A few interviews with Turbine’s Jeffrey Steefel have made their way online.
The first is a short one conducted by Massively. It deals with his general feelings on how the expansion’s development has been going. To me, the biggest point of interest is that they’re already working on Volume 2, Book 7 with plans for it to hit sometime in the first quarter of next year.
The second is up at IncGamers, a site I’m not actually too familiar with. This interview deals with the new additions to the game, with questions about entering Moria, the new classes and the Legendary Items system. Steefel is asked about new Raid content, where he talks briefly about their new “Raids” that use a smaller number of players and don’t take 6 hours plus. He does mention, however, that they are working on two new large raids that will be available shortly after the expansion’s launch.
The third is actually part two of the last one. IncGamers and Steefel discuss Eregion, changes since the beta, launch dates, the lifecycle of LotRO, the development team, working with the Tolkien estate and more. It briefly gets into LotRO’s success, wherein Steefel claims the game is within the top few MMORPGs out there (which seems hard to prove from our end because Turbine isn’t very forthcoming with the numbers).
Their console work is also discussed, although no real details are given. It pretty much comes down to the typical “we’ll talk about it more when we’re ready”.
Anyway, it’s nice to hear a bit about their plans for the future of the game.. LotRO being a successful title certainly makes me happy as I don’t want it ending any time soon.
The interview discusses the progression of the books as well as Turbine’s commitment to release content between their planned yearly expansions. They also again confirm that the Moria expansion does not lock out any content prior to entering the mines themselves .… This means that everyone will receive Book 15, which ties up most of Eregion’s quests and brings you to the gate. The expansion itself is required to go beyond it.
The interviewer asked a good question too: namely, can we go over the mines at all? Unsurprisingly, the answer is “not currently”. It’ll be interesting to see if that ever happens.
The game will be launching worldwide at the same time, although apparently European pricing is still being decided.
Eurogamer has pulled through with yet another interview with Turbine. This one specifically discusses Mines of Moria and the future of LotRO with Jeffrey Steefel. You can read the full interview at their site, but I’ve written a bit about the things that interested me below.
There’s some discussion of how LotRO can combat World of Warcraft moving forward. Steefel feels the game has done a good job pushing storytelling into the limelight for MMORPGs amongst other things, but that it still has a way to go before it reaches “critical mass” in terms of consumer base. He really feels that their work so far and their continued expansion of the game to the rest of the world (such as Korea) will help them become far more of a close second place to World of Warcraft.
Steefel also discusses how their current subscription model doesn’t work for casual players who may put in a few hours a week. There’s a lot of stuff they could use that they just aren’t using for various reasons. There sounds to be other subscription plans under consideration here (Steefel is pretty adamant that the $14.95 a month plan is not something that can stick for MMORPGs), but how serious Turbine is about changing anything in the near term is anyone’s guess.
The Rune-keeper is again brought up and Steefel yet again admits its inclusion in Tolkien lore is a stretch. It sounds like a compromise to simply make the game more fun and interest more people .… Personally I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I can’t tell you how often I read posts from people lamenting that there were no “mages” in this game. The Rune-keeper seems like a good step.
Monster Play also sounds as though it’ll be getting some major expansions sometime in the future. Between Korean players’ love of PvP and just the options provided by getting further into Middle Earth, it sounds as though Turbine has some tricks up its sleeve yet. Minas Tirith’s battles are specifically mentioned here, although who knows how far off that would be in-game.
It ends with some discussion on Turbine’s upcoming console MMO and what will work, what won’t. Steefel doesn’t mention what the real status is on this game or what it’s even about … But personally I’d be surprised if it doesn’t take advantage of The Lord of the Rings license.
Blasts from the Past
Tip Time: Naming Help:
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Book 14 Release Notes:
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