Welcome to Vastin’s Mirkwood Regions Developer Diary!

Over the past several months, I’ve been focused on the development of the Mirkwood region, namely the quests, social centers and NPCs that you’ll be interacting with as you aid the Elves in their march against the tower of Dol Guldur.

In many ways, the development of Mirkwood was a relief compared to that of Lothlórien. There were a number of reasons; we had more space to work with, a hostile environment that made it easier to write quests (unlike the Golden Wood, where bad things never ever ever happen), and a relatively straightforward plotline around which to wrap it. That said, resources to do everything we want to do are (as always) limited and getting everything filled out has been quite a challenge. We’re still racing towards that finish line with much to do.

As usual, we’ve had to find ways to work within J.R.R. Tolkien’s world in order to fill in certain aspects of the game. Normally there would be very little reason for any friendly characters to be in Mirkwood at all, much less semi-permanent camps of Elves and Rangers within spitting distance of the tower of Dol Guldur. Thus the invasion of the Malledhrim (the Golden Host of Lórien) was born, giving us the tools we needed to fill out this particular region.

This change of pace does not preclude the events in the books, as this is a temporary incursion and not a full-scale invasion, a prologue to the assaults on Lothlórien by Dol Guldur as noted in The Return of the King; we’re just giving the Elves a more active role in events leading up to that point – which makes sense, as Celeborn and Galadriel are wise enough not just to wait in Caras Galadhon for the enemy to attack. They would send out spies, and scouts, and other infiltrators to find out what Sauron was up to, and maybe hamper and delay the inevitable onslaught. They just didn’t trouble poor Frodo with this business, because, well, he had problems of his own. And, as always, our regions are each a snapshot in the timeline of the War of the Ring, so you’ll technically be aiding the Elves with this pre-emptive strike for as long as you wish.