Turbine gave us the opportunity to tour Book 7 and ask questions based on what we saw. Associate Editor, Chris "Pwyff" Tom did just that.

Just one week ago, Turbine invited us on a guided tour to check out their latest free content update (Volume II, Book 7: Leaves of Lórien) for their award winning MMO, Lord of the Rings Online. While we were amazed by the visual beauty of the game (check out the screenshots if you don't believe us!), we were far more impressed by the passion and dedication this team has for their stunning MMO. So, once more, we'd like to say thanks to Aaron Campbell and Adam Mersky of Turbine for their tireless enthusiasm in answering all our questions, and their absurd amount of patience whenever we fell off a cliff (or jumped off, or climbed up the mountain face, and then jumped off). In the end, while there was a good amount of discussion on the ideas that went into Book 7, we also took the opportunity to steer the conversation to their views of Lord of the Rings Online in general, and what it's like to create an MMO out of a behemoth of a novel. Since tomorrow is the launch day of Book 7, however, today will be all about their newest content, and we'll post about the latter topics on another day!

Aaron Campbell: One thing we great take pride in is following the path of the fellowship in great detail. It's very important for us that you can walk to the places that are memorable, that are recognizable. Lothlorien is an opportunity, after passing through this huge underground civilization, to reunite players with the fellowship.

ZAM: For Book 7, there is also the implementation of Quest Tracker. From what I have heard, there has been a kind of a division in the community. There are people who wanted Quest Tracker, and people who didn't want it. I mean this in that you have some really good writers on here, and you're trying to develop the lore of LOTRO. But if you implement Quest Tracker, it's almost counter-intuitive to getting them to appreciate and read the lore. Do you think there's a problem with that? You know, trying to keep this lore and keep an appreciation for the world alive, but at the same time, implementing easy game play?

Aaron: Well, players have their own idea of what's fun. Fundamentally, we're building a game. We build into the lore of Middle Earth because that's very important to the foundations of Lord of the Rings. That's the basis of it and that's what helps us make this game distinct. At the same time we also recognize and we've heard from players that they have limited time and they have other things they need to do. “I want to get in and play, but I just want to focus and do a bit of my experience and not spend time searching for my objective.” “I want to have a better idea of where I'm going.” So we wanted to make sure we accommodated that play style. I don't see that as going one way or another. We're not telling people that Quest Tracker is important, or the writing is important. The writing is very important to us but we also want to make sure that we give people the opportunity to have fun in their own way.

ZAM: What was driving you in creating this particular expansion? Everyone has a direction that they want to push the game in. Every book for you guys especially is a new opportunity to give the game an extra shove in the direction that you want it to go. What would you say is the really big concept behind Book 7?

Aaron: I think part of it is people having passed through Moria thematically. We needed a place to rest and a place of peace, and Lothlorien is really that place in the story; the place where the fellowship rests. It’s one of the last outposts of an almost ethereal, otherworldly presence. It’s above and beyond your daily experience. It's not the homespun, six meals a day, down to earth leisure of the Shire. It's very distinctly about Galadriel. So that's really, thematically, where Book 7 is coming from. It's about restoration, it's about peace, it's about the bonds between Dwarves and Elves, and it's about reconnecting with the fellowship. For most of Moria, you're really cleaning up the mess that the fellowship left, you're dealing with the conflict that was stirred there and this is your opportunity to come back out and talk to those folks again.

ZAM: You mention the fellowship in terms of the conflict they left behind. I guess you're sort of a character that's playing catch-up; you're the army that backs up the fellowship as they go through?

Aaron: That's a way to look at it! Part of what makes Lord of the Rings Online different is that, as you're journeying through the space geographically, you're also journeying through it in time. So you're going to interact with Strider before you know him directly as Aragorn, or with Gandalf. It takes on individual tasks and missions that uncover the parallel storyline. There are things that might have been hinted at in Tolkien’s work, for example, but it'll also become your story as a hero of Middle Earth. Moving on to later on, in places like Lothlorien, there are opportunities for you to solve grave problems, or things that the fellowship can't address, doesn't have the time to, or doesn't have the focus. They have this great task, but you, as the people standing at their backs, shelter them from darkness as they move onward. So, to that degree, you may be the one who enables the fellowship to succeed.

ZAM: Can you tell me a little bit about Moria?

Aaron: Moria was a very challenging place to build because it's underground. Historically, when you think of games building underground spaces, they're dark, they're confined and they don't have a great deal of variety. There are a lot of issues with the stereotypical dungeon. We set out to build something entirely different; we set out to build a civilization of the greatness of the Dwarves. With that there are a lot of types of environments that we needed to find. Our goal was to build a space that wasn't constrained, that didn't feel that incredibly dark, that felt varied and interesting, and where people and creatures could honestly live for thousands of years.

ZAM: You've also made changes, like lowering the damage of melee weapons, and things like that. In terms of game play modifications, were there any reasons behind that?

Aaron: I think, primarily, when you introduce the number of changes that we did with Moria (introducing two new classes and a lot of high level content), we had to look at the game play, at things that worked well with specialized classes, and at things that needed balancing. So the patch additions are really about rebalancing the game a bit. It's about enabling some folks to move up to the place where they need to be. Classes like Minstrel and Lore Master, for example, we want to help them solo. We also want them to feel active as a member of a group, to participate in a number of roles and to narrow the gap with folks like Hunters and Champions. To keep that balanced, we reduced resistances that monsters have and we lowered their hit points. Generally, we want to find a middle ground that can bring the classes to a more balanced place.

ZAM: I noticed that you have been releasing 'how to solo your way to x level' guides. Just curious, when you originally made this game was it your intention to make the game very group oriented, or very solo oriented and then do endgame events later on?

Aaron: We need to find a balance. Games evolve over time. When we launched just two years back, we were one of the most accessible games in the market. I think we're still very accessible in a lot of ways, but some of the design philosophies that flavoured our decisions then have changed. Some of the things we learned then aren't fully applicable here. We've learned things, and we think we can do better. Most recently we've gone back and worked on the early game experiences. We're taking the improved quest design and the improved game play and we're building it in. One of those challenges we have as the content team is to move forward and make sure we build out a balance of group play, small group play and solo play. For example, with Book 7, we have a 6-person battle instance you can challenge. We have a 12 person raid Deep within Moria. The idea there is that, let's say you missed some of the really large fellowship events late in the Moria cycle. You're not punished for not having finished Volume 2 Book 5 or Volume 2 Book 6. You can move on directly and play through Book 7 as a solo player.

ZAM: I also noticed that you've pushed back some 'planned' things for Book 7. You've now put them on 'pause,' and mentioned that you will release them with Book 8. How difficult is it to keep everyone interested and tell them that “this is coming”, but making sure that the product you deliver is the best it can be?

Aaron: It's one of the great debates. We want to be sure to bring out a fun and balanced experience and we want our players to be able to do the things that they enjoy. Of the instances coming up, we had two three man raids, a six man raid and then a 12 man raid - but we chose to hold that one off just because we want to make sure it hits the quality standards we want it to hit. There's never a right answer or a quick answer. We want to make sure that those players have a wide variety of content available to them, and we want to make sure everyone has fun within the game.

ZAM: Thank you very much for this opportunity, good luck with this release and future expansions!

Aaron: Thank you too, and take care.

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
ZAM.com