Mines of Moria opens today

New EQII pack, as well

With that pesky Wrath of the Lich King update now out the door, a couple of Blizzard's more determined rivals today opt to unleash their own MMO updates - Turbine offering up The Mines of Moria for Lord of the Rings Online, while SOE deliver The Shadow Odyssey for EverQuest II.

Mines of Moria is of course the first add-on fro Turbine's Tolkien-inspired online world, the title adding loads of new content, a level cap of 60, Legendary Weapons and of course vast tracts of Middle-Earth to explore.

SOE's EverQuest II is of course not on its first update, this is its fifth in fact, the new content arriving in the form of twenty additional zones - some taken from the original EverQuest. The pack also adds new achievement classes and even a mission making system.

Whether either of these plucky upstarts will be enough to help their respective MMOs battle World of Warcraft does of course remains to be seen, but we do like to see someone try.

By Luke Guttridge