The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Preview
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Although the mines are obviously underground, Turbine has strived to make them as expansive as possible. We got to see the endless stair--the pillar of stairs that Gandalf climbs after battling the balrog in the books--and though it didn't quite stretch the distance that we saw him fall in the films, it took many seconds to fall to the bottom. Speaking of balrogs, we also got to see one in the game, in an encounter that will happen fairly early on, according to Turbine. The game will feature a time-traveling narrative and you will play out King Durin's first encounter with the massive beast. It will be the most formidable enemy character in the entire game, pretty much unbeatable in fact, and your only option will be to run away as quickly as possible.
In addition to the impressive scale of the balrog, we got to take in more of the huge environments that will feature in the game. The dwarves are responsible for carving out huge statues and structures, as well as important natural resources such as gardens and water-cooling chambers to draw heat through the mines. We could see how they took the small amount of sunlight that filtered through from above and built mirrors to send the light and heat around to a huge purpose-built garden underneath. Further into the mines, we saw huge volcanic factories that used giant troll-like creatures secured on tracks to drive giant machines.
