A Little LOL.

Just a little LOL for everyone while Alberos and I are on break. We should be back at it in another week or so. Until then, I tried my hand at making an 'LOLcat.' I think they're funny, but...

Yeah, I know. I'm late to the game. Didn't find out about these things until a month or so ago.

Siege of Mirkwood Screenshot Contest Winners!

Our Siege of Mirkwood Screenshot Contest is now ended! We had a variety of wonderful entries, which we will compile into a video for our YouTube channel sometime in the next week so everyone can see the imagination and thought our listeners put into their submissions. It really was hard for Alberos and I to narrow down the field. In the end, though, we could only have one winner per category.*

*You'll understand when you get a little further into the post.

The winners of our contest will each receive a free copy of Siege of Mirkwood and will get a chance to appear on one of our near future episodes of LOTROCast: The Lord of the Rings Online Podcast.

And the winners are:

Location Category

For the Location category, we asked entrants to give us a neat and unique perspective on a space in Middle-earth, be it a well-known landmark or a nice little nook to call your own. We received a wide range of submissions, from a wonderfully reflective look at the evil barely contained in Angmar to a great shot of a lonely, forgotten shipwreck in the Bay of Ice.

Our winner in this category, this wonderfully framed shot of Weathertop, comes to us from Donatello on the Firefoot server.

Here's what Donatello had to say about the image: "Weathertop (Amon Sul) as seen from the Lornspan. It is a reminder of those places that had use when they were first created by Men, but have fallen into disrepair and no longer have any practical value. It's a sad reminder of the glory days of the Men of the West."

Character Category

The character category was even tougher for us to narrow down. There were some great submissions in this category too, ranging from a great group photo of a kinship ready to charge together into battle to a wonderful shot of a sole warden in the North Downs just taking in the sunrise.

We actually ran into a bit of a quandary with this one. Our selected winner in this category stated that he was fine without the Siege of Mirkwood expansion, so instead of letting it go to waste we decided to have two winners.

Our 'Grand Prize' winner, who will receive both a guest appearance and a free copy of Siege of Mirkwood, is Fiorella from the Nimrodel server.

Here is what Fiorella had to say: "This picture is meaningful to me because it was my first big raid and I was chosen to be one of the main tanks. I will never forget being face to face with THIS!"

Our co-winner in this category is from Gawain who will appear on a future LOTROCast:

Again, we would like to thank everyone who submitted. When you see all the entries, you'll see just how tough it was to pick the winners! Look for the display video coming to YouTube in the next week or two. I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year! I'll be enjoying the first week on a quick trip to Washington DC, but I also look forward to seeing what 2010 has to offer in LOTRO.

What do you look forward to? Leave a comment or send an email to us about your 'New Year's Resolution' in LOTRO and we will read them on the next episode.