Previews

LotRO Vol 2, Book 7 - Play Session

The new instance works very much like the "battle spaces" in Angmar and Moria, centered around defending barricades with groups of defenders. Campbell pointed out that it was actually an area that players could visit outside of the instance to familiarize themselves with the territory before entering the fight. The goal of the battle is to hold three different barricades, each of which has four NPC Elf defenders - randomized between Warriors, Healers, and Rangers. Some barricades will have balanced groups, others will be more in need of aid - luckily, there are extra reinforcement NPCs that you can send to aid the defenses. Got a squad of three Healers and a Ranger? Send a warrior to back them up.

Of course, players will have to aid them themselves - whether by splitting up or focusing one at a time, it's their choice. If any one of the barricades fall, the battle is lost. There were further objectives, explained Campbell, that could be obtained once players had already completed it once - killing optional bosses that could spawn during the encounter, preventing your primary NPC from taking any damage, and so on.

Beyond defense, there will be the chance for players to go on the attack, taking Elf banners and pushing into the enemy lands to capture Idols of Sauron. Whichever player is carrying the banner will be the target for attack, so don't hand it to your more fragile classes.

Finally, Campbell showed me the midpoint of the Book 7 epic quest, which has players returning to Moria at the request of an old dwarven friend to deal with the corruption coming from the depths that has been plaguing Dwarves and Elves alike. Deep within the Foundation of Stone, we fought a Caerog - another member of the Rog family, just made out of stone instead of smoke and fire, though Campbell didn't want to show me too much, saying that he preferred for the big surprises - including an encounter with an "old archnemesis" - to stay surprises. The epic quest will be tuned for solo play or small groups as players explore the relationships between Elves and Dwarves.

It isn't just the epic quest that Turbine aimed to make less frustrating - they went back and retooled some of the beginner content as well, Campbell said. The new approach flows more quickly and smoothly, and has more direction to it - reflecting not only what they've learned since the game launched, but how the MMO genre has evolved since then. For instance, if you're level 3 and a monster stuns you, that's no fun, because you're just learning the game - so they removed that sort of thing from the lower levels, regrouped quests so that there was a natural progression from one hub to the next instead of running back and forth between Point A and Point B, and in general aimed for it to be much less of a hassle for new players.

Leaves of Lorien will go live tomorrow, Tuesday the 16th. Check out our full gallery here!