The Lord of the Rings Online Interview
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Q: Do you have a rough release schedule for the next few years drawn up, or are you sort of feeling that out as you go?
A: You know, yes and no. The way we look at deploying online games is that you need to know where you're going, but sometimes the path you get there will change based on how the product is being received by the consumers. So there are certain milestones that we want to hit. For example, the first expansion pack. We have certain key updates that we need to get into the product. Part of being a service is that we need to be listening to where the players are taking us and what they're interested in. A year ago, if you'd have asked me if we would have been adding updates to the music system, I would have said, "What music system?" But those are the things that we continually react to and listen to from the player's perspective. For example, we've got this one [Book 9] coming out that sort of fills in the level 35-45 content, then we're coming up with Book 10 a couple months after that. Clearly one of the big things people are excited about is monster play, and that's why we're coming back in Book 10 and adding a lot of upgrades to that, both in terms of quests, experience, and gameplay mechanics. And then in Book 11 this coming fall and October, we're going to be releasing more space, more content, and also a very large housing system that will allow players to own their own home in the world of Middle Earth.
