The latest big storyline update for the Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Book 8 is coming online today. High level players can challenge the Scourge of Khazad-dûm from the heights and depths of Moria. Gaming Today has talked a lot about this content in the past few weeks with screenshots, details from the patch notes and even given you glimpse from the walkthrough. Now you can see it for yourself in the Lord of the Rings Online Book 8 Teaser Trailer. The video is well put together with plenty of in-game footage of monsters and boss battles. I encourage you to check it out. Here are some screens from the the Scourge of Khazad-dûm including shots of Zholuga and the world eaters.

In addition to new Book 8 content for high level players, everyone can enjoy the Summer Festival which is only a week away. The special events, decorations and the Inn League challenge will run from June 30 through July 14th.
NEW FEATURES IN BOOK 8: SCOURGE OF KHAZAD-DÛM (cont’d):
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Turbine has released full patch notes on the imminent Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria Book 8 content. The Scourge of Khazad-Dûm brings a major content update which includes three man and full fellowship instances as well as a twelve man raid. Gaming Today had a chance to experience these first hand. You can read about them in our recent article, From the Roof of the World to the Foundations of Stone: Gaming Today Explores LotRO: Mines of Moria Book 8.

Besides the big changes, there are a lot of little things that are bound to make every player happy. Food, craftable potions and Minstrels’s Lute Strings will stack to 50. Better yet Traveling Rations and reputation tokens as well as all crafting ingredients and components will stack to 100. And of course everyone should be thrilled that the emote for slapping fellow players with a fish is fixed.

One further piece of advice, those blasted Honey and Oats recipes are about to become rare drops. Read the LotRO : Mines of Moria Book 8 patch notes at the LotRO Lorebook.

Turbine is gearing up for the debut of Book 8: Scourge of Khazád-dum for Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria. I recently had the pleasure of accompanying Adam Mersky and Aaron “Rowan” Campbell on an expedition into the heights and depths of Moria. They revealed the horrors and wonders that await players in this latest edition to the LotRO epic storyline.
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Players are getting a first look into the Hall of Mirrors, part of the new Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria content coming this months. This glimpse into the looking glass takes players into an instance as part of the Scourge of Khazâd-dum content. Death lurks in the heights as well as the depths of the fallen Dwarven kingdom.

Follow the break to see more of these incredibly detailed screens resized for desktops.

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Lord of the Rings Online players are getting new crafting enhancements with the Mines of Moria Volume II Book 8: Scourge of Khazâd-dum. New recipes for the Supreme crafters are available in guilds and from the Lothlorien Galadrim. They’re also changing around special ingredients for recipes, and making drops more informative. You’ll be told which craft and what level of expertise your winnings are good for.

Once again, you can bater any old ingredients you have hanging around your bank and inventory for the new ones. Other wins are being able to use rare ingredients in trail food to make dishes more potent. Superior ingredients can now be found in ore, wood, and artifact nodes. There are also several tables detailing adjustments to the minimum levels players can equip items at.

Follow the link for more crafting changes and info on an upcoming live Turbine developer chat session. Read the full article

Turbine is granting gamers their first glimpse into Volume II Book 8 of Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria. These gorgeous screenshots unveil new challenges for players to face in their quest to aid the Fellowship and prepare for the War of the Ring. Deep within Moria’s waterworks lurks the Scourge of Khazâd-dum. Worms and more lethal abominations lie in wait among the water wheels ready to strike at the unwary.

As usual these screens show of the care lavished on the architecture, player characters and monster art. Pick out one of these screenshots of LotRO Volume II Book 8: Scourge of Khazâd-dum for your desktop after the break.
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Is there anyone left that doesn’t use Twitter? I’m sure there is. After all, it can’t be everywhere.

Lots of game companies have started using it for lots of reasons. I tend to see a Twitter window filled with mini-announcements, or teasers, or other similar things from all sorts of developers and publishers.

Today, I got to see Turbine twitting about the next content update for LotRO. According to their Twitter page,

Twitter Exclusive Reveal! VOLUME II, BOOK 8: SCOURGE OF KHAZAD-DÛM coming in June! You heard it here first!

It looks like we can expect some all new content in the next few weeks. You can stay tuned to Gaming Today for more info as it becomes available.

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.