Yay! Its 2010 already!

I've been looking around and there's a lot of surveys on the news about whether or not people are optimistic for the new year. I remember most of the statistics being around 70~% optimistic and the rest not so keen on it. Personally I'm a lot more optimistic for this year than I was last year economically, but there's other good reasons to be optimistic. I'm looking forward to seeing what new things come out of the MMO scene. Embarrassingly enough I ran a yellow light a bit too fast and got a speeding ticket that is coming out of my play money, so I'm VARY (spelled wrong on purpose yes) interested in Allod's Online and all other free to play stuff, as well as the next two Lotro book updates. Any guesses as to what those will bring?

My prognostication for the first one in three months is that it will bring a couple more dungeons at level 65. More excitingly for me, it will bring more skirmishes! (Hopefully two!) What I'm also wondering is the big question, which area of middle earth is coming next? I predict Dunland since they already leaked that and its attached to Eregion which they already created. (And it leads up well to the next expansion) However they could throw us for a loop and not put in a new land mass in the next book (though I doubt they will do this as people love to explore new content)

Another route they make take is the area surrounding the Aragonath and dub it "part of Mirkwood" or "its own thing" Then connect that to Fanghorn forest, (which should be a really interesting forest, I love how they've done Mirkwood so far, especially in the eaves and near the haunted inn)

As we all know, book updates tend to bring.."other things". My favorite other things so far from the last one were the mount update, paving the way for mounted combat, and the lone lands revamp by a lone dev named Orion. We already know his next target is book 3 and the lone lands, which means we know his next target after that in summer will be the revamp of the Trollshaws (so if you want to play these areas as they were better get cracking...) I really like the solo option for instances, but I'd personally love to see a duo and trio option too. Yes this could conceivable greatly increase the work that needs to be done, but its doesn't of necessity. You could just do it the way that Orion did the current solo one, re-use the same instance but buff the player to be like an elite, only for a duo you buff them to be like signatures. (or whatever is balanced). and a trio just gets a slight buff. (We were almost able to finish the group instance "Retake Weathertop" in a three/four man. Anyways I love the new quest hubs and rewards that have been devised and I can't wait to see what gets done with the north downs, and then the Trollshaws (in which book 4 is a nightmare of running to Rivendell and back like 3 times.) I really love the trees in the Trollshaws though, and the fun canyons that are easy to get lost in. Its really not a very boring zone of the game, so maybe there isn't that much change that needs to be done. Tal Bruinen was added later and shows a lot more polish also.

Anyways what are your predictions? What is Turbine going to add next? When will we get mounted combat? PVMP skirmishes? (I predict Rohan)