"Why you should be playing ..." is a free form column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we're playing them, so you can know what to play.

Almost every fantasy MMO offers some variation on a non-combat activity. Whether you're investing in one of the numerous styles of crafting, the unique negotiation minigame in Vanguard, or just /dancing the night away in an NPC city ... there's always something to do. For myself, I've always enjoyed the idea of fishing in-game. It's always relaxing, often lets you enjoy some quiet time in beautiful natural spots, and usually nets you some kind of tangible benefit.

The problem with fishing is that it's often boring. In several games, you really have to really grind away at it to 'get anywhere'. Often the mechanics are needlessly complicated, and some games just aren't that pretty to stand around in for an extended period of time. That's why I've grown to love fishing in Lord of the Rings Online so much. The game is beautiful, the mechanics are simple, and the developers don't force you to stand by the side of a river for hours on end. Read on for a few words on why casting a line might be something you'd enjoy thiscoming weekend.

One month to the day after the introduction of the Lord of the Rings Online Ring-lore event, nearly all servers have reached the goal of finding 70,000 vestiges of ring-lore each. The only exception to this is the Firefoot server, which has the lowest population, yet Brandywine met their goals on August 11th. Now that we've all done such a great job and the objectives were met far before anyone predicted, what's next? Can we still get ring-lore? Will this event repeat?

Well, the main point of this event was to open the second part of Book 14, Chapter 7 to players, so if you're to that point, you can now proceed. As far as the event repeating, there's no official word on that, yet Turbine may take the overwhelming participation in this event as a learning experience for future events. Currently you can't get any more ring-lore, yet the Heralds of Rivendell are still scattered throughout Middle-earth. So this begs the question: would you want another of these events? What type would you like to see?

The first official patch to Lord of the Rings Online's Book 14 has arrived today, and with it comes mostly bug fixes, gameplay balance issues and crafting improvements. However, some of the most pressing changes were ironically added at the very bottom of the patch notes page.

In order of awesomeness: Summer Festival music boxes now work properly, the Summer Festival horse's blanket has been "toned down" and the Auction House has been fixed! Yes, that's right, the annoying bug that prevented spaces and dashes to be entered into the AH search box (except for dragging and dropping the name from an existing item) has now been fixed. This means we can all go back to searching for items that we didn't already own, which was not fun and caused many players to forego the AH completely until this bug was fixed. Rejoice! It is now fixed.

In the latest forum round-up over at Ten Ton Hammer's Lord of the Rings Online division, it's no surprise that the focus is on Book 14's new content. There are gleeful praises and there are angry rants, but perhaps the most interesting is the speculation on what's to come with the expanded Critter Play feature.

As one player predicts, the word is out that we may be able to play as Gandalf in Mines of Moria. Now, keep in mind that this is one player's speculation and the evidence he presents for this theory is a bit of a stretch, but wouldn't it be interesting if they were right? Imagine being Gandalf in that infamous Balrog battle scene, protecting the Fellowship from certain doom all by your lonesome. Now that's immersive game play.

So you took our advice and pre-patched your Lord of the Rings Online client before the servers went live today. You're now ready to dive head-first into the new content, but you might realize that you don't know where to start. The official Book 14 patch notes might seem a bit daunting, so we've compiled this quick wrap-up of our best Book 14 posts for your knowledge and enjoyment.

	Massively's exclusive tour of LotRO Book 14 In this five-part article, we will explore the initial storyline where the Fellowship finally leaves Rivendell for Moria, a new type of Critter Play that takes you back through history, battlefield defense instances, housing upgrades and a complete new set of screenshots for you to enjoy.
	LotRO Dev Diary: Moving the Fellowship The time has arrived for the Fellowship to finally leave Rivendell. For the players who enjoy the game's connection to Tolkien's work, this is truly an exciting time. For the game developers, it's a fairly unique challenge.
	LotRO's Legendary Weapon system explained A good chunk of this interview centers around the new Legendary Weapons that we'll see with Mines of Moria. These weapons will be something like a living part of your character, almost like a companion.
	Changes to Monster Play in LotRO's Book 14 Finally, what we've all been waiting for: emotes for the monsters! This large list includes such favorites as cheer, dance1 and tantrum. It's certainly about time the monsters got a little RP love, too!
	LotRO dev diary: Book 14 instance updates We've heard so many recent reports about the upcoming changes with Lord of the Rings Online's Book 14, including class improvements, new emotes and large-scale events. In a recent dev diary, we now get word of some changes that will be implemented regarding the instances of LotRO.

We know you're excited about tomorrow's new content patch for Lord of the Rings Online. With Book 14, we'll get some wonderful new additions to the game as well as some hearty preparation for Mines of Moria later this year. So it would only make sense that you'd want to play as soon as possible, right? You don't want to sit around patching with everyone else, you want to play the second Book 14 releases!

Turbine makes it easy for players to do just that. Their Downloadable Updater will patch Books 13 and 14 onto your computer before the official release hits the live servers. Not only will this let you be ahead of the game, but you can also download this content on another computer, transfer the file onto a disk or device, then run it on your computer with a LotRO client to access the update. The downloaded update won't apply itself until the servers go live on patch day, but consider this a great little tip on getting yourself prepared.

In a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Lord of the Rings Online developers Aaron Campbell and Brent Schmidt answered some questions about the new content patch releasing this Tuesday. They explain a bit more about what to expect with Book 14, and ultimately with Mines of Moria, calling it "the largest single continuous underground space ever created in an online game."

However, a good chunk of this interview centers around the new Legendary Weapons that we'll see with Mines of Moria. These weapons will be something like a living part of your character, almost like a companion. These items will gain experience points with you and can be upgraded by your character. Be sure to read the complete interview for more details on what will most certainly be an exciting addition to the game.

After several months of preparation, tons of screenshots, videos and more, Lord of the Rings Online's Book 14 has a set release date. According to the official site, the servers will be down on Tuesday, July 22nd from 6AM - 12PM Eastern time for the latest content update, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion.

If you need a refresher course on Book 14's contents, be sure to check out Massively's exclusive tour from last week, as well as our screenshot gallery. The official patch notes for Book 14 are now live on the LotRO website, to give you a complete run-down of the changes and additions made with this content patch. Keep your eyes on Massively for more information on Book 14 once it goes live. Now, we look ahead towards Mines of Moria!

As we reported last week from our Lord of the Rings Online Book 14 tour, the time has arrived for the Fellowship to finally leave Rivendell. For the players who enjoy the game's connection to Tolkien's work, this is truly an exciting time. For the game developers, it's a fairly unique challenge.

In a recent dev diary entitled Moving the Fellowship, Jeff "MadeOfLions" Libby discusses the problems faced by the development team in regards to this challenge, and how they solved them. For example, throughout the game as it stands today, the nine Fellowship members are not all together waiting for their big move. Some are in various locations throughout Rivendell, while Gimli is in the Misty Mountains. Each member is simultaneously involved in dozens of quests throughout the game, which poses its own set of challenges. Check out the complete dev diary to find out how they overcame these obstacles, and how they will continue to implement these ideas in the future of the game.

Turbine has sent along some brand new screenshots relating to the Lord of the Rings Online Book 14 update, primarily to display some of the Minstrel animations that are going to be introduced. We've added these high quality shots to our Book 14 gallery, and in them you can see various Minstrels playing their instruments like never before.

As well as the Minstrel shots, we are treated to a close-up of Armethial (who we caught a quick glimpse of in our Book 14 video tour and gallery) looking undeniably bad-ass on her home turf. The new screenshots can be found at the end of our gallery, along with the other pictures we've collected from Book 14 so far.

As we announced earlier, Massively recently participated in a hands-on play session for Lord of the Rings Online's newest patch, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion. In this session, we were able to play through some of the exciting new content and document it for you, the faithful readers.

In this five-part article, we will explore the initial storyline where the Fellowship finally leaves Rivendell for Moria, a new type of Critter Play that takes you back through history, battlefield defense instances, housing upgrades and a complete new set of screenshots for you to enjoy. Plus, if reading and galleries aren't your thing, we also grabbed some wonderful video of the experience as a brief summary, which you will find just after the jump.

Follow along on our journey through the Ring-forges>>

Lord of the Rings Online's Book 14 hasn't even released yet, and already we're getting previews of their first paid expansion: Mines of Moria. In a recent interview with Jeffrey Steefel, the folks at Total PC Gaming were able to squeeze out some new info on Mines of Moria, including the top question on everyone's mind: Will we fight the Balrog?

Of course the answer is yes. How many global protests would erupt if players discovered they wouldn't have the opportunity to fight the mighty Balrog? Not only that, the Mines promise to be much more than were shown in the movie. Considering the fact that Forochel was created from a few paragraphs of Tolkien's work, Moria should be an amazing experience. Be sure to read the entire interview for more of Steefel's take on what Moria will bring and just how much further we still have to explore in Middle-earth.

The next chapter in the Lord of the Rings Online saga will soon be hitting the live servers, and to whet our appetites Turbine has released a series of images showcasing the titular Ring-forges of Eregion. This beautiful elven area will feature heavily in the upcoming Book 14 patch, the last before the upcoming Mines of Moria expansion. In addition to numerous quality of life improvements, it sounds as though players will be able to fully explore the tragic history of the Eregion area - the home of every one of the Ring Wraiths' binding symbols.

We're going to have some hands-on time with Book 14 soon enough. Be sure to keep your eyes on the site for future LOTRO updates.

We've heard so many recent reports about the upcoming changes with Lord of the Rings Online's Book 14, including class improvements, new emotes and large-scale events. In a recent dev diary, we now get word of some changes that will be implemented regarding the instances of LotRO.

The largest changes will occur with the three main instances of Angmar: Urugarth, Carn Dum and Barad Gularan. These instances will receive significant tweaks to the gameplay and new armor sets will either be added or greatly improved to add balance. In addition, many of the epic storyline quests will be reworked to add replayability. You can then access any of these replayable quests by talking to a Sage of Eriador who is located near the reflecting pools of the pertaining instances. Check out the complete notes from this dev diary, as well as a follow-up forum post with questions from players that are answered by the devs themselves.