Introducing the 2013 LOTRO Player Council

[Runesi_EU]

Some pretty pictures

The suggestions and class forums still exist, they haven't disappeared.

[Glumposneak]

The suggestions and class forums still exist, they haven't disappeared.

And I hope they continue to do so.

As I said in my previous posts, at best the council will achieve nothing (but waste its members time).

But at worst, and I hope it doesn't happen and it may well not, they will use the council as a way of restricting whats posted on the forum. The council is new, Turbine could turn round in a months time and say that all suggestions have to go through coouncil members and not the forums.

I'm not saying they will, but it wil be a sad day for Lotro if they did, and the council being so new, we don't know for sure they wont.

And again as I've said previously, if they don't, whats the point of having a suggestion section if it's going to be ignored by Turbine, and if its not being ignored, whats the point of having a council, catch 22.

And their post may contain "pretty pictures" but they do show exactly whats wrong with the council

[Nyrion]

And I hope they continue to do so.

As I said in my previous posts, at best the council will achieve nothing (but waste its members time).

But at worst, and I hope it doesn't happen and it may well not, they will use the council as a way of restricting whats posted on the forum. The council is new, Turbine could turn round in a months time and say that all suggestions have to go through coouncil members and not the forums.

I'm not saying they will, but it wil be a sad day for Lotro if they did, and the council being so new, we don't know for sure they wont.

And again as I've said previously, if they don't, whats the point of having a suggestion section if it's going to be ignored by Turbine, and if its not being ignored, whats the point of having a council, catch 22.

And their post may contain "pretty pictures" but they do show exactly whats wrong with the council

Er, no. The best the council could achieve is to give key feedback on proposed changes and additions to the game *before* the Alpha period. This is important because currently the earliest we get to air in is Palantir, or when the stuff is already coded into the game. The earlier we can give feedback, the greater the potential for alterations.

[Catburg]

So in other words, the CM's are doing Turbines job for them but without being paid?

Win win for Turbine

Of course they are. If you like it's the arm of volunteers who do stuff for free where there are not the company resources to do so. Whether there "should" be more resources to do so is an entirely seperate issue. Maybe there isn't the money in the pot, any pot, PR or research or whichever pot is funding the PC set up. Fans are certainly putting in many hours of their own time on blogs, building kins and making their own websites why shouldn't they want to put in their own hours to help communicate player issues? Nobody is forced to join the PC and give up their time.

[Glumposneak]

Er, no. The best the council could achieve is to give key feedback on proposed changes and additions to the game *before* the Alpha period. This is important because currently the earliest we get to air in is Palantir, or when the stuff is already coded into the game. The earlier we can give feedback, the greater the potential for alterations.

And this cant be done in the forums, say responding to dev chat or the suggestion sections because?

The problem is, as shown by those pretty pics is that the council members no matter how sinceer they are, many of them will be swayed by what they like most. Not what most players necessarily want.

And again, all the feedback the council get from players will be exactly the same feedback already on the forums.

More raids
More solo
new PVP
etc etc etc etc

[Glumposneak]

Of course they are. If you like it's the arm of volunteers who do stuff for free where there are not the company resources to do so. Whether there "should" be more resources to do so is an entirely seperate issue. Maybe there isn't the money in the pot, any pot, PR or research or whichever pot is funding the PC set up. Fans are certainly putting in many hours of their own time on blogs, building kins and making their own websites why shouldn't they want to put in their own hours to help communicate player issues? Nobody is forced to join the PC and give up their time.

There's a huge difference of course between someone setting up a fan site or whatever and someone doing Turbines job for free when they are owned by a company with the financial might that Warner Bros have.

Still as you say if people want to volunteer, that's their choice, at the same time those people need to realise most people I have spoken to don't think the council has any merit at all and is nothing more than a PR stunt.

And when the council members and the few that support it think it will really really make a difference, criticising those of us who don't think it will, isn't helping at all (not aiming that at you)

I have gone out of my way to say I wish the council members all the best and I hope I'm proven 100% wrong.

I have gone to great length in some of my above posts to show exactly why I think the council wont work and how common sense shows that to be true, No one has yet commented on those points I raised.

[Mandli]

And this cant be done in the forums, say responding to dev chat or the suggestion sections because?

The problem is, as shown by those pretty pics is that the council members no matter how sinceer they are, many of them will be swayed by what they like most. Not what most players necessarily want.

And again, all the feedback the council get from players will be exactly the same feedback already on the forums.

More raids
More solo
new PVP
etc etc etc etc

There is a difference between a suggestions box and a sounding board. The forums are a suggestions box. The council is a sounding board that Turbine can bounce ideas off, before they are set in stone. Neither will ever become the driving force behind Turbine development, but both should be useful in their own way.

IMHO

[monk_tbd]

And this cant be done in the forums, say responding to dev chat or the suggestion sections because?

Because you cannot have the whole forum to be under an NDA.

Turbine will not come publicly with pre-alpha stage ideas of what to add to the game.

Once a feature got decided on and development/programming resources have been spent it is a tough decision to take those features out again.

This is - in my eyes - what the council is for: To supply Turbine with focused feedback about features that have not been implemented yet.

The council will not be able to decide or likely even be asked feedback about which mechanic a certain raid boss should follow and whether the group make-up needs to be like this or that to achieve downing the boss and frankly it should not. The council members are not developers.

However the council members should and hopefully will weigh in on other issues like raid progression, replayability of t2c content (you need some kind of carrot) and whether multi boss raids are important for the game.

In the end Turbine has all the data of what kind of players spend what amount on money on what kind of features.
The player council should hold up a mirror to Turbine to interpret the data properly, like e.g. when it was stated that Hytbolt was such a huge success then my answer is of course it was because:
- only endgame grind available at RoR release
- solo orientated
- easy
- having a nice carrot at the end giving pretty good gear for a solo only experience

This alone makes it clear that it will be a success. But was it interesting and fun? Maybe the first couple of days if at all.

I do not have the highest hopes in the council but I am curious to see what they can achieve. I wonder how the feedback will look like and whether we will ever be able to get feedback like: "hey players, they council was able to keep the pandas out of the game."
So what I mean with that if we will ever be able to get feedback about features that were thought about by the devs but got canned because of council feedback.

In the end the devs have a vision where the game should go and it is their decision only because it is their responsibility that the game is profitable and therefore fun for the majority of players. Decision to shift the players to a certain more casual style are surely not taken lightly but clearly with business aspects in mind. The question now is how much time and money can and should be spent outside of casual?

[Lilywarrior]

Obviously the concerns many of us are having are going over some of your heads. I have made some very simple illustrations so that even Sapience cannot misunderstand us.

Before the idea of a player council, players "collectively" aired complaints via the suggestion forums. Any player could contribute, and every player had the equal joy of being ignored by Turbine.
......

Nobody misunderstands you and your position regarding this particular subject. You are definately not stupid so you too should understand what others are trying to tell you. I believe you do but you have chosen your hammer and that is that as far as you're concerned. But here I am going to stand my ground regarding your phrase "every player had the equal joy of being ignored by Turbine".

I have been a paying customer of Turbine since November 1999. I'm an American and I am a Texan. I have the ability to make myself understood without any problem. I'm as opinionated as they come. I not only post on forums I write letters and I have the common sense to back up what I say with documented facts. I use to read and post on Turbine's forums frequently and more than very often when the MEO (now called LOTRO) development forums openned. Then we moved to France and after LOTRO went live in Europe we had to deal with codemasters. If you want to experience what being ignored is really like then I suggest you start posting on codemaster forums because they are masters of the art. But back to your derogatory declaration towards Turbine and Turbine's employees.

During my time of being a customer of Turbine I have often seen suggestions followed up and acted upon. I have seen the those suggestion in this game. When you play PVP or you craft or ride a horse or use the chests in your house you should thank your lucky stars that Turbine was paying attention to those suggestions that were written up on the suggestion forums in the development forum during the development stage of this game. Because Turbine was going to follow the lore to the letter and there IS NO Free peoples fighting other Free peoples, There is NO any indictions in the books that anyone except the ring wraithes routinely. A Dev wrote once that there would be a formal introduction of horses when Rohan came out. Imagine walking just as the fellowship walked to Moria and remember there were no goats in Moria either. Housing was suggested and fought for because privately owned houses don't dot the landscape in The Fellowship. We suggested and proved our support of a crafting system and that is why there is crafting in the game. The roleplayers suggested and then begged for servers dedicated to roleplay and got them. My experience has been that Turbine will and does take a positive view of suggestions from their customers. Whenever they can they work the players' suggestions into the game. The qualifiers are that the 'suggestion' has a valid data, facts, is support by other players, and that it will not negatively impact the game play of other players. So if you feel your suggestions are being ignored perhaps you should be questioning why you are not addressing them properly to the DEVs. Don't misjudge me and think I am a 'Yes Woman' because I assure you I am not. I will fight for something I want and be frustrated when I don't get it, which in any game happens more often than not. But I also understand that if what I want is going to impact a large group of players who haven't supported the idea then it is simply not going to happen. That is real democracy in action. Let's speak of your misunderstanding of Democracy.

Turbine is not a democracy. Their CEO and other officers are not voted into office nor are their employees. You can 'vote' with your money, sure. I do too. I am pretty sure that when I decided I wasn't going to ever buy any more dell products ever they wept all the way to the bank that day and every day since. Right? The big thing though is that since I have 'voted' with my money regarding Dell I never think about them anymore and they have no impact at all on my life. That is what your money 'vote' achieves, you get peace of mind. But in a game that serves people all around the world, voting with your $$$ is going to get you nowhere if your suggestions are not supported by facts and a large majority of active players.

Have a nice day. It's spring at last!

[Glumposneak]

Because you cannot have the whole forum to be under an NDA.

Turbine will not come publicly with pre-alpha stage ideas of what to add to the game.

Once a feature got decided on and development/programming resources have been spent it is a tough decision to take those features out again.

This is - in my eyes - what the council is for: To supply Turbine with focused feedback about features that have not been implemented yet.

While I understand what you are saying, I don't understand how it will work.

You have a smallish number of people on the council who are not allowed due to the NDA to discuss with the rest of us what Turbine are thinking of doing.

if 95% of council members are pro raiding and an idea comes up about where to pour resources, into raids or into solo content, they are going to suggest the raid route.

If 95% of the council members are pro solo and don't like raids, they are going to pick the solo route.

So how can they give focused feedback on what the average player wants, they can only give feedback on what they themselves think, they cant ask us our opinion due to the NDA.

It doesn't matter if all bases are covered by various council members, if they have 5% that love raiding, 5% that love crafting, 5% that are into cosmetics etc, but 50% that love solo or casual play, arent really into crafting, raiding or cosmetics, any time a decision on where to pour resources comes up, if pouring into those areas doesn't take away from the rest, then no problem, but if it does, the majority view on the council will have their opinion listened to, hence decisions become based on what a few people want (the council members) rather than what the players want.

I suppose Turbine could use a different approach and only contact say those council members that are hard core raiders about raiding, only those members into crafting about crafting etc and keep the rest of the council out of those parts of the discussion, but then you end up with a very very small snap shot of opinions and all Lotro players would need to know what council members to contact about what ideas.

I simply dont see how a focus group/council can say "weigh in on issues like raid progression, replayability of t2c content (you need some kind of carrot) and whether multi boss raids are important for the game" if the majority of them have no real experience of doing that content.

Anyway, I'm prepared to eat my words if it does work, I cant see it myself, but good luck to them.

[Gilean-EU]

While I understand what you are saying, I don't understand how it will work.

You have a smallish number of people on the council who are not allowed due to the NDA to discuss with the rest of us what Turbine are thinking of doing.

if 95% of council members are pro raiding and an idea comes up about where to pour resources, into raids or into solo content, they are going to suggest the raid route.

If 95% of the council members are pro solo and don't like raids, they are going to pick the solo route.

So how can they give focused feedback on what the average player wants, they can only give feedback on what they themselves think, they cant ask us our opinion due to the NDA.

It doesn't matter if all bases are covered by various council members, if they have 5% that love raiding, 5% that love crafting, 5% that are into cosmetics etc, but 50% that love solo or casual play, arent really into crafting, raiding or cosmetics, any time a decision on where to pour resources comes up, if pouring into those areas doesn't take away from the rest, then no problem, but if it does, the majority view on the council will have their opinion listened to, hence decisions become based on what a few people want (the council members) rather than what the players want.

I suppose Turbine could use a different approach and only contact say those council members that are hard core raiders about raiding, only those members into crafting about crafting etc and keep the rest of the council out of those parts of the discussion, but then you end up with a very very small snap shot of opinions and all Lotro players would need to know what council members to contact about what ideas.

I simply dont see how a focus group/council can say "weigh in on issues like raid progression, replayability of t2c content (you need some kind of carrot) and whether multi boss raids are important for the game" if the majority of them have no real experience of doing that content.

Anyway, I'm prepared to eat my words if it does work, I cant see it myself, but good luck to them.

I am pretty sure Turbine knows their playerbase, and chose the council members accordingly. For example, how could Player Council represent the playerbase if in reality 10% of players were raiders but 90% of the council members were raiders? Or, if 50% or the player base were crafters but only 5% of the council would be crafters? (I really don't know any numbers, I made them up, but that was an example).

Also I believe that council members don't drive only their own agenda, but we all try to influence however we can so that this game we all love would become even better for EVERYONE.

[Glumposneak]

You have more faith in the picking of members than I do then

Anyway, I've said/given my opinion, all I will be doing is repeating myself now, so I think it's time to bow out.

And again, I wish you all the best and hope you prove me wrong.

[monk_tbd]

It doesn't matter if all bases are covered by various council members, if they have 5% that love raiding, 5% that love crafting, 5% that are into cosmetics etc, but 50% that love solo or casual play, arent really into crafting, raiding or cosmetics, any time a decision on where to pour resources comes up, if pouring into those areas doesn't take away from the rest, then no problem, but if it does, the majority view on the council will have their opinion listened to, hence decisions become based on what a few people want (the council members) rather than what the players want.

I do not think the council members will have the power to decide where to pour resources into.
I think they have a chance to influence on what features within a playstyle the resources should be poured into.

Solo play will be the main focus. So much is clear from the last years and is what the numbers seem show Turbine where most of the money is.
Kinda obvious since almost 100% of the players are playing solo even if it is not what they play for in the end.
But you solo to get to endgame, you play Hytbolt because you want the gear, you do those deeds to get the virtues to cap, etc...
But again here is where the right interpretation of the numbers needs to come in.

I suppose Turbine could use a different approach and only contact say those council members that are hard core raiders about raiding, only those members into crafting about crafting etc and keep the rest of the council out of those parts of the discussion, but then you end up with a very very small snap shot of opinions and all Lotro players would need to know what council members to contact about what ideas.

Maybe they do form subgroups within the council to work on specific tasks. Quite possible if they really look for focused feedback in more detail. If they just want to general feedback from an average portion of the playerbase (and I really guess the council has been picked in that way as only Turbine has the real data of what average means) they could just ask the council as a whole.
I guess it should be a mix of both approaches.

This also beings me to the point of not contacting the council members directly but to post in the suggestions forum.
We all know the main points that always come up in that forum and only a small part of it is actually being put into the game.
Still i think that forum should be the main source for the council to get ideas from.

I simply dont see how a focus group/council can say "weigh in on issues like raid progression, replayability of t2c content (you need some kind of carrot) and whether multi boss raids are important for the game" if the majority of them have no real experience of doing that content.

Why not?
I think I can understand what hardcore raiders want and need (besides the actual mechanics and number crunching of each encounter) on a high level. I do not have the skill and time to try to tackle T2C content on level but i like to group and do T2 6 mans and T1 raids every now and then. But I fully understand the screw ups that came with the Erebor cluster:
- no difference in itemization between T1 and T2/T2C besides the number of runs needed for barter items and the difference is way not in line with the diffference in difficulty i.e. farming T1 is still the faster way to the carrot.
- FA symbols available as T1 drops.
- difficulty of some raids are way too low.

I might have missed a few other things but I can easily understand the above problems without ever thinking of being able to finish a T2C raid on level. I am trying to understand why you have to be a T2C raider and having beat Saruman T2C on level to be able to understand the current problems. If there is something I am missing please let know. And yes I understand the dedication and time investment that is necessary to compete and succeed at such a level. And yes i understand how important players like these are with respect to feedback on combat mechanics and number crunching in general and why I would be very sad if the amount of these players diminishes even further. That is why I pointed to Palantir.

Generally I think having an open mind is the most important thing on being on the council. An open mind to everything and any playstyle in the game.

[Lilka]

So the community has finally sunk as low as posting up someone's character stats as 'proof' their input is not worthy?

I doubt I'll be applying for this in future. It looks like a one-way street to being insulted and ostracised.

[Wartober]

Far as I'm concerned, so long as the guy - zanishi/doppleganger - who apparently called himself for the longest time the "godfather of farming" is on this council, it has zero credibility.

[Nasty8]

I doubt I'll be applying for this in future. It looks like a one-way street to being insulted and ostracised.

Only if you aren't a raider.

Far as I'm concerned, so long as the guy - zanishi/doppleganger - who apparently called himself for the longest time the "godfather of farming" is on this council, it has zero credibility.

Word.

[Landrovas]

Maybe the godfather of farming can offer input on all ways to farm and cheat in order to implement anti farm measures.... Or not ....
Anyhow i think the council will have a feedback and consulting role since probably none is actually a game developer. Like a university council of representatives, they point to the issues, solutions are discussed and then the senate decides.
@gumblesomething: just enumerating 5 extremely vague and general issues (more raids, more pvp etc) you dont offer any feedback. I would advise the council members to be a bit more specific.

[BroadwayBlueshirt]

Well I can't say as I have a particularly good opinion of one of the representatives chosen from my home server. I found their antics during my time in their kinship deplorable. That is mostly irrelevant as I found a kin that understands the term kinship is not synonymous with cult of personality. It is somewhat relevant as I don't believe their desire to be on the council is anything other then self-serving.

In regards to the council over all, I have two words. Legendary Items. Perhaps you lot can convince Turbine what a disservice they have done to the source material with the current system.

[Sapience]

The Following members have been added to the council. Rounding out the full 75.

Landroval

• Cynnabon USA

Estel

• Aestiliath France

Nimrodel

• Stuns USA
• Belraene USA

[Elrantiri]

I've been wondering a bit on how Turbine picked out people for this Council, and reading two of the succesful applications did not help me.

Why do I want to participate in the Player Council?

An introduction:
I am a very active player. I play almost everyday for a couple of hours and on the weekends, usually at least 6 hrs each day. I participate on the Official forums, mostly in the JRR Tolkien sub-forum engaging in riddle threads.

I am very interested in communicating about what a mainly solo player enjoys and/or dislikes about LOTRO. I have been playing since the open beta and have a lot invested in the game and hope to be able to help keep it engaging for folks that like to play solo and duo.
I have some concerns that the latest changes/development in the game have been leaving the more experienced of us feeling like it is just getting “too easy”. I snagged one of those XP disablers as soon as it was available and it has helped to get some challenge back into bringing up a new character, but I have some ideas about it could be much better. I understand that some of the problem has to do with how much experience I have with the game and that new players would not see it the same way I do. I hope I can help come up with ways for us “old-timers” the keep interested in coming back every day and have that feeling of adventure that keeps us playing.

Hoping to hear back from you,

Boraxxe

As much as it's inspiring, the Player Council application page has the following:

If you would like to apply or nominate someone to participate in the LOTRO Player Council, please submit an email to *snip* with the following information:

None of the points below contain the question "Why do I want to participate in the Player Council?", so basically this applicant didn't do as specified for the PC application yet got accepted.
I've seen other accepted applications where "What is your primary play style/focus?" was answered with several answers despite the question is set up for only one answer (or it'd be play styleS/focusES/foci) and yet got accepted. Appearently even press/editorial people were accepted despite they were not supposed to be allowed in.

As much as this is truly nitpicking, I wonder how bad Turbine were at picking people for Player Council or how bad the other applications were if the accepted people didn't even read and/or understand what they were supposed to put in their application.

Also, I'm still waiting for a Evernight Council Member than I have seen in-game.

[Sapience]

This thread is rapidly becoming one very long list of violations of multiple policies.

Before anyone posts again I suggest considering one thing: If your name were on that list would you be spotlessly, unreproachably 'perfect' in the eyes of every last player on your server and in the forums. Not one person could say a single negative thing about you? If that is not true, I suggest you consider what might be posted about you in their situation.

This is also the only comment I'll make about violations. From here out, they'll simply be addressed as per the guidelines and rules known by all.

[Catburg]

Far as I'm concerned, so long as the guy - zanishi/doppleganger - who apparently called himself for the longest time the "godfather of farming" is on this council, it has zero credibility.

Thing is the council is supposed to be representative "of" the community as in mirror the make up of people who play the game. They are not our representatives as in being nicey goody two shoes who listen to all our woes (but I think they should forward links to thought provoking posts). Turbine wants to understand how we as a mass are likely to behave in response to changes and developments. Unfortunately a council can only give a snapshot but is probably a better guess than some of the miss by a mile implimentations we've had in the past.

Not speaking of the person you quoted but just in general, yes, there will be some on the council who won't last long because it wasn't what they expected and they weren't what Turbine expected (or hoped for). Such is life, been there, done that, worked both paid and unpaid with big online communities.

Poor Sapience I hope you like herding cats

[Kril]

Wow, Nimrodel is actually big enough to warrant 4 council members??? I thought we were a fairly small server, I feel sorry now for those servers with only 2 reps...

[Sapience]

Poor Sapience I hope you like herding cats

Beend doing it for almost 5 years now.

Wow, Nimrodel is actually big enough to warrant 4 council members??? I thought we were a fairly small server, I feel sorry now for those servers with only 2 reps...

You misunderstand. Applicants were not approved based on server or populations of a server. They were chosen on their application with 0 consideration given to which server they played on. The fact that we ended up with at least 1 player from each server was simply random chance.

[Glumposneak]

You misunderstand. Applicants were not approved based on server or populations of a server. They were chosen on their application with 0 consideration given to which server they played on. The fact that we ended up with at least 1 player from each server was simply random chance.

Maybe you need to make it clear to the council members?

To quote a thread in the Withywindle server section made by Toffeecake, thread called "Withywindle player council"

Hi Withy!!

I have been selected to join the Player Council for 2013. I would be interested to know of anything that you would like to bring up in the Council. On speaking to some already I have a few ideas of things to bring up to the council - and I know others on the Council will have their own ideas also from their own Servers

If you have any ideas that you would like to have heard please either send me a tell/mail ingame or post a reply here.

I hope I will do Withy proud