Lord of the Rings Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

Turbine announced on Tuesday that the Rise of Isengard expansion was coming to a download centre near you on September 27, and to promote it, they are offering a chance to pre-order. They have 3 different pre-order packages with a suite of rewards for early birds.

The least expensive package is the Base Edition for $29.99 USD. You get a Red-clad Steed of the Gap (a Rohirrim-style mount with a red saddle blanket, with standard speed and +62% run speed), a Cloak of the Helmingas (a cosmetic cloak that matches the color of the horse), a pocket item (Derudh's Stone, which gives you +25% XP gain while worn and is usable up to level 65)  and a title - Guard of the Isen - for all characters on your account.

The Heroic Edition, for $39.99 USD, offers the pocket item and the title, but you can select one of 3 colors for your horse and cloak - red, white or green - and get a matching set of cosmetic armor to go with it. You also get 1000 Turbine Points. There are currently some complaints about the Heroic Edition not working correctly; people are picking one color set and getting another. 

The Legendary Edition, $49.99 USD, offers all the cosmetics, all 3 horses, 1000 Turbine Points, the enhanced-XP pocket item and throws in the Path of the Fellowship Quest Packs (Trollshaws, Eregion, Lothlorien, Moria and Mirkwood) as an added bonus. This is a darn good value for newer F2P players who haven't picked up those quest packs yet.

As a bona fide cosmetics junkie, I couldn't resist the Legendary Edition for my main account. I don't like having to choose between 3 possible outfits and missing out on 2, so I got 'em all:

Eorlingas Cosmetic Set

Helmingas Cosmetic Set

Westfold Cosmetic Set

A word of caution for other cosmetic junkies: this is three 6-piece outfits (cloak, hauberk, shoulders, gloves, boots, circlet), which comes to 18 inventory slots. The outfits initially come in 3 gift boxes, which only takes up 6 spaces. When you log your characters in for the first time after getting the Legendary Edition, 2 of the horses show up as clickable inventory items instead of being instantly added to your mounts list. Make sure you have at least one empty inventory bag for all this stuff, and ample room in your vaults.

One thing you should note before ordering any of the packages: the pre-order is done via Digital River, and the final step of the process is the receipt with the product key on it. This receipt, for some bizarre reason, is white text on a white background, which has bewildered many customers. You will have to highlight all the text in the window, or copy-paste it into a text editor, to see the product key. Or, if you're patient, you also get an order receipt email from Turbine, which also has the product key. Activate this key at myaccount.turbine.com, and you will receive the package items instantly the next time you log into the game.

Pre-order Rise of Isengard today from lotro.com/isengard.