From the WarCry LotRO Chat...

[13:19] Jalessa: We are not currently planning on adding new tiers of crafting at this time. However, each book cycle has tons of crafting love and we will continue to fully support crafting guilds and add new recipes to the game. We have some very nice things coming for crafting soon! Two letters: U and I.

 Hmm, interesting!

[13:32] katepaiz: isengard is tentatively slated for next year, and we'll be approaching the zone in the timeline in which saruman has already denuded the area, and has created his orc factory.

[13:32] katepaiz: players will likely have access to some of the underground areas, but obviously with saruman in the big tower, access to the upper regions is likely to be challenging :)

Sounds like possibly a Tower Raid?

[13:34] raskolnikov: Sort of, we're introducing new appearances for the Eagle, Sabercat, and Bog-guardian. We're also changing around how Lore-masters can change their pet appearances: instead of needing to equip a necklace to change the way your pet looks, you'll now get a new separate skill.

Yay for Lore-Masters!

 [13:35] sapience: PAX East is returning to Boston next year, and we'll definitely be out in force on the show floor. We'd love to get something put together for our fans, but that's it's own massive undertaking. So yes it's something we'd love to do, but we'll have to see what happens. Of course, if our fans put something together for PAX East, I'd show up!  Plague and all!

 This was in response to a question about a BlizzCon-styled Turbine Convention.

[13:36] Ransroth: You can definitely expect more fun minigames, particularly associated with festivals. I've seen some very neat specs lately.

 This was in response to a question about more mini-games such as chicken play, freeze tag, etc.

[13:38] Ransroth: The intent with Lua is to make it possible for players to create custom interfaces for information that's already available to them, not to give an actual advantage.

[13:39] Ransroth: Jwbarry is threatening bodily harm if we make addons that trivialize his content

No Deadly Boss Mods for you! ;)

[13:53] Jalessa: We took Radiance outside, tied it up to some railroad tracks, and...well...I think you saw the end of this in Red Dead Redemption. Look for this in the future - we will be removing Radiance from LOTRO.

And the peasants rejoiced!