Interviews

LOTR: WAR OF THE RING
Interview with Adam Kahn
Sr. PR Manager, Vivendi Universal Games

Conducted By Ugur Sener

JA: First of all, what LOTR related titles are coming out this fall?

Adam: The Hobbit (PS2,Xbox,PC,Gamecube,GBA) and War of the Ring (PC).

JA: Are these going to be the last LOTR titles that VU will work on?

Adam: No way. The Tolkien franchise is a long-term commitment for VU Games. We've already announced Middle-Earth Online, a massively multiplayer RPG coming out late next year and there are several other titles at various stages of development that we haven't announced.

JA: Do you have plans to expand the time period and make games based on Silmarillion etc?

Adam: No, our license only covers The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We can cover things that are referenced in the appendices, but nothing from other novels.

JA: Before moving onto the details about War of the Ring, can you tell us a little bit about The Hobbit? What is the gameplay going to be like? Will it be more of an adventure game or will there be strong RPG elements?

Adam: The Hobbit is an action/adventure game that also includes some light RPG elements. You play as Bilbo as he's unwittingly thrust into an epic adventure. It's third-person, and you have a variety of different objectives, but most of them revolve around getting the dwarves out of some sort of trouble! The game follows the main plot points of the book The Hobbit, so all your favorite characters and players are there. There are no differences in the game on PC vs. console, other than various technical things - the content is the same. the GBA game is completely different, of course.

JA: What about War of the Ring?

Adam: War of the Ring is a real-time strategy game that focuses mostly on the battles referenced in the Lord of the Rings trilogy but not covered in great detail. The various battles encompass about 2000 years of history in Tolkien's "Third Age." We start the game before the re-rise of Sauron and follow his resurgence up to the battle at Helm's Deep. The team at Liquid Entertainment, who previously developed Battle Realms, are taking the tried-and-true RTS gameplay and adding a bunch of really cool elements. There are two campaigns - one for the good side and one for evil.

JA: Can we promise players an alternate ending for the trilogy then?

Adam: No, we're not allowed to change the fiction of the book, which is why we focus on battles that aren't covered in a lot of detail. we can't let Orcs take Helm's Deep, for example, but there are hundreds of other battles that are purely used as background in the books - we have the opportunity to flesh those out and show things like - how did Legolas find himself in Rivendale? We show Gimli's early exploits before he joined the Fellowship. Our license allows us to delve more deeply into the story - we're not limited to any specific parts.

JA: I can tell that a lot of research must have gone into the game to reveal those parts you could explore in more depth.

Adam: Oh yeah - the folks at Liquid are HUGE fans. All their novels are cracked and torn.

JA: More on the mechanics of the game, will the gameplay be more like the Warcraft or the Myth series?

Adam: Hm - I'd have to say that it's more like Warcraft - there is base building and some limited resource management. However, things like terrain and facing do come into play so there are tactics involved.

JA: The look and feel of it certainly reminded me of Warcraft 3.

Adam: I hear a lot of people say that and I suppose there are worse games to be compared to! But the resemblance is really only skin deep - it has a similar point of view and it's colorful like War 3, but that's about it. The engine Liquid created is really great. There are a ton of little nuances in there - fire will spread (from fire arrows and such) unless there's rain, which will suppress it

JA: Can you tell me a little about the various structures players can build and troops they can recruit?

Adam: Let's start with resources - there are two: food and ore. Food is gathered to create "organic" units and ore is used to create buildings. The goal with the resources was to keep it similar to other games in the genre without betraying the novels by adding too much complexity.

On the good side the buildings include:

1- The Keep (town center and hero production)
2- Barracks (basic military units: Gondor Swordsmen and Rohan Riders)
3- Mill (food production)
4- Foundry (Ore production)
5- Tower (defensive structure)
6- Dwarven Hall (produces dwarven axethrower and shieldbreaker)
7- Camp (increases the max units you can have)
8- Silvan Outpost (upgrades for wandering forest units, such as the human ranger and Elven Archer)
9- Ranger's Post (produces Rangers)
10- Forge (armor and weapon upgrades)
11- Nature's Haven (produces Huorn, which are wild Ents, and Beorning units)
12- Elven Sanctuary (produces Elven Archers and Lightbringers)
13- There are a couple other buildings that are essentially upgrades to those listed.

On the evil side there are:

1- Keep
2- War Post (spreads Sauron's corruption onto clean lands, allowing the dark side to build their buildings)
3- Goblin Hovel (melee units)
4- Slaughterhouse (food production)
5- Torre (tower)
6- Dark Arsenal (weapon and armor upgrades)
7- Smelter (ore production)
8- Beast Lair (Warg Rider and Giant Spider production)
9- Breeding Pit (military upgrades for beast-like units, including Trolls, Warg Riders, and Spiders)
10- Shadow Lair (produces wraiths and Haradrim assassins)
11- Troll Den (produces Troll Bonecleavers and Stonehurlers)
12- Plus all the upgrade buildings.
It's really cool to see in action - there are a ton of really specialized units as well - including the entire fellowship. Basically every major character from the books is in the game.

JA: We know that dwarves and elves don't get along very well, so will the construction of elven structures block dwarven structures?

Adam: No, but there aren't many scenarios where that will be possible anyway. We try to stay in line with the book - if a battle in the book only had dwarves then you'll only have dwarven units available.

JA: How long would the game take to beat?

Adam: It's looking like between 20-30 hours. Liquid spends a LOT of time making the maps very pretty. They're not random - they're designed very specifically. Liquid wanted to make the environments particularly memorable. And there's definitely no "right" way to play through.

JA: What are the multiplayer options?

Adam: There are lots of multiplayer options including many different game types as well as standard skirmishes. Multiplayer is via GameSpy - you can play over LAN but the focus is internet multiplay.

JA: Will the players be able to choose the missions they want to play or will there be a linear progression?

Adam: It's a little bit of both. When you start, you'll only have access to a couple missions. As you win, it'll unlock others, and you can play them in any order.

JA: Thanks again for participating in the interview and providing gamers all this insight into War of the Ring.

Adam: You’re welcome.