Turbine Content Designer Ryan “Pinion” Penk previews the raid content of Update 18’s Throne of the Dread Terror, which is set immediately following Volume IV Book 6, Chapter 4: The Foe Resurgent. It revolves around the boss Gothmog (and assorted minibosses) and employs a tiered access system (one with locks, one without).
“One of the biggest challenges we faced was making the space and the story it tells satisfying,” Penk writes. “To send twelve people against an entire army and have them do something that unequivocally feels like ‘winning’ proved to be difficult. It definitely plays to the difficulty of a raid, and makes it feel like you’re swimming against the tide, but it became problematic for one specific case – Gothmog. The battle with the Dread Terror himself demanded a loss, especially given that the later events of Book 6 have not yet occurred in the timeline of the raid. The question became: How can you lose and still feel satisfied with an ending? I guess you’ll just have to see for yourself!”
