The official LotRO site has been updated with a developer journal written by Ryan "Tens" Bednar. In it, he discusses a couple of interesting avatar updates from the upcoming "Book Twelve: The Ashen Gates".

Now, you might be asking yourself: "Why on Middle-earth would the devs be focusing on avatar customization when they've still got Mordor to build?!"

Well, anecdotally speaking, I can't recall a single Dev Chat (and as everyone who's had to wait while I typed up an answer knows, I've done a lot of them) where someone hasn't asked for additional character customization options. In fact, the request for just an option to toggle your shoulder armour off and on has come up in every one of our last 5 European Dev Chats (big shout-out to our Codemasters players here!).

We can take a hint, so we got to work.

But, we're not just giving you the option to toggle your shoulder (and glove) armour in Book 12 -- no, we're giving you more. Much more!

Book 12 introduces two brand new Avatar Customization features to LOTRO: The Outfit System, and Barbershops.

Head to the official site to read up on each.