Lord of the Rings Online : Siege of Mirkwood Review

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MMORPG.com contributor William Murphy writes this review of Siege of Mirkwood, the most recent expansion for Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online.

While last year's Mines of Moria expansion to Lord of the Rings Online brought with it two new classes, a major ad campaign, and a big retail push, the fanfare behind 2009's big Middle-earth update is decidedly more tame and humble. Available only through digital purchase and at half the price of Moria when it launched, Siege of Mirkwood has many players thinking this expansion is more akin to a large micro-transaction than a full on content update. But as I've seen over the past few weeks, nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the biggest features added to LotRO with this expansion, and probably one of the features in any AAA game that will be talked about and lauded for a while is what Turbine is calling Skirmishes. Fully scalable, repeatable, randomized and story-driven content nuggets of goodness, Skirmishes do for Lord of the Rings Online what Instances did for the dungeon years ago. It's an evolution of sorts for the dungeon crawl, and quite frankly I only see an upside to their arrival.

Perhaps I'm glowing a bit too much, but as a time-limited player who loves a good dungeon crawl but hates waiting for a full group to form, the scalable nature and randomization of these encounters makes me hope Turbine only has more in store for the system, like say tying all future books to it so that they can be completed by any party size? The Skirmishes are intended to be a sort of "side-feature" to the main content in LotRO, but perhaps because of their newness I find myself doing more and more of them each time I log in. Addictive is the appropriate way to describe them.

The skirmish system also comes with its own mini-feature: The Soldier. Each player has access to their own soldier for use within Skirmishes only. They're intended to bolster the parties within the skirmishes to fill in any roles that might be missing or needed. Add in the fact that each player can customize their soldier's abilities and even looks and you have what is effectively Middle-earth Pokémon. Some will laud it while others will loathe the feature, but since they're only for use within Skirmishes and not required, there's little to moan about.

I will say that sometimes the Soldiers feel unresponsive, or rather not very adept at doing what you want them to. Being a Warden, I set my Soldier to the healer role and while his heals are very good at keeping me up and fighting, sometimes he just didn't seem eager to help out and preferred to run around doing nothing instead.

While Skirmishes are the new hotness in the game, there has been plenty added and upgraded in LotRO with the latest update as well. The story's going ever on, and we now find the focus of the game on (of course) Mirkwood. Other than being Legolas' home, the dark and now overrun by evil, forest is home to the Necromancer's Tower: Dol Goldur.

The Free Peoples of Middle-earth are doing everything they can to aid what's left of the Fellowship by drawing the eye of the Nazgul that calls Dol Guldur home while Frodo and company make their way ever south. Hence the focus of the expansion has players knocking on Dol Guldur's door and asking the Nazgul to come out and play. Within the Necromancer's Tower are three small-fellowship instances (including my current favorite: The Swordhalls), one fellowship instance, and one 12-person raid. Again this serves to illustrate Turbine's current focus on smaller raid content.

Right now it seems the 24-person battles might be a thing of the past. The only downside to these new instances is that obtaining certain gear before attempting the 12-person raid is still necessary. Gating content is never good in this reviewer's opinion, but general consensus is that it's far less of an arduous process this time around.

Other important updates to the game's systems are a little less obvious than brand new features or dungeons to crawl through. The expansion brings with it the Mount System 2.0, which makes each mount now a skill the player learns, freeing up valuable bag space.

On top of that, emotes can now be performed from atop the mounts, NPCs can be interacted with, and while the health system determining when you are knocked off is still in place it's now far easier to understand. In my experience, I found the new way of riding your pony to be a vast improvement. Finally being able to talk to NPCs and accept or complete missions while riding my mount is a big relief given how long it takes to re-summon the mount.

Another game system that received a much needed update was combat. Previously LotRO's auto-attack and skills worked in a way that meant players were often waiting for their skill to trigger even though they'd pressed the corresponding hotkey seconds prior.

With Mirkwood, the auto-attack now runs in the background of most skills so that players will find their skill usage much more responsive. For veterans this might make the gameplay a little tricky after a couple years of getting used to the old way, but as a Warden myself, I'm thrilled with the ability to rattle off gambits much more quickly. All weapon speeds were normalized as well, making it so that players need not sacrifice their weapon of stylistic choice for the sake of high end critical damage. While it may seem like a needless change to some, I'm just glad it means I might see more Burglars wielding daggers instead of maces. The real boon to this change is that combat now feels far more responsive. World of Warcraft set a precedent with its extremely responsive UI, and after two and half years LotRO now matches that aspect.

But not everything is fun and games in the newest addition to Middle-earth. The $20 price tag is not there just because the title can only be digitally downloaded, in this reviewer's humble opinion. In terms of size and scope Mirkwood is much lighter than Mines of Moria was a year ago. There is a lot less "new" to be found here, and were it not for the Skirmish system I would hesitate to call it a true expansion. But still, for $20 it's not hard to see the value. Some of the quests in Mirkwood go far beyond what the game once launched with in terms of fun and ingenuity. And while many players no doubt hit level 65 within days, for the average player the task will take weeks. In addition there are really not a whole slew of new skills to look forward to for your class of choice. So while a character will gain five levels in Mirkwood, and they will become invariably more powerful, you won't really notice a difference in terms of what rests on your hotbars.

Overall, I find myself heartily impressed by what's offered in Siege of Mirkwood. I honestly can't clamor loudly enough in favor of Skirmishes, the new zones are fantastically rendered and brought to life, the dungeons that I've experienced thus far have been some of the very best Turbine's offered, and the base system upgrades are highly welcome. It may be a little light on content, but for $20 you'd be hard pressed to find a better value in the crowded MMO arena. And what's even more heartening is that the game is really starting to ramp up to the darker and more heroic days of Lord of the Rings. The Shire's always nice to visit, but Siege of Mirkwood brings with it a true sense of impending war. I can't wait to see where Turbine takes us next.