During the recent Riddermark Take the Hobbits to Isengard run, Executive Producer Arron Rowan Campbell gave details on the Update 14 release.
“Rowan – Belfalas is the most beautiful region they’ve seen yet. You can see Dol Amroth in the distance and the region really comes alive.”
According to LotR Wikia, the Bay of Belfalas is where most of the rivers empty into the sea. The various waterways pump in the source of beauty into the region by nourishing the landscape. Tolkien Gateway gives some insight to what we might be doing in the Belfalas.
“During the War of the Ring, the Belfalas was raided by the Corsairs of Umbar, and therefore did not send any men to help defend Minas Tirith, until Aragorn liberated the coast with the Grey Company, freeing Gondor‘s southern armies to follow him north to relieve Minas Tirith.”
Assuming we are following after Aragorn and the Grey Company through the Paths of the Dead, we should see an entirely new enemy with the Corsairs of Umbar. The discussion continues as Rowan is asked when Update 14 will be released.
“Rowan – Summertime. We’re a couple of months out.”
This puts Update 14’s release somewhere in July or August. This leaves only four to five months for the Dead Marshes and Pelargir updates later in the year.
Rowan proceeds to talk about the system performance of the new area.
“Rowan – There was a little stutter coming over the rise to Dol Amroth that they will have to work through. They’re really pushing the distance of view. The smoke from the individual beacons that are lit and stretching way out into the distance. But they will make sure to polish the performance on people’s graphics cards.”
Increasing the field of view is always good news and adding the iconic beacons into the mix should make for a wonderful vista.
Rowan then gives a hint of a new item system after being asked what else is in Update 14.
“There will be a new item system coming with U14 – a new way for us to build out and customize the items we want.”
This could be the customized armor they hinted at a couple of years ago or something else entirely.
The chat room then asks about the size of the new areas in Update 14.
“Rowan – Belfalas is only one of three areas in this update. And Paths of the Dead is pretty sizeable as well.
Sapience – So these are not little bite-sized pieces.
Rowan – What we saw in Fangorn recently is what they refer to as a mini-region. It was intended to be a very small place for a single piece of content and to illustrate some of the epic story. These will be more substantial. They’ve got the entire city of Dol Amroth. It’s rather large, actually.
Sapience – Can you say if they are going to all be connected or if there are going to be ports?
Rowan – It’s all contiguous landscape. You have to cross through the Paths of the Dead to get there.”
Rowan then hints at some of the difficulty for the player to get through the Paths of the Dead.
“Rowan – No. And not all the oathbreakers have chosen to follow Aaragorn.”
The last big piece of news was about how many classes were in consideration at the time they chose to go with the Beorning.
“Sapience – Thinks now they’re going to get a thousand questions about what other classes were discussed.
Rowan – They had 24 pitches before settling on the Beorning.
Sapience – 24 possibilities before they get to the Beorning, so for those who think they just pull things out of a hat, there were a lot of long discussions about a great many things before they decide on what’s going into the game.”
After over a month of silence, we are finally getting more information on Update 14 and updates in the future. The second half of 2014 is shaping up to be a great few months for LOTRO as we enter Gondor and begin the volume IV epic story.
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Agh so soon! I was hoping for a slightly later release. So much catching up to do! But must get to Dol Amroth!
This will make the rest of the year even more packed because we are going to get two big updates in the last half of the year plus the dead marshes smaller update. (Assuming they don’t delay anything)
In the last LOTRO Players News, Ethelros brought up the question “What keeps you going back to a game?” In a huge way, it’s the continuous addition of content and story that keeps me hooked on lotro. You see, when playing single player games, I was always hoping there was more content as I would blow through the content in a matter of days or a week or two. There would then be weeks of desperate content search while I slowly lose interest in the game and try finding a new one.
A few months after I bought and installed lotro, Mines of Moria was released and all of the sudden there was a whole new zone of interest to dive into. This and the prospect of new content coming in the future keeps me coming back to the game time and again.
Also, now that I have gone through the story numerous times on 12 toons (all 95 amazingly) I still feel the story is timeless. I continue to find new places, NPCs, and a generally new feeling as I go through each region and book. The region revamps always help to keep interest in old content.
I’d say more about Belfalas, Paths of the Dead, and Dol Amroth but this is already getting too long.
I’ll gladly take the update in July, preferably around the middle of the month so I can convince myself that it’s Turbine’s birthday present to me (which falls on the 18th).
To be honest, this was a lot sooner than I was under the impression it would be. I’m looking forward to dinking around on Bullroarer during the weekends as soon as U14 goes into testing (which, if they’re planning for a July-August release, presumably isn’t that far out.)