The newest content-update for the
Lord of the Rings Online
's Rise of Isengard expansion -
titled Update
5: Armies of Isengard
- launched today, December 12. Featured
highlights of the update are the new 5-instance cluster in Isengard, the
continuation of the epic storyline, and the addition of the Instance
Finder. A new Instance
Cluster Dev Diary
discusses the behind-the-scenes work that went
into the new instance content, and the Release
Notes
detail the other many tweaks, minor and major, that have
gone into Update 5.

Also launched today was a 2-hour sneak preview of the long-awaited
Treasure Hunt event. This is a holiday-type event that occurs in Ered
Luin, at a special camp just northwest of Gondamon. Players are given
picks and detection tools, and run around a dig site looking for buried
treasure, which can be exchanged for a variety of cosmetic and other
rewards. The prices of the rewards are rather steep - some masks cost
200 tokens. With the 2 picks given to players from the repeatable quests
(which have a 15-minute cooldown), a player can find from 2 - 20 or so
tokens, so a lot of digging is required to earn the top rewards. It ran
from 6pm - 8pm EST, and will possibly return for the Yule festival in
January.. though this has not been confirmed officially.

LotRO Update 5 Launch - minstrel playing pibgorn

style="float: right;" />Also not announced in the release notes is the
addition of a new musical instrument, the pibgorn. The
pibgorn is a traditional Welsh reed instrument, shaped like a long pipe
with an upturned horn at the end. There are 2 types of pibgorn available
from bards everywhere - a level 20 minstrel-only version and a level 65
version playable by anyone trained in its use - and a variety of crafted
versions with outstanding stats which can be made by Westfold
woodworkers. When playing ABC music with pibgorns, the sound is akin to
two bagpipes fighting one another with truncheons and blades and losing
badly. Some players will enjoy this ear-bleeding sonic assault, but when
my Minstrel played his pibgorn for the first time in the middle of
Galtrev, he got slapped repeatedly by a number of players.

To showcase the new instance content, Turbine released a batch of new
screenshots, showing the Tower of Orthanc raid, where players pit
themselves against Saruman of Many Colours, who now fancies himself a
ring-maker.

LotRO Update 5 Launch - Tower of Orthanc

LotRO Update 5 Launch - Tower of Orthanc

LotRO Update 5 Launch - Tower of Orthanc

LotRO Update 5 Launch - Tower of Orthanc

LotRO Update 5 Launch - Tower of Orthanc

LotRO Update 5 Launch - Tower of Orthanc


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Lord of the Rings Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 14, 2016

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