Turbine is celebrating its Lord of the Rings Online server upgrades with the LotRO Performance Event. Players are invited to play with Turbine developers Thursday, May 14 between 9:00PM and 11:00PM Eastern.  You’ll recognize the devs as players with a plus sign (+) prefix in chat.

If you accept the challenge you’ll have to download and install the Bullroarer client ahead of time. Log in on Bullroarer and play for the entire event for your shot at  some loot. Prizes include a Phenom CPU with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, solid state hard drives, DX10.1 video cards, and signed copies of LotRO: Mines of Moria. Complete details on the LotRO Performance Event and prizes are after the jump.

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Jeffrey Steefel reveals the next chapter in the Lord of the Rings Online storyline in a new podcast. Book 8 takes adventures back into Moria for clean up detail and ultimately to  Dol Guldur, Sauron’s Mirkwood stronghold, and the Hill of Sorcery.

Steefel also talks more about the new Skirmish feature which will give players the chance to use henchmen of a sort in instances. Marshaling troops of NPCs is a natural progression of gameplay with epic battles ahead in Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor.

TenTonHammer’s Loading Live podcast, LotRO’s Jeffrey Steefel on Book 8 runs just over 45 minutes. It’s enough time to get in a decent workout or keep you occupied during rush hour.

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The Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) differs from many of its MMORPG peers in that the game itself is built upon the concept of friends partying together to face the rising tide of evil. While we’ve seen this same reasoning in other Fantasy MMO games there are not any that have as well developed a system of party teamwork.

Sure, various class/race builds make more optimal parties in WoW for grinding or questing or even instances, but one area that The Lord of the Rings Online shines is in encouraging players to band together and then rewarding them with a key party cooperation system during combat.

This system, called Fellowship Maneuvers or Conjunctions, allows players to initiate group only combination attacks against powerful mobs and foes. The official LotRO website has a lengthy article up explaining how the system works and highlighting why certain powers or classes work to trigger these event altering acts and aid groups of players in overcoming normally overwhelming odds. Players can learn how the colored buttons in the Maneuver interface merge in combination to result in special results, how Fellowship Maneuver formulas are created and optimized and get some basic guidelines on when certain moves are best executed.

As a long term LotRO player I know in the heat of battle we’re often calling out the colors based on what result we need, everyone yelling Red or Green seems to be the most common but with properly applied formulas I’m confident we’ll be taking down the Witch King’s henchmen in no time without earning ourselves that dreadful repair bill after falling in battle.

I don’t know how many of you have tried out Lord of the Rings Online yet. To be fair, I wasn’t all that impressed with the game when I played it during the beta test. Shortly after Moria came out; however, Shawn coerced me into giving it another chance. I’ve never really thanked him for that.

Besides gaining me as a player, 2008 was an awfully good year for Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online MMO. It won top honors from sites like MMORPG.com, and its Mines of Moria expansion released to critical and commercial success. Now it’s 2009, and LotRO is celebrating its second anniversary. Turbine is offering up some sweet deals for subscribers to cap this celebration.

Most impressively, new players who want to play LotRO can now pick up a complete copy of the game digitally or delivered for only $9.99. That complete copy includes the full game, the Mines of Moria expansion, a couple of in-game items, and 30 days of game time for about ten bucks.

But that’s not the only thing they’re offering up.

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Turbine is letting go of redundant positions now that the Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria expansion has launched. According to Gamesindustry.biz,Turbine had this to say about the cuts.

“Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead,” said a spokesperson for the company.

“As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward.”

“We are a privately-held company and will not discuss the details regarding the number of our team that were affected. These changes were made across the entire organisation in both our MA and CA offices,” said the company.

As a private company Turbine isn’t obligated to reveal just how many redundant employees will be leaving and they aren’t volunteering any numbers. Turbine is far from the first games industry company to tighten up its infrastructure, cutting any positions that aren’t absolutely necessary. This is definitely a growing trend we’ll be seeing more of in the future.

Turbine has posted a new developer journal over on the official website for Lord of the Rings Online describing the lore of Nimrodel, a well know area for those versed in Tolkien lore; plus it is also a new area which was added to the game’s recent expansion the Mines of Moria.

The river Nimrodel was named after an Elf-maiden of old who once dwelt by a waterfall there, and fell in love with Amroth, the Lord of Lórien. Long ago, they left Lothlórien together for the haven of Edhellond, but Nimrodel disappeared in the White Mountains and her fate remains unknown. In later years, the River Nimrodel served as the site of a watchpost of the Galadhrim, kept by the brothers Haldir, Rúmil, and Orophin.

The waters of Nimrodel are said to bring healing to the weary, and some claim they can hear the voice of the maiden singing in the falls. As the War of the Ring has worsened, the waters have been defiled by the filthy feet of Orcs, and the Elves of Lothlórien seek vengeance.

The river Nimrodel is visited by the Fellowship of the Ring after they escape from Moria in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Players of The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria may find respite – or danger – near its waters.

Gamers who play LotRO but who have not purchased the expansion yet should go out and get it ASAP because it is not only loads of fun, but gorgeous as well.

Thanks: MMORPG

Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria team has released videos with a closer look at the two new LOTRO classes included in the expansion, the Warden and the Rune-keeper.

The Warden is based on Haldir, March Warden of Lothlorien. I’m most familiar with this new class as I’m leveling one on Nimrodel. This class strikes a great balance between distance and close combat, and the gambits are a lot of fun to use. They’re chain combos which give you timed combinations to pull off special moves. I actually reminds of the Final Fantasy XI combat mechanics for Cyan.

The video for the Rune-keeper class introduce in the Moria expansion follows the break.
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After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” – Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III – Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 – Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R – Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 – new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

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Until tomorrow, gamers who are currently rampaging through Middle-earth can get a limited glimpse of Turbine’s newest social network for those who play The Lord of the Rings Online. Currently in Beta, this preview closes tomorrow, December 12, so if you want to see what it entails you better go check it out.

Currently, this Beta is only open to North American users which is the section of the world whose servers are maintained by Turbine. Codemasters Online services the game servers in Europe, and while unfortunately there is not a preview Beta available for them, they can still check out the My LOTRO page to see what will be in store for them as well.

My LOTRO was announced back in October of this year and was promised by the end of the year, so they are cutting it pretty close. Kind of like a MySpace page, it is free for subscribers of the game, and has a searchable database of players, characters, monster characters, Kinships, and tribes. You can start your own blog (like we all need more of those), make a custom profile, and maintain a friend’s list. This will be a great way to stay in touch with friends who play but who are not on the same server as you (ahem, Shawn) and allow you to check out what sort of gear your buddies have accumulated.

What I am finding very cool about it, are the Kinship updates. When using the search engine, I was easily able to find my Kinship and while perusing through the list, I noticed that my character was already updated. It showed my latest deed accomplishment, when I leveled last, what my PvP stats are, and will eventually show off all my gear, and morale, power and armor stats along with my bio.

While all functions will be live throughout tomorrow, pages created will not be linked to your character(s) by default. So far, it is pretty fun to play around with, but if it’s even half as addicting as Facebook can be, then I am personally in serious trouble.

The Turbine developers have put a new guide up on the Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria website. This feature article is a Hero’s Guide to the Foundations of Stone.

The dev article offers an extensive look at the darkest pits of Middle-earth, offering players suggestions on what to expect and how to survive. In this the final resting place of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, the Shadow Refuge is the last safe haven. Even the places to which heroes retreat to nurse their wounds when defeated are perilous.

Study the Hero’s Guide to the Foundations of Stone on the Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria website and prepare for a truly heroic adventure.