As most of you know SoM beta testers have been under an NDA concerning the joys (and otherwise) of Mirkwood

Turbine have now lifted that NDA and the US forums are awash with info. Heres a few snippets

Tanks rejoice - Wardens and Guards and Champs using Glory will now get 5 morale per 1 vitality rather than the usual 3

L62 skills a bit of a dissapointment eg. Wardens and Hunters get a Mirkwood port

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Legandary Items read it here

Stat cap raised to 650

Lot's of new cosmetics (I know that many of you couldn't care less about fluff but you all know how much I love dressing up in LotRO and in RL (No! not THAT sort of dressing up!))

[Edit: Images deleted as Photobucket throwing a bandwidth alert instead]

Read more in the SoM Forum or check out your class forum

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The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ expansion introduces exciting changes for the player combat system, and this developer diary will cover everything you need to know in the new world of combat!

Weapon Speed and Damage Changes
One change that you may notice immediately is that weapon speeds have disappeared from weapon tooltips. Weapons still have speeds, but the speeds and damage have been standardized for different classes of weaponry (one-handed, two-handed, bow/crossbow, javelin, staves and rune-stones) per weapon level.

The way our weapon speed variations interacted with various combat mechanics resulted in a clear, optimal choice of weapon type for most classes. In most cases it was clearly advantageous to go with the slowest weapon possible in order to maximize your damage output. For example, most Burglars would choose to use slower one-handed maces instead of faster one-handed clubs or daggers. Because damage output could be affected significantly by weapon speed this became the single most important factor in choosing a weapon; stats, or other weapon effects, were secondary and in some cases completely ignored in favour of a slower weapon choice. Those players who were not aware of this mechanic would sometimes find themselves passed over or ridiculed for making the “wrong” choice for their class, something which definitely detracted from their enjoyment of the game. How many Burglars out there are using one-handed clubs in their main hand?

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As LOTRO grows and new UI features are developed, like the new Skirmish Join and Skirmish panels, we have found that we can't just keep adding buttons to the toolbar at the bottom of your screen (or the border of your Radar) to launch the new panels. With this in mind, we set out to create a way for you to launch the new (and existing) features, which will support current needs and allow for future expansion.

Introducing (drum roll please), the new Main Menu!

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