LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE
Content Designer
Lord of the Rings Online is a Fantasy MMO RPG that takes place in the universe of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I had the opportunity to work as a content designer for the Fate of Gundabad Expansion in 2021
FEATURES
LIVE GAME
Constantly receiving updates since 2007
FAMILIAR FACES
Set in Tolkien's LotR universe, you're bound to meet more than a few recognizable heroes on your journey
SOCIAL WORLD
Connect with thousands of players around the world to face off against the forces of Mordor together!
MY ROLE
As I was signed on as a contract content designer at StandingStoneGames, my role included things varying from testing enemy toughness, to writing quest text, to planning out repeatable missions for the players in the new expansion. Each task proved an exciting challenge, and I learned a lot of narrative development through the construction and continuation of characters in an already established and beloved universe.
MAKING MISSIONS
My main task required me to make missions within the already established mission system in Lord of the Rings Online. I went back with my own character and played a lot of the existing missions, had storyboarding meetings with my co-workers, and tested a *lot* of ideas.
NARRATIVE IMPLEMENTATION
Most of the missions needed to follow a linear route, where players would start, face an obstacle, and tackle an easy-to-understand objective to completion. However because this game is tied so closely to the IP, there were many flourishes and details that were necessary in the actual dialogue and descriptions of the quests, in order to give it that Tolkien flair that so many fans had come to expect and love.
WORLD DESIGN
Another aspect of my work was to design and fill large landscapes with interesting narrative and objective-based points of interest. I helped design some of the missions that took place in poisonous caves, frozen tundras, and deep within the mountains, and had to maintain a theme cohesive to the setting for each mission, and create objectives that made sense with where the players would be exploring.
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For example, one mission sees the player entering the Hive of the Gredbyg to secure enough glands from the poisonous monsters to enhance the Dwarves blasting Jelly, allowing them to further their expansion into the stark mountains they so desperately want to inhabit.
FINAL WORK
Being able to work on a franchise that helped weave the stories of my youth was truly an honor. It was incredibly fun and rewarding to be able to lend my own creative input to such an expansive universe, and then see swaths of players from around the world get to experience the whole team's additions at the same time, year after year with each new expansion.
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Personally my narrative design and rapid iteration workstyle grew a whole lot from the whole experience; traits I've taken on in further projects that have been incredibly helpful.