Lord of the Rings Online dropped a surprise on us today, randomly tweeting out a picture of a Turbine employee working on the game:
The text simply says “The LOTRO team is hard at work today.”. Maybe it is just a random tweet of a game dev with his nose to the grind. But why tweet this image today? Aren’t game developers always hard at work? Upon closer inspection, I believe that the release of this image is more contrived than random. Take a look at the character model on the right-hand monitor. This human-like model is too tall to be a dwarf, but too thick to be a man. Is this our first glimpse of the new beorning class? And what is that landscape image on the left-hand monitor? Click on the larger image below and let us know what you think!
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Without a doubt the figure is a Beorning. The image on the left is purhaps Beornville or Beornburg, where the Beorns used to live before the goblins drove them out of the Misty Mountains. The most important clue is how are the “ghostbusters” being brought into LOTRO? Is it a new steed? I’d be a Beorn if I could use a proton pack!
“Too tall to be a dwarf, but too thick to be a man,” just highlights how Beornings really should be a race and not a class. A race with only one possible class, but still a race.
The image looks staged, why would the same dev be working on designing landscape and character model concept art at the same time? Adds more to the theory that this was a deliberate ‘leak’.
The image is likely staged but keep in mind that to design the landscape of a people, you need to know the people. Also they could be placing the people in the world and not editing the landscape.
As for a deliberate leak, it clearly was as @LOTRO released it on Twitter.