What is new in the store, armors?????

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Originally Posted by Ayrolen

Did you actually do any research before making that statement? I'm not in any way supporting Turbine for their decision to put this gear in the store, however, when I went onto Elendilmir's AH to look at gear last night, there was very little in the way of crits on the AH for low to mid-levels. There was a lot of non-crits and maybe one or two crafters who had a few things up. With that said, I think they could have easily found better ways to fix that problem than tossing more stuff in the store.

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More people have asked about data, and earlier in this thread I put up 2 posts with tables with data about Landroval AH (pages 24 and 26, but no comments.

From my data I cannot conclude that there is a shortage in the 11/20 range. There is less critted and more 'regular' crafted stuff, agreed. I am not convinced that regular (instead of critted) stuff cannot do the job. It is at least possible to make a mixed set of armour of regular/critted/drop that can hold its own of getting past level 20.

Past level 20 there is a lot available in the AH on Landroval.


In general:

What I am curious about are 3 things:

1. There was an armour recipe overhaul by Turbine a while ago, where recipes disappeared (when Bree recipe was not already in crafting window), and many crafters were disappointed. I wonder if that might have made making armour less possible/less desirable, in addition to disappointing crafters who made a sport out of collecting all recipes?

2. Is it acceptable that instead of improving the game itself, if there is this 'supposed' shortage of armour, players are hit twice: first for not making enough armour (supposedly) and second for opening the door 'themselves' for armour in the store?

3. Has there been a decrease in crit mats drops from mobs/nodes? Has this driven up the price, leading to it being very unattractive to make critted low level stuff? Can we trust anything in the game to not be 'fixed'? If not, how does that affect enjoyment, if ultimately, 'we' 'fight' against a game that is changed to work 'against' player activity and in favour of the store?

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Originally Posted by Abiyah

There may be a shortage of AH gear, but there's no shortage of available gear in the game for the levels these armor sets are aimed at. Quest rewards and landscape drops abound, and is plenty good enough to get through those levels. That they are offering this type of gear at these levels is just a test-bed, a door-opening move for more and higher level gear. And I truly believe it's a step towards taking available gear out of the game and making it store-only.

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That would be vile. And I mean The-Mouth-of-Sauron-waving-Frodo's-mithril-shirt-under-Gandalf's-nose vile. I personally will not stand for it.

:(

As I stated in a previous post, even though I can craft everything that's craftable, I've yet to find a cape as good as the Bree rep one for melee toons - then there's the Evendim one after that. And free players are always going to go for rep, it's a major source of TP.

Plus there is the Barrow Downs set. Skipped that? Most of the quests in Lonelands reward gear, and the last time I did that area on a lowbie, I found three pieces of gear as good as I could craft from world drops, and a pocket item said lowbie used until 45, because it was outstanding.

Some of the quest reward gear you get in Trestlebridge is sold in the store in a non-statted version because it's so pretty.

In other words, there's all kinds of statted gear out there for low level toons. From your first quests in the Shire, Ered Luin, and Breelands onwards.

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Originally Posted by Abiyah

There may be a shortage of AH gear, but there's no shortage of available gear in the game for the levels these armor sets are aimed at. Quest rewards and landscape drops abound, and is plenty good enough to get through those levels. That they are offering this type of gear at these levels is just a test-bed, a door-opening move for more and higher level gear. And I truly believe it's a step towards taking available gear out of the game and making it store-only.

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This pretty much.

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Originally Posted by Abiyah

There may be a shortage of AH gear, but there's no shortage of available gear in the game for the levels these armor sets are aimed at. Quest rewards and landscape drops abound, and is plenty good enough to get through those levels. That they are offering this type of gear at these levels is just a test-bed, a door-opening move for more and higher level gear. And I truly believe it's a step towards taking available gear out of the game and making it store-only.

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If quest, drop, rep and dungeon gear wasn't sufficient for the 20s level range, and if Turbine wanted an easy solution to this, they could have looked at the gear vendors. Currently, nobody uses them for anything other than a cosmetic piece now and then, because the gear has no stats, except for armour rating. These vendors, and their multiple gear sets, are effectively an unused, and therefore wasted, resource.

Turbine could have simply added stats to the already existing vendor gear. The gear is already there, and so are the vendors placed conveniently in virtually every town until nearly level 50. Using the current vendors and sets would save development time and cost, especially when the players start to "give feedback" about the lack of level 30, 40 or 50 armour. Because they will, won't they?

Mock-seriousness aside, I think it is quite clear that this is not a case of the solution following from the problem statement, but rather of trying to formulate problems whose solution is "The Store." It would be easier if they just said that upfront, instead of trying to create a whole other rationalization for it. People would still be angry, but I think quite significantly less angry, if they just got the cold, hard truth.

Plus, it's easy to tie yourself into knots when trying to find another justification. I, for one, got a good chuckle out of Sapience's response upthread that "No gear is permanent. Characters 'out grow' their gear." So, selling gear is perfectly fine because it's not "permanent," and selling stat tomes and virtues is perfectly fine because they... are? Does not compute.

I don't envy Sapience or anyone else who has to find innovative explanations for decisions that nearly everyone, on both sides, can tell that they are not related to the presumed problem. Unfortunately, their efforts in cases like this are only serving to compound the issue: not only is the player base asked to accept changes that go against the spirit and/or letter of what was declared earlier, but also to accept justifications that don't even hold up to casual scrutiny.

My suggestion? When in doubt, just tell it like it is. "Yes, we are going against what we said. We apologise for that, but we feel we have to, because (a), (b), (c)." It would solve half of Turbine's problem, namely perception. Everyone understands that things change, and that unsavoury things must sometimes be done. Nearly everyone does not like to feel that the other party is trying to slip a fast one past them.

Personally, I think this whole mess we are in now is a real pity - and by "we," I mean both Turbine and the players. Unfortunately, I think the reason is the one that worried me when I first heard Lotro was being developed by Turbine. Turbine who? Sure, they had some experience under their belts. But they were (and still are) a very small company, with a none too encouraging financial history. Too small to effectively market and distribute their products, and too small to be able to develop multiple games in parallel. They had to be bailed out, and the rest is, as the saying goes, history. Too bad.

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Originally Posted by GV-Tanith

That would be vile. And I mean The-Mouth-of-Sauron-waving-Frodo's-mithril-shirt-under-Gandalf's-nose vile. I personally will not stand for it.

:(

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I agree. But to make the point: how do you remove and save relics from an LI now?

I don't buy the theory that low levels had no access to gear. I just took 7 of my lower alts to levels 18-20, plus two brand new chars to 17 each and I had so much ARMOR /WEAPONS drop from just doing my quests line that I had to book it back to town in betw quests, to drop it all off into housing chests for my other chars to pick over and empty out my bags. Honestly, one run on the bandit leader and free Maribel in bree filled up THREE inventory bags with mostly armor and weapons alone. It was ridiculous.

I also was able to buy all my armor/weapons/jewelry.. alot of it purple crafted gear for about 1.5g...the only pcs not found in much quantity were cloaks, shoulders and footwear.


honestly, dont buy that line at all. My thoughts is its just another store gimmick to take impulse buying from new customers who dont know better, do know better but dont care, dont know about AH, dont know about drop rates for gear, dont know how fast they will outgrow it, do but dont care...

blah.

whatever, each to their own. If people want it they will buy it. My only concern is that what is coming down the line are special store only gear that costs 20 us dollars per pc.

guaranteed that will happen. and guaranteed that people will line up to buy it so they can be LEET>


Perhaps the lack of gear on some servers AH is due more to a LACK OF ACTIVE PLAYERS, my AH is mostly abandoned now with only me and maybe two more power sellers working it. Most categories have only one page of listed items now, when it used to be pages and pages a year ago. and frankly crafting anything is a pain in the bottom with so many roadblocks and hassles and bag inventory overload that I dont bother with it anymore even tho I have kindred status in all the guilds.

play the game devs, and for long times not just to test and see how annoying you have made just day to day activities for your players to endure.

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Originally Posted by Abiyah

And I truly believe it's a step towards taking available gear out of the game and making it store-only.

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Heh, I could even see them doing new "re-vamps" to all the low levels areas and quests someday and completely removing the gear rewards so lowbies would have no choice but to buy their gear from the LOTRO Store.

I'm not sure what they'd do about crafted and skirmish gear, but if there's one area in which Turbine seems to be extremely creative, it's in yanking useful stuff out of the game.

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Originally Posted by Celebria

Heh, I could even see them doing new "re-vamps" to all the low levels areas and quests someday and completely removing the gear rewards so lowbies would have no choice but to buy their gear from the LOTRO Store.

I'm not sure what they'd do about crafted and skirmish gear, but if there's one area in which Turbine seems to be extremely creative, it's in yanking useful stuff out of the game.

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C'mon now, that isn't going to happen. It would be way too obvious.

If Turbine were to go back and revamp the zones, I could see them tweaking things so that quest and crafted gear would be only barely sufficient to complete the content (doable, but very difficult), which would naturally lead players to the Store to buy the superior gear available therein. That would make things much easier, and get players used to buying their gear on the Store, so as to avoid the "useless" quest and crafted gear.

Remember, it is all about subtlety.

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Originally Posted by Celebria

Heh, I could even see them doing new "re-vamps" to all the low levels areas and quests someday and completely removing the gear rewards so lowbies would have no choice but to buy their gear from the LOTRO Store.

I'm not sure what they'd do about crafted and skirmish gear, but if there's one area in which Turbine seems to be extremely creative, it's in yanking useful stuff out of the game.

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qft!!! hate to say it but i can see that happening indeed

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Originally Posted by Ayrolen

I do agree that decent gear isn't even necessary for at least levels 1-20. I've survived to level 30 on quest rewards, drops, and non-crit gear, when rolling new characters on different servers where I don't have alts that can craft.

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Even non-crit crafted gear isn't needed to level at all. When I first started 4 years ago, I didn't know anyone or anything about these type of games. I didn't ever buy any crafted gear, but I managed to level just fine using the quest gear. I didn't play very often at first, so I never had any instance gear either. The stuff you get from quests is perfectly good to play through the game.

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Originally Posted by OOWS

Given the overwhelming response to this thread, I would like to know from Turbine or Sapience:

1. If we can get an official response regarding the types of items that will be sold in the store, and if there is any limit to what you will sell?

2. Will you reverse your policy of selling gear with stats on it given that the vast majority of the community (based on this thread) is against it? If not, exactly what role does community feedback play in your decision process if you do not listen to the will of the majority?

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This thread has under 600 posts on it. Even if every single post was against the new items in the store and every person only made one post on the thread, both of which are not true, they would have only heard from a small fraction of the player base. Really having the vocal .001% of the players decide what should and should not be in the game is not a good idea.

A much better way of telling if adding the armor is a good idea is to see how well it sells, based on the prices I personally dont think it will sell well. I personally could care less where a lvl 20 gets their armor from and I am not going to leave a game I enjoy because someone has better armor then me.

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Originally Posted by ThistleRose3

This thread has under 600 posts on it. Even if every single post was against the new items in the store and every person only made one post on the thread, both of which are not true, they would have only heard from a small fraction of the player base. Really having the vocal .001% of the players decide what should and should not be in the game is not a good idea..

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Really? Isn't that what Sapience used as the excuse to put this armour in the store? Player feedback?
I wonder how many posts there were requesting that? I'd bet a whole lot fewer than the posts in this thread. In fact I'd be suprised if it was over 5. It seems ( alleged ) feedback is only worthwhile if it backs up what Turbine plan to include in the store.

Why can't some people see the bigger picture, this isn't about another player being able to buy better armour at level 20, it's about Turbine going back on what they said, and where that leads us. Why should this be the stopping point, anymore than +30 tomes were once where people thought the line would be drawn. Is there anything that indicates to you that this is where Turbine will stop? Not to me. However, there is plenty of previous evidence pointing to this getting much worse.

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Originally Posted by Ellemere

so by now merging multiple threads, not to mention different language threads you have made a coherant and valid feedback thread into a jumbled mess that people will struggle to be able to read and follow.... well done Turbine well done.

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Kind of what they want, isn't it? Hide all complaints because they don't want to hear them. Or rather, WB doesn't.

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Originally Posted by ThistleRose3

This thread has under 600 posts on it. Even if every single post was against the new items in the store and every person only made one post on the thread, both of which are not true, they would have only heard from a small fraction of the player base. Really having the vocal .001% of the players decide what should and should not be in the game is not a good idea.

A much better way of telling if adding the armor is a good idea is to see how well it sells, based on the prices I personally dont think it will sell well. I personally could care less where a lvl 20 gets their armor from and I am not going to leave a game I enjoy because someone has better armor then me.

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I wasn't going to complain about this, because I felt my opinion was already well-represented by everyone else in this thread. But then I saw your post, and decided I would put in my 2 cents, since it'll add to that "small fraction".

This is a rotten idea. It fundamentally overturns a promise Turbine made, and from this point forward, we will never be able to trust anything this company says again. This will snowball into higher more powerful armours until one day the best armour in the game is store-only. We're already at the point where the best LI relics are store-only. It will happen. Trust me. It will happen.

Even Turbine cannot resist the power of The One Ring.

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Originally Posted by ThistleRose3

This thread has under 600 posts on it. Even if every single post was against the new items in the store and every person only made one post on the thread, both of which are not true, they would have only heard from a small fraction of the player base. Really having the vocal .001% of the players decide what should and should not be in the game is not a good idea.

A much better way of telling if adding the armor is a good idea is to see how well it sells, based on the prices I personally dont think it will sell well. I personally could care less where a lvl 20 gets their armor from and I am not going to leave a game I enjoy because someone has better armor then me.

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It's 600 posts, over 25k views, in less than a weekend. Not a week, but a weekend. It's also 600 posts on something they didn't publicly announce in the forum, other than putting the ad up in the LotRO store. The only official attention to it has been to merge 4 different threads in two languages into one.

The players don't decide on anything that goes into the game. All we do is give ideas, opinions, and feedback. Unless of course, you want to count the devs into that .001%.

This isn't Lord of the Rings Online, anymore.

It's Lord of the Cha-chings Online.

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Originally Posted by Ayrolen

Did you actually do any research before making that statement? I'm not in any way supporting Turbine for their decision to put this gear in the store, however, when I went onto Elendilmir's AH to look at gear last night, there was very little in the way of crits on the AH for low to mid-levels. There was a lot of non-crits and maybe one or two crafters who had a few things up. With that said, I think they could have easily found better ways to fix that problem than tossing more stuff in the store.

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As a matter of fact, I did check the AH. In every 20 and lower category, there are at least 2-1/2 pages of gear listed, none of it over 50 silver at most, and in the past hour, I've seen 15 people posting low-level gear in trade as a giveaway.

Really don't think it's an issue, even on the AH. Maybe I have a weird server (this isn't an anomaly, btw, but I did log in to check today).

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Originally Posted by Chanah

As a matter of fact, I did check the AH. In every 20 and lower category, there are at least 2-1/2 pages of gear listed, none of it over 50 silver at most, and in the past hour, I've seen 15 people posting low-level gear in trade as a giveaway.

Really don't think it's an issue, even on the AH. Maybe I have a weird server (this isn't an anomaly, btw, but I did log in to check today).

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Or mayhap you have a server with a few players who decided to fight fire with fire. ;)

I'm still a fan of that approach, or Thordsvin's idea of holding concerts to raise awareness of the issue for those who don't visit the forums. An officer with at least one very prominent socially active kinship has posted in this thread, so that's not impossible by any means.

I've been able to disregard the store up until now; I've used it for storage panels and cosmetics which as far as I know no one has problems with. But I can't ignore it any longer...this is the wrong path for this game.

:(

As a new tailor let me just say I am having a hard time selling my low level crafted armour. Most of the items I post go unsold even when listed for less than 50 silver.

If you really want to help us outfit new players and new characters how about giving us an option to list our items longer than 48 hours on the AH. Like a week or more. That way we can craft up items at all levels without having to spend an hour restocking the AH every other day.

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Originally Posted by Lainalagos

This. Absolutely word perfect.

If I had one wish to make this game better again, it would be to be locked in a conference room with the LoTRO executive team and this post up on the projector for them all to read for hours until they wake up from the $$s daze and truly get it.

Here's one thing - everyone says it doesn't matter about the old customers. But is anyone considering where the new players are coming from? I'd bet if you did a survey a very significant number were 'recruited' by existing fans of the game. How much of that free advertising and revenue stream do you think Turbine are going to have any more?

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Oh, thank you! And you're absolutely right - I'm a lifetime subscriber, but I've brought at least 10 people into this game. They started with F2P & are now almost all VIP (though maybe that's not what Turbine wants?) The lure is always the beauty & accuracy of the setting. F2P just made it easier to try.

For those that say we're *really* bothered by F2P, I'm not. I like the idea. I think it could work. I AM bothered by the store blocking what could be immersive content & game updates. I'm vaguely insulted, and at least disturbed, by such things as 'cut boring deeds in half' and 'up your chance to get an item crit but don't count on it' scrolls, as well as items that should be made by crafters now easily available in the store. (I'm looking at you, super advanced toolkits!) (eta: by which, I mean, I don't think we should be paying for this - I think they should have altered the nature of deeds/crafting on THEIR end. It's their problem if something is mind-numbingly dull, not ours.) I also dislike the somewhat stealthy removal of destiny points, and all items that we used to get in game, but can only buy in the store now. Add that in, too.


again eta-ing to add: Protests... What if we stepped forward on the day of this 'armour in store' launch to offer on all our servers 'cheap/free gear' to lowbies? Don't go to the store, put down that CC, & come to Bree Central, and place your order!

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Originally Posted by ThistleRose3

A much better way of telling if adding the armor is a good idea is to see how well it sells, based on the prices I personally dont think it will sell well.

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The problem with this is that by the time Turbine got data on how well the armour sold, it would already be in the Store. This would set a precedence for any stated gear item that might get added later. "Look, folks, there already is low-level armour in the Store, but it doesn't sell well, so how much can adding mid-level jewellery hurt, really?"

I think it would be much better if the addition of this store-only armour got cancelled due to the player reaction (and I hope that will remain as strong as it has been over the weekend) and there was no excuse to add other stated gear to the Store. It's a question of principle.

Plus the moment this armour turns up in the Store, some people will probably buy it. No matter they reason they buy it and no matter how many buy it, at that point Turbine will have made money that can be directly attributed to the armour and that will make them think that this whole mess wasn't such a bad idea in turns of economic results.

And -as some other people have already pointed out- the way in which this has been handled by Turbine on the forums so far (by making it as confusing and opaque as possible) is not the way I want to be treated by people who want my money. It does not exactly speak of respect towards their customers.

Even if we accept the premise that there is not enough gear in the AH. I cant help but feel this is an issue of Turbine's own making. When they changed the levelling curve they made the levelling to quick at low levels so most players stopped bothering buying armour at low levels as it was outdated in a few hours of game time. Newer players, especially those new to MMOs or those coming from other games where gear matters at lot more than here, will most likely always want to get better gear as and when they level up thinking it is necessary.

Re: Coincidence or Intelligent Design?



A subscription goes for, at most, $15/month. Included in that is 500 "free" tp (it isn't really free; it's been paid for, but that is neither here nor there). This first set of lowbie armor, 3 pieces, is priced at a total of 1040tp. It's stats will last a player no further than level 28 (at which crit-crafted has better stats), but let's say it can be pushed to 30.

Next comes a set of armor for the mid-30s. After that has been put out, complaints will come that there is nothing available (remember Sapience's remark about why this armor is being made available?) between 28-35, so a set of level 30 armor comes out.

Even if they stay with just 3-piece sets, which they won't (what's the sense?), given the amount of time it takes to go from mid-20s to 30 to mid-30s, that's going to be 1040tp or more spent just about every week. At a given price of $10 for 1000tp, that's $40/month. Which do you think they'd prefer? The $15 for a sub, or the $40 for armor? And you know higher level armor will command a higher price.

OK, add in weapons and jewellery. Are we still looking for that dependable income of $15/month when it's possible to make $50-$100 or more per month for that same player? Subscriptions are done away with, gear becomes store only, and the sales model is just fine, because all the old-time players who don't like it are gone, and the new player base will only know that the store is there and that's where the gear is.

I spent over 40 years in a business that depends on trend analysis to survive. I'm a strategic thinker, able to see the big picture. I suck at tactics, all the fill in stuff. But this is what I see as the trend that Turbine is showing us from just the past year, not even since F2P. Hopefully I'm way wrong. I do not want to see it happen in this game, not to this IP. But it is the trend I see, and I'll continue to spell it out until it is definitely proven wrong.

Edit: I'll delete this post from coincidence or intelligent design and move it to the store feedback thread.

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Originally Posted by GV-Tanith

Or mayhap you have a server with a few players who decided to fight fire with fire. ;)

I'm still a fan of that approach, or Thordsvin's idea of holding concerts to raise awareness of the issue for those who don't visit the forums. An officer with at least one very prominent socially active kinship has posted in this thread, so that's not impossible by any means.

I've been able to disregard the store up until now; I've used it for storage panels and cosmetics which as far as I know no one has problems with. But I can't ignore it any longer...this is the wrong path for this game.

:(

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Actually, it's not that odd - small server, very active AH, has been as long as I've been on it, but I've only been playing on this server for a year.

Take heart, I'm an officer in two kins - the RP folks sadly don't care (the 'it doesn't affect me' malaise). That's frustrating. But the other kin is the third largest on the server, kin leader is f2p because he's from a country that Turbine won't take his money, and I'm premium. We've already organised a largely successful boycott of the IF and buying skimishes, and yeah - I'm willing to take this one on, too, for whatever little good it may do.