Building An MMO Expansion: Crafting the World of LotRO's Corsairs of Umbar

mmorpg.com:

I’ve always felt that The Lord of the Rings Online is at its best when it’s departing the story of the War of the Ring and telling its own original tales in Middle-earth. Tolkien’s world is rich, varied and full of potential, and as much as I enjoy the narrative told in the books, The Lord of the Rings Online’s potential to tell original stories within Arda always felt compelling. And indeed, from the outset the team has had the chance to flex those creative muscles, from the original Shadows of Angmar stories in Angmar, to the addition of Evendim, or more recently the stories in Northern Rhovanion with the Dwarves’ reclamation of Gundabad.

I’m not sure I’ve been as excited for a new region to join the extensive map of LotRO’s Middle-earth as I am for the arrival of Umbar. It’s a region that was among the first I thought of when Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini teased the “smell of salt water,” and it’s one that has held a place in my mind ever since I read the book. It’s close to Gondor, yet also close to Harad where I’m hoping we see a subtle shift in the sky as we move further south. Longtime LotRO players, much like Aragorn himself, have crossed “many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains,” and now we have the chance to cross into Harad ourselves, “where the stars are strange.”

Last week, we talked about the beginnings of an expansion, from the planning phase to getting the ideas off the ground. But how does the team visualize and build the world itself, especially when building an area with very little written about it compared to some of the more well-trod areas of Middle-earth? In this part of our Building An Expansion interview series, we will explore building Umbar, from concept to replacing