The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Preview

Eurogamer is offering up the latest hands-on preview of Turbine's soon-to-be-released The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria expansion pack.
Scampering back under your mother's skirt, you're handed a weapon of the Third Age - your first Legendary item - and sent to Rivendell to work out how to use it to fight off The Watcher. This begins probably the coolest addition to itemisation in MMOs - levellable weaponry.

Essentially, these Legendary weapons level alongside you, and with each one you receive a pool of points that can be attributed to Legacies - useful, class-specific ability upgrades. These can range from critical damage upgrades to the addition of snares to your abilities, and there's something to be said for the utterly bewildering amount of choice - and that's to say nothing of each one having three sockets to add statistics to.

As you level them up, every ten levels requires you re-forge them, resetting all the statistics on the weapon and unlocking even tastier legacies. Turbine has really pushed the boat out on customisation, not just with the similarly-levellable titles you can give each weapon, but with the choices you can make to really forge a weapon that's yours. You can level six of them at a time, too, meaning that eventually you are armed to the teeth with customised battle-axes and bows.