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Lord of the Rings Online: Shores of Evendim - Interview with Jeffrey Steefel and Adam Mersky

Whether you've read the book or seen the movies, if there is one thing that is certain about Lord of the Rings, it is that they are both long, really long. Thankfully though, with that length and breadth of content, there is a ton of rich history and events to immerse yourself in, which should please fans of the recently released Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. As a level 17 Elf Lore-master, I've only just recently made my way to Bree, and there is still so much content left for me to discover. My Elf is soon to be daunted by even more content very shortly, when the first completely free expansion to the game - Shores of Evendim - is released. We got to talk with Jeffrey Steele - the EP for the game - and Adam Mersky to delve in and see what all is heading to players with the new expansion.

Jason:  So Lord of the Rings Online premiered not that long ago, already it seems that it has been proven pretty popular, and now you've got the first free expansion coming in the way of Shores of Evendim. Since when has Shores been in development, and how much of its content is stuff you'd already planned to include, and how much of it addresses things players have talked about either having wanted to see included or things fixed?

Jeffrey Steefel:  That's a great question. I'll break that into a couple of parts. All of our updates are going to reflect and respond to what we are seeing in the game and what we are hearing. Back as far as Alpha we've had a process in place in a lot of different channels - everything from surveys to listening on the boards to looking at data in the game, to hearing from our players directly - figuring out what things are working, what aren't, and incorporating that into what we are actually building going forward, and we did that with Beta quite successfully and we are doing that now.

So a lot of the things in Evendim are a response to that. For example, it isn't to fix things, but to respond to something that players loved we want to enhance, so music is a good example of that. Music was a small minigame that we had conceived originally, and it took off in ways we didn't expect - although it's fantastic - but we immediately began working on an upgrade to music so that by the time we had our first update, all the people who were participating in this activity would feel like, "Hey, this is going somewhere, I have something new to do." So now you are going to have sustained notes, be able to play chords, and be able to playback music that you write in a text file.

As for how long we've been working on the content in Evendim when it launches, we've been working on that for as long as we've been working on all of our updates - in other words, while we had a fairly good idea of what we wanted to do, we were not developing this first update along with building the game we launched, and then finishing it up for this first update. This is a full development cycle of many many many weeks from beginning to end to build everything you see in Evendim. So all of that was built in the same type of cycle to build these updates going forward, so what you see in this update is what people should expect, generally speaking in significance and quality, stability, and depth of content.

Jason: As you just mentioned, with Evendim, players are now going to be able to compose offline and outside the game, and then incorporate that music into the game. How is that going to work exactly? Is there going to be a program of sorts that reads like sheet music that will record the songs, and then how do you go about putting those into the game and calling them up for others to hear?

Jeffrey Steefel:  There is a standard text file music notation format on the Internet called ABC files, and you can Google it and get all kinds of information on it, and it's been around for years, and since it has been around and is standard - and it's just ASCII text files - there are a lot of third party programs out there (freeware/shareware) that will convert MIDI files or notation files - anything someone is using to write music - into these text files. And then all you do is put them into your appropriate folder on your computer and they become available to you in the game. There is a chat command, and it will play that song you've written directly from that text file, and you can share it with other people.

Jason: One of the big things I've noticed while playing Lord of the Rings Online is exploring a new section, and soaking in all atmosphere of the architecture and the landscape itself. When players head into Evendim, what are they going to notice in terms of that atmosphere?

Jeffrey Steefel:  Well again, one of the other things that is a big goal for us is just adding content. Making sure it is good is cool too, but it needs to feel new and fresh. So everywhere that becomes a new region in the world, it feels unlike other places you've been. So when people walk into Evendim, they are going to walk into an environment where there is a giant lake surrounded by completely different types of trees, and landscapes that you might find around a lake.

They are going to see ancient Arnorian architecture, all sort of aggregated together, in a way they've never seen it before. Just the whole backwoods and bramble and the way the ground looks, and the creatures they are going to encounter; there are nine new monsters in the game, and a number of them are in Evendim, and a couple of them have very specific AI created for them for Evendim, where monsters are behaving in ways players have never seen before.

Jason:  Can you talk a little about the new monsters and AI you just mentioned. Are we looking at completely new monsters, or are some of them just re-skinned?

Jeffrey Steefel:  Some of them are certainly variations of monsters out there, but even our variants diverge a great bit. So while you might have had a troll roaming around in the Lone-Lands at night, and now if you are in a snowy area you've got a snowbeast. It really is a troll that has been re-purposed, but it has a completely different look and feel, and in some cases different AI. In the case of a monster we made from scratch, it's a monster you'll find in a portion of Evendim that is kind of a wolf creature. Basically it's a tribe of men - large sort of men - who over time have mutated and part of their whole mythology is they want be as much like wolves as possible, so they worship the wolves, they wear wolf skins over themselves, even wearing a wolf skin covering their heads that even makes them look like wolves. And then they have some cool AI behavior, such as if you are surrounded by a pack of them, if you are surrounded by certain types of these creatures, they have wolves with them - wolves are kind of their familiars - and you are fighting a pack of wolves that belong to them, and you are fighting them at the same time; if you kill a wolf, you think you are doing a great job getting rid of them, but they eventually get replaced with spirit of the wolf, and you end up fighting them like regular wolves, but they are much more powerful.

Jason:  I've also noticed players seem to enjoy running across characters from the book, such as getting a mission from Aragorn, seeing Gimli or Gandalf, or even Tom Bombadil for that matter. Are there going to be anymore of those interactions in Evendim, and if so can you tell us who and in what capacity?

Jeffrey Steefel:  Sure, absolutely. I won't give away too much, but you'll encounter an Ent in the world for the first time. And you'll also spend some more time with Aragorn and a few other folks; you actually end up helping Aragorn reforge Narsil.

In the story, we all know Narsil was in charge, and it becomes whole in time for Aragorn to join the fellowship and move forward. It's not specifically described as to how and where that happens, so we've made it happen in Evendim at a ring forge - which is in the books - where the ring was forged.

The whole thing about Evendim is that this is the place where the kingdom of Arnor once was, and so when Aragorn becomes king at the end of "Return of the King" that is actually where he goes to rebuild the kingdom of Arnor, so it's a very important historical place. You are there to help him find some very valuable and rare artifacts in Evendim, which agents of Angmar are also after. And once you find them, you help him reforge Narsil, and Gandalf is there, a whole bunch of other people.

Jason:  As soon as it hits, everyone is going to want to go and experience the new content right away. Hearing it's relatively close to the Shire - a starting ground for the hobbit players out there - what level should players be at before they head in, so that they don't get slaughtered on their first encounter inside the new land? What level do the quests range from as well?

Jeffrey Steefel:  We've specifically tailored the content from approximately level 27 to level 40, because we feel that is where a lot of players are starting to get when they need something fresh and new, but they aren't ready to go to some of the really high content at Angmar and places like that. And there's even places of Evendim that those players won't be able to get to, such as the city of Annuminas that will be unlocked at the time of another update.

Jason:  I've noticed while playing that some people think there are too many fetch quests, where you deliver this to this person and that to that person. With over 100 new quests in Evendim, are we looking at more of the same, or are they going to be much more dynamic and involving, or perhaps even more story driven?

Jeffrey Steefel: Well we certainly did a mix of both in the launch product, and I would say this ratio of either story driven or instant quests or part of an overall arc to just your standard fetch and carry quest are much different than launch. We're adding 100-120 quests, and it's not like the majority of them are filler quests, as for the most part they are relatively meaningful quests that are part of the story.

You've got a whole group of arcs that happen in Evendim that are related to Narsil, and artifacts, and the Ent you encounter, and a new character that gets introduced that I won't talk about now because I want people to discover it, so there is quite a bit of story. Our goal is to be story driven in each of these updates; this update is called Book 9 specifically because we have an epic story that is written in book. So this is a whole new book with a whole new region.

Jason: The thing that will probably have the level capped players most excited is the new raid, The Battle For Helegrod. Can you shed some light on the raid? For example, how big and strong of a dragon are we talking about here? Is it mandatory that you must have 24 players to complete the raid? And with such a fearsome foe, are players going to get a nice reward such as a weapon or armor?

Jeffrey Steefel:  This is a full-on, pedal to the metal 24-person raid. So this is meant to satisfy those people who expect that experience. It's huge, it has all these different off-shoots and levels and objections you can play. The dragon at the end is definitely tough, and a lot of the characters along the way are tough; the bosses you meet along the way.

Yes, very cool things are available to you when you win, as they are expected of this kind of range. Our developers were certainly known to wipe themselves from time to time. I mean this is a serious raid, and many of our developers are high, high raid players in other games, so that kind of drives the bar, so you'll definitely need your act together to get through this thing. The length varies - hours and hours and hours - and I'm reticent to put a label on it, because I think we'll find out for real when people get in there and we see what happens. It's big, and if you've played other games and experienced these types of raids, you should expect this to be the equivalent, although there are a lot of cool things in there you've probably never seen before.

Jason:  When looking at the new quests and raid combined, what are you looking at the split being regarding content you can do by yourself as a single player adventure, against that percentage where you really need to team-up if you want to do well?

Jeffrey Steefel: We're trying to maintain a healthy balance between the two. I mean at launch the goal was to have a large amount of content solo, and specifically in those first 20 levels, and then when you get above that 20 it starts to be less completely solo. With Evendim there are things you are not going to want to solo. You can, again there is as much content as possible, with the exception of some of the higher level instances and higher level areas of Angmar.

There are ways to get through experiences with less people, either by really figuring out the experience, understanding a lot of them have tricks to them, where if you figure out those tricks you'll avoid mobs you'd otherwise have to go through. You can over-level yourself and come back. There are a lot of things you can do. We recognize a lot of people play solo and want to play solo, don't want their experience to be cut short because they don't have something to solo. The goal is to always have some available to you in that respect. The raid…not so much.

Jason: You've got seven new collectible epic armor sets. What is it about these pieces that are going to have people clamoring for them? Also, how are people going to get the new armor, what's the needed level to be able to use it, and are they spread out among all the weight classes?

Jeffrey Steefel:  So you have to be a pretty high level to wear them. They are very cool in lots of ways; first of all they are pretty powerful in the level of protection they give you, and they are just very badass looking, and that was the focus, to have stuff that really stands out in the crowd. As for the mix between light, medium and heavy, I think for now we are just going to let people find them and see how that happens. I don't want to talk about too many things that would indicate where they are or how they are. It's a nice mix. It's definitely higher level content and higher level items that are meant for you.

Jason:   The inclusion of titles and deeds have gone over well in the game so far, making the grinding of monsters not such a chore anymore. Are there going to be any new titles and deeds with Evendim?

Jeffrey Steefel:  Every update will have new titles and deeds; it's part of our advancement and our content, so it will always be updated and give you more opportunities and choices.

Jason:  Besides adding content, how much (if any) of the previous stuff already available, is going to be tweaked to make it a tighter package? I've heard Monster Play is supposed to be improved, how's that? But are the character traits, loot drop, or mob levels, anything like that, being changed up?

Jeffrey Steefel:  There are a number of things we are doing, but it is really incremental. For Monster Play there are some things we have done to improve the player characters in the Monster Play area, because we know more and more players are reaching the level 40 players need to be to get into the Ettenmoors. But objects, some changes to the way in that rewards are provided. Some of the attacks for some of the monster players are more robust and there is more skill involved. Some of it is just UI tweaking, making it better and more functional, upgrading the way things work based on feedback we've got from players. But those are mostly incremental improvements. In our next update - Book 10 - there is quite a number of other things we'll be adding that players will see as an improvement to what we already have in the game. It's mostly focused on new content and really providing that experience for players who are reaching the 20s and 30s, and expanding the world, and making sure we've responded to some of the fundamental things in Beta we've found could be better.

Jason:  It might be a bit early to ask, what with the first expansion coming out, but are plans already in place for the next content? If so, can you give us a hint or taste of what's to come? A new character class? More traditional PvP? Anything of the sort?

Jeffrey Steefel:  There isn't much of what I can talk about in Book 10, but I can tell you we are halfway through the development already, so not only do we know what it is, but my guys are building it, and it's going to be in testing in the not so distant future, so this is a train that keeps moving for us. In terms of things happening between now and then, we've talked about the fact we are going to do live events in the game. But what begins to happen when we launch Book 9 is that the game has some functionality and technology in it that allows us to drive much more complicated events across all servers, so taking advantage of that, starting later in the month there is going to be a festival - the Summer Solstice.

Adam Mersky: It's going to be a three-week event where there are going to be all sorts of new quests just for this period of time, so, fireworks! Fireworks are very Middle-Earth, and you'll have to go to firework vendors in different regions to collect them and get a unique firework. There will be scavenger hunts. There is a very cool little minigame, which I'll save for our announcement, but it has been affectionately called "chicken hockey" - but it's a Middle-Earth game that should be really fun to do. Middle-Earth is a living, breathing space, and so we are going to constantly do things throughout the year that celebrate that. This is a season celebration of summer, and growing, and there will be things for farmers to do. Again, it's all part of the subscription, and in my opinion we deliver more content than anyone else to people who subscribe to our game.

Though while it saddens me that my level 17 elf won't get to see the new content for seemingly some time, my mouth is already watering over the sheer anticipation of getting to see and fight that dragon for the very first time. If the people over at Turbine keep this up, it sounds as if they are going to make a lot of Tolkien fans - and MMORPG fans in general - very happy with their continued free expansions and support of the game. Now, hurry, get out there and get leveling, because you know you are going to want to visit Evendim just as quick as possible