In a truant, but welcome Developer Diary Jeff “MadeOfLions” Libby discusses the new Epic Storyline released with The Rise of Isengard expansion as well as some of the technology used in creating it.
He starts off explaining that the main goal for the Epic Story is to visit as many of the “most exciting places” within Middle-earth,
The overall plan for the Epic Story in LOTRO reads a bit like a “Most Exciting Places to Visit!” travelogue for Middle-earth. Consider Volume I: the Last Homely House in Rivendell; the evil city of Carn Dûm in Angmar; the ruins of Annúminas on Lake Evendim; the ring-forges of Eregion. Volume II has a similar list: the dwarf-kingdom of Moria; the golden city of Caras Galadhon in Lothlórien; Sauron’s fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood.
and that Volume 3 will continue on this theme starting with one of the most notable regions, Isengard. Of course, another standing goal is to make the story feel like it is part of the “…ongoing story of Middle-earth,”.
Moving on, MadeOfLions discusses how in order to help distribute server load content designers are encouraged “…to come up with ways to help spread the player base out a bit during those first few hours.” So with this in mind he created a branch early in Book 4 that will send some players to either the Bonevales or Trum Dreng.
The path you choose will determine the quests you see as you begin to explore Dunland, and testing has shown that this setup results in about a 50/50 split of players, which makes the server guys happy. Don’t worry, though: if you want to go to the other area after you finish with the area you chose, you’ll still be able to find quests there. We’re not locking away the landscape quests behind the path you choose, so all you completionists out there can also head to the other route and complete the quests there, if you wish.
Goldenstar and I both went to the Bonevales, but it’s good to know we can go to Trum Dreng if we choose to do so. I think that I will eventually go up there just to see what the quests say story-wise, as I seem to be drawn to the story this time around.
In the next also discusses the use of Phasing throughout Rise of Isengard to move quest-givers and even change the state of entire villages. I have seen some of this in action and I have to say that it’s pretty impressive. As far as the story goes, MadeOfLions also discusses how the design team approaches the development of each Epic Book and how Isengard was a bit of a task.
The amount of ground we had to cover, from a story perspective, was substantial: we wanted to show the rise in power and importance of Saruman’s forces in Isengard as well as continuing the Grey Company’s journey south into Dunland. And then there’s the matter of a certain prince of a certain southern kingdom who is about to take a significant role on the stage of Middle-earth…
At first the team planned to spread this all between several Epic Books, but ultimately felt that this was unnecessary and put it into one large book containing 30 chapters and 59 quests. (That’s a lot of story!)
So far I’ve seen a bit of the story and what I’ve seen I quite like. I’ve actually found myself reading most of the quest text for the Epic Story and it holds a lot of really interesting plots and storylines. The length is a bit daunting to me because when I start on something I tend to want to concentrate on it solely until it’s finished. But, with the structure that they’ve implemented with Isengard, it’s a bit tricky to do that. Let us know what you think about the Epic Story and the expansion in general thus far in the comments below!
October 7, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Finished up the Epic Story yesterday, was very pleased with what they did and with where it’s leading to. I also enjoyed how deep the small-area side-quest chains were (such as Trum Dreng chains, Dunbog, etc). There’s a lot more to these areas than is sometimes given in side-quests, and it feels like it’s part of the epic quest even while being optional (I think the ‘leave when you are satisfied’ implementation is actually pretty good for this, and has implications for how you choose to read into the story as well, both in ROI and back in Enedwaith’s use of it).
The end, while slightly anti-climactic (though it did have some more tragic elements), felt like it did what was necessary to set up the next piece of the Epic Quest. There have been a few cases where books suddenly start off like “well you finished the previous book let’s go hop into the next portion” without much connection, but the end of ROI builds up a lot of that already to continue right into the next book.
October 7, 2011 at 3:44 pm
It’s nice they allow you to do the quests in both Trum Dreng and Bonevales, because otherwise it would be tough to earn enough xp to reach level 75 with RoI content alone. If you are starting Dunland at 65, I recommend finishing both of those zones early to maximize the xp earned, or you’ll end up like my kinmate, already finished with all the quests in Nan Curunir at level 73. (I wouldn’t call the dev diary truant though… just delayed, as Gandalf would put it.)
October 7, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I thought the way they wove the epic story into the zones was much better implemented then in any of the other epic volumes or even previous chapters of III. I like not having solely one thing to do in an area, i like doing the side quests as i do the epic, since I’m going to be running into the same mobs and areas, might as well kill two birds (or 10) with one stone. The way this book leads you through level appropriate zones and says to do what you can while there and then move on gave me a map, as it were, of how to go through the area, up until the (SPOILER ALERT) “side trip” into Isengard.
I think why people will feel this epic is so much better than previous ones is because of this integration into the landscape, so to speak. Instead of sending you to far flung places seemingly at random and with no thought to how the player progresses through the various zones, it leads you to the places you should be doing at your level and then says OK, now do what you need to here and catch up with me when you’re ready.
October 7, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Let me first state that I love these ‘behind the scenes looks’ and the diary itself is well written. With that being said, I would like to comment on the epic itself(since thats what this is discussing).
The whole ‘help as many people as you can then move on’ is very…very…confusing. How it’s worded makes it sound like you enter a phased area and do as many quests as you can, and if(and when) you move on that phased area will no longer give you quests. At least that’s how the grand majority(of my 400 person kin) read it. One of the most commonly asked questions in vent, kin chat, GLFF, advice etc is ‘do I have to do all the quests before continuing, will it lock me out, etc’. I found this to be a really poor design decision.
For the design focus of ‘encouraging people to stick around in x hub’ – I’m not too fond of this either. I like to experience the epic as much as possible in one sitting so that I get more ‘immersed’ in the continuing story. Going to the hub then doing 20 ‘trash quests’ then continuing just lacks immersion to me. As the ‘trash quests’ don’t touch on the main narrative of the epics. While it is indeed possible to skip those and continue on(until it gets out of your level range), please see the above. With that being said; due to this design decision I found the beginning parts of the narrative/epic to be unimaginative and uninspiring as it was mainly a hand hold session between the zones; rather then an ‘epic quest’ to continue to the next zone.
One big miss in the epic really came in the form of loot as well. I found myself out of all 30 chapters only taking TWO pieces of gear. Everything else was either subpar to the on-level quested gear or not even remotely useful for my class. Nothing is more disheartening then doing this ‘epic’ thing and getting nothing more then vendor trash.
October 7, 2011 at 6:18 pm
It is a great story, and I love the new areas, and their quests a lot. Personally, I like the blending of quest content into Epic story arc a lot, it feels like its all Epic book, but I understand why some players, play style would not enjoy this.
I think them bigging up the ’30 chapters’ of Epic Story is just hype for the most part. Half of those chapters are just ‘do some quests here and speak to me at the next hub’, then ‘do some quests here and speak to me at the next hub’, then ‘do some quests here and speak to me at the next hub’. But, absolutely there are some cool story bits in between, and it really ramps up the tale in the latter half, and the repetative nature of the Epic is actually offset by the fact that all the quests tie in so well to the thrust of the Main story.
All in all, great job Turbine!
October 7, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Awesome, just awesome
October 8, 2011 at 5:24 am
Could we get a link to the dev diary?
October 8, 2011 at 9:33 am
Added