The Lord of the Rings Online development team has posted an in-depth Hero's Guide to Durin's Way as they continue to prepare us for the release of Mines of Moria on Nov. 18.

This proud level of Moria is named for the eldest of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves—Durin of the Longbeard Clan—and the sixth king to bear his name, the second-last to rule in Khazad-dûm. It is the northernmost territory inside Moria; it lies above the Great Delving, Zelem-melek and the Twenty-first Hall, and Nud-melek and the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.

Keep reading here or below to learn all you could ever want to know about Durin's Way.

The Child's Play 2008 charity drive has officially launched, and the Web site has been updated so you can donate toys and games to children in hospitals worldwide. The charity was organized in 2003 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade.

We ended our 2007 drive with over 1.3 million dollars in donations, thanks to gamers all over the globe. We’re welcoming ten new hospitals in Canada and the US to the Child’s Play network, so please have a look at the map to see if your local children’s hospital has come on board. Every hospital has a wish list full of gifts, and is hoping for your support.

We hope you'll visit the Child's Play site and consider purchasing some gifts. All you have to do is click on a hospital on the map and you'll be sent to the hospital's wish list on Amazon.com. It's that simple. For more information, check out Mike's recent post on the Penny Arcade site. The "thank you" letter they received from a hospital in Connecticut says it all. The full post is also below.

It's time to start getting the files for MoM in preperation for launch!

The downloadable updater means you can download the Mines of Moria files before the expansion goes live on the Turbine servers, saving you time when they come back up on November 18th. It also means you can download the patch on a computer that you don't have LOTRO installed on (i.e. your work computer), transfer the patch to a disk or device, and then run it on the computer with a LOTRO client to update it.

The downloadable updater will download the files needed to update your client to The Mines of Moria. Please note that EVEN PLAYERS WHO DO NOT PURCHASE MORIA WILL NEED TO PATCH TO THIS VERSION. There are many updates included for all players, including Book 15, UI and class changes, and so on. After you've updated your client, when the servers go live with Mines of Moria your client will apply the patch and update itself.

I'd like to thank our very own Morarae for pointing this one out (and then taunting me with it)

Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer Jeff Steefel recently told videogaming247 that Turbine will announce console MMO products early next year. No, that's not a typo. Turbine plans to release more than one console MMO!

“We’re really not talking about what our console product plans are, but we will be soon,” he said when asked specifically if we’re going to see a console version of LotRO.

“I would guess by early next year’s we’ll be able to be much more specific about what we’re doing with console, what kind of products we’re putting on console.”

Steefel further said that Turbine is in early development work with hardware manufacturers to "understand where they’re heading in the online space, where the connectivity between the console and internet is really headed."

You can read the full article here or below. Let the rumor mill begin as we wonder if we'll be playing LotRO on our consoles in the future.

Monsters! The Mines of Moria are filled with them, and the dev guy responsible, Raskolnikov (we'll harass him for that later!), has a dev log up that explains the process, and what we can expect to see!

Content is usually concerned about the Lore-appropriateness™ of the monsters and how they’ll affect the different quests they make. As Systems, I’m mostly concerned with the mechanics of the monsters and how exactly their skills will work. (“So, let me get this straight: you want a dude on top of a mammoth who throws spears while the mammoth attacks and then you want the mammoth to go into a rage and buck the rider off and then it will attack on its own…” ‘Yes!’ “*sigh*… I’ll see what I can do…”)

The poor guy had a lot to do, I'm sure, but the write up is entertaining and very exciting for those of us on the edge of our seats for MoM! If you've left LotRO but are excited about the expansion, why not take advantage of this weekend's free "Welcome Back " event, which includes bonus XP and free items!

Who says no to that?!