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Questions by Cody “Micajah” Bye (Managing Editor) and Greg “Darkgolem” Stanley (LOTRO Site Lead)

Answers by LOTRO’s Aaron Campbell (Live Producer) and Brent Schmidt (Lead Content Designer)

This autumn is full of MMO gaming goodness. On top of the release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, we’re also going to be seeing the deployment of another of the industry’s biggest expansions: Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria. In a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, the Lord of the Rings developers talked about the prequel to this upcoming expansion – Book 14 – but also touched on a number of interesting topics concerning the upcoming Mines of Moria expansion. Make sure you check it out!

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Ten Ton Hammer: Did you have any major goals for this particular expansion beyond being the prequel / bridge to the Mines of Moria expansion?

The Mines of Moria expansion is coming soon!

Brent Schmidt: One thing we spent a lot of time on was enhancing our previous instances. The six man instances that are found in Angmar and Númenas, and we also took a lot at our 24-man raids a little bit. We just wanted to make all of those a little more accessible with a bit more of an introduction to those particular instances, because we’re going to have more of those in our Moria content. We figured that working with our previous instances would serve as a good ramp up to what we’re working on in Moria.

Aaron Campbell: That said, we’re again looking at that theme that this Book 14 content upgrade is the bridge to Moria. There’s content bridges, experiments that we’re doing with storytelling, the instances and the loot that we drop in those instances so it can fit really well with the progression that you find in the Moria expansion. We wanted to make that really smooth for the players.

Ten Ton Hammer:  So what should players expect with Book 14 and the Mines of Moria?

Aaron: This Book is really the idea of moving the Fellowship beyond the walls of Rivendell and giving the players a sense of story continuation. In Moria, we’re going to close out the Volume One story with Book 15 on top of introducing the Mines of Moria expansion with Volume Two, Book One, which has a pretty long sequence that will get the players involved with the story of the dwarves that are exploring their tunnels. It’s an expeditionary party and from Eregion you’ll meet up with them and work with them to lead you through the places that the Fellowship has already gone.

We’ll also take that opportunity to introduce some of our new game systems – for instance Legendary Items.

Brent: The Legendary Item system is an extremely important part of our next phase of character advancement. It’s a system that essentially allows you to forge your own Bane or Narsil. Having a named weapon is a really important part of Tolkien lore, and we’ve given you a chance to create your own.

Aaron: Essentially your item almost becomes its own quest hub. You customize it in your own way. You name it and reforge it. You add different runics to it. It gains experience on its own as you fight with it, and gradually becomes more powerful. It really is an item that is customized to your play style.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will the Legendary Items have deeds and that sort of thing associated with them?

Brent: Yes – you’ll actually have deeds for your weapon, and a number of quests will be available on the weapons that will actually give you deeds. On top of that, you’ll be able to have a couple different items that you’ll be able to work on at the same time.  

Book 14 is like a prologue to the Moria expansion.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are you balancing item advancement with this new Legendary Item system? Will there be the same amount of drops? Or will that be a thing of the past with the new weapons?

Aaron: A good part of the system is that you can take some of the items that are coming out of instanced spaces and use those items to enhance that weapon. Or you might decide that a new weapon you just got would make a great Legendary Item for you because it has legacies that fit your play style even better, so you choose to reforge it as your new mainstay item.

Ten Ton Hammer: So you’ll just find different weapons and decide to change your Legacy weapon, essentially?

Aaron: Right. You’ll need to identify it, and the characteristics it might have will be a bit random.

Brent: And remember that this system is only in for weapons, not for any other items. We still have other things that we can give out as well.

Essentially, when you first find a weapon it’s full of untapped potential. You don’t know what its properties are. Once you identify it, the weapon may have properties that you don’t want, but someone else does. That’s when you can put it up on the auction house. At some point though, it becomes yours and yours alone.

Aaron: This is really just a continuation of the idea of having multiple ways for players to customize their characters. Deeds and appearances are already in the game, and this is just another way for that to happen.
 
(Editor’s Note: Here’s a general overview of what the Legacy Items are all about from Exec. Producer Jeffrey Steefel: Each weapon is class specific. Each weapon has the capacity for a random class relevant legacy. Legacies are randomly assigned to your weapon. Each legacy can be made more powerful by spending item XP on it. Item XP is acquired by killing monsters, and doing Item deeds/quests. Legacies have different quality levels, meaning that while legacies might modify the same skills, they may do it in different magnitudes. Every time you go through an item reforge (ie: your weapon gains 10 levels), you can gain a random legacy.)

Ten Ton Hammer: Will there be any new additions to the extraneous player content like fishing?

Brent: We’ll be adding some more deeds and trophies into the fishing system, but in the longer term we want to really expand the range and types of fish you can catch along with the usage of those fish (via cooking, etc.). We’re also hoping to include elements of fishing in our upcoming live events as well.  

Ten Ton Hammer: Is there anything for a new player to really enjoy before heading into the Mines of Moria expansion, or a veteran player that wants to jump back in?

Sauron's presence is definitely felt in the upcoming content.

Aaron: I absolutely think this is a good time. There’s tons of new content besides just the stuff we’re throwing into the Moria expansion. There’s also a ton of people coming back to get ready for Moria and going through all the content that they haven’t seen yet. Along with that previous content, we’re going to be doing some live events that players aren’t going to want to miss out on.

We’ll be doing something that will only be going on for a limited time, but should be a lot of fun for players to get into. It will definitely leave a lasting mark on Middle Earth. We’ll talk a lot more about the entire experience in the near future, but Moria is going to be the largest single continuous underground space ever created in an online game. People should want to get ready for that experience.

Brent: It’s not just a cave. It’s an underground landscape. A city, civilization, and home to a multitude of different biomes.

Ten Ton Hammer: How big is it?

Brent: We haven’t measured it yet, but it’s big. The key to it is – if you look back at all the different underground spaces in 3D games – it’s one of the biggest. You aren’t going to be zoning in and out of different areas. It is one big continuous area.

That was all the questions we had time for during our interview, so make sure you check back with Ten Ton Hammer for more of the exclusive news on LOTRO and their upcoming expansion!