The Journey Ahead, May 2023
Hello Ring-bearers!
Nick Reinhart, Game Director on The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth here!
I can happily say that we have launched Heroes of Middle-earth to the world! Welcome to all of our friends, guildmates, hobbits, and more, as we embark on this momentous journey together. This post represents a recurring format for us: The Journey Ahead. The Journey Ahead is intended to be a look ahead at what’s in store for the game and give you, Ring-bearers, a better idea of what to expect as we move forward. It will generally, but not always, be the following format:
- Chapter 1 - Look back at the recent past and comment on the current state of the game.
- Chapter 2 - Give you a sense of what our focus will be over the next few months of development.
We may add additional chapters (sections) to future editions of ‘The Journey Ahead’ as we check in with the team and give folks the opportunity to to showcase things they’re excited about bringing to the game.
So without further ado - let’s talk about how things have been going over the past few months.
Chapter 1
Honestly, we can’t believe that it’s already May! You could say time flies while you’re having fun trying to develop and launch a game! It feels like we’ve lived several lifetimes in a very short amount of time! Title Update 3, which focused on UI/UX, and Title Update 4 which tightened up the early game experience, went very well from our perspective. From the outcome of that update we were able to see that players were able to explore and play the game faster and smoother than before. As we had hoped to do with our Limited Territory Launch, the game became a better experience based upon what we saw from data and you, the community’s, feedback.
Title Update 5 - our World Wide Launch game version - had the updated art, kits, the economy reset, and a litany of other things. There were a few stability issues, freezes and other problems that cropped up, but we’ve worked aggressively to get those cleared up and we feel like the game is in a better place now. Very importantly, we’ve seen a lot of new friends join us and with that I’d like to say welcome to everyone! We have a ton in store for you over the next few months, so let’s get into it.
Overall, the morning of our launch day of The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth was a mix of nerves and pure excitement for the team! We‘ve been working on this game for such a long time and to now finally have it in the hands of the players has been absolute elation! So far, we’ve seen wonderful responses from players excited about collecting their favorite characters and for the possibilities of the “what if” of the Ring. As Game Director, it has been an honor to oversee the launch backed by such a tremendous team so committed to their craft. But the work is far from over and the Journey has just begun… and with that, let me tell you a little more about what’s coming up.
Chapter 2
As we look down the road we see two new major developments on the horizon… our first Legendary Adventure and the Mines of Moria Raid! Let’s dive in and see what that means for you, the Ring-bearer!
Legendary Adventures
Legendary Adventures require players to use characters from specific factions to battle in a specially built event, escalating in difficulty to unlock powerful characters. Each Adventure requires different factions to unlock a character. Legendary characters (characters unlocked by a Legendary Adventure) are five star unlocks and represent more powerful than normal characters. Legendary characters are powerful and often become the cornerstone that you can build potent squads around. There are a number of tiers in each event (this may change from event to event) each requiring characters from a specific faction at the corresponding tier rank.
As a hypothetical example, Treebeard could be a future Legendary character. In this theoretical example, they might require five characters from the Isengard faction. There are seven tiers to this event. Tier one could theoretically require five Shadow Isengard characters at Star Rating 1. Tier two requires five Shadow Isengard characters at Star Rating 2. And so on and so forth. When I complete Tier five, I unlock a theoretical Star Rating 5 version of Treebeard. I would then pursue the rest of the Tiers to fully maximize my character if I wanted to. This is a similar format that Capital Games has used in other places and we’re going to be using it in Heroes of Middle-earth too.
Legendary Adventures will initially show up for a short window of time (currently we are aiming around 7 days) to give players an opportunity to upgrade their characters and attempt to unlock the Legendary character. Each Legendary Adventure may return. When exactly and how often? Stay tuned as we’ll let you know!
And I’m excited to announce who our first Legendary will be… drumroll please… Cue the Elvish chorus…
Introducing your first Legendary: Lord Elrond!
“He was as noble and fair as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.” - The Hobbit.
Lord Elrond is the pinnacle of Elven prowess, utilizing the power of his ring, Vilya, to command the Bruinen River and protect Rivendell’s borders. When his friends are in peril, his skill in healing is unmatched in all of Middle-earth. He is a critical ally in your fight to restore the timelines. Details on his kit and the faction required to get him is forthcoming.
Mines of Moria Raid
From Woods to Mountains, you’ve likely seen the messages in game if you’ve made it to level 20, our first Raid is coming to Heroes of Middle-earth, The Mines of Moria! We couldn’t think of a better opening raid to introduce our players to - and we thought of quite a few! The Mines of Moria itself is a sprawling complex of rooms, Dwarven in make and trashed by Orcish interlopers. There’s a cave troll and most nightmarish of all, the dreaded Balrog. It has cool locations and characters and it checks all the boxes for an epic in game Raid! Let me take a moment to tell you a little bit more about the raid system in Heroes of Middle-earth.
Raids will be open to guilds and their members to engage with. Note you must be at a certain level to participate in a raid. We are aiming for guilds to be able to kick a Chapter off about once a week, and last around four or five days. The goal of each raid is to do damage in each Chapter of the raid and accrue points. Those points translate into personal rewards for yourself and guild level rewards for everyone in the guild. Players can increase the number of points they accrue by increasing the difficulty of the raid on each of their attempts, independent of the guild. The higher difficulties, the greater rewards.
Our goal is to have a dynamically challenging raid experience to grow with your roster of characters, but also allow players in each guild to choose the experience that feels most comfortable for them. Our hope is that players have an entertaining strategic puzzle to solve, while working together as a guild for epic success and rewards.
The Mines of Moria is going to be released in a chapter-by-chapter format as illustrated above. Rather than going live with all aspects of the raid at once, we’ll be releasing chapters one at a time over the course of a month or two. So, when the Mines of Moria release you’ll see Chapter 1 of a 4 Chapter experience. Our hope with this experience is that players and guilds will be able to focus, build mastery across each Chapter, one at a time, and give them a chance to get excited for each part of the raid release.
Now you may be asking yourself, why am I doing this raid (other than it being cool)? Well, there's awesome rewards, powerful new gear, and maybe a powerful friend you can collect along the way. It’s still early and the future has yet to be written… but we have a ton of exciting plans for you in the future.
Your first question is likely, when can I get my hands on Chapter 1 of the Mines of Moria? We’re still nailing down the date, but our goal is to bring it to you within Q3 of this year. We’ll have more news for you the closer we get, and we hope it gets you as excited as we are to bring it to you!
Thanks for coming on this journey with us.
Nick Reinhart, Game Director
On behalf of The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth Dev Team