LOTRO Producer's Letter Lays Out 2015 Plans: New Instances, PvMP Zone, Legendary Revamp

The Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer Athena "Vyvyanne" Peters today posted the first Producer's Letter of 2015, wherein she discussed Turbine's plans for the MMO for the coming year.

Peters promises new group instances as the game pushes forward to Minas Tirith and Osgiliath, where the closing battles for the War of the Ring were fought, as well as a new kind of episodic content which she compares to a TV show, and the squashing of the game's "most persistent bugs."

But as a long-time LOTRO player who just crafted a first-age level 100 greatsword, my lidless eye was drawn to the mention of a reworking of legendary items that will let you keep your top-level weapons, which will be able to gain experience apparently indefinitely. The skeptical part of me figures it'll just be replacing one grind with another, and I could probably write entire paragraphs on my dissatisfaction with the legendary item system, but any improvement would be greatly appreciated.

The final item on the list was talk of a new player-versus-monster-player zone in Osgiliath, which would be the first new space in that ilk in about seven years. That's major news to the Ettenmoors crowd, which is still oddly alive, at least on my home server of Arkenstone, despite having little new to do. The letter says that the area would focus on "smaller and more tightly focused conflicts," which might lead one to speculate that it could be fixed-group battleground-style PvP.

In any case, it's always nice to have hope for new stuff... now we'll just have to wait and see how well Turbine can deliver!