Matthew J. Fahey 

This is the first farming village I built for East Rohan. Overlooked by the military I had to blend lower tiered dwellings with military fortification. The dayfile and colors were also made by me and I felt this shot captured the mood of the zone and the storm of war on the horizon. This was built before I created the 'frill killer' tech. My only criticism would be to go back and use that tech to add frills along the road and under the fences. The windmill in the background was hand-built by me.

Known as the 'Town Services' guru, I was in charge of building major cities. The Town of Bree was given a re-vamp to which I helped re-design the city layout, interiors and NPC locations. Working with great artists like Mark Lizotte we polished all the old assets and I brought in new deco and general town color. My only criticism is we never had time to fix the oven asset and it does stand out a bit in the space. My generic vendors, living guard and random APR tech are all featured here.

This is one of my interior spaces, The Norcroft Mead-Hall. Building East and West Rohan came with a lot of Mead-hall interiors (over 30 were built). This one is my favorite. I am really proud of the lightning and atmosphere I did here as well as the detail deco work. I was inspired by the quality of interiors seen in Skyrim and wanted to emulate that for our game. I also did a lot of research on Viking/Anglo Saxon Mead-Halls to get the this just right for our players.

Middlemead was a prosperous well-to-do trading city that is starting to see fallout from the war. Working in West Rohan, it was rare to be able to use trees and wooded areas due to it mostly being open plains. I was really happy with the lush frills and tree density. The "frill killer" tech I created was how I could get the frills so close to the road in a natural looking way. Unfortunately this beautiful town gets overrun and eventually burned down in the story of the game.

The edge of the Dunbog zone. This was one of my first camps as a Worldbuilder but I am really proud as to how it turned out. This was the original village of the Dunlendings in the area until it was overrun by Orcs and Trolls. I decided to build it in tiers since the lower region is swampland and bog, hence the Dunlendings would want to build upwards on more sturdy soil. My only criticism is that the shadows on the trees didn't turn out quite right due to a limitation in the engine.

The Isengard Laboratory is one of the raids built for the RoI Expansion. This is the final boss room and followed the story of Sarumon and his attempt to create better soldiers. The Orrery at the top was an idea I came up with and the artists helped make this a realization. It was a chance for me to utilize the rare magic element in the Tolkien universe and create something a bit more fantastical than we are used to. I modeled the room after the old ways people would observe surgeries.

This is the throne room of Sarumon within the Tower of Orthanc. Originally built by Chris Pierson, I inherited the space and re-did a bit of the deco and adjusted the lighting to help create this contrast of warmth and cold. This is a particular interesting space and I really loved the placements of the chandeliers.

Eorlsmead was our first dive into the Rohirrim storyline and is a way to introduce our players to the coming of war. This landscape was meant to be open with very light rolling hills. My favorite part of this shot is the four-story tower, which I hand built from very simple pieces. It was originally meant to only be visual but content was so inspired that they built an entire quest-arc around this tower. Quest content by Joseph Barry.

The Pits is an instance space within Isengard that is tied in with Sarumon running experiments on his ever growing army. This is the first room players see upon entering and I really wanted to play with height and the natural/unnatural balance. I wanted to use a lot of windows and light shafts to have these moments of purity and then use toxic spills and green water to contrast the unnatural of what Sarumon is doing. This space I am very proud of.

This picture is from just outside Edoras. Edoras is one of the more important cities in the story and I was fortunate enough to be tasked with building it. This picture features Meduseld which I also worked on and help polish. In this scene, Theoden and his riders are assembling to ride to Helm's Deep. I am really proud of how this shot turned out especially the Frill Killer tech I created for the road. This shot was taken in beta so the mountain in the background wasn't fixed yet.

This is the town of Scylfig within the Writhendowns. The storyline revolves around a giant Nurzum who carries winter with him wherever he goes. This zone has been covered in snow and the villagers are preparing for his arrival by trying to re-enforce the city. The major task here was using the deco and NPCs to really sell the story. After Nurzum attacks, the village is destroyed, people are flash frozen and giant ice pillars cover the space. Building the destroyed version was a lot of fun.

The Brown Lands was a real challenge for me. My color pallet was extremely limited. I had to work with almost all dark colors, a lot of brown and grey. After working with art and doing a lot of iteration we were able to really bring out the space in a unique way. This was definitely one of the more challenging zones because I really wanted to make this space as exciting and sexy as possible while working with a very limited pallet.

Within the zone of Eorlsmead was the city of Stangard. This was my second ever major city attempt and the first time I built an interior space for every single house that existed within it. The players received this space extremely well and demanded we do this for all future cities and villages. Unfortunately budget and other restrictions would not allow us to keep up with that demand. Stangard was definitely the most daunting and work heavy task I took on. Many weekends and nights!

The fungal wing within the Pits of Isengard. This is where Sarumon has locked his failed experiments underground and threw away the key. I really wanted to utilize the fantastical here, since it is very rare we get to do something this unique. I really wanted to play with bright magical colors like pinks and oranges. This space was completely made with existing assets and actually required no new art. However it was still able to feel extremely unique from the player perspective.

The Lava wing within the Pits of Isengard. This is how far Sarumon is willing to dig for resources when raising his army. I really wanted to tell the story of digging so deep that he hit molten core. This space was definitely a lot of work balancing the playable vs. non-playable space. I really wanted players to feel like they were engulfed around lava and one wrong move would mean certain death. However I still wanted to give players multiple routes to take. I also did the lighting here.

This is the Writhendown zone just outside the town of Scylfig. This was my only winter space so far and I really wanted to do my best to bring it to life. Nurzum is also featured in the shot because the final fight with him takes place on an island of ice created on the lake in this area. The real trick here was get the right conversion of regular Rohan biome to wintery versions (since this was a lush zone until Nurzum arrived)

This is my second picture from the Town of Bree and features an area I re-designed. I picked this shot because it was one of the major flow changes while moving through the space. Players had to loop around to get to this location and I found a quick solution to open up a faster route without requiring too much major structure change. This was before the Frill Killer tech and I would have loved to add more frills and lusher grass to the biome, especially around the roads.

Norcrofts landscape. Part of our job is creating frill files to help bring grass, trees and rocks into a space. This was my first time working with a field of flowers. I was able to find the perfect density and it really made the space pop. I also am happy with how the rolling hills of the Rohan region came out in the background. The landscape is in mid-view and far-view versions for performance. This is just part of our engine.

Cliving is part of the Norcrofts region. This shot really features the inner workings and level of deco I try to put in my spaces. The approach from the perspective of the player is really amazing especially crossing the bridge and water. I do regret that the retaining wall should have been built with a more natural approach especial with the flow and circular design of the fence above it. It feels a bit unnatural. Unfortunately time was against me on this project. Lighting/Dayfile is also mine.