Lord of the Rings Online Interview

[JCalCGM]

The Lord of the Rings novels have pretty much influenced every fantasy themed video and PC game ever made including all of the many different fantasy MMORPGs. Soon people will be able to play in a massively multiplayer version of J.R.R. Tolkien's world with the launch of Lord of the Rings Online from developer Turbine and publisher Midway. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with the game's executive producer Jeffrey Steefel (http://www.firingsquad.com/games/lord_of_the_rings_online_interview/) to find out more about their plans for the long awaited game. Here is a snip:
FiringSquad: How much license does Turbine have in making the game? Will it stick strictly with the Tolkien novels or will there be opportunities to expand on the events in the Tolkien books?


Jeffrey Steefel: Our goal is to create the most complete and authentic realization of Middle-earth. The books serve as our guide as we create this rich, immersive experience that allows players to experience life in the Third Age after Frodo leaves the Shire. While we are sticking very close to the books, the game isn’t about replaying the story, LOTRO is about creating your own adventure within the world that Tolkien created. Players will travel to many celebrated landmarks from the books including Rivendell, Weathertop and Bree, and interact with famous characters such as Gandalf, Gimli and Strider. In addition to the creatures and places in the books, we also have the ability to expand on these areas and create our own content. So you’ll not only fight Orcs and Trolls, but you’ll also encounter new creatures such as the dangerous Rogmul.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I signed up to participate in this game back in 1997 or 1998.

I wonder if they still have my registration?

[Heretic Machine]

I signed up to participate in this game back in 1997 or 1998.

I wonder if they still have my registration?

Not the same game. In fact, it has been scrapped and remade two or three times since then, swapped devs as many times, and had the license change hands.

[The Continental]

The beta started up this last week, apparently they're experiencing a bit in the way of growing pains, having let quite a few anxious testers in.

[Klade]

Is there anyone who believes this game has a chance of being decent? I wish it would be, but given what I have seen and it coming from Turbine... Yeah this game was dead before it went to code.

[Royal Fool]

The LotR hype train has already left the station, arrived at the other side of the tracks, gotten decommisioned and dumped onto the scrap heap.

[The Continental]

Is there anyone who believes this game has a chance of being decent? I wish it would be, but given what I have seen and it coming from Turbine... Yeah this game was dead before it went to code.

Oh I have no doubt it will fail. Even if they had managed to release a few years back during the movie hype, the developing prowess of Turdbine would have killed the game.

[shunoshi]

I have a copy of the beta. I've attempted to play 3 times now and have been foiled thrice. The first attempt had me waiting in a 4000+ person queue. That didn't surprise me too much or even irritate me. I played WoW during it's first year and had my share of queues. Once I did get into the game I made my character, joined the one existing server, and proceded to have the introductory quest bug on me. It's a beta, I expect a buggy quest or two. So, I log out (since this quest is required to continue) and the game crashes. Hello queue, I think we met recently...the server went down 5 minutes later.

The other two times the server has been down during hours that I can play (which is primetime 7pm-11pm CST).

Not a good start. I'm going to try it again tonight though. We'll see what happens.

[Shjinta]

I have a copy of the beta. I've attempted to play 3 times now and have been foiled thrice. The first attempt had me waiting in a 4000+ person queue. That didn't surprise me too much or even irritate me. I played WoW during it's first year and had my share of queues. Once I did get into the game I made my character, joined the one existing server, and proceded to have the introductory quest bug on me. It's a beta, I expect a buggy quest or two. So, I log out (since this quest is required to continue) and the game crashes. Hello queue, I think we met recently...the server went down 5 minutes later.

The other two times the server has been down during hours that I can play (which is primetime 7pm-11pm CST).

Not a good start. I'm going to try it again tonight though. We'll see what happens.

*cough you signed a NDA * cough hahaha yeah I got in as well. The queues are on purpose to stress the server, something blizzard never did, and if they did wow they really blow. they should opened up more than 1 server. but without saying anything about the game keeping my NDA intact...*cough it has a WoW / AC 2 feel to it, and AC2 is still king of MMOs in my heart

[Netami]

Turbine is making this? They did terrible things to the D&D franchise... And interacting with Gandalf? Jesus... I can just imagine, he's some low level quest giver. Greaaat.

The thing that will make or break this game is just how expansive they get with Tolkein's world. You check out the maps of Middle-Earth and how places are described in the Silmarillion and other works, and it seems like someone could really botch up such an epic portrayel.

[Steele Johnson]

Hopefully this isn't being designed and developed by the same people who did Asheron's Call 2 and Dungeons & Dragons Online, but I think it is. <grief>

[Shjinta]

Hopefully this isn't being designed and developed by the same people who did Asheron's Call 2 and Dungeons & Dragons Online, but I think it is. <grief>


Actually it is. and AC 2 was my favorite MMO of all time, even better than WoW

[bean19]

Is there anyone who believes this game has a chance of being decent? I wish it would be, but given what I have seen and it coming from Turbine... Yeah this game was dead before it went to code.

Turbine's execution has always been not quite. . . even their first game Asheron's Call was only middling for a first gen MMO. DDO, their most recent entry, was terrible. It lacked enough content to be satisfying and honestly I don't think the D&D rules translate well to MMO gameplay.

Still, this game has some neat ideas. I really like the characters playing monsters bit, and I also like the group combo attacks. Both of these concepts are very cool.

However, the concepts in DDO were also excellent.

[Zeal]

The only MMO that will have a shot against WoW is James Cameron's AVATAR.

Heard it here first.

[Heretic Machine]

Actually it is. and AC 2 was my favorite MMO of all time, even better than WoW

AC2 was a game built around a premise that was never actually included in the game. In my book, that is a problem.

[Bushi]

*cough you signed a NDA * cough hahaha yeah I got in as well. The queues are on purpose to stress the server, something blizzard never did, and if they did wow they really blow. they should opened up more than 1 server. but without saying anything about the game keeping my NDA intact...*cough it has a WoW / AC 2 feel to it, and AC2 is still king of MMOs in my heart

More like a Horizons meets AC2 feel to it. Honestly, not very interesting at the moment, and given Turbines history... might not ever be. Me to in every way only duller, and that is without the beta issues. A few very good ideas mixed in but well not even evolutionary fun wize much less revolutionary IMO.

[Elysium]

Did this game used to go under the name "Shadows of Angmar?" If so, it sounds like they have made the game far more recognisable to casual LOTR fans.

Wasn't it originally set in lands not visited in the books?

[Kem0sabe]

All the previews praise the game greatly. I'm pretty excited about it, tho Turbine is at the bottom of my list of developers i respect.

This is probably their last chance, if they fail with LotR online...

Edit: Btw, AC2 was a POS.

[[VSK]BadCRC]

This game will suck. The fact that it's already been shuffled between a number of developers only proves this. The same thing happened with Matrix Online. I really wanted that game to work, but I knew in my heart that it would fail miserably, and so it has.

The problem with making an MMO over this movie is that the content will quickly dry up. One of the most significant problems I see with MMOs adapted by such methods are that there is a very real problem with when to invite players to the driving force behind the content it's modeled after.

Basically, if there's something crucial to the story, like let's say the sword that Bilbo acquired (It's been many years sinse I read The Hobbit), and putting that item in-game, when and how do you make it available that doesn't pull away from the core of the story? Bilbo obtained his item a certain way, would it not show a lack of creativity if they simply made that item an "uber" rare epic drop that's hard to find or a really hard quest. And if not what happens to the casual MMO players that would outlevel the item.

What I'm really trying to say is that there is a fine chemistry that takes place in a good MMO, and a certain flow. But when there's expectations of a story, that story is going to constrict the creative processes that need to take place to make the game all that it really needs to be.

The cross development of the story line and the gameplay will ultimately clash, and you'll end up with a shitty gameplay experience with a massive dissapointment by the story that's being dribbled out over long periods of time.


EDIT:

All the previews praise the game greatly. I'm pretty excited about it, tho Turbine is at the bottom of my list of developers i respect.

I remember developers praising Matrix Online. I bought the $10 pre-order and got my early copy of the game, when I was able to get on the game proved just how dissapointingly bad an MMO could really be.

[Librum]

I wish developers would realize that you can't shoehorn just any story into an MMORPG and make it work. LotR _could_ make a good MMORPG, but only if the player characters have next to nothing to do with the feature characters in the books, as otherwise it tends to feel very forced and breaks the continuity of the story as we know it. Why would anyone else have the One Ring, or Sting, or do anything that any of the featured characters did? We all know what's supposed to happen and who is supposed to be doing it.

You can get away with things in a single player game (like BFME2) that just don't make sense at all in a multiplayer setting. A Middle Earth MMORPG could be done, but it would need to be more like the old ICE tabletop game in how they handled the setting than trying to make everyone the star like in BFME.

Of course, even saying all that, this is being done by Turbine, who must have sold their souls to the Devil to keep getting deals for game licenses, as their products are uniformly crimes against computer gaming.

[bean19]

Btw, my brother plays DDO because it has been so long since there was a new MMO, and because he loves the D&D rule set. He told me that they've added a great deal more content to the game and that you can now get to level 12. So they've also added level 6 spells which is a pretty big deal.

I'm still not at all interested in playing because it is a group-dependent game (though I know a D&D game really should be one). I like to group for special content like I did in WoW. Cool stuff that requires a group because it is too hard solo, but I want to feel like I'm playing a hero and if I need 5 other people just to fight a single mob then I feel like a wuss.

[shunoshi]

*cough you signed a NDA * cough hahaha yeah I got in as well. The queues are on purpose to stress the server, something blizzard never did, and if they did wow they really blow. they should opened up more than 1 server. but without saying anything about the game keeping my NDA intact...*cough it has a WoW / AC 2 feel to it, and AC2 is still king of MMOs in my heart

hahaha.....oops :o Thanks for the laugh though. If I would have actually got to play the game I may have revealed something. ;)