LOTRO: Riders of Rohan Content Delayed to February 2013

Lord of the Rings Online has been happily chugging along since its release, catering to a stable base of players in Turbine’s decision not to over-extend the game thanks to its strong focus on Player-vs-Environment cooperative gameplay.

The studio is currently working on a new expansion pack for the game titled the Riders of Rohan, which has since been released but lacks much of its content due to a somewhat premature release.

Turbine has been quick to offer an explanation for the delay, which extends into February 2013. Speaking to the community, Turbine’s Rick Heaton described which content was being delayed, and added that the delays were necessary to polish up the content.

Heaton said, “Because of the delay in shipping Rohan, development time for the year was obviously reduced. This left us two options; either delay the entire instance cluster until 2013, or release those instances we felt could be completed with the highest degree of polish in December and delay the others until they are ready (currently expected to be February).

“We’ve chosen to honor our commitment as best we can with the limited time remaining in 2012 while still insuring the highest quality possible.”

The studio intends to release the first batch of content this December in the “Against the Shadow” update, which includes three instances: Ionbar’s Peak, Webs of the Scuttledells, and Seat of the Great Goblin—each of which are 3-man instances.

The studio will release the remaining instances in February. These include: The Bells of the Dale, Flight of the Lonely Mountain, The Fires of Smaug, and The Battle for Erebor.