The Lord of the Rings Online Developer Diary
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1290
As for myself, during the past few updates I've been working closely with Orion on his player experience revamping crusade. I was there for his work in Ered Luin, Bree-land, and the Lone-lands, making sure anything Orion touched was getting the testing attention it deserved. We fought over a lot of little things, but we got the job done. In hindsight, arguing over a torch's placement in the Retaking Weathertop instance was rather silly, but at the time it seemed important! I get riled up for the sake of the players sometimes, and Orion tries to improve things in the way he thinks is best. We don't always see eye to eye, but things come together nicely when we're done working with it.
In the coming update Orion got a bit ambitious and decided to make the entirety of the Volume I Epic Story more accessible to solo players and small fellowships. This is a noble goal and a well deserved addition; one that I'm very excited for. But that excitement is tempered by my QA experience: it's a lot of stuff to change in one patch! And a lot of stuff to test! There's only so much we're able to get to in a reasonable timeframe, and labeling something as (solo-friendly) is kind of subjective. To prepare for the testing process I had to completely rewrite our old Volume I Epic Book testplans to ensure that Orion's changes made the grade. I then had to approach one of the World Builders working on new travel routes requested by Orion to help make travel between Epic Book locations more convenient and get those properly tested, too. I hope you like horses and ponies to Meluinen, Gloin's Camp, and Hrimbarg!
