Lord of the Rings Online Producer Oleg “Raninia” Brodskiy sat down for an hour-and-a-half interview last week with YouTuber Bludborn, talking about a wide range of topics including the reception to Fate of Gundabad, the instance finder, and what to do with the game’s embers currency.
Brodskiy said that the current endgame currency system “doesn’t make sense” and needs some sort of revamp — but what that revamp will look like is still up in the air after the community pushback over the proposed changes posted back in January. He spent a lot of time (starting at the 30 minute mark) explaining the flaws with the currency system and how the team is attempting to straighten it out.
One of the areas of improvement that the team is aiming to fix is the instance finder, which Brodskiy admits is confusing and not very user friendly. He said that the way LOTRO’s worlds are set up, the current population, and the limitations of the team mean that there won’t be a LFG queuing tool added in the future.
He expressed hope for the future of the game without getting into a lot of specifics about where LOTRO is going from here: “In the long run, we not only want to maintain the value of this IP but grow it, because we think it can be improved.”
