LotRO: Mines of Moria Interview, Part One

IncGamers has kicked up the first half of a new The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria interview with Turbine’s Jeffrey Steefel. Topics in this installment include the expansion’s new classes, new legendary item system, and more.

The Rune Keeper and the Warden are the two new character classes added in Moria. What do these offer the player?

The Rune Keeper gives the player more casting abilities in a way that, we think and Tolkien Enterprises thinks, fits in with the Tolkien universe. It will feel a little more familiar to magic users in other RPGs, but within the context of what makes sense in Middle Earth. The Rune Keeper has a whole new game mechanic and section of the UI. It’s a tuning bar that is new in the HUD and you have the ability to tune your build in real time either to the DPS side or to the healing side, but you can never do both at the same time.The stronger you get in one, the weaker you are in another. The minute that you push the slider to one side, skills will begin to open up on that side.

So, for example in a pretty short period of time, I can make myself pretty heavy DPS and then cool down and make myself heavy healing. It’s great in solo mode, obviously, but also in the group mechanic. If I’m going into a multi-part encounter and I know the steps, I can prepare for that section with my tuning mechanic. This means that without having to go to a bard and swap out traits, I can change my capabilities mid-encounter.

How long is the cool down period?

The cool down to neutral is actually pretty quick, but it does take a little while to get it to a meaningful DPS or healing level. We don’t want people to be able to basically just push a button and suddenly become a different kind of class mechanic. We spent a lot of time on the balancing and getting feedback from people. How fast was too fast? It now feels just about right.