Jeffrey Steefel, the executive producer of Turbine's upcoming MMORPG epic The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, has a pretty lofty goal in mind for the game. In an interview with SPOnG, Steefel revealed that Turbine's intention with the game is to "expand the whole social experience of Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar onto the web."

The in-game map system used in LotRO has been likened by some people to Google Maps. Steefel said that this is all a part of the whole "web expansion" plans Turbine has in mind for LotRO. "Part of [expanding the game's whole social experience] is giving you access to interactive maps, giving you access to a full compendium of Tolkien-knowledge that’s tied into those maps."

This compendium of knowledge (kind of a built-in Tolkien Wiki) can also lead to building social networks within the game. "Imagine that you are roaming around the world and you click a button and it opens up this interactive encyclopedia... and there's hyperlinks inside that to tell you all about characters you're meeting, what's happening in the locality and so on and so forth. From this we can get blogs, player profiles... all this kind of stuff."

So a kind of MySpace with a Tolkien flavor? Sounds pretty cool. The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar is currently slated for an April 24 release in the U.S. For the full interview, click on the "Read" link below.