Why I’m looking forward to Helm’s Deep

With the next LOTRO expansion a mere weeks away, it’s time to start getting excited about the new additions to the game we hold so near and dear. I’ve jotted down a list of things that I’m looking forward to in the Helm’s Deep expansion:

• Getting closer to the Lord of the Rings story in the epic story-line once again. One of the game’s major strengths over the years has been its ability to seamlessly weave in and out of the original Tolkien texts. This expansion is set to be about as close to the book action as we’ve ever been.
• King Theoden!
• More mounted combat. It started in the Eastemnet as a re-imagined combat system and was tweaked in Wildermore to accommodate the intense performance demands. Although no major changes are planned for mounted combat, I’m looking forward to riding down on foes in the open plains of the Westfold.
• Smacking that smirk off of Grima Wormtongue’s face
• Seeing if the new battle system is truly ‘epic’. Although the class revamp has gotten most of the press, possibly the biggest wildcard in the Helm’s Deep expansion is the new epic battle system. It’s the reason Turbine feels that they must charge for epic story content for the first time in a very long time. It also bears the heavy burden of having to re-create one of the most beloved sequences in both the books and films and not only make it believable, but also memorable.
• Coming out of these depressing story-lines with a victory. If you’ve played the last few major updates, you’ve noticed that things keep getting worse….and worse…and worse for our heroes. George Lucas once described the parts of a three-act play as 1) Introduce your characters 2) Put them in the worst inescapable situation ever and 3) Get them out of that situation. We’re smack-dab in the middle of the Empire Strikes Back right now in LOTRO, and it’s about time we blew up a Death Star.
• New animations. Braxwolf, just…faster.
• Exploring new landscapes. The Riders of Rohan landscape is, in a word, breathtaking. Turbine really nailed the aura of the whispy plains and big-sky sunsets. It’s exactly how I want Rohan to feel as I’m riding through it. I’m looking forward to seeing if and how the west side is similar to (or different from) what we’ve already seen.
• Re-learning my classes. Yeah, I said it. I’m actually looking forward to finding new rotations: what works, what doesn’t, inducting on the move…I’m far from an expert on skill trees, but if this is truly a “new baseline” for many years to come, it makes me feel good that Turbine is planning for the long haul. They’ve obviously re-newed the Tolkien license and are planning on using it to its fullest.

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