Casual Stroll to Mordor

Codemasters has finished QA on the Echoes of the Dead content and it is cleared to launch tomorrow, March 22nd, 2011. Downtime is listed to last from 8am to 3pm GMT.

The official patch notes for Update 2, Echoes of the Dead, were released today!

Starting 18th March Codemasters is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a Double Bonus Points promotion. This offer expires on Monday 21st March, 2011. Note that the prices are in Euros. These promos are typically the best deal for points. The bigger the bundle you purchase, the greater the deal.

Update 2, Echoes of the Dead, brings a lot of content with it including a new part of the Epic Storyline. Jeff “MadeOfLions” Libby has put together another great developer diary not only detailing what we can expect to see as the epic storyline continues, but also discusses his work in helping to introduce the new Instance Cluster to LOTRO as well.

Codemasters is having a screenshot contest for Bullroarer Took Day like Turbine and you can win some points for the store!

Today, Jonathan “Berephon” Rudder has released a Developer Diary relating to the revamp of the “Battle Instances” in Volume 2, Book 5, Chapter 5 (2.5.5).

Codemasters as announced a new competition called “Play to Win” for some prizes.

Starting today (March 3rd) through Monday, March 7th, Codemasters players are experiencing a Welcome Back Weekend. The welcome back weekend adds a 10% experience boost to all monster kills in game.

TsiengLiu released today a Dev Diary focusing on the instances that are being released in the upcoming Update 2, Echoes of the Dead. As you recall strange things have been occurring around the world of LOTRO and as TsiengLiu states, “…it falls to heroes such as yourself to keep the peace.”

I love crafting; I really do. So I was excited to see that there are some changes coming with Update 2, Echoes of the Dead.

Yesterday, we saw the release of a combined Dev Diary by Ken “Graalx2” Burd and Brian “Zombie Columbus” Aloisio concerning the Legendary Item Revisions. Love them or hate them, Legendary Items (LI’s) are a pretty elaborate system that needed some love.

Today saw the release of the Monster Play changes that will be coming in Update 2, Echoes of the Dead.  Jared Pruett was in charge of these changes, which so far seem to be aimed at the rewards that the Free People get and smoothing out the initial experience for Creep-side players. Starting off with [...]

Looking ahead and the Echoes of the Dead release we take a look at the new Milestone Skills that have replaced the Map Home.

Today, Allan “Orion” Maki released a Developer Diary concerning the (very popular) removal of Radiance that will be coming with Update 2, Echoes of the Dead and it is a very good read.

Sapience released today the initial patch notes for Update 2, Echoes of the Dead. However, he strongly reminds us that this is a public beta and all notes are subject to change

Released today was a Dev Diary by Brian “Zombie Columbus” Alosio, focused on changes coming to the Hunter class with the Q1 update Echoes of the Dead.

Codemasters is having a double bonus point weekend from February 4th – 7th. These bonus point sales are where we see the best value for points available. Note that these prices are in Euros!

/files/2011/02/Update-2-Burglar-Developer-Diary.pdfKen “Graalx2” released a Developer Diary today concerning the Burglar class changes that will be coming in the next update, “Echoes of the Dead”.

Today, Tim “Raskolnikov” Lang posted a Minstrel Developer Diary discussing the upcoming changes to Minstrel class in the upcoming update (apparently now known as “Update 2”).