The Lord of the Rings Online Book 13 Media

MMORPG.com is offering two big pieces of coverage on LotRO’s book 13. Yesterday they put up a screenshot-filled look at Forochel’s monsters, now they have managing editor Jon Wood talk about the visuals.

Earlier, I mentioned the Lossoth, the race that actually calls this region home. We got a look at their capital city and I wanted to take a minute to talk about their architecture. When people think cold and wild, they often think about the Inuit, living in ice homes with lots of furs and animal skins decorating (and insulating) their homes. The devs have done a great job of both meeting these expectations for the Lossoth (who had only a cursory mention in Tolkien’s original work) while still making them feel like a people who exist inn a fantasy setting.

When talking about the visuals of Forochel, I think that I was most blown away by the blizzard that rolled in over our characters. Being from Nova Scotia Canada, we get our fair share of snowstorms in the winter (contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t snow in the summer in most of Canada. It’s warm and we go to the beach. It’s true). The developers have done a really great job of capturing the feeling of a raging blizzard. It starts out with a bit of blurred vision as the wind starts to kick up some smaller flakes and then it gets worse and worse until you jjust can’t see anything. Back home (and in most places, I would assume) they call it a white-out.