The Breaking of Isengard Story Details

Today Massively released an article giving details to the end of the Volume III epic story and some of the other quests coming with Update 13.

“The Breaking of Isengard will not only involve the player investigating the fortress and the nearby forest but include optional “Ent play” sessions. That’s right: You’ll be taking on the role of Treebeard the Ent and seeing his story from the initial meeting with Merry and Pippin through the Ent-moot.”

The article says we will have multiple sessions of Ent play.  I hope Turbine keeps these sessions interesting as the article mentions playing as Treebeard during the Ent-moot which could be the longest instance ever if the Ents speak lore appropriately.  That being said, Ent politics could be very interesting if done correctly.

While the Ents did a great job riling up the forest for war, they perhaps did too good a job — and the majority of Ents still haven’t returned to calm the remnant down. That’s where you’ll come in, along with your pal Quickbeam the Ent.

Here, the new solo PvE endgame comes into play. Turbine has devised four sets of repeatable activities for players to enjoy, all of which will contribute to a new reputation that’s tied to top-notch rewards. The first activity is a series of “quieting” quests to help calm the forest, one of which will be chosen at random each day. The second asks you to escort a Huorn around and accomplish different tasks as he investigates the forest. The third involves three new resource instances.

 

However, it’s the fourth activity that’s the most intriguing, probably because it’s new. The devs have created a new type of quest called an “incremental.” It’s a multi-stage quest to help grow an important seed, but the twist is that you can do only one stage of the quest every day (after all, Ents take time to deliberate courses of action). After doing the four, five, or six-stage quests, you’ll be treated to nice rewards and a shot at earning one of the game’s first cosmetic pets. There are three of these, all variants on mini-huorns.

I am not sure how the community will react to the new incremental quests after Hytbold.  The quests sound interesting but I am not sure if they are something players want.  The good news is that these quests sound like one-time events that are over multiple days instead of doing the same quests daily as seen with Hytbold.  I also hope the quests are more involved then planting seeds and watering them as I don’t think that would be enough incentive for players to log in daily.  I suppose players will have enough incentive from the “nice rewards” and the cosmetic pets.

The end of Volume III of the epic story is almost upon us as we leave Rohan for Gondor later this year.  After such a long time spent building up the story, the people and the landscape itself, I hope we see a satisfying ending to this unfinished tale.