A lot has happened since the last time WarCry spoke with Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer of Lord of the Rings Online, nearly two months ago. Book 13, the latest content update to arrive in Middle Earth, has been out for over a month, giving players an entirely new zone to explore along with a host of other tweaks to monster play, fellowship finding and other game systems. The future is looking bright for LotRO, and not just on this side of the Pacific.

Turbine is making the final preparations for the open beta of LotRO in South Korea, a country where online gaming has evolved into a national pastime. The stakes are high, but Steefel remains confident. "This particular launch is the strongest overseas launch, in some respects, that we've ever been able to tackle," he said. "The partner's great, the audience is huge; we had a very, very small but successful closed beta that I think even the partner was surprised at the response to. It's exciting to see the game really start to expand."

Between overseas trips, however, they're still paying close attention to players' reception to Book 13. Steefel said that Forochel is definitely a big draw for high-level players, if for no other reason than offering a new environment. "It's always good when you add a new region, to see people really excited about a new space in the world. That's always a goal for us; that when we add a new region, it feels different, it feels fresh and kind of exciting and not like things that they've seen elsewhere." It's more than an opportunity to allow their environmental designers to flex their muscles, however; Forochel also showcases new environmental effects and Turbine's "dual-height map technology," which will certainly come in handy in their upcoming expansion, Mines of Moria.

Turbine is also satisfied with the impact that the addition of the Orc Defiler class has made on monster play. Steefel commented that he feels the community's interest in monster play has finally reached "critical mass." He said that "the addition of the Defiler has definitely sparked more activity," and it's drawing players into monster play that were otherwise uninterested or ambivalent.

For Book 13's other major additions to the game, Steefel felt that it was too early to tell what kind of lasting impact on the game. "The only things that we ever find out about quickly are things that people hate," he said. "If it's a new feature that people are trying out and using, we don't find out, in terms of comments and things through the forums, as quickly." Book 13 introduced an overhaul to the game's "Looking For Fellowship" system to help players find groups for questing, but while "people are definitely using it ... we can look and see how they're utilizing it, but what we don't have a sense of yet is how it's really affecting their overall sense of grouping up in the game." Sometimes just pinning down how an audience feels about a feature is half the battle.

With Book 13 live and the Mines of Moria still months away, Turbine's is focusing on Book 14, the last free content update before they release the expansion later this year. Adam Mersky, Public Relations Director at Turbine, explained that this content update would be a bit different from previous ones. "What's going to be unique about Book 14 versus the previous books is that, rather than adding a whole new region like Forochel, there's going to be a lot more live-event-driven type of activities," he explained. "So we've blocked up a lot of those live events because we don't want to spoil this for players who are coming to test and players who want to see some of the new content." Mersky said it was an opportunity for the team to start "spreading their wings" on the live- event technology they've put in the game, yet another step toward preparing for the expansion later this year.

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