The Road to Mordor: Could Lord of the Rings Online end in 2014?

[Korrigan]

What makes me worried is what they will eventually do with the game if we ever reach Mordor. Since one can actually already kind of "farm" Saruman for phat lewt, what will happen with poor old Sauron? Will a bunch of Hobbits be able to climb the tower and poke him in the eye with their toothpick sized swords?

[maartena]

Ever got annoyed at your cable/satellite operator because they dropped a TV station you like because the carrier and TV station owner couldn't agree to terms?

This is more or less the same. These kinds of contracts are usually not negotiated until the very last minute, so we probably won't hear much about it until the last quarter of 2014, and even then we may not hear anything until Decemeber 31st.

Lotro is a huge cash cow for Turbine, it is one of the best F2P MMO's out there, and the Turbine point system generates a lot of money from subscribers and F2P players alike.

In the end it comes down to money. If in 2014 they make MORE money then what it would cost to renew the contract + all other operating/business expenses, ergo: they make a profit, then you'll see the contract renewed. If at that time the amount of subscribers have dropped substantially, they may re-assess the validity of Lotro from a financial point of view. This is exactly why a contract was made with a 3-year extension, it will all depend how many active players there still are by the end of 2014.

Obviously, by 2014 they will have the entire storyline, and we'll all get to be level 100 or so.... bigger question then is what kind of content will we see after that? Could they branch out beyond the original story line and do new things? There are no written Tolkien stories after the Return of the King after all.

I also feel that level 100 is probably the max any MMO should strive to have, after that you can release content packs and change the game by introducing new races and classes, but there is really no point in leveling beyond a level 100.

[manstan]

"I've been here since the beginning thanks. And as an officer of a kin I've seen new members go from L20 to cap in a matter of weeks not the years it took me in the days before Solo-Lotro. This is a game designed to get people to cap as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. That it can then sell people like you XP Limiters and make you feel it is a good thing is funny." Kongas

Where did you get the idea I thought XP raining from the sky so I have to buy an XPdisabler to not rocket past the level of the area I am at, was a good thing?
Have you not read my tirades about the way XP just flows in this game.

And it's rather a ludicrous notion to think getting people to end game as fast as possible is at all profitable. The longer it takes to get there, the long people are playing the game, the more money they spend. Seems getting players there as fast as possible is just costing them sales.

Know what happens when I get to end game? I go find something else to play.


Neumi, got you beat lol I've been playing video games since pong, and pinball before that so figure 40 years.

My play time is weather dependent. If it rains all day I can play all day, other wise I have work to do. But I do log in daily if to just get the throw away door prize. lol

"But there are a lot of other people and opinions out there that are enjoying this game and paying money for it." and rarely if ever post in the forums

mr toad, I alphaed Defiance for Trion. The game was a disaster. The release candidate was unplayable. Yet people were spending $150 on the preorder. It came with one area; you could finish in a day. Yet people are still happily dropping $60-150 on it to play. So people spending money on a game is no measure of it's quality. The one thing that gets me is even after that $150 preorder those people are still going to have to buy the next area. It's a buy to play with micro transactions to continue to play. I personally expect the game to be dead before the release of the second area. But humans never stop amazing me. People will pay for garbage as long as it is published by a AAA game company. {and this is why you couldn't pay me to play Rift}

And there is a big difference between working hard and producing quality content. I'm just in the misty mountains and I can already see the drop in the quality of the quests.

And I'm not saying LOTRO is that bad, it just seems rough and lacking in the development you would expect from a AAA company.

Thorwyn99 my list of games could fill a page. lol


Mysterion I read those in the forum yet have had no issue logging in. The day of U11 was the only time I have had issues. So no the game is not broke all the time. In fact for me it is extremely rarely broke. As I have said before if it was a game issue everyone would have it. As it stands it only effects a few people, the thing to do is find out what those few people have in common. Could be their ISP, could be their set up, could be their security, but we'll never know because those people complaining never give that info. Which is the info needed to solve the issue.



Zippy10521 I agree and have said as much. If LOTRO wants to live past mordor they will have to revamp it and start after the end of the last book.

[Frisco]

The only thing i have seen on a regular basis on these forums are posters who twist official posts to the point of them being not even remotely close to what was said in an effort to cause further chaos and unrest in the community. Often times going to the point of outright stupidity in the case of the last double point complaint fiasco to accusing them of trying to addict children to gambling because of the the chest bonuses while merrily avoiding the fact that their festivals involve the consumption of alcohol, some of their quests and crafting involving the growing of pipe tobacco (A tobacco that to this day seems more like MJ then anything else), the slaughter of innocent animals and outright vigilantism.

Not that it's very relevant to the thread, but I hope you're not seriously suggesting that simulated smoking of pipeweed or simulated drinking of alcohol are going to get someone as addicted as *actual* gambling.

MMOs exist because of addiction. Adding actual gambling (Hobbit Presents) is going to be much more enabling than watching a character drink alcohol or smoke, since those are actual physical addictions.

[dannypl]

I fear we are in the end-game. The 'let's fix what isn't broken' revamp smells like a last throw of the dice to increase profitability to the point that will convince Warner accountants to extend the license without incurring the cost of major new development. hence no skirmishes, no raids, no instance clusters. Tweaking the game engine to make it just like other games is cheaper than developing new content. Maybe i'm just both jaded, deeply disappointed with the quality (if indeed that is the word i'm looking for, and it's not) of wildermore and dismayed at Turbine's determination to charge us for nothing more than a Helms Deep quest pack (remember FTP get the landscape, game mechanic changes and epic quest line free).

I think they know that Elder Scrolls and others are going to kill them. The old engine can't compete against the newer technology or the resources new games have thrown at them.

I'm a big, big LOTRO fan having played it for years and spent freely on TP. I want it to continue and succeed but LOTRO isn't a charity. If they are unwilling to deliver to their old standards or match the new standards of their competitors then I'll be reluctantly out the door. And no one can pretend that anything they have offered since, well moria and mirkwood, comes close to matching those standards.

+rep

Although I disagree with your assumption that elder scrolls will kill LOTRO. Many MMO's have come out since and players have all said it would kill LOTRO but low and behold it's still around.

However since ROI I do feel like turbine has been decreasing the quality and quantity of expansions and content, while at the same time asking the same price, or more as their better expansions like moria and mirkwood.

[manstan]

"MMOs exist because of addiction." Frisco

Say what? I think that needs an explanation. Some people may become addicted to MMOs, or games in general. But what you are saying there is like saying alcohol was invented by alcoholics. MMOs exist because of table top social games, not because of gaming addictions.

And once again I will point out that the random door prize is not gambling. If you can't lose you aren't gambling. Simple as that.

I would like to intro some folks to a word "desensitization". It goes on consistently in games and TV. Once you except something mentally, it's a short step to physically. Do you think watching a generation of TV smoking didn't encourage people to smoke? If smoking and drinking in a game is acceptable it must be ok in reality, right? If every one on TV uses violence to solve issues, violence must be an acceptable problem solving tool.

And just to poke fun at something already brought up

[TheMadCat]

Oh i am 100% with you on this, and i would have hoped that Turbine looked at what happened to SWG when they decided to start this "major class revamp"

To be fair this isn't going to be anywhere near as radical and game changing as the NGE was for SWG, even knowing how little we know about Turbines plans. They're not going to gut 3/4 of the classes nor are they going to replace a deep, intricate, and well loved skill system in exchange for generic linear progression. It's replacing what is more or less a skill tree with very basic customization in the trait system with an actual skill tree, perhaps with very basic customization and pruning some of the more redundant, obsolete, and/or unused skills.

I'm actually expecting the revamp to be quite tame, especially when compared to the unholy abomination that was the NGE.

[Kongas]

To be fair this isn't going to be anywhere near as radical and game changing as the NGE was for SWG, even knowing how little we know about Turbines plans. They're not going to gut 3/4 of the classes nor are they going to replace a deep, intricate, and well loved skill system in exchange for generic linear progression. It's replacing what is more or less a skill tree with very basic customization in the trait system with an actual skill tree, perhaps with very basic customization and pruning some of the more redundant, obsolete, and/or unused skills.

I'm actually expecting the revamp to be quite tame, especially when compared to the unholy abomination that was the NGE.

Unless you are a turbine alt or a tester breaking NDA you have no idea what they are proposing. And a tree structure by its very nature and definition is going to be a massive change. They themselves are saying it is going to be a major revamp.

[cdq1958]

I do have to agree with Edrogar, as an ex Star Wars Galaxies player, SOE are by far worse than WB/Turbine. It still gives me ngemares.

but I still liked SW:G after the NGE debacle.

[TheMadCat]

Unless you are a turbine alt or a tester breaking NDA you have no idea what they are proposing. And a tree structure by its very nature and definition is going to be a massive change. They themselves are saying it is going to be a major revamp.

Of course it's all speculation, it's all any of us here in this thread are doing at the moment whether discussing the state of the license or near future endeavors and expectations of Turbine. Though they have given enough to get an idea on what they're proposing and more then enough to know for a fact it's not going to be anywhere near as game changing as the NGE was, which was kind of the point of my post there.

Still, given how often Turbine has given various classes and mechanics a "major revamp" the phrase has lost a bit of potency with me when coming from Turbine, feels much more like a hype word these days then an actual implication of what's coming. We'll see though.

but I still liked SW:G after the NGE debacle.

God's why? It took away just about everything that was fun, unique, and interesting about the game and kept everything that made it horrible. I understand to each their own but what did you find entertaining in the game post NGE?

[Zombielord]

While the lack of people working on the game is slowly starting to show (RoR instance cluster aka "Wth is this?!" or Wildermore aka "All this grind for *that*?!") I doubt it will all end in 2014.

As much as I wish that a great mmo like lotro would deserve an end as to be worthy of remembrance I fear that it will get "milked" to death and the content to come will be only a shadow of what they were before, until ... well until finally people can't take it anymore and they shut down the server for good.

I really hope if WB decides this game isn't worth it and they plan to shut down the server, lotro will end with a bang.

[cdq1958]

Of course it's all speculation, it's all any of us here in this thread are doing at the moment whether discussing the state of the license or near future endeavors and expectations of Turbine. Though they have given enough to get an idea on what they're proposing and more then enough to know for a fact it's not going to be anywhere near as game changing as the NGE was, which was kind of the point of my post there.

Still, given how often Turbine has given various classes and mechanics a "major revamp" the phrase has lost a bit of potency with me when coming from Turbine, feels much more like a hype word these days then an actual implication of what's coming. We'll see though.



God's why? It took away just about everything that was fun, unique, and interesting about the game and kept everything that made it horrible. I understand to each their own but what did you find entertaining in the game post NGE?

I had a virtual business in SW:G. The NGE changed that somewhat, but didn't kill it. I loved being a trader. I hated having to do combat to level, though. A level 1 trader couldn't continue harvesting on Mustafar, let us say.

[Nymphonic]

I do have to agree with Edrogar, as an ex Star Wars Galaxies player, SOE are by far worse than WB/Turbine. It still gives me ngemares.

Oh man, tell me about it. I'll never forget the evening I logged on SWG and could not believe my eyes. I still have ngemares about that too.

I had a Master Ranger,Pistoleer that had a safari business taking jedi out on hunting trips and in one day *poof!* it was gone. I have no clue how many players left but it could not have been pretty.

[NukeTheLag]

The license renewal forces the issue on what to do with the game. There are signs that the game is on it's last legs. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. But to the extent the suits are trying to measure whether it makes sense to continue with the game given projected revenues, the most logical time to decide this question is sometime next year when they have to decide whether to pay Saul Zaentz oodles of money to exercise the option. Of course, I don't think anyone knows how much of the option requires a lump sum versus a percentage of profit. But generally there's at least some money up front, especially if anyone knows anything about Saul Zaentz. (Among other things, he's the guy who sued John Fogerty for plagiarizing . . . John Fogerty). The option renewal will almost certainly force the bean counters to make a tough call earlier than they would if there were no IP issues. On the other hand, if they do renew, the game is pretty much guaranteed to be around until 2017 for the same reason.

Right now the game really reeks of squeezing as much as they can out of it and who cares how many people leave over this. So if I had to bet, I'd say there's a 50/50 shot that the license won't be renewed and the plug is pulled sometime next year.

[Lohi]

The reason I think Elder Scrolls represents a bigger threat is that it is a long-established and popular game world AND crucially (unlike say Neverwinter) it is being delivered by the people who have made this world for the last 20 years.

I'm a bit dubious because it isn't Bethesda doing this directly. Bethesda's style is also not the type to be a successful MMO, they are big on the sandbox games and TESO won't be a sandbox game.

Also, if Bethesda really is doing this and I'm wrong, they are still known for being very buggy but they get away with it because of the really extensive modding community. There has been some hate built up against them at times, but that's true with all gaming companies if you check the forums. For instance there was some nasty talk after they introduced the paid DLC for horse armor; very cheap, completely optional, but some of the players just went rabid about evil cash grabs.

[Kongas]

Still, given how often Turbine has given various classes and mechanics a "major revamp" the phrase has lost a bit of potency with me when coming from Turbine, feels much more like a hype word these days then an actual implication of what's coming. We'll see though.

They mercilessly screw over classes - Wardens being a recent and hunters being a perpetual example - all the time. It's 'let's try this and see what happens' and then spend months patching stuff back together. They use us as paying beta testers for any changes they make all the time. This is 'not broke, no need to fix' stuff.

[Edrogar]

very cheap, completely optional, but some of the players just went rabid about evil cash grabs.

Sounds familiar

[Edrogar]

There are signs that the game is on it's last legs.

I'd have to disagree there. Granted the game is not as popular as it once was, but that's not a sign of the game being on it's last legs. Games have continued to run for years with only a fraction of our playerbase, UO being a prime example; 16yrs on, they only had a fraction of our current playebase to start with and they have less content added over each year than we do, they're still running.

What you, i or an other player view as last legs is generally nowhere near last legs, a game will run as long as it is financially sound to do so, that means more money coming in than money going out, so as long as that keeps happening then we're ok.

[Edrogar]

but I still liked SW:G after the NGE debacle.

I did too, but not right away, it took a few months for them to get the game back on track.

God's why? It took away just about everything that was fun, unique, and interesting about the game and kept everything that made it horrible. I understand to each their own but what did you find entertaining in the game post NGE?

Because eventually it WAS good and fun. Yes, there was such a dramatic change to start with and so much was removed (i totally agree when they first released nGe that it was awful and they had ruined the game), but over time, after a few months they actually began re-adding things that were lost and fixing the stupid combat system, eventually they had worked so hard on it that it turned out to be pretty close to the original but with a condensed set of classes with skill trees. The problem was that by that time they had lost so many players who felt as if they had had their lives torn to shreds and those who left refused to come back even to try it after they had returned it to being a great game.

I had a virtual business in SW:G. The NGE changed that somewhat, but didn't kill it. I loved being a trader. I hated having to do combat to level, though. A level 1 trader couldn't continue harvesting on Mustafar, let us say.

Aye that was my one main gripe with nGE the way they made traders a class you had to level in combat yet had no combat skills.

Oh man, tell me about it. I'll never forget the evening I logged on SWG and could not believe my eyes. I still have ngemares about that too.

I had a Master Ranger,Pistoleer that had a safari business taking jedi out on hunting trips and in one day *poof!* it was gone. I have no clue how many players left but it could not have been pretty.

It was a huge chunk of the player base, fortunately it wasn't for long, a few months on and they had worked on the game enough to make it fun and playable again and a lot of those players returned, not enough though, if only the diehards had given it a chance a few months after nGe hit, it might not be gone now.

[Edrogar]

hence no skirmishes, no raids, no instance clusters.

There was an instance cluster with rohan, wildermore was in between content, they tried something different with it, i didn't find it amazing, but i certainly don't think of it as a failure, i kind of like the hytbold style daily quests.

and dismayed at Turbine's determination to charge us for nothing more than a Helms Deep quest pack (remember FTP get the landscape, game mechanic changes and epic quest line free).

Have i missed something here? I'm sure i read, in the first announcement, that the whole thing was centered around a huge scale-able instance.

[Neumi]

I enjoyed the story of TOR but i still wish they'd have made Kotor3 instead. Once the story was over it was really boring imo though.

What you'd probably need is a sandbox game, very few of those around at the moment though. In fact i can't think of one right now but there probably is.

Sandbox can be in a game, the game has not to be built around it. Side activities are considered sandbox aspects, but Lotro misses these, WoW offers a lot more here (although I don't really like it, I just looked into it because my girlfriend likes it).
Lotro is a story based game, but after the story it does not end. After the story (or if one wants already during the story) the grind for equipment begins. And once that is done, we all wait for the next piece of story and new equipment, repeat the same limited content over and over again. I have 3 high levels, 2 of them mains, some chars in mid level range and it's really a bit depressing that all I can do is repeating the same stuff multiple times. So I focus on one and play the low levels once in a while to get some diversion.

[TheMadCat]

They mercilessly screw over classes - Wardens being a recent and hunters being a perpetual example - all the time. It's 'let's try this and see what happens' and then spend months patching stuff back together. They use us as paying beta testers for any changes they make all the time. This is 'not broke, no need to fix' stuff.

Welcome to the wonderful world of MMO's!

At least from my experiences anyway. Galaxies, Age of Conan, EVE, Secret World, and to lesser extents GW2 and Rift all used their player base more or less as Beta Testers after a certain period of time. You kind of have to though as it's impossible to simulate an MMO and how it's going to affect tens of thousands of players simultaneously within a virtual world inside an office or through a small, limited beta process and it gets to a point in every MMO's life, including multimillion subscriber WoW, where a full blown beta process is just to expensive and no longer feasible. Some of the things Turbines released are inexcusable and should have been easily caught and adjusted, but all in all it's just the way seem to work in this genre.

As for the second part of your comment, I don't really think that's fair. They've had their blunders but they've also turned a lot of classes around for the better. Minstrels, RK's, Guardians, and Champs are all in a pretty good place and better then where they were. Lore-Masters and Captains have been hit and miss with more hits, Burgs and Hunters a bit neglected and with some odd design choices but neither are really broken. Wardens, eh.

Because eventually it WAS good and fun. Yes, there was such a dramatic change to start with and so much was removed (i totally agree when they first released nGe that it was awful and they had ruined the game), but over time, after a few months they actually began re-adding things that were lost and fixing the stupid combat system, eventually they had worked so hard on it that it turned out to be pretty close to the original but with a condensed set of classes with skill trees. The problem was that by that time they had lost so many players who felt as if they had had their lives torn to shreds and those who left refused to come back even to try it after they had returned it to being a great game.

As I said, to each their own I guess. I did come back and give it a go a year later for a month and I just found it a shell of it's former self with all the bugs and glitches still there and the lack of content still apparent and the sandbox element faded away. It may have just been me not forgiving SOE for the NGE as I did come in with a pretty biased opinion and the game itself wasn't that bad but yeah, I did find it pretty bad a year later.

[Valamar]

As far as NOT renewing the license from SZC for LOTRO ...

From the 2010 boston.com coverage of the WB purchase of Turbine:

"Acquiring Turbine will give Warner Bros. total control over all future video games based on author J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved Lord of the Rings novels. Turbine holds an exclusive license to make an Internet-based game based on the books, while last year, Warner Bros. won a license to make non-Internet-based Tolkien video games.

"Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, said that control of the Tolkien gaming franchise was just one reason his company was interested in Turbine. Tremblay said that Warner Bros. would work with the Turbine team to develop new online gaming properties. "We will, for sure, in the future expand that platform to much more new product," he said."

http://www.boston.com/business/ticke...bine_sold.html

[Kongas]

There was an instance cluster with rohan, wildermore was in between content, they tried something different with it, i didn't find it amazing, but i certainly don't think of it as a failure, i kind of like the hytbold style daily quests.



Have i missed something here? I'm sure i read, in the first announcement, that the whole thing was centered around a huge scale-able instance.

Not one that seems to involve our characters. Group content is stuff me and my kin can do together, not an open world solo session play instance however epic it may or may not be (and we have been told next to nothing about it. In marketing terms if it was something really awesome they'd be shouting it from the rooftops). But if it turns out to be a bunch of opportunities for me and mine to run missions as our characters and partake in epic open battles as our characters then I will stand corrected. And if it really is just 'roll and level up a soldier' then I'm going to be really disappointed.

And we had to choke the eventual delivery group content for Rohan out of them with our bare hands. They did not originally intend to include it as part of the cost.

My point still stands. Charge me a full game price (and even at basic prices these 'expansions' are premium priced) and I expect it to include skirmishes, instances and raids at point of sale. And call me Mr Unreasonable but i expect it to not then have parts of it withdrawn almost immediately to have blatantly obvious faults fixed.

I don't think we do ourselves any favours with a 'deliver as little as you want, over whatever time period you want and charge as much as you want and don't worry - we'll beta test it for you' attitude.

And if that means WB has to divert money from shareholder dividends and executive pay to meet these expections then this is me. Not crying a river.

[Kongas]

There was an instance cluster with rohan, wildermore was in between content, they tried something different with it

I'm struggling to see what was 'different' about Wildermore. It was nothing more than a bunch of extremely repetitive landscape quests wrapped up in a story that left you holding coats at the climax and offered not one useful reward (including no reward at all at the end) from beginning to end. The chance to grind for a pocket item worse than the ones you already have doesn't count as a 'reward' either.

Well I guess that's 'different' but not in a good sense.