After the announcement of Turbine’s Press Release regarding the upcoming Riders of Rohan expansion, gaming sites have been posting up interviews that they had with Turbine regarding the exciting news. And although some of the information might be already known at this point due to Turbine’s official announcement, there are plenty of good nuggets of information to be found from these outside sources as well.
Over at Massively Justin Olivetti was able to get Turbine to talk about the Riders of Rohan as well as some of the updates that will be preceding the expansion. Specifically, he spoke to them in regards to this year being LOTRO’s 5th year anniversary and how they are adjusting the event so that it hopefully doesn’t inspire the ire with players that last year’s did. He goes on to talk about the new region coming to the game before the Riders of Rohan, which will be “The Great River” (taken from the Great River Anduin) and how it will “…serve as a gateway between Lothlorien to the southern country of Rohan, much the same way that Enedwaith led into Dunland.” Justin then moves onto Update 6 which will bring in updates to the Instance Finder, and how it will eventually replace the world join and reflecting pools. He was also able to get a couple of details out of Turbine regarding players being able to use skirmish soldiers outside of skirmishes, the arrival of a new festival this year, and the LOTRO team adopting a monthly update model similar to that of Asheron’s Call team.
This means that we’ll be seeing smaller, frequent content updates between the major rollouts. These smaller updates will be designed to give players something to look forward to and should include bug fixes, store additions, quality of life improvements, festival tweaks, and additional epic storyline content. This will be made possible by restructuring the Turbine team to meet the demands of this “tighter cycle.”
Justin then delves into the news from the expansion and gets a big surprise when he is informed that the regions developed for the expansion are going to be twice as large as Moria. However, as Chris Perry over at PC Gamer reminds us,
Rohan is a vast kingdom, allowing players to level to the new cap of 85 while exploring its expansive terrain. And this massive zone will only cover the East plains of Rohan, so you’ll have to wait for the next expansion to visit the legendary Helm’s Deep–which is located near the Western border of the region.
But worry not, because mounted combat will be coming to the game which will include a War-steed which can be leveled along with the player (through what method is unknown at this time, although some popular conjectures of the public is either through a method similar to Skirmish Soldiers or *shudder* Legendary Items) which can be customized in their appearance and performance. You can then use your War-steed to engage roving bands of enemies that will be roaming the plains of Rohan. On a down side, it does not appear that Ent Session Play may not have made it into the expansion.
Overall Riders of Rohan sounds like it might be a nice change of pace from the latest expansion, Rise of Isengard, which seems to still inspire mixed responses depending on who I speak to about it. Regardless, Turbine seems ever vigilant in proving its dedication to the Tolkien-based MMO and delivering content that fits into the Lord of the Rings universe on a continued basis. (You’ll find no Pokemon or Pandas here!)
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January 25, 2012 at 2:29 pm
The description of the War-Steeds certainly sounds more like skirmish soldiers than LIs. But either way, it sounds awesome. Plus, I look forward to expanding my Captain’s private army by dragging my skirm soldier around on the landscape.
January 25, 2012 at 2:38 pm
LOL, I hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, Captains will definitely be sporting an entourage.
January 25, 2012 at 3:33 pm
And LMs!
Tho I guess ours will be more like a zoo.
January 25, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Unless it’s a farm! [/Soldier]
January 25, 2012 at 2:37 pm
I didn’t really think about the horses in terms of Skirmish Soliders. That seems like a nice idea.
My thought on it was kind of like LIs, but more simplified… Maybe like in SWTOR. So we have a base horse, but can find “components” that can upgrade it and eventually be replaced. That’s just my imagination, obviously, I’m not even sure if it’d be a “good” system lol
Still, I’m excited. I just hope they include some more skirmishes in the expansion (or even before) and maybe get some more older stuff to scale. Those are the two “extra” things I’d like to see most that we’ve not heard about.
Thank you for compiling this.
January 25, 2012 at 3:11 pm
So… They’re dividing Rohan into two expansions? Whoa… This promises to be epic.
May 7, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Lord of the Rings: Riders of Rohan
Lord of the Rings: The Siege of Helms Deep
January 25, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I’d rather level up the horses like LI. Gain experience while fighting with them.
January 25, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Hopefully not as disposable as LI…unless there is a Rohan Glue factory in the expansion..:D
January 25, 2012 at 3:45 pm
so…the war-horses are separated from the current horses, when we get the rocky terrain of Mordor, we’ll get battle goats!
January 25, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Zam has some good stuff too: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=28838
This specifically caught my attention: “And the third thing, again, with our new audience, we want to bring new content on a monthly or near-monthly basis. So one of the things you’ll be seeing starting in January is new patches with new mounts, store items, cosmetics, new festival content updates… smaller than a breadbox, but really trying to recognize the pace of the interest for our players.”
Does that mean something else is happening this month or maybe it already did… I know that new Yule festival barter stuff appeared out of nowhere.
January 25, 2012 at 3:52 pm
This too!:
“…we’re creating a new monster experience type called War Bands. There will be a very interesting, randomized mechanic, where… all of a sudden you spot clouds, and the cloud comes closer… and the War Band appears!”
January 26, 2012 at 6:17 am
This month we had update 5.1. http://cstm.us/A8wvxU
January 26, 2012 at 9:53 am
I guess I was just confused given that that update happened before these interviews appeared. It implied to me maybe something else was happening, but probably not
January 25, 2012 at 4:59 pm
War-Steeds sound interesting! Does that mean that players will be able to beat a dead horse in game as well as out of game?
January 25, 2012 at 5:15 pm
My only disappointment is that when I hear “war-steed” I think horse. Since my main is a dwarf he rides a goat to at least semi RP. What would cause more fear in those war bands than my dwarf, lance in hand, yelling challenges in his dwarf voice (loosely translated – get me of this crazy thing) as his crazy eyed goat sped across the fields of the Riddermark
As far as the levels I sure hope it is not like LIs. Other than not understanding it at all I can only imagine the tearful conversation with my third age goat – “Sorry Kazad, but I just found a 2nd age goat so I’m going to have to deconstruct you”.
Kidding aside – looking forward to the new content and can’t wait to see Helm’s Deep after this one.
January 25, 2012 at 8:37 pm
I lol’d at the last part of the post. Well put!
January 25, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Ok so I better not buy any mounts from here to RoR right? Cause i am not going to pay 20$ for any mount if I am just going to ditch it when this comes out. I hope we can use our mounts to skin the new mount. I also hope that if we can not use the old skins, that we can ride our war horse in other areas. Even if it is not for combat. Why decorate it otherwise?
January 25, 2012 at 8:24 pm
That’s a good point. It’s not clear if you’ll be using your War-steed everywhere or just in certain areas.
January 25, 2012 at 8:33 pm
The mounted combat will only be in the East Plains region for now, where trhe war bands will attack, so I assume that’s the only place we’ll be riding the war steeds.
January 25, 2012 at 9:11 pm
According to Zam, Boromir died at ‘Amon Head’…
January 25, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Ah so the East Plains will include Amon Hen and the Wold all the way down to the Entwash. I wonder if Aldburg or even Edoras will be in this area? Probably not, Edoras is more westerly.
So then they’re connecting the Loth/Mirkwood landmass to the Eastfold.. probably they’ll have to redo the whole grid system before it’s all connected.
Getting ever closer to the White City!
January 26, 2012 at 4:55 am
Short: Why do they Break Rohan, i thought Rohan would be in Isengard later this year =/.. Only Edoras and Helm deep + Snow born missing or something else? =((
Long: 1st addon: eastfold, than westfold with helms deep, than Edoras and Snow Bourn, than die South(, where the corsairs attack and Aragorn took over their ships). After this in 2016 maybe osgiliath and noth ithilien, then northwards to the swamps where war was at 2nd age. Maybe rhun, then the outer rings of minas tirith, than minas morgul (outdoor), then the middle rings of minas tirith + shelobs lair.. Damn i forget the grey havens west from ered luin and the north of eriador/Arnor..
In about 2028 (about 25 years of LotRo) finally the plains of gorgonoth and the white citatelle with a levlcap increase from 150 to 200… barad dur + mount Doom also exists but there you must be lvl 200 (quests stops @ Lvl 161, so do not make any quests in rohan
) to fight Saurons mouth and fly with your eagles against the felbeasts (yeah)
I think they do not include Sauron..
January 26, 2012 at 6:26 am
This is exciting news! Although I wish people would stop bashing the LI system. It actually works OK now. It takes some time to get used to, but it’s OK, this is a long term game.
I actually don’t care if war-steeds build up like a skirmish soldier or an LI, I think they both work. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Turbine come up with something fresh either. I’m looking forward to this anyway
And finally, we get to follow the Great River south from Lothlorien! What joy!
January 26, 2012 at 7:02 am
http://www.gamespot.com/features/lotro-riders-of-rohan-where-now-the-horse-and-the-rider-6349226/
http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/features/interview/riders-of-rohan
a few extra links
January 26, 2012 at 9:05 am
I really hope that owning a horse unlocks the skin for War Steed use, even if it meant disabling other cosmetic options while that skin was in use. Otherwise there will be no point in faction grinding for the steeds as they are now.
Exciting news, though!
January 26, 2012 at 11:02 am
That’d be neat. I’m interested in seeing how they handle that too.
But on some level I still think it’s worthwhile. (For now) We’ll only able to use these warhorses as they’re designed in the new areas. I don’t know if that means in other areas they’ll just act as a normal mount or if they won’t be usable at all — but in either of those situations, there’d still be room to want and use regular mount designs.
January 27, 2012 at 6:30 am
*sigh* I’ve yet to play a game where mounted combat was done well. At best it is gimmicky and thus gets old really fast, at worst it is buggy and annoying as heck. I wish they had skipped this “feature”.(though I like the idea of it being a customizable mount, just not the fighting from horseback part)
And yes, it will obviously be limited to a specific region. Enabling mounted combat for everywhere would require rewriting the entire game, which we definitely aren’t getting in a simple expansion.(thank heavens)
Really now, how is my Mini supposed to fight from horseback? He can’t handle a lance or spear(nor should he), and it takes both hands to play all of the instruments. He’d fall off the horse at anything more than a trot if he tried to fight from horseback.
January 27, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I hope goats are on option fore a warsteed
I know, I know, you’re thinking “Don’t bring a goat to a horsefight,” but I really do hope it is an option for those of us that prefer steeds that aren’t afraid of the dark.
January 30, 2012 at 2:09 pm
The LOTR mod to Mount and Blade is immense fun for those folks who want to experience mounted combat in a very organic way. Good holdover before ROR comes out.