“It’s probably not right to say the subscription MMO is dying, it’s probably more right to say the idea of forcing a player to only have one option for having to consume your content – that’s probably dying,” digital communications chief Adam Mersky told Eurogamer.

“I would say the mistake that’s going on out there is that people are thinking that free-to-play is something you do a few years after you do the subscription. If we were going to release another MMO, we would not come out and – from my perception – launch it as a subscription game. The right choice would be to make it a player-choice of subscription or free-to-play,” he said.

Mersky said the free to play revolution has broader implications and manifestations that online gaming.

“People now in the west expect to have full control over their entertainment dollar and spend it the way they want to,” he explained.

“While we certainly pioneered [F2P changeover] in the online game space, and the industry is adopting it – this is pretty prevalent throughout the entertainment industry. You can choose to subscribe to your satellite or cable television service, or you can buy an IP box like a Roku or an Apple TV, and get your TV shows by paying per show versus paying a monthly fee for all the TV you can watch. This is going on across entertainment.”

Turbine’s major MMOs, Lord of The Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, both saw significant revenue spikes after converting to free to play; Mersky said DDO is now “doing better than at any time” and that 2012 will be its “biggest year ever”.

The landscape will be the largest zone Turbine has ever released, covers the eastern side of Rohan, and it will be twice the size of Moria. Players will also get to visit places like Amon Hen and the Eaves of Fangorn and the level cap will be raised to 85.

With all that in place, let’s get to the mounted combat bits. Players will finally, after being teased and rumored to death over it, be able fight from horseback in LOTRO and of course you’re getting a new horse to battle with.

The war horse will be stronger than current mounts, comes with in-battle abilities like Trample, and while you can fight from its back, note that your enemies will be able to as well. Players will encounter mounted Warbands, and future content will include Helm’s Deep – where there will be plenty of warg riders if the lore comes into play.

All of this is coming in the fall, but there are goodies heading your way in the spring as well.

According to executive producer Kate Paiz, the Great River region which is an area just south of Lothlorien will be coming in the spring, and it will also provide the first taste of the Rohirrim content. But a new area to the map is just the start, according to her interview with GameFront.

Players who need another sword handy will be able to call upon their Skirmish solider anywhere in the game instead of being limited to only skirmishes. The only place you will not be able to call your solider is in instances.

Monthly or “near-monthly” patches are to go into effect to provide more bug fixes, new cosmetics, and new rewards.

This spring will mark the fifth Anniversary of LOTRO and Turbine’s planning to hold a large celebration. While no details were dropped, they said players “won’t want to miss it.”

A new festival will be added later on this year as well, but Turbine is staying mum on what it entails for the moment.

A release date was not provided for the spring or fall updates, but they’re coming.

The expansion, Menace of the Underdark, will take players into the subterranean world of the Underdark, where they will com face-to-face with the Drow and their scheming Queen and goddess, Lolth, in the stronghold of Shindylryn.

Included in the expansion is the oft requested Druid class and an increased level cap of 25, all in time for the game’s sixth anniversary.

“2011 was a year of growth for Dungeons & Dragons Online as we celebrated our fifth anniversary and completed a successful launch of the game in Europe,” said Fernando Paiz, the game’s executive producer. “2012 is going to be our biggest year yet with a wealth of new content throughout the year including the launch of our first expansion pack. We are very excited to expand into the Forgotten Realms setting.”

Menace of the Underdark is slated for a summer 2012 launch.

“We have a lot of different players in the game. Lower level players are telling us that they are having difficulty obtaining good gear,” communications director Adam Mersky told Gamefront.

“This is us coming up with solutions to problems players are reporting to us. We’re trying to create solutions for players.”

Mersky said that if the new premium equipment – which essentially enable players to pay for stat-boosting – cause problems in game, Turbine will drop it like a hot potato.

“We’re not adverse to pulling things off the store if they don’t work,” he said. “We’re committed to keeping things balanced.”

And while the new items may give beginner players an edge over their rivals, when it comes to end-game, they are on their own.

“Furthermore, we have no intention at this time of selling any raid gear in the store,” Mersky declared.

Lord of the Rings Online dropped subscription walls to go free-to-play in September 2010, and saw an increase in revenue as a result.

Thanks, Massively.

• Great news for LOTRO players out there: Update 5 will not only contain new raids for smaller groups and a storyline involving Prince Théodred of Rohan, but an instance finder. Huzzah!
• Amazon has some nice sales on collector’s editions for Deus Ex, Duke Nukem, Naruto Shippuden, and Singularity.
• More fashions are coming to PS Home after PSN comes up from having a bit of maintenance Thursday.
• Speaking of all things PlayStation, Sony Japan has added a social section to the Japanese version of its PS Portal.
• More Nickleback is coming to Rock Band 3 next week. We blame Harmonix’s newest employee, Nick Chester, for this.
• A new territory control system is being introduced in Mortal Online.
• EVE Online users will be getting a Genolution CA-1implant, which boosts perception by 3, gives a 50% implant set bonus and provides a 1.5% power grid and capacitor amount bonus when the Crucible expansion hits November 29.
• In other EVE news, CCP recently altered the Jita monument, the main focus of the summer riots, to reflect said user riots against the status quo.
• Birmingham City Council is looking for developers to build a game for mobiles and tablets to promote the Library Of Birmingham.
• King of Fighters XIII DLC will start hitting December 7, with a certain fan favorite.
• Former PSN-exclusive, Sideway New York, is now available on Steam.
• A demo for Panzer Corps will be released next week, and includes six missions from the Bootcamp Campaign, plus the invasion of Poland and the first few turns of the Norway scenario.

• Turbine has removed LOTRO server transfer restrictions. Now you can move about the game worlds at will.
• Here’s a Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends video featuring Pang De gameplay.
• The first bit of concept art from the Amazing Spider-Man game is a tease for the soon-to-be released trailer.
• A five pack for Stevie Wonder will hit Rock Band 3 November 15.
• Some shots from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning have been posted. They are a few days old, so that’s why they are posted here because you have probably already seen ‘em
• A New Conglomerate design video for PlanetSide 2 is posted below.

• There’s a Saints Row: The Third video posted below sent to CVG that is full of nakedness. It’s 80-shades of awesome.
• More net-gen Xbox rumors today. This time, refuting W9 and containing W8. Alright, we give up already, okay?
• Speaking of Xbox, the Live activity chart for Xbox 360 is up. Black Ops is still holding the crown, but for how much longer?
• League of Legends is getting ranked team play and changes to Summoner Spells.
• Red5 has said more beta invites for Firefall will be sent out as the game’s infrastructure allows it.
• Sodium2 has been given a massive update in PS Home.
• CCP has introduced the EVE Launcher, which should make it easier to join the game and make sure the gaming client is up-to-date.
• Speaking of CCP, another post regarding Rapid Deployment Vehicles, or RDVs, has been posted for Dust 514.
• Jagged Alliance Online and UFO Online are entering closed beta testing.
• Turbine has published the release notes for Update 12 to Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited.
• GAME Australia is holding trading fairs, which are causing a bit of offense with their deliberate similarities to speed dating: “GAME Swinging: Play ‘em then trade ‘em”.
• You knew Telltale was getting into game publishing, but this interview on Gamasutra should get you more acquainted with it.

• There’s apparently a Breaking Bad Easter Egg in RAGE.
• Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is set for release on October 24.
• When you buy the extended cut of Green Lantern on Blu-ray, you’ll get a PSN code for a Sinestro Corps skin outfit for Batman: Arkham City. It’s through Best Buy, and the movie is out October 10.
• A three-pack from Blink-182 and The Clash’s Rock the Casbah have been added to Rock Band 3.
• The SingStore has been updated with Dusty Springfield, The Church, Kelly Clarkson, The Damned, REO Speedwagon, and more.
• Sony has also updated the US Video Store with Fast Five, Scream 4, The Lion King, Bad Teacher, and many more.
• Blizzard is resetting the ladder in the Diablo II on October 25.
• Knight Online goes into closed beta in Europe on October 11.
• Turbine’s latest LOTRO developer diary discusses the Epic Questline in the Isengard expansion.
• The latest Sony PS3 remote control features TV and Netflix controls. Damn it. I just bought one two months ago.
• If you like Facebook games, check out the launch trailer for Heroes of Neverwinter. Makes me want to play it.
• GamePron’s Friday screen dump can be found through here.
• Cryptic’s latest dev dairy for Star Trek Online discusses dilithium as currency. Too… many… Scotty… jokes.
• The latest issue of Jump shows Final Fantasy XIII-2 artwork featuring Snow. Sorry, Square, but I seriously had a good laugh looking at it.
• A Warriors Orochi 2 trailer with a really nasty looking Hydra is through here.
• Speaking of videos, here’s one for Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7.
• Oh, Ono, you just love teasing us with character reveals for Street Fighter x Tekken, don’t you?
• Sales are abundant this weekend. Proof is through: here, here, here, here, here, and here. Some lists may be similar, even.

The header image is a shot I took of the James L. Crow painting I have hanging in my dining room. It depicts what I will be doing next week on vacation: attending the fall meet at Keeneland. You can look over his work here.

The latest developer diary for the game features senior world designer Chris Pierson and Todd DeMelle, director of production and concept art, taking you through Dunland and introducing folks to the clans which live in the region.

It also released a high-resolution map of the Dunland area, which shows the locations of Isengard and the Gap of Rohan.

Get all of this below.

• Looks like Deathwing may be meeting its maker in the next patch for WoW: Cataclysm.
• Dead Island has invaded PlayStation Home.
• The first Vita shots of Disgaea 3 Return have been released.
• DDO’s Secrets of the Artificers, or Update 11 for those familiar with the matter, has been given a release date and screens.
• Notch has challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 deathmatch for the Scrolls trademark. That’s a lot classier than a wrestling match.
• DIRECTV has teamed up with PS3 to offer users Sunday NFL Ticket.
• Some awesome shots for Rock of Ages have been released by Atlus.
• Three new journalist-created race shots for Skyrim have popped up on Game Informer.
• Turbine has released three new shots from Rise of Isengard. They show the dragon Draicogh, which you must best in a new raid coming with the expansion. Those are below.

• Cliff Bleszinski has confirmed the Silverback mech suit appears in one of Gears of War 3′s multiplayer maps.
• Soul Calibur V lead Daishi Odashima has settled on a final design for Patroklos’ costume. Check it out.
• Gameloft’s mobile MMORPG Order & Chaos is coming to Android “soon”.
• If you can beat Ne-Yo at Child of Eden, you’ll be contributing to charity. Really!
• Powerhead Games, the indie developer of Artisan Glow, has laid off twelve staff. You can grab the company’s latest game, ASYNC Corp, from the App Store. there’s a traielr through the link.
• Apparently, Pixar spent a lot of time peering over Avalanche’s shoulders during the development of the Cars 2 game, to make sure it’s good.
• Siliconera spoke to Vanillaware about Dragon’s Crown, the PS Vita game originally intended for Dreamcast.
• Dungeons & Dragons Online Update 10 is out now. I haven’t actually looked to see what that entails.
• Square Enix is hosting an art show to celebrate Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which features work from real street artists.
• Half-Minute Hero 2 is coming to Europe in October. Yesssss.
• Capcom’s throwing another 99 cent app sale.
• Here’s an extended Ocarina of Time commercial with Robin Williams and his daughter, Zelda. It’s pretty cute.
• The PC version of DiRT 3 has been patched.
• Alien Zombie Mega Death, a spin-off of Minis hit Alien Zombie Death, is coming to PSN.
• Someone’s made a Legend of Zelda adventure in Minecraft.
• An artist is going to be locked up with no connection to the outside world besides Lord of the Rings Online. This is art, not determination to hit the level cap.
• The ESRB has outed something called Worms Crazy Golf. Oh you crazy Team 17.
• If you want, you can buy Peter Molyneux’s E3 pass, for charity. It’s signed and all.
• EA Sports will livestream NCAA Football 12 today, and you can like, interact with the developers.
• Outspark and Miniclip are getting together and makin’ babies. The first baby will be an MMO.
• Here’s the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations E3 trailer recreated in Lego. So: slow weekend, guys?
• Speaking of minifigs, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is coming to TV as an animated series.
• Gaze in wonder upon some ancient Super Mario Bros. gameplay footage, which was wisely abandoned.
• Avadon’s out now on iPad. It’s a 40 hour RPG with a long pedigree.

God. I need a lie down. Today’s unrelated street art.

According to Turbine, LOTRO European servers will temporarily go down for service migration starting on June 1, and after a 2-3 day period, service will be restored and you’ll be able to log in and play once more.

In order to keep playing the game once the server migration is complete, you will have to migrate your Codemasters account over to the Turbine Global Service. Also, Turbine has said that for a limited time, European players can get a year-long VIP subscription £79.99, which will also net them 500 Turbine Points per month. You can get more details on that through the link above.

You will still be able to keep all of your characters, kinships, friends, pre-paid subscription time and Turbine Points; however, if you have any unused keys; products keys, expansion keys, game time codes, upgrade keys or bonus items keys for the European version of LOTRO you should have redeemed these before 9.00am GMT.

After that, the keys will become invalid and you will not be able to redeem them. Hopefully you also got any items out of your in-game mail and off the auction house.

If you have questions about changing your character over to another server, renaming your kinship or undeleteing characters and that sort of thing, as always, A Casual Stroll to Mordor has a nice comprehensive “how to” post available for you.

Hopefully all the moving will go smoothly, and European players will be back slaughtering orcs in no time.

Here’s a breakdown:

Small Fellowship instances

• Halls of Night: Level 40-65 – This story draws from the tales of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin and their experiences within the Barrow-downs. Nightmare, an ancient Barrow-wight, has trapped your spirit within his mysterious dreamscape. To wake you must battle against the evil that haunts this dream realm, or risk sleeping forever!

• Inn of the Forsaken: Level 20-65 – Tales have spread across Bree and the Lonelands of the noises that fill the Forsaken Inn when the moon is high. Travelers tell stories of a stolen ruby necklace hidden within a maze of twisted caves and protected by traps, riddles, guardians who never sleep, and a ship marooned deep underground.

Skirmishes

• Attack at Dawn: Level 30-65 – Esteldín has long been a hidden training ground for Rangers and Free People against Angmar. It is a site the enemy has been desperate to discover and stamp out. While many scouts have been stopped, a lone goblin has learned the location of Esteldín and reported it to his masters. You must venture into the hills of Dol Dinen, and confront the attacking force before it can threaten the sanctity of Esteldín.
• Icy Crevasse: Level 40-65 – With the aid of the Gauradan and Dourhands, Angmar is planning its next attack! By funneling icy winds through the great Forochel crevasse and down into Evendim, they plan to freeze the lake and march straight through Tinnudir to Annúminas. You must head to the frozen North and stop this sorcerer, before the chill winds freeze everything.

For the store, there will be two new Cosmetic Outfits slots available for a total of five slots; you will also be able to reset your Skirmish Marks with a nifty scroll which refunds all skirmish marks you have spent on skirmish traits; and a new Scroll of Combination increases your Critical Success chance to 25 percent while combining Legendary relics at the relic forge.

There’s also a new Combat Run Speed Boost, which allows you to sprint while in combat coming as well.

Turbine said the update will go live on May 23.

The big fall update, Rise of Isengard, will be shown to media during E3 next month, so hopefully we’ll hear something cool out of the event.

• A Mafia Wars-style game which allowed players to train fighting dogs and enter them into illegal fights has been pulled from the Android Marketplace. Good.
• Speaking of dog fighting, Peyton Hillis has beat out Michael Vick to be the next cover boy for Madden NFL 12.
• John Romero has revealed his second Facebook game called Cloudforest Expedition is due out in the summer.
• Update 9 for DDO Unlimited has gone live.
• The largest social media service in Japan, GREE, has purchased iOS and Android platform OpenFeint $104 million.
• Videos of Bayonetta with commentary from the game’s creator Hideki Kamiya are to be released on a weekly basis.
• The WH40K: Dawn of War 2 soundtrack is to be made available on May 24.
• More screenshots from Tokyo Jungle have been released.
• There’s some decent PC games sales on today, especially from GoG which has JoWood titles for cheap.
• Some screenshots for Plants vs Zombies DS can be found here.
• Minecraft’s Notch has opened the door to custom mods.
• Capcom’s Motohide Eshiro would like Clover Studios to turn God Hand into a series. So would we.
• Angry Birds has now sold 140 million units and is ready to take over China.
• 3000AD’s upcoming MMOFPS Line of Defense is around 2km x 3km in size – well, if you count the environments, it is 64km x 64km.

Turbine confirmed the move today, saying it was rolling the game’s American and European operations into “one mega-service” called LOTRO Global Service.

There’s a lengthy FAQ on the matter here. Downtime will be involved, and European players will be forced to migrate their existing Codemaster accounts over to Turbine.

Boxed products and Game Time Cards published by Codemasters will cease to work after the change, and any auctions you have going on may well be wiped, so if you’re a keen player you do need to pay attention.

Those who play DDO Unlimited may recall the same thing happening last August when the game went free to play and Turbine took over control of the game’s European servers.

LotRO went free-to-play in September last year, and saw revenue triple as a result.

The game was originally published in 2007, and has remained in constant service.

• There’s a trailer for the “post-apocalyptic action,” “run-n-gun shooting” style game Centipede: Infestation out now to watch.
• Minecraft update 1.5 is live.
• Looking to save some money on PC games or looking to score a beta key for Age of Empires Online? Then, look here.
• A video featuring the Green Hill Zone in Sonic Generations has been released.
• Lord of the Rings Online is four, and Turbine is celebrating with double XP and beer.
• Paradox has released a developer diary for tower defense game Defenders of Ardania.
• SingStar EU has added Andrew Lloyd Webber to the service along with more Leona Lewis. Sorry about that, really.
• Mega Man X is now available on Nintendo’s Virtual Console.
• Sonic Adventure and its sequel will get a 20th anniversary soundtrack.
• Kinect Sports DLC coming April 29 will challenge you to cut the calories.
• Notch (Mr. Minecraft) and Gary Newman (Gary’s Mod) are having a donation battle over the Humble Bundle.
• Imageepoch are apparently working on a ton of games. A ton meaning more than 10.
• The First Templar has another new video, this one focuses on gameplay featuring Celian.
• EA would like to make another MVP Baseball game, but there are no plans at the moment.
• Funcom’s Ragnar Tornquist has shed a bit of light on progression, power and purpose in The Secret World.
• A new trailer for Inversion is out and it defies gravity.

This new Book will continue the Epic Story with a major quest arc and raid along with new cosmetic upgrades, and other updates such as:

• A Legendary Weapon system overhaul.
• A “tightening up” of Evendim for players level 30-40.
• New instances: The Town of Stoneheight (North Downs); Northcotton Farm (Oatbarton); The Lost Temple (Trollshaws).

Check out the screens below.

This new Book will continue the Epic Story, with a major quest arc and raid, and new cosmetic upgrades, among other goodies.

The new screenshots below depict Character UI changes that will come with Book 3, as well as an image of Echoes of the Dead. And here you were wondering what those strange rune stones scattered all over Middle-Earth were for.

There’s also a new developer diary on the official site, chatting about the Legendary Item system revamp. If you play, you will want to have a read. You will also want to head over to the official forums and check out the test server notes regarding some of the upcoming game changes.

We’ll let you know when there is a solid release date for the new content.

As if going free-to-play wasn’t enough to get you trying it out, you can now earn 250 Turbine points just for signing up for the game.

On top of that, you can lock in the price of $9.99 a month become a VIP member which will also net you an extra 500 points a month towards some really cool stuff.

Signing up and downloading the game will allow you to play up to level 65 for free as well, which should get you nice and ready for the fall expansion. We’re headed to Isengard, ya know.

If you are in Europe, get more information here. Those in the US, you will want to click here.

Radiance – a good idea, poor implementation

According to Maki, the inclusion of it was made with all the best intentions, it’s just the execution of it went awry.

“Our intentions were good [with Radiance Gear],” said Maki. “We wanted to do something new for the game and not create a new grind mechanic that ultimately resulted in running the same content over and over to acquire a ‘key’. Somehow, this is exactly what we ended up making. None of us were pleased.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to shine the interrogation lamp on yourself and find out what exactly went wrong. Thankfully, our failures are simple to explain — poor communication was the main culprit. Our original proposal for Radiance could have been written better than it was.”

Maki goes on to day that there will those both for and against the removal of Radiance Gear, as with “any change there is going to be some measure of dissatisfaction and anger.”

“We know that the removal of Radiance, while likely to be cheered by the majority, is also likely to cause some measure of discontent,” he admitted. “However, this is a point where we need to admit that we made a mistake. And with that mistake in mind we shall forge ahead, mindful of the error that we made and fueled by a desire to never repeat it again.”

Undelete your character for a fee

In other news, Turbine has announced it has started a paid service for so players can undelete a character.

According to a post over on LotroLife, user will be able to “undelete” a character for $19.95 each. Upon being reinstated, you’ll be able to play once again on the server you were playing on upon deletion and can then request a World Character Transfer afterward if you like.

After being reinstated, your character will still have all of the inventory and equipped items at the time of deletion, it will also restore your character with all of its “experience, rank and quest progression intact.”

The best part? All of your vault items will be returned as well.

LOTRO’s next expansion is slated for the fall.

Lauren Salk, a content developer for Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online, has detailed a the design process she uses when creating festival events such as the Haunted Burrow and Winter-home, and how she and the rest of the team go about getting folks to participate in the content the team creates.

Speaking with A Casual Stroll to Mordor, Salk said it was important for players to be made aware of new content, and since not all players read patch notes or developmental blogs, Salk suggested sending players and in-game mail so they would be made aware of the new content and how they can participate in it.

“I think all LOTRO’s content designers are trying to get people to play the content they make,” she said. “Accessibility is one of our biggest goals. Making sure that players are given in-game tools to find new content easily. We use every incentive we can think of or get our hands on to encourage people to play new stuff.

“Before I came on, festivals weren’t announced in game, and they were difficult to get to. Now, we give players a mail to let them know everything has begun, we give them vector quests that send them directly to a Festival area so that there’s no confusion about where it is, and we always start people off with a free small sample of the rewards so that they can at least see what they’re missing if they decide not to partake. I’ve been trained to consider these things for every festival that has new content.

“To us, there’s nothing worse than putting a lot of effort and development time into something that 99 percent of players are never likely to see. We can’t force players to enjoy every type of content we introduce, but we always try to introduce them to it as clearly as we can.

“At the very least, people will be able to make an informed decision that something new might not be for them.”

Anyone who ran through the Haunted Burrow during the Fall Festival would agree that it was something that should not have been missed. Even if they didn’t get the rare Skeleton Horse drop.

You read the rest of the interview through the link, where Salk also chats about what it’s like to be the only female content creator at the studio.

Turbine has revealed that profits for Lord of the Rings Online have tripled since the game went free-to-play back in September.

Speaking in an interview with TenTonHammer, executive producer Kate Paiz and director of communications Adam Mersky revealed the good news via the site’s latest podcast.

During GDC Online, Turbine announced that both revenue and the player base grew considerably since going F2P, and that over one million new accounts were created, 20 percent of former players had returned, and the game saw a 300 percent increase in concurrent users with a 400 percent increase in active players.

While chatting with TTH, Paiz and Mersky also chatted a bit about Rise of Isengard coming in the later part of 2011, along with a cosmetic system revamp and non-combat pets.

Both chatted with us back in the fall about the possibility of a Rohan expansion in the future, as well as the Battle of Helm’s Deep and what it would take to get mounted combat to work in the game.

If you haven’t played or have been away for a while, now’s the time to come back we reckon.

Thanks, A Casual Stroll to Mordor.

All we have to say regarding that is: THANK YOU and hooray.

Turbine has been thinking about revamping Radiance gear and Legendary items for quite some time, and it looks like a lot of players (not all, obviously) prayers will be answered next year.

One the changes coming to Radiance gear – is the full on removal of the Radiance buff. Those who grinded the instances like the Grand Stairs over and over again just to get gear to do the Turtle or Watcher runs will no longer need the extra buff. You will still need tokens for dread more than likely, but you won’t die the moment you step into the instance anymore, thankfully.

That’s a smart move on Turbine’s part – in our opinion – because unless you went into an instance that dropped Radiance gear with a clear idea who was getting the drop instead of just rolling for it – you could run the exact raid a gazillion time and never get it. Granted, tokens would get you the gear, but that also constituted a lot of grinding.

Those who grinded for the gear and will be upset over the time they feel was wasted should not worry: You’re still l33t and we know it, so go on with your badassed-self and continue being a warrior Gandalf would feel proud to know. You rock, regardless.

According to the latest developer diary from producer Kate Paiz, Legendary items will get two upgrades next year.

“One in the Q1 release, and one later in the year,” she wrote. “The goal is to respond to a bunch of your feedback and to incorporate some more versatility, flexibility and less randomness into the system. We’ll certainly be releasing a dev diary on the Q1 changes as we get into next year.”

First Age Legendary items will also be available as rare drops through Instance Clusters across Eriador in Q1 along with a couple more in the Anniversary Update along with a new raid.

Of course we are also working hard on a whole bunch of other features, which you probably heard some of in the press around our Rise of Isengard Expansion pack announcement. I wanted to touch base briefly on each, and give you a sense for what we are thinking, and potentially when each might be released.

There’s also good news for Monster players. According to Kate, the goal with the PvP upgrade expected with the release of the Rise of Isengard Expansion, is “to provide all players with an avenue to participate in monster play”. This means F2P usuers will get access to the Ettenmoors, which will hopefully populate the region once again.

Other updates to the game include a Cosmetic System Upgrade, the possibility of Cosmetic Pets for non-Lore Masters, more Tasks in the Lone-Lands for reputation purposes, and allowing F2P folks to participate in the Epic Questline for Moria and Mirkwood and even level to the 65 cap.

It sounds like there’s a lot in store for both subscribers and the free-to-play folks.

Check out the developer diary in full over on the official LOTRO site.