Codemasters has announced Welcome Back Week starting 23rd December, 2009. You will not be charged for this time and your account will be automatically closed at the end of the Welcome Back Week.  The entire duration your account will be active is from 23rd December until 30th December 2009.

For full details on this Welcome Back Week and the activities taking place please visit:
community.lotro-europe.com/

Click here to download the latest client:
community.lotro-europe.com/full_client.php?

Turbine is pleased to present us some changes to Yule festival. Let's start with the first one: The Glorious Beer-fight. The beer is in perilously short supply at the Ale Hall, and this has made many festival patrons rather furious. Rare beer...Click here to read full

Turbine is pleased to present us some changes to Yule festival. Let's start with the first one:

The Glorious Beer-fight.

The beer is in perilously short supply at the Ale Hall, and this has made many festival patrons rather furious. Rare beer is not something to be taken lightly, after all. Yule may be a time for peace and good cheer, but there are some things worth fighting for -the Glorious Beer.

The New Horse Races

The horse-races have been re-vamped to accommodate the new mount system, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that these will be around for a long time. Our solution has been to reintroduce them as a solo experience. This is a far more reliable system that has proven its worth in the level 35 quest to obtain the riding trait.

The tricky racetracks have been jazzed up by the World Team with a number of more elegant obstructions, hurdles, and barriers to better channel the flow of the race. Players who successfully navigate the course will enjoy speed boosts to help them along the way, while an unfortunate misstep will trip up your horse or pony with some sticky mud. But even accident-prone players will have a shot at the finish line, if luck is on their side. With a combination of luck, skill, and inevitable practice, we hope to see many people enjoying the special Yule steeds as a reward for their hard work.

You ride between the poles and if you miss the poles, you lose. You should ride over the planks and jump. It is tricky, but it can be done. If you miss your jump, you fall into the water. You don't get lame, but you do get sticky tar on you, which slows you down, perhaps enough to not finish the course before the timer runs out. - [GalateaOrea]

Yule quest-givers

You’ll find that Yule quest-givers have moved to where you’re sure to spot them, and that the items they’ll have you collect will not require you to trek so great a distance as you expect. Instead of in the town of Bree, the Yule quests are right at the party grounds on the Horsefields. The quest-givers of Thorin’s Hall have also retired to the more festive inn, for they wish to see if the beer-fight draws as much of a crowd as many dwarf-patrons have anticipated.

[Source: Developer Diary: Yule Festival of 2009]

Turbine has announced today new Welcome Back Weekend, from December 17th through December 21st. During this period you can play your old characters for free* and get +10% Bonus XP on Mob kills and experience Siege of Mirkwood! Plus, if you come back...Click here to read full

Turbine has announced today new Welcome Back Weekend, from December 17th through December 21st. During this period you can play your old characters for free* and get +10% Bonus XP on Mob kills and experience Siege of Mirkwood! Plus, if you come back now you can renew your subscription to LOTRO for only $9.99 per month with any 3-, 6-, or 12-month plan**!

Special Note: You do not need to reactivate your account to participate in the Welcome Back Weekend. Your account will automatically be enabled for the event. If your account does not seem to have been reactivated, please try again in a hour or two. It may take time for our servers to update your status.

You can find more information here

On Tuesday, December 15, the LOTRO servers will be brought down from 4:00AM – 4:00PM Eastern (-5 GMT) for a significant hardware upgrade and data center move that will improve the performance and capacity of the game worlds. The Bullroarer test...Click here to read full

On Tuesday, December 15, the LOTRO servers will be brought down from 4:00AM – 4:00PM Eastern (-5 GMT) for a significant hardware upgrade and data center move that will improve the performance and capacity of the game worlds. The Bullroarer test server will remain available during this time.

Turbine will also be running a special "Moving Day Lottery" on my.lotro.com during the move. Be sure to sign up for your chance to win some great in game loot!

Tuesday December 15th will be a big day for The Lord of the Rings Online, as we complete our most substantial hardware upgrade since the game launched in North America in April 2007. This new server hardware gives us additional speed and capacity to support the growing world of Middle-earth, from the battles of Mirkwood to new Skirmishes across Eriador. It also provides the room to support the growing population of Middle-earth – there has been a huge response to the launch of Siege of Mirkwood, and we are delighted to see both returning players and new explorers to the world. Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to opening the doors again once this transition is complete.

Rowan

As Sapience has announced LOTRO will soon receive a significant hardware upgrade that will improve the performance and capacity of the game worlds. Bullroarer is the first server with the new hardware upgrade and if you would like to test it, the...Click here to read full

As Sapience has announced LOTRO will soon receive a significant hardware upgrade that will improve the performance and capacity of the game worlds. Bullroarer is the first server with the new hardware upgrade and if you would like to test it, the doors are open to everyone with an active subscription.

Plus, all content added with Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood is available to all players on the Bullroarer server, even if you’ve never upgraded! All you need is an active subscription to any version of LOTRO!

• $250 Best Buy Gift Card – 1 Winner
• $150 Best Buy Gift Card – 1 Winner
• $100 Best Buy Gift Card – 5 Winners

Please note: The Eyes & Guard Tavern will not be available for this event.

You will need to download and install the Bullroarer Client to participate in this event. You can download the installer here.

*Characters copied to Bullroarer will be wiped at the end of the event. Players may not transfer progress on Bullroarer back to their live characters.

More information about TERMS & CONDITIONS

Today, Turbine has released Siege of Mirkwood Game Update notes : Gameplay Dying in Gath Ulunn will now properly teleport you to a Defeat Circle in Gathburz instead of Durin's Threshold. When trying to reform a fellowship within the...Click here to read full

Today, Turbine has released Siege of Mirkwood Game Update notes :

Gameplay

• Dying in Gath Ulunn will now properly teleport you to a Defeat Circle in Gathburz instead of Durin's Threshold.
• When trying to reform a fellowship within the Mirkwood Landing instance players would occasionally receive the error message, “You cannot invite another player inside a different public instance.” This should no longer happen.

Skirmishes

• Skirmish: Trouble in Tuckborough is now available!
• Players who have not upgraded their accounts to Siege of Mirkwood may now enjoy 3 skirmishes per day instead of per week.
• Skirmish Soldier Cosmetic traits should now display as intended.
• The default appearances of Soldiers without cosmetic traits have been tweaked slightly. They will now be envious of their finely attired, cosmetically enhanced peers.

Items

• The following cloaks were incorrectly assigned Radiance values. They have been corrected and the Radiance removed.
  • Cloak of the Stronghold
  • Sûl-Linnod
• Many Lore-masters were surprised to see their Dúnedain Staff had been changed into a Rune-stone. It has been changed back into a staff item and will no longer be called a “Dúnedain Rune-stone.”

Loot

• Removed the Sprig of Woolly Mint from the Dol Guldur 6-man & 12-man hard-mode chests.
• Reduced the number of medallions when beating Challenge Mode Sword-hall from 5 to 4
• Increased the number of medallions when beating Medium Mode Dungeons of Dol Guldur from 3 to 6.
• Increased the number of medallions when beating Challenge Mode Dungeons of Dol Guldur from 4 to 8.

Raids & Instances

The Sword Halls of Dol Guldur

• It is no longer possible for players to revive and re-enter the fight once players have triggered the encounter. The gates preventing this behavior will lower in between each boss death and the beginning of successive waves of “trash mobs.” Getting caught between these gates while they are up will cause the instance to reset.
• Chests for “normal” mode boss deaths will now only spawn the first time a boss dies on “normal” mode. Any other kills of the boss in question will no longer spawn a reward chest.

Barad Guldur

• The camera angles for the Lieutenant of Dol Guldur encounter have been adjusted to allow players a better view of the “playing field.” Viewing at greater camera distances without abrupt camera cuts to closer views should now be more possible.

Quests

• Some quests bestowed at the Lone-lands hub at Agamaur would not appear for players who partook in the solo version of the Passage to Agamaur quest. This has been rectified and all 9 quests can be obtained once again.
  

[Source]

After some known problems, there are also frequently asked questions about new Skirmish system. If you're like me (not reading tutorials) these answers will help you make your first step in Skirmish system. Find out moreClick here to read full

After some known problems, there are also frequently asked questions about new Skirmish system. If you're like me (not reading tutorials) these answers will help you make your first step in Skirmish system.

Find out more

After discussing this with the Systems Team the issues seems to be caused by a number of factors. No direct change to the repair costs were made. However, due to how repair costs are incurred the combination of stronger mobs, combat changes, new...Click here to read full

After discussing this with the Systems Team the issues seems to be caused by a number of factors. No direct change to the repair costs were made. However, due to how repair costs are incurred the combination of stronger mobs, combat changes, new stats and the increased speed of combat, have come together to result in increased item wear which in turn results in increased repair costs.

The team is currently looking into how best to address this. There is no 'easy' way as the issue is caused by a number of variables and there is no 'switch' to throw.

As with all new systems and major systemic changes we'll continue to look at the data and make adjustments accordingly.

[Sapience]

Skirmish Leaderboards and stat trackers are live on my.lotro.com! You can search the Leaderboards by Skirmish location, group size, kinship, level range, and class or any combination of those options. Sort your results by fastest times, Skirmish...Click here to read full

Skirmish Leaderboards and stat trackers are live on my.lotro.com! You can search the Leaderboards by Skirmish location, group size, kinship, level range, and class or any combination of those options. Sort your results by fastest times, Skirmish Marks (SM) per hour, or total SM earned. You can also pull up your character’s my.lotro.com page and see in-depth analysis of your Skirmish performance in the new Skirmish Tabs. Make your character’s information public and let the world see your best times, most SM earned and other stats!

During the last few days I have been gathering information about known bugs, differences between Beta and released version of Siege of Mirkwood and idea for future updates. If you come across another interesting ideas or disturbing ones please let us...Click here to read full

During the last few days I have been gathering information about known bugs, differences between Beta and released version of Siege of Mirkwood and idea for future updates. If you come across another interesting ideas or disturbing ones please let us know.

1. Skirmish Mark Clutter
   Most of those drops are either trash (to sell), or trade-able at the curiosity vendor for additional skirmish marks.
   We knew this would be a concern and are looking into it. [Raskolnikov]
2. What do burgs do about their most basic attack skill - stealth mode
   Stealth is a delicate system that if handled poorly can result in a lot of really bad problems and issues. Having soldiers respond to you being stealthed was something we investigated for launch, but turned out to be a very complex and complicated issue to tackle (as simple as you may think the design might or should be, that has little bearing on the difficulty of the implementation) for launch given everything else necessary to get the system up and running. We would rather have consistent behavior than oddly different sometimes breaking unpolished behavior.
   
   Now that the system is live, re-investigating stealth and coming up with a suitable solution that does not invalidate stealth as a tactic and skillset, yet does not cause things to break and wonkiness to ensue, is one of the top items on our to-do list. [jwbarry]
   
3.  Skirmish Raid size?
   The quest dialog says in red text that the skirmish can be completed at Solo, Small Fellowship, Fellowship, or Raid sizes. But when creating the skirmish from the Skirmish Join panel, raid is not an option in the drop-down list.
   The skirmishes for mirkwood and Dol Guldur will have their raids enabled in a future update. There was not enough time to fully balance and bugfix a dozen skirmish raids. These ones had lingering issues and we decided to hold them back and get them right before releasing them. One of the really cool things about skirmishes is we have the tech to do be able to still have the skirmishes available, but limit the group size options to what's functional and polished. The final skirmish involved with the epic, Battle in the Tower does have it's raid mode available. [jwbarry]
4. Outfits not working
   There is a known bug with some of the cosmetic traits. We are looking into fixing it as soon as possible. [Zombie_Columbus]
5. Bree town skirmish bug
   No, it's not a bug. This is working as intended. This boss fight will reset if any of the enemy party get too close to the exit gate or if you wipe and they leave combat. [jwbarry]