Ask Turbine: Monthly Interviews with Lord of the Rings Online

In the second half of our interview, we focused on Book 13. Yesterday, it was all about The Mines of Moria expansion pack. Today, we look at the next patch, in this transcription of Jeffrey Steefel's conversation with our own Jordan Deam.

WarCry: Going back to "biomes" for a bit, I understand in Book 13 you will be debuting a new zone [Forochel] which will be the first to feature open water. Will that be significant to the gameplay in this zone?

Jeffrey Steefel: It's extremely cold water; when you go into it, it's going to have a very bad effect on you very quickly. And so in terms of ... if your question is "are we going to be embarking on missions on ships in Forochel," the answer is "no." It's the first exposure of players to the edges of the continent and seeing that there are oceans out there, that there are opportunities in the future to venture out into them. But in the case of Forochel, it's really meant to be ... more aesthetic than anything. And obviously some of the creatures that reside there and some of the atmospheric effects happen to result from it being near ocean. But being in the water is not a major part of the gameplay in Forochel. Other than dying.

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Lord of the Rings Online will launch its first expansion pack in the coming months and they're starting big in the Mines of Moria. We spoke to Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel about this expansion in the first half of an epic interview, which we have now transcribed for your pleasure.

Check back tomorrow for Book 13 and general updates.

WarCry: Talking about the actual zone of Moria, how do you plan to differentiate sub-zones within the Mines to give players a sense of variety?

Jeffrey Steefel: This is where we get into that "we're still a long way away from launch," and we don't want to let all the cats out of the bag at the same time, so we're obviously going to be talking about all the different zones and how to differentiate them from each other. But what I can say is that you're spot on. We're creating a deep, giant, huge underground environment ... and one of the things we've talked about is how are [players] not going to feel like they've been treading through rock, you know, forever ... treading through dark passages and rock. As cool as Moria is, that would get kind of boring. And the truth is that Moria wasn't like that; Moria was an entire world underground, so there will be different biomes - "biome" is what we use to describe a type of environment in the world, so like "forest" is a biome, or "swamp" is a biome, or, you know, "snowy, icy" ... the Misty Mountains is a biome. There will be many biomes inside of Moria that are being being created as new that are very specific to Moria, and very distinct from each other.

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Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel spoke to WarCry about Book 12, localizing their game to South Korea, DirectX10 and much more in our latest "Ask Turbine" interview.

"We've always thought of this game globally from the beginning," he said. They have to make the user interface (UI) more familiar to the Korean gamer and completely reconsider the business model they employ in that region. A subscription service simply won't work in Korea, where the industry is powered off of micro transactions.

For years, North American games have had issues with the divergent business models. The big North American titles are designed for subscriptions and sometimes that makes it difficult to transition when it comes time to expand into Asia.

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It launches and a week and we caught up with Jeffrey Steefel to talk about Book 11 of Lord of the Rings Online and much more.

"We stand in good shape or we wouldn't be releasing it," Steefel said. With only a week to go, Turbine is rapidly approaching the end of its QA cycle and is already hard at work on Book 12. But next week, all focus returns to Book 11 for its launch.

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We're back with a new edition of our monthly "Ask Turbine" series. In it, we chat with Jeffrey Steefel - the game's Executive Producer - about the latest hot-button issues that face Lord of the Rings Online. This time, Site Manager Tim Turner had the honors.

The reputation system fit well into this model of finding ways to support the different playing style. The reputation system allows for short solo type quests when you don't have a ton of time, or if you just want to go hunting without having to grab a full fellowship. Early reports from Roheryn are showing that players really enjoy this and I for one have enjoyed the story line associated with some of the different factions. The real test of course will be when this goes live.

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Jeffrey Steefel looks forward to the launch of Book 9: Shores of Evendim in our weekly Ask Turbine interview. The Executive Producer tells us what to expect on launch day, how Turbine plans to tackle its launch and turns an eye to future Books.

"This is no different than any other launch," Steefel told us and added that he's worked to ingrain that into the culture at Turbine. "[We're] treating it just like the launch of the game."

In the post-World of Warcraft MMO world, this is a commitment to quality that is longer impressive, but expected. Steefel told us that they had spent 10 weeks developing the content for Evendim and roughly another 10 weeks testing, polishing and fixing it. In an industry that seemed like it would patch a game within minutes of finishing the last quest, this is a marked change in philosophy.

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We're back with another edition of Ask Turbine. This week, we get back on track when we chatted with Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel about the upcoming Shores of Evendim add on, core features and how they're doing and even how well the game itself is selling.

"We are probably the second highest volume ever for an MMO," Steefel told us, ranking them behind WoW. While it is impossible to confirm this, we did inquire about their lack of new servers. World of Warcraft has over a hundred servers and older games like Dark Age of Camelot still count 22. Lord of the Rings Online only has 11, a number that seems to contradict the happy sales reports. He told us that differences in technology make the comparison of number of servers impossible, as each company's technology is different. The NPD numbers back him up here.

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Lord of the Rings Online is a week and a half old and we had a chance to sit down and interview Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel as part of the ongoing weekly "Ask Turbine" series, which now comes your way in article format each week. Steefel talks about upcoming content, technical hurdles, the economy and more.

The economy is apparently that issue. Steefel noted that MMO economies are so large and have so many variables that it is impossible to balance them perfectly and they tend to be one of those things that is nearly impossible to predict without a launched product. So far, he is not unhappy with how their economy performed, but that it will be constantly monitored.

"We've had a fair amount of discussion back and forth with our community about the economy," he told us. They need to make sure that at each level players have the money required to repair their equipment, buy some cool loot and not be awash in coinage. For example, their earlier patch addressed an issue where farmers became the nouveau riche.

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Adam Mersky, the Director of Public Relations for Turbine, took some time out of his insane launch day schedule to talk to us a bit about the game's launch and how it's gone so far. The interview was conducted at 3:00 PM Eastern time.

"[The launch has] been great, really smooth," Mersky told us in a phone interview. "Everyone is very calm, things are rolling smoothly."

Mersky noted how much MMOs get extensive coverage of their launches for all the wrong reasons. Disasters, crashes, bugs and supply problems often make life hell on the opening day. At the risk of jinxing himself, Mersky said Turbine had not had those problems, although it is still early.

Read more at the link below.

Today in an article format "Ask Turbine" - our regular chat with key Turbine staff - we look back a bit at the beta and forward to the launch of Lord of the Rings Online. This article, based on an interview with Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel, acts as a sort of primer for the game's launch on Tuesday.

So how many people do they expect? Again, cagey attempts were thwarted!

"We've positioned the game to be the most successful since the game that shall not be named," Steefel told us, in an obvious reference to Blizzard's World of Warcraft. He added that while they expect a great reception from MMO players, they're very excited and curious to see how Tolkien loyalists react. He believes they've won many of them over, which could make LotRO the first MMO for a whole new crop of fans.

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Most weeks, Turbine CEO Jeff Anderson takes some time to chat with us about Lord of the Rings Online. Usually, we feature "Ask Turbine" as a transcribed Q&A, but this week we're trying something different. The following article was penned based off this week's interview with Anderson where we ask questions that the community wants answers to. Remember, you can contribute your questions in this forum thread.

Turbine made some negative waves a couple weeks ago when they announced that they and European publisher Codemasters would employ IP blocking to ensure that players played in their designated territories. The move was not unexpected, Codemasters obviously has an interest in protecting their revenue stream, but the plan was met with vocal opposition with the community and forced Turbine and Codemasters to reevaluate their plans.

"Well we launched the plans and we were wrong," Anderson admitted candidly. He told us that part of the reason they did this was a technical one. It was just easier to make two separate clients that pointed to the separate servers and that obviously Codemasters had paid for the exclusive European rights and they needed to support that. He told us that they proposed IP blocking as a way of protecting those rights and that Turbine accepted, with the assumption that the average fan wouldn't mind.

You can read the full article at the link below.

Our weekly community-driven Q&A with Jeff Anderson returns after a one-week hiatus to get questions and answers on Lord of the Rings Online. This week, Anderson talks about some recent beta issues, PvP and the game's development in general.

Please, check out this thread and post your questions for Jeff. We'll be asking them in Ask Turbine #6!

Delmar: Well, doesn't that then mean that the Ettenmoors might be a little one-sided at the start - especially since there is a level cap of 15 in place for open beta and the level cap of 40 for entrance as a player to Ettenmoors? Won't there be a lot more Monsters than Heroes at the beginning?

Jeff Anderson:: Yes that's right. There won't be a lot of Heroes in the Ettenmoors at launch, and Sauron's armies will definitely have an upper-hand in sheer numbers. Still, there is a lot to do before the Heroes show up for the counter-attack. (Most players will be focused on their main Hero first anyway.) Monsters can immediate begin adventuring through the many PvE quests like poisoning the water supplies, ransacking food supplies, and collecting Hobbit toes for dinner. All of these quests will advance your monster. Second, you can fight against the many NPC's who will be protecting the main keep, towers, mines and lumberyards. Lastly, the customer service team may (just at the start) occasionally flip these objective to the Heroes' side to keep the action flowing.

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In the fourth of our weekly interviews, Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel drops in to chat with our community. In this series of interviews, we ask Turbine questions from the community each week in a call and transcribe it here for publication.

You can get your questions in for next week in this forum thread.

Delmar: I remember in Asheron's Call the towns were all attacked at the end of beta by hordes of monsters and such. Can we expect similar events to be planned for the end of Closed Beta? Open Beta?

Jeffrey Steefel: There are two things. First at the end of closed beta, we'll definitely be doing some events. I won't comment on what they are or what kind of events they are yet, because that will spoil some of the surprise, but again, as I've mentioned before, we're very interested in doing live events in general. So, we'll do some global event at the end of closed beta.

For open beta, we're really looking at that as the beginning of our live service. So we'll treat that very much like we treat that service itself, which includes live events. So, our community services group and our customer services group and our development group have been already working together planning and working on more advanced tools to let us do even more stuff moving forward.

That's definitely a part of our consciousness and we'll see some of the evidence of that in beta.

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This week, we change things up and talk to Jeffrey Steefel, the Executive Producer of Lord of the Rings Online, as part of our weekly "Ask Turbine" series. This is ideally a community generated weekly update, so please, take some time and give us some questions for next time in this thread.

Now onto the interview:

Mattlow: What about the economy? What are your plans to fight inflation and make sure your economy stays in check?

Jeffrey Steefel: Yeah, there are a fair number of sinks in the game already and we have a pretty good way of tracking what's going on with currency in the game and keeping track and making sure that doesn't get out of control. We have a number of additional places where players can spend money that we can adjust in the future and even add. So you know, one of the advantages of having done these games before is that we're very aware of what to look for and to balance as often as we need to in the appropriate ways.

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Turbine CEO Jeff Anderson has sat down with WarCry for our second weekly interview on the game. Anderson discusses early game variety, the size of the world and potential alternative pricing.

Remember, we want this to be a Q&A driven by the community. To make it work, we need questions from fans! Post your questions for next week in this forum thread.

Lepidus: How do you feel the game has been received since the NDA went down?

Jeff Anderson: We're delighted. Players are having a lot of fun playing and that is enormously satisfying. We've worked so hard for so long to bring Middle-earth to light and we are absolutely thrilled with the response. I think my favorite quote so far is someone said that the game "oozes quality." How great is that?

Click below to read the interview.