While Lord of the Rings Online fans are still waiting to get a full view of this fall’s mini-expansion, Before the Shadow, the studio behind the MMO teased what is to come a year hence.
In this past week’s Q&A stream, Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini said that 2023’s major content update will be for “fans of the smell of sea water.” He did clarify, however, that this would not include naval combat. Also coming next year will be a new raid and instance cluster, Ciccolini confirmed.
SSG’s executive producer tackled the ongoing issue of lag in the game, saying that the studio had a lot of engineers working on it. One problem point came from how the database ties together quests and deeds and organizes other important strings of information.
Ciccolini said that LOTRO is working on multi-factor authentication, new human customization options, options to start in desired beginner zones, and visual improvements. Legacy (dead) server transfers are being delayed at this point due to a studio move to a new location.
“We are currently working on, y’know, overhauls to LOTRO to add more graphic fidelity,” Ciccolini said. “Now will it be a 100% new engine? No. But I think there’s a lot of old tech and art in the game that can be raised. So I would expect characters to look better, a lot of our older art to be raised up to modern standards, and additions made to things like how textures display and our lighting system that’ll show a good improvement in the game. We’re currently working on that as part of the LOTRO remaster. We’ll probably have more news about that at some point, maybe before the year end, but if not then early next year.”
