GO: I've played it a bit, you know, I haven't played up to a level 50 character yet, but as I've worked through the books, I notice a lot of attention to...I'm not a canonical expert, but...

JS: You're not a lorkie.

GO: Definitely not a lorkie. But as I'm going through, some of it seems extremely...the fidelity to the books is higher than I'd expected. Given the amount of content you're juggling, obviously a lot of it has to be manufactured to fit the game since it's got to be a game first and foremost. What's the vetting process you use to put all that in and yet maintain a distinctive Tolkien flavor?

JS: It's a couple layers of things. First of all, we make sure that anything we're literally doing, whether it's from the books, whether it's a character, whether it's Gandalf, whether it's the Shire, or anything that's specifically described in the books, if we're going to represent it in the game, we make really sure that we've read everything we possibly can that Tolkien wrote to understand what his intent was. In some cases it's very explicit, so that's why Gandalf tends to look like Gandalf in every game, movie, and play, whereas some other characters are a little less well described.

For things that were explicitly described, we make sure that we satisfy that description to the best of our capabilities. We also make sure that if it's anything iconic, takes a look at it and makes sure it feels right to them.