One of the most common complaints about Lord of the Rings Online is the style and animation of its character models. This might not be so much of a problem come next year, as newly founded studio Standing Stone confessed that character model revamps could be coming with the Mordor expansion.

“What if I let it slip that we are looking at substantial avatar revamps for the Mordor expansion?” Rob Ciccolini said on the official forums. “I think we can all agree that prospect can be both exciting and scary. Avatar preference is super subjective, and even some of the best received game revamps have a percentage of players who prefer the old look. We are looking at providing an option to use the old avatars so we are not forcing players to use newly updated models and animations if they don’t want to. Having two avatar paths then becomes a design challenge if we add new hairs or facial options; the old avatars wouldn’t have an equivalent option. These are the types of design and art challenges we are wrestling with as we work on the expansion.”