The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood Preview

MMORPG.com has kicked up a quick preview of Turbine’s The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood expansion pack, which is currently scheduled for release later this fall.

Siege of Mirkwood raises the level cap to 65 and the power of Legendary gear to level 60. At this level, they will have a 4th runic slot that only Master Crafters will be able to create and players will be able to craft 2nd and 3rd age Legendary items as well. Horses become a slottable skill and players won’t have to dismount before interacting with NPCs and no longer sit stiffly on their horse but will have access to animated emotes. Turbine has also given more depth to the Identify skill, which will give players a better sense of where the item is headed before they invest a lot of time into it. There will also be shared storage between characters on the same account. “I’m sure players enjoyed the immersion of having to mail things between their characters,” said Jeff, whispering “Not!” as an aside. “But I’m also sure they will enjoy this convenience even more.” I agreed. After all, why shouldn’t they be able to share a bank vault?

The big game system to be launched in Siege of Mirkwood is the Skirmish System. A complementary way of gaining XP and usable by players of level 30 on up, Skirmishes are accessible anywhere in the game via the UI which will bring up the Skirmish menu. Skirmishes are repeatable, randomized and accommodate up to 12 players. Players can also set difficulty levels (Tier 1 through 4) and nine random objectives will show up during the skirmish system and it’s up to players to decide if they wish to hit them all. The Skirmish system introduces an NPC pet – the Soldier that is accessible only within the system.