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LotRO - Leipzig Expansion Overview
MMORPG.com is in Leipzig, Germany for Games Convention. There, he took part in a presentation from LotRO Producer Aaron Campbell who told us a little bit about the game's upcoming Mines of Moria expansion.
At Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, MMORPG.com got its first real look at Lord of the Rings Online's upcoming expansion, The Mines of Moria. Fans of the Tolkien series will recognize the name, as the Followship passed through the massive underground city on their way to Lothlorien. The abandoned Dwarven kingdom, as you may recall, had become home to all kinds of evil, including the famous Balrog that Gandalf the Grey was forced to battle.
Well, the story for Lord of the Rings Online is that after the fellowship passed through Moria, the Dwarves begin an effort to fully reclaim their lost land. Hence, the influx of players into the mines and the action that will bring them there.
Turbine Lord of the Rings Online Producer Aaron Campbell described the mines as "the original dungeon", the "dungeon" from which all others grew. He probably has a point, and as such, it presents daunting challenge to the developers in doing it proper justice.
On the one hand, the developers want to be as true as possible to what Tolkien laid out for the region. For example, he described the entrance to the mines as having 300 stairs. As a result, the first stairway that players will come across in the expansion area has exactly that.
If that sounds like a lot of stairs, it is. Seeing the in-game demo, the gathered reporters got a real sense of the size and scope of the new area. "It's not just a cave," Campbell said, "it's an ancient civilization."
He wasn't kidding. Anyone who was expecting to see a claustrophobic, dank, underground area is in for a disappointment. Turbine has even gone so far as to create a new technology that will allow them to layer floors, creating the enormously high ceilings that don't cause performance issues. It's called Dual Height Map Technology and from what I could tell, it works just fine.
I mention this because I was truly blown away by the look of the mines. While you are most certainly in an underground environment, you don't necessarily notice it at every turn. Some of the visuals in this area are truly breathtaking, including looking up and barely seeing the ceiling overhead at such a height. It should be noted as well that the scenery in the mines aren't just backdrops, you can always reach a location that you see so long as you can find the correct path.
This new expansion also gives the developers the ability to explore beyond the areas specifically detailed by Tolkien. The "endless stair", for example, which Gandalf had to climb after his battle with the Balrog will be in the game along with many new and variations on old monsters. It's a delicate balance between re-creating described areas and creating new areas that fit in with the "feel" of the original story.
So, beyond story, what can we expect to see from the Mines of Moria expansion? It turns out that the answer to this question is unsurprisingly more in-depth than a twenty minute demonstration could cover, and MMORPG.com will continue to bring you more details as we approach launch.
In the presentation though, they covered a lot of what we've already heard about. Campbell briefly touched on the new legendary weapon system that will see players obtain a weapon akin to Frodo's Sting that will actually advance in power (and gain XP) alongside its wielder.
There are two types of legendary weapons. The first is in the form of swords and similar type weapons, the other will be items that benefit a player's class abilities (one would assume for those classes which rely on magic-like abilities for combat).
The Mines of Moria will see the game's level cap raised by ten from 50 to 60. The game will also see a number of new three and six-man instances as well as a new twelve-man raid.
One of the biggest features of the new expansion is the addition of two new classes:
The Runekeeper - LotRO's first overtly magical class withh be able to cast both offensive spells like fireballs and lightning, but also healing spells. There's a trade-off though. If you focus your attention on casting offensive spells, your healing spells will lock. Similarly, if you decide to heal, you will find youself without many of your offensive abilities. After a certain amount of time out of combat, your abilities reset and the whole dance begins again.
The Warden - A new medium-armor tanking class that will make use of combo attacks called gambits. The Warden has three different types of attack: threat generating, defensive and melee strike. As they use skills from these categories in a sequence, more powerful attacks will be opened up for their hacka nd slashing pleasure.
While, as I said earlier, we were not able to cover a good deal of information in the allotted time (a show as big as Leipzig is go,go,go and some things must wait for later), I think that we were given a pretty good overview of what Turbine hopes to offer in Volume 2 of the game's story. We look forward to learning more and of course sharing it with you as soon as we can.
The link is going to the news page for the Chronicles of Spellborn :(
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/45/feature/2149
Thanks for the heads up. The link is fixed and should be working properly now.
One *huge* concern that I haven't seen anyone mention yet is this:
Will Turbine increase the number of characters players can create from five to eight?
EVen as it is now, "Altaholics" can't "try" every class without having to delete a character or, worse yet, having to create that new class character on a different server, away from friends and kin mates.
Five slots was never enough anyway and the simple fact is that many, if not most games provide at least six with a lot giving players eight slots.
With two the two new classes' debut with the MoM Expansion, it would be a shame if Turbine didn't make certain they increase the ability to create characters to eight.
Has this been brought up? If so, link please! If not, can MMORPG ask Turbine?
Nice I can't wait for this.
I've always wanted to play through the LoTRO story, but I never could make it past lvl 20 in the game, because I absolutely hated all of the classes offered. Hopefully, the Warden will be a class right up my alley. The Runemaster actually sounds interesting, but how are they justifying the class after swearing up and down they are making magic users rare, such as they were in those times.
The Runekeeper, unlike the Loremaster, is a true damage dealer whilst a healer in one, just not at the same time. It seems that the Runekeeper, in combat, can be the damage dealer (fireballs and such) *OR* the healer -- but cannot do both at the same time. Plus, to add to the balancing act, each side of the Runekeeper's abilities -- damage or heals -- have cooldown timers.
Anyway, that's what I've gleaned so far. The added bonus is, as far as I can see, there's no mention of a pet. I hate pets.
The Runekeeper, unlike the Loremaster, is a true damage dealer whilst a healer in one, just not at the same time. It seems that the Runekeeper, in combat, can be the damage dealer (fireballs and such) *OR* the healer -- but cannot do both at the same time. Plus, to add to the balancing act, each side of the Runekeeper's abilities -- damage or heals -- have cooldown timers.
Anyway, that's what I've gleaned so far. The added bonus is, as far as I can see, there's no mention of a pet. I hate pets.
Thanks for summarizing the Runekeeper portion of the article for me, but I read the article, so I already knew that. That isn't what I asked either. I am wandering how come Turbine decided to change their mind about magic users being playable, because in beta, they said they are staying true to the lore and will not allow players to play magic using characters, since they were rare in the times we are playing in.
Thanks for summarizing the Runekeeper portion of the article for me, but I read the article, so I already knew that. That isn't what I asked either. I am wandering how come Turbine decided to change their mind about magic users being playable, because in beta, they said they are staying true to the lore and will not allow players to play magic using characters, since they were rare in the times we are playing in.
I know.
But the whole point of this is the fact that Turbine has found a way to include a new class that has actual damage dealing abilities without betraying the Tolkein Lore.
When/if you actually play the Runekeeper class, it will all be clear to you.
Thanks for summarizing the Runekeeper portion of the article for me, but I read the article, so I already knew that. That isn't what I asked either. I am wandering how come Turbine decided to change their mind about magic users being playable, because in beta, they said they are staying true to the lore and will not allow players to play magic using characters, since they were rare in the times we are playing in.
I know.
But the whole point of this is the fact that Turbine has found a way to include a new class that has actual damage dealing abilities without betraying the Tolkein Lore.
When/if you actually play the Runekeeper class, it will all be clear to you.
You dont understand what hes saying...ITS STILL MAGIC. Fireballs are magic. Period.
I know.
But the whole point of this is the fact that Turbine has found a way to include a new class that has actual damage dealing abilities without betraying the Tolkein Lore.
When/if you actually play the Runekeeper class, it will all be clear to you.
You dont understand what hes saying...ITS STILL MAGIC. Fireballs are magic. Period.
What about Turbine including magic, within Tolkein's lore, don't you all understand?
Poetic license aside, it is very possible. No wait, why do I need to explain this - you will see it happen in Mines of Moria.
Well lore related it could be possible speaking of the rune keeper, but they are walking on a pretty thin line there..... It could be a maiar (there were different kinds of them abilitywise all focused to knoledge but using it differently). Or if we go waaaay back into the first and second age it could be a wandering valar that decided to stay in arda. anyways, it COULD be possible and i'm pretty sure (hope i'm not wrong) that the lore will be respected, after all their game license depends on it.
Beside from that way to go turbine!!!!!!! time passes and the game is becoming more awesome.
Namarië
Trust me, Turbine is anal about the Lore.
Think Valar. And realize that the Runekeeper will be a dwarf class, more likely than not.
And you're right again! Turbine will "allow" a new class that can actually do direct damage. WTG Turbine!
Now lets all pray (I've been beating them up on this) that Turbine actually expands the character creation screen to allow us to roll *EIGHT* characters. Truly, only five sucks farts out of dead monkeys!
"Hated"? Really? I am playing a minstrel, a hunter, a champion, a captain, and a lore-master, giving them all about about equal time because I can't decide which one I enjoy the most.
Anyways, Turbine is justifying the introduction of Runekeepers as a game mechanic added to make things more interesting and fun. As others have said, it is simply a bit of poetic license, and it bothers me not at all. The entire epic storyline that players follow throughout LOTRO (which runs parallel to the famous story by Tolkein) is pure poetic license, too -- but great fun.
One thing Turbine has done in this game, at least imo, has been to earn my trust that they will be (pretty) faithful to the world that Tolkein created. So, if they need to push the envelope in a few areas, I have every confidence they will do it right.
Amen, brother.
Turbine has been fiercely loyal to the IP and I don't see that as changing one iota.
Character slots could go either way. When DDO released the Monk class, they didn't give an extra slot. But I do recall reading a MoM interview where one of the devs mentioned something to the effect that it would suck if we got two new classes and no extra slots.
Yeah, I know, it is weird that a person wouldn't like even one class. I've had games that had over 20-30 classes where I liked every one of them. To each their own. However, the Runekeeper and the Warden sound very interesting to me.
The reason why I bring up Turbines promise to honor the IP, by not putting magic users in the game as a playable class, is because if Runekeepers can shoot fireballs and heal, then they are already doing more than Gandolf did and he was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in the world at that time. The Runekeeper doesn't stretch anything, it completely breaks the IP. The Fellowship is supposed to be comprised of the best of the best, but you have players that have better and more powerful abilities in the LoTRO game. That's not supposed to happen and the early Beta players should back me up on this, because it was then that Turbine said they wouldn't put magic using classes in the game, due to lore restrictions. Why the change? While I admit that the class sounds fun and I would probably like playing it; the class doesn't belong in LoTRO, it belongs in a high magic fantasy setting, like DnD, EQ, or WoW.
The fellowship was not formed from the best of the best, it was formed merely from.... the avaiable ones.
And gandalf was not the most powerfull being around the third age, he was just another maiar, he in particular was a master in knoledge a strategist and really good at making fireworks. More powerfull, mistic and perhaps older things than him lies around middle earth, i'm a bit bored rigth now to go hunting for quotes on books explaining all this but belive me there are....
Just remember that arda (middle earth) was made of the songs of the valar, they just created the world singing, so it is appropiate to understand that even after two and a half thousand years song in various forms can make amazing things.
Anyhow let's just wait and see how these 2 new classes are like, there is still some time until the expansion goes live, so let's keep the nice feeling turbine has left us over these months of no screwing anything up and just trust them.
Namarië
Uhm it was made from pretty much the best. Legolas is an elf prince right ? Boromir is the best gondor can offer pretty much. Strider, enough said. Gimli is also roaylty right ? Gandalf may not be the most powerful but still, guy pwned a Balrog .
Still mere weaklings against the evil things around, the powerfull ones were long gone or deeply hidden somewhere meanign elrond, cirdan, galadriel, celeborn amongst others. The royal line in the ones you mention was weekened for 2000 years, Boromir, just of a line of stewards of gondor, aragonrn, the last one of the line of numenor with pretty much no blood of them in him, Giimli a long cousin of the king under the mountain...etc not to mention hobbitses, my point is, they went because there were the only ones who took the chance, not because they were the finest, that's part of the suffering in LOTR stories.
Gandalft tho was that strong in part because he wore one of the 3 elven rings and because he is a maiar, and yeah he beaten a balrog hehehe.
Namarië
I simply cannot wait for Moria. With all the huplah around WoW's expansion, and the release of WAR, a lot of people still have not noticed that LotrO is the best MMO out there. Mines of Moria is going to take this game to even greater heights (or should that be depths?).
I do have a couple of questions though. Namely, does anyone know when it is due out? Also, will the expansion alter the minimum specs required to play the game? My pc is really old and it would be a tragedy for me if they had to raise the specs to play the game.
I think you make a good and valid point here, Kanosi. Turbine has said in interviews that they *know* they are stretching things with the Runekeeper class. They weren't going to do it originally but then they had to backpedal a bit. Oh well.
The way I figure it, Peter Jackson did a lot of stretching to beef up the Eowyn and Arwen roles for his films. In LOTRO, just having female warriors is also a bit of a stretch, as Tolkein was a bit more of a traditionalist than that. (I'm not up on Tolkein lore and details, but I don't recall a lot of high-profile female warriors of any kind.) But the various changes Jackson made to the basic story with his movies just made them better, imo.
So, too, the changes and tweaks Turbine has made in LOTRO work well as far as I'm concerned. The introduction of the Runekeeper class just doesn't bother me -- and I in no way feel it "weakens" the achievements and abilities of the original fellowship. In fact, I think it is very clever the way Turbine has preserved the original characters and story in LOTRO in the midst of filling in an entire world with MMO quests and adventures. This is an MMO, after all, so one has to allow a bit of "wiggle room" where the lore is concerned.
I do sometimes wonder if players are eventually going to encounter -- and defeat -- Sauron himself in some kind of epic, end-game raid. lol. But that's probably 5 or 6 expansions farther down the road. I am not worried about it, in any case.
The Runekeeper sounds like my PERFECT class. I'll definitely be coming back when Moria drops.
Whereas I do welcome the introduction of the new classes (as I feel they breathe new life into a game, and allow you to try out new alts), I can also see where the lore-purists are coming from.
I'm currently re-reading The Hobbit, before the movie comes out. Gandalf's supposed powers seem to be very limited, especially in this book. Heck, it takes him some effort to cause fire to burn the wargs when he and the dwarves are stuck up the trees. Hardly a formiddable magic-user. And yet in Tolkien's world, he is one of the best. So you can see how people who love the lore and the books will be a bit pissed off when suddenly Middle-Earth has thousands of powerful 'fireball' casting magic-users running around.
It's a tentative situation for Turbine. Perhaps the best compromise would be for a 'lore specific' server, where these classes would be eliminated. I for one don't mind the rune keeper class, but I do see how some people are dead against it.
It seems pretty clear. They are breaking IP if you want to treat the original works as the Bible, which many do. But it's already gotten approval of the people licensing the game to Turbine, which isn't Tolkein Enterprises btw, so it really doesn't matter. In fact, I can almost tell you exactly how it went down.
Saul Zantz (sp?) says to Turbine "Hey, this game got amazing reviews by all the sites but it's not doing as well as we would think given the reviews."
Turbine - "Well, as it turns out, there's fewer Lore nuts out there that are hardcore, long-term gamers. If we really want to bring people in we need to be a bit more flexible with the rules in order to attract long time WoW players."
SZ - "Can you do it without wadding up the lore and throwing it in the fire?"
Turbine - "I think we could do that although the really hardcore lore junkies are going to be extremely upset."
SZ - "Will we make more money?"
Turbine - "Probably"
SZ - "Then go for it"
And that's how we got a magic using class. Personally I'm happy about it, I'm playing a game that's an interpretation of the original works. I enjoyed the movie for what it is as well, even though there were many things wrong with it. Turbine earned their creative license at this point. I can assure you that the magic users will feel more Middle Earth-y than any caster in any other MMO.
I'm not a lore freak, but I really hate the idea of fireball and lightning casters. Okay, fireball maybe, if you have collected coal and phosphorus and such, but lightning? I hope it has at least a 20% chance of striking the caster or other fellowship member.
In fact, neither class excites me. So what exactly again is a warden? I don't grasp the concept of a medium armour wearing "tank". Why do we need it? What sort of role does it fill in a fellowship? If you want a middle of the road class, captain probably already fits the bill. "Gambits" sound just the same as existing tier-based actions, so what's new there?
Forget the new classes, but I'd still go for more character slots.
Snipits from Tolkien's letters concerning magic:
(credit due to Cubrethil for posting this initially within another thread)
"I do not intend to involve myself in any debate whether 'magic' in any sense is real or really possible in the world. But I suppose that, for the purposes of the tale, some would say that there is a latent distinction such as once was called the distinction betewen magia and goeteia [sorcery]...neither is, in this tale, good or bad (per se), but only by motive or purpose of use. Both sides use both, but with different motives. The supremely bad motive is (for this tale, since it is specially about it) domination of other 'free' wills. The Enemy's operations are by no means all goetic deceits, but 'magic' that produces real effects in the physical world. But his magia he uses to bulldoze both people and things, and his goeteia to terrify and subjugate. Their magia the Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly): a magia, prudcing real results (like fire in a wet ******) for specific beneficent purposes. Their goetic effects are entirely artistic and not intended to deceive: they never deceive Elves (but may deceive or bewilder unaware Men) since the difference is to them as clear as the difference to us between fiction, painting, and sculpture, and 'life'.
Both sides live mainly by 'ordinary' means. The Enemy, or those who have become like him, go in for 'machinery'-- with destructive and evil effects -- because 'magicians', who have become chiefly concerned to use magia for their own power, would do so (do do so). The basic motive for magia -- quite apart from any philosophic consideration of how it would work -- is immediacy: speed, reduction of labour, and reduction also to a minimum (or vanishing point) of the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect. But the magia may not be easy to come by, and at any rate if you have command of abundant slave-labour or machinery (often only the same thing concealed), it may be as quick or quick enough to push mountains over, wreck forests, or build pyramids by such means...
Anyway, a difference in the use of 'magic' in this story is that it is not to be come by by 'lore' or spells; but in an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such. Aragorn's 'healing' might be regarded as 'magical', or at least a blend of magic with pharmacy and 'hypnotic' processes. But it is (in theory) reported by hobbits who have very little notions of philosophy and science; while A. is not a pure 'Man', but at long remove one of the 'children of Luthien'."
(the word that is obscurred above is a word meaning bundle of wood, sad it has to be censored)
Letter #153
" The particular branch of the High-Elves concerned, the Noldor or Loremasters, were always on the side of `science and technology', as we should call it: they wanted to have the knowledge that Sauron genuinely had... The particluar `desire' of the Eregion Elves - an `allegory' if you like of a love of machinery, and technical devices - is also symbolized by their special friendship with the Dwarves of Moria. "
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