The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood Preview

At a time when Warhammer Online, Age of Conan and other high-profile MMORPGs are struggling, one is quietly getting on with the business of being successful. We're talking, of course, about Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online (you were thinking World of Warcraft, weren't you?). Why is it so successful? Because Turbine pumps out more updates than an update pumping machine, that's why. And it's getting another one, next month, in fact, called Siege of Mirkwood. The digital download only expansion will raise the level cap to 65, add new quickfire instances called Skirmishes, a new 12-player raid, improve avatar responsiveness and conclude the Volume II: Mines of Moria storyline. Here, in an interview with executive producer Jeffrey Steefel, we find out what the dark forest of Mirkwood has in store for players brave enough to venture into its branchy innards.

VideoGamer.com: Is Mirkwood in the films?

Jeffrey Steefel: There's not a lot going on in Mirkwood at that particular time. There's probably going to be a lot more reference to it in the upcoming film, The Hobbit, because that's where a lot of things happen. It wasn't touched on as much. It's one of the things that are going on. There is certainly reference to Dol Guldur and the tower and what Sauron's doing there. You get the sense in the movie that Aragorn keeps disappearing and coming back, and Gandalf keeps disappearing and coming back. There are other fronts of the war going on, and this is clearly one of them.

VideoGamer.com: Isn't Legolas from Mirkwood?

JS: It was the home of the Sindarin Elves. I think that was before his time, but don't quote me! I know people who know the exact answer to this question.

VideoGamer.com: Why Mirkwood?

JS: Because it was the perfect contrast to Lothlórien, a place we had just been. It was a great place to stage a battle against Sauron, essentially. And it's a stepping stone into where the war and everything is headed. So it was a natural step having just passed through Moria and Lothlórien, before we go down into some of the other elements of war that are going on in the game.

VideoGamer.com: Is Mirkwood comparable in size to your previous expansion Mines of Moria?

JS: It's a hard comparison. Overall it's fair to say that this expansion is smaller than Moria. It's also happening at a much quicker pace. And those two things are related, obviously. It's been a year since Moria. Moria took us a year and a half or so to build. It's also a hard comparison because Moria was so vertical. How big is it? I don't know, we'll have to start measuring in cubes instead of squares. Mirkwood is about one and a half times the size of our normal regions. The Tower of Dol Guldur is large, tall, vertical - a lot of space and content in there. It's hard to say. But in terms of actual region, landscape content, it's definitely less than Moria, because Moria was also part of Lothlórien and Eregion and all that stuff. But it's huge.

[PR interjection]: Quick rerun: Legolas was the Prince of Mirkwood.

JS: There you go. You can now say you know more about Tolkien.

VideoGamer.com: I seriously doubt it.

[PR] Here's the lore book [points to phone].

VideoGamer.com: You have a lore book to hand?

JS: Yeah. In our community over in the North American servers, we have a player-created - well we created it but the players fill it with content, a wiki. We started a wiki with a 40,000 entry library of Tolkien lore and now it's a wiki so players add all kinds of stuff and tie it to the game. We say a quest direction and you go here, but if you can't find it people will then go and give you much more detail.

VideoGamer.com: The Skirmish feature sounds great for players without as much time as others. Will it be possible to level entirely just through Skirmishes?

JS: Don't think so. You have to be level 30 first.

VideoGamer.com: From that point on?

JS: Skirmishes is more about rewards. It certainly helps you, because you're going to get a lot of the rewards you might need to advance, but you're not going to get a huge amount of experience. So probably not. It may be impossible. It was a design goal that this not supplant the game we have, that this be a compliment to it. This is something people would play a bunch for a while and then come back to from time to time. But not that this would become their new primary way of playing the game. That would detract too much from the PvE game we built. We want to make sure you still spend plenty of time on landscape and doing all the things we have for you to do there.

VideoGamer.com: You anticipate most Skirmishes will last half an hour?

JS: 30 to 40 minutes is the average target. Some longer, some shorter. Obviously if you go in there with a 12 person Skirmish and you've all got Soldiers and there are multiple objectives, it'll take a little bit longer. It's meant to be an accessible, bite-sized experience.

VideoGamer.com: Skirmishes will provide the opportunity to revisit some areas but they will be different. Can you give me an example?

JS: The Shire is almost reminiscent of the Scourge of the Shire. Bree, you go into the town of Bree and are met by a soldier in front of the Prancing Pony, who is saying, look the whole town is under siege. Women and children have locked themselves in the Prancing Pony and people are coming to try and burn it down and you need to help us stop them. It's dark and snowy in Bree, which it never is any other time of year there. You end up on Weathertop. You end up in other parts of the world you've been before. And also some places in Mirkwood.