LOTRO to Update Character Models in U18

Please note: The following post was an April Fool’s joke and is not real.

Yesterday, we learned during Frelorn’s Thursday stream that U18 will drop on April 11th, but that wasn’t the only piece of news to materialize during the stream! While fielding questions on the latest major update to the game, Frelorn dropped a bomb: Turbine had one more as-yet-unannounced feature for the update that has been concealed from even beta testers: the long awaited character model revamp.

We kind of messed up once by changing the female hobbit walk, but we discovered our mistake. The complexity of the new animation completely changed the feel of existing characters. It added a dimension that wasn’t previously there for however many levels a player had spent with the character. With this update, we won’t be adding complexity, we’ll be removing it!

Inspired by the success of simple graphics in modern games, such as Minecraft and Stardew Valley, and building on existing tech, LOTRO will be replacing all current character textures with pixelated sprites. This new approach as several advantages:

• Faster client-side rendering
• Fewer Turbine resources needed for animation/texture development and support
• Adheres to industry trends
• Promotes the “keep it simple” principle
• They’re just so darn cute!

LOTRO Players is proud to bring you an exclusive sneak preview of four new character models you can expect to see in-game beginning April 11!:

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