The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ is the world?s first and only MMOG based on the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Players can experience the most famous fantasy world of all time, exploring and adventuring their heroes through the vast reaches of Middle-earth in the fight against the forces of the Dark Lord Sauron.

1 : Is it going to be consensual?

While the way in which this will be implemented in the game is still under discussion, we do know, and can share, three things:

PvP combat in LOTRO will be consensual. If you do not wish to participate, you do not have to.

PvP is NOT the focus of the game. It will primarily be part of our "elder play."

No matter what form PvP in LOTRO takes, we are committed to making sure it fits into Middle-earth in as lore-appropriate a way as possible.

At this time the bones of our PvP system are well in place and now it?s just fleshing out the details. We?ll be releasing more information in the next several weeks. I have actually seen it implemented in the game, spoken to the game systems team, and reviewed the dev diary in which we?ll be giving an overview. NONE of these plans include a FFA PvP server. All servers will have the same rules.

2 : What about Lore concerns? Will Elves be dueling hobbits?? And what about all those annoying duel requests and bragging??

I am pretty sure you won?t have to worry about someone wanting to duel you or boasting about how he ganked someone. Again, how we will implement PvP hasn?t been settled yet, but not a single person on the team feels that being ganked is appropriate to Middle-earth. Even dueling hobbits and elves would be a stretch, right?

No matter what form PvP in LOTRO takes, we are committed to making sure it fits into Middle-earth in as lore-appropriate a way as possible.

3 : Does this mean that PvP is now a major feature of the game?

PvP is NOT the focus of the game. It will primarily be part of our "elder play."

No features have been cut or scaled back to include PvP; again, it?s not going to be the focus of the game at all.

Nope. Sometimes PvE concerns may trump the PvP issue when it comes to balance. PvP isn?t the "heavyweight" over PvE by any stretch.

4 : What about PvP Rewards?

PvP will have rewards. I understand that not everyone wants to pvp, and that means that those people will not get those rewards.

I would say the exact same thing if you were to substitute any of the following words for "pvp" in the above paragraph:

- Solo
- Craft
- Raid
- Group Instances

With five major eldergame mechanics, yes, that means if you want to get all five sets of rewards, you?ll have to do all five activities! But here?s the thing; the rewards from one aren?t flat-out better than the others. If you managed to craft the Huge Crafted Awesome Axe, you don?t need the Huge Raid Loot Awesome Axe. You already have an Awesome Axe.

Our PvP solution is unique, in that it involves playing as non-persistent monster characters. But, non-persistent rewards isn?t terribly compelling. (And no, PvP isn?t its own reward. People PvP for rewards just like any other achiever. As a total aside, the Bartle types are pretty much outdated in this day and age, but that?s a bit of a tangent...)