QJ is reporting that Craig Alexander, Turbine’s VP of Project Development, confirmed some details on their upcoming console MMORPG at the Austin Game Developers Conference. According to QJ:
“Apparently the project has been in their production house for a year and a half now, with over US$ 20 million already spent on it. The as-yet-unnamed MMO is being optimized for a 2011 release on PS3 and Xbox 360.“
We don’t know too much about it, but the word now is that it is based upon a new IP. You might remember that there was some discussion on whether or not The Lord of the Rings license (not necessarily LotRO specifically, mind you) might be involved in some way. Sounds like this isn’t the case.
Guess we’ll see. I’m content with the idea of them being separate projects, quite honestly.
Craig has now said, and we quote, “Under no circumstances should you attempt to port a title.” This now looks to be a brand new console IP for Turbine.
When Turbine looked at designing the areas of Middle-earth, some regions, like The Shire, were blessed with several detailed maps which could serve as invaluable reference material. Other regions, however, were less well mapped, and some, like the Ered Luin and the surrounding lowlands, were hardly mapped at all.
The Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) are one of only a few surviving features of Beleriand, the far north-western area of Middle-earth which was destroyed at the end of the First Age. The mountains were homes to two important Dwarf settlements, Nogrod and Belegost. We are told in The Silmarillion that both were ruined in The War of Wrath, when Thangorodrim was broken and Beleriand was submerged. The Ered Luin themselves were thrust apart in their midst and the sea rushed in, creating the Gulf of Lhun and changing the course of the river.
The lands to the west of the mountains were in the First Age called Ossiriand, the land of seven rivers, and was also named Lindon by the Noldor. It was settled by Nandorin (Green) Elves and for a time housed both Beren and Luthien towards the end of their lives. East of the mountains the land rolled away into downs and thus to Eriador.
It is important to note that the Ered Luin and surrounding lands have been home to Dwarves as well as Nandorin, Sindarin and Noldorin Elves, but never to any significant groups of Men. In this Turbine have been consistent.
Both Turbine and Codemasters have announced that applications to the Isengard Test Server are now open for European and American players alike.
As it says on the Official Lotro forums, to stand a chance at being one of the select few to take part in this preview program you need to:
Have a valid and active subscription to The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria
Be at least 18 years of age
Have a clean forum and game history
Be able to interact with the community in a mature and constructive manner
Be able to communicate well through forum posts and bug reports
Accept the terms of the Private Preview ProgramNon-Disclosure Agreement, the full contents of which will be provided during the registration process should you be accepted to the program.
It is nice to see that they are making Isengard’s purpose clear. This is not just a cheap way of seeing new content before everyone else does, like for example World of Warcraft’s PTRs whose content is available for all to see within hours of it opening, but a genuine effort to get reliable members of the community involved in making the game better. Apparently places are extremely limited, so I would assume community members who have participated in forum discussions (read: not trolling) will be picked first.
Already several people on the forums have shown their interest in joining up, which only goes to prove how successful a testing strategy this is for Turbine. True, they may not get the numbers a PTR open to all (like Bullroarer but with deeper content) would pull in, but instead they will get a small number of elite testers who care about the direction the game is taking. I must say I would love to be one of them however, I have not really played the game long enough to deserve such a place.
If you are interested in applying for a position, you need to send an e-mail to LotROIsengard@turbine.com or isengardeurope@codemasters.com depending on the region you are from. In this e-mail you should include your real name, user name and forum name, the e-mail address you used to sign up to Lotro with, and crucially an explanation of why you want to participate in the program.
Good luck to all those who attempt to set out on a trip to Isengard, and I hope you experience some excellent content on the horizon!
I sometimes need to remind myself how amazing 3D computer generated worlds are. When I was a little gaming-brat I used to dream of being able to walk around a fantasy world and actually see all around me, go wherever I wanted and do anything. 2D worlds were fine, but it was hard to get immersed in them. You would dream that one day, far in the future, people would be able to design games which really made you feel like you were there.
The first game to give me this sense of actually being there was Elite, the space trading game. It was 3D, albeit using simple line graphics. What I really wanted was to be able to explore worlds which were familiar to me, and top of the list, surely top of everyone’s list, was Middle-Earth.
If you’d have told me 20 years ago that I would be able to log into a computer generated 3D version of Middle-Earth and walk around with hundreds of others people, I would have made some very excited noises and then probably said “Yeah, sure”.
But you can. Now. Every day. And it’s awesome!
Or is it?
Does the Middle-Earth that Turbine have built bear resemblance to the Middle-Earth that Tolkien envisioned?
I’ll have a stab at answering this question, taking each of the game areas in turn. I will look at the basic geography of the zone as well as examining the inhabitants found there. I’m not looking to pick at little errors and changes the designers made, but I will highlight any glaring differences between the books and the game. To assist me, I will be making reference to The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, an excellent guide, the content of which is generally accepted as being canon.
Lord of the Rings Online is a pretty generic MMORPG. It borrows heavily from earlier games and introduces little in the way of innovation. There are differences, but any player of Everquest II or World of Warcraft will feel very familiar with the UI on LotRO, which was naturally the intention of Turbine when they designed the game.
So, whilst the game can, at first glance, seem like WoW with Hobbits, it is worth taking a look at how Turbine has taken staple MMO mechanics and tailored them to fit into the world of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. In this follow up to my previous post on how Turbine uses the background material in it’s game I want to examine the role-playing game itself.
Of course, every fantasy RPG ever made, be it computer or paper and pencil based, has drawn heavily on Tolkien. Games like Dungeons and Dragons were almost identical in their use of certain character classes and monsters. Computer RPG’s, single player or otherwise, have used Tolkien as inspiration for a ‘class based’ approach. Bilbo Baggins, the classic fantasy Burglar, in The Hobbit is the main inspiration for this approach. Tolkien makes it clear that the job of Burglar is a specialised one, and a Dwarf simply cannot do it. The idea of clear roles being applied to characters in books was nothing new, but the way in which Tolkien used it so prominently in a fantasy setting was, and it’s effects are still felt today.
So the basic idea of a fantasy RPG is essentially compatible with Tolkien, regardless of the setting. Turbine had it easy in this respect. Their initial choice of classes was easy as well one would imagine, but the way in which they have linked the members of the Fellowship to each class was inspired. Some of the choices take a bit of imagination to reconcile, such as Sam Gamgee as a Guardian, but you can see where the developer is coming from.
The Shire:
The Shire is one of my favorite areas in LotRO. Turbine has done a wonderful job rendering the area and making its ...
Runekeeper Rumination: Volume 1:
Rune-keepers are one of two new classes added with Mines of Moria. I thought it would be nice to play a bit as one a...
The Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) are one of only a few surviving features of 
has taken staple MMO mechanics and tailored them to fit into the world of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. In this follow up to my previous 
