If there is one thing that players of The Lord of the Rings Online are not surprised by, it is what is coming down the line. That is the pro as well as the con of designing a game based on as famous a piece of literature as Tolkien's epic work. However, now that the story has progressed beyond the Mines of Moria, the anticipation turns to answering the question, "Which area comes next?" Turbine Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel and I chuckled over that as he took me on a run through the upcoming expansion - Siege of Mirkwood. "Black squirrels?" I asked. Indeed. All that is dark and evil lurk in Mirkwood, so tainted that even the squirrels are black.

Siege of Mirkwood is due to launch in the fall and is a digital expansion at a $19.95 cost. LOTRO Gold"We looked at the consumers for the last expansion and found that there were more digital consumers." Digital downloads were a much larger percentage than they had expected, I was told, and the numbers large enough for them to decide that this was the way to go for Siege of Mirkwood. This expansion ends the epic story of Moria and the land mass that players will be able to explore is Southern Mirkwood. Dol Guldor, Elves and Olog Hai, oh my! What about Northern? Well yes, if there's Southern Mirkwood, Northern will follow. Soon. Okay, it's not Rohan, but we'll get there eventually.

Siege of Mirkwood raises the level cap to 65 and the power of Legendary gear to level 60.LOTRO Gold At this level, they will have a 4th runic slot that only Master Crafters will be able to create and players will be able to craft 2nd and 3rd age Legendary items as well. Horses become a slottable skill and players won't have to dismount before interacting with NPCs and no longer sit stiffly on their horse but will have access to animated emotes. Turbine has also given more depth to the Identify skill, which will give players a better sense of where the item is headed before they invest a lot of time into it. There will also be shared storage between characters on the same account. "I'm sure players enjoyed the immersion of having to mail things between their characters," said Jeff, whispering "Not!" as an aside. "But I'm also sure they will enjoy this convenience even more." I agreed. After all, why shouldn't they be able to share a bank vault?