A letter from Executive Producer Kate Paiz - Looking Ahead to 2014

Such promises ...

More content and "free" for vip!
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Looks like there was a huge drop in subscription lately (Gosh, I wonder why?) and now we're getting mini-instances which probably will provide the armour drops HD should have had.
Carrot on a stick anyone?

Inventory and bag space
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Probably none of these "new" changes will be "free" for vips *giggles*

Festivals
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Add more events? Don't you mean add more grind and convenience via store? Yule festival is the perfect example how you've "improved" festivals.

"take a break from expansions"
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So I guess the rumours 'are' true and you're really shutting down? No money from WB = no money to design new content.



All I'm reading here are vague promises. The only real news seems to be that in 2014 lotro will enter maintainace mode.

An executive producer doesnt even have her own forum account ? Way to go.

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Originally Posted by site400

Head meet Sand.

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I'm giving up on subtlety. Sarcasm/irony/whatever is lost on the internet. Apparently the norm these days is to be literal rather than literate. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Angadan

Easing of the LI grind. Getting way too tedious, when each toon has three (weapon, class item, bridle) to five (dps wpn, tank/heal wpn, dps CI, tank/heal CI, bridle) LIs to keep up with. Even just having a main and couple of alts, that's 10-15 LIs to remake from scratch with new levels. Got old long time ago. Taking time while time is available to reduce the repetitive tedium would be hugely appreciated by many.

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THIS!! OMG THIS! I am so sick of the LI system. It's the one system in LotRO that I truly despise. There is nothing legendary about something that drops like candy everywhere in-game, and which becomes junk after a certain time period. Let us have ONE item that levels with us, but which needs extra ingredients (symbols, crests) to be reforged from level 75 up to level 85, or 85 up to level 95, and so forth. One item that is mine and that I can customize to my heart's content. There has to be a way to monetize this without making us dismantle items that are supposedly legendary.

What about raids?

Housing has been talked to death; the same handful of suggestions has been made over and over since I started playing this game in 2009. It feels kind of silly to be asked to make those same suggestions yet again. If the housing improvement doesn't involve *many* more hooks or an entire revamp of the placement system, I'm not interested. I'm certainly not spending money on mithril for more storage or in-home crafting privileges. Seriously, after all these vague promises to do something about housing, it's time to explain in concrete detail what changes are being worked on and what changes are simply not going to happen.

I'm all for quality over quantity when people are unable to provide both, but since I didn't enjoy Rohan or Wildermore and therefore didn't buy HD, I was really hoping to start moving into Gondor in the hopes that the story might become more interesting again. Then again, if a 2014 Gondor was going to consist of more big battles, bugs, and uninspired errand-running, then maybe it's good to wait. But I'm disappointed that we're stuck in Rohan this long.

At this point I don't see anything in the letter that makes me want to invest.

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Originally Posted by PypeRings

Perhaps it is time to recall an old developer axiom:

Every inconvenience is some player's game play.

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That reminds me of this XKCD cartoon:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/workflow.png

No mention of instances.

No mention of raids.

No mention of skirmishes.

No mention of the future of Epic Battles.

No mention of zone revamps (North Downs, Angmar, Trollshaws, etc.)

No mention of PvP.

No mention of raising levels in 2014 (are we going to be stuck at 95 forever?)

It looks like they are trying to move back to the subscription model or just giving up and running the course until either the servers shut down or we actually make it to Mordor.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Hello!
The year is almost at an end -- and what a year it has been! Our sixth year was a very exciting one for us, and I wanted to take a moment to share some thoughts about 2013, and then, of course, talk about what’s coming up for 2014.

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Thanks for stopping by.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

One thing I had hoped, when penning this letter last year, was that at the end of 2013 I would be able to write about the great changes we’d made to housing. But, as you are aware, we had to delay the bigger housing changes we have been working on to 2014. We had some very good discussions with the Player’s Council about what we should include in the housing revamp and there are a lot of excellent ideas out there. It takes time to develop those ideas into good, fun housing features, and while we could have rushed something out just to say we’d done it, instead we decided to take more time and make more meaningful changes. We will continue our conversation around housing with the Player’s Council, and I look forward to giving you an update later in 2014.

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This is understandable, but disappointing.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

The release of Helm’s Deep was definitely a high point of the year for me! The new Epic Battles system allows us to explore momentous parts of the story and the Class Revamp gives us richer character development in the future. We know the class changes were dramatic, but we feel the game is in a much better state now because of them. Looking forward, balancing the class changes in both PvE and PvMP will be a focus for us, and Update 12.1 will be the first of many updates that address those balance concerns.

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I do like the new zone.

I do not like the class revamps. The whole revamp betrays a lack of creativity and imagination by the systems design team. Because of enforced specialization, my characters are uniformly less fun to play now. The introduction of a "tree" UI for traiting necessarily limits choices from players in customizing their characters. The revamp to threat generation was also unnecessary and destructive. I believe my opinions will be justified when the developers realize how these changes will make balancing the game's difficulty level impossible. If anyone with any influence at Turbine is reading this, please consider revamping the trait system now.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Another set of great moments in the year for me were when I got to meet with members of the Player’s Council and listen to their thoughts. We have a great group that has worked very hard to bring your concerns to our attention, make suggestions and provide invaluable feedback on a number of projects. I really appreciate their perspective and participation, and I thank them very much for sharing their time with us! At our last meeting, I discussed with them a broad outline of our plans for 2014 and I’d like to share that plan with all of you.

“Take a break from expansions”
We’ve heard a lot of you suggest we take a break from the annual expansion cycle, and we agree! We’d like to take the time to revisit some older systems, add more region content, and just generally have more Middle-earth to explore throughout the year. When the Players Council last visited, we asked them what they thought of a year that focused on more content and more opportunities to refine and improve existing systems. They echoed the sentiment we’d heard from many of you and were unanimous in their support. They were also very passionate on one point; VIPs should get this new content for free. (Again, we agree!)

More Content, More Often – Free for VIP.
In the past we’ve focused on yearly expansion packs that brought big changes and lots of new content at the end of the year coupled with smaller updates throughout the year and a new region in the spring. In 2014 we’re going to focus on a steady flow of content throughout the year. We’re planning on adding new content on a quarterly basis in 2014. Players have expressed a desire to explore a bit deeper into Fangorn Forest and to see Isengard flooded in the battle with the Ents. Both of these are slated for our first quarterly update in March.
Later in the year we’ll be seeing more iconic locales and moments from the lore including the Paths of the Dead and the Dead Marshes. We will also take our first steps in Gondor!
If you’re a VIP, these regions and content will all be free with your subscription.

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This is good. I would hope some of the new content is 6-man and 12-man dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Inventory and Bag Space
We know you can never have enough bag space when you’re out adventuring and inventory management and control can almost be its own mini-game at times. We think it’s time to take a new look at inventory in LOTRO and see where we can make improvements. Please share any thoughts you have on what works or what doesn’t work for you regarding inventory here !

Festivals and Events
We’ll continue to develop our festivals, new and old, and add more events for you to participate in throughout the year. If there are any festivals or events you’d really like to see us build, please let us know on the forums! A thread for Festival suggestions is here .

Housing
As I said earlier, Housing is still high on our list of objectives for the year, and the conversation thread can be found here. We’ll be talking more about this throughout the year.

We are working on one more secret surprise, but I won’t do more than tease its existence now, other than to say that the class changes have made it possible for us to consider making a new addition to the game… which we will talk about later in the year.

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This could be fun. I will speculate:

• New class? This would be fun.
• Legendary item revamp? Yes.
  
  • Legendary item trait tree? Enough with the freaking trait trees. Please come up with something better!
  
  
• Down-scaling players' levels in Carn Dum/Urugarth/Rift/Moria instances? This would be a way to scale these spaces without changing how they work.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I am so excited to start 2014 off strong and have another great year with you! I wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best in 2014.

See you in game!
Kate Paiz, Executive Producer, The Lord of the Rings Online

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Happy New Year!

Perhaps this is reading into it too much, but does this statement:

"If you’re a VIP, these regions and content will all be free with your subscription"

mean that the regions will not be available to premium and f2p? So far there's been a "go anywhere" policy, though without quest content and deeds, unless you've bought the region or sub. But we've now seen such a change regarding the epic quest. Is this policy about to change, too?


Edit: Just want to add that I sincerely hope they make changes to make the content more challenging. People are drawn to games for challenge. Otherwise we'd just watch TV for entertainment. The current "I Win Button" style combat is not fun and I can only believe it is turning people against LoTRO. What's so bad about a tough game? People still reference EQ and UO to this day, games that were at one time merciless. Make us earn a kill. Bring back(?) the challenge, and not just in instances. There's always lower level stuff for more casual players, so don't worry about making it "too tough." Players will always rise to a challenge.

This all sounds very promising. Thank you.

If the new zones don't come with new instances and raids I'm not seeing the point exactly. I'm not going to do quests at level cap in new areas if there's no real reason to do so. If there's no new instances or raids then I'm left with wandering around the scenery going "gorgeous as always but.....why am I here". Epic battles are not end-game in my opinion, and the lack of instance and raid content at 95 has been a deal killer for me. I do few big battles, and spend most of my time wandering around looking for elusive emerald shards - and since I've been an active raid healer since 60 was cap it's a huge let-down in the game for me. I haven't bothered to level any of my alts (I had 8 at level cap 85, 10 at level cap 75) because there's no reason to do so. The less there is for me by way of content - not just scenery - the less time I'll be spending. I've already stopped spending money.

Thanks, Kate, and Sapience, and the whole team in general! I am really excited now. :D

I'll reserve comments about festivals, housing and inventory for their own threads. In light of that, I really hope you have revamps along the lines of what was done to Evendim in mind. Places like the Trollshaws, North Downs and the Misties are some places that I've personally heard disliked the most, while Evendim and Forochel seem readily liked. Obviously a lot of people will either hate or love Angmar. Hate, for me. Too dark and creepy and lonesome for my tastes, though as a completionist I do it anyway. xD

I'd also like to support the mentions of traditional raids. I thought I'd love EB, and in beta they were interesting at least, but now I flat out hate them. So much layering does murder to my machine and my friend's. It'd be okay, except we also get completely overrun. Losing (even if it counts as a win for the epic and whatever) simply does not feel good. I want to have a happy experience.

I'd like a revamp of the LI system as well. Or really the cosmetics in general. I hate to actually suggest something from SWTOR (not my fav game in the world by ANY standards) but their cosmetic system was very personalized. Our cosmetic system has been here for ages and the LIs have no cosmetic functions at all. I'd love to see that change. I think this way we can still have a grind system (we all know how much devs love to give us grinds) but we don't have to throw out our existing LIs. We just upgrade them, and the only reason to throw one out is if you tired of its appearance or just for some random reason didn't want it anymore. A sort of build-it-yourself system.

Kinship revamps. PLEASE. Kinship vaults. PLEASE. The current kinship system simply isn't as dynamic as many of your competitors, and I mean that in the nicest way possible, especially because LOTRO is my favorite game (first MMO and favorite ever since). Likewise, a fully customizable (in terms of permissions, especially) kinship vault would be terrific. I am currently using my own, private storage space for kinship things, which not only crowds my own space, but also means my kinmates do not have a full glimpse of what is really available. Or rather, perhaps it doesn't even qualify as available if it's in my storage, but that only serves to drive the point home (I hope). What makes a kinship vault different from the current version of the kinship chest is that the vault should be available remotely, from any vault-keeper, and it should allow for members to contribute money to the kin as well. Permissions should be advanced enough that withdrawal of anything is limited however the leader wants it (to certain members or in certain amounts, for example).

Mailing revamp. I read that perhaps coding simply wouldn't allow for it? Anyway, the ability to send longer mails and attach more things would be terrific!

New PvP zone. I know, it is a big thing, but I feel players who PvP know the Moors so well that much challenge has been taken out. A new region would be super nice.

Also -- All of the above revamps except those involving new content (raids, regions, whatever) should be free for all players. They are part of core systems already free.

If I think of more, I'll be sure to let you know, but for now I think this is enough. :)

This sounds great! When I saw the headline NO EXPANSION IN 2014 I was like "WHAT? NO!" But this letter really puts things in a great perspective and I can't wait for 2014.

Also I'm pleased to see that the majority of the responses are supportive. Still a couple Negative Nancys and Downer Debbys out there, but their silly comments were drowned out by supportive ones.

Optimistic View
No expansion year can be the right way to improve the game, all the time spent on features useful for maketing, but not really needed in game like MC [hours of work for using it only in landscape quests], BB [nice for the first week, but the difference with skirmishes aren't that great in the end] and class revamp [thats brought a wave of unbalance and player's dissatisfaction, and because there's lot of things to fix before fixing things that aren't broken like the class trait system was] will be used better in this year.I read "KINSHIP SYSTEM UPDATE" in all those words. So i'm pretty glad of it.
New content more often : Nice, it's always nice having something new to do, hoping for something to do in group and with the appropriate difficulty! Dreaming about at least Draigoch-style\Fires of Smaug-style raid!
Inventory and Bag Space - Festivals and Events - Housing Couldn't care less of all three. Housing wasn't in 2013 Letter too?
Surprise : let me dream big about a Rohan PvP zone (or a multi server PvP zone) or a Multiboss Raid or a clearer communication from Turbine to your moneygiver (us!)


Pessimistic View
Lotro is (slowly?) dying. No money from WB to create a new expansion, Turbine takes a year to evaluate the state of the game, understand if it's economically resonable keeping it alive, even with lesser updates. On top of that 2014 is the deadline for the LOTRO License (I've not followed lotro for some months, so maybe i've lost the news of a sign of an extension...let me know if it is the case). The ring will be trown in mount doom? Not in the online story.

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After my considerations i really need to know a thing about this sentence "Players have expressed a desire to explore a bit deeper into Fangorn Forest"
Where players have expressed desire of Fangorn? I've missed something? Polls? Questionnaires?

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Originally Posted by tanlis

I'm all for new content and revamping. But honestly, the real thing that needs to be fixed are bugs that hinder game play.

With no expansion coming next year, now is the time to truly get the game in solid shape and squash these bugs.

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+

LOTRO greatest buggiest game ever. Today my Warden is going into his ambush crouch with an empty hand. Not yesterday. Today. And he's running around just south of Ost Galadh where the set of mystery footprints have been hovering half a virtual foot off the ground for ... well, forever I think. Anybody care to guess what percentage of grass isn't actually anchored to the ground? Oh, and the skeletons in the spoooky section of the Scuttledells pop back up and then down again glitch-like when my ambush strikes. And that, today, is just a typical 30m session. I call it, bug fatigue, really. Otherwise, AWESOME GAME, seriously! There's no way I'd still be playing a game on the buggiest game engine ever made if most every other aspect wasn't grreat!

FIX THE BUGS PLZ

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Originally Posted by Rabbitses

This sounds great! When I saw the headline NO EXPANSION IN 2014 I was like "WHAT? NO!" But this letter really puts things in a great perspective and I can't wait for 2014.

Also I'm pleased to see that the majority of the responses are supportive. Still a couple Negative Nancys and Downer Debbys out there, but their silly comments were drowned out by supportive ones.

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I'm not your "Average Joe" and far from a "Plain Jane" yet I can understand the "Thunderstorm Thomas" of the community. Not everyone can nor should be a "Chatty Cathy". Sometimes we do need people like a "Realistic Rita" and that doesn't necessarily make them a "Negative Nancy" or a "Debbie Downer" per say. :)

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Originally Posted by Norwrei

I'm not your "Average Joe" and far from a "Plain Jane" yet I can understand the "Thunderstorm Thomas" of the community. Not everyone can nor should be a "Chatty Cathy". Sometimes we do need people like a "Realistic Rita" and that doesn't necessarily make them a "Negative Nancy" or a "Debbie Downer" per say. :)

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Makes them a "Doomsday Don" or "Armageddon Annie." ;P

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Originally Posted by rosey21

Well if they waited to add new content till all the old bugs were fixed, you would not be getting any new content.

The game will always have bugs.

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There's surely a lot of truth to that, but why does this game have so many (sooo maaany) more bugs than comparable MMOs?

I'm a Founder, not a naysayer, but the bugs are atrocious. It's like they've figured out where the "playable" line is and stay juuust barely on the correct side of it.

I'd add, although the current expansion did wreak havoc with balance, that it's not a good sign when studio starts highlighting mathematical twiddling to their systems over more substantial improvements (cf. Age of Conan). I'm not saying Turbine is descending to that level yet, and I fully expect good content in 2014, but every player has their issues, and I couldn't care less about raids or stat fiddling. Immersion and exploration are my game, and way too often, in this game, "belief" is broken up by bugs.

Wait, wait, wait! Hold the presses! This could be an opportunity to upgrade the most laughable character model in the whole game! No, not your animal-balloon-skeleton male Breelander ... no ... the ... Balrog!

Snarky, but serious. I can live with animal-balloon-man, but having Iconic Moments turned into ### Moments -- that's just plain disappointing.

Also, on the more serious side, I see a lot of posts here speculating about what it means for level of commitment if there is no expansion. I don't see anything in the Letter that suggests any different level of effort on Turbine's part (i.e. "just enough") -- just a redistribution of effort. Turbine seems to have "just enough" down to an art, or science, or whatever. I am sure from a business operations aspect, that's a good thing, and I don't really begrudge them that. It disappoints me as a consumer and big fan of the game, but at the end of the day they own their own spreadsheets, and they gotta do what they gotta do. Why is it that ArenaNet, for example, excels at art, story AND engine, while Turbine is just sorta mediocre at all those things? What is Turbine's magic ingredient? They don't really have one, except an uncanny ability to do "just enough" just right. It's adorable that the output still sorta feels like a Kickstarter project on super-steroids -- there's something that feels a bit home-crafted papier-mache Elmer's glue and construction paper about their stuff, and yet it still "works". Amazing, really.

Poor sparkle-pony designer. Probably underpaid considering his/her contribution to the bottom line. Suggestion: Take from the mediocre graphics engine engineers and hand over to sparkle-pony modeler -- and have sparkle-pony modeler fix Balrog while at it. (Oops, serious slipped again. Let me try again: Warner Bros., PAY graphics engineers more and EXPECT more. Fix glitchy hitchy engine!)

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Originally Posted by kelandra_c

I keep hoping they will include some more changes on the cosmetics side, things like cosmetic options for shields and weapons. I would think it would be fairly easy to add a cosmetic slot in the legendary weapons. Also new hair styles some longer styles with braids for elves and Rohan!

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Very looking forward to see such thing in the game!!!


and also the potential race traits revamp and/or LI revamp =D all the good revamp will be welcome! haha =)


"Lets get better before we get bigger!". I liked that =)

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Originally Posted by Rabbitses

This sounds great! When I saw the headline NO EXPANSION IN 2014 I was like "WHAT? NO!" But this letter really puts things in a great perspective and I can't wait for 2014.

Also I'm pleased to see that the majority of the responses are supportive. Still a couple Negative Nancys and Downer Debbys out there, but their silly comments were drowned out by supportive ones.

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Im sorry but this is what drives me crazy. What exactly is silly about the "negative nancy" comments? I've seen legitimate concerns about lack of any instances mentioned, an almost unanimously hated LI system, lack of challenge, and lack of meaningful quests beyond running errands. With the exception of one or two comments, I don't see any disrespectful or insulting posts. There's no reason for criticisms to be "drowned out" by praise when they are presented in a constructive manner.

These days, it seems more people are being attacked for their criticisms, being called crybabies or "negative Nancy's". If you love something and have a true passion, there's nothing wrong with voicing your concerns over it. Why should people be ignored or drowned out, just because you disagree?

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Originally Posted by rosey21

So because they decide to take a year off from producing an expansion, that automatically seals it there going broke, OK...

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No. I am saying that the entirety of that letter, not just the particular announcement that they are refraining from producing an expansion next year, leads me to lean towards that opinion. After what I have seen happen in and to lotro over the years that I have played, and based on previous experience with other MMO's, generally speaking, the player population tends to decline as time goes on. Hence, after 6 years, a game does not increase in revenue. It decreases.

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Originally Posted by Amariel28

Do you have definitive proof of this? If so, could you please link the source for us? Otherwise you are reading into this what you want to see.

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No, I don't. I also never stated it as fact.

And yes, you are correct. I am basing my opinion off of previous gaming experience garnered in other MMO's.

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There is nothing wrong with Turbine wanting to revamp other content. I think it's a great idea. Even if it is just "fluff" content, it still means a lot to other people. Especially if they decide to add new things to character creation. Then give every player the option for a one-time change upon login to that character. Either take it or hit cancel.

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Does anyone remember the mass exodus between Moria and Mirkwood? Wasn't that a year and a half? And then Mirkwood and Isengard? Wasn't that roughly a year and a half apart also?

Now that is not to say that they should not have time periods when they need to work on buggy content to fix the problems. Or to polish up the game. But if they are unable to produce content that is polished and beta'd properly, then maybe they need to stop working on such large scales in regards to the size of the expansions. Its a lot easier to polish a small terd than a large one.

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And the revamp of Bree was nice. Wouldn't mind seeing a few other places redone, even if just a little. Also now would be a good time to fix the "fog" effect in Forochel! *hint hint*

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It was nice. The entire 5 minutes most people spent looking around before they moved on.

I've been saying for quite some time that stretching the schedule to make the expansion releases on 15 to 18 month cycle would probably help. Skipping an expansion and doing smaller addons plus fixes and clean up is a good first step. I'd still recommend *not* going back to the expansion every 12 months model.

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Originally Posted by AlmericITA

Optimistic View

After my considerations i really need to know a thing about this sentence "Players have expressed a desire to explore a bit deeper into Fangorn Forest"
Where players have expressed desire of Fangorn? I've missed something? Polls? Questionnaires?

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Requests for more Fangorn are right after the requests for a skill tree in the suggestion forum. Oh, that's right, there weren't any. Players are anxious to get to Gondor, not to traipse around an overgrown forest that already occupies two regions of the game.

You guys have built a stunning and beautiful Middle Earth. Bring the graphics engine up to a level that can really show it off. At least for people with graphic cards that have the capability. For example:
1) Longer range view of items. Nothing disappoints like standing on the cliffs over Rivendell, looking down at that beautiful area, and seeing....nothing? At least until you get closer. Sigh.
2) Same as above but for small landscape items. Zipping across Rohan on my war steed and watching plants and bushes blink into existence a few steps in front of me really detracts from the experience.
3) NPCs dropping from the sky as you get into their range.
4) Various wildlife at really off-kilter angles as they stand half on and half off something like a big rock.
5) Glitchy and jerky motion graphics instead of fluid motion, especially on fast moving war steeds.
6) Character and landscape shadows have nothing to do with where the sun (or moon) is drawn in the virtual sky.
7) Creeps and critters that glide across the landscape without motion animation until you get closer.
I'm sure there are plenty more, that's what comes to mind now.

Is there any way to incent people to play the older endgame areas more? It can get lonely in those places. Angmar is still one of my favorite areas, both because of the other-worldly eerie design and because it's so crazy difficult. Even way above level you can't just go solo through many parts of it. It'd sure be nice to find more people running some of that. And please please please don't smurf that area! I like how hard it is.