Turbine's Brian “Zombie Columbus” is continuing his developer diaries for The Lord of the Rings Online's upcoming digital expansion, Siege of Mirkwood. In the latest diary, Brian talks about the randomization of the Skirmish system to help keep them interesting and how the elements change each time a player enters a new skirmish. Skirmishes even scale to the size of the group to allow for varying difficulties based on group size.

An Encounter is a purely optional objective, a side quest you can participate in if you find it. Each time you begin a Skirmish, we secretly select two Encounters from a list designed for the Skirmish. These Encounters will appear during your playthrough if you do what is necessary to trigger it. I'm being intentionally vague here because finding out what all the Encounters in a Skirmish are, and how to complete them, is part of the fun! Basically, keep your eyes and ears open, and you will find that a clearing that was empty during your last playthrough has an NPC that needs help, or a campsite that was abandoned previously has a brigand leader ready to fight. We've set up Deeds to track how many of these Encounters you've discovered in each Skirmish. Finding them all will grant special rewards, and each time you complete the Encounter you will have a chance of finding various Skirmish-specific rewards. More on rewards in future installments!

• Read the full diary here.
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