HarperCollins is to publish a new book by the late Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, edited and introduced by Tolkien's son Christopher, will be published on 5 May 2009.

When did J.R.R. Tolkien write The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun?

The previously unpublished work was written while Tolkien was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University during the 1920s and '30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Have pieces of this work been published before?

It will be the world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrun, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. No part has ever been reproduced or quoted from since it was written over 70 years ago.

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The Game Servers and http://myaccount.turbine.com will be offline for maintenance on Monday, May 4th from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT). The forums, website, My LOTRO and the lorebook will also be down from 8:00 to 10:30 AM.

Few days ago Graalx2 has announced some Warden's corrections and today there is another Book 8 Release Note for Wardens:

"Warden Damage over Time and Morale Transfer effects will now stack per caster. That is each Warden can apply one of each of these effects to every monster." And no, that doesn't include Conviction.

Graalx2

To continue Lotro 2nd anniversary celebrations, all players will continue to receive +10% bonus XP on mob kills from now through the end of June! Have fun!

Exultation of Battle Threat Legacy

This is just a heads up that we found some issues with this legacy. It is adding much more threat than it is supposed to, especially at high ranks. This is going to be corrected in Book 8. As a result all Warden legendary items will get a refund on their legacy points spent allowing you to allocate them again any way you see fit. (its easier for us to reset everyone rather than just the affected weapons).

Graalx2

Turbine has announced a new batch of questions. This time you should put yourself in the role of a genuine game developer and to answer some tough questions.

How it works:
Each week Turbine'll be asking you questions, and here in this thread, you can tell: What comes to mind; what you think; how you feel; etc, as it relates to the question(s) at hand.

Ground Rules:
Please read both the Ground Rules and the Forum Guidelines posts before you do anything else. These will be strictly enforced.

Question 1:
You’ve been hired as a class dev for a day. You can choose 1 existing class and assign it primary and secondary roles. Which class would you choose and what primary and secondary roles would you assign to it?

Question 2:
Everybody likes fluff (Chicken play, tag, festivals). Name three (3) kinds of Fluff you'd like to see added to LOTRO.

Question 3:
You're given the opportunity to improve the value and management of Kinships in LOTRO. What three(3) features would you add to the Kinship system to meet these goals?

Rippentuck came to a great idea - lets make fast/swift water-travel. It seems feasible, and more or less lore-appropriate. This could be used either for swift-travel between points between distant locations (using only simple loading screens) or as a fast-travel trip (much like mounts are now) so that players could, if they choose, simply float down these rivers and watch the sights go by on the way to their destinations.

We hope Turbine will also like this idea. Berephon has pointed out that:

From a lore perspective, there is nothing preventing river travel and would certainly become more reasonable once we start extensively expanding on water-bounded territories (but I wouldn't predict it being anything other than swift travel).

As far as a pathing boat or boat-mounts, as Scenario mentioned quite a while back, it would be very resource intensive to actually make happen.

This episode is part one of a two part series examining what "multiplayer" means to different people in Lord of the Rings Online. We catch up with Swifty from Arkenstone and discuss some of the more social-oriented aspects of LOTRO. In the next episode in the series (scheduled for late May) we will take a look at a raiding kin to get some different perspectives on the subject.

In this episode, we also take a close look at the goings on in the real world. Turbine has been very active for the 2nd Birthday for LOTRO. They have released a lot of interesting tidbits that you can read about here.

Check out LOTROCast at www.LOTROCast.com.

The Hunt For Gollum; a 40 minute independent film inspired by The Lord of the Rings which is to be released to the internet for free on May 3 2009.

The Hunt For Gollum is an unofficial not for profit short film by a group of enthusiast filmmakers and was made on a small £3000 ($4,355) budget. The premiere of the Hunt For Gollum will be at SCI-FI-LONDON on May 3rd 2009. The festival is a major event in Fantasy and Sci-Fi film. The film will be screened for free to the public and festival goers. The limited tickets will be available for members to the public for free reservation through SCI-FI-LONDON.

Further details and trailers are up on the official site thehuntforgollum.com.

All members of the kin should be able to pay the upkeep. You can pay up to 6 weeks in advance (a month and a half). If you are in your final week and have not paid you will get the email notice (only the leader of the kin).

If the rent isn't paid by the expiration date on the rent (which all kin members can see just by looking in their character panel under housing) then the house locks. It does not foreclose. We used to foreclose on houses. Foreclosure means it was taken away and you'd have to buy a new house.

If the leader has not logged in within two weeks of the mail being sent then it will delete (like all mail).

Sapience