The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood (SoM) is less than a month away from launch and this week LotRO developer Brian “Zombie Columbus” released a new developer's diary to explain rewards in the SoM. Rewards are earned through Skirmish Marks that can then be bartered off at vendors. Brian also explains some of the planned content for the expansion and reminds us all of one very important thing. No matter how fun or dull the content may be, it all comes down to just one thing. It's all about the lewt baby.

People play new content for the rewards. Sure, if the content is fun it is more likely to get replayed, but even if we made the hardest, most boring boss fight in the game drop the best loot, a lot of people would still play it. With that in mind, we've tried to design the Skirmish rewards system in as free-form a way as possible, allowing players to play the content they want and receive mostly equivalent rewards.

• Read the full diary here.
• Discuss this and more on our forums.