The Lord of the Rings Online

The name The Lord of the Rings refers to more than one character, item or concept. For a list of other meanings, see The Lord of the Rings (disambiguation).

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The Lord of the Rings Online (commonly abbreviated to LOTRO or LotRO) is the common name for an MMORPG that takes place in the world of Arda during the time of The Lord of the Rings.

Development

Sierra began to devolop the game in 1998, then called Middle-earth Online. After Sierra was bought out by Vivendi Universal Games, production of the game was shared with Turbine. The rights to the game were sold exclusively to Turbine in March 2004, after which they announced that the name of the project would be changed to The Lord of the Rings Online.

While the majority of quests in the game are original content created by Turbine based on the history and lore of Middle-earth, the quests flagged as "Epic" quests depict specific events and scenes from the The Lord of the Rings storyline. While conducting Epic Quests, players interact with the main characters from the books, and assist in the advancing of the story toward the War of the Ring and the destruction of the One Ring.

The game also attempts to mimic The Lord of the Rings by being broken down in volumes, books and chapters. The original game is called Volume I, the following expansion is Volume II and the current expansion is Volume III. Each one of the epic quests are broken down by "Books" and "Chapters".

Turbine has gone to great lengths to faithfully recreate the fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien with a high degree of attention to detail. Essentially every character named in the books appears in the game and can be interacted with during quests and other activities.

A closed beta was announced on September 8, 2006. An open beta began on March 30, 2007, and was open to all who pre-ordered the game's Founders Club edition. On April 6, 2007, the beta opened to the public.

Shadows of Angmar

Main article The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Shadows of Angmar was released on April 24, 2007. It included books 1 through 8 of the epic quest line. Book 9 Shores of Evendim was released on June 14, 2007. Book 10 The City of Kings was released on August 21, 2007. Book 11 Prisoner of the Free Peoples was released on October 24, 2007.

Mines of Moria Expansion

Main article The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria

Siege of Mirkwood Expansion

Main article The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood

License

For The Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine has licensed the rights to the content and lore of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Turbine does not have license rights to the New Line Cinema film trilogy nor The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth books or The Children of Húrin.

Discrepancies from the source material

The Lord of the Rings Online does not follow the story as told in The Lord of the Rings, but rather tells stories about events that happened during the same time period as the events told in J.R.R. Tolkien's book.

Added Elements

There are a number of elements that do not appear in any of the published works. This includes characters, lineages, objects and locations.

Characters

• Amarthiel served for the Witch-king of Angmar during his first reign over Angmar and wore the lesser ring Narchuil. She was slain by Narmeleth at the Battle of Fornost and her soul wandered Middle-earth for over a thousand years. She managed to possess Narmeleth and disguises herself as Sara Oakheart. She eventually revealed herself after the defeat of Mordirith by Golodir and becomes the Regent of Angmar.

• Andraste was a female Man who served the Witch-king.

• Jon Brackenbrook was a Man who was captain of Archet.

• Éogan was the second in command of the Blackwolds and took over leadership of the group after William Skunkwood's death.

• Ivar the Bloodhand was a Gaunt-lord from the First Age.

• Mordirith was the Steward of Angmar.

• Narmeleth was an elf maiden of Rivendell and daughter of Laerdan. She slayed Amarthiel during the Battle of Fornost and became possessed by her soul over a thousand years later.

• Mundo Sackville-Baggins was a Hobbit who was mistakenly identified as having the ring.

• William Skunkwood was the leader of the Blackwolds.

• Skorgrím was a dwarf and leader of the Dourhands he was slain during the Battle of Edhelion. His corpse was used as a vehicle by Ivar the Bloodhand who possessed it with a fell spirit to trick the Dourhands to ally themselves with the forces of Angmar.

• Sambrog was the Wight-lord of the Barrow-downs.

Lineages

• The Blackwolds were a group of Mannish brigands from Bree-land.

• The Dourhands was a clan of dwarves aligned with the forces of Angmar. They were the dwarves that stayed behind to rebuild the Dwarven Halls in the Blue Mountains which were destroyed during the War of Wrath.

Objects

• Narchuil was one of the lesser rings forged by the elven-smiths during the Second Age.

Locations

• Agamaur was a vast swamp north of the East-West Road not far from the Last Bridge. It was a site of a major battle between Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur. To the west is the ruins of Haragmar, a fortress of Arnor. To the east lies the ruins of Garth Agarwen, a fortress of Rhudaur.

• Othrongroth was the oldest and largest Edain mound in the Barrow-downs.

Structures

• Bird and Baby Inn was an inn in Michel Delving.

Reception

The Lord of the Rings Online has been received very positively thus far, as reviews continue to appear since the game's initial release.

GameDaily awarded the game 9/10, praising its rich, fantasy-themed universe, well-integrated trait and title system, and a story that remains true to the works of Tolkien. Yahoo! Video Games wrote a review with few negative mentions, awarding the game a score of 4/5, while Computer and Video Games called the game an essential purchase for Lord of the Rings fans, scoring the game a 9.2/10. Eurogamer scored the game a 9.0/10, calling it tough to resist. Gamespy gave it 4.5/5 stars, claiming the game "opened up Middle-Earth to the masses" but commented negatively on its weak PvP content, while GameTrailers awarded it 8.5/10, citing its interesting tweaks to the MMO genre. IGN.com ranked it a similar 8.6/10, praising it for its solid experience, though criticizing it for its lack of major improvements to the genre. GamerNode.com awarded the game an 8.8/10, calling it the best MMO launch experience since Ultima Online. The New York Times called the game "a major achievement of interactive storytelling, the first game truly worthy of the ‘Lord of the Rings' franchise and a must-play for just about anyone with an interest in Tolkien or the future of online entertainment." In a GameSpot review, the product was awarded an 8.3/10, praising its appealing polish and intriguing Monster Play feature. Gamepro.com's review gave it an overall 4.25/5, pointing out how engaging the epic quests are, as well as how faithful to the novels the game managed to stay. GameSpy declared The Lord of the Rings Online 'Game of the Month' for May 2007.

Awards

In August 2007, Codemasters announced that The Lord of the Rings Online had received five Golden Joystick Awards nominations for the five applicable categories for the game, and in October 2007 that it had won the "PC Game of the Year" at these awards. and again won the same award on October 2008. In December 2007, GameSpy awarded The Lord of the Rings Online 6th place in the top 10 PC games of 2007. On December 18, Turbine announced it had also won the GameSpy MMO of the Year award. In January 2009, mmorpg.com awarded Turbine both MMORPG studio of the year 2008, and MMO Expansion of the Year for Mines of Moria.

Subscription Model

In North America, players who pre-ordered the game were offered a special founder's offer, a lifetime subscription for $199 or reduced cost of $9.99 per month. Standard monthly fee is $14.99 with three, six, twelve month, and lifetime discounts available. European players had a similar program from Codemasters.

A Holiday subscription was available in December of 2007 and January of 2008 for $9.99/month for a 3 month commitment. A one year anniversary addition includes a $9.99/month subscription or a $199.99 Lifetime subscription, which was again offered during the lead up to the release of Mines of Moria.

Warner Brothers announced on June 4, 2010 that Lord of the Rings Online will offer a free-to-play model starting in the fall of 2010.

External Links

• Official website
  • Lorebook, the offical LotRO wiki
  • My LOTRO, the offical blog
  • LOTRO Community Website
• Lotro-Wiki, a fan created wiki
• lotro.wikia.com, another fan created wiki