earth-kin
Latest
The Road to Mordor: What if?
By the time you read this, I'll be scurrying around PAX East in Boston, feeling much like a Hobbit: unable to see over the crowd, far out of my element, and deeply wishing I purchased shoes. I'll of course be talking with the folks at Turbine to see what information I can wheedle out of them about the future of this terrific game, so if you don't hear from me again, I'm most likely languishing in a PR dungeon somewhere for being too nosy. It's a good week, therefore, to be thinking about the future. My mind never stops thinking about future possibilities for any franchise, and even if they never come to be, these speculations are a great pastime of any fan. I'm always wondering "What if?" as I play Lord of the Rings Online -- what if I could mug Frodo and become the Ring-bearer? What if those lazy bums finally finished the repairs to the tavern in Frogmorton? What if Elves could kill innocent woodland creatures and go to the dark side? Playing "What if?" with LotRO is tougher than with other games because of the limitations imposed by the IP. Despite what some say, Turbine's struggled hard to stay within the boundaries of lore and setting, and while that's helped the company to be creative in ways that it might not have otherwise, it does present some unique obstacles that aren't present in competing MMOs. So to celebrate PAX, LotRO, and the future, here's a column of "What ifs?" for your consumption!
Exploring Middle-earth: Fashat Laug
The lore aspect of Lord of the Rings Online is extremely important, as the game is centered around one of the most popular and influential works of fantasy fiction of all time. This makes the game's own storyline and lore a challenge for the game developer's writers to not only stick to the script, so to speak, but also be able to flesh out the story into a playable environment that is accessible and explorable to hundreds of thousands of players 24/7.Case in point: the newest entry of Codemasters' Exploring Middle-earth focuses on Fashat Laug, the war-camp established by the Earth-kin, near the ruins of Ost Crithlanc. In this story, we get some background into how the camp was settled by the first Hunter of the Suuri-lehma tribe, and how it eventually evolved into the new tribe known as the Rauta-lehma. If you're interested in learning more about the development of the Earth-kin tribe, check out this piece of lore on the LotRO Europe website.
