Turbine Opens Limited Preview of LotRO Social Network

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.