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Lord of the Rings Online dev diaries discuss new skirmishes
Turbine has given us a two-for-one deal today with the addition of two new dev diaries. The diaries -- from Turbine's Bob "Maurath" Hess and Joe "jwbarry" Barry -- detail two of the new skirmishes being introduced in Lord of the Rings Online's Update 3. The first skirmish, Attack at Dawn, takes place in the North Downs and sees players dealing with multiple different mechanics simultaneously. The second, The Icy Crevasse, is the first skirmish to take place in Forochel and is described by Barry as "a quick bite-sized romp," with the skirmish taking about 10 minutes to complete. It's truly an interesting look into not only what the skirmishes themselves entail but the design process that goes into bringing them to players on the live servers. Whether you play LotRO or you're just curious about the work and thought process that goes into these skirmishes, the diaries are certainly a must-read. If you're interested in gaining a new degree of respect for the effort that goes into the game, both dev diaries can be found on LotRO's official site.
LotRO dev diary dishes on scaled instance rewards
Do you have a lot of questions about the upcoming scaled instances in Lord of the Rings Online? Good, because Turbine has a whole truckload of answers for you! In the second of a hefty five developer diaries devoted to the subject, LotRO's Joe "jwbarry" Barry tempts players with sweet, sweet candy. Metaphorical candy, that is, taking the form of instance rewards. The greatest problem that they had with rewards, Barry shares, is that itemizing a dungeon across a huge level range became a massive headache, requiring them to make "a prohibitive" amount of items. Instead, the LotRO dev team is taking a cue from its successful skirmish system, and reprogramming the scaled-instance mobs to drop tokens instead of loot. Players can then use these tokens to purchase armor sets, cosmetic items and even legendaries. Barry spends the rest of the article discussing the stat-tracking feature (again, similar to stat-tracking functions with skirmishes) and how the team went back through the dungeons to raise the quality of the entire experience where needed. You can read the full dev diary over at Lord of the Rings Online's site.
Newest LotRO dev diary explains instance scaling
The skirmish system in Lord of the Rings Online brought a lot to the table, but one of the most popular new features was scaling. It was a big hit, and the developers are now adding it to the rest of the game in the form of instance scaling. If you're curious about how it will work, Content Designer Joe "jwbarry" Barry has written out a developer diary explaining the system. One concern was making these instances available to the widest possible number of players, while still maintaining quality, challenging content. Joining instances like you would join a skirmish was another detail to be worked out, as was the overall method of scaling. The full developer diary provides some great insight on how instance scaling will work, as well as the thought process behind the design -- it's a must-read for anyone interested in trying instance scaling.
