Welcome Back Weekend – January 21st through January 25th 2010

Thats right folks, Turbine is hosting another Welcome Back Weekend for The Lord of the Rings Online! Past players can log into their re-activated accounts and experience all of the new changes that came with Siege of Mirkwood as well as a 10% XP Buff and 100% Stable Master discount!

That’s right – we did it again! Come celebrate with us for free* during our Welcome Back Weekend from January 21st through January 25th and see why critics are naming The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ the Best Expansion of 2009.

Discover for yourself all of the exciting new updates to LOTRO including the new Skirmish System – action in Middle-earth has never been so intense! The Skirmish System offers endless action on demand for 1, 3, 6, or 12 players. With the Skirmish Join feature, you and your friends can instantly travel to the fight from anywhere in Middle-earth**. Plus, you can lead your own customizable soldier into battle for more thrilling adventure than ever before!

Get the full details here

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: Events,Lord of the Rings Online,LotRO,mmo,turbine,welcome back weekend,Siege of Mirkwood

Merry Christmas Middle Earth (2009)

Just want to wish all my readers and all of the Lord of the Rings online players, and all of the folks over at Turbine a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe Holiday Season.

May your dreams come true.

~Branadoc.

Walkthrough: Installing UI Skins to LotRO

The great folks over at Casual Stroll to Mordor have put up a tutorial video on YouTube on UI Skinning in Lord of the Rings Online (Note: some things have changed with the release of Siege of Mirkwood, its explained in the video). The video details where to get custom skins, how to install them, and various other need to know tidbits involved with the process.

They put some good thought and work into the video and I gotta give them alot of credit, so heres the video below:

You can click here to view the video on YouTube.

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: Lord of the Rings Online,LotRO,casual stroll to mordor,UI Skinning,UI,siege of mirkwood,turbine,mmo

Win a copy of Siege of Mirkwood!

Still haven’t upgraded to Siege of Mirkwood? Maybe you couldn’t justify the money yet, or maybe you just haven’t really thought about it. No excuse now folks!

The folks over at LOTROCast (A Lord of the Rings Online podcast) are having a screen capture contest between December 17th and December 21st – 2 winners will be selected to win a product key for Siege of Mirkwood! Winners will also join the crew at LOTROCast in an upcoming podcast episode.

Head on over to the contest page post to learn how you can enter.

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: Lord of the Rings Online,LotRO,contests,LOTROCast,win stuff,siege of mirkwood

Game Servers are Up 12/15/09

The Lord of the Rings Online game servers have recovered from their upgrade trauma and are currently available for entry.

12:25PM Eastern: LOTRO is now operating on the new hardware in the new datacenter and all servers are available! Enjoy the game!

So jump in and have fun folks!

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: Lord of the Rings Online,Updates,News,turbine,mmo,hardware upgrade complete

Welcome Back Weekend; Yule Festival

Two more tidbits of news for you readers to peruse while the servers are down for their hardware upgrade! First off, The Lord of the Rings Online is having another Welcome Back Weekend – to top everything off the Yule Festival will be starting soon as well!

Game Downtime for 12/15/2009 – Upgrade Time!

Lord of the Rings Online servers will be down on December 15, 2009 from 4am Eastern Time to 4pm Eastern Time (All time zones: Start Time, End Time). “That’s a ridiculous downtime” I can hear some people saying (Ok, I can’t really hear anyone saying that… but you get my drift right?) – well, this downtime isn’t just for a patch or hot fix… Turbine is upgrading the hardware that the game runs on!

(NOTE: Times provided are for reference purposes only – actual times may change with little to no notice. The start and end time links above take you to TimeandDate.com and show a list of all time zone times according to that day/date/location combination)

Game Servers up from 12/10 Update

The Lord of the Rings Online game servers are now up! You can start up your client and get the patch now and log right in.

The Lorebook is still down, but I expect that will be up shortly too.

Happy Hunting!

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: LotRO,Lord of the Rings Online,gaming,mmo,turbine,siege of mirkwood

Downtime Extended – December 10 2009

Update – 12:05 Eastern Time

Downtime has been pushed back to 1PM Eastern Time. Thanks again to Doc Holiday for the Twitter bleep.

The downtime for the latest patch for Siege of Mirkwood has been extended until 12PM Eastern Time, Thanks go out to Doc Holiday for his twitter notification – I wasn’t paying attention myself!

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: LotRO,Lord of the Rings Online,gaming,mmo,turbine,siege of mirkwood

Game Downtime and Update: SoM Update 2 December 10 2009

Update – 11:18 AM Eastern, 12/10/2009

Downtime has been extended as posted here.

Update – 12:05 Eastern Time

Downtime has been pushed back to 1PM Eastern Time. Thanks again to Doc Holiday for the Twitter bleep.

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Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood. The game servers will be down on December 10th, 2009 from 7AM to 11AM Eastern Time (Note: Times provided are for reference purposes only and may change without notice.) to apply the latest game updates.

Lots of stuff getting fixed, not everything people want – but its just another sign of Turbine’s Greatness. Patch notes further in the post.