Lord Of The Rings Online Launches Treachery Of The White Hand Update

The time has come for the kingdom of man, hobbits, elves and dwarves to once again join together to take on the forces of Sauruman as Lord of the Rings Online's eleventh update, Treachery of the White Hand, finally goes live.

One of the most successful free-to-play MMORPG's out there, Lord of the Rings Online let's players dive into the epic adventures of Middle-earth to lend a hand around the various kingdoms in an attempt to aid the fellowship on their quest for Mount Doom.

“The epic story continues as you are called to the remote region of Wildemore,” reads a statement from game developer, Turbine. “This Eastern Rohan area has been hard hit by an unnatural and deadly winter. A stone giant named Nurzum, under the control of Saruman, is rumored as the source of this icy tragedy. Throughout Wildermore, villagers have suffered ravage and townsfolk have become refugees. Follow in the chilly footsteps of evil as you attempt to restore this once thriving region.”

As you can see from the above developer diary, Treachery of the White Hand offers quite a bit of new content for the game, including five new areas to explore in Writhendowns, The Fallows, Whitsaws, High Knolls and Balewood. Each area is packed with new side missions, epic quests, monsters to defeat and loot to plunder.

Update 11 also updates mounted combat to have class-specific traits, and “Hobbit Presents” will be delivered once per day that you log in that include class and level-specific goodies. There's also a bunch of new benefits for VIP (paid) members, including extra experience, additional loot and Hobbit Presents.

For a full breakdown of what the Treachery of the White Hand content offers, check out the full announcement. That's also where you can download the game proper and get to questing.