The Unlock the Mines of Moria mini-games are now all in place and it is possible, with a bit of patience, to complete ten deeds and open up four stars. The fifth star to open the gate has yet to be discovered; however it has been confirmed that it will not be another mini-game.

You’ll receive your first deed and light up the center star simply by registering for the game. Then each of the mini-games has three deeds, all three of which must be completed for the star. Completing the three deeds also unlocks a high quality image to do with the Mines of Moria expansion.

Here is a full list of the mini-games on Unlock the Mines of Moria, links to our helpful hints and tips, and the deeds available per game.

King Under the Mountain

Gameplay Spoiler
Deeds:

• Warmonger: Take a total of 300 territories
• Dwarven Crown: Conquer all the territories seven times
• High Roller: 20 rolls of 30 or more

All the deeds can be completed in single-player mode.

Swig and Toss

Gamplay Spoiler
Deeds:

• Dead Eye: scoring 35,000 or higher in a single game
• Last Man Standing: 10 multiplayer victories
• Mead-iator: 99 swigs

Dead Eye and Mead-iator can be completed in single-player mode.

Eleventy-Seven Morsels

Gameplay Spoiler
Deeds:

• Stuffed Hobbit: win ten snack-sack victories
• Fourth Meal: a four-move chain
• Reap What You Sow: win ten score-bin victories

All the deeds can be completed in single-player mode.

The main conversation on the forums are based on whether collecting the deeds are worth it - hard to answer when we don’t have any information as to what the final reward will be! Personally, I found the mini-games diverting enough that I didn’t mind chasing after the deeds but it probably is not worth slaving over for the unknown in-game reward alone.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

The final game in the Unlock the Mines of Moria set is a popular pastime in the sprint and summer, when fruits and berries are at their ripest. Playing Eleventy-Seven Morsels against a hobbit means staying on your toes because the snacks chosen for the board will be the choicest, juiciest, sweetest to be found - and if you win, the ones in the snack sack are yours to eat on the spot! The treats (all the same value although a mix of morsels makes for the testiest snack) are distributed fairly across the two halves of the board.

Why not just settle for that and eat your half? Well, that just shows you aren’t a hobbit: a love for gambling and an innate greediness when it comes to food combine in these hairy-toed fellows to make Eleventy-Seven Morsels a game worth winning. So no, you can’t simply have your half and eat it too - you have to earn your morsels, if you can. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

I’ve fallen a bit behind on my attempts to Unlock the Mines of Moria but I’m catching up quick. One of the good things about being late in the game is that all the details have already been discovered. I think I would have struggled getting the high-score deed in Swig and Toss but there were a couple of posts from people trying to explain how to win the game and they helped me get a handle on it.

Deeds for Swig and Toss

• Dead Eye: scoring 35,000 or higher in a single game
• Last Man Standing: 10 multiplayer victories
• Mead-iator: 99 swigs

Gameplay tips

Keep the mouse moving - that helps you to keep control of the axe. The huge swerves to the side can be ignored if you continue to make minor movements with the mouse rather than chasing the axe around. One person recommended small circles but I found a tiny back-and-forth movement worked best.

Get yourself into a timing rhythm with the green bar. You shouldn’t have to watch it - once you get into the swing of it, it becomes almost automatic.

Get your drinks to 60-70% (6 drinks) and take the max bet every time. That will get you the 35,000 needed for the Dead Eye deed.

Don’t drink more than 6 drinks, especially not in multi-player. You’ll look silly.

If you miss the timing with the green bar, don’t panic and don’t waste the shot! You can still gain a benefit by hitting the left hand plate! You may wish to avoid the other crockery though!

Results of smashing up:
Either mug: +1 or -1 drink (random)
Plate on wall to the left: x2 next toss
Plate on wall to the right: 1/2 next toss
Vase on left of the target: x2 meter speed

Unlocking the Mines

Once you have achieved all three deeds you will see another star in the doorway. Your reward is an in-game promotional poster to go with the wallpaper you have hopefully already won from King Under the Mountain.

Next week we’ll take on the hobbits at Eleventy-Seven Morsels. Sign up for the feed
if you haven’t completed the set for your in-game reward!

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Why there are still corporates who consider ghettoizing European players as acceptable is beyond me. I was leery when I found that by buying Lord of the Rings in Europe, I could only play on European servers. In fact, I looked into having a US box shipped to me but in the end decided I was being silly and picked up a local copy of the game.

I regretted it almost immediately. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Edit: All three mini-games have been released. For a list of all the deeds available from the Mines of Moria mini-games and how to get them, see our summary.

I lost the entire evening on Unlock the Mines of Moria, the new “social gaming web site” promoting the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online expansion. I was immediately relieved to see that US and European players were not herded into separate pens but instead were allowed to mingle - although they have to go to their respective message board systems if they want to post tips and tricks.

The Flash website promises three mini games and the first one went live on March 31st: King Under the Mountain. If you want to earn deeds (or play multi-player, for that matter), you need to register with an email address. This does not tie in with your LOTRO account although speculation is that you will be rewarded a key that can be used to gain in-game rewards once the promotion has finished. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

LOTRO US servers will be down on Wednesday, February 13th from 6am to 12pm Eastern time to patch Book 12: The Ashen Wastes. Although fishing has been pushed to Book 13 (boo!), this update will include the much-needed Angmar revamp, new solo quests between levels 10-20, appearance slots and barbershops, the Delving of Frór, Month of the Burglar, Month of the Guardian, Champion revamp and much much more!

While you are waiting for the servers to come up, take a look at Massively’s gorgeous screenshots series on One Shots, with a heavy Lord of the Rings bias (because Middle-Earth is as pretty as it gets, you know).

Or drool over the real photographs of the Ultimate PS3 set-up - all six million dollars worth of it.

If you want more intellectual interests, take a look at the write-up from Project Horseshoe, the second annual Game Design Think Tank and see what the industry movers and shakers are thinking about.

If that’s all too much, then just veg out and watch your monitor getting cleaned from the inside out. I’m sure it needs it!

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

At level 29 every race on Middle-Earth gets a deed which will allow them to return to their racial home - very useful for fast travel!

This deed is always the second in a set, so you must complete the initial deed (slaying 50 of the same monsters) before you will see the deed appear in your deed journal.

You will have to kill 150 of a specific monster, as listed below. You can kill these monsters in any zone in the game and they can be any level. So you may wish to rush through the quest by choosing the lowest level monsters you can find - or increase your experience rate by choosing the highest level monsters that you can take on.

The other issue to take into consideration is whether you can complete a virtue deed at the same time. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Turbine has done screenshot competitions before and some stunning views have been submitted, but yesterday they posted a competition with a difference: if your screenshot gets chosen, it will be featured on the loading screen! This is a great prize, it ties in nicely and gives a reward that the people who take screenshots can honestly enjoy.

To enter the LOTRO Loading Screen Contest send your entry to lotro@turbine.com with the subject line LOTRO Loading Screen Contest. One (1) entry per player per week.

All screenshots should be unedited, although cropping is allowed. The dimensions of the final screen will be 1024 x 512, so please bear this in mind when taking or cropping your screenshots.

All entries must be original and created and/or owned exclusively by the player submitting the screenshot.

The fly in the ointment is that once again the competition is limited to “legal US residents” only, for some bizarre reason. I suppose one day there will be enough lawyers clued into the Interweb to sort out sensible restrictions rather than panicking at the word “competition” but until then, I guess I’ll just pretend that I still live with my mom (don’t tell her, she’d be afraid that I might follow through!).

Still, it’s a neat idea; I like the idea of my hobbit going on a photography safari to see what she comes up with, although seeing some of the shots from the last competition, it’s going to be tough to compete.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Book 12 is now on the Roheryn preview server and the patch notes read like a novel! The Ashen Wastes is the name of this update and it is not just a tweak. Various aspects have already been discussed in the Developer Diaries:

Angmar is undergoing a complete revamp.

Burglars gain new skills, tanking is improved for Guardians and Champions get a second pass. Hunters, Lore-masters and Minstrels also have some minor changes so it’s well worth taking a look at the detailed notes.

Yesterday a new diary was posted with a write-up on the long-awaited Outfit System which will allow you to have three outfits. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Here’s your chance to apply for the Isengard Test Server!

The Codemasters community officer posted to say that they are accepting applications for Turbine’s Isengard test server. The whole Codemaster/Turbine split is pretty confusing, to be honest. I didn’t see anything on the Turbine boards about this but as we aren’t allowed to post there (I received a nice mail from Turbine explaining that that was OK because Turbine customers couldn’t post on the Codemaster message boards either), I don’t really watch those boards.

Still, it looks very straight-forward to apply via Codemasters:

[More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.