LOTRO Tries Weekly Episodic "Mini-Series"

Keeping players interested during the long stretches between content updates is a challenge for any MMO development team. The guys at Turbine realize this and have decided to implement something akin to weekly episodic television in The Lord of the Rings Online.

Over on the LOTRO dev blog, Jeff "MadeOfLions" Libby describes how the dev team would chat every week about their favorite TV shows and whether the same approach could be utilized in an MMO. The result is The Ballad of Bingo Boffin, a story that's to be doled out in free weekly chunks every Wednesday over the course of a full year. The first part starts at level 8 by talking to Bingo at his home in Michel Delving, with subsequent weeks' adventures rising in level and taking players all over Middle-earth. You can play each week when it's new or jump in at any time and "binge-watch" your way through everything that's been released so far.

Playing through Bingo's ballad will earn players Bingo Badges, which can be traded to a new NPC, Bert Bartleby for various rewards. So I guess you could say the Ballad of Bingo Boffin badgers Bounders to bring Bingo Badges to Bert Bartleby for bountiful bonus booty.