Interview with LotRO Producer Jeffrey Steefel

By Darkgolem and Cody Bye



This week Greg "Darkgolem" Stanley and  Cody "Micajah" Bye of Ten
Ton Hammer spoke with Lord of The
Rings Online (LOTRO) Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel of
about what is coming with Book 14, Forge of The Elven Rings, the Mines
of Moria and beyond.  Enjoy getting all the tidbits of information
and insight into what the developers of LOTRO are up to!



(Darkgolem) Now that fishing is
available, what sort of plans for that
particular hobby do you have in the future?



(Jeffrey) For hobbies in general we tried make sure that we didn't just
hard code fishing into the game, that we actually built a hobby system,
so that we could begin adding other hobbies.  Probably not until
next year, when it is appropriate we
are going to start adding extra hobbies to the game, and they could be
all kinds of different things, from painting or something
similar.  We try
very hard not to just add a system and walk away from it, so of
course as often as we can in updates for Moria or anywhere we will be
adding to fishing.  It all depends upon time and what other things
are
calling upon our time.



So tell me what is coming with book
14.  I href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31782">know it is
going to have the climax for the Shadows of Angmar, with Forge of the
Elven Rings, but what else will we see?



Well, we take you to the forges where that occurred, and you get to do
some cool things in interacting with the forges.  It also is our
way of getting our feet wet with the region of Eregion, where
the ring forges are in.  Eregion is a region we want to
flush out for Moria.  It is the region that leads up to
the Hollin gate and the entrance to Moria.



The other thing we are going to be spending a lot of time on in book 14
is looking at our event system and trying to leverage in a couple of
new things.  We have a lot couple of cool live events planned for
book 14.  We are also
taking out our event system and using it for some cool new ends, that
are
different than what they have had happen before.



Is book 14 going to be a little
smaller than previous books
because of the work on Moria?



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?full=1&set_albumName=album31&id=ScreenShot_Fishing_00466Alt&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Fishing Hobby"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album31/ScreenShot_Fishing_00466Alt.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 140px;" align="right">It
all depends on how you look at it.. in certain areas,
absolutely.  We are not adding a whole new region, like we did in
a couple updates, because people are working on building out
Moria.  We are adding a bunch of new content, maybe on balance not
as much new content than as we have in some of the other
ones.    On the other hand, we are having an awful lot
of activity and stuff that you can do with some of this live event and
event related stuff we are doing.  I would say, a little smaller
than our other updates, but I want to be clear, that we have grown our
LOTRO team in order to start building expansion on top of our live
team, we didn't just sever our live team and throw them over to Moria
and say "we will worry about the live game later".



So is most of the new content going
to be for Mines of Moria and is Shadows of Angmar done?
style="font-style: italic;">


No, absolutely not.  No part of the world is ever done, because
the game is always evolving.  For example, we are changing the way
that things happen with the fellowship in Rivendell, because we need to
provide the same experience we have been providing to date, but at the
same time we need to accommodate that the fellowship is moving on to
href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=646">Moria,
so we want to make sure that the people who are in Rivendell
feel like "this makes sense" and they can interact with the fellowship,
but when
they move on to Moria and meet the fellowship this makes sense as
well.  Then there are changes in making the epic story more
accessible to solo players, something we continue to do.  In
places where it is appropriate, for example the Grey Havens are
cool place, we will make it someday, but it will be when it is
supports something particular we are trying to do for the game, not
just because we want to add a new piece of land.



There are a lot of places we can expand in any of the regions, but at
this particular time we think it is the right time to move on to Moria
because Moria is so cool, and to the other side of the mines, because
of the war that is brewing there.  Yes our focus is there, but
we definitely are going to be doing work on the Shadows of Angmar
content, not to mention we are adding classes that are available
through the entire level advancement, and adding other systems that are
available not just in the Mines of Moria and will enhance Shadows
of Angmar too.



So the Mines of Moria expansion is
strictly for level 50 and
above?



No I wouldn't say that, there is stuff that is part of the expansion
pack that are for many different levels.  A lot of the big
dramatic, "Moria-centric" content is focussed on the high level player,
a
lot of the high level instances that we are adding, stuff like that,
because we know that is a population that is really dying for new
challenges and new stuff to do.  People who have not reached that
level yet are still going to have new things to explore and do.



There was some mention of world
changing instances, such as
Hollin gate, and similar, is that correct?



We have a couple places where we have those instances, Archet,
and some others.   We do feel that Moria is an opportunity
for us to do it again, a couple areas will have that occur in Moria.



About the environment aware AI, could
youexplain that in
more detail?



href="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?full=1&set_albumName=album26&id=moria_entrance_room&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Giant Hall"
src="http://lotro.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album26/moria_entrance_room.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 199px;" align="left">Right
now, our AI like most AIs in these games, has complexity
mostly related to tactics.  A spear chucking goblin will throw
from a distance and in melee draw a sword and start fighting, things
like that.  What we are trying to do now is add to that an
awareness of the environment itself.  How this happens is
something we are finalizing right now.  A creature is in a water
filled environment, how can that creature use that as a tactic against
you?  How can a creature behave like they are more a part of that
environment, so it feels less generic as if the monster is in the
environment i was made for.



Is there going to be a sixth tier to
crafting?



To make sure I am not over- or under-stating, we are growing the
advancement tasks for crafters to match what is going on going from
level
50 to 60, so whether it is more opportunities for mastery or an
extended
tier, or a combination, we will be talking about this soon. 
Absolutely crafters will have more opportunity for advancement in their
professions.



Ok this question I just need to throw
in there.. are we going
to be able to fight the lurker in the water?



You mean the watcher?  You are going to run across him.. it is
clear to us that the Watcher in the Water is a pretty iconic character,
and if your going to encounter it, which you will, how you will
engage with it will be very unique to what people are thinking out
there.  You are definitely not just going to have a sighting
of the watcher.  There is a significant amount of activity that
happens for you around the watcher.



There was some talk about this, but
nothing definitive. 
Was there a decision made about character slots, since with 2 new
character classes and all that, players might want more character slots?



Still not definitive, it is something we are not talking about yet.



Recently you were given quite a bit
of venture capital, and
usually that means new products and services.  One thought was, is
there a chance that you will be moving over to consoles with some of
your products or do you have any thoughts on where that might lead to?



Some of the news about our funding has leaked out to the discovery of
some regulatory filing, it is actually kind of amazing watching how
quickly that news has spread from a very small corner of the private
equity universe, and ended up all over the place.   We
have not announced anything regarding funding at all yet, and until
then
we are not going to comment, but we will be let you know as soon as we
do.



Regardless of how we manage or fund it, make no mistake that Turbine is
growing as an entity and we are building on the success in LOTRO to
expanding our other products and new products, and so on. We are
very focussed in expanding internationally, such as in Korea and China
and Russia and other places.  The next question for us is how we
can grow
our audience exponentially, and part of that is going to other parts of
the world.  Some day, in ways we are not talking about yet, we
know there are a lot of users out there who consume digital
entertainment on all different types of devices and we would be crazy
to leave that on the table.  So that is about as specific as we
can get on that.



(Micajah) How much do you guys work
with your teams in Korea, China and
Russia to get the products over there, is it something you spend a lot
of time working on those products?



We really do look at this as a collaboration.   These
products are too big to just ship over there and they distribute
it.  We parter with them because they know their audience, they
know how to maintain it, host it, they know how to run customer
service, which is different in China than it is here.  For
example,  the team working in Korea is no smaller than the team
working here.  They are very committed to having a good game in
Korea.  We talk to them often, just ask our international guys.



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