Letter from the Producer: Looking Back on 2012

By: Aaron "Rowan" Campbell

Hello all! As we close out 2012, I wanted to give you a current “state of the game” report and highlights from the past year. Kate Paiz (LOTRO’s Executive Producer) will be back in early 2013 with more detail on our upcoming plans for LOTRO development.

The biggest event of the year was the launch of LOTRO’s fourth expansion, Riders of Rohan. I’m especially proud of RoR – it was both LOTRO’s largest (landmass and quests) and highest rated expansion. We introduced Mounted Combat, let you walk in the footsteps of Frodo and Boromir, resolved almost 8000 bugs, and added another 500,000 words to the game.

2012 also brought us:

LOTRO’s 5th Anniversary Celebration

The Great River region

Open Tapping and Remote Looting

Revised Moria quest lines and story

Scaled Fornost and Dol Guldur instances

Audacity and Ettenmoors keep capture updates

Where are we currently? The game is always evolving (and the team never sits still), so here are a few things we’re working on now for the first half of 2013.

Rohan Instance Cluster (Part 2) – [Spoiler!] The highlight of this cluster is the raid spaces, which together tell the story of the Battle of Dale from the sacking of Dale through to the heroic last stand at the Siege of Erebor. “The Bells of Dale” is a 6-person space set in Dale during its final hours. “Flight to the Lonely Mountain,” “The Fires of Smaug” and “The Battle for Erebor” are 12-person raids that set you against armies of Easterlings and their massive war machines.

Class Skills – In years gone by the LOTRO team has conducted class “Month Of” events to make changes and improvements to the classes. Heading into 2013, we are looking into player feedback in regards to skills (ones that are great and ones that really aren’t) and overall progression. Advancing through current and future levels should have a real payoff, and the class should feel different as you progress and grow your abilities.

And what else… More Scaled Instances (“In Your Absence” – welcome back to Ost Dunhoth). More landscape quests and Epic Story. Rebalanced loot drops for skirmishes and scaling instances.

Thank you for loving this game like we do! I look forward to seeing you in Middle-earth in 2013.

Aaron “Rowan” Campbell – Senior Producer, LOTRO