And we have a lot of younger guys coming in, newer guys coming in, who don't know the classics -- and the challenge for them is saying, "Go read the classics! Go play System Shock 1 or 2, or go play Deus Ex. Go play these classics." But then let's take the lessons we learn from those things, and bring them into the modern day.

Of course, it all takes a nosedive. Bloodlines' degradation into incessant hack-and-slash is well documented, but I do wonder if those who haven't experienced the final sections understand quite how tedious they are…Sadly, the complete dissolution of the early intricacy and intelligence will always remain. There's no patch for the game design.

Strangely enough, one of our primary concerns is inflation. It is much better to keep a dynamic economy where the price of items fluctuates with their demand than flooding the marketing with too much cash… you might think this would let everyone afford everything, but what it actually does is just make everything more expensive.

As with any encounter or area, our goal would be to stay true to the source material. The LOTR trilogy gives us ample material to base this area on.