Dev Diary – Update 13 Quests and Volume IV Details

Yesterday in the flurry of news, Made Of Lions released a developer diary on the quests of Update 13 and beyond.  The article starts of by giving interesting facts about Vol III now that it is coming to a close.

Here are some that stood out:

Time Spent in the Real World: Forty-four months; March 2010 – November 2013
Time Spent in Middle-earth: Eighteen days; February 17, 3019 – March 4, 3019

Number of times a Ranger needs your help: 39 times.

Number of times a character’s name is an anagram of Gortheron: 1
Number of times that mattered: 0

The diary gives a brief overview of the end of the volume and then quickly moves on to talk about the next volume in the epic.

Made Of Lions gives some goals for the new volume:

1. No lunch deliveries – By this point in your development, your character is a hero, and most of the people you encounter will know it. I think there were good reasons to begin ‘Mines of Moria’ with the possibly-infamous ‘lunch deliveries’ to the dwarves of the Iron Garrison, but Volume IV is a different creature and those reasons don’t apply. Heroes only!

2. Fewer phasing companions – One of the goals of ‘Allies of the King’ was to give the player a fellowship of NPC companions who would travel from town to town, exploring their relationships and providing a familiar group of characters to interact with at each new region: first the Grey Company, and then later Horn, Nona, Corudan, and Gléowine. I liked the idea of creating a new fellowship for this stretch of the story, but like the capital-letter Fellowship, each individual member now has their own path to walk. In Volume IV, the story will have a new direction and structure.

3. A sense of adventure – I want this Volume to return to that feeling from the early days of exploring an unfamiliar territory and experiencing unexpected adventure, with iconic threats and dangers lurking around every corner. The Epic Story will remain soloable, but I hope to add optional challenges and secrets for those who are willing to tackle them.

I am glad to hear that we will finally be treated as heroes in this next part of the story as it is the time for that change.  While we have learned that heroes can be defined in many ways, I think it is time to be treated as a hero after all the deeds we have completed over the years.

I think it is good that each member has their own path as that should help the story gain depth.

I am excited to see how they try to bring back the feeling of threats at every corner as that is something that seems to have been missing in volume II and III.  I am not sure what the secrets and challenges will include but I hope they are not too secret so that we can all have a chance to experience them.

Volume IV is coming this year and if the previous stories are any indication, we should be in for another great addition to the story of LOTRO.