LOTRO: Kingdoms of Harad Expansion Announced
MMORPG announced earlier today and it was subsequently confirmed by Standing Stone games, that the new expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online will be Kingdoms of Harad and that it will launch later in the year. The expansion will see the conclusion of the epic Song of Waves and Wind storyline and the level cap raised from 150 to 160. There will be a new region to explore, Mûr Ghala, comprising four zones. Adagîm, Idagâl, An Shêru and Kighân. The latter contains the main trading hub of Zajâna. Players will travel into the region with Gandalf the White, along with allies of the Kindred of Coins and Mizadi as they seek to counter the regional power struggle brought about by the fall of Sauron. Canonically, this takes place three months after the destruction of the ring, hence King Elessar and Eomer are busy with domestic affairs in their respective kingdoms.
MMORPG announced earlier today and it was subsequently confirmed by Standing Stone games, that the new expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online will be Kingdoms of Harad and that it will launch later in the year. The expansion will see the conclusion of the epic Song of Waves and Wind storyline and the level cap raised from 150 to 160. There will be a new region to explore, Mûr Ghala, comprising four zones. Adagîm, Idagâl, An Shêru and Kighân. The latter contains the main trading hub of Zajâna. Players will travel into the region with Gandalf the White, along with allies of the Kindred of Coins and Mizadi as they seek to counter the regional power struggle brought about by the fall of Sauron. Canonically, this takes place three months after the destruction of the ring, hence King Elessar and Eomer are busy with domestic affairs in their respective kingdoms.
Kingdoms of Harad is the thirteenth expansion for LOTRO, the first five of which, along with the later Before the Shadow are now bundled as part of the free-to-play base game. As of today the new expansion is available for pre-purchase from Standing Stone Games and is available in the usual three different, digital permutations. The Standard Edition, Collector’s Edition and the Ultimate Fan Bundle. All packages come with the new story content as well as the instance and raid cluster. There is also a single, one per count, “150 level up package” that can be used to instantly take a character of your choice to level 150, so you can immediately explore the new region. The provisional release date for the new Kingdoms of Harad expansion is 3rd December, with the usual caveat of a delay if there are technical issues.
Standing Stone Games can be accused of many things but not dragging their heels with regard to releasing new content. Kingdoms of Harad will be the seventh yearly expansion since 2019, which shows a degree of commitment to the MMOs future. Not bad for a game that is over 18 years old. Furthermore, there should be a new “Development Update” letter at the end of the month, which hopefully will show some progress with some of the longstanding technical issues that continue to impact upon the game. Such as the improved GUI with 4K support and the persistent problem of game lag that still seems to intermittently blight the new 64-bit servers. Although it is good to get new story content, it is important to address the essential nuts and bolts of this ageing game. In the meantime, Kingdoms of Harad will more than likely be available on the Bullroarer test server in the next few weeks.
