It’s time once again for Quest Notes, your source for all the latest info concerning LOTRO’s Epic Story! I’ve written a fair number of these diaries by now, but there’s something different about this one. Something unique… Something exciting… What could it be?

Ah, that’s it! We have finally (finally!) gotten to the Kingdom of Rohan! We have been looking forward to exploring the land of the horse-lords for a long, long time. We even have planning documents, maps and flow charts that date back to the Shadows of Angmar days. They have undergone extensive revision over the years, but Rohan is a land that we knew we had to get right. For that reason alone, we’ve spent a great deal of time ensuring that we could do it justice. After all, the stretch of The Lord of the Rings that we have gotten up to is often cited as the favorite of readers and film-lovers alike. We need our version of the Riddermark to be equally as beloved.

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…

As I’ve said in previous editions of Quest Notes, I don’t begin the planning of an Epic Story update with the number of Books and Chapters already set in stone. Instead, I sketch out the overall course of the story I want to tell in an update or expansion pack, and then look for the natural ebb and flow of milestones in that story. Once I know the scope of the story, then I go in with my metaphorical red pen and mark it all up, determining where to put Chapter breaks and transitions to new Books.

Sometimes the process results in a high number of Epic Books. Mines of Moria, for instance, had six Books to start with, and while they were shorter in length than more recent ones, the division between each Book occurred thematically each time the state of mind of the dwarf-expedition changed: Optimism to Grief, Grief to Hope, Hope to Confidence, Confidence to Pride, Pride to Despair, Despair to Humbleness. That Humbleness makes possible an alliance that couldn’t have existed while the dwarves still felt the Optimism that fueled their expedition, and it sets the stage for Siege of Mirkwood, which contained a single (quite long) Epic Book, which interestingly has some connections to the story to come in Rohan.

Rise of Isengard really told a single story, and while there was discussion during development of dividing the story into separate Books, it really felt like the beginning, middle, and conclusion of the story deserved to be treated as one unit. (And before you send me messages about it, yes, I know there are some loose ends from the ‘conclusion’ of the Book 4 story. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. We’ll be dealing with him. <wink>)

My planning of the Epic Story for Riders of Rohan actually divided quite naturally into three main sections, and that gave rise to the next three Epic Books of Volume III:

Book 7 begins with Lady Galadriel outside the House of Celeborn, in Caras Galadhon, the same place where Book 6 concluded.

Beta Participant : But MadeOfLions – what if I never bought the Lothlórien quest pack and don’t have access to Caras Galadhon? Does that mean I can’t continue the Epic Story?

Me: Huh. Well, that’s not right! Good thinking!

That’s one reason we have a Beta, isn’t it? In order to keep the Epic free, I’ve added a rope hanging down from a flet by the entrance to Caras Galadhon. If you’re an Epic Story player and have completed Volume III, Book 6 – Mists of Anduin, you’ll be able to use that rope to get inside Caras Galadhon to talk to Galadriel to start Book 7. Voila!

From a story perspective I would like you to have completed Book 6 before you start Book 7 anyway. It’ll make more sense, and you’ll know who all these people are!

I like to take a section or two in each edition of Quest Notes to discuss some behind-the-scenes tidbit relevant to the implementation of the Epic Story, and this time around it seems pretty difficult to do that without spoilers. So! Here is your warning! There will be spoilers for Volume III Book 7 in this section! If you want to go in relatively unspoiled, you should skip to the very end of the article, to the ‘A Few Teases’ section. One more time! There will be spoilers in this section for the beginning of Book 7. I’ll give you a picture of an empty boat to give you time to decide whether you mind seeing spoilery stuff.

Still here? Great! That means you don’t mind seeing some spoilers for the beginning of Book 7, which is good! I want to talk today about some of the challenges we face when attempting to depict iconic scenes from The Lord of the Rings, turning them into enjoyable and playable experiences.

Timeline-wise, we’ve advanced the storyline up to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, which means we are right up at the breaking of the Fellowship. This is the event that sends Frodo and Sam on to Mordor, Merry and Pippin into captivity, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli hot on their trail, and Boromir to, well, somewhere else. This is a big deal for Middle-earth, and it’s a big deal for our players, too! Everybody wants to see how this happens, but none of our characters were there, after all. We can’t just walk up to Aragorn and say, ‘I don’t like the way Boromir keeps looking at Frodo, bro.’

The answer is session play, of course! By putting you in the shoes (or hairy hobbit-feet) of a member of the Fellowship, you can experience what happened to them first-hand. Early on in Book 7, you’ll play as Frodo while he wrestles with the decision of which path to take: to Boromir’s city of Minas Tirith, trusting to the strength of the armies of Gondor, or to the perils of Mordor.

In the book, Frodo wanders by himself for a time, and eventually he realizes that Boromir has followed him, at which point they have a very significant conversation. There’ll be lots of tension, a little drama, and some excitement. Just the sort of Big-T moment we love to add to LOTRO! The Worldbuilder responsible for the area created the Fellowship’s campsite, as well as the location partway up Amon Hen where Frodo encounters Boromir, and I began to set up the instance.

Well, hold on a moment. It turns out that while Frodo can wander up Amon Hen in just a couple sentences in the book. In our game that location takes a looooong time to reach, even running. Furthermore, it’s a twisty sort of journey, getting up to that spot. It’s just as you imagine it, when you get there, but the several minutes of travel aren’t the most fascinating use of your time.

So how to solve it? Well, I tried a couple things. First was the old standby: the speed buff.

That’s a good start, but it doesn’t solve the problem that you’re still running a long way without doing much except running. What we really need is a way to convey the inner monologue that Frodo must have been experiencing. He’s really troubled about the decision he needs to make, and we need some way to visualize it so players can worry right alongside him, ultimately understanding the decision that he does make.

A few characters with ghostly FX work and some transparency to them lets us visualize Frodo’s inner struggle, as he remembers things those characters have said or might have said to him. The screenshot above is of the ‘Thoughts of Elrond,’ and serves to steer Frodo in the right direction as he wanders up Amon Hen, and thoughts of other characters serve like a breadcrumb trail to get Frodo to the proper place. It lets us develop Frodo’s character and get him to the right spot. After all, he’s got somewhere he needs to be…

There were some other interesting design decisions and revisions that went into this instance, but I will let you experience the rest of it fresh.

And that’s it for spoilers! Thanks for reading!

I always like to end these diaries with a few screenshots of Epic-related quests, presented without explanation or comment. So here we go!