Mike Searle, Prima Games LotRO Guide Author, Interviewed

It's Lord of the Rings Online launch day, and Ten Ton Hammer's John Hoskin interviews Mike Searle, author of 30 (!) Prima Games guides covering everything from Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. This man clearly knows his computer and video games! Most recently, Searle wrote two guides for Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, and he shares his thoughts on what it takes to craft these intricate guides and what he hopes to offer his readership.

"(Searle:) I've been hooked on MMOs since battling ruthless PKers in Ultima Online, and there isn't an MMO out there that I haven't at least booted up to see how it tackles character creation. So it was with real joy (and dread) that I picked up LOTRO as my very first MMO book for Prima. It combined my two greatest passions--the fantasy world of J.R.R. Tolkien and massively multiplayer online games--but talk about daunting! Luckily, we had a lot of time to work on the books and constant help from the Turbine design team. We overcame the challenge of an incredibly huge and immensely detailed world setting through a coordinated effort."

Keep reading with just a click to find out what else John was able to learn!