Jeff “MadeOfLions” Libby has released his Developer Diary regarding the Epic Storyline that will be released with the Riders of Rohan. One can only imagine how exciting it must be for a developer at Turbine and creating the landscape and content of Rohan. But it must be doubly so for MadeOfLions who gets to dive head-first into the rich lore of the area. A lot of buzz has been going around the LOTRO community about what role we’ll be playing in the breaking of the Fellowship (if any) and how much we’ll be interacting with the main characters of The Lord of the Rings in general. (We’ll do our best to remain spoiler-free and ask our commenters do the same.) So let’s take a look at what MadeOfLions has to say!
It’s taken awhile to get to the point where the technology allows us to deliver Rohan as it deserves to be delivered, but I think the time was worth it. We’re getting to the real meat of Volume III: Allies of the King now, and you’ll begin to see that maybe the story of this Volume is dealing with more than one King, after all…
First off, there will be three books in Riders of Rohan. They are titled:
- Volume III, Book 7 – A Fellowship Endangered
- Volume III, Book 8 – Into the Riddermark
- Volume III, Book 9 – The Third Marshal
Minor Spoiler on the starting location for Volume 3, Book 7 below.
Secondly, MadeOfLions strongly recommends that players complete Volume 3, Book 6 (released with Update 6) before heading into Book 7 so that it will make more sense from a story perspective.
With that, MadeOfLions discusses the technology behind creating some parts of the Epic Storyline (contains spoilers) and leaves us with a few teasing images to keep us salavating. For those of you not wishing to read the diary I will include the image, well because it’s just downright cool. You can click on it for a larger version.
September 6, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Can’t wait. Though I am a bit unhappy about the session play but there was hardly any way around it. Disclaimer: I like session plays, I just don’t think we should play as a member of the Fellowship. Also, is the Big Secret (the Ring) finally going to be revealed to us?
Now concerning the last picture: Éowyn? (The guy is Horn) And the writing on the crumbled pillar-thingy – please, please let those be legible Elven runes.
September 6, 2012 at 8:29 pm
“Is the Big Secret finally going to be revealed to us?”
You mean the Big Secret that Fatty Bolger spilled to us way back in Volume I, Book 1?
September 7, 2012 at 7:14 am
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Ok I’ll admit I missed that. Still, at that time our characters could not have known what it meant and later all the big guys kept things from us. I’m pretty sure we were not yet explicitly told.
September 7, 2012 at 7:51 am
The names have been changed by the whim of the narrator, interesting way to show the frame of mind of the character in question.
In two minds about actually playing as a fellowship member at all, we have in the past been woven into amarthiel’s past but that was more distant to the events of the game.
Wondering how many expansions volume 3 will actually take up as the natural end would be helms deep leaving gondor/mordor to volume 4 and 5, then another for the return to the shire. Unless of course we have to swing into rhun to quell the remnants first.
September 7, 2012 at 7:56 am
People may want to read that spoiler as it will be one of the most asked questions when the expansion releases.
September 7, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Where the new book starts is not a spoiler, they always start where the previous book of the same volume ended.
September 7, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Some people have not reached that part of the story yet.
September 7, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Doesnt the mists end up in a different zone quite far from where RoR picks it up?
I recall there were a lot of people asking when that went onto the live servers having done the epic they couldnt seem to remember where they ended the last one.
Didnt get the small breadcrumb letter quest in beta last I checked so hopefully it’ll be added into the live release.