A good artist knows when to paint what they want, and when to do what the painting wants: when you do one thing, it often will tell you the next thing you need to do. So it has gone with creating Middle-earth for The Lord of the Rings Online™.

Read more about the art of Middle-earth in this fantastic Developer Diary from Art Director Harry "Floon" Teasley!

We’ve learned a lot from our live experience with The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ and now we are getting ready to unleash a much-improved instance system for Mines of Moria™.

Read more about these exciting changes in Amlug's latest Developer Diary: Anatomy of a Cluster!

This developer diary highlights the changes that will have the most impact on your moment–to-moment experiences in the Ettenmoors, and provide a clear understanding of how the “new” Ettenmoors is meant to work.

Read more about these exciting changes to the Ettenmoors in Orion's latest Developer Diary: The Ettenmoors Re-vamp, Part 2!

Calling all Creeps! Get ready to dust off your empty quickbars and open your destiny wallets; we have a lot of good things in store for you! This dev diary will focus on the new skills and traits that have been added to Monster Player classes.

Dive on in to Jalessa's latest Developer Diary: Monster Play Class Enhancements!

This left me a decent chunk of time to try my hand again at the art of quest design, particularly the content that was needed to help support the Legendary Item system introduced in Mines of Moria™.

Get a behind the scenes look at designing the quest instances for the new Legendary Item system from Vastin in his latest Developer Diary: Legendary Item Quest Instances!

Welcome, fellow Freeps and Creeps, to a brand new day in the Ettenmoors! This dev diary will give you a brief glimpse into the mechanical changes we have made for PvMP in The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria™ expansion.

Read more about the upcoming changes to the PvMP system in Jalessa's latest Developer Diary!

Foreword

There have been many changes to the face of monster play since we launched The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™: the addition of the Orc Defiler class, changes to class functionality, the institution of diminishing returns, and delicate rebalancing of classes. Now it’s time to talk about the many changes to the field of battle in Mines of Moria™. These changes are varied, and are all designed to give a variety of gameplay options to participants in the battle for the Ettenmoors. This developer diary will cover the additions and alterations that have been made to the Ettenmoors for The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria™ so you will know what to expect when you enter territory both familiar and somewhat unfamiliar.

Introduction

Hello there! This is Chris “Hakai” Clay, and I have the pleasure of introducing you to the Legendary Item system.

When Bilbo set out from Bag End, he was but a simple Hobbit with potential. There was no aura of legend surrounding him, yet through his actions and deeds he became a legend of Middle-earth. The Legendary Item system works in much the same way. Each Legendary Item contains the possibility of greatness. While they’re typically less impressive than comparable items of their initial level, they have the potential to grow into the most powerful items in the game. The power of your Legendary Items will depend greatly on the effort you put into them and the story you build around them.

Class Traits

As The Lord of the Rings Online™ expands its systems with the Mines of Moria™, characters now have the ability to create Class Trait Set pairings that build upon class themes, allowing players to specialize and making them more effective at a chosen class role. As such, Trait Sets represent a way for players to shape their gameplay and enhance their character’s performance. If you want to focus on the Hunter’s secondary ability to crowd control their enemies, Trait Sets enable you to focus on that aspect of the Hunter gameplay and bring it to the fore-front.

The Future of the System

Looking at the combat system as it has grown over the last year, the Systems team has learned a lot from player behaviors, playstyles, and how they interact with all the different types of monsters in The Lord of the Rings Online™.

Our data has shown that on the whole, the core player base interacts with our system in expected ways. Heroes of Middle-earth large and small are winning the war in Eriador against the servants of the Witch-king of Angmar.