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Developer Diary – Volume III Book 1 Quest Notes

Quest Notes!
Welcome to another edition of Quest Notes, the place to find all the latest and greatest information about some of the quests coming in the next update. You’ve combated the threat of the False King in Volume I: Shadows of Angmar. You’ve helped both Elves and dwarves stand against the evils arrayed before them in Volume II: Mines of Moria. And now, a new story begins! Let’s take a look at some of the adventures that await you at the beginning of Volume III: Allies of the King!

Welcome to Volume III: Allies of the King
At the end of Volume II, we had crossed the mountains and taken the fight to the very walls of Dol Guldur in a daring campaign to keep the eye of the Enemy fixed far away from the path of the Fellowship. As Frodo and his companions set sail down the river Anduin, urgent messages from Lothlórien arrive in Rivendell, messages that fill the mind of Lord Elrond with worry:

‘Aragorn has need of his kindred. Let the Dúnedain ride to him in Rohan!’

What dangers can have befallen Aragorn such that his Ranger brethren are the closest allies upon which he can depend? It is a troubling question, but the Elf-lord is worried even more by its implication: why has the Heir of Isildur gone to Rohan at all? The Nine Walkers had not planned to pass that way by any road, but now it seems Aragorn at least has come to that kingdom, or soon will. What has become of the Fellowship’s vital errand?

Volume III: Allies of the King will bring us to new lands, new threats, and new adventures, and as we explore this new chapter, we’ll find the tide of destiny pushing us ever onwards into danger.

Book 1: Oath of the Rangers
The first book of the new Volume begins in Rivendell, where Elrond and his sons try to decipher the meaning of Galadriel’s mysterious message. One thing, however, is clear: if Aragorn has need of the Dúnedain, they will have to be found throughout the wilderness of Eriador and summoned forth with as much haste as can be managed. This is where you come in: you have experience with the wide lands west of the Misty Mountains and can bring word to the Rangers of the task that awaits them.



Book 1: Oath of the Rangers and its Prologue, Messages from Lórien, requires you to have purchased Siege of Mirkwood and be Level 65. It contains nine soloable chapters, and includes a brand-new Skirmish in one of LOTRO’s most popular locations.

Behind the Scenes: Alternate Drama Sequences
I’d like to take the opportunity with Quest Notes to occasionally pull back the curtain and let you see what goes on behind the scenes with the development of quests in LOTRO. Today I’d like to illustrate one of the new features we’re incorporating into several of the quests in Book 1: Alternate Drama Sequences!

A Drama Sequence is a series of actions that we as quest designers can make an NPC perform. Whenever you see an NPC performing an action or saying some text above his head, he is engaging in Drama. When we string these together to form a scene or tell a particular story, we’ve created a Drama Sequence.



We use these quite often, especially during instances and over the course of the Epic Story. We have a whole laundry list of things we can have an NPC do while in Drama: display some text, play a particular animation, convert the NPC into a monster so he can fight, send information invisibly to other NPCs, wait for certain conditions to happen . . . the sky is very nearly the limit, as you can tell by the sheer variety of things we can use Drama to accomplish.



Now that we are three Volumes into the Epic Story of LOTRO, and there are hundreds and hundreds of quests out there, the history of every individual character has become quite an intricate web. Your character may have done quests that my character has not done, and a third character may have done some of the same quests but also some completely different ones. What should the bestower of one of those quests say to each of our characters during a Drama scene? She’s met one of the characters, but not any of the others!



Awkward!

In order to resolve this troubling social situation, and to allow us to custom tailor events to your character’s unique history, we’ve devised Alternate Drama Sequences. These allow us to change the Drama Sequence on the fly, both in significant or in more subtle ways. In order to demonstrate this, let’s put on some Developer Goggles and take a peek at what the world looks like through them.



Oh my! We won’t talk about all of these at the moment (perhaps in a future edition of Quest Notes!), but for now focus your attention on the stack of two green boxes labeled ‘TW Scriptlink.’ These two boxes are ‘Tripwires,’ and behave as the name suggests: when the player satisfies certain conditions, a Tripwire ‘trips’ and sends a message somewhere. In this case, the Tripwires send a message to the floating blue shape, which is a Drama Director. The Drama Director stores all the information needed to run a Drama Sequence.

Each of these Tripwires have a different condition for which they are waiting. The top one is waiting for the player to have completed a particular quest, and the bottom one is waiting for the player to have NOT completed that same quest. What this means is that when the player reaches this point in the quest, one of the two Tripwires is guaranteed to be tripped, and then one of the two Drama Sequences stored in the Drama Director will play. We can therefore tailor the way the scene plays out based on your character’s personal history, which is pretty cool.

Rewarding Decisions
Over the course of Book 1: Oath of the Rangers (known affectionately around the office by its other name, ‘Ranger Round-Up’), you’ll be travelling across Eriador in search of the Dúnedain who will travel south with the Grey Company. As a result, you’ll find yourself walking and riding great distances. Well, monster skill and treasure guru Raskolnikov has taken some measure of pity on you and has filled some of the reward lists for Book 1 with special maps that you can choose to take. Let’s look at an example of the selectable rewards for one of these quests:

Select ONE of these rewards:



In this case, you’ve spoken with Candaith in the Lone-lands and told him about the Grey Company’s mission, and next you are to bring the message to Saeradan, in Bree-land. Now, if you’d like to cut down on travel time, you can choose the ‘Map to Bree-land,’ and continue on with your mission. If you’d rather, however, you can select the Decorated Heritage Rune and make your way to Saeradan on foot or by horse. Many of the quests allow you to choose between convenience and a more lasting reward.

Volume III Awaits!
That’s a glimpse of some of the neat things we have in store for you in Oath of the Rangers, the first book of Volume III: Allies of the King. There’s a lot of excitement ahead, and this new story is just beginning. So let’s round up some Rangers!