LotRO: Siege Of Mirkwood page 2

09 Nov 2009 at 12:02:02 by Nick Cowen

"Some of the new things we're adding will give you a little more immediacy with the fun," he says. "I mean, I think the game's really fun in a lot of respects, but we found that sometimes players really had to work to get to the fun parts. This is instant fun - press the fun button and there it is."

The 'fun button' in this instance seems to be the inclusion of the brand new Skirmish System. It's a neat new story instance feature which can be used to gain XP and is instantly accessible anywhere in the game, provided the player's character is level 30 or above. They're randomised, repeatable and customisable in terms of their difficulty (players can pick from four Tiers) and can be tackled by up to 12 players. They also introduce a new NPC pet in the form of a soldier - which can't be accessed outside the Skirmish System - which players can train and improve through the Skirmish points reward system. If all the members of a 12 person team decided to take part in a Skirmish, they can all feasibly bring their soldiers with them, which means the party could have as many as 24 members. However, strength in numbers isn't enough to beat the Skirmish System, which adjusts its own difficulty depending on how many players and NPCs are taking part.

Away from the Skirmishes, Siege Of Mirkwood offers new 3 and 6 man raid instances, as well as a massive 12 man boss raid towards the end, where players will take on the hellish forces based in the Tower of Dul Guldur. If the demo Steefel showed to us was anything to go by, players are advised not to attempt the finale on their own; epic doesn't even begin to describe it.

Finally, it should be mentioned, that as with all the other installments in this series, Siege Of Mirkwood looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous. The huge forest map not only evokes the world of Tolkien's books in every frame, but as characters progress into the eerie woods, they'll find it showcases a breathtaking amount of variety. Some sections of the forest look lush, but dark and threatening, while other sections look desolate and cracked. One of the expansion's fantastic visual treats is the Tower Of Dul Guldur itself; a black, ominous spire which rises up out of the grey mists, backlit by green clouds, while fell beasts swirl around its peak. The music and the soundtrack are pitch perfect, the former is suitably epic, and the latter evokes the menacing woodlands very effectively.

So Lord Of The Rings Online: Siege Of Mirkwood looks set to keep the Middle Earth faithful happy. Perhaps the only downside is that it doesn't really offer much in the way of new content to avid PVP players; Monster Play receives nothing new except the ability to rise to level 65. However, there's still plenty in this expansion pack to admire; it offers players a ton of new content, fixes some in-game annoyances, and adds some intriguing and fun new features that boost the MMO's depth and replayability.

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