Released today was a Developer Diary that takes a different perspective and instead of coming from one source it comes from a number of Turbine employees, including:
- Content Design Manager Derek Flippo
- Senior Content Designer Jared Hall-Dugas
- Senior Content Designer Joseph Barry
- Worldbuilder Dan Ouellette
- Content Designer Bob Hess
- Web Content Developer Kyle Horner
The diary is actually a transcript of a roundtable discussion of the new instances coming with Update 5 where Kyle Horner discusses the instances, the design process, and the general storytelling of the dungeons and how they were designed. I felt it was a really good read and worth looking at to get an overview on how Turbine designs a cluster from start to finish and the thought process that goes into it.
Highlights include:
- Fangorn’s Edge (3-man)
- Will be a “frogger” like instance focusing on avoidance for part of the dungeon (Goldenstar talked about this in Episode 115)
- Ents will take part in part of the fight, but not necessarily in your favor.
- The Pits of Isengard (3-man)
- Will have you choose 1 of 2 wings to investigate in Tier 1
- Will have you run both wings in Tier 2
- Dargnákh Unleashed (3-man)
- Will focus heavily on story tie-ins, activate-able items, and group coordination.
- It will involve guiding a troll through the dungeon having him cause great destruction until you’re ready to face him.
- The Foundry (6-man)
- Will have challenging movement and kiting mechanics involved.
- Will allow you to use interactive environmental items such as large claws filled with raw materials that can be dropped on monsters.
- It will be more difficult than the 3-man instances.
- Tower of Orthanc (12-man)
- Plays thematically off of a line in the Lord or the Rings where Saruman calls himself “Saruman Ringmaker”
- Will be a five-boss raid, containing an initial 3 open wings
- There will also be one initially closed wing that can be opened through defeating the first three bosses.
- The first four bosses will utilize different elements (fire, frost, lightning, acid, shadow) and Saruman will utilize them all.
- Players will be able to “craft” a necklace through pieces they get inside instances and level-up the rarity as they “collect shards”.
- The cluster will have a central “hub” that will contain “…trainers and all the services they’re (players) accustomed to having.”
The full PDF Version includes the original diary as well as concept drawings of the new armor sets and some of the new monsters within the dungeons.
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December 3, 2011 at 12:58 am
The “legendary necklace” thing is fascinating. They seemed to hint that it would be customisable to an extent, but I wonder just how much choice we’ll get in what stats to put on it.
December 4, 2011 at 2:41 am
basically it’s a series of barters. the first one you get has no stats on it, then you progressively trade them in along with sigil fragments (and a repaired cloak clasp for the gold versions at the end). there’s might, agility, will, fate, and two different vitality types (one gives parry and physical mitigation, the other gives block and tactical mitigation. there’s some screens in this thread- http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?432380-New-barter-jewelry-and-cloaks.
December 4, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Sounds great overall. Hopefully they’ll announce a date soon.