Tell the Community Team - New and Revamped Systems - 4/8/10

Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. The LFF system needs overhaul. It's pretty much impossible to use right now. I think it would be cool to have a way you could post a quest you are looking for and current group could set what roles/levels they are looking for. When a match is found, it automatically sticks a group together. Saves everyone the time of spamming LFF.
2. The inventory system, specifically, more bag space. I currently have a mimimum of 13 slots in my inventory more or less permanently tied up (2 crafting tools not equipped, 2 class items not equipped, Celebrant salves, Aethelas essences, the 4 different kinds of wound pots, hope tokens, food, and my map). Add into this the materials I collect for crafting and I can kill about 10 mobs before my bags are full. Some of these (like the potions) should go in special "belt slots" that can't be used for anything else. Maybe make a special bag for crafting materials too. Also, any bound reputation item or token should not take up inventory space (Skirmish marks, I'm looking at you!!!)

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
Add a skirmish like solider system that could be used in PvE (probably only in instances) so we don't need to spend hours in LFF

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Raiding, primarily because I don't want to grind for radience gear that is inferior to what I already have (BAM! See what I did there?)
2. Story quests after Vol. I, because it is too hard to find anyone that wants to do them (give all those quests the Inspired Greatness buff - please???)

Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Customized and Specialty Bags. The custom bags made by tailors ranging in sizes from 25 slot to say 40 slot. Maybe a special item found in an instance is required for this, like you have for the legendary weapons. The shared bank slot was a great improvement however the additional room was gobbled up by all the coins, tokens, marks etc. that drop from doing Skirmish's. Therefore have a bag that ONLY Skrimish items can go into. Have a bag that ONLY crafting items can go into, etc.

2. Offline Character accessibility. Since they are all on the same account, I would like to be able to look at my other toons to see what they have on them (armor/weapon/jewelry) from any character i am logged into. Even more important would be to at least be able to see what each toon has in their bank. A drop down to select any toon of yours and make it a pop-up like the dressing room to inspect.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
This is a no brainer...Mounted Battle. Not for all classes but the ones that would make more sense (tank classes). Improve the whole combat system so you cant run thru a character, mounted classes could knock you down, trample you etc.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Hobbies- Please expand them and make them useful
2. Festivals - same old, same old.Have some class/race only related activities.

Question 1: I've been playing since Beta and have seen allot positive changes.. There is another one that I am hoping to see soon... I think that it would be a great addition to Lotro, to be able to send multiple attachment emails... Currently, if I want to send 3 items to one of my players, I need to send 3 emails.. Multiple Attachments in one email would allow us to get things mailed out faster so that we could spend more time playing the game.

Now that I think of it.. Instead of having items as BOA (Bind on Acquire). Why not have them BTA (Bind to Account).

Can't think of anything for Question 2 or 3, at this time

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Hobbies. Fishing needs more depth and we need more hobbies.

2. Housing. Needs a good overhaul. Hooks seem very out of date compared to the mechanisms other games use. Public areas should be shared between neighborhoods to add some life to them.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new game-play mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

I really really liked the Asheron's Call Tinkering system. Give mob loot some meaning!

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

1. Being very casual in a family kin, I never get to raid or do the group instances. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of exciting activities.

2. Again being very casual, I never seem to have the time to do festival activities anymore. Drat those time consuming babies!

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Neighboorhoods. They should have events, hobbies, basically a sort of Sim-life where you can have a wife/family to check into every once and a while between raids lol
2. Mounts. Mounted combat anyone?


Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
I would want to see Creeps be able to have their own zone in Mordor to PVE in. Those who choose to quest there will get powerful additions to their class.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Skirmishes
2. Levelling alts
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Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Raids - I'm talking about 24 man raids and such. I think it would be good if you make short raids like an hour or two in length. I haven't done the skirmish raids yet, but I don't have too much time to play in long 5-6 hour stretches.
2. Hobbies - Fishing was good and stuff but I want more stuff to do. Maybe like hunting deer or something or sparring with other people for fun/titles/achievements.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
Random world events where players could jump in an instance and fight against creeps while defending towns. Example, creeps attack Bree, Rivendell, etc. (instanced of course) then freeps would have to join the instance and fight back. Gear, money, etc. could be rewards for winning/losing. Defend an objective, destroy the other team, something along those lines.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Fishing - doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle to try.
2. Raids - as posted earlier, not enough time.

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Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

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1. Crafting. This system has really become over-simplified, and is somewhat boring. To revise it, I would add considerably harder-to-craft recipes, and also add a method of slightly adjusting stats to personalize an item by allowing more free-form in choosing ingredients (ie. adjusting how much of an ingredient is used, or choosing certain ingredients to use). In other words, Dynamic Output recipes.
2. Itemization (specifically: random landscape drops). Itemization has become imbalanced, and one thing which many players seem to really miss from SoA's itemization is the chance for rare and valuable loot to drop from mobs on the landscape. To revise this, I would either: (a) Make random drops of Rare quality or higher comparable to at least instance quality drops; (b) Have random drops on the landscape controlled by a loot-o-matic (random loot system). Also, I would add the chance for Incomparable quality loot to drop.

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Question 2

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If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

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I would add a free-form Relic system (somewhat similar, but not the same as the kind used currently with Legendary Items) to allow crafters to add minor stats to items of the same kind they can craft.

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Question 3

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Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

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1. PvMP. Too much lag and large concentrations of players make it difficult to do much with what time I have here.
2. Raiding. The current method of gating makes it very hard to find a group, and by the time such a group is formed I do not have nearly enough time to really enjoy it.

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. housing add free form placement and give some flexibility to house it self
I've done well and I'd like to expand my house to show off all the cool things I've collected

2. Kinship neighborhoods I'd like to buy a area for my kinship and allow us to fill it up with members and items. so each raid boss drops a token and yard item, house item you could then group up at the kinship house and use the token on the item for a buff of some description. End raid bosses could drop an item that allows a port back to the raid
getting us back to forming up at the kinship house for raids. also a batter npc collect tokens from enough bosses and buy you kinship a crafting station

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

The original 'as advertised' legendary system.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. chicken play
2. raiding the grinding required for rad has slowed down raiding for me

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

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1. Mounts - Introduce a legendary item system for mounts, but with sharply limited features - for instance, a new type of mount relic could possibly be introduced, and mounts would have specific legacies only (mount speed could be a legacy trait, for instance, such that if you bought a slow horse it would only have effectively "Lesser Speed" which could only be raised so high with points). Right now, it might only be speed and hit points, but when you do Rohan you could expand it into combat-related legacies.
2. Skirmishes - Make the actual goals of each skirmish change from run to run. This could mean that you run into Thievery and Mischief and find almost no opposition all the way to the end, but then find that you're trapped at the end and have to defend it against waves of adds, or perhaps you discover someone that you have to escort out through danger, and so on...

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Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

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Well, mounted combat, obviously...

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Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

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Let me predicate this answer by saying that I participate in everything about as much as I really want to. It has nothing to do with time, and everything to do with desire. I simply have no desire to engage in the vast majority of this game's activities, because they are grindy and boring.
1. Raids
2. SG runs

Question 1
1. Multi-output recipes. The ones for the jeweler are great, but I would really like to have multi-output recipes for my tailor. Being able to choose whether I want shoes with +agility or +vitality would be great!
2. I would love to be able to set a crafting queue. Ie, if I want to make 20 medium leather, then 20 planks of yew, then 20 pristine leather, I'd like to be able to queue them up instead of waiting for each one to finish.

Question 2
Custom map markers. I would really like to be able to look at the map and set my own pointer, which would then get an arrow in the radar. I realise that isn't a game-changing mechanic but it really would be handy!

Question 3
1. Hobbies. I don't fish, because it doesn't interest me, but I'd like other hobbies to be available. Someone mentioned gardening, which sounds good. Something like knitting or needlework would be good also, still aimed at purely cosmetic things.
2. Housing. Every house I have looked at tends to be very similar, so I haven't put any time into buying or decorating one. If there were more hobbies related to custom decorations, I definitely would.

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

1. quest chains-- I really HATE it when an npc quest says "go explore X microlocation" and when you turn it in, he/she tells you to run all the way back there to kill the "Big Ol' Baddie". Would it be possible to consolidate these type quests to autoupdate to the next step so that the unnecessary running around is minimized? THere are times that I have limited play time and I really hate wasting the time running back and forth between the quest giver & the quest location. The epic quest lines probably shouldn't do much auto updating because they are supposed to be epic and paint you as part of the larger story.

2. I hate being told that I can't increment a deed skill because I've already progressed as far as I could for the day. I would rather be required to do the skills more times to fiinsh the deed than be told I can't progress in it. Think about harvestings/crafting skills-- crafters arent told that they can't earn any more skill points because they've progressed as far as they can in the crafting/harvesting skill for the day.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
The ability to purchase old quest rewards that you have earned from a special merchant. The artists have done such a great job on all of the textiles they deserve to available for purchase for those that like to put together new cosmetic outfits & may have already discarded or outgrown a previously earned item.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

1. The solo quest instances (like those in Dolven View in Moria). I duo and fellow a lot, but I really enjoy doing the solo quest instances. I can observe what my abilities do / how mobs react to them witohut having other people around to distract me. Although I enjoy the solo skirmishes there's just something about being able to get pulled into the story in those solo quest instances in Moria that is so enjoyable.

2. I enjoy being immersed in the elder lore of Middle Earth. I particularly love the quest lore in Evendim... the Blue Lady, the tombs , etc. Plus, that zone is just gorgeous.

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Item Repairs - Why can any item be repaired anywhere? I can repair a sword at Healer, and a cape at a food vendor? Make this a crafting skill, for starters. High level items can only be repaired so many times, then they have a chance of breaking. I mean, that's just the nature of items!
2. And yes... I'm going to say it too - HOUSING. Customizeable styles, more freedom for decoration placement, anonymous addresses, guard dogs (lol), unique neighbourhoods (instead of 10000 copies of the same one), and for goodness sake, move them closer to major towns - it's not Beverly Hills! And have a commercial area where players can rent stalls to sell their own wares.


Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
Languages/Writing - Why can't my elf develop a Quenya skill? Or a Sindarin ability? and grow in ranks? I would like to write a book, put it on my customizeable bookshelf for other people to read.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Exploring, would like to see more ruins that are expanded for the sake of exploring, archaeological stuff (non-scholar skills).
2. Sitting in an inn, enjoying some in-game music (need more NPC music)



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Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1.
2.

1. Housing. - Free placement, more storage, NO BOA housing items.

2. Hobbies. - I would add 3-5 new hobbies. Writing, collecting, painting, etc.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

To Write in a journal. Then people can buy/exchange what you write in some type of book store (which is like an AH). I think it would be awesome.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1.
2.
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1. Raiding. The trashmobs take way to long for me to even consider going with my new busy schedule.
2. Working on group skirmishes. Even now, its hard to get a group skirmish going.

1a..UI..make all the UI settings PER character not ONE for all!! My farmer doesnt need more light, my lvl 65 sometimes does. My hotkeys for my minstrel are not where I want them for my hunter. Option to use the scroll wheel for skills instead of zoom in/out

1b..Housing..most of what is mentioned in other posts but will add, Make the return home CD a lot shorter, maybe 15 minutes or half hour. One hour is way to long. Put in a horn to summon others to your home.

2..Totally redo the character creation. All races look alike, also the classes. Aions character creation was awesome and no two players looked alike. Different looking weapons and armor would help here also. More realistic looking hair?

3..Fishing..nothing to do here as I done it all....
Crafting..make hi level recipes *bind on account*
Skirmishes..make the marks a bit lower for some cosmetic items. The amount it costs me in repairs in higher lvl skirmishs just to get a *Straw Hat* is a bit much.
4..Drop down menu for hunter ports

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Housing: Allow free placement of items, with a limit per house size (a la SWG housing system)
2. Bags: Allow player-crafted bags that increase the amount of slots within them! Like EQ2 has (24, 32, 40, 48, 56, and 64 slot bags as an example).

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
Mounted combat with an all-new Horselord class which specializes in sword, lance, bow, thrown javelins, and throwing spears.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Raids: They always seem to difficult to form and too to pull off with pickup fellowships.
2. Player-run events. Perhaps make a system that allows players to set up events and advertise them to the server.

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

1. Fishing -- You might get some great ideas from World of Warcraft fishing system. Do some brain storming. Fishing could be much more interesting and more rewarding.

2. Mail system. Enable sending same message to multiple characters. Enable sending multiple items in single message

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

1. Event calendar system for allowing kin members to shedule & sign up for fellowships, parties, raids, etc. Enabling alliance system between kinships. Alliance kinships could sign up for events flagged as alliance events.

2. Enable turning off experience gain so a character can stay on a specific level and fully experience each region if so desired. Also means one kinship character can stay at a specific level and be reserved to train many kin members in specific fellowship instances without leveling out for as long as desired.

3. Develop level controls so you can set a lower level fellowship to a higher level. Example: Great Barrows is for the Level 20's. A group of Level 50's wants to run it on level without each of us starting new characters.

4. Put some mobs that are required for deed grinding into more fellowship instances so grinding can be done gradually over time in group fellowships. Less boring that way.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Hobbies -
2. Fellowships & Raids

Question 1: If you haven't already realized.... housing was mentioned :) . However, i'd like to add a few things to the housing revamp that were or weren't mentioned as of yet. Housing styles for one (exterior coloring), even a single crafting area of the player's choosing. I'd like to have a multi-use farmfield, or an oven that doubles as a forge (already have a scholar's bookcase as a cosmetic item, that could double as a sholar's area). Previous mentionings of fixing the interior also apply. Funny how u can sit in a chair against a wall at a table 10 feet away, huh? lol...

Hobbies would be my next suggestion. I picked my housing area in Erid Luin area because of the immediate access to water. My house even has a stream out back with a tree to stand/sit under. Back when fishing was new, you could find me under that tree fishing my heart out. Now, well..... you get the point.

Question 2: The Epic Book session plays were very entertaining for me. Its why I rolled out a champion. And after doing a session play on the bad side, I found I enjoyed that as well. I'd like to see more of that in-game if possible. There's many a scenerio you could conceive with that type gameplay. I'd however NOT like to see mounted combat until its appropriate. Rohan would be the only area that that style of gameplay should be implemented since Rohan was painted as an open plains type area. Or, if you must, allow mounted combat in open plains areas only.

I'd like to mention another type of game mechanic if I may. Its craft-related. If you find or craft item 'X' and you don't like it/want it. Instead of vendoring/giving it away.... how about creating a craft to break it back down into its base components? FF online has something similar you could adapt to the gameplay. I found it quite enjoyable not knowing what was coming out of the de-crafting (if you will), it lends itself a feeling of suspense and excitement all at the same time :)


Question 3: I stopped enjoying the deed grinding thing. It was enjoyable the first 2-3 times, however since i've moved up to my 7th alt, I find any excuse to 'not' have time to deed deed deed! The other things I seem to miss out on, is due indirectly to the historian profession. More specifically the amount of time spent making potions (wrong animation, by the way. You're mixing things in a bowl, not reading a good book), and the amount of time spent on a farmfield. Because of these, i'll sometimes miss out on other, more entertaining things. :(

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

1.Housing - Making them more useful by making a center area instance for all housing of each racial group for that server (4 centers in all). And have that center area include an Auction House and a crafting area with novice and expert trainers only. You still have to go to special areas for quests and special training.

2.Crafting - Some of the professions are very tough at the tier 1 and 2 levels. Recipes are scarce, vendor ingredients are very expensive and the crafted material are not worth as much as what you bought to make them. I would like to see some standardization so that all professions have access to material and can make a little profit from vendoring gray or white crafted products. Also, some of the tier 2 crafting quests are way out of reach for the level at which most players reach tier 2 proficiency.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

Social/Role Playing areas outside of the general playing area. Another thing you could stick into the center areas for housing. And Grand balls specifically designed for role playing with NPCs with special skill for interacting with player characters.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

1.Crafting - scarce resources and not enough money force me to quest when I would rather be crafting.

2.Crafting(my favorite thing) - I get stuck on a crafting quest I am too low to do and I must quest when I would rather be crafting. :)
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Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. I'll echo what everyone else has said about the housing--I'd really like to see more flexibility in the layouts, particularly where things that should be able to go together (like tables and chairs) can be placed.
2. Deedwork. The endless grinding gets really old, really fast, especially when dealing with multiple toons.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

Mounted combat. At least by the time we get to the Rohan expansion! But then, I'm a die-hard Rohirrim-loving freak so I'm rather biased on that point. (Along with that, I really wouldn't mind if some system similar to the skirmish soldiers could be implemented to customize the horses' appearance and skills somewhat, if that's even possible.)

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Crafting. I'm pathetically behind on pretty much all of my toons on this, as it tends to get put on the back burner for leveling and deed grinding.
2. Hobbies, for pretty much the same reason. Though I'd be more inclined to jump on that if there were more options than just fishing.

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

1.The Housing. With alot of the instances and books quests and all the events we get alot of Housing items. I would like to see an expansion to the number of decorations nodes avaliable in the houses or a Float point system. Using the exsisting system for decoration, but add multiple inputs on one spot with the ability to move the item to a desired spot. Alot of the houses even fully decorated still have lots of room and can look empty. Exsample: A multi output spot would also give players the chance to add chairs around a table instead of here is a table and the chair is over by the wall somewhere.
2.Hobbies! So far we only have the one hobby, Fishing. A possible expantion to this could be a "gaming" hobby ( Cards or Dice ) there could be an NPC in the taverns all across Middle Earth where players can earn A chance title for fun, but also earn chips/tokens that can be traded for consumables or cosmetic gear. Players would buy "chips" used to place bets in the game and awarded chips that can be cashed in for tokens that can be used to barter for Items or can be vendered for money. In addition since "Gaming" is a worldly hobby "Chips" can even be a rare drop from humanoid mobs. This would be a fun diversion from the daily grind.

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be? A trait saving system: Through out the game players have to change there traits and thus change the way there built to suit the situation or the party. Adding a way to save a desired trait built will lessen the time it takes at the Bard to switch traits. This would be an optional system where the bard would ask the player if they wish to save there current traits. Players would beable to name the file that would get save to the Lotro folder.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1.PvMP: I like the pvp, but I would like to use a Morvale (Bat chick) as a playble creep. More importantly being able to play with out it lagging in a crucial battle would be awsome, and newer higher lvl rewards. (PvP specific Armour for both Creeps and Freeps. Darkpower weapons for creeps I.E. creep legendaries only avaliable for the higher teir creeps)
2.Skirmishes: there fun, but improving the control of your soldier would make soloing in the skirmishes flow better. Many a time My helper is off admiring something and not bothering to help in the combat even when prompted.
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I've spent my fair share of time on MMOs (2 years on Guild Wars and 3 on the "unmentionable other"), so here's my $0.02.


Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

**due to the length of my answer, I will restrict myself to one**

1. As many colleagues have stated already in both this thread any many others, housing. The entire neighborhood system needs a major revamp. Most neighborhoods are ending up either 100% filled with locked out houses (because hardly anyone pays upkeep) or 50% filled with locked out houses (because those who don't pay upkeep usually buy only the deluxe homes). In addition to a free-form arrangement system (similar to what Sony has done with Playstation Home), an "upgrade" or "renovation" option would be great. Let all homes in any neighborhood start as say, a tract of land (or a vacant lot), and let the player purchase it. Once the lot is purchased, he or she can "upgrade" to a basic house for a price. Later, if that player desires, he or she can then "renovate" the basic house into a deluxe house for a similar in scale price (to the current prices that is). As for kinship housing, allow for larger tacts of land, and cut the renovation option to just land grant->kin hall upgrade. Setting default permissions to having a home open to the general public instead of locking everyone out would help ease tensions about most neighborhoods being/becoming desolate (just the entry lock--all others such as decor, permissions, upkeep should remain as is). And for those who refuse to pay upkeep, allow X amount of time to pass before the lot returns to the market and that player's belongings go into escrow, where X is the maximum amount of prepaid upkeep allowed (example: current housing allows for 6 weeks upkeep to be paid at a time. Once the house goes into lockout due to lack of payment, allow that same amount of time (6 weeks) to pass to give the player a chance at paying upkeep. If that timeframe passes without a payment, then the house should go back on the market "as is", meaning whatever stage of development it is: basic or deluxe).


Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

I'll have to take a rain check on this one. Both because I can't think of anything and to still try to make up for the wall of text given for question 1 :P

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

**again, due to the length of my answer, I will restrict myself to just one**

1. Raiding. I'm not exactly high enough level to raid myself, but given what I've heard from other players, it seems to be a constant treadmill of getting radiance gear which is predominantly useful only in raids. Again, haven't experienced it myself on LOTRO and what I have is 2nd hand knowledge, but if you're going to have players devote hours and hours of teamwork and heartache (this I do know from experience, after doing 6 armor tiers' worth of raiding in that "unmentionable other" MMO), toss them a freakin' bone and give them slightly overpowered armor. Give them the radiance needed for raiding, and better stats than anything they can find elsewhere (maybe provide a PvMP equivalent as not to force players into raid grinding). To myself (and probably many others), raiding is the pinnacle of the PvE experience and its rewards should attest to it. Also since LOTRO doesn't really have a hardcore, focused and in-depth PvP system (like arenas, battlegrounds, and siege warfare in that "other" mmo, or guild warfare, random team arenas, and general tiered pvp such as whats in Guild Wars), this might be wise to keep a stronger hold on your player base.


By no means do I wish for LOTRO to just copy/paste ideas from other MMOs, but rather take a look at what many out there share and how they can be improved upon. By far, this has been the best MMO I've been on... but that is not to say it is perfect. Nor do I wish for the developers of this game to follow suit of other MMOs and simply "give everybody what they want". This ideology has flat-out ruined MMOs in the past and choked their game's growth (like in ArenaNet's case with Guild Wars where its PvP base started whining about skills being "overpowered" in PvP matches, so a series of nerfs was implemented. This caused skills to be balanced in PvP but underpowered in PvE and its form of "raiding" (this is also what caused me to simply stop playing that game) or with WoW's player base complaining that high-end gear was difficult to attain, and the result was that every boss in the game became essentially a "loot pinata").

To wrap up: devs, listen to the players but don't kowtow to them. Players, be thankful for what the devs are doing to keep the game interesting for you.

</soapbox>

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. Housing. I want what the others have pointed to: a way to make it lived in. As an adjunct to that, public areas in a 'neighborhood' are open and empty: create lotteries where folks win the right to plant a decoration in public just like they do in their house.
You could perhaps make the "Public Decoration Token" an item that could be auctioned off too. Anyone in a kin should be eligible to win a token. Neighborhoods should look lived in too.
2. Cosmetic Clothing: I'd like at least one more "costume tab."

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?
I like the idea of mentoring too. But I'm not sure how to improve over the fellowship mechanic. The best thing I'd ask for is a Much better voice chat system. I can never get mine to work consistently. Maybe I should just figure out Ventrilo, but dang what a chore to take time out from LOTRO to learn that other thing. Voice chat can make teaching easier.
Maybe you could give me the option to scale damage for my 42nd Warden so I'm equal to my buddy's 15th champion.

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Let's make Inns a place people gather other than during the seasonal festivals. How about deeds for new emotes or perhaps games for Tokens that can be spent to boost fellowship maneuvers.
2. I always hear about player run events after the fact, it seems. Maybe that's my problem though. I don't check the forums often enough. But I'd like to join in with some of the events – perhaps a bulletin board in game at various towns and camps. I'd love to see 50 people fishing in Angmar and have a derby for bragging rights.

Dang it that wasn't as brief as I'd hoped.

1a) not sure what system this actually is but. . . since the beginning of the game, items on a toons back do not interact well. my bow pokes through my quiver, swords poke through cloaks. this idea can also been seen anytime a toon rides a horse, especially if sword equipped, the weapons are shredding the horse to bits. it's very unnatural looking and i believe it should be addressed. sort of takes away from the immersion aspect when you can see erroneous things like that.
1b) since my 2 big sore points are excluded. . . i would probably like it if the housing hook system were changed. housing is more cookie cutter than end game gear. i have quite a few hooks in both my personal house and kin house that have been unused since day 1. there are not enough items of the type necessary. and 1 hook should not cover an entire 12 ft wall. instead of using a static hook type system, make it a tile like system. large items take x by y tiles, smaller items take less tiles, etc. why a dormouse is a large wall item i have no clue.

2) with the welcome addition of mounts as skills, i think it would be great to be able to have cosmetic items for horses. sadles, reins (in hand not hands on neck), blankets, armour, etc. these items could be purchasable for blander items and craftable for fancier items.

3) exploring. . . my favorite class and main toon is a hunter. with each new area, i explored well beyond what is strictly necessary to do the quests for that area. exploring, moving in the shadows, creeping around mobs, going where i really shouldn't solo, finding new things and great screenshot locales. with Moria i felt hemmed in. only certain paths are available and those are invariably loaded with mobs forcing a fight. Mirkwood opened it up considerably but the saturation of mobs makes exploring a chore. i avoided Forochel for the longest time. but once i went there it has become one of my favorite zones. open areas, right amount of mobs and some awesome screenshot opportunities. the ice cave in the NE sector near the shore is awesome!

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Question 1

Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.

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1) Housing!
As it stands now, housing is little more than extra storage space. There’s no way to express our personalities with an insert tab A into slot B form of decorating. At the very least remove the hook system and allow us to express ourselves with our decorations. Giving us the ability to save meaningful items in our homes, such as the dagger we’re given at the end of the Mirkwood book quests, would make our homes more meaningful to us. And on a grander scale, adding a system where we could piece different floor plans together and choose different home exteriors would be amazing.

2) Hobbies.
Fishing, much like housing, was a nice first attempt but it’ll never be of much interest unless some real time and effort is put into it. Check out what Blizzard did with WoW’s fishing as a good example of what can be done with such a system. And there needs to be a lot more hobbies other than fishing. Players need something else to do outside of combat oriented content. Housing, fishing and other such activities, if done right, could give players hours and hours of entertainment when they are in need of a break from the hack and slash routine.

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Question 2

If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

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Granted, this isn’t entirely new, but I would very much like to see the dressing room system we currently have for armor/cosmetics expanded to include housing/yard decorations and soldier cosmetics.

There are far too many wallpaper options, flooring options, theme music selections, pieces of furniture and yard decorations at just the standard neighborhood vendors to buy one of everything just to see how it looks. Add to that rep vendors and seasonal vendors and the auction house and trying to find a decent look for our homes, even as limited as our decorating options are, can be overwhelming. Being able to preview all these items would make the game much more enjoyable and certainly less of a pain in the backside.

As for our soldiers, I absolutely refuse to spend precious skirmish tokens on cosmetic items for my soldiers when I have no idea whatsoever what they look like. As far as I’m concerned they could vanish off the vendor tomorrow and I’d never miss them. But give me a preview window and if I like how items look on my soldiers I may well be willing to do some extra skirmishes in order to save up for them.

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Question 3

Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)

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1) Chicken Play. I’ve always liked the idea of giving it a try, and the cloak would certainly be worth it, but I never seem to get around to it.

2) Festivals. I actually do spend a lot of time at the festivals, but I would enjoy spending even more. And adding new events each year, as you have been doing of late, is a great addition to the game. Keep them coming as in my opinion you can’t have too many.

Question 1
Excluding, PvMP, Legendary Items and Radiance gear, what systems do you feel could be expanded or revised? Please list two and give a brief description of how you would revise/expand them.
1. When i played WOW, I enjoyed killing mobs that had a VERRRRRYYYYY rare occurance to drop a specific item - And by very rare - one maybe every 1000 kills - There are no mobs like this in LOTRO.... These items could be housing items that are neat or possibly extremely rare components to crafting... (not like beryl shards but very very rare!!!!)
2. hobbies need to be revisited!!!!! Hunting? poaching? Discovery? some new hobbies!!!

3. (I know I am only asked to list 2 but.... couldn't help it!!!) More Emotes!!!!!!!

Question 2
If you could add an entirely new gameplay mechanic to LOTRO what would it be?

If the gameplay mechanic changed in this game similar to that of what happened in SWG... you can kiss my account good bye!!!

I do not want to see a change to the gameplay mechanic to this game!!!! Even the thought of that angers me!

Question 3
Name two activities in game that you never seem to have enough time to enjoy or would like to spend more time participating in. (Note: Things currently in game, not new activities or events.)
1. Leveling alts.... I am enjoying PVP too much for that!
2. Resource gathering.... again... I enjoy PVP too much HINT HINT Turbine!!!! Mooor moors PLZ!!