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

Turbine has officially announced the launch date for the Lord of the Rings Online's Update 5: The Prince of Rohan. It will be going live on Monday, December 12.

Update 5 will be bringing a number of new things to the table: the Isengard instance cluster (discussed in our Play Session with the Devs), the Instance Finder (discussed in our Instance Finder article), consolidated currencies (discussed in our Currency Consolidation article), a short-but-crucial continuation of the epic storyline and a number of tweaks and such for existing classes and content.

The Instance Finder in particular has been a hotly-debated subject, and Leo "Ransroth" Zelevinsky has addressed a number of questions in his Q&A-style Instance Finder Developer Diary. We can likely expect more dev diaries over the coming days.

Turbine has also released 5 new official screenshots of the new 6-man instance, the Foundry. According to the press release:

Powerful and mysterious weapons have been appearing in the hands of soldiers under Saruman’s command. Infiltrate the Foundry, the sprawling subterranean heart of Saruman’s war effort, and disrupt the supply of the dangerous weapons to deal a fateful blow to Isengard!

The screenshots all seem to focus on a Burglar soloing the 6-man instance, but do a nice job of showcasing the trolls, orcs and atmosphere of the space as well.