In an interview with CVG, Lord of the Rings Onlineexecutive producer Jeffrey Steefel does not rule out the possibility of a console MMO based on J. R. R. Tolkien's universe.
"I actually think Lord of the Rings is a platform we can build from. Our license is to build massively multiplayer online games based on the books on all platforms, all across the world, so we want to leverage that over time", he said. Later, in discussing the difficulties of a console MMO, Steefel said that "you've got to do everything in a thoughtful way and know why you're doing it, for who you're doing it, and then, what is an MMO on a console? What is that really? It has to be different."
If it has to be different, then, don't expect cross-platform universe play. Ruminations of a developer does not a confirmation make, but we suspect Hobbits won't stray far from a future console release.
Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is apparently the #1 selling PC game in North America, Germany, UK and France and they're about to give players a free content update. Book 9: Shores of Evendim is the first in the expected quarterly content updates. The content update will go live June 13, some features include:
Discover Evendim, a region dominated by the Lake Nenuial, the 'Lake of the Twilight'. Amidst the ruins are powerful artifacts now threatened by evil creatures and the nefarious forces lurking in Angmar. What, you thought there would be cute puppies?
Over 100 new quests
Raid in the Battle for Helegrod, challenging the dragon Thorog in a 24-player raid in the Misty Mountains.
Major updates to the music system, players can now utilize a new music notation system that enables them to compose music offline and upload it to your character in-game.
Seven new sets of epic armor enable players to gain progressive bonuses for each piece of armor worn from a set.
We haven't received any player numbers for LotRO, so we don't know if Turbine has hit the magic million user mark, but from all accounts things are going solidly with the game. LotRO: Shadows of Angmar follows the adventures of the fellowship through the first book in the trilogy and fills in the gaps of the story. A few more content updates are expected before the full expansion pack next year.
Turbine, the company behind Lord of the Rings Online, recently had executive producer Jeffrey Steefel sit down for an interview where he said the company is keeping an eye on the "secondary market" of legally purchasing in-game items with real money. He says in the next five years the MMO business model will change to accommodate using real-life money to buy in-game currency.
Steefel says, "Our position is pretty straightforward right now. Our responsibility is to the subscribers of the game, to deliver to them the experience they expect. So we certainly do not support people farming or taking advantage of the system in that way. It's against our Terms of Service and we do try and enforce that. ... But, we all know that something will happen in the next two to five years to business models in general, so we're paying attention to what's going on; watching what's going on with Sony Station whose servers support and manage this."
Sony Station Exchange is the controversial pay for item model. Advocates say it's a way for people who don't have the time, to pay their way into the game. Many gamers consider it corporate sponsored gold farming. Even if you purchase an item through an exchange, you can always sell it in-game for currency. Paying your way into an MMO just feels like an athlete using steroids. Sure, you can argue that if the means are there and the time isn't, why not do it? We just don't know how we'd feel about playing a game where you can, as part of the rules, pay a company extra money to get ahead.
For the next 17 days feel free to go on a Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar bender. Turbine is opening up the floodgates and letting anyone who wants to experience the game play for free until the official launch April 24. The MMORPG's developer knows who they are up against and told Joystiq previously that they put a lot of work into the game. They're launching the title polished like no other MMORPG has been before to contend in the market.
Players will be able to advance to level 15 and transfer that character if they decide to pre-order the game. LotRO also allows those that know they are going to like the game during this free trial to spend $199 for a lifetime subscription, otherwise there is a $9.99/month charge. So, if you're into MMORPGs at all or just want to check out LotRO, go ahead -- it's free.
MMO Portal, a website that chronicles everything MMO related, is selling a nice annual calendar for MMO fans. The bonus? 100% of the proceeds are going to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. For anyone that hasn't shown up to a movie theater 10 minutes before the show in the past, uh, 5 years, St. Jude focuses on researching cures for diseases -- like cancer -- that take the lives of many children every year. For $14.95, the 2007 MMO calendar is a great way to get that desperately needed calendar in your house and benefit a good cause.
Now that Electronic Arts is dual wielding the Tolkien movie and literary rights, we can expect plenty of return trips to Middle-earth from the über developer. So far, we've seen two action platformers, a turn-based RPG, a portable tactics entry, and an RTS series that have each incorporated the look and feel of The Lord of the Rings films.
Scheduled for a late 2007 release, The White Council promises to deliver an Oblivion-style roleplaying experience from the perspective of a human, hobbit, dwarf, or elf. Only this time, the adventure is set 100 years prior to events depicted in the books and films, which puts EA in the precarious position of inventing some believable derivative fiction that won't upset the Tolkien fan base. To see how things are progressing, check out the relaunched web site that features new details on some of White Council's characters.
Turbine's upcoming Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar will usher gamers into a massively multiplayer online version of Tolkien's fantasy universe. I got to play some of the still-beta game at a recent media event; the title's setting and story will be its main selling point, otherwise it resembles other MMOs -- not to say that's a bad thing.
It takes a little work to learn an MMO, and Turbine said the company isn't trying to change Lord of the Rings just to be different. Instead, game controls and quest system felt like other titles, and I was killing defenseless forest creatures right away. Lord of the Rings also looked like other MMOs; what I saw didn't set any new standards, but it matched competitors. I was told that game art and other assets were still being updated for the Spring, 2007 launch.
Lord of the Rings Online's story-driven approach and setting should be unique. The game is based on the original three books and The Hobbit, not the recent movie properties. So while the game looks similar to the movies -- hobbit houses have round doors and passages, and Gandalf looks like Ian McKellen -- Turbine says that's because the game matches the original, detailed prose.
We got in touch with Todd Riddle, Group Creative Director at Fallon about the current Travelers commercial that bears a striking resemblance to Katamari Damacy. The spot (high-quality version) in question shows a mass enveloping people, trees, and cars, as it bounces through San Francisco. Riddle said that there's no Katamari relation, but the spot is connected to Peter Jackson's special effects house.
Riddle has been in advertising for 20 years and has won of dozens of accolades including Cannes, Clio, and One Show awards. We asked him a few questions about games and the spot, titled "Snowball," via email.
Microsoft has confirmed that the Academy Award-winning duo Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) are set to create two "new interactive series" for Xbox 360 and XBLA. The first is a "collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to co-create the next great chapter in the Halo universe."
"It's not Halo 3," said Scott Henson, Director of the Game Development Group at Microsoft. "It's a brand new game based in the Halo IP. In a phone conversation with Joystiq, Henson disclosed that writing credits will be given to Jackson and Walsh. As for how the full-fledged game will fit within the continuity of the Halo universe among three installments, a real-time strategy game, and a film, Henson was tight-lipped. "It's going to remain a mystery," he said.
The second title will be an entirely new intellectual property -- "completely from scratch," Henson clarified -- created with the intention of "bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment." The game will be made in conjunction with Wingnut Interactive, a new studio created via a collaboration with Jackson/Walsh and Microsoft Games Studio.
"Fran is a really big gamer and really excited about telling stories through games," said Henson. "We haven't talked about any details and we will when we're ready." If the focus is mass appeal, then Jackson/Walsh -- who managed to make Hobbits cool -- are the best people to have at the helm.
Recently there have been some rumblings that Bungie won't make another Halo game after Halo 3 which appear to be centered around a statement that Marty O'Donnell made in an interview with the BBC. In this interview, Marty says, "We all want Halo to be the great ending to an epic trilogy. We look at what Peter Jackson did with the Lord of the Rings films - which each film bettering the previous one and that is what we are aiming for." Does that mean we won't be seeing another Halo game in the future? To people who understand that making video games is a business, the rumors (which are already half-disproved) that Bungie would end the Halo franchise anytime soon are ridiculous.
The first two Halo games combined have sold 14.3 million units. That puts the Halo franchise within the top 30 best-selling game franchises of all time. Without Halo, Microsoft might as well not have bothered with the Xbox; Halo and Halo 2 sold more units than the next six best selling games on the Xbox combined (if you're wondering, these games are Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Fable, GTA: Double Pack, Project Gotham Racing, and Need for Speed: Underground 2). With a Halo movie on the way, and the facts that Halo 2 sold more units than the first and is still the #1 game played on Xbox Live under Bungie's belt, it wouldn't be wrong to say that the Halo franchise is increasing in popularity.
The bottom line is that Bungie and Microsoft would have to be stupid to end their most lucrative franchise ever after #3. We don't claim to have any insider information, we don't dispute Marty's statement and we don't deny the possibility that Bungie will create new franchises, but based on pure business logic we'd expect to see at least another two games based on the Halo universe. From a business perspective, for Bungie to dump the Halo franchise after 3 would be sheer stupidity.
Last week, Electronic Arts announced the re-named Lord of the Rings: The White Council, an open-ended RPG that is drawing comparisons to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Following the press event, CVG spoke with producer Steve Gray on a wide range of topics including the central story arc, playable races, and the inclusion of Maxis' Sims technology for The White Council's NPCs.
Regarding the plot, Gray had this to say: "We have the rights to create derivative fiction from both the books and the films, and that's given us a lot of freedom to create new characters and stories. However, it always has to make sense within the confines of Tolkien's world." EA expects The White Council to ship in Fall 2007 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A PC version has not been confirmed, but Gray hinted at its likelihood.
Just before its summer press event, Electronic Arts officially unveiled Lord of the Rings: The White Council, the next gen RPG formerly known as Project Gray Company. Scheduled to ship at the end of 2007, White Council features an original storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkien's literary works, and will include an open-ended world with gameplay elements from previous LOTR console titles.
At the beginning of the year, EA developer Jim Norwood confirmed the existence of a new LOTR RPG -- and even dropped the name, "The White Council". After the game's web site launched in April, keen observers may have also noticed that many members of The Return of the King and The Third Age design teams were on board with Gray Company. It was just a matter of putting two and two together, although many of us still missed the connection (like an M. Night Shyamalan flick). A new introduction on White Council's web site explains: "We really wanted to get the web site up and running so we could start talking with everyone about what makes a cool RPG." Hopefully, you've all given EA some good feedback on constructing the ultimate RPG before they apply the Tolkien license.
The PC game already debuted in March to decent reviews so, instead of recapping what's right and wrong with the game as a whole, let's get right down to the issue we're all wondering about: the controls.
EA's Los Angeles studio contains the venerable Westwood Studios, well known as RTS pioneers for titles like Dune II and Command & Conquer. So it is, under their watchful eye, that they sought to deliver the heretofore mouse-centric experience of real-time strategy games to the console world. So, how did they do?
IGN(82/100) is equivocal in their praise saying: "The controls aren't perfect and they're by no means the equivalent to the quick, precision controls of the PC's mouse and keyboard duo, but they do in fact work. I'll even go so far as to say they work better than any other console RTS -- period."
GameDaily(80/100) wonders where the tutorial is (and apparently missed it): "While the control scheme is listed in the manual and through the in-game pause menu, there's no tutorial mode. The control scheme works extremely well once you've adjusted to it, but the moment you pick up the game, you won't know what you're doing. A training mode of some sort (at least as an option) would've been nice for a game of this nature, but Xbox 360 owners should be adjusted to the control scheme by the second or third mission."
Yahoo! Games(90/100) seconds the manual recommendation and steep learning curve: " So yes, you need to read the manual. You're probably going to want to have it on your knees for the first few hours of play, and within arm's reach for a day or two more. The controls are well thought out and comprehensive, but the advanced functions are not intuitive. Many commands rely on double or triple combinations of face buttons and triggers or bumpers. You'll need to learn them."
So, it sounds like EA Los Angeles has done the impossible; they've delivered a console RTS with controls that are almost comparable to its PC counterpart. For console gamers (many of whom were former PC gamers) this is a praiseworthy innovation. Now that the path has been revealed, will other developers target the RTS-less console gaming world?
[Update 1: whoops! GameDaily missed the tutorial mode, as Major Nelson helpfully points out here. He says, "scroll left on the D-pad from Single Player->Tutorial." Sounds easy.]
If you've read Tolkien's novels, then you're probably already familiar with Eriador, just west of the Misty Mountains. This will be one of the playable regions when Turbine launches The Lord of the Rings: The Shadows of Angmar later this year. It's filled with nasty goblins, orc-kind, and a few new beasts exclusive to the game, such as the gruesome Dark-water and the Watching Stones.
We got in touch with Todd Riddle, Group Creative Director at Fallon about the current Travelers 
Microsoft has confirmed that the Academy Award-winning duo Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) are set to create two "new interactive series" for Xbox 360 and XBLA. The first is a "collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to co-create the next great chapter in the Halo universe."
