Though we’re ecstatic about the release of The Return of the King, we’re also kind of at a loss. For the past three years we’ve analyzed, obsessed, and generally lost sleep over wondering how the film trilogy would play itself out. No more avoiding spoilers, no more chatroom speculating, no more scouring the book appendixes…what will dedicated LotR fans preoccupy themselves with after the film fever dies out?!Luckily for us there’s merchandising, merchandising, merchandising! As you’re well aware, EA owns the game rights to The New Line films and Vivendi Universal owns the license to the Tolkien books. Whichever camp you may favor, the fact remains that VU is the only publisher with plans to release a Massively Multiplayer Persistent World based on Middle-Earth. A reason to get excited? You bet your Mithril codpiece! The company behind MEO is Turbine Entertainment, the folks behind the Asheron’s Call games and the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons Online. From what we’ve seen of Turbine’s huge MMORPG, Middle-Earth Online appears to threaten the free time and sanity of Tolkien fans everywhere when it hits shelves in early 2005.

Lore of the Rings
Middle-Earth Online drops you smack-dab in the middle of the Third Age. Timeline wise, The Fellowship has just escaped Moria and is continuing their journey toward Mordor. Though players will never come face-to-face with any members of The Fellowship, rumors of the heroes’ actions will filter into the game world through stories relayed by famous NPCs. For instance, exploring The Shire would never turn up a personal meeting with Frodo, Sam, Merry or Pippin, but Farmer Maggot might relay a story of chasing a certain group of mischievous hobbits off his land. Similarly, though you could explore Rivendell for days and never find Legolas Greenleaf, Elrond might speak with you if you could gain an audience with him.

The complete geographical area of Middle-Earth that a player can explore will encompass the Western realm of Eriador. Typically, this area runs from the Grey Havens in the West to the Misty Mountains (and Moria) in the East, all the way up to the old Witch-realm of Angmor in the North and down to the Branduin (or Brandywine) River in the South. Since Middle-Earth Online will be following the books as a frame of reference, Turbine’s Middle-Earth will be a broader area than that which is portrayed by the New Line films. For this reason, questing parties will be able to explore areas left out of the films like the The Old Forest just outside of The Shire or the haunted Barrow Downs on the outskirts of Bree.

In fact, the quest that was demonstrated for us sent our Man Soldier, decked out in Gondorian armor, to the Prancing Pony to speak with Barliman, the bartender of the inn. Barliman referred to a group of rowdy Hobbits that tore up one of his rooms, then referred us to a drunken adventurer whose pals had gone missing. The drunk’s friends were last seen heading off in the direction of the Barrow Downs near Bree in search of treasure. In no time we found ourselves creeping through a subterranean Barrow Down cavern strewn with rubble and cobwebs. After confronting a slew of undead Wights and giant spiders, our soldier faced off against an uber-frightening Wight Lord mini-boss.

Choosing Your Path
Currently, there are four races slated to be available at the launch of Middle-Earth Online: Men, Dwarves, Elves, and, of course, Hobbits. Each race has a specific set of class options that offer specials skills and feats unique to that race. Depending on your playing style and moral choices, you can then further focus your character by choosing a multitude of class specializations.

For instance, there are two classes available to the race of Men: the Soldier and the Sage. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you choose to play the Soldier, a warrior who equips himself with sturdy armor and powerful weapons. In most MMORPGs that would be the end of your character creation. MEO, however, takes class customization one step further by allowing you to pick a Vocation and an Upbringing to further focus your character. After navigating the options, you choose Blacksmithing as your vocation and Farmhand as your Upbringing.

Entering the world of Middle-Earth, you play for a while, make some moral choices and then a new character branch opens up for you. Now you have chosen to almost “subclass” as either a Champion (the good path) or a Mercenary (the evil path). Champions are virtuous protectors of the people of Middle-Earth while Mercenaries fight for cold hard cash. So now you have a “Man-Soldier-Champion with homemade weapons and experience in farming.” Imagine how different your skill set would have been if you had chosen to begin the game as an Elven Scout? This sort of in-depth branching is how MEO hopes to make you truly feel like you are creating a unique path for your character.

The skill advancement system in Middle-Earth Online works by the skills actually being used instead of simply distributing XP points to skills once a character levels up. In other words, to propel your Archery skill you’ll have to actually practice shooting a bow to get better. Training, however, can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days (yep, real time) depending on how much a character must practice in order to achieve a new skill. If you’re not interested in hanging out online while you hunt rabbits to increase your Archery skill, VU has included an offline training option. Kick back in your cottage and practice your gardening skill until you’re able to grow some po-ta-toes or dank Old Toby. Time spend training your skills solo will count when you log back onto the MEO server.

A Call to Arms
As of now, combat in Middle-Earth Online is slated to be key stroke based. VU wants to avoid the “click and wait” mentality of other MMORPG combat systems by having players constantly stay in tune with their array of skills, party tactics, and offensive/defensive strategies. Whether or not MEO will contain an auto-attack feature will be released at a later date.

Middle-Earth Online plans to follow the current trend of other MMORPGs by allowing parties to go on “private encounters” as well as group quests. Depending on your style of play, you can choose to explore an open dungeon with a group of strangers or select a “private encounter” to explore with a select group of friends. By giving out a special dungeon key or password (i.e. “Speak ‘Friend’ and enter”), players will be able to explore their own dungeons without the threat of random unwanted adventurers “ninja looting” their stash.

Since there is no resurrection in Middle-Earth, characters who fall in battle will awaken in the last town they visited. Vivendi has not worked out the exact specifics as to how you will find your way back to safety, but there will most likely be a common respawn message alluding to the fact that a group of adventurers found your unconscious body and returned you to town.

Vivendi has also confirmed that there will be Player vs Player (PvP) combat available in Middle-Earth Online, but would not divulge exactly how they plan to implement it. Since character evolution will follow a decidedly moral path, perhaps as the in-game story progresses evil characters will face off against good characters? It is all speculation at this point, but more is expected to be released by VU soon.

Waiting Is the Hardest Part
With all it has to offer even at this early date, Turbine’s Middle-Earth Online looks to give Star Wars Galaxies a run for its money in shear anticipation factor. Running off the beautiful AC2 engine, player characters, enemies and environments are all impressively high-textured and detailed. The game looks incredible and we can’t wait to delve into Middle-Earth for ourselves.

Turbine also plans to implement regular game updates that will continue the story of Middle-Earth Online past the constraints of The Fellowship of the Ring. Even though at launch The Fellowship will have just left Moria, more of the overall lore and geography of Middle-Earth will be revealed in updates and expansions. If all goes well with MEO at launch, Tolkien’s classic narrative will play itself out in real time as you play the game. We’d like nothing better than to look forward to another three years of losing ourselves in the world of Middle-Earth.