Rise of Isengard, the forthcoming expansion for the Lord of the Rings Online, is generating some buzz.
Players will be able to gain ten additional levels, there's a
new full 24-man raid against a dragon, we'll get to see
important new locations and, according to the dev diaries
starting to roll out, all classes are going to get some
significant reworking. Of course, LotRO is not the only game
generating buzz for the coming months. Star Wars: The Old
Republic looms on the horizon like a juggernaut poised to start
a downhill roll, Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be a giant, and
perennial mainstay World of Warcraft is slapping a big, shiny
new patch on their titan. Will Rise of Isengard be able to stay
competetive, or will they need a game-changer?

WHAT'S CONFIRMED

Here's what we know we're getting, based on all the PR bits
that keep mentioning the same few things, and the handful of dev
diaries and forum posts we've seen so far:

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/111979" alt="Draigoch" />
Draigoch - he's kind of a "big deal" around here.

• One 24-man raid for endgame players. Okay, awesome, there's
  only one other 24-man PvE raid in the game and it's against...
  a... well, a different dragon. An undead one. The new one will
  be alive and sitting on a giant mound of gold the way dragons
  are supposed to.
• Ten more levels, with no more caps on stats or combat
  ratings. And with those ten new levels comes new skills,
  right? Well, mostly not new, but improved versions of existing
  skills, and potentially insane stats to back them up. And also
  with those ten new levels, a new crafting tier. But basically,
  this is pretty much the same as what's already there, just
  bigger.
• Easier and/or better math and combat mechanics. Consolidated
  combat values and a reworking on how some classes determine
  their combat effectiveness based on what they actually do.
  This is the kind of stuff that endgame players pay close
  attention to, and having fewer things to fret over makes life
  a little easier.
• Three new regions to explore. The screenshots have looked
  epic and awesome and beg to be explored in minute detail. This
  almost certainly means new reputation factions, as has
  historically been the case. And with new regions comes new
  books in the epic line, but no word yet on how many there will
  actually be at launch. Moria shipped with 6 full books, but
  Mirkwood had only one at launch.
• A new stat: Finesse. It's totally NOT Radiance. But when RoI
  launches, nobody will have any, and it will be needed for
  raiding. It's not specifically a raid-gating stat, in that you
  will not be required to grind for "X Shoulders of
  the Y" with +Z Finesse just to meet a
  survival requirement, but endgame raiders and PvMPers are
  going to want to stack it up high and get the gear that has
  it.
• New endgame gear, and tweaked midgame gear. Yellow trash
  loot will seem slightly less trashy, and still be passed over
  for superior purple, teal and orange. According to the
  Itemization dev diary, there's a new raid set that even can be
  earned by soloing, and crafted gear that will be comparable in
  quality to raid armor. And the return of instance loot!
• Monster Play for F2P - but (somewhat ironically) free
  players will not be able to play as the Free Peoples. They can
  roll a new Creep, but cannot take their regular Freep toons to
  the Moors. So the Moors will possibly be flooded with greenie
  Reavers (the only free monster class), but without the balance
  of a flood of greenie Freeps. The map will be mostly red for a
  while.

checked="true">Sources:

• Interview
  with Sapience, LotRO Forums
• Dev Diaries: Champion,
  Captain,
  Burglar,
  Itemization,
  Stats
• Rise
  of Isengard press release

Everything sounds great so far... but it's essentially more of
the same. Don't get me wrong, "the same" is still great, and it
will be nice to have more of it. It just doesn't seem all that
"new" so much as it seems an improvement or continuation of
existing gameplay.

WHAT'S NOT YET CONFIRMED (BUT POSSIBLY COMING)

A few things haven't yet been discussed in dev diaries or the
press, but are almost certain to make their way into the final
product when it launches:

1. Non-combat cosmetic pets. They mentioned it once last year,
   and I haven't heard anything about it recently in any official
   capacity, but I haven't given up hope. Not entirely.
2. New cosmetics. Seriously, there almost has to be, right? The
   new raid armor sets at least will look different than the
   current sets. We hope.

Again, nothing really "new," just expanded. Even the cosmetic
pets idea is not a new thing - Lore-masters have had them for
years.

WHAT'S MISSING

Way back last year, when they announced the Rise of Isengard
expansion, the devs said straight-up that there would be new
PvMP zones. Plural, "zones." That, unfortunately, has been
dropped for the September release, and will not be shipping with
the expansion when it goes live. That's not to say it will never
happen... just not yet. Some players are rather upset about
this.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/111980" alt="PvMP"
checked="true" /> This sort of cameraderie will remain
restricted to one zone.

One thing that has been missing from the PR is any mention of
new instances or skirmishes. A lot of fuss has been made about
the 24-man dragon raid, and that's sure to draw a few crowds,
and many of the existing classic instances and skirmishes will
be revamped and rescaled... but there will be no new
smaller-group content at launch. Sapience

Has Confirmed that a new instance cluster will ship with
Update 5, sometime after Rise of Isengard but before the end of
the year.

And so far, all the stuff detailed in the dev diaries and
official literature has been geared for endgame players, and
there is almost nothing for low- and mid-levels. Opening the
Ettenmoors to F2P players is all well and good, but that's an
aspect of the game that doesn't appeal to everyone... and it's
been the only thing being offered to players under level 65.
Those of us who have been playing the game for a long time and
have reached endgame will certainly appreciate all the juicy new
RoI content, but the guys grinding through the lower levels will
just have that much further to go before they can experience the
new stuff, with nothing new in between.

And this expansion seems to lack the "game-changer." Mines of
Moria introduced the Legendary Item - a bold new feature that
allowed players to customize their weapons as they developed
their play-style, making all other weapons obsolete. Why would a
level 60 Champion use some crafted 2-handed axe when he could
use a legendary Champion's Greataxe of the Third Age, which did
more damage, had legacies that improved the skills he used
often, and could be customized with different combinations of
relics and titles?

Moria also gave us two new character classes: the Warden and
the Rune-keeper. Having only seven classes became a sucker's
game - nine was the new seven. These two new classes were
immensely popular right out of the gate, and continue to be so
now, even as Premium-only classes. They were hybrids of certain
aspects of other classes (which are also hybrids of archetypical
classes from fantasy RPGs in general, crossed with Tolkien
lore). Wardens and Rune-keepers broke that "holy trinity"
tank-DPS-healer mold, or at least gave it a very stern frown, by
being able to fill multiple roles simultaneously.

Mirkwood introduced a game-changer with the Skirmish system,
providing players with a brilliant alternative to
landscape-grinding quests and static instanced spaces. These are
spaces that you can enter from anywhere, with any sized group,
at any level. The skirmish reward system supplanted the archaic
"go to Dungeon X for Gear Y" system to such an extent that the
existing instance system was remodeled to make it more like the
new, improved system. Skirmish marks devalued transferable (and
therefore exploitable) currency (gold) by giving us an
alternate, non-transferable currency to earn gear and other
rewards.

The move to Free-to-Play, while not an expansion, was a huge
coup for LotRO. Turbine's "freemium" model sets the industry
standard for how MMOs can generate profit outside of the monthly
subscription. F2P pulled in more new players than either of the
previous expansions, and kept them playing by allowing them to
experience the entire game for free. And it made money by
selling these free players small, manageable chunks of game at
the pace they wanted.

As of yet, Rise of Isengard has no big game-changers - no new
and innovative tech that changes how the game is played. No new
classes. Just more, bigger and better of what is already there,
and some new regions where that same stuff continues on.

WILL IT WORK?

Obviously, we won't know how successful Isengard is going to be
until it happens, and just because something hasn't been
mentioned yet doesn't mean it's not coming. Or that it needs to
come at all.

At this stage of the game, maybe the goal is more about keeping
the existing players happy by giving them more of what they want
with tech that works the way it's supposed to. It's not
necessarily a matter of attracting new players - though this
will likely occur naturally - but of keeping the existing
players from defecting to the other titles coming out. LotRO has
a large player base already - give those players more of the
time-tested stuff they like and they'll be more inclined to
stick around and keep playing (and paying), and recommending the
game to their friends. Isengard will not likely bring the
explosion of new players that the F2P shift did - that goes
without saying - but the game should realistically continue to
grow by continuing on with the tested material that makes the
game as good as it is.

And the "smaller" changes that are coming really add up -
removed stat caps, plus increased caps on consolidated combat
ratings, plus new gear without old restrictions, plus ten more
levels of tweaking and min-maxing and gear-spreadsheeting is
going to make for some really intense new builds. Some players
may not even recognize their current characters a few months
from now. Many players are already well over the current stat
cap of 650 on their primary stats, storing in their vaults items
that push the numbers beyond what is currently usable. Uncapped
Hunters with 1000+ Agility, uncapped Guardians with 1000+
Vitality - both made capable of doing ridiculous things by the
sheer weight of giant stat numbers.

Or maybe Rise of Isengard is a stage where a future drama will
be set - another game-changer yet to be announced, that requires
a functioning, stable foundation on which to build. More new
instanced content is coming - not right away, but before the
year is out. Legendary Armor? Mounted combat? Expanded PvMP?
Well, make sure those 1000-Vitality Guardians and 1000-Agility
Hunters are working the way they're supposed to first, over a
longer time frame. Then try to figure out ways to not break them
with new tech. Add the groundbreaking new tech when the existing
tech proves stable enough to handle it.

Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for cosmetic pets to
make the cut. I can wait for the rest.