Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Coming Your Way…Eventually

by Karen “Shayalyn” Hertzberg

After cutting a path through the sea of humanity that is E3, my co-worker Nicole Hamlett and I found ourselves at the Turbine booth, ready to get a look at Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. We were led upstairs to the little press demo room and greeted by Turbine LOTRO’s executive producer, Jeffrey Steefel, who promptly launched into a demo of the game we’ve been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for; the game that brings Middle Earth to the MMO world. Or will…someday.

Let me assure you, though—there is a game; we’ve seen it.

The demo found us outside The Prancing Pony, watching a dwarf guardian--the game’s primary melee class, which is playable by every race except the hobbit because, as Steefel says, “that would just be weird”--approach Strider to accept a quest. The game ran smoothly as the dwarf made his way around Middle Earth. Steefel explained that while players can’t be figures from the novels such as Aragorn or Frodo, the game was designed to allow people to interact with primary characters from The Lord of the Rings and “really make them feel they’re part of the storyline.”

Maiden Lair - Lakes River

As we watched, our dwarf friend ran around, swam forward, backward, and even sideways; and entered into combat. Animation is smooth and natural all around. Nicole asked if the team used motion-capture for animation. “No,” Steefel replied, “This is all hand-animated. We’re very proud of our animation.”

I was expecting a user interface similar to Dungeons & Dragons Online (since both games are developed by different Turbine teams, it seems natural that there might be similarities), but this interface was practically invisible, with what looked like a hot bar along the bottom of the screen with easy access to functions such as maps and quest logs.