The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria
| The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria |
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|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Turbine, Inc. |
| Publisher(s) |
Turbine, Inc. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Codemasters |
| Composer(s) | Chance Thomas |
| Engine | Turbine G3 |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | November 18, 2008 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 88% |
| Metacritic | 86/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| 1UP.com | B+ |
| CVG | 8.5/10 |
| Eurogamer | 9/10 |
| GameSpot | 8.5/10 |
| GameSpy | 4.5/5 |
| GameZone | 9.4/10 |
| IGN | 8.7/10 |
| Gaming Trend | 9.5/10 |
| Gamervision | 8/10 |
| D+PAD Magazine | 4/5 |
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria is the first retail expansion pack for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online released on November 18, 2008. It was announced on March 14, 2008 at Codemasters Online Connect 2008.
The storyline is set in Moria, an enormous underground complex in north-western Middle-earth. Apart from that, the expansion also adds the region Lórien. The game's level cap has been increased to level 60; and the expansion (also called "Volume II") extends the Epic storyline by six more books, and adds two new classes, the Rune-keeper and the Warden. Other new features include environment aware AI, dynamic lighting, and a new weapon enhancement system.
The expansion was promoted through playing web-based minigames. Visitors could play three games: King Under the Mountain, Swig & Toss, Eleventy-Seven Morsels at the official site. By performing certain tasks players could complete "deeds", three of which unlocked a "goodie". These included one trailer and three pieces of game art. By applying for a beta invitation, players could also receive a fourth game art.
The expansion adds two new classes to the game: Warden and Rune-keeper. As well as these new classes, current classes that were available with the release of The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar were improved with added skills for the additional levels included in the expansion.
Rune-keepers are the closest things to magic-users offered in The Lord of the Rings Online, but they aren't magicians in the traditional sense. Their new Attunement mechanic is represented by a bar with a sliding scale to illustrate whether they're attuned to dealing damage or healing wounds. As a Rune-keeper uses either healing or damaging abilities, the scale slides towards either end of the bar and the Rune-keeper's proficiency in either focus increases. As the Rune-keeper increases focus towards one end of the scale, more of those skills become available in greater power. However, the Rune-keeper will then also lose focus on the other end of the scale, making the skills associated with the opposite end unavailable. Therefore, the Rune-keeper can only effectively maneuver either their healing or damage abilities, but not both. Switching between proficiencies requires time. This release of this class was very controversial, as Turbine claims to have no use of magic in the Lord of the Rings world, as, in the lore, magic was restricted to the Ainur.
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Wikipedia