Official Discussion: A letter from Kate Paiz 2013

[Sapience]

Hello all!

January has been an exciting month for us on the dev team! We’ve wrapped up our plans for 2013, and I’m very pleased to announce some new big initiatives for LOTRO you can expect in the coming year:

Read the full letter and discuss it here

[Dyslex]

Ya gone done and made it forbidden!

EDIT: Was a Chrome issue. If you can't access it, use Firefox or IE maybe

[Cutedge]

Skill pruning: good. LOTRO has far too many skills for certain classes. Just don't go too overboard.

I wish we could get some more graphical improvements. Specifically on our characters. Animations could be improved (idle animations in LOTRO are kind of meh) but I think what would really help would be redoing the hair. The hair options for characters are very blocking looking. Simply put, hair doesn't look like hair in this game. It looks like something sculpted out of clay.

I'm looking forward to 2013. The rest of Rohan should be awesome.

[Dyslex]

Skill pruning: good. LOTRO has far too many skills for certain classes. Just don't go too overboard.

You can read it? Hm, I keep getting an error page when I click the link :l

[Trobon]

Nice to read what's on the table. I have to say I have a knot in my stomach about the whole player council thing. Other games have done this with their forums and I feel like it creates a lot of politicking and, for lack of a better way to say it, people acting like they are the smartest in the room. I can't say for certain that this is what will happen here. Hell, we don't even know how it will work yet. Still, knot in my stomach.

[ryryq]

Wow, very interested in finding out how the player council works

[Cutedge]

You can read it? Hm, I keep getting an error page when I click the link :l

Yeah it loaded for me correctly in Safari. The background doesn't show up correctly in Chrome for some reason.

The link is weird. It has the trademark symbol in the URL.

Try this link, it has the TM symbol escaped out:
http://www.lotro.com/en/game/article...nline%E2%84%A2

[zalladi]

Player Council - I am very much pleased that Turbine will be increasing Developer-Payer communication, and am interested to see how this is implemented. Definitely a positive system to be creating, and kudos to Turbine for increasing communication.

Wildermore - Seeing this hinted in a video, it is good to have full confirmation this is the small region update. Very excited to see this region, as its scale seemed quite large.

Western Rohan - The way you describe it makes me more eager for the expansion, and it will be good if you can release Western Rohan before the end of the year, but remember, just like Rohan, don't feel rushed to meet the release date and extend it if you need to. The past choice of extending the release date of Riders of Rohan was one that was certainly worth it.

Housing - Good news; I do still wonder why I continue to pay upkeep to my house at the moment, so I am looking forward to these changes, and if possible, can you remove the upkeep and make it more of a mortgage format? So that we pay off a certain amount of upkeep and then we do not have to pay any more?

Class Adjustments - Again, good news, but just hope the changes to gameplay of classes don't change too drastically, but still, a change is needed.


Overall - 2013 is looking to be a good year, and I'm definitely looking forward to each update.

[Farothhen]

That's all?! It's just a short summary of the dev chat!

What about new changes regarding the translation or the game UI? Lot's of errors we reported months ago are still not fixed. I'm fed up with reporting bugs - no one cares about non-english ones.

[Eartholloth]

Well I have to say I am really surprised housing is getting worked on. Now the big question will be what all you be doing in changes. Looking forward to seeing that.

This player council, dont like it so much.

[Nakiami]

Worked once for me, now Forbidden when I went to try and copy and paste it.

[Sapience]

Fixed the link for you guys. It was directing to a secure page instead of the public one. Should be good now.

Nice to read what's on the table. I have to say I have a knot in my stomach about the whole player council thing. Other games have done this with their forums and I feel like it creates a lot of politicking and, for lack of a better way to say it, people acting like they are the smartest in the room. I can't say for certain that this is what will happen here. Hell, we don't even know how it will work yet. Still, knot in my stomach.

We've paid very careful attention to what others have done and where it has and has not worked as well as they'd hoped. We're making every effort to avoid those pitfalls.

I'm am far less worried about the politicking here because I feel the LOTRO community has shown time and time again to be one of the best, and most mature, in the games industry.

[deliguy]

I and my 6 houses /salute you.

[Fredelas]

Here's some feedback:

Player's Council:

Isn't this what the Palantir Private Preview Program is for? Is Turbine not getting enough direct feedback from the community to the developers there? Or will a different set of concerns be addressed?

Western Rohan:

I'm definitely looking forward to this. There's no specific mention of it being an expansion, either. I think it would be an interesting experiment to see if Turbine can release it just as two normal quest packs, with any extra accompanying features being a la carte purchases from the LOTRO Store.

Housing:

In addition to player feedback, this is one area where I think it's appropriate to closely investigate the competitors' options and pick the best aspects of each of them.

Class Adjustments:

I think some simplification would be popular with new players, and help retain them as customers. However, no matter how Turbine implements it, there will be some veteran players who will resist change. Try to use a scalpel and not a wrecking ball.

[silverblade5445]

Housing revamp!! woohoo!!

[Namesse]

Interesting that the next expac (Western Rohan) will be out in the fall, sounds like the world builders have been busy; however, the last installment in Eastern Rohan isn't even out, tho due soon.

Has there been any acknowledgement that players want new instances with an expac? Or at least very soon thereafter, not 3-6 months later? Even if Turbine chooses not to follow that path, players do expect the instances to be included in the expac price.

[lf2536]

Seriously disappointed at this letter, it told us nothing we didn't already know. What is the point if you are not going to give us any real information? I see nothing to get excited about here.

[brasswire12]

link works for me in IE but not in Chrome.

Nothing too exciting. I'm scared/worried about "skill pruning". That's a very vague statement. Who decides which skills "feel disappointing" and should be removed? Can't say I'm a fan of such sweeping changes when the game is about to celebrate it's 6th anniversary. But it seems like this current crop of Devs has already decided that the road ahead is to completely scrap the existing way our characters are built and make them over from scratch using a completely new system.

[Blndiebby25]

The changes and new content sounds very exciting.

Very excited to see what changes to the housing system there will be. I have always liked the housing system but thought is was pretty limited.

New content is always welcome.

Also, can't wait to see what class changes are coming. Pruning of the skills would be a welcome change, there are always skills that I seem to never use but still try to keep them on my bar just in case. LOL

[Fidzy_the_humble]

I may be out of topic... My apologies in advance.

Is there any news about mailbox improvement?
Is there any thinking about cross-server mailing and multiple-items pack (in a single mail) delivery?

[Nallaglor]

In my opinion there should't be too much changes on the skills, because I think the high number of skills we have in LOTRO make the game better than most other MMORPGs. I've played many games where you have very less skills and this is boring...
Moreover you should not worry about the number of skills... You did a nice job by explaining all the skills and the gameplay ingame. LOTRO has one of the best intro/tutorials I've seen and many tooltips which help understanding...
What could be done is to combine some skills, e.g. the hunters skills to search for mobs. I think they should be combined to one skill which effects all kinds of mobs.
But please don't try to make the gameplay less and less challenging just to satisfy players who can't play their class (to exaggerate it a bit^^)

The other changes I'm awaiting curios, most of all the rest of Rohan.

edit: An improvement for the support for German players (for example the ability to copy characters on the Bullroarer or bug-report UI in german) would be nice.

But all in all LOTRO is still the greatest MMORPG I've ever played. Please remain so

[mestoph72]

Okay, so it looks like I'll be cancelling my sub to WoW and coming back to LOTRO full time as a VIP.

I've got lots to do before Spring comes!

[Sabetha]

Very excited about a new Housing system! And, of course, the Rohan expansions. Thanks for the update for those of us who hate Twitter...

[Trobon]

I'm am far less worried about the politicking here because I feel the LOTRO community has shown time and time again to be one of the best, and most mature, in the games industry.

I very much hope you're right about that. I do have some measure of faith in the LotRO community. I just don't want to see it get hurt over something that is supposed to be helping everyone. Its so ironic when that happens to a community. However, as I say, I do have some measure of faith still.

I look forward to seeing how this year plays out. It looks to be interesting for sure.

[Eartholloth]

May I suggest Turbine that with this years expansion, you plan better with the release date so you dont have the problems you did last year. Please start the beta for it earlier with this one then you did with last years.