This week Turbine revealed to Gamertell on what to expect in the coming months from Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) . The game had just released a massive free content update about a month ago (March 2011), so I was surprised to hear that there are plans to release another content update in May 2011. Although the update will not be as large as the previous one, it still sounds like players will be kept mighty busy from now until the expected Fall 2011 release of Rise of Isengard, a full-on expansion.

Unlike Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, you rarely see pop culture referenced in Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine can be quite sticklers for lore, as do many of the game’s players. But every now and then, the devs manage to sneak in something that’s just too silly to resist. Such as a cloak featuring a very familiar image of three wolves howling at the moon.

MMO developer Turbine is having a contest in which they’re giving away an astounding 100,000 Turbine Points to a lucky Lord of the Rings Online player. Turbine Points are used to purchase in-game items such as costumes, consumables, mounts, and even quest packs.

Warner Brothers has announced that the free-to-play (F2P) version of the Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) will launch on September 10, 2010. Developer Turbine added this pricing option as a result of the incredible success when their other MMORPG, Dungeons and Dragons Online went F2P in 2009.

Codemasters, the European publisher of Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), will be giving away free store points from the game at Gamescom 2010. LOTRO will be adopting a free-to-play system (F2P) in the fall, as an addition to its existing monthly and lifetime subscription models. Gamescom will be from August 18-22, 2010 in Cologne, Germany.

Beginning Fall 2010, everybody will be able to experience Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) with the new Free-to-play system. With Free-to-play, anyone can download LOTRO, create an avatar and start exploring every corner of Middle Earth, without the need for a subscription or credit card.

MMO developers Turbine Entertainment has recently announced that its popular title, The Lord of the Rings Online, will alter its pricing model to include free-to-play (F2P).

The change will take place Fall 2010 for both North America and Europe (Codemasters runs the European servers). Those who want to check it out earlier can sign up for the beta program that begins on June 16, 2010.

This isn’t exactly a shocking turn of events as Turbine’s success in converting its other MMO, Dungeons and Dragons Online, to a F2P business model pretty much guaranteed that their Tolkien-based game would follow suit.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Group recently announced that it has acquired Turbine Inc., the Boston-based developer of popular online role-playing games The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) and Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO).

Turbine has long been known for its MMORPGs, having also developed Asheron’s Call back in 2001. It’s recently been known for successfully and smoothly switching their business model for DDO from a monthly-based subscription to a free-to-play method. They still offer monthly subscriptions but their focus is on the free-to-play system.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LotRO) received its first official expansion pack today (November 18, 2008) in the form of Mines of Moria. Now available across both Europe and North America for Windows PCs, the expansion boasts large dwarven environments to explore as well as several additional updates to the core game.

As seen in the Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moria – or Khazad-dûm to give it its dwarven name – is a massive underground complex located underneath the Misty Mountains of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. In the LotRO expansion it will play host to hundreds of new quests to complete and foes to battle.

As well as marking the beginning of the game’s second volume…