by Nicole163 on Jan 12, 2011
2011 has been a great year for
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro">the Lord
of the Rings Online so far. As revealed in our
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/podcasts/live/30">Episode
30 Podcast with Kate Paiz and Adam Mersky, LotRO has tripled
its revenue since going free-to-play, with many casual players spending
small amounts of real cash to enhance their gaming experience, and many
more actually subscribing once they got a taste.
And the rewards for excellence are not just feduciary - PCGamer has
named LotRO its
href="http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/11/pc-gamer-uss-games-of-the-year-awards/4/">MMO of
the Year, citing the game's loads of updates, Turbine's
attention to detail and the "most friendly and enthusiastic" player
community as deciding factors.
Of course, the year has only just begun, and there is much more in
store. The Isengard expansion is just a few months away - and by "a
few" I mean probably "slightly less than a year, hopefully" - and in
the meantime, Turbine has promised several smaller chunks of content to
keep the game fresh and fun. And it looks like that new content could
be arriving very soon.
Mysterious relics have popped up all over Eriador, much to the chagrin
of its NPC residents. Hobbit farmer Bungo Grubbwas so incensed about
the mysterious relic that popped up in his pipe-weed field that he
wrote a
href="http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/feature-articles/988-a-strongly-worded-letter-from-bungo-grubb">Strongly
Worded Letter to the Mayor, which was promptly posted on the
LotRO site. There are 5 of these relics for players to find, and a
different story for each:
Finding all 5 relics grants the character the title "Calm Before the
Storm." At this point, no-one really knows what, exactly, these things
are, but it is safe to assume that they are foreshadowing for some kind
of new content that will be delivered before long. In our November
interview with Aaron Campbell and Adam Mersky, the lads mentioned that
there would be "multiple" new raids coming in 2011 before the release
of Rise of Isengard (you probably remember from
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/features/coming-in-2011">This
Article). Could these relics be the key to unlocking these
new raids and instances? My money is on "yes," but we'll find out for
sure soon enough.