Dadi’s LOTRO Guides recently had an interview with some of the developers for LOTRO.

In the interview Severlin, LOTRO’s Executive Producer, says the previously hinted something ‘big’ is a new expansion for LOTRO. Severlin does not want to say too much yet though as plans may change.

“Right now we have a two and a half year plan [taking us in to the end of 2018 -ed.], and the reason we don’t want to plan far beyond that is because we want to see where the player’s heads are at after that much time. We are currently focused on not only telling the Epic Story leading up to the Gate but sort of what happens beyond. We have already kind of hinted to the players that an expansion is on its way. I do not want to say too much about that because if I talk about the expansion now we are still early enough that things may change and I do not want to disappoint the community. This is one of the reasons we don’t usually talk about it; not because we do not have long term plans, just the opposite. We want to tell the epic story, and we all know Mordor is coming. We want Mordor to satisfy not only the story buffs, but also make the experience of entering Mordor really epic because it is something other than the two Halflings, something we did not see much of.” – source

Cordovan also talked about the licence for LOTRO:

“I would like to chime in on the licensing thing too, it is something that comes up on the forums quite a bit. What we do with LOTRO is not particularly different from other video games that operate under a licensing agreement for intellectual property (ex. super hero games, etc.). They all have license holders and LOTRO is no different. Typically these kind of agreements are pieces of business that are not really disclosed to the public. As part of the corporate business decision making that is involved with the creation [and maintenance -ed.] of a game like LOTRO. The LOTRO community has historically had some particular sensitivity over the licensing agreement, but the agreement itself has basically always been a routine piece of business from the very start. So while we can understand that some folks like to talk about it on the forums and as you said; “doom say”, the reality is that it is just a private piece of business that has been routine (lawyers getting together). Ultimately if there was a major issue with the license you guys would probably find out about it because the game would no longer be operating after a certain point. This is not a reality show “are they going to get kicked off the island” thing worth speculating month after month, year after year. It is basically just a routine piece of business and we have no reason to think this won’t be a continuation of that.” – source

MadeOfLions also talks about the upcoming Epic Story:

“Thank you so much, but you haven’t seen anything yet … I am just super excited about the things we are coming up to. We do not try to rest on our laurels, we are always thinking about the next thing; I am very excited for what that is going to be.” – source

You can check out the rest of Part 1 of the interview on lag and raiding here.

Check out Part 2 here.