LOTRO Dev Diary Volume III Book 2 Quest Notes

And here they come again. The Lord of the Rings Online devs keep working hard to bring new content to the game. This time, in the Quest Notes,  the developers include a sneak peek at Volume III Book 2, a look at some new game tech and a popular feature from the Suggestions forums.  So come along with me and have a look at what they have planned for a new chapter in the Epic line.

Book 2: Ride of the Grey Company.

After the forming of the Grey Company in Book 1: Oath of the Rangers, the Dúnedain are now preparing to depart from Rivendell and help their brothers in the lands of the south… yes, you’re right, they want you to travel with them! You’ll be adventuring  through fifteen soloable chapters, following the Grey Company in Enedwaith. You’ll have to fight, explore and investigate some mysteries.

Exploring new tech: Vanishing NPCs.

They had an old problem here. Not everyone is at the same step of an Epic line quest, so they needed to decide how to handle that some NPCs must be available for certain players and not for others. They considered adding a new interior space where you can see The Grey Company, or creating a new instance to have the rangers away from any public space. Finally, they decided to use this new client-side-technology, so the Grey Company appear in Rivendell if you have the quest state needed and disappear if your quest says they have departed. This new tech scans your quest log to determine what NPCs you need to interact with and serves well for immersion purposes.

Repeatable Sessionplays.

Many players were asking, in the Suggestions forums, to have the choice of repeating Sessionplays. Some of them were even failing on purpose to have the chance to repeat their favourites. You’ll have your opportunity with the new Chronicle of Events, a book placed at the Spire of Meeting in Rivendell. This tome let you repeat your favourite completed  Sessionplay instances daily. You won’t get any reward for it, it’s just to let you replay the experience.

New Sessionplay: The House of Isildur.

Before you depart with the Grey Company, Candaith the ranger decides to tell you more of the history of his people. In that moment you’ll take the role of one of the rangers about whom he’s speaking. The story begins with two brothers in Forochel in 1975 of the Third Age, but you’ll be going forward in time, seeing other important events in the rangers history.

In this new Sessionplay you’ll have all those cool and powerful skills, as usual. This time, though, you’ll see some changes:

As you can see, Turbine continues enforcing it’s storytelling style with Book 2, Volume III in Lord of the Rings Online. The Epic line goes on, as we learn more and more about what is happening beyond the grinding of an MMO. The background story that gives everything a sense, becomes a main important theme in Lord of the Rings Online. One of the best things of this system is the immersive effect it has. I’ve played many Sessionplays and I truly love them. It helps you geting into the world and makes you feel special.