Tur­bine just posted Vastin’s Devel­oper Diary today. It’s all about the Mirk­wood region and what’s gone into it.

I really enjoyed this diary as it gets into what I’ve wanted to know most. You know, lit­tle things like quest types, descrip­tions of atmos­phere, details on friendly and not-so-friendly beings we’ll run into. A lot of that is cov­ered here. Here’s a few tidbits:

We also got to play with some new lore–friendly mon­sters, like Mirk­wood spi­ders, Olog-hai, and Fell Beasts, as well as some nas­ties the Fel­low­ship never came across. New mon­sters always make us happy, and some of us were par­tic­u­larly giddy that we got a shot at the Olog-hai in par­tic­u­lar. Those guys are scary.

I love see­ing what Tur­bine does with mobs. Some of their “skins” have been nice for repeated ene­mies, but any­thing totally new really gets me interested.

We’ve also been try­ing out a num­ber of new quest for­mats (patrols, point defense, and a few oth­ers) that we have pre­vi­ously used rarely or not at all.

Vastin gets into more details about this, but vari­ety is the spice of life. Def­i­nitely look­ing for­ward to new quest types.

In ret­ro­spect, we might have reduced the scope of the Mirk­wood region in order to focus our resources more and go for a some­what shorter expe­ri­ence with more color and depth, know­ing that the Skir­mish sys­tem was going to help fill in for quite a bit of hack-and-slash game play.

This is pretty frank and hon­est, but Vastin seems to be happy with the final result.

Be sure to read the whole thing. I have to say, I can’t wait to see what they’ve done with Mirk­wood. Despite being involved on a LOTRO blog, I’ve admit­tedly wanted to be in the dark a bit about this expan­sion. Details like this whet my appetite with­out really ruin­ing any­thing. Can’t wait to go after some of these new bad guys!