The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood Preview

IncGamers has published a two-page preview of Turbine's The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood expansion pack, with added commentary from producer Jeffrey Steefel.
"We also wanted to give players a lot more information about the items at the beginning so they'll know where it's headed and what it can become, so you don't spend hours and hours grinding it up and at the end when you deconstruct it you find out that there's nothing there that you need," he smiles. "Because, once again, that wasn't fun. So, as the game advances and as your ability to level up your character advances, you have the same kind of headroom for Legendary Items. "

Riding a horse will now be a slottable skill and, as has been mentioned, players will be able to converse and barter with NPCs without having to dismount. Their mount will also no longer take up space in their equipment bags. The menu interface is largely unchanged, but a collapsable menu has been added to the left side of the hot-key thumbnails. These gaming tweaks, Steefel says, all come back to Turbine's focus on removing anything that stood in the way of advancing the game and, naturally, the new features are a continuation of that.

"Some of the new things we're adding will give you a little more immediacy with the fun," he says. "I mean, I think the game's really fun in a lot of respects, but we found that sometimes players really had to work to get to the fun parts. This is instant fun - press the fun button and there it is."