With the news that EA has extended their Lord of the Rings license, FiringSquad has enquired on The White Council:

FiringSquad has confirmed that despite the announcement today of Electronic Arts extending its Lord of the Rings game license to 2008, the development of its fantasy RPG Lord of the Rings: The White Council is still officially "on hold". According to what an EA rep told us, the publisher is working on an all new game in the franchise. Details about the game have yet to be announced.

MMORPG.com follows up their recent interview with Turbine's Jeff Anderson on LotRO with a second part.  Here's a snip:

Last week, we brought you the first half of Jon Wood’s interview with Jeff Anderson, the CEO and President of Turbine Inc. about the process of turning the well-loved classic Lord of the Rings novel trilogy into an MMORPG. Today, we bring you part two of Jon’s interview. In part two, Jeff talks about the game’s unique Monster Play system.

One of the major complaints that we heard about Lord of the Rings Online when details first started to be released was that there would be no evil races available for play and because of this, the game would not have PvP. You see, many fans of Tolkien’s books are as much a fan of the utterly evil races as they are the bright and shiny hero races. Lord of the Rings was, for me growing up, the ultimate story of good vs. evil.

GameSpot has news that EA's CFO Warren Jensen would make a good politician, having confirmed The White Council is both in development and on-hold:

Today, during a postearnings call, EA CFO Warren Jenson confirmed that The White Council is not canceled--but that work on it has been indefinitely suspended. "The Lord of the Rings product is back in development in terms of being on hold," he cryptically told an analyst who asked whether or not the game had been canceled outright.

But while EA hasn't pulled the plug on The White Council, its prognosis is not good. Jenson said that the game will not be released during the publisher's next financial year, which ends on March 31, 2008. He also announced that EA is "looking at the creative positioning and feature set on the Lord of the Rings franchise," but did not elaborate.

1Up writes they have been informed by an anonymous  source that EA has cancelled Lord of the Rings: The White Council. The rumor hasn´t been confirmed yet.

The official site of The White Council has been updated recently with a few new artworks and wallpapers.

Eurogamer has a preview of EA's recently revealed Lord of the Rings franchise addition, The White Council. It seems the PC version isn't confirmed yet but here's a little of the very brief information actually revealed:

"We started off with the idea that we wanted to create what in a sense you might call a sandbox Middle-Earth, which is a version of Middle-Earth in which you will find characters, as Tolkien describes them, going about their business, doing the things they should be doing, having the interactions that they should be having and so on," Gray says.

"You would come into that environment and have the opportunity to make up your own story; to say, 'I'm the hero of Middle-Earth, and I want to go and do this, and I think this is important and this is how I'm going to spend my time.'"

...but...

But once the project was a bit further down the line, according to Gray, the team decided that a free-roaming Middle-Earth just wouldn't be enough to entertain everyone.

Hit the link to read on.

There's an interview with EA's Tyler Vaught at CVG about his company's next try to get a real RPG going again:

What platforms will the game ship on?

Tyler Vaught: The lead platforms are PS3 and Xbox 360. We're also thinking about doing a PC version. The PC version isn't officially confirmed but it's something you would imagine we would do. If you look back at a lot of the other Lord of the Rings games, we haven't 100% always done a PC version, but we tend to.

When can we expect to see the finished game?

Tyler Vaught: The game has been in production for about a year and a half. We hope to release it in fall of 2007.

GameSpot has posted what they ambitiously describe as impressions of EA's The White Council, but it seems they really didn't see too much:

We didn't get to see any gameplay, but EA showed off art montages showing a huge variety of locales in Middle-earth, both good and evil. We're told that the combat is going to try and blend the third-person action of games such as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Return of the King with the tactical combat of games like The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age.

The Lord of the Rings: The White Council / Project Gray Company site has a new diary entry described as "Chris Tremmel interviews Creative Director Chris Tremmel". Head over to see if he gives himself a hard time in the interview, which runs to 2:31.

In line with expectations, EA's Project Gray is been officially unveiled as 'Lord of the Rings: The White Council':<blockquote><em>CHERTSEY, UK July 13, 2006 a  Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced today the development of The Lord of the Ringsa c, The White Councila c, an all-new role playing game (RPG) for the Xbox 360a c video game and entertainment system, PlayStationA3 computer entertainment system, and PC. The game, inspired by the New Line Cinema feature film trilogy that grossed more than $3 billion, will feature an original storyline derived from J.R.R. Tolkiena "!s The Lord of the Rings novels under an agreement with EA. The game is scheduled to ship in late 2007. <br> <br>a S
Our extremely talented and dedicated team is committed to creating an incredible new experience for fans of The Lord of the Rings and role playing gamers,a ? said Steve Gray, executive producer, The Lord of the Rings, The White Council. a S
With its next generation gameplay and epic new storyline, we think The Lord of the Rings, The White Council will be a huge success.a ? Players have the freedom to explore the open world of Tolkiena "!s Middle-eartha c in The Lord of the Rings, The White Council. <br> <br>Players can choose their role as a man, an elf, a dwarf, or a hobbit. Each rolea "!s destiny is to become a hero allied with the White Council, whose members include the famed characters Gandalf, Saruman, Galadriel, and Elrond. <br> <br>A combination of stunning graphics and expansive environments, along with the freedom of movement demonstrates the innovation and quality of the next-generation RPG, where players can create their own adventures. The Lord of the Rings, The White Council has not yet been rated by PEGI. For more information about the game, please visit: <a href="http://www.whitecouncil.ea.com/" target="_blank">http://www.whitecouncil.ea.com/</a></em></blockquote>. The official site doesn't seem to work but you can head to the <a href="http://www.ea.com/official/projectgraycompany/" target="_blank">Project Gray</a> site. It will be interesting to see what EA does with an apparently open-ended RPG design and advanced AI from The Sims...

Steve Gray has shown some preview footage at the Hollywood & Games Summit. As <a href="http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3325&Itemid=2" target="_blank">Next-Gen.biz</a> reports, the game is very much Lord of the Rings:<blockquote><em>In the final discussion, Steve Gray, executive producer of the Lord of the Rings franchise at EA Los Angeles, previewed footage from an upcoming Lord of the Rings-style game. Gray had blacked out portions of his presentation the evening before, when he realized he couldna "!t reveal certain details of the project. <br> <br>Among these blacked out subjects was the title of the game, but the design pages featured elements from The Fellowship of the Ring. <br> <br>Talking on the difficulties of developing for high-definition, next-generation systems, Gray said that the assets were sometimes interchangeable, as they were rendered at similar resolutions, with similar detail. <br> <br>While he stumbled on his teama "!s ability to live up to Tolkiena "!s compelling storytelling, Gray suggested that their new project was a S
trying to do so in a less linear way.a ? <br> <br>Gray hinted that the new project was a a S
story construction kit.a ?</em></blockquote>

Blue's is pointing out EA's Project Gray Company website today. There seems to be some new (Tolkienesque) art, a new designer diary and possibly other stuff buried in the Flash.