LotRO Players Won't Be Destroying The One Ring In The Mordor Expansion

By the time the Mordor expansion hits Standing Stone Games' Lord of the Rings Online, the One Ring will have already been destroyed. That's right. The next expansion will pick up after Sam and Frodo have already dispatched with the ultimate tool of evil.

The good news is that players won't quite miss out on the action completely. According to the developer, players will get to see the moment happen -- although it was not specified how this will occur.

In an interview with MMO Central, Jeff Libby explained that the reason for the expansion to take place after the destruction of the Ring is that the team feels it's inappropriate for players to be wandering around in Mount Doom while the whole mission is going on.

"That’s against the very spirit of everything we’ve been building up to over the course of the game. So, this is one of those things where monitoring chatter on community sites and whatnot, people seem to be very concerned with ‘how are they… we’re going into Mordor in the Mordor expansion, isn’t this like going to be playing right into Sauron’s hands? I can’t believe they’d do this!’ And the answer is no, we’re not doing that. We’re trying to remain as faithful as we’ve always had. So, like fairly early on in the expansion, I think you’ll see that things get sorted out in a way, and then Mordor is our oyster."

He also goes on to say that doing this gives the team to tell stories that haven't been told yet.

The interview also covers some of the things players can expect from the expansion in general. It can be read in full on the MMO Central site.