Minas Morgul is the cherry on top of 2 years of development by the SSG team and developers. With nearly each update since Mordor, the game slowly closed some hoops and holes that you’d run into and had a hard time getting out of.

Culmination of revamps and balances

What might the largest accomplishment is the fact that each class and activity has its place in the Morgul Vale and Mordor. Without any major new system or selling point, the question often asked was, would Minas Morgul be large enough for an expansion? Without the work done in the years since Mordor launched it might not have been. But with each class having a revamp and a few system updates such as the virtue system. It feels complete again. 

Depending on which point you enter the expansion you will find a better experience killing orcs, wight and returning evils then you have for since probably Isengard.

Playing to it’s strengths

With all the updates to the game slowly rolling out, the average player will find themselves playing the game for a long time. Keeping everyone engaged is a hard thing to accomplish these days. While experimenting with catch ups and ways to limit players on getting every bit of content completed in the first few weeks. SSG found a mix that seemed to work so far with this expansion.New instances or gear upgrades always come to fast or too slow depending on who you ask. 

Lotro’s strength in story and world building

The major selling point on lotro is the story woven through the game and the world it all takes place in. The introduction of the  “story world” that is Mordor Besieged manages to fill the gap that the Morgul Vale has in the variety of landscapes. While not as green as the Vales of Anduin or frozen as the Withered Heath it provides both a landscape and a landmark questing route to fight on.

Without spoiling too much. The Mordor Besieged part moves into the Morgul area well enough to work with the continuation of The Black book of Mordor. Then the Morgul Vale suburbs follow several storylines into each of the 1-2-3 man instances which can be done on a variety of challenge levels. After which you move onto conquering each tier of the city to the top and face of an old foe that you might have forgotten about.

Future updates promises to continue the story into 2 6-man instances and the other big foe that we knew was in there Shelob.

Lotro’s usual weakness in gameplay

Generic is what could be used to describe lotro’s gameplay. Not knowing which flow to go with or which way to build the reasons to keep playing the game beyond the story is what hindered lotro for a long time. All the hippy-de-hop they did with each update in the past 2 years has payed off. Either going around solo or focusing on teaming up to tackle the harder content is balanced towards what each of the kind of players might expect. 

Enough crafting, options in instances and plenty of instances to choose from. Nothing too frustrating on launch or bugs that block progress. Each part of the expansion feels to work just right. There’s still some obvious flaws that lotro hasn’t managed to hide such as tie-ing in older content for the ones not in Minas Morgul or the ones that like to go above and beyond the provided difficulty.

An evolutionary expansion (by categories)

In it’s entirety the expansion is the evolutionary tale of what hopefully is the final form of lotro for the foreseeable future. One large update to the legendary items and a few small tweaks to classes and older content could finish it all up. But all in all the expansion is a solid base to close the past (stories) and move toward the future.

Leveling

Coming from the Vales or heading straight into Mordor Besieged the leveling will feel familiar. The quests come in the form of directional quest that has most of the story tied into it with quests where you assist famous figures from the Second age and bounties placed upon mobs. It follows the standard go to this camp and kill, plunder, destroy and loot anything evil so that we can give you xp and items.

The black book follows you around and gives you the closure and preview of Minas Morgul. Once you get to the vales you will venture into smaller story lines surrounding the new 3-man instances and fight along our old foe of Spiders from Archet.

The difficulty is less then original Mordor, but each place has dangerous encampments that will provide a good challenge. It’s possible to work your way around them and come back later if you’d wish so. You’ll make it all 10 levels normally if you don’t skip too much.

Exploration 

The area feels pretty small if you look at the map, but there are a lot of nooks and crannies that reward you with pages, chests and views if you venture off the beaten path a bit. It strikes a nice mix between compact and complex. Especially Ran Duath has some area’s that have that fight just a little bit further and stop for a view moment. Inside Minas Morgul there’s plenty of interior areas, but it more straight forward. No area feels unused, but most views do center around Minas Morgul and Barad dur.

Instances

The bread and butter of the post 130 are the instances in this expansion. With a total of 7 instances and a raid shrouded in mists it’s on the most instance heavy expansions in lotro. A lot of realestate to clean out. Each one has a little story to them, provides an avenue for solo, small groups and kin efforts to conquer an ever growing difficulty in each Tier 1 to 5 as they get released. In a wide range of time to run and difficulty on itself.

Harrowing of Minas Morgul 3-man

Freely available to anyone that has Minas Morgul, while you aim to destroy any orc on the 1st level they fight among themselves. Small groups of orcs in a standard group allow for a quick run catered to your groups capacity. The boss fights feature some adds, a bit of movement and reactionary skills. But overall once you’re geared or knowledgeable of the tactics it’s a breeze. This years Glimmerdeep or Court of Seregost

Roost

Needing a discovery high up in Minas Morgul you fight you’re way along the cliffs to kill a broodmother of the Fellbeasts and its hatchlings. The bosses provide an excellent challenge-mix to what your group excels at. Size up your healing and change your plan accordingly. The mobs are few, but the best part is the fight between boss 1 and 2. Quite a change to other fights and a welcome variation. The first steps to golf as a hobby are made. Just that the ball is you this time (especially at the last boss).

Barrows

A coffin has no room to move and neither will you. Fighting your way through a barrow of old you will find kegrim and all sorts of undead resurrected. Chaos in a small confined space of which you can either ignore most at lower tiers or find yourself overwhelmed by all the different abbilities the enemies have. Puddles, interrupts, corruptions, adds, and power drains make this place an instance to reckon with. A challenge if you’d wish so and a challenge you can practice on. A good step up from the quick “yep, I’ve got it” of Harrowing.

Filfth-well

Arduous is the best way to describe this place.Hindered by some bugs for the first few weeks most people gave up on this place. It wasn’t even that bad as Naerband, it’s just completely different then a standard instance like School or Harrow. It’s like Helcham in Carn Dum minus the expensive rewards in it’s slime. It’s unique and sometime (once we’ve got a bit more mitigation, morale and damage) we’ll return.

6-man (just came out)

For a more indepth view of these and the other instances look towards a new chapter for 99+ instances. While we we’re expecting 2 6-mans. We’ve been suprised with 1 extra. There were 6 instances planned and each of the 3-mans has a story to it. 

The smallest one is a fight in the second age in which you fight all of the 9 nazgul in a set of 2 each. The same as they are on the landscape, but the randomness provide a varying difficulty. Could grow into one of the favorites later in the instance.

The halls of black lore is the favorite at this moment. Pretty few mobs that you need to fight rewarded with a best-off arena of other instance boss fights. You’ll fight of 3-4 bosses from other instances one at a time with slightly tweaked enemies. Ranging from instance bosses such as Vraz to special bosses such as Nurzum. They switch every week with 3 rotations so far.

The third seems to a lovely fight with great bosses, but too much area to cover and mobs in between. The fight are bugged to a point you can’t complete them at this time.

Endgame

One part Mordor fell flat on was the reason and variety to keep playing and challenge yourself and character. Too many shortcuts that felt out of place only to be replaced with grinding in older raids and instances for gear, essences, keys and embers. 

Minas Morguls journey feels a lot better designed for most players. A greater variety of instances, a slowly released goalpost for better gear. Becoming slightly easier to get overtime while still having aims in crafting for the best gear pieces to acquire. Scions add that extra bit of random challenge in the tier 4 and 5. There nearly always feels a bit extra to be gained, but no cheap shortcuts. 

Once the expansion gets released on the lotrostore itself, all these goalposts will be at their final place. You will be able to skip a few steps others had to do before, but the repeatability will be moved to essences and their crafting materials. 

If you fall within the range that SSG designed for Minas Morgul fill keep you playing for a good while. 

Gearing

There are reliable ways to gear up without the expansion instances.The previous latest content were adequate in the first few months, but the difference in quality is too great too ignore by now. This falls in the same pitfall as with the endgame, it you fall within the range SSG designed for it’s all great. 

There are few new variations to the light-medium-heavy armour offensive and defensive which fill the roles a beorning or warden can take that doesn’t fit in the normal design compared to Mordor. More places to find the gear and slowly fill up your characters stats. Easy to gear, hard to master is the motto for Morgul.

The slow trickle of upgrades and item levels within the expansion feel mostly on the right spot with them being gained from challenging content as opposed as mindless grind if  you want to stay ahead of the pack. And other options if you just want to trod along questing and do a few landscape or solo activities.

The usual shortfalls

SSG biggest pitfall with the expansion is if you do things that won’t fall within their designed garden. Being 130 without Minas Morgul is not a great place to be with most of the older content invalidated. Scaled loot, big battles, featured instances, roving threats, skirmishes and other activities you would do with people not yet 130 and with the expansion is just not as good as they were.

And everything outside of the expansion suffered a bit from it. Bugs in skirmishes or classes have remained untouched for awhile. Installer issues, website issues, servertransfers and other parts remain a hot topic on most discussion hot spots. While not part of the expansion it does prevent plenty a people on enjoying the new content.

Overall conclusion

A long road that is made of patches and a journey that started in Mordor comes to a conclusion in a game and expansion that feels like a complete package. An expansion that is fun to play in a game that feels complete again in with quests, instances, views, exploration and replayability for anyone that made its way to 120.

Compliments for a small team on their work that they did before Minas Morgul and with Minas Morgul. A great place to return or continue playing in in 2020.