The Lord of the Rings Online Q&A

WarCry has dished up another one of their “Ask Turbine” Q&As, providing us with a new chat session about The Lord of the Rings Online with executive producer Jeffrey Steefel.

“Book 10: The City of Kings”, the second major free content update to Lord of the Rings Online, launches next week. It includes over 100 new quests, a new reputation system, and the ability to play as a troll, a ranger or even a chicken. Obviously, that makes one ask why the heck they chose a chicken? Trolls and Rangers in the PvMP area made sense as they are part of the war, but a chicken? How can these be part of lore? Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel quickly responded that in fact it was straight from the lore. He went on to explain: “There is a passage in the book where the narration turns to a fox commenting on how odd it is to see Hobbits around the shire. The team said if a fox can have opinions and sentient thoughts in the books, then why can’t we give players a perspective of the world from a critters perspective. Also we know that other creatures such as Wargs, have sentient thoughts, so it allows players to see the world from a different perspective, also it adds humor to the game.” Given that LotRO is at its core a game, it makes sense that anything they think might be fun find a home.