After years of guarded communication, Lord of the Rings Online’s fanbase has a new champion in Producer Oleg “Raninia” Brodskiy, who joined SSG a few months ago. In yet another public interview, Brodskiy spent over an hour talking with YouTuber Bludborn about many of the current hot topics, such as the legendary item revamp and the upcoming Gundabad expansion.
Speaking of his vision for the game, Brodskiy said that he’s been pushing the team to be ambitious and pitch the coolest ideas. While there are no firm plans announced past 2021, LOTRO’s producer said that there’s a good high-level overview of what the next three years of the game will be like.
Brodskiy also said that a lot of discussion was happening around improving LOTRO’s 10-year-old business model, as both players and devs aren’t pleased with how it currently functions. “No one I spoke to liked [LOTRO’s monetization]. No one I spoke to was like, ‘This is good, I like this, this is the best way for us to do this.’ No one was happy about it, but everyone felt trapped because this is the way it’s always been.”
In a different corner of the community, LOTRO’s long-running Weatherstock festival is returning this Saturday, July 17th, for its 13th “baker’s dozen” player concert series. Almost 20 player bands are scheduled to rock Weathertop on the Landroval server for a good part of the day.
