- 25% XP boost for all characters on an account up to level 65
Rise of Isengard Legendary Edition $49.99
Includes the full Rise of Isengard expansion plus:
- 1,000 Turbine Points for use in the LOTRO Store
- All three Steeds of the Gap, new in-game mounts with matching cosmetic cloak and armor in all three colors for every character on your account
- In-game title – Guard of the Isen
- 25% XP boost for all characters on an account up to level 65
- Access to the Path of the Fellowship Quest Packs including Trollshaws, Eregion, Moria, Lothlorien and Mirkwood
Players will have access to all of the bonus items including the new mount, cosmetic cloak and armor, in-game title and XP boost immediately after purchase. The Rise of Isengard expansion itself will be available to play on September 27, 2011. These special offers will only be available for a limited time.
Screenshots released with Isengard are available to view on http://isengard.lotro.com/ or the CSTM flickr account!
June 7, 2011 at 10:11 am
Inever know: does Mexico count as North America? I would like to pre purchase it, but oh well, if no at least I hope it will be in the store on the launch day…
June 7, 2011 at 10:15 am
I’m pretty sure Mexico counts. I’d try to pre-purchase. I’m betting it allows you.
June 7, 2011 at 10:15 am
Is there a rebate for lifer? Because i want the Legendary edition but i don’t care about the fellowship quest pack as i already have them.
June 7, 2011 at 10:57 am
Try the forum or getting ahold of account services direct
June 7, 2011 at 10:16 am
So we really are takeing the hobbits to Isengard :=)
Each of these deals sounds pretty sweet I must say.
June 7, 2011 at 10:17 am
No preorder for Turbine Points? I can understand the reasoning behind it, but damn that’s disappointing.
June 7, 2011 at 10:59 am
Well, at least the pre-order lasts until launch, so I can think about this. I’ve been stockpiling TP for the sole purpose of buying this expansion. The pre-order perks only appear to be for money purchases though. If we actually knew how much the expansion would cost in-game, or an estimate, then I’d figure out which route to go: Pre-order before launch with the base bundle, perhaps one above it OR buy RoI from the LOTRO Store and not receive any perks.
June 7, 2011 at 10:23 am
Is there any benefit to the Legendary Edition quest packs for VIP members? It seems like the only bonus for VIPs is having all three mounts/cosmetics.
Either way I’m getting the Legendary edition.
Account wide bonuses make me very happy.
June 7, 2011 at 10:25 am
Hi – would you know if it is possible to pre-order this in the LOTRO store with TPs?
June 7, 2011 at 10:28 am
This pre-order offer appears to be with real money only. Shame too. I was saving Turbine Points for this expansion.
I’m certain that Isengard will be available to purchase in game after launch like all other expansions.
June 7, 2011 at 10:33 am
Ahh well, I’ll get the pre-order one when I get home from work. It would be easier with TPs as I just bought a bucketful for the double bonus with an eye to eventually getting MoM which is included in this deal.
June 7, 2011 at 10:56 am
It mentions the Moria quest pack, not the expansion. You’ll most likely not receive any of the expansion perks like the two classes, skirmish soldier upgrade, character slots, etc.
June 7, 2011 at 10:57 am
That is true. The current path of the fellowship pack is the Moria QP not the expansion.
June 7, 2011 at 11:00 am
I agree Goldenstar. The question is how much will the Expansion be? Based on the real cash price they are asking, I’m guessing 3495 TP for the Expansion and maybe divy up the 3 zones at about 1000 to 1500 tp each. That’s just a wild guess though.
June 7, 2011 at 10:32 am
Haven’t found anything on it yet, was just in-game. I think it will appear only from september on, so no pre- order by store
.
June 7, 2011 at 10:54 am
Pre-order can be done thru Digital River. Right click , open in new tab/window on the “BUY IT NOW” buttons
http://isengard.lotro.com/purchase.php
June 7, 2011 at 10:59 am
Correct. LOTRO’s twitter has confirmed that the pre-order is not available to buy in the store with Turbine Points.
http://twitter.com/#!/lotro/status/78110212984291329
June 7, 2011 at 10:26 am
I said the same thing, Buckyball. I’m not so big on cosmetics though. Oh well.
June 7, 2011 at 10:31 am
Ooh, shiny. Hopefully, I’ll have $50 to spare between now and whenever the preorder offer ends. I already have Eregion and Moria, but getting Trollshaws, Lothlorien, and Mirkwood at a go (plus the other perks) would be nifty.
June 7, 2011 at 10:51 am
Pre-order is from now until day before release according to the http://isengard.lotro.com/purchase.php website.
Pre-Purchase between 6/6/11 – 9/26/11 to receive the following in-game bonuses and items (there is a matrix on that page)
June 7, 2011 at 10:44 am
So as a lifer myself $30 gets me a single horse or $50 gets me three horses and two months worth of TP?
I guess I’ll be waiting then.
June 7, 2011 at 10:46 am
Player’s cost analysis:
I value the 1000TP at a $10 value as compared to the regular priced 5000 Point bundle(3100+1900)@$50
Legendary Edition ($50) actual:$40 ($10 offset from the bonus TP).
3 mounts with matching cosmetic armours/cloaks + new Title.
For any VIPs that have been here a while, the questpacks are a wash.
Heroic Edition ($40) actual:$30 ($10 offset from the bonus TP).
1 mount (color choice) with matching cosmetic armour/cloak + new Title.
Base Edition $30 (no offset)
1 mount (Red blanket) with matching cosmetic armour/cloak + new Title.
All 3 Editions: +25% XP gain, I guess this will be useful for leveling alts but I can also already see all the forum posts “I’m leveling too fast, I’m leveling too fast!” LOL! :p
It’s obvious Legendary Edition is the better deal of the 3 from a purely mounts/cosmetics perspective. That’s probably the one I will get. Since Heroic and Basic Editions are basically the same price due to the Bonus TP offset, I don’t actually see why anyone would want to buy the Basic Edition.
Pricewise I think it’s a little on the high side for a Digi-download only product. It would be nice if they would provide some .iso images to download as well so we can burn an up-to-date client to disc. All it would take is a couple of computer’s set up with an official torrent running in the office.
September release date was kind of surprising. Wasn’t expecting it that soon. I sure hope the bugs get worked out in time.
June 7, 2011 at 11:36 am
pretty much, my thoughts exactly… except I’m not a huge fan of cosmetics/mount-skins so I went with the heroic pack…. my one question would be as follows:
will the +25% XP bounus continue past launch day for toons under lvl 65 or will that deal end on launch?
June 7, 2011 at 1:29 pm
One minor error in your list – the Base edition doesn’t include the cosmetic armor; just the cloak & horse.
June 7, 2011 at 11:03 am
Anyone having any issues actually getting the pre-order to submit after filling out all the information? Their cute little dojo, jquery whatever thing (while snappy and sexy and all that goodness) gives absolutely no feedback as to whether it’s even doing anything useful as you sit there and wait.
Chrome user.
-1 Weinertubes for making you use your PayPal ‘login’ email as the email on the order. I’d rather use one of my ‘PleaseDirectAllAttacksHere###@gmail.com’ addresses, thank you very much
June 7, 2011 at 11:07 am
I got it to work in chrome. You have to highlight the white area to actually see the activation code, though.
June 7, 2011 at 12:05 pm
I don’t get an activation code. I’m on the screen where it asks you to fill out everything about yourself, your neighbor, your city, et al and you click ‘continue’ at the bottom and it just sits there. No validation error, no nothing.
June 8, 2011 at 6:20 am
I had to switch to a different browser. Same thing was happening to me in Chrome. Switching to IE the process continued.
June 8, 2011 at 6:52 am
Yup, had that too so switched from Chrome to IE (crosses self three times and spits in a cat’s ear). The problem I had turned out to be my lack of understanding and their confusing text.
1) Bought pre-order with PayPal.
2) Copied code and clicked on link to my Turbine account site.
3) Entered code & logged in.
4) My Turbine Account site then started asking me which subscription I wanted to apply this code too – I clicked the existing one.
5) I was then asked about my payment method and given options of monthly, annual, etc. – *this* is where I kept stopping because it looked as though they were going to charge me again for VIP.
6) After much re-trying I eventually followed it through reasoning that turbine would repay if they charged me for a second VIP sub and it worked just fine.
Now I don’t *think* I’ve been charged twice (I’ll be carefully checking my card statements though) but this last screen is, to me at least, very poorly designed and damn confuserating.
June 7, 2011 at 11:05 am
For VIPs who bought the Mirkwood and Moria expansions, the only extras you would be getting in the Legendary vs the Heroic are the Eregion and Trollshaws quest packs. Plus two extra horses/mounts/cloaks. They need to select something better than Trollshaws.
June 7, 2011 at 11:06 am
make that *armour*/mounts/cloaks
June 7, 2011 at 11:11 am
VIPs get Eregion and Trollshaws included so if you purchased both expansions the only bonus is the horses and cosmetics for a longer time VIP like Merric and myself but I will probably do it because I like the idea of all my characters getting an array of ponies and pretty outfits.
June 7, 2011 at 12:50 pm
I sort of left out the “if you quit paying the subscription” part of my post. So a non-lifetimer isn’t getting much if they’ve bought all the expansions but then stop subscribing. Nice ponies though.
June 7, 2011 at 11:05 am
2 horseys + 2 outfits and a jealous kinnie
http://i56.tinypic.com/34jevc9.jpg
June 7, 2011 at 11:11 am
Looking good, stats on the mounts?
June 7, 2011 at 11:13 am
I have not seen any stats for the mounts yet.
June 7, 2011 at 11:21 am
tooltip says 100 morale, but the mount panel says 200 ^^ and its +62% so normal fast mount, not the +68% =)
June 7, 2011 at 11:30 am
Thank you for the info!
June 7, 2011 at 11:15 am
I’ll be going for the Base Edition. While I love getting new mounts, this one will quite obviously be as common as dirt. Even in white and green. I highly doubt I’ll replace my current mount on each of my characters with this bonus one, especially when my current mounts all took quite a lot of work to get. Still, I get the red one, and it looks lovely.
As a VIP I tend to never need the Turbine Points, and usually just blow them on fun-but-silly things when they pile up ridiculously high.
I’m assuming I can dye the cloak and armour to whatever colour I want.
Plus I have to be careful how I spend my pennies. I’m one of those Lasik-Horror-Story people, and it makes finding work rather difficult.
June 7, 2011 at 11:17 am
The cloak and armour cannot be dyed.
June 7, 2011 at 11:44 am
This is going to be a noob question (mainly because I am a noob) so I apologise now but how exactly do I find out what content I have access to? I was Free-To-Play until the migration and then I went to VIP. I *think* this means I have the SoA content but not Mirkwook, MoM or Lothlorien which would make the Legendary pack a good deal… but I don’t want to plump for the wrong one. Any ideas?
June 7, 2011 at 11:45 am
Correct. A VIP has access to Trollshaws and Eregion already. Moria, Mirkwood and Lothlorien are special purchases for even VIP to buy.
June 7, 2011 at 11:56 am
Great, thanks
Legendary for me tonight then 
June 7, 2011 at 11:47 am
Best way is to open up the LOTRO Store and see what’s there. Also, you should be able to see what kind of account you have at character selection.
June 7, 2011 at 11:56 am
Cheers – I’ll check after work tonight.
June 7, 2011 at 11:48 am
I just ordered the heroic edition. It makes sense as I’m a VIP and not a big horse collector.
Two things. I ordered white armor but I’m definitely wearing the green suit, green horse, and green cloak. I’ve submitted a bug about that.
The 25% xp bonus comes as a pocket item. So if you have a good pocket item you will have to choose.
I’m happy that I level my alts at 25% so it seems a good deal for me.
June 7, 2011 at 11:49 am
Yes I did see a bug about this mentioned in twitter about the white/green suit. They are looking into it was what they said.
June 7, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Just to update you.
I received my correct armor set when I logged in tonight.
And so far they let me keep my green set of Armor, horse, and cloak.
Turbine responded to my ticket within an hour and sent me an update during the day and now they have fixed the problem. All in all a very good experience.
June 7, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Well looks like its time to pre-order soon, but not today, I would guess the LOTRO site is swamped right now.
June 7, 2011 at 12:21 pm
I’d encourage people who want to see an additional purchase-level to put their 2 cents in at the forum.
Personally. I’d like one without the 1000 TP and pre RoI areas/content. but that has all the cosmetic/fluff stuff!
June 7, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Pretty sure the QPs were placed as a free bonus (at least that’s how it’s worded at the site), for getting the top tier pre-order.
Of course a free bonus doesn’t feel free when you’re paying.
June 7, 2011 at 12:29 pm
does anyone know if i can pay with an austrian prepaid (master card) credit card?
and can i pay in USD or just in EUR? because the price difference is quite big
June 7, 2011 at 1:41 pm
I bought it for +/-35€ with paypal, their conversion from dollars to euros seemed nice enough
June 8, 2011 at 3:07 am
German here, paid by credit card (not prepaid though), and in USD. No problems except quite a long wait for the confirmation email (I closed the confirmation window before learning about the invisible text).
June 7, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Being that our kinship is The Westfold Marshals and on the Riddermark server – I have to give a special thanks to Turbine for giving our kin team uniforms! I’m not one to get overly excited over cosmetics, but I’ve already re-outfitted most of my characters and dang – they sure do look sweet. Having the kin name match the outfit and horse is just icing on the cake…
June 7, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Is the 25% xp bonus to quests and kills, or just one or the other? It seems alot of the xp bonus available are only on kills.
June 7, 2011 at 12:53 pm
The 25% exp bonus is just on monster kills. It will not include quest turn ins.
June 7, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Extra 25% exp go to legendary items, too?
June 7, 2011 at 3:59 pm
No it is just on character experience. Item experience is not affected.
June 7, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Looking at the Legendary version through an F2P’s eyes -
Okay so you get: Trollshaws, Eregion, Lothlórien and Moria and the Mirkwood Quest Pack. Without any sales:
Trollshaws costs 595 Turbine Points
Eregion costs 695 Turbine Points
Lothlorien costs 695 Turbine Points
Moria quest pack costs 1495 Turbine Points [ I assume they mean the quest pack, not the expansion, although it's not clear ]
Mirkwood quest pack costs 995 Turbine Points
That’s a total of 4475 Turbine Points. When Path of the Fellowship was available, it cost 2950 Turbine Points, although it didn’t include Mirkwood, which would bring the total cost to 3945, if you did the bundle plus the Mirkwood quest pack.
Also, you get 1000 Turbine Points “free” with the purchase of the Legendary pack. So that’s a total of 5475/4945 Turbine Points worth of value from the purchase.
As Hobbitmeister noted above, TP are approximately equivalent to $10 per 1000, so if you haven’t purchased any of the zones previously, you’re already ahead of the game if you spend $49.99 to get $49.45 – $54.75 worth of value in quest packs, since you also get the XP bonus, which is quite significant (though I wish it were a buff and not a pocket item), plus the whole expansion itself. It’s hard to put a value on the mounts and cosmetics, but I’m sure they would/will sell in the Turbine store for additional TP, if you don’t pre-order.
Unfortunately, if you’ve already bought a lot of the quest packs above (or are currently VIP) the value of the Legendary version begins to ebb away. Without knowing how much TP the expansion will cost, though, it’s difficult to know where the point of diminishing returns is. 3495 isn’t a bad guess, but it could easily be more or less, and will probably be subject to sales (maybe around Christmas / Winter Festival …?) once it’s not new and shiny anymore.
That XP buff is pretty tempting, though. I wonder how much money Turbine would make if they just sold THAT in the store…
June 7, 2011 at 1:22 pm
GREAT breakdown! Very helpful.
June 7, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Hooray! This is exciting news. I don’t like that they drew up a chesty elf-mage for the cover art but beggars can’t be choosers.
June 7, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Oh, and I’m also _very_ glad they made Saruman of Many Colors! Nice and subtle as well.
June 7, 2011 at 1:24 pm
I didn’t even notice that at first, but now that you pointed it out I’m slightly disappointed in Turbine’s marketing folks. For the most part, they’ve avoided that sort of cheesy exploitation.
Meh.
June 7, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Is Moria/Mirkwood required to get to level 65? (Sorry if this was already answered.)
June 7, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Moria is pretty much required as there are no other good 50+ zones that I can think of. You may be able to get several levels into 50 but you’re probably not going to make it to 60 without Moria.
Mirkwood however is skippable as there is the Enedwaith zone as an alternative.
I suppose you could skirmish your way all the way to 65 and skip both regions but that seems like a very long and boring path
June 7, 2011 at 3:46 pm
It totally depends on how fast you’re trying to level. When I entered Moria for the first time, I was only 50k xp shy of level 60 by doing all of the quests and deeds in each region, including Eregion, leading to the Walls of Moria. It took a lon, long time to accomplish, but bear in mind that this was before the introduction of skirmishes, so I think it’d be much easier now.
June 7, 2011 at 1:08 pm
In the Heroic Edition does each character get to choice a color or is it a choice for all the characters on an account?
June 7, 2011 at 1:30 pm
You are locked into a color at the time of order. The same color is the one all your characters will get.
June 7, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Stupid question: Does “more deeds” mean that there will be more virtue levels?
June 7, 2011 at 3:47 pm
I hope so…I have been waiting for that for years.
June 7, 2011 at 4:00 pm
It doesn’t say but one could hope
June 7, 2011 at 6:42 pm
i heard it’s NEW virtues, not more levels of existing ones.
June 7, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Just to confirm, will the quest packs also be immediately available after pre-ordering, along with all the bonus items?
June 7, 2011 at 2:17 pm
That is correct.
June 7, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Well, it seems that Turbine is overloaded with upgrade requests… The account page is either giving errors or it shows they are in maintainance.
June 7, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Oh good! It’s not just me then!
June 7, 2011 at 3:24 pm
They took it down to fix the issue where pre-orders were getting teh wrong color items from teh Heroic Edition. It will return soon™
June 7, 2011 at 4:54 pm
It’s back up. Just finished registering.
June 7, 2011 at 7:25 pm
By the way:
Who casted the guy for the german version?
Seriously … Saruman with a russian accent is rather silly than fearsome.
June 8, 2011 at 3:12 am
Good Lord. Probably they didn’t want to shell out the money for a native speaker, but one would really expect Saruman to have spend enough time in Middle-earth to have gotten the hang of speaking the local languages. I’m pretty sure that the books don’t mention him having any accent either, but rather emphasise his great skills of speech and persuasion.
Once again I’m glad that I’m playing the game in English, precisely because I’ve learned to avoid German localisations, which are often quite bad.
June 7, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Went for the hero version myself as I’ve bounced between vip and premium so the questpacks were of no real use.
The xp buff is a pocket item that has max level of 65 and stacks with rested xp so I can see myself using it to bypass some stages of levelling or just using it to wring a bit more xp from a skirmish.
Red cosmetics look pretty good, liking the offset gloves and the flap at the top of the cloak to make it more a riding style garment, though the circlet is a bit odd.
July 20, 2011 at 4:32 pm
I am absolutely furious about this. I’m from the UK. We get this for £40. US players can purchase it for $50.
AND YET £40 IS $64.54 !!!
Screw that. This game is biased towards americans, with server downtime being whilst they’re comfy and asleep, but us Europeans suffer because we can’t play throughout half the god-damn day.
Turbine can get stuffed.
July 20, 2011 at 4:50 pm
The price difference typically stems from the fact that Europe has a VAT that Turbine must collect. The U.S. has no such over all tax.
Also the time frame is typically 6am-10am for which I am very much awake and not comfy and asleep (although I am typically preparing for or at work). However, should I be home on a maintenance day, my wait time and frustration at not being able to play is no different.