Another new dev diary is up (Full article) so make sure you check it out.  Lots of good story info and also ties our role in this area to the rest of the LOTR written world.  I’ll admit I initially thought this was a bit of a stretch, but this diary does make it a good connection, for me at least.  This is from Vastin (new name for me, or maybe I’m just forgetting) and walks through some of the design differences between Mirkwood and Lorien, which points to lots of fun in Mirkwood 😉

Some good insight into their thought process (which seems to be a common thread in these diaries no matter who’s putting them out) lets us know that they’re VERY concerned about the land rush with Mirkwood launches and are trying to make that as smooth as possible.  Also they’re looking into different kinds of quest formats (as the previous Massively article points out in the instances) which is always a good thing.

It was also nice to see them talking about some of the issues they’ve run into as I think that really helps folks understand why what we all consider “easy things to implement” aren’t always so easy.  I wouldn’t have thought of the issues they brought up with a straight-forward storyline, but once it is explained I can totally see how you could end up with multiple developers doing the same thing in different areas, which would be bad for us the players :).

Definitely a good read, but I’ll admit nothing terribly earth shattering from a news standpoint.  This diary is more of an insight on how this region is being developed and the back-story behind it.