To me, the mount system in LOTRO has always felt a bit tacked on. Your mount was an item, shoved into your bag, and once you started using it, you could do nothing else. You had to get off your mount to do anything: talk to NPCs, toggle skills, go through doors, etc. All this and more will change in the new expansion. The mount system is being completely redesigned and changed from an item you use to a skill you have. You'll be able to use some items like food, potions, and your map home item. Using limited skills while mounted is beneficial, though mounted combat is definitely out of scope for this change. The features that are most striking to me are being able to speak to NPCs while mounted and being allowed to toggle skills. It's small, but extremely annoying to get on your horse, start riding and realize that you forgot to "track mines" in order to pick up a little ore on your trip. You then have to get off, turn on the skill you want and re-mount. The addition of mount names, emotes and health are nice touches.

All in all, this enhancement, along with the skirmish mode and a few others, have really begun to make this expansion shine for the $20 price tag. Being a lifetime subscriber, that means I get all this, shared storage, more character slots and a mount for that same price. Turbine is slowly winning me over with this expansion and now I'm getting excited for the December release.