The second thing is, there's so many things Tolkien did describe that it kind of creates a ruleset. If you read everything he's written and you see the world he created, even if he didn't describe the way specifically looks, you know the kind of world that Angmar exists inside of. You have some clues about Angmar from the , you know what the is like, so you create these guidelines. As long as everything you create from your own imagination fits within those rules, then you tend to be fine, because you're building a world that still feels internally consistent.

The third piece that you alluded to is that this is a game, and if we were strictly literal, there's certain things we would never do regardless. But this is a game and it needs to be fun and people need to feel like they're playing an RPG, so.

It's interesting. People always say there's no such thing even slightly related to magic in Middle-earth with the exception of the wizards. And usually what I say is, that's true, except let's look at Elrond and Galadriel and some of the other characters who have the ability to draw on some of the energies in Middle-earth and do things that are magical. So we've created a character for this expansion that's able to do that. Without being trite, you can say Tolkien doesn't describe floaty, fiery, spinning gold rings hovering over people's heads either, but we do that because that's part of the game. In that example, it's how you're able to quickly locate quest-givers.

GO: You promoted Mines of Moria with a few web based mini-games. How did that go?

JS: It went well. We got a tremendous amount of attention and traffic. A lot of people came to the site, which was really the whole point. We wanted players to have fun, but we also just wanted to get lots and lots of people to come to the , so they'd be exposed to the fact that we have this game coming out, and they could learn about the game.