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Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood, The

EMAIL PRINT pc

7.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 7 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 14 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Turbine

Developer: Turbine

Genre(s): Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Players: Thousands

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: December 1, 2009

Summary

The Epic Conclusion to Volume II: Mines of Moria - Under the command of Celeborn and Galadriel, players fight through vast armies of Orcs alongside the Elves of Lórien in a battle that will take them to Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths. This update includes Book 9 and the Epilogue to the sweeping epic tale begun with the award-winning Mines of Moria expansion. Increased Level Cap - Players are able advance their characters up to level 65, gaining access to new traits, virtues, skills and class quests. Answer the Call of War! - Jump into the heat of battle with the new Skirmishes feature. Skirmishes offer endless action in repeatable, randomized instances where players can create and lead customizable soldiers into battle, training them to greater skill as they earn victories against the forces of shadow. Answer the call of war wherever violence erupts with the new "World Join" function that lets players and their fellowships band together to fight in various locations throughout Middle-earth. Take up Arms! Infiltrate the dark jails, deadly arenas and savage stables of Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths, and strike a blow against Sauron’s forces in new 3 and 6-player instances. Call upon your fellows to adventure into the most deadly 12-player raid yet and face the ultimate challenge - the Nazgûl Lord! Major Gameplay Enhancements - Turbine continues to improve the award-winning experience of LOTRO with major improvements to the combat and Legendary Items systems. Players will experience improved responsiveness when in the heat of battle. Players will also be able to create and craft their own customized Second and Third Age Legendary Items from raw materials and grow their weapons’ power to level 60. Achieve new Legacies, new titles, and a fourth Runic slot that will make Legendary Items even more unique and powerful. [Turbine]

Also On Metacritic

GAMES: Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

GamingTrend

Turbine has given Mirkwood the same amount of love and great gameplay that Moria and Shadows of Angmar have and they have thrown in a great new gameplay mechanic with the skirmish system. On top of all of that, a lot of the little things were polished.

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IGN

Turbine has managed to create an immersive introduction to this expansion with excellent use of graphics, music and quests.

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GameStar

Turbine adds Mirkwood to the game and with it came a lot of things to do for veterans. There are thrilling situations, cool instances and motivation until the end, so boring collect and destroy quests can be forgiven.

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Gamervision

It might not be the biggest MMORPG launch of the year, what with no new races or classes, but there's no denying the quality in The Siege of Mirkwood. It's a great addition to an already solid online experience, delivering more content for the loyal fan base and giving prospective players a great excuse to jump into Middle Earth for the first time.

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Eurogamer

Mirkwood is a great expansion, but compared to Moria, its quest and instance content is fairly limited. This is because the expansion was also introducing the Skirmish system, an entire new area of the game.

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PC Gamer UK

This expansion is aimed squarely at existing LotRO players rather than newcomers, but it definitely hits the mark.

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PC Zone UK

Epic story. [Mar 2010, p.80]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Aaron W gave it a10:
Siege of Mirkwood is hands down one of the best expansion packs that has come out for an mmo in a long time. Tons of new content and items, along with a really well done storyline. One of the biggest parts of the game, is skirmishes. These are small instances in which you control a soldier that you customize to how you want it. They are fast and fun, and really can get pretty exciting. Another really great part of this expansion, was you basically got it for free if you bought a multimonth package. So all in all, can't be beat.

David R gave it a6:
There was plenty of mixed feelings about Siege of Mirkwood when it was first announced. Now that it's out a lot of those feelings have been proved true. First off, SoM finishes off Volume II; Volume II, for those that do not know, was Mines of Moria. Essentially you have to buy a $20 "expansion" just to finish the first expansion. Convinced of its worth so far? SoM takes the level cap to 65 in one additional region to the game. The region itself is simliar in size to any other Shadows of Angmar Book patch that came out free years ago; so essentially we paid for a Book patch. The real additions to the game was the skirmish system. While Turbine has more than been okay with stabbing the lore in the face in the past (Runekeepers, goat mounts), it was no different here when they started adding war camps out in remote areas, on top of which offering instanced skirmishes at battlegrounds where battles never took place. Despite that minor inconvenience, the skirmish system makes up for the one fatal flaw that LotRo has been facing; a dying population. All the group content that was needed to get goodies to advance your character can now be received through the skirmish system all by your lonesome. This is great for new players--bad for everyone else that had to suck it up and spend countless days of time and money just to earn said items. The level cap increased to 65. The only reason I can figure out why is so that Turbine could annoy everyone. With the increase of the level cap means that there are "better" items to be had now. The carrot and the stick if you will. The only trouble is that they purposely weakened all the hard-earned gear you earned post-SoM just so there would be a definite incentive to grind for gear that's five levels over yours. This is felt especially with the legendary item system; deconstructing any item below LV61 yields an XP rune that you cannot use for the new LIs in Mirkwood. They are intentionally wanting you to go back to the grind. Unfortunately the aim to that goal was to give the taste of progress in this pseudo-expansion, when all it does is bring attention to the lack of content within this so-called expansion this year. With only a whopping two Book updates in 2009 (as opposed to the four they released in 2008) comes a sad outlook for the future of LotRo. Turbine seemed more interested in dragging out the process of getting to the end of this road in Mordor by needlessly dragging us off to a part of the books that had nothing to do with the epic storyline. All in all disappointing.

Me gave it a10:
Doesn`t matter even it`s not a big one, quality brings the victory. Great improvements: skirmish, mount stuff etc. Dol Guldur FTW!

joshua w gave it a10:
great fun game for casual play great for reaxing on after a hard days work

anonymous gave it a10:
Great expansion. The mood of mirkwood is a nice contrast between the recent additions of beautiful Lorien, and dark and twisted moria. Combat is now faster and you can do alot of things without having to dismount from your steed.

anonymous gave it a10:
Game overall plays better. Alot of polish to existing content. Players can now talk to npcs from mounts and do other things on mounts which is awesome. The public landing to mirkwood itself was incredible. You could feel the intensity and the chaos of war. Kudos to the sound and music team for further selling the atmosphere!

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Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood, The

Game Info

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What The Critics Said

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