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Shores of Evendim dated

LOTRO update next week.

Codemasters Online Gaming has sent us a fat little Hobbit spouting news that Book 9: Shores of Evendim will be available on 14th June.

This is the first of many free content updates for The Lord of the Rings Online, which will add various fantastical bits and pieces to the game. There's the brand new area of Evendim, for starters, which was roughly 100 miles north of The Shire last time we checked. Although it's been a while.

Here you can gaze out over the enormous Lake Nenuial, or help forgetful Aragorn reclaim a lost jewel in the ancient city of Annúminas. Over 100 quests are waiting for you to sink your teeth into, including a 24 person raid encounter on the Misty Mountains where Thorog the dragon awaits.

On top of all this, budding composers can now revel in a notation system to compose tunes offline then upload them to their characters in game. Bound to impress. There's also seven new sets of epic armour to swan around in, each flaunting progressively better bonuses the more pieces you collect.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game that was released at the end of April. It scored big points with us thanks to its polished launch and sturdy line-up of features, and has topped both European and American charts.

We also recently caught up with executive producer for the game Jeffrey Steefel for a chat about how things were going, and what we could expect in the future. Head over to our The Lord of the Rings Online interview to find out more.