With Book 8 coming up in the month of June, those awesome guys over at Turbine invited ZAM.com's Chris "Pwyff" Tom to check out some exciting new raid content.

It's that time again LotRO players! With the latest content update - Book 8: Scourge of Khazad-dum - coming up this month, the ever-so-awesome Turbine extended, once more, a play test demonstration to ZAM.com. Of course, I'm never one to refuse the opportunity to jump off cliffs and force Aaron Campbell and Jeffrey Steefel (my guides) to bring me back up, so I toddled over to check out the latest content in Book 8; and let me tell you, their latest content is so cool, I almost resisted the urge to climb everything I saw. Almost.

To begin, progression fans will be letting out some pretty big cheers with the addition of Book 8, as this content update will feature four new instances for players to indulge in: two three-player instances, one six-player instance, and one gargantuan (and kind of terrifying) 12-player instance. In addition to this, we managed to catch a Dwarf Race for the Summer Festival - one of the newest additions to the festival.

The first of the three-player instances is called "The Mirror Halls of Lumul-nar." It features giant mirrors that are placed throughout the instance, and these mirrors reflect sunlight down into its cavernous chambers. In order to succeed in this particular dungeon, players must craftily move these giant mirrors in such a way that they eventually spread this reflected sunlight throughout the instance. The problem, however, is that the baddies who have been occupying the Mirror Halls of Lumul-nar are not so fond of this Hobbit-brought sunlight, and so players must exercise their swords, as well as their brains, as they go through this instance. As a tip, players should keep an eye on some of their enemies - there was one that increased her damage by 1000% if the group didn't kill her within 45 seconds of engaging. Be wary!

The second of the three-player instances is equally unpronounceable - "The Water Wheels - Nala-dum." In this instance, parties must toggle water wheels on and off in order to progress throughout the dungeon. Aaron 'Rowan' Campbell, my in-game guide for the day, noted that in order for players to complete some of the challenges for this instance, they will need to think very '3-dimensionally' about their puzzles. This is certainly a departure from most challenges that just demand that you kill everything two seconds faster. Not only will there be challenges for puzzle-solving in this dungeon, however, but the dev team has also placed a bunch of little Easter eggs around these instances to reward those who are savvy and observant enough. In this particular case, players can snag themselves a deed for finding the little herb plants that are scattered throughout Nala-dum. For players who manage to make it to the end of the dungeon, the last boss looks amazingly cool, and if you don't feel sorry for him at certain points during the fight, then you're clearly not a very sensitive person (you'll see what I mean when you fight him!).
In the bigger 6-player instance, Aaron brought me to the Halls of Crafting. In this particular instance, players must traverse the halls, fighting waves of ultra-ugly goblins and having to constantly rescue the players with lower attention spans who just want to see if there's anything shiny left in these halls (i.e.; me). As an interesting concept, goblins in the Halls of Crafting can change their stances to suit the situation, so players must be fully aware of their enemies, or they may end up wasting extra time trying to kill a goblin in a defensive stance while a goblin in a more offensive stance is beating on your healer nearby.

Finally we managed to check out the biggest instance yet and the most awkwardly pronounced name yet as well - Dar Nabagud (add your own little triangle hats over random letters as you see fit). Dar Nabagud, Aaron explains, is where the creepiest and the crawliest of unnamed creatures live. Players should keep their wits about them as they explore this vast dungeon, as it is dark and confusing, with enemies hiding everywhere. Be sure to check out some of the monsters, because the creative team really put forth their ugliest effort on the denizens of Dar Nabagud. We managed to make it all the way "The Blind One," the second last boss who guards the way to "The Mistress," who is apparently the ringleader of this whole thing. Unfortunately, despite my efforts to sneak a peak at The Mistress, the team wants to keep her a secret, so we decided to go bet on Dwarves in the Summer Festival instead.

At the Summer Festival, the newest activity addition - the races, were actually quite entertaining, as we followed our racers throughout the track, hoping that they would stop getting out of breathe and actually start moving faster than a walk. My Dwarf, Olaf the Outstanding (I believe that was his name), ended up placing first, so I decided to spend my summer tokens on a nice hat. It was cloth and sort of clashed with my battle-worn armor, but it certainly made me feel stylish.

All in all, Book 8: Scourge of Khazad-dum looks to be a content addition that's just packed with goodies for the endgame LotRO player. While new players may really appreciate their polishing of the level 15 to 25 quests (I think these guys are the first to go back and tune up lower level content), most hardcore LotRO fans will be looking forward to all of the instances that will be coming out - and I gotta tell you, you're definitely in for a treat.

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
Allakhazam.com