LOTRO: Twitter Exclusive Reveal! VOLUME II, BOOK 8: SCOURGE OF KHAZAD-DÛM coming in June! You heard it here first!

Yay! New content for Heren Vanista to blow through! ^_^

There are some other things, but it is stock expansion hype (really, 200 new monsters, huh?). Check it out at http://www.lotro.com/moria.

Here you go:

• Animations and sounds for each Minstrel skill using their equipped instrument (no longer just the Lute!)
• New collection-based fishing deeds are here! Be sure to catch’em all!
• The Dressing Room UI now supports dye color previewing!
• New dyes for clothing available: Orange, Grey, Burgundy, and Turquoise!
• Optional crafting ingredients now stack to 20.
• New farming recipes are available from Novice and Expert farmhands! Farmers now have new crop options to add some variety to their harvest yields. All of the new farming field recipes have the potential to produce rare ingredients useful to Scholars in the production of new dyes, and wall paints for player housing!
• Single-use recipes for the Scholar profession are now available in loot! These recipes allows Scholars to make “Crafting Journals” for the following professions: Jeweller, Metalworker, Tailor, Weaponsmith, and Woodworker. The journals can be used as optional ingredients in single-use recipes for the five professions, allowing crafters to gain a significant increase in the critical chance for these recipes.
• Replaced the “woodchopping” animation with a new “hide tanning” animation for all of the Forester profession’s treated hide recipes.
• The Outfitter is now selling new outfits for crafters. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone, so go check them out!
• All dye colors can now appear on all clothing randomly appearing in loot (regardless of level and item quality).
• Chicken play: As soon as you become a chicken we now reveal the exploration deeds to you. This means those deeds have been versioned. If you are midway on one when Book 14 goes live you will have to restart the quest.
• Repeatable quests can now be shared with someone who has already completed the quest, as long as they would otherwise be able to pick up the quest again from the NPC. The fellowship Shared Quest filter will now filter out quests that your fellows don’t have.
• You can now Ctrl+right-click on many of the item icons in the game to create an item link in your chat window instead of dragging them to the text entry field. This includes item icons in the Auction house, crafting panel, quest rewards, vendors / barter NPCs, and so on. You can also re-map this command, “Item Link To Chat”, in the Key Mapping section of the Options Panel.
• Added 3 more looting options: Roll/Pass with Free For All, Need/Greed with Free For All, and Master Looter with Free For All. If the item is below the current threshold, any person in the group can pick it up. If the item is at or above the threshold then the Loot Policy will be in effect for the item (Roll/Pass, Need/Greed, Master Looter). In addition, for all landscape chests the first player to open the chest will always be able to loot the items below the threshold. All items at or above the threshold will follow the normal Loot Policy.
• When you are too far away to do a fellowship manoeuvre contribution it will now be clear on the UI that you cannot use that contribution as is.
• Smoothed out Companion following.
• Emotes
  • Burp
  • Charge
  • Chuckle – new!
  • Clap
  • Congratulate
  • Fidget
  • Hail – new!
  • Poke
  • Shiver
  • Slap
  • Think
  • Whippitydo – new!!
  • Wince
  • Yawn
  • Ahem
• You can now drag items from your inventory into the “Item Name” field of the “Auctions” tab on the Auction UI to populate it with the name of that item.
• Lore-master skills “Light of the Rising Dawn” and “Cracked Earth” – Fixed a rare error that left a book stuck in the Lore-master’s hand when the skill failed to execute completely. maiki note: not a rare error
• The Oleif twins have resolved their dual identity crisis by having their leatherworking member take on a new name, “Fielo.” Now when one gets in trouble, the other feels pain! (points for spotting the reference) (extra points for a youtube sample) kgo
• The height requirement for the summer festival horse race has been lowered to allow dwarves and hobbits to complete this quest.
• The Prologue for “Volume II: The Mines of Moria” is now available! Speak to Barbethnir in front of the House of Elrond to help the Fellowship prepare to embark on their errand of secrecy.