[PAX East 2020] Interview with SSG Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini

With PAX East being in Boston, it’s natural for us to reach out to the resident MMO studio in the neighborhood every year, especially in light of the recent announcements made at their player meetup last week. We sat down with Standing Stone Games’ Executive Producer Rob ‘Severlin’ Ciccolini to ask questions about the state of both MMOs being developed by his studio, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online, and to gather more details on the big ticket items announced at the Adventure Pub. Here’s the video of the interview recorded at SSG. Please note that the LotRO content starts at approximately 19 minutes in.

DDO Highlights:

Database update still coming, won’t take as long as LotRO‘s did
Alchemist happened to have a different caster style
No accessibility concerns re: Alchemist
What 64-bit client brings to the table
Summer update features new story leading to Feywild xpac, new dungeons, not yet decided which new raid to add
Clarification on the road to level 40 (Spoiler: it won’t be all 10 levels available at once)
Possibility of a future megaserver setup, not the same as LotRO‘s consolidation

LotRO Highlights:

Race changes pretty far along, sooner now that Shelob raid is live
Server transfers: Decommissioned servers need the database update first so returning players can restore their stranded characters, live-to-live transfers need policy decisions and implementation to avoid misuse
Rohan housing will have new hookpoints to allow for mounts to be displayed, decisions not yet final as to just inside the stables or also outside in corral structures, possibility of hitching posts, not whole pastures to roam
Gondor content will be doled out piecemeal on the Legendary Servers, not jumping from Helm’s Deep to Mordor
New carry-alls are coming, instrument gig bags getting more testing now that the raid is live
Legendary Item updates, shorter-term ease to acquire Scrolls of Empowerment (adding to endgame content), longer-term essence-style system in the works, still early days in development, subject to change
Possibly a good chance on the next race being the river-Hobbits, possibly new classes for them not available to current Hobbits
New content coming, one set for endgame, the other called Missions that will allow lower-level players to visit higher-level areas
War of the Three Peaks is NOT the three mountains from Khazad-dûm but rather one mountain with three peaks, most likely Mount Gundabad
Possibility of a new kind of Legendary Server, more likely limited-time event servers like DDO‘s Hardcore League
Wedding of Aragorn and Arwen intended to be a yearly anniversary event, other festivals/events may shift or merge to accommodate it
Legacy of Durin and the Trials of the Dwarves is a single title, not two separate content updates
Severlin is playing a warden to gauge player comments about their shortcomings as tanks

Many thanks to the folks at Standing Stone Games and to Ciccolini himself for the interview!

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Jean "Druidsfire" Prior

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Jean got her start writing for a SWTOR fansite, then progressed to writing for an internationally known MMO press site. Her red pen has been far too idle, and thus she now accepts the responsibility for editing here. All your grammar and tone corrections are belong to her.

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