The Lord of the Rings Online Designer Diary
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The initial inspiration for the system was what I was calling the "evil-o-meter." I just imagined getting near some source of great evil, such as the Witch-king, and watching a needle peg all the way to right. And it's hard to explain, but imagining that in my mind made the situation that much more intense and cool. For some reason, that completely artificial mechanism added an important layer to the scene. Sure, we try to convey evil through our art, sound cues and other sources, but it just seemed really awesome to me to really tell you, the player, that, "HEY, THIS GUY IS EVIL!"
Of course, some sort of Geiger counter of evil isn't appropriate to our game world, so we convey that you are near sources of evil through a change in the game's music, portions of the User Interface (UI) changing, and the world itself seeming darker and more oppressive. I think it's pretty dramatic and cool. As we've already talked about, the books aren't all about evil and dread -- hope is just as important a concept, so our UI reflects that as well.
