The future of LotRO

Disclaimer. I do not work for Turbine nor Codemasters. So I do not know, what the future will bring.

Side-note: There is a common thirst for new content. This is of course understandable. But it is also unrealistic. The time it takes to play (or rush) through new content is always much, much shorter, than the time to actually make the new content. Only exception I see, is a new class.

The promise of spoken dialogues on SW:TOR with multiple choises and therefore multiple answers will make it even more expensive to develop content. It will also make other language-versions (say, German) much more costly.

Back to topic:

Levelcap will rise to 70.

Dunland seems to be the next region.

Monster-Play will go F2P.

Levelcap raise is also no big suprise as there was already talk about that and level max at 65 sounds a bit wierd.

There was already lots of indications, that Dunland would be the next region.

Dunland, at least from the climate point of view, is no too different from Enedwaith. It should have about the same size, probably also a longer north-south than east-west.

One of the biggest surprises is that Monster-Play will be part of F2P. This seems to contradict previous information.

Massivley has some more details, in short:

Non-combat Pets (for all, not just for Lore-Masters).
Upgraded cosmetic system (haven't done much with the one available at the moment though).
More Raids (plural, yay)
More Dungeons at level-cap. yay
More Dungeons at level 30 - 40,
First Age LIs at lvl 65, yay, more lottery ;)
Redesign of the LI system with a focus on removing the randomness and emphasizing choice through a more intuitive layout. Very good!
Isengard in Fall 2011, mhrmpf
"Turbine is still committed to bringing out a hefty expansion now and then."
Three new zones in 2011: Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Isengard
New zone for MP, hints are Isengard, my guess would be the east of Isengard, with the Fangorn to the north.

The new video, with sadly little actual content:



But at least the first glimps of the Orthanc.

If I remember correctly, there was an annoucement saying, that the Shire for example would never be reachable by monster players. So there will be some kind of zoning dividing PvMP from PvE.

So having a zone wich would have PvMP and PvE could be doable. Having some outposts, which are protected from attack from the other side and, inbetween, easy to get and more difficult outposts with better quests and rewards for PvE-Players.

My favourite zone for this would be the northern fields of Rohan (with mounted fighting) with borders to North / Lothlorien, East / Anduin, West / Fangorn and South West / Helms Deep, South East / Falls of Rauros.

I would think a fraction (Rohirrim) with great fraction-rewards (about as good as the best Raid rewards) would be how I would do it.

Monster Play for F2P? It could be added similiar to the normal F2P, so that you would be able to play a bit for free, but if you wanted to be a 'blue' or a 'red' (which are higer ranks than the beginning 'green' ranks), you would have to buy those perks. Would not be that difficult to do.

Others complained, that Isengard is planned for fall 2011, which would make it about a year for new content. Turbine has announced, that they want to have new updates more often, in about two months intervals.
So the three zones we might get would be Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Isengard.

source: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/i/isengard.html

On this map, we have all three parts. Dunland, probalby the same size as Enedwaith with Methedras in the East.

The Gap of Rohan would cover the River Isen and the peaks of the White Mountains in the south. We could even get Helms Deep with the Gap of Rohan. This is nothing more than me speculating.

Iseangard would still be big enough with Orthanc and, again speculation, Entwood.

We could meet up again with part of the Fellowship, getting pipeweed for Pippin or taking a peek into his Palantir.

If I remember correctly, when we arrive at Isengard, the Orthanc will have already fallen and the Ents are watching that Saruman does no harm. I would guess, that we would raid Orthanc as he might have still some loot hidden (yay, more climbing of towers....).

We could also have Raids in the caves behind Helm Deep and Skirmishes in Helms Deep and Session Play in Helm Deep and Orthanc.

Of course, this is a lot of speculation, I am just saying that this area has a lot of possibilities to offer, mightier than killing boars for food or searching for hobbit boots (not that it was not fun to do it once or twice).