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Codemasters held a big press event yesterday (4/20) in the UK, with Jeffrey Steefel there to show off the game. Don't be surprised if you see more previews and articles coming out over the next couple of days!

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is set for release on the PC in November 2006, and we met with Codemasters to see the game before it moves into alpha stage
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There are 50 levels of advancement through the game, but Codemasters promises that progression will be more complex than building up simple experience points.

The target is WoW, says general manager of publisher's online gaming division.

Vice president and general manager of Codemasters Online Gaming (COG), David Solari, has revealed a target of over a million players for the division's upcoming Lord of the Ring Online (LOTRO) title and admitted intentions to compete directly with Blizzard's genre-leading World of Warcraft.

"I think the goal [for LOTRO] would be over a million subscribers in the west," said Solari, speaking at the COG LiVE event in Warwick, UK, yesterday. "World of Warcraft is such a benchmark now, but if something's going to do it it's going to be a Lord of the Rings brand that lets people play in that environment and experience that content. It's got to have probably the best chance of competing with it."

LOTRO, developed by US developer Turbine, is scheduled for a Q4 release. Demoed in fully playable form at the event by executive producer Jeff Steefel, the initial release is to include the content from the first Lord of the Rings book, The Fellowship of the Ring, with the rest of the trilogy to be added as the game evolves. Turbine holds the rights to produce MMO content based on Tolkien's novels, as opposed to the recent New Line movies.

LOTRO is the most mainstream part of a quartet of titles from COG in 2006, the rest of which includes Korean import Archlord from NHN and the recently released duo of Turbine-developed Dungeons & Dragons Online and CCR Corporation's RF Online.

"Lord of the Rings is a pretty all encompassing MMO with a great brand behind it. So that's a generally more competitive game," Solari added. "All the games are quite different, which is what we decided to go for."

Gamespot Preview (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/middleearthonline/news.html?sid=6148057)

Oh good, I really needed to see Carrot Top's pubes... again.

The game isn't even alpha yet and they expect to release it in 7 months?

"World of Warcraft is such a benchmark now, but if something's going to do it it's going to be a Lord of the Rings brand that lets people play in that environment and experience that content. It's got to have probably the best chance of competing with it."

The health bar used isn't based on the physical state of your player but is instead based on morale, so the more good deeds you perform, the further you move away from being able to be defeated. It was something that couldn't be shown at this early stage, but we look forward to seeing how well this arrangement turns out in the finished game.

The Lord of the Rings Online offers four playable character races: hobbits, dwarfs, elves, and humans.

Even though the game will not be released for another six months, expansion packs are already being planned

The telling quote is this:


The LOTR brand means nothing. What is the Lord of the Rings brand? Orcs and trolls. Wow, how unique.

Brands matter for initial box sales. For continuing subs I doubt they matter at all. Even for initial sales things like company track record, previous games, etc, mean a lot more than just the brand in isolation.

The LOTR brand is fairly worthless, it brings nothing to the table at all. It's old hat.

The right message would be "LOTR is going to compete with WoW because it's a better game." I doubt they can say that with a straight face though.

But in a subscription-based game, even if you buy the box because of the license, are you going to keep paying for a lousy game? If anything SWG is evidence that the license does NOT determine success. SWG was a moderate success at it's peak, and had HUGE hype pre-launch for a year a half before it come out.

LOTR has gotten very little hype and I really don't think many people are huge LOTR buffs. LOTR was not big at all until the movies, whereas SW has had a decent following for decades.

I can see it adding to some initial box sales, but in the long term I doubt if it will make much impact. And if you want a fantasy MMORPG why won't you already be playing WoW? At least Star Trek brings something rarer to the table. (Sci-fi)

I'd be amazed if LOTR can pull in over 200k subscribers. A million? They have a better chance of winning the lottery. A million is absurd.

Edit: I can't even find a screenshot that has UI in it. This game is releasing in 6 months?

Hell, people are still playing SWG, aren't they?

The telling quote is this:
The LOTR brand means nothing. What is the Lord of the Rings brand? Orcs and trolls. Wow, how unique.

Brands matter for initial box sales. For continuing subs I doubt they matter at all. Even for initial sales things like company track record, previous games, etc, mean a lot more than just the brand in isolation.

The LOTR brand is fairly worthless, it brings nothing to the table at all. It's old hat.

My bold prediction is that this game will be both delayed and awful.

Seriously talk about being hobbled by your license. Humans, short humans, even shorter humans and skinny humans.

Oh dear, this is just setting themselves up for a spectacular fall.  But it will be fun watching the fanbois spin that statement by, let's say, January '07.

OGaming: Gamers can play as men, elves, dwarves, hobbits – why not a ring-wraith, orc or balrog? What are the chances we'll encounter creatures like these during our adventures? And why shouldn't we greet them with a handshake and a smile?

Jeffrey Steefel: First of all, Middle-earth would not be Middle-earth without its creatures. You will encounter, sometimes to your peril, most of the fiends you might expect, including creatures like Orcs, Trolls, Wraiths, Goblins, Huorns… dozens of familiar monsters from the Tolkien bestiary. As for a handshake, well, that depends on how much you need that hand. As for players being monsters… Hmmmm…

My bold prediction is that this game will be both delayed and awful.

Maybe Turbine's new strategy is to get a big license, spend very little money slapping together a game and then rely entirely on initial box sales to make money.  Those who forget to cancel their subscriptions are just gravy.

Let's remember this isn't Turbine making the statement though, at least based on what I've read. It's the Codemasters folks, with their entire business currently relying on selling other people's work.

Yep I said the same thing above, and believe its what they did for DDO as well.

LoTR suffers the same problem as Star Wars in terms of MMO actually.
SWG , basic design flaws aside, had its biggest problem relating the in game experience to the movies everyone knows, simply because the movies are about exceptional heroes.

When everyone in the game wanted to be an exceptional hero (read: jedi) , and are given that chance, no one is then exceptional, and the experience is diluted.

Conversely, if you cant be the jedi, not enough people are interested.

In LoTR, who wants to play 'archer no.6' . Everyone wants to be Legolass the hero.
And once everyone is the exceptional hero (read: one of the fellowship) , they are no longer exceptional....

In SWG it was summed up as 'I want Jedi to be rare, just as long as I have one' syndrome.

LoTR suffers the same problem as Star Wars in terms of MMO actually.
SWG , basic design flaws aside, had its biggest problem relating the in game experience to the movies everyone knows, simply because the movies are about exceptional heroes.

When everyone in the game wanted to be an exceptional hero (read: jedi) , and are given that chance, no one is then exceptional, and the experience is diluted.

Conversely, if you cant be the jedi, not enough people are interested.

In LoTR, who wants to play 'archer no.6' . Everyone wants to be Legolass the hero.
And once everyone is the exceptional hero (read: one of the fellowship) , they are no longer exceptional....

In SWG it was summed up as 'I want Jedi to be rare, just as long as I have one' syndrome.

Except that's a stupid strategy when you've taken in $48 million in VC money over two rounds and the best you've been able to show so far for all that money is maybe 150K copies of DDO sold which at an incredibly generous $30 per copy straight to Turbine comes out to $4.5 million. Last figure I saw had Turbine at around 120 employees. If they are split half and half on DDO and LotRO and if you were to assume they spent only two years working on DDO the production cost would at a minimum be around 60 employees * $5,000/month per employee * 24 months = $7.2 million. And $5,000 month per employee is a very very low estimate -- here in Silicon Valley the standard estimate is $10K a month for a VC-funded startup which includes salary, benefits and other overhead costs. A more realistic production cost estimate would have a longer development period and a higher cost per employee which would put it somewhere closer to $15 million (60 * 7000 * 36).

In other words I'm sure the VCs are extremely unhappy with the performance of DDO so far and Turbine needs somebody like Codemasters to hype LotRO for them to impress the VCs otherwise if the VCs have majority control of the company they are liable to sack upper management and take over direct control of the company.

I'd argue that it's a smaller problem in LotRO than it was in SWG because there are no Jedi in Lord of the Rings.  Everyone's a knight/warrior type guy, except Gandalf, so you don't get people saying "Oh, man, if ONLY I could get one of those laser swords, then combat would stop sucking somehow, and exciting things would happen! I just know it!  Heart Heart"

Except that's a stupid strategy when you've taken in $48 million in VC money over two rounds and the best you've been able to show so far for all that money is maybe 150K copies of DDO sold which at an incredibly generous $30 per copy straight to Turbine comes out to $4.5 million. Last figure I saw had Turbine at around 120 employees. If they are split half and half on DDO and LotRO and if you were to assume they spent only two years working on DDO the production cost would at a minimum be around 60 employees * $5,000/month per employee * 24 months = $7.2 million. And $5,000 month per employee is a very very low estimate -- here in Silicon Valley the standard estimate is $10K a month for a VC-funded startup which includes salary, benefits and other overhead costs. A more realistic production cost estimate would have a longer development period and a higher cost per employee which would put it somewhere closer to $15 million (60 * 7000 * 36).

In other words I'm sure the VCs are extremely unhappy with the performance of DDO so far and Turbine needs somebody like Codemasters to hype LotRO for them to impress the VCs otherwise if the VCs have majority control of the company they are liable to sack upper management and take over direct control of the company.

Note that the idiot who said it was going to take on WoW is not from Turbine, but from the Euro publishers. These are the same assheads who think ArchonlordsofCatass is going to be a worthwhile endeavor.

He's doing that to get retailers in Europe to stock the game. It's marketing, it doesn't need to have any connection with reality.

It’s a diamond news day for fans of fantasy online role-playing games, with some hot new information and free demo action on two of the biggest RPG properties on the market, from the MMO-meisters at Turbine Inc and Codemasters Online Gaming (COG).

Turbine has just announced this morning that fans can try out Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach for seven days free of charge, by merely signing-up for it by clicking here. The trial will allow you to to build up a character for seven days and, should you wish to pay to continue playing after your free week’s play is up, continue with that character in the full game.

Secondly, but by no means any less important, is the latest on Turbine/COG’s biggest and most ambitious title to date, the bound-to-be-huge The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Check out the latest screens which SPOnG picked up last Friday from the guys, as we hobbled home after an elfish debauch and a night of medieval tomfoolery courtesy of COG up at Warwick Castle.

Codemasters certainly provided us with plenty of online gaming food for thought at the event, but it was the medieval comedians with their anti-French jokes who we liked the most. If you can imagine a 15th century version of Bernard Manning, then you have a good idea of what the night’s ‘turn’ was like. The collected French journos in attendance didn’t seem to find the night half as amusing as we did.

Back to the game. Lord of the Rings: Online (LOTRO for short) is essentially like World of Warcraft, but set in Middle Earth. Dedicated MMO’ers and WoW’ers will no doubt baulk at this, but for the ‘casual’ MMO’er (is there such a thing? – Ed) this is pretty much what you need to know to drop into conversation at dinner parties. SPOnG’s definition of the ‘casual’ MMO’er is this – somebody who enjoys playing online role-playing games, but also has a life outside of them - hence is likely to hold conversations 'In Real Life' with people who don't spend most of their free time pretending to be a small wood elf called Tom Tiddlytit.

For all you fans of Tolkien’s books and the hugely successful spin-off movies and videogames, you will find below all the main details on LOTRO we managed to glean from last week's event. LOTRO, in all seriousness, could well have the potential of becoming the biggest online role-playing game to date. If anything is going to ever knock World of Warcraft from its Outside Toilet - sorry, Frozen Throne, then a polished game set in Tolkien’s beloved Middle Earth is surely going to be a contender.

Firstly, you get to create your character, which can be Hobbit, Elf, Dwarf or Man, and any of seven lore-inspired classes (Champion, Minstrel, Guardian, Loremaster, Burglar, Hunter or Captain). Plus, as is fairly standard now for any decent RPG, you get to fully create and personalise the look of your character, to truly make it yours.

After this, you get to wander around a beautifully re-created Middle Earth. Starting off in Bree’s very own boozer, The Prancing Pony, you can set out to roam, explore and meet other adventurers and foes in the pastoral Shire, the eerie Barrow Downs, elegant Rivendell or beneath the dark canopy of the Old Forest, with loads more faithfully recreated lands from this unparalleled world of imagination promised.

Plus, perhaps a major selling point, you will also get the opportunity to interact with famous Tolkien characters - including Gandalf and the Fellowship, Bilbo, Elrond, Boromir, Tom Bombadil and others. The combat system is the newest and perhaps most interesting feature in the game, with the opportunity to combine your efforts with other members of your own ‘fellowship’ into devastating compound attacks. In this way, the game rewards and encourages team play in groups and fellowships.

And all the Tolkien nasties are there to be smashed and defeated - the UrukHai, Nazgûl, Orcs, Huorns, Etten, Wargs, Trolls, Goblins, Craban, Spiders, Wights, Drakes, Wraiths, and Balrogs, to name but a few!

Even if you weren’t a huge fan of the movies, this game still has the potential to appeal. For anyone - including certain members of SPOnG's staff - who fondly remembers reading Tolkien as a child, and may also remember the guilty pleasures of playing the dice-driven Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) in the mid-80s, the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of your favorite Tolkien heroes and experience “an evolving and persistent re-creation of Tolkien’s beloved world…[facing] the dangers Frodo and the Fellowship left behind when they began their epic journey to destroy the One Ring,” is still, we have to confess, an incredibly strong proposition for an online role-playing game.

Indeed, Turbine/CGO are going to have to go quite far out of their way to mess this game up – initially at least. Whether or not it will have the longevity of WoW only time will tell. A winning ‘license to print money’ such as Lord of the Rings is one thing, but creating a community of (potentially) millions of players who are all more than happy to continue shelling out around £10 a month after the initial novelty wears off is another thing entirely.

SPOnG was slightly disappointed upon arrival at last week’s event to be told that we would not get any ‘hands on’ time with the game. It’s currently at the pre-alpha stage, so we had to make do with a short presentation from the game’s producer. We’ll be bringing you more news on when the beta testing for LOTRO will be taking place as soon as we get it.

About blacksmiths and Boywers.

A feature that has been firmly announced is crafting. However until now almost nothing was known, apart from the fact that it would be in the game. But also on this point Jeffrey Steefel could tell us bit. The player can chose from nine professions. He could not tell us the exact names, however among them would be the regular professions such as weapon smith, armos smith and woodworker. We hope we can tell you shortly about the others since they have been decided on.

The crafting system itself has been divided in two levels. First there will be the "normal" crafting through which you can make regular objects. That will not require anything extra ordinary and should also something for the casual player.
Secondly there will be the socalled Master-Crafting. You will reach the second level, only when you have mastered the normal professions. From then on it will become much harder to further perfect your crafting skills. But, to compensate, the items you craft can measure themselves with the best looted items. A true Craftingmaster will therefore create truly wanted and useful items and does not have to fear that potential buyer will prefer to camp specific mobs.
Objects created by a Master-Crafter are the only objects in the game which are soulbound. All other items are not tied to a player and can be traded or given away.

In LOTRO objects weapons will be subject to wear and tear through use and will eventually loose all usefullness, unless you regularly visit a NPC blacksmith who will bring your gear back to full use. Reparing items is something only NPCs can do: players cannot do this.

Juwelier (Jeweler)

Schürfer (Prospector)

Förster (Forester)

Gelehrter (Scholar)

Koch (Cook)

Waffenschmied (Weaponsmith)

Holzarbeiter (Woodworker)

Metallschmied (Metalsmith)

Lederverarbeiter (Leatherworker)

SPOnG was slightly disappointed upon arrival at last week’s event to be told that we would not get any ‘hands on’ time with the game. It’s currently at the pre-alpha stage, so we had to make do with a short presentation from the game’s producer. We’ll be bringing you more news on when the beta testing for LOTRO will be taking place as soon as we get it.

Back to the game. Lord of the Rings: Online (LOTRO for short) is essentially like World of Warcraft, but set in Middle Earth.

If anything is going to ever knock World of Warcraft from its Outside Toilet - sorry, Frozen Throne, then a polished game set in Tolkien’s beloved Middle Earth is surely going to be a contender.

Plus, perhaps a major selling point, you will also get the opportunity to interact with famous Tolkien characters - including Gandalf and the Fellowship, Bilbo, Elrond, Boromir, Tom Bombadil and others. The combat system is the newest and perhaps most interesting feature in the game, with the opportunity to combine your efforts with other members of your own ‘fellowship’ into devastating compound attacks. In this way, the game rewards and encourages team play in groups and fellowships.

And all the Tolkien nasties are there to be smashed and defeated - the UrukHai, Nazgûl, Orcs, Huorns, Etten, Wargs, Trolls, Goblins, Craban, Spiders, Wights, Drakes, Wraiths, and Balrogs, to name but a few!

Indeed, Turbine/CGO are going to have to go quite far out of their way to mess this game up – initially at least.

SPOnG was slightly disappointed upon arrival at last week’s event to be told that we would not get any ‘hands on’ time with the game. It’s currently at the pre-alpha stage, so we had to make do with a short presentation from the game’s producer. We’ll be bringing you more news on when the beta testing for LOTRO will be taking place as soon as we get it.

Hionestly this fills me with glee because it's an accident you can see coming 500 miles away.

Yeah its gonna be a helluva fun train wreck to watch. I think I will go to the auctions when the VC's start selling off Turbine's equipment from their closed bankrupted offices.

Was this bolded in the original article or did you do it to draw out the Merch hiding behind the curtain?

Not bolded in the original, I just like it being pre-Alpha & out in November.

Which advantages do you have when you join a kinship in lord of the rings online?
At launch kinship is gonna be fairly basic to the MMO. It is a way for people to group together to make people share some questing. It´s a way for people to share some items and loot and its a social way for people to get together. In our elder game there will be more siginficant reasons to be in a kinship.

What are these features that you plan for the kinship?
We are not talking about that just yet... soon

We saw one new screenshot where guild members had capes...
That is something that we have been wanting to do and haven´t done it yet. It´s not certainly in the game and you never know between now and launch how many cycles we have but it´s something we wanna do.

Which fast traveling possibilities will there be in LotRO?
We have a travel network with nodes in every major social center which are stables basically. When you are in the town you go to the stables where the horses are. You talk to the stable master and give him some money. Very little bit money it is not to meant a big money thing in the game and than you teleport instantly to another note.

How does the crafting system work?
We have nine professions (Jeweler, Prospector,  Forrester, Scholar, Cook, Weaponsmith, Woodworker, Metalsmith, Leatherworker) and seven locations it is not a crafting class it´s a mini game fairly standard in that, by standard I mean recognizable to people who play these games so we not make new ways to doing it so you need to harvest you need to refine the materials and you need to craft.

Can you do it all buy your own or do you need support?
You can do it all by your own. We want it to be easy for players to geht through you can actualy get through all the professions as a not hardcore crafter.
Than there is a second tier of crafting that´s called mastery. So mastery is a little bit different you do your basic crafting the function is essentialy the same but first of all you have to had mastery in that particular crafting profession. Once you have it you´re eligible for mastery, you master that vocation, and than you get to add an extra item to your ingredients. It´s a very special mastery kind of special item that item will increase your crit probability for a rare item in crafting. Those items can be things that you find on landscape, that can be things that you only get from a particular vendor, that can be things that you can only get by “finding an elve who knows how to craft a mithril”. For an average player you can do it on your own, you can do as much as you want you can do it fairly easy. For an more advanced player who wants to make the really cool staff than you need to find special things and you may be dependent on other people from time to time.

Will crafted items be as good as looted ones and drops?
In the mastery level yes.

Will equipped items stay tradable or will they be bound to the player?
Yes... you mean the crafted items?

Any item.
Yes you can trade it but there will be some special rare items that get created through the mastery level that will probably be character bound.

Will there be instruments for the minstrel instead of weapons? Or instruments at all?
Minstrels like all classes can still do melee attack if they want to. They will have no more equipment for those special attacks but for their buffs and things like that .. yeah we will probably have musical instruments for them. Right now it´s more like a spell effect. They´re not gonna standing there playing a lire.

But you plan to implement instruments?
We have talked about it...but the most important part of what the ministrel is doing is really the effects that he is casting, so focus on those effects. Buffs in terms of what you see and also what actually happens when they do it.

Are this mainly group buffs?
Mostly

We talked about tradeable items I forgot to ask if there will be auction houses or something like that in the game?
That is an interesting question

Yes, indeed
It is something we will have definetly in our game. It´s something we are hoping to have by launch.

What are the death penalties in the game and what happens when your character dies?
Death penalities are very very slight in this game. You will not die you are defeated you get “taken to a place of safety and restore”. Right now the penalty is very small you have to travel to the place where you were defeated. We are not take items from you. We are not going to make you go finding your body.  Maybe i have a personal hature with that but after so many years of everquest...

Will all races have their own language and do the player has to invest skill points in languages to understand the other races?
We talked for a long time about it. The language is so big in tolkiens world, we talked about it in any ways in which we can use language. You need it to learn, etc. No, you can understand each other. Everybody speaks the common tongue at least in the game, in the game world they do.

How about the storyline for each player, how will you realize this?
Everbody basiclly has the same storyline all we´re really talked about is that in a couple of very important epic instances which are maybe twenty levels apart, thirty levels apart you have this experience that actualy changes the world. When you go into it you´re going into an instance. The first time you go there you´re going into an instance. Second time you go in, you´re going into another instance. The third time you go in you´re going into the public world. The public world is already in the final state. You can´t get into the final state public world until you gone through those instances. So the only inconsistency will happen if you and I are very different levels and on a different story level and we decide to party together and want to meet at one place. You´re gonna be standing in front of a building and me not. The reason that we have the multiple levels apart is that it´s not very common for people to do these kinds of experiences with people that are twenty levels apart. When they do you have the opportunity to either step back or you step forward. If you are the Level 40 and I am the level 10 and it´s a level 10 Dungeon you can opt for the duration of the instance to be level 10, or I can opt for the duration of the instance to come with you but I can not gonna advance my skills but I still have to go eventually through it.

What does female Dwarfs look like?
Hmm, they don´t exist. It´s the only race that doesn´t have a female avatar. It´s just to frightining to imagine what a female dwarf will be.


In the books it doesn’t get clear, who reigns over the dwarves of the Ered Luin after Thorin died. Can you tell us something about how this will be solved in LotRO? Who will be the leader of the dwarves in the Ered Luin?
That´s a good question, but you don´t really need to have an answer.

What will happen, when Frodo and Sam reach Mordor, when we get to the end of the story?
First of all that will gonna be years from now. But second of all, there is a couple of things... there are three ways we can go. One is we can start providing new content from the fourth age which we will have to invent most of it because there is only a little bit of information about it. We can go back in time... thats...wired. Or the most likely we say: look we reach a sort of persistent state to some degree there are some things that can happen right, Frodo comes back or a lot or other stuff can happen. But it becomes more of a steady state and we will soon get over that four years five years period time that our technology the game industry our community comes to the point where players are very involved in the evolution of the world and Tolkien has demonstrated to me so far that if it make sense they´re not having fun with the content you created. So the issue will be if it becomes more of a real no time persistent world elder player becomes a very large thing by than and players are creating their own kind of entertainment. I can´t wait to be at that point.

Thank you very much.
Thank you.

We have a travel network with nodes in every major social center which are stables basically. When you are in the town you go to the stables where the horses are. You talk to the stable master and give him some money. Very little bit money it is not to meant a big money thing in the game and than you teleport instantly to another note.

What does female Dwarfs look like?
Hmm, they don´t exist. It´s the only race that doesn´t have a female avatar. It´s just to frightining to imagine what a female dwarf will be.

How about the storyline for each player, how will you realize this?

Everbody basiclly has the same storyline all we´re really talked about is that in a couple of very important epic instances which are maybe twenty levels apart, thirty levels apart you have this experience that actualy changes the world. When you go into it you´re going into an instance. The first time you go there you´re going into an instance. Second time you go in, you´re going into another instance. The third time you go in you´re going into the public world. The public world is already in the final state. You can´t get into the final state public world until you gone through those instances. So the only inconsistency will happen if you and I are very different levels and on a different story level and we decide to party together and want to meet at one place. You´re gonna be standing in front of a building and me not. The reason that we have the multiple levels apart is that it´s not very common for people to do these kinds of experiences with people that are twenty levels apart. When they do you have the opportunity to either step back or you step forward. If you are the Level 40 and I am the level 10 and it´s a level 10 Dungeon you can opt for the duration of the instance to be level 10, or I can opt for the duration of the instance to come with you but I can not gonna advance my skills but I still have to go eventually through it.

Huh? I think something got lost in translation here.

Huh? I think something got lost in translation here.

I believe they are having layered outdoor instances.  So for example I start in a village with the blacksmith shop on fire, I do a quest to get water and help put the fire out.  Now every time I am in that village the Blacksmith is a burnt out shell, you then have the option for a third instance where you have helped to rebuild the shop.

So you have 3 instances of the village, each looks right to you but a new player might not be in the same instance as you.  It's not a bad idea, no idea if it will work in practice.

I'm not trying to slight turbine here, but is the crossover of LoTR nerds and gamers that large? Are there that many people who want to LIVE in fucking middle earth? It's the most generic fantasy world ever conceived. In fact, it is the birth mother of generic bullshit in the fantasy genre. What made it great was the story. There's no chance the game is going to recreate any of the great parts of the stories. And you really have to be 12 years old to think Middle Earth would be a fantastic place to live. Established MMOG companies have no interest in being that edgy right now.

Is it just me or is every license with it's own world going to one day become an MMOG?

incredibly bizarre

So the only inconsistency will happen if you and I are very different levels and on a different story level and we decide to party together and want to meet at one place. You´re gonna be standing in front of a building and me not.

When you go into it you´re going into an instance. The first time you go there you´re going into an instance. Second time you go in, you´re going into another instance. The third time you go in you´re going into the public world. The public world is already in the final state. You can´t get into the final state public world until you gone through those instances.

Okay that's incredibly bizarre if two people can be standing in the same place at the same time and one player sees a burnt out shell and the other sees the blacksmith shop still intact (or on fire).

Edit: clarified text

That wasn't the example given.  The example was one sees an intact building and the other one sees a burnt out building.

That is NOT the same as existance and non-existance.  Having different content is a whole nother barrel of fish.

True, but I'm inferring that the different states of the building are temporal. If Player A sees the whole building before it's burnt, while Player B sees it after, that's not that different from existance/non-existance experientially. The building and its meaning to both players is almost as fundamentally different (ie, Player A needs the building for a quest NPC inside while Player B needs to pick through the ruins for a slip of paper the NPC dropped when fleeing the fire).

Can you go in the buildings?

The folks who play this game because they're seriously into LoTR are going to hate some of it. There is no way in hell that anybody besides Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel or possibly one or two other high elves should be able to face up to a balrog given the Tolkien lore, for example.

That was my take on it as well. A Balrog! WOOT, RAID INSTANCE. Only Gandalf didn't tell Frodo and Aragon to go get 32 more people, he told them to run because he was the only one who even had a chance of stopping or delaying it. And the inference is certainly that while he banished the Balrog, the Balrog banished him too.

Shit like that being in the game is only going to infuriate Tolkinerds, which is the target audience.

Who cares?  I don't post here because I'm concerned with reality.

Shit like that being in the game is only going to infuriate Tolkinerds, which is the target audience.

True, but I'm inferring that the different states of the building are temporal. If Player A sees the whole building before it's burnt, while Player B sees it after, that's not that different from existance/non-existance experientially. The building and its meaning to both players is almost as fundamentally different (ie, Player A needs the building for a quest NPC inside while Player B needs to pick through the ruins for a slip of paper the NPC dropped when fleeing the fire).

So the only inconsistency will happen if you and I are very different levels and on a different story level and we decide to party together and want to meet at one place. You´re gonna be standing in front of a building and me not.

The original example from the article and the one that I quoted is building/!building:

That was my take on it as well. A Balrog! WOOT, RAID INSTANCE

It feels over thought for little reason. If they want epic, just make epic content. There's a zillion ways to do it that don't involve arbitrary confusion where none is needed.

Note that the idiot who said it was going to take on WoW is not from Turbine, but from the Euro publishers. These are the same assheads who think ArchonlordsofCatass is going to be a worthwhile endeavor.

He's doing that to get retailers in Europe to stock the game. It's marketing, it doesn't need to have any connection with reality.

There are many reasons to hate Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. There's the dwarf-tossing. Alone, that's unforgivable. There are the myriad, meaningless plot changes. They're far too numerous to mention. But worst, worse than even randomly altering the flow of Tolkien's epic, is the omission of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. For that, Jackson, you go to Hell.

Bombadil, for those who've never read the Trilogy, is a random, wood-dwelling idiot who also happens to be God. Or a god, at least. Goldberry, his wife, is what you'd expect from someone called "Goldberry" who's married to "God". They're both mentalists. They're also two of the most enigmatic characters in the entire book, a pair of oddities that truly cast insight into Tolkien's mind when taken in context with the rest of the story. Obviously, then, Jackson dropped them like a rock. Fool. Thankfully, though, Turbine Entertainment, developer of Lord of the Rings Online, could never be so cruel. We see him rescuing a player from the Great Barrow. He even skips.

"He's completely goofy," laughs Jeff Steefel, the game's executive producer, at the title's unveiling in Warwick. "He's the most powerful ancient guy in the forest and he's completely daft."

Bombadil hopping over the demo screen should bring warmth to the coldest heart, but The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO) has a great deal more on its plate than sticking to Tolkien's original vision. For a start, it's the first and only MMO based on the world's most prolific fantasy franchise. For a thousand reasons, it can't be "bad". Secondly, both Turbine and European publisher Codemasters are banking on LOTRO far exceeding cult status among the online hardcore. And to achieve that end, everyone involved is going to have to climb over the WoW-shaped oliphant in the room.

"People are expecting me to provide a big player game, and that this is supposed to be the next significantly large MMO in the market," says Steefel. "It's not a niche game. It's not supposed to appeal to a small segment of the market. We're going to launch this game globally. It has a tremendous potential if we look at the audience that's available to us."

Jeff reckons his team and his game are up to the job. The online RPG is based on the book licence, not the movies, and while EA owns the New Line Cinema rights, the publisher will never be able to use them to make an MMO, for reasons everyone seems to brush away with a confused scowl and a wave of a hand. In addition, anticipation for LOTRO is high, says Steefel - more than 110,000 people have already signed up to the beta despite the code currently being at the pre-alpha stage - and Turbine's online game heritage is deep. Two full Asheron's Call releases and the recent Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach make the US developer one of the most experienced in the west when it comes to online goblin action.

He plays in front of us for an hour (no touching, no photography, no filming, pain of death), full spiel included. The original release is based squarely on the content of the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. Steefel shows us that Gandalf and a Nazgul are seen in the first five minutes of play, both in the hub town of Bree, sightings included as that's what players will "expect". The game's art instantly impresses, a graphical style somewhere between WoW's overblown cartoon and Guild's War's clipped realism. We see some of the colourful town, populated only with NPCs, before being transported away by the magic of dev codes to an assault on Weathertop.

Four races (Human, Elf, Hobbit and Dwarf) are available in seven classes (Loremaster, Hunter, Guardian, Champion, Captain, Minstrel and Burglar), and Steefel's playing an elf. The group would normally be a lot larger for this particular instance, says Steefel. A ranger hobbles up, injured, asks for an escort to the summit which has been overrun by orcs. The first taste of combat arrives in a scuffle with a goblin Conscript. A coloured, rune-ridden ring around the green monster's feet denotes the target and aside from Lord of the Rings styling it looks like an immediately familiar encounter to anyone with an MMO habit.

Steefel uses the words "straightforward MMO combat" as we're scanning the screen. One thing's for certain: it looks fantastic. As he moves on to a larger encounter with multiple enemies, the goblins' armour and weapons show painful detail up close. Orc Archers, Warriors and Reavers appear and the pace picks up. Steefel's hot bar is a plain-looking affair with 12 (ish) skill slots and he's playing using hotkeys in time-honoured fashion. All standard stuff.

Jeff's elf is on his own throughout the whole encounter and he's using cheats to walk through bigger fights. He shows us arching enemy sentries from massive distances as he moves through the instance, his character's breath visible in the air. New threats arrive in the shape of wargs, orcs retreating and blowing horns to call reinforcements. The player's constantly required to set fire to torches to "call down" orcs thus avoiding being overwhelmed, the flame device also being used to open gates. A couple of camps along the way need clearing, each progressively tougher, the first belonging to orc "Bob Hosk" (thanks), the second to a "Muz the Warg Keeper". The enemies speak throughout - "I've got a little surprise for you!" etc - and the ambience is generally faithful to the books. It really is what you'd expect.

In fact, there's nothing especially shocking about the game at all. It looks competent, attractive: Lord of the Rings. "I guess the way we're trying to craft the game is that it's got a broader spectrum of gameplay, so it's certainly a good game for a new player to take on because we're trying to make is accessible from the very beginning," Steefel explains. "On the other hand, for the hardcore player, it will provide them with all the high end stuff that they're going to want to have."

A first taste of "high end stuff" arrives when Jeff's elf reaches Weathertop's summit. He fights an Uruk Hai, followed by an awesome encounter with a mountain troll daubed with Saruman's white hands. It all fits, it all works and it looks bloody hard. But will it really be enough to span the hilarious gulf between those who've never picked up an online game before and a glass-eyed wraith with a bunch of level 60 WoW characters? Can such an obviously "down the line" MMO satisfy the hardcore?

I think so," says Steefel. "Well, let me rephrase that, and I say this with tremendous respect. We can never satisfy those people. Blizzard can never satisfy those people. They're not satisfiable. Again, all power to them: they're so ferocious at consuming. We have a number of people on the team who have five, six, seven level 60 characters who've announced they won't play with anyone who has any less than three, four, five characters at level 60 or above. But in terms of the challenge level, in terms of being able to work in groups, being able to do raids, you know, high level content, there's just no way you could get through it unless you're in there with a bunch of real badass guys."

After Weathertop, Steefel goes to the Great Barrow for some dungeoneering. Again, the environments and the enemies are beautiful. The first sighting of the Witch King of Angmar is made here, although you don't get to take him on until you're reaching the top levels ("There's a 45-50 level cap," according to Jeff). The instance ends in combat with a particularly nasty wraith, after which Bombadil saves the day. He even skips. We're kind of loving the game at this point, to be honest.

Speaking to us in private after the showing, Steefel tells us he was contractually obliged to read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings at least three times. He doesn't seem to mind. From the sound of it, that level of research was essential to the job.

"It's a huge place," he says, smiling. "For my designers and artists it's very cool for them to work on one of the most well-known properties on the planet. You know, it's like, 'What did you do today?' 'Oh I've been modelling Rivendell.' That's pretty cool. On the other hand, artists are really creative people, and that means that the amount of things they can create totally from scratch is unlimited. So when Angmar comes along and we said, 'Look, here's a whole part of Middle Earth that Tolkien only talked about. Here's everything we know about it, here's where it is geographically and we know what the rest of the world is like in terms of biology and topography: make Angmar.' And then we come up with a basic idea and we talk it over with Tolkien [Tolkien Estate, the owner of the book rights - Ed], come to a place where we're comfortable and that becomes Angmar. So you'll be exploring the realm of the Witch King. And there'll be many other places like that throughout Middle Earth that we get to do."

The Fellowship never goes to Angmar in the books. This is uncharted territory. To a Tolkien geek, it's wet dream material. And it's not going to stop any time soon. Turbine has very big plans for LOTRO. Get sucked in and you're going to be playing it for a long time yet.

"I think of this as a franchise that starts at launch and goes on for years and years and years," he adds. "It's such an evergreen piece of material there's no reason why it shouldn't. We're going to do an expansion roughly every nine to 12 months, and the expansions are likely to have significant functionality changes as opposed to just content. We're going to do quarterly content updates. Will other types of functionality come online in some of those? Sure. But it all depends on the technology involved. I'm going to have a content team, an art team and also a fairly substantial technology team to improve our game and add functionality.

"I think this is the beginning of an evolution. I've been preaching this to my team a lot. I think the MMO market is at a more mature place now. I think of it like the Betamax era. We ship the machine at launch and then just keep feeding it with tape? That doesn't work any more. The fundamental way that the experience exists is going to change and evolve. It's going to have to. The community's going to change and mature."

Some of the features to be included are obvious. PvP doesn't make it into the original release - currently scheduled for Q4 in Europe - although Steefel tells us to watch for an announcement on being able to play "darkside" soon.

Others are less so. The initial game includes 250 hours of play, but he tells us that all the content from The Two Towers and The Return of the King will be added in content updates. As an example of how this will affect the core game, the Rohirim make an appearance in the second book, so horse-riding and horse combat will have to be included. Add the unknown quantity of Angmar onto the three original books and you have an epic prospect. Turbine's in it for the long haul and it has massive plans. You should get into publishing, we joke.

"It's all part of the possibility space," says Steefel seriously. "It really depends on how many things we want to take on all at once. We're pretty clear that sales and distribution isn't a business that we'll ever want to get into."

He pauses.

"Unless we become the next EA."

In fact, there's nothing especially shocking about the game at all.

Codemasters have a couple of exclusives on DDO and LOTRO.  Satine (Codemasters community rep) interviews David Eckelberry here, 3rd item down (http://www.ddo-europe.com/) 270 meg video file.  Satine is a bit of a hottie, to clarify that statement, I mean she seems nice, she's female and actually knows what DDO means. 

If anyone is mad enough to download that video, Satine asks some tough questions, David gives little real information while speaking a lot, I suspect he doesn't get to speak to attractive women that often.

For a start, it's the first and only MMO based on the world's most prolific fantasy franchise. For a thousand reasons, it can't be "bad".

Yet it only needs a few to BE bad.

Eventually the launch game will end with players in the Elven city of Rivendell, which is where the expansion packs will start off

Voice chat is something that we're going to start with at launch and see how people get on with that, which would be an answer for role-playing on a console.

Eventually the launch game will end with players in the Elven city of Rivendell, which is where the expansion packs will start off

Anderson, Turbine CEO, is either the biggest idiot in the MMO business or is an evil genius simply bilking investors out of millions prior to declaring bankruptcy and moving to the Cayman Islands.

I don't know about investors (thought Turbine was funding the bulk of DDO and LotRO?), but I don't think he's an idiot.

Translation: Hi! Are new game LOTRO is going to have just as little content at launch as our current game DDO does! But once again we are hoping you mindless consumers all buy it because it has cute wittle hobbits!

No, Turbine has taken in $48 million in VC money to date.

Although I suspect you might be right, it's just too early to say that.

At release LOTRO is meant to be 60% the land size of WoW, with no factions that means you have approx the same size land area to explore as WoW (Horde can't get to jumpy Elf land etc).  It was also stated in the yahoo preview (http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/pc/previews/the-lord-of-the-rings-online--shadows-of-angmar-c9d9c1.html) that "there are some 600 quests and subquests to work through".

The official lotro forums are being erased in the next few days, I suspect a lot of new information is going to be released at E3 and they want to remove previous dev posts from the past few years that contradict the new info.

Edit found a link for the quest info.

he gives himself a huge salary, buys real estate, puts it in his kids' names
..

DDO was going to have 400+ quests
..

you will start in Bree at the Prancing Pony

90% open no zones

We wanted to deliver the sort of very traditional classes that rpg players expect, so we have 7 classes.  As you said the offensive melee attack, the ranged attack, we've got someone who is reponsible mostly for buffs, someone who's responsible for sorta sneaking around and doing rogue type things.  The loremaster who is essentially the magic user. 

A fireball is a vessel containing burning oil.  Our hit points are moral we add a "wrapper" so we can make the design fit the ip.

Question: So the Captain is a Paladin?  Yup.

You will be able to go grind if you want to

I'd like to see you provide links for the your claims quoted above.

I think you are reading it wrong, there's quite a bit of info on starter areas already (http://lotro.turbine.com/?page_id=88), plus it's no great surprise a preview piece will name drop a well known location.

I also know they predicted 150-200 quests at release in this DDO preview (http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/dungeons-dragons-online/643655p1.html) but I can't recall seeing a figure of 400, that's why I asked for a link.