Casual Stroll to Mordor

The Bree-lands were little inhabited in the days of the War of the Ring, but they were a special place. The last home of good Men north of Gondor, save the lands where Rangers trod, is a green and pleasant place. It’s myriad lakes and fields, woods and downs, make for one of the more [...]

“Many folk used to dwell away north, a hundred miles or more from here, at the far end of the Greenway: on the North Downs or by Lake Evendim.”

The Ettenmoors is a tricky place to write about. The Moors, as we typically call them, are better known in LOTRO than they are in any other Tolkien adaptation.

There was much fanfare when it was announced that we players would be joining the Fellowship (or its remnants) in Rohan. The endless, rolling plains of the realm of the Horse-lords is perhaps second, depending on who you talk to, to the Shire for most idealized and beloved landscapes in Middle-earth.

The first missive for the new Beneath Your Feet takes us to southern Mirkwood and the stronghold of Dol Guldur.

I have put a considerable amount of time and thought into the expansion of the Racial/National system in character creation and development. When we create our Elf, Man, Dwarf, or Hobbit, part of the process is choosing which “Nation” this character belongs to.

LOTRO had a chance at this kind of exciting content. The first reason is obvious: in the Middle-earth of the books, Orcs and other baddies are constantly and consistently trying to ruin the civilization of Free People in the world.

I’ve always had largely mixed feelings towards LOTRO’s free-to-play (F2P) model. On the one hand, it provides options for all players, is not essential to the enjoyment of the game, and lowers whatever obstacles there were for new players to get into the game and enjoy Middle-earth; on the other, the store casts a shadow on an otherwise elegant and enjoyable game and creates a lingering environment of greed as soon as one pries at all into the store and its related marketing schemes.