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“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!” – Kate Paiz, Executive Producer, The Lord of the Rings Online
The seasonal festivals are sort of Middle-Earth versions of ... well, generic seasonal festivals. I'm not a lore-monkey, but are there specific festivals mentioned in the LotR lore that could be added?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sapience
Little war-bands for every zone (sure without mounted enemies)
Mini events : Defend the patroling caravans, escore the npc, clear the troll cave etc. :)
Add treasure hunt event for all time with some monthly new items!
Well what I would like to see is not a new event but a add on to one of my fave festivals & that is the Harvest Festival.
I would so love seeing a add on special region like the Yule Festival has for Harvest. An old spooky town that has a forest/graveyard. You could also have a haunted corn maze. Have your characters actually bobbing for apples, have different places where your character can go trick or treating & get special goodies, have complete sets of costumes you can barter for, complete theme sets of housing furniture.
I don't know what all you can do with my suggestion but I really hope you consider it. I love the Haunted Burrow but it just is not enough, we need something more added to keep us busy & wanting to keep on doing the festival & I think this is a great idea.
I'd love to see this event reintroduced if bugs can be fixed: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/A_Game_of_Hobnanigan
If not, would like to finally see some event that encourages grouping/teamwork rather than solo quests/competing for limited resources like egg hunt.
Also, more decorations and more outfits to existing festivals that aren't just recolored versions of one another. I find the game to be severely lacking in good Thin Furniture items despite multiple spots in Housing for it.
I agree! A special region for the Harvest festival would be magnificent. Going trick-or-treating at different houses throughout the area wearing a costume would be so fun, especially with other kinnies.Quote:
Originally Posted by rosey21
I would like to see more kinship/fellowship related activities on festivals (like the Chicken Ball mentioned above, races, etc.)...
I love the festivals purely because I love seeing so many players together in one place and the opportunities to get to know other players that brings. However, I really dont like the repeatable quests for items (I dont like repeatable quests anywhere in the game, once i've done a quest once I have no desire to repeat it!). I'm wondering if instead, these quests could have something similar to the tier system in instances and skirmishes. Once you have completed the quest once, you can do it again but there is an added challenge or it's harder in some other way, with greater rewards each time. That would make repeatable festival quests much more interesting!
Other than that, keep up the good work!
Use two tiers of barter of all events - one for the generic Festival Tokens that many of us have in the 100s: old stuff reposted at barter guy could be covered by these - and one for the new items, mounts and deeds etc that we can only get for participating this year and will have to use barter tokens gathered right now.
It is nice if old deeds can be completed at a later date (i e more/merrier 1-3). I think those tiers for spending looooong hours running festivals is a very nice thing - by getting that tier/title you show dedication and it becomes worth something. I had The Openhanded after first Frostbluff year and proudly sported the title all the way to next year...when everyone got the title. Something special-for-grind is always nice. There are many who would rather be handed everything immediately but as I understand it, many of the same persons just will nor run festival activities amyway. There's simply no tangible reward they're able to apply in monster play or w/e.
The yule frame is a superb example of something I will go out of my way for and will keep me participating for many hours.
until new ones, I would love to see the new ones improved.
- Currently you have the feeling of grind and the joy and fun long gone.
- No more MC to reset an quest in festivals please.
- Dont make the cosmetics bind to account so others can share them or sell them, is no harm in that.
- New items annually so we have reasons to join festivals, because once you done them some years each time, is no real motive to do them again.
- Some funny deeds, not like the ones with fishing from autumn festival who ruined all the fun. That quest, you know which, .... grr, I don't want to see it again.
I would like to see festivities added to the higher level major cities: Rivendell, 21st Hall, Caras Galadhon, Galtrev, Snowborn, and Edoras. At first, it would be helpful to simply connect these to the present festival locations via festival stable horses. Rather than having something at every one of these locations for every festival, I would like to see location specialize in one or two festivals, or have their own festival. As an example, Rivendell and\or Caras Galadhon could focus on fall events, reflecting this time being the fall season of the elves, that is their preparation and voyage to the Undying Lands. Higher level cities might zone into a more peaceful time. I'd like to see something happen in Edoras, for example, but it's a bit deserted right now.
Even though I'm not into PvMP, my mind keeps coming back to the idea of creeps escaping the Ettenmoors into the Trollshaws. I wouldn't want them terrorizing our lowbies all the time, and I do think they should have to earn it, so maybe at the beginning of each month, give them the opportunity to escape once they've taken every keep in the Ettenmoors. The door would remain open until the free peoples regain control of all of the keeps, (or a certain number) and each individual creep would respawn to Gramsfoot upon death. The should be able to acquire something extra special for their efforts of havoc and destruction, audacity should have no effect outside the Moors, as freeps should also be able to acquire something special for helping to send these fiends back to whence they came! Yes, this would involve another barter currency, and the rewards should probably be more cosmetic in nature. Can they burn and pillage, too? Then lower level characters could put out fires and such.
I would like seasonal fishing expanded out into the higher level areas as well. Fishing feels far too neglected, maybe it should have its own separate fishing tournament. Some time in the spring\summer, or perhaps at more than one time outside the present festivals, the major city in each land mass should have some fishing quests. One city might have a quest to catch as many fish as possible in half an hour. Your reward would reflect the number of fish you caught. One city could have a quest to catch a certain number of fish, and another to catch a particular fish. The particular fish could be a first on the server catch which resets daily or every 12 hours. These should, please for the love of completionnist sanity, rely both on luck AND on skill. My hobbit whose fishing skill is maxed should be catching more and better fish than my human whose skill has only been leveled during the summer festival, though certainly even a new fisherman should be able to catch something. Those silly hobbits want to eat those tasty fish, so they would likely ask you to cook them, if you have some skill in such things. A skilled woodworker might help a hobbit make a new fishing pole, or help anyone other than a hobbit build a boat. A good fisherman also needs things like a lucky hat, a good chair, a bucket, a net, a filet knife, and a skillet. These things could be crafted quest items, quests available to those with the appropriate skill, and a quest which would scale to the crafting level of the character. My maxed crafters should be able to use Eorlingas crafting materials, but a new crafter should be able to use rowan\copper\light hides. Oh, and for cooking, please include a vegetable of the appropriate level, too.
A pilgrimage along the footsteps of the Fellowship from Bag End to the Paths of the Dead would be very nice. Yes, we experience much of the story through the Epic quests, but it'd be nice to have a special walking\riding event, that is we talk to NPCs along the way, receive quest updates for travelling to certain locations, we must visit each in order, and please have enough that a person isn't tempted to take a stable route...oh, and no Mithril coin travel. :)
I would like to see extended support for player run events. Last year's Weatherstock was fantastic. I might be in the minority, but I absolutely loved the Amarthiel attacks. My fondest memory from that was waiting at the camp outside the Rift when she appeared just outside the camp. Some of us were defeated...a few times...but it was great fun, and we did manage a few of the cosmetic items. It might help if an attacker scaled to the place where they were attacking. Can you imagine a band of level 15 goblins attacking the Shire? If someone appeared inside an instance, I would hope they would be polite and wait until the group wasn't attacking a boss.
I too would like to see festivals in these regions - and if there was special stable travel to and from, it would help the lowbies get there, and at the same time - perhaps encourage f2ps who may not have bought everything to consider expacs or quest packs after seeing the region.Quote:
Originally Posted by amandakay
Here are some thoughts for festival additions and alterations.
Trick/Festival Skills and Items
One general idea for all festival that have 'skill items' like the Anniversary Fireworks, Tomato or Pedal items take these and turn them into festival skills.
For all the trick deed items make these all Bound to Account please. This way if for instance you finish the deed on one char and have another who needs the items you can send it over to them to use.
Housing
If it is possible for Housing to have an environmental season theme added to the exterior of our houses it would be great to have one for each major season.
Stop making housing items or cosmetic bind. These are fluff items we should be able to move them around, lend them out as we want instead of having them bound to a specific character.
Expand each Festival to a different Region of the Map
Use Festival horses to send players to instanced versions of Rivendell, Caras Galadhon, Snowbourn, Edoras at different festivals. Each would be fitted to a specific festival and theme. Snowbourn would be perfect for Farmer's Fair or Harvestmath. Rivendell would be good for Harvestmath. Caras Galadhon fits good for Spring or Summer and has its own vineyard for wine.
Harvestmath
Fil Gasha gave us this great armor disguise that many of us love. It would be really great to have a couple more housing items like this. One for a Cargul disguise for example would be great! Another option would be the dream state coloring as a temporary effect from Tomb of the Forsaken.
Make the White Skeleton Steed quest/deed bound to account so that if you obtained it on 1. a char who already has it or 2. a char you don't want it on you can send it to the character you really want it on
New Quest Ideas
Leaf Jumping
So its fall the leaves are falling so why not gather up a bunch of leaves and then either have us or children npcs jumping in them.
Yule Festival
Snowball fights are one of the most enjoyable aspects of this festival it would be nice to have these quests put back to their original timer allowing them to be redone any time the festival is up.
Similarly it would be very nice to have a 'pile of snow' yard item that would let you pick up snowballs for use in housing zones for snowball fights.
New Quest Ideas
Toys for the Tots
Get the quest from one of the people working on the wood. You have to go out and gather some wood from the forest areas. Then you have to craft toys out of the wood. It could work like the spears in Galtrev quest. Then you run around town handing them out to new children npcs placed around town.
A Giving Spirit
You convince one of the wealthy members of town to donate food or cloths to the less fortunate in town. You then either gather food or clothing and hand them out to the phased beggar npcs.
Snowball Fighting Kids
Add some Children to the Snowball Fighting Field. Add a new quest similar to Brigand Bashing and the Tag game in Langhold and Harwick. This time you are simply throwing snowballs at the children.
A New Play
Add another play to the theater making it so the plays alternate between one another. Exactly what the plot would be I'm not sure... maybe something around Frodo's leaving the Shire using the mysterious Black Rider who was looking for Baggins/Shire.
Freeze Tag
Why not bring the Freeze Tag game that exists by the Bree festival grounds and add a new section for use over in Winter Home?
Ice Fishing
WIldermore dailies introduced ice fishing into the game. Why not reuse this mechanic. It coudl be done with or without a mount.
Spring Festival
Add a Tag game into the Hedge Maze.
Anniversary Festival
Bring back and fix Game of Hobnanigan for the Anniversary
Summer Festival
New Quest Ideas
Over Heated
Why not have a quest where different npcs are over heated and need to be cooled off. Put in a couple different methods for cooling them off. Fanning them with big fans or getting them a drink like lemonade or dousing them with a bucket of water.
Water Races
Its summer and 'hot' out so why not use the lakes and rivers to our advantage and put in some swimming races.
Farmer's Fair
This festival currently feels very solid to me. Not sure what else I would add to it.
Treasure Hunt Event
The only real changes I would make here as follows.
Make the mounts obtained from chests Bound to Account so you can trade them to alts.
Put in a barter npc to trade the chest obtained mounts so if you got the Treasure Goat but want the Caveclaw Horse/Pony you can exchange them.
Rohan Daily Style Quests
With the Rohan and the Hytbold Dailies we've seen a number of new mechanics come into the game that would translate very well to game festivals. Here are a few ideas based on things I've seen in the game.
Brigand Bashing
We already have this in the form of the Ale Hall Arena when it comes to player verse player but a player verse npc version would be a nice change of pace and make it so you can always take part in the game regardless of however many people are online.
Tag
We've had the freeze tag arena in existence forever and people use it sporadically but with the Hytbold Dailies we have the game of tag changing the children around Harwick. This mechanic could translate very well to an area like Frostbluffs. You're given a task to catch the rowdy kids or something like that.
Burning the Banners
With one of the Cliving dailies we got introduced this mechanic of throwing javelins/spears at banners as we ride up to them. This I think is something everyone would enjoy a lot if added to something like the Spring or Summer festivals. If the mechanic requires a war-steed then maybe there could be a special arena with a game steed similar to how we use special mounts for the festival horse races.
Jousting
Similar to the banners javelin quest maybe it would be possible to have a jousting arena setup like the center of the Harwick Horse Stables where you either go against an npc or a player depending on how well it would work out.
Climbing the Beacon
Ok a lot of people don't like this quest as they tend to over move as they are jumping up. That said a lot of people in the game have always liked to challenge ourselves and the game environment by seeing what we can reach. We used to do this by climbing up to the top of the Bree Auction House before the on ramp to that was removed. People have since continued to test the bounds of each environment. So why not use this challenge to the games advantage and build it into an event location for peoples option of taking part in it?
Resupplying the Lines
Ok so a carrying quest isn't exactly fun but the the running the ropes and dodging the craban actually is something I liked with this quest. It could translate well to fun games similar to us walking the bullroarer's fence.
For the Farmer's Faire, I would move it. The area that it's in is just too small. It should be moved to the Buckland/Crickhollow area. There is allot more room there.
I would like a flash festival that is announced perhaps via LOTRO's twitter so that it starts, lasts maybe 48 hours, then disappears until the next one. These could have events a character could do immediately, but also some sort of token that can be carried in the Wallet for a bigger reward when enough festivals of this sort are attended. You could have these Flash Festivals a few times every months, hopefully on the weekend when more people are off work.
I love all of these ideas! These would make festivals a lot more enjoyable. My favorite thing to do at the Yule Festival is the play! I would love to see a variety of plays instead of just one over and over.Quote:
Originally Posted by PKCrichton
I think it would be a nice touch to create a new elven-centric festival called "A Fest of Starlight" to go along with the Feast of Starlight mentioned in the new hobbit movie.
Please combine the festival tokens and make them account bound, not character bound. A festival is a festival is a festival - just have ONE festival token used by ALL festivals for ALL characters on an account. Please.
My favourite festival location is Winterhome, simply because one of my favourite parts of the LOTRO world is exploring new areas. Despite the fact that it was quite a grind to complete the T3 deed, I felt it was worth it, and enjoyed my play time there last year. I'd love to see a new play from the G.L.O.B.E. players, and perhaps advance the storyline with the beggars and the mayor (overthrowing him or aiding him depending on which option you chose), which may give the opportunity to search Middle Earth for support for one cause or the other... even a secret cave hideaway for the poor people... ah the possibilities are endless :D
Next on my list of favoured festivals is the Haunted Burrow, which I ran dailies on for 11 characters - to get bounder's tokens and Bigby's shadow hand skill (which, by the way, needs to have the cooldown of the skill reduced to be the same as the consumable) - yet new quests within are always welcome.
Third is the Spring festival, as the maze is quite enjoyable, yet it isn't really exploring something, rather attempting to escape from it. Perhaps it would be a good time to bring back the beloved game of Hobnanigan! It would also be nice to see the two different versions of tag incorporated into this festival - freeze tag is by far the better of the two at the moment - and perhaps have these turned into instances?
Summer festival is by far the most lacklustre of the seasonal festivals - there's nothing special about it, and I feel a mini-festival area (like Winterhome) would spice it up a bit.
My least favourite festivals, though, have to be the Farmer's Faire and the Treasure Hunt. The former is too in-your-face, and too grindy, and the latter is far too monetised - the trade off between picks and tokens and the desire to find interesting things inside the boxes just makes it dull and calculating, when I'd rather a festival was carefree and fun.
Other festival thoughts:
1) The Steed of the Bat was probably the most underwhelming appearance that I've ever come across for a festival steed - please put a bit more time and effort into making them look great again!
2) The Inn League/Ale Association could do with some embellishment/expansion.
3) Cartographile deed should be expanded.
I think it's simple keep them fun, unique and have plenty of good rewards.
5th year Anniversary and Yule are good templates to work from, 5th year anniversary was so much fun it was extended twice and that was because there was a unique take on festivals, fun quests and some good rewards.
The rewards for the last few festivals have been kind of bland lately so I haven't bothered doing the festivals.
Other than the usual need for good fun festival content I think it would be cool to start having festivals in different places maybe an Elven Feast festival in Rivendell, or some beers with Dwarves in their various outposts.
Maybe we could join the drunken elves at Lothlorien in their parties, they could certainly use some better party organisers since Elven parties look boring as hell.
This would be very much appreciated. I have never understood why we need all these tokens for the different festivals. Having them bound to account is much better. We have marks/medallions/seals now account bound, we can have these others account bound too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rillas
Actually, I do not like festivals very much. They are mostly annoying and cause the game (for me) lagging more due to many people playing.
But well, I try to accomplish all deeds. Therefore I somehow have to do the festivals.
One of my main concerns from last year's yule festival:
I really dislike losing progress on the deeds I am doing - even if they are "only" for a festival. It is even more annoying to be forced to log on (almost) every day for a festival to complete deeds or endlessly grind ridiculous high prices for some cosmetic items. Ever thought about the fact, that during some festival seasons (e.g. christmas) people still need to work or like to spend time with their family? And even during non festival times (e.g. harvest festival): not every player is unemployed or has half a day after school for playing and grinding festivals. Please try to carter to others, too.
One more annoying thing about festivals:
Why is barely any quest repeatable multiple times during on day after reworking the "classic" festivals? Why is it not allowed to spend my whole day (one which I might be able to afford) to complete all deeds and quests on a festival? Especially for grinding deeds to unlock some items?
Well, the answer might be clear: so you can sell more mithril coins in the store, or? :(
I rather skip these kind of events than playing it with my main character. Even less with multiple characters.
For festival items:
Please make all fluff items (including horse / warhorse outfits) bind on account, so that I am not forced to replay the mostly boring or random quests for unlocking the same deeds with all characters. That would be helpful!
As summary:
- stop forcing players to spend mithril coins on "festivals". Instead let them repeat quests as often as they want per day (even including a timer such as <= 30 min would be ok...)
- make festivals fully completabled (including deeds) with a minimum amount of days instead of forcing players to log in most of festival days!
- make all stuff that can be acquired from festivals "bind to account" (including horses)
- don't gate stuff behind deed gates that suddenly pop up years of the same festival without them. They feel that they exist just for the sake of forcing people to play the festival.
Please, try to be nicer to players during festivals and try not to moneytize them as you have been doing during this year.
If you keep the current style for new festivalas, I personally would rather prefer you would stop festivals alltogether.
I would prefer not getting any festivals at all instead of seeing many nice fluff items I can never afford (due to currency changes and regrinding festival currency) or unlock (new deed that year gated by possibility to do a quest only 1 time per day without coins) for my main char or for my alts (due to locks + bind on char).
Announcement: On Halloween Night every year the gates of the Ettenmoors are released and the monsters of the world charge upon the free people!
This day no infamy or condemnations are received.
The creeps are let out of their hometown and are allowed to travel anywhere in the world of men yet they do not have maps so they must run everywhere they wish to go.
It is up to the free people to defend there homeland and protect the lower leveled freeps. Creeps are allowed to go into Bree and all other places of the world for one night before they are driven back to there homeland.
Let's give the freeps the scare of their lives!
Anybody else think this would be fun?
Festivals... are ok... But feel a bit of boring as well. Their main concept is that of grinding... which is ok.. but i would like them to be more on deed side.
Suggestions
1) Like some people already said. Kinship events/games. Will help the Kins gather up more often. Try another type of fun.
2) Upgrading some amazing ideas. Like the drinking ale ...i never bothered to do it . But its a great idea cause there was a lot of drinking in MIddle earth. Same with Fireworks. amazing idea not excited from the games so far.
3) Existing events are old and so are their most items... How about a revamp... you also give many items reward that even if we take no one really use them or has a reason to use them... I mean how many go around with a chicken egg busket or a lamp or a flower in the hand.
4) make games... Like treasure hunting, solving riddles, or real horse races that makes you travel middle earth
5) Explore the lore.How did the elfs had fun how did the dwarfs...better implementetions...
6)New areas that i would like to see a festival is... Lothlorien, Edoras,Rivendell
It really should be a VIP perk to repeat festival quests, either immediately or on a short-ish timer. Festival items don't advance your character, so there's no gameplay advantage to letting them do so, it's just being nice to the customers who give you money every month.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyaha
Following my awesome post about Halloween night *hint hint check it out above* the freeze tag game is one of the funniest things I've done with a raid of 24. If that could be moved closer to Bree so more people would know it's there would be cool
Just learned about it like a year ago and been here like 5. So yeah so more people would know about it not many people do
Also what about seasons through at every zone not just mountains but in real life winter it would snow and build up on houses in Bree.
Another thing maybe snowball fights are super fun at Yule but no point except hit somebody x amount of times like I think they should be 0cd but like a 2 second induction so people could hide behind a tree/house if somebody is aiming to throw one. And maybe don't make it just at festivals have snow piles in towns when it's winter in real life that you can collect an maybe max 5 at a time and you can go around town hitting people. And maybe an affect would be placed on you maybe if you get hit you get knocked down for 1 second or something with a 1 minute immunity or something afterword.
So yeah a 2 second induction with 0cd and like. 1 second animation so after they get knocked down they can have time to hide somewhere before you get them again or something I don't know.
Also some more minor games added to festivals would be cool like freeze tag
I would love any of these to happen especially the Ettenmoors one above
I would love to see some more culture related festivals, specific to regions and races, with the opportunity to earn titles, cosmetics and mounts from them. Some festival occurances could even be limited to mornings or evenings, a specific weekend date, etc.
For example, I'd like to be able to earn a Dunlending dress or tunic that makes it look like my character has body paint or tatoos, and war steed cosmetics that give my horse painted markings as well, and maybe the quests would be hunting related to "earn" your markings. Maybe there's a certain time of a season that they allow their young men and women to participate in these hunting tournaments to prove their worth as warriors.
Or there could be a summer starlight quest in honor of Earendil for the Elves that earns a garment or banner with the "light of a star" with special Elven steed cosmetics. It could include a sacred journey to the different Elf lands and maybe some secret places with riddles to be answered to "gain enlightenment".
It would be kind of like crossing festivals with reputation so there would only be certain times of the year these things could be earned, but the rewards would be very unique. Of course, the rewards would also most likely be bound to the character who made the accomplishments. The trials could have varying difficulties for reward levels and character levels (maybe even some small instances for grouping?) so people could even choose their challenges.
And I'd also like to see some new, fresh quests added to the current festivals.
Pie Day, March 14th. How are the Hobbits not all over that?
This! Sounds like fun! You could go to the starter areas and Bree and talk to NPCs to get goodies.Quote:
Originally Posted by rosey21
Also I'd love to see more housing items. Ones that I would like to see the most? Oddly enough I want a wintery welcome mat and a spring welcome mat. We have summer and autumn, so we need one for the other two seasons. I like to change my house and kinhouse to match the season in RL. Also... I don't know if this is possible with the game engine, but I'd love to see the housing areas change with the seasons too. But I don't know if it's possible. I know other people have said they'd love it too. Something to maybe at least look into? Please devs? I has cookies! You can has cookies!
Happy you like my ideas. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Amariel28
Speaking of welcome mats, yes we need one for winter & spring. I would love seeing the winter one with a snowman on. Actually I would like seeing themed welcome mats. Could have flowers on the spring one & a pumpkin for the fall one. Maybe put a sun or fish on the summer one.
There is a summer and fall one already. Though that's not to say they could use a retexture. :P For winter I'd think white with ice-blue designs. Snowflakes. Maybe elvish designs. Spring could be.... Hmmm... Pale green background with colorful flowers on it. Like the flower fields you see during spring fest.
I don't know that I can add anything to these awesome suggestions. I would mention that after 6.5 years playing that I'm burned out on festivals. It feels like the rewards are just reskinned ideas and I don't have much desire to participate. But, new and exciting cosmetics, housing items, etc. would bring me back to grinding out the festivals.Quote:
Originally Posted by PKCrichton
EDIT: And Armarthiel was absolutely the most fun; wish there were some way to do this again. Maybe a good job for some interns???
My festival participation is coloured by the fact that I have 14 toons. For several years I tried to get the festival horse on all of them. This went by the wayside last year, when there was no way I was going to get the winter festival deed done on all of them. I finished it on four, and that was as much as I could manage. Also, I have a high tolerance for repeating quests -- you don't want to know how many times I've run the haunted burrow!
I believe that it shouldn't take more than three days to get enough tokens for the horse. That's not just for me and my insane number of alts. A lot of my kinsmates won't bother with the festival at all, because they have a low tolerance for repeating quests. It seems like the cost of the festival horse has been going up over the past several years. I was glad to see in the harvest festival that the warsteed cosmetic was the same price as the horse. Last year's winter fest where you had to do three times as much work for it was ridiculous. They should be the same price.
Prices on cosmetics and housing items have been fine. I would like to see more variety in festival cosmetics. It seems like you design them on two or three basic shapes. There are some beautiful dresses in the new areas that we would love to have.
It may also be time for another horse design contest. It seems like the festival horses were awesome while you were using up the designs from the first contest. Now they all seem alike. And whoever's doing the design for the horses and the festival cosmetics has very different taste than I do. Getting input from more people would mean that, while nobody's going to like everything, at least over the course of the year you'll like something.
I don't really do PvMP. At all. But stormshadowking's idea of one day of utter chaos of creeps everywhere warms the dark hackles of my heart. The only thing I would add to that is that logging in during that day would allow you to leave the Ettenmoors, and you could stay out with the following conditions 1) Once you are killed out anywhere else, you respawn back in the moors and are stuck until next year; 2) Each day after the day of release, your maximum morale if outside the moors is reduced 10%, so you get a surge initially that becomes easier to beat back over time, until the tenth day when all the creeps are banished. Perhaps on the first day, give the creeps a 40% boost, making this a two week event. I wouldn't want this overlapping other festivals for obvious reasons, so maybe the day of chaos could be the day after Harvestmath ends?
Did the festival currency unification ever get done? It seems to me, just consolidating some other ideas in this thread, we could have whatever festival tokens during the festival, for use getting that year's stuff, converted (like seals, but at the end of the festival) to the generic festival token to barter for previous years' goodies (all those mounts that were offered during years I wasn't playing, for example). Maybe some NPC could offer year round access to the old stuff (and consumables in particular)? Tom Bombadil, maybe-seems like a party guy to me that might have some leftovers from years gone by.
Edit:also, it'd be nice if the fishing festival quests cared about this fishing stat I've been wandering all of Middle Earth to max out. Just sayin'.
Yes, I'd love to see the housing areas change with the seasons, and I'd love for more of the housing rewards from festivals to change seasonally as well. The Door Mats are a good example. But Also things like the Summer Festival banner have versions for all seasons, or the fall apple tree having an icicle covered winter version, a flowering spring version, and a green summer version full of apples! A seasonally changing hammock would be awesome as well. Walls that use the basic walls for backdrops with seasonal flair added in would be awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amariel28
1. Remove the auto-port quest that automatically bestows whenever you log in, level up, switch characters, finish a session play, etc. Instead just direct people to use the festival stable horse at any starter zone stable.
2. If you cannot remove the auto-bestow festival quest, at LEAST make it so you can click either DECLINE or FINISH LATER and MAKE IT DISAPPEAR OFF YOUR SCREEN.
3. If you are unable/unwilling to do that, then please connect a clock with this quest that it will only bestow once every 24 hours per character.
4. Include NICE cosmetic rewards, not just slightly altered artwork on old skins.
Add some Lore-based smaller festivals, only there for a day or two. Things like Durin's Day, or Yaviere, or, (not Cormare :D, that hasn't happened yet! (cooking guild relic!)), and any other. I dont know many of the top of my head, those are just some from the Hobbit movie and Cooking Relics, but there are likely plenty of small things like that which could be added to only the place where it would take place, or somewhere representing that. (For example, Durin's Day in Moria or Thorin's Hall; Yaviere at Minas Tirith when we get to Gondor, etc.) They could give crafting recipes, cosmetic items, a medal, just tiny things to make it a fun, not grindy, festival.
I absolutely loved the Amarthiel attacks too. It was the most fun I ever had in LOTRO. I surely hope they do it again, maybe with Saruman? :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by amandakay
I remember an event they had in WoW once. Yes I KNOW this isn't WoW. And sometimes it's not good form to steal ideas. But I'm going to play devil's advocate and mention it anyway.
I think it was before they released Wrath of the Lich King. Up until the expansion all the major cities would periodically get attacked by undead. I think there was a timing to it, but I'm not sure. Could have been random too. But it was kind of fun. Why not have orc attacks at random on cities in Rohan? Mainly the major ones. Make them strong enough not to get killed easily by the guards. Players could either be in a group or not. Maybe add deeds into the mix. Kill so many, get a prize and/or TP, then the next tier opens up. *shrugs* Just an idea. Make it a group of 50 orcs and watch the chaos. ;P
First I'll address the Yule Festival. And just for all you new-to-Yule Festival players...
***SPOILER ALERT***
You know that little corner of the town where the poor people are located? That we "aren't" supposed to see? You know, the place where Gareth Rust and Daley Utteridge are? And do you remember the Yule Festival Intro Quest (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Ques...of_Winter-home)? I believe you could build on that part of the town and the feeling there and give Frostbluff its own (possibly) repeatable Quest Arc, though not related to the Epic Story. Put what I've heard about in Wildermore (I believe it was called "phasing or thereabouts.) to good use and "phase" Frostbluff, but don't disable the regular repeatables, though.
***END SPOILER ALERT***
And now, for the Seasonal Looks. Anyway, we celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, etc. in Frostbluff, so why not celebrate winter elsewhere. Maybe not with quests (That would be stealing Frostbluff's job.), but with looks. For example, Bree could look sort of like a less harsh version (more of just regular snowfall than a snowstorm) of what it looks like in (*minor spoiler*) (ex.) the Skirmish "Thievery and Mischief." I understand some places like the Trollshaws just getting a dusting of snow or something, but maybe just a snow graphic, like there is with the rain.
That's just my slightly large two cents. Please post feedback on this. If you do criticize, please try to make it constructive criticism.
In regards to the Harvest/Halloween themed ideas and coming from a former UO player there is one thing that was fun to do around that time in UO. All NPC's were changed around that time during the event to where you could say Trick of Treat that would bring up a cursor and allowed you to target an NPC and you would randomly get treats (candy/edibles/rarities) or a trick that would do something to adversely affect your character for a short time (noises, turning you into a monster, and even health damaging tricks but that probably wouldn't fit in LOTRO). There was a cooldown on each NPC after you did it so it made it more worth it to go out and explore/find more NPC's. Some of the rewards outside of candy was rare drops for your continued efforts into trick or treating and other quests rewarded you things such as Halloween masks for your character to use.
I think this could work in LOTRO in some fashion. I hope this isn't seen in bad fashion linking this but some of the most fun in UO was around the Halloween season when they started putting together events: http://www.uoguide.com/Halloween_2009
I know there's a lot of former UO veterans like myself on LOTRO so I'm sure some others remember this. :)
I also wanna add that there needs to be more love put into festival rewards. This year was pretty bad. Anniversary event was well pathetic in the rewards department. Sure I liked some of the re colors but would have liked seeing new stuff.
As to mounts- PLEASE STOP WITH THE TABLE CLOTHS!!! OMG! it was bad this year with this. Seemed there was not much thought put into the festival mounts this year. I don't know which festival mount was worse this year, the steed of plenty or the steed of the bat. Another thing with the mounts is please stop with all the head gear. It's fine on mounts once in awhile but it seems you in this pattern & it really needs to change.
The biggest issue with Festivals at the moment for me is the Summer Festival. The others have all had more attention than this one, leaving it as a kind of runt of the pack. I know that this is likely because Summer is when the devs are usually working full swing on the expansion. With no expansion planned for 2014, the Summer Festival really needs to get some love. It needs new events, quests, and rewards. It needs something as fun as the Maze (Spring), Egg Hunt (Farmer's Faire), Haunted Burrow (Autumn), and Winterhome (Winter). Sadly the Dwarf and Hobbit races just don't cut it, as they are largely passive activities, not to mention being too dominated by the RNG (surely we could have a quest chain to rig the races with some naughty Dwarf or Hobbit once per day).
No Festival should launch without new rewards. The Anniversary last time was quite disappointing because of this. It was good that the devs got some reskinned rewards in at the last minute, but they certainly don't beat entirely new rewards. The Anniversary event could also have done with something brand new, even just a small quest chain.
I think a few Festival quest chains that send us all over Middle-earth might be nice for variety, and especially to break up the crowds at single locations. These scavenger hunts (perhaps with deeds to find, for example, 10 snowmen throughout various regions) should reward a large amount of tokens, or unique rewards, to make them worthwhile (given they will likely take some time to complete).
-Bel
I.A. Unlike some here, I actually don't play in the Moors -- but I can see the allure of creeps wanting to escape and invade the free-lands. But how could this possibly be accomplished without 1) totally breaking lore (e.g. even the Nazgul couldn't find Rivendell), and 2) totally terrorizing freeps who do not want to be terrorized?
1) I'd restrict the incursion to anywhere that is not guarded by freep NPCs. So all of the cities and starter zones are off-limits (rather, the creep is insta-killed by the uber-level NPCs at the gate). Probably also need to close off the housing neighborhoods. And make stable-travel safe between zones (it probably already is).
2) Default toggle option for "I don't want to play your reindeer games" if you want to be immune from creep attacks (unless you go into the Moors of course). Works just like the immunity for forced-emotes: the creep can try, but you won't be affected.
What does this leave for the rampaging creep-horde? Only those characters with the option turned on who are out in the landscape somewhere. But if you are killed once, then you are immune for some period of time (to avoid groups of creeps just sitting at the rez circles, or repeatedly chasing down someone who is just trying to turn in a quest or somesuch). Still, it might be interesting if it is well-balanced, limited duration, and perhaps if there are consequences for the creeps (lose prestige if your raid 'fails'?).
I.B. Failing that, having the occasional random NPC warband show up in the lower-level areas might be interesting. Actually, these signature mobs already exist; perhaps the frequency with which they show up needs to be increased slightly?
II. Sports.
1. Horse Races between players. Use existing tracks like Hengstacers and Festival courses, but allow multiple riders. Some sort of automated random start-emote, once everyone clicks that they are ready. Disable all speed buffs in the vicinity. Random level-appropriate prizes (like how hobbit presents are generated).
2. Golf. Come on ... Bullroarer Took? The Greenfields already looks like a golf course waiting to happen anyway. Tie it to the spring or summer festival and let folks play a few holes. Given the catapult physics in the epic battles, there has to be a way to do this. Increased proficiency (and or a higher-level club ala the crafted fishing poles) allows your 'target area' to be smaller, making a higher likelihood for the ball to go in. Fending off goblins during the round of golf could also be fun.
3. Soccer. Or something like that. Swatting chickens with sticks sounds cruel. Kicking a ball through a goal-opening would have the same kind of team/game dynamic.
4. Fishing tournament. You already have the mechanic in place everywhere. And the trophy-fish. Just figure out a way to have a tournament, perhaps during the summer festival. Folks register, then go fishing -- whoever catches the biggest fish in whatever category wins (excludes anything you've already got floating around in your barter wallet).
III. Festivals.
I can't think of any specific suggestions, other than what has already been mentioned. Rotate and/or add quests each time, so that it isn't exactly the same handful of repeatable quests each time that festival rolls around; or vary it by day, ala the Hytbold Dailies (X quests total, only Y of them available any given day or any given year). Change up the rewards, more variety in the cosmetics.
IV. Hunting.
Have it work much like fishing, certain trophies available in certain areas. But the 'hobby' part of it would have to involve something which would level the playing field with the hunter-class -- perhaps using some sort of standardized bow (no LIs!) which allows hunting but isn't good enough to defeat evil-doers with. As above, you could have a tournament during the fall -- whoever brings in the biggest game-animal during the time-period, wins.
I really feel there has been little to no thought put into cosmetics lately. Especially festival cosmetics. I used to LIVE for festivals because I am kind of a lotro fashionista. I have so many clothes it's embarrassing. In fact I have been looking for a middle earth salvation army so I can start donating. But these recent festivals have really sucked when it comes to cosmetics. They are so hard to get. There are no dresses. A robe and two cloaks is such a disappointment. And on top of that they dye so poorly. In fact I was really disappointed by the addition of a new color to the dye system simply because it shines a light on the fact that the existing dye-able items are kind of a joke as of late. I understand that cosmetics are a fluff piece when it comes to development but so are festivals. They go hand in hand. And when everything requires such a ridiculous grind lately (someone said it best earlier when they pointed out how the joy had been sucked out) it would be nice to see the rewards be something desirable. What this game really needs in this area, is a return to the fun and a departure from the grind. We need fun cosmetics and fun rewards, and we should be encouraged to play these events (snowball fight, anyone?) As often as possible and as often as we want. The more people play, the more fun it is. And I would also go so far as to say, the better the reward, the more fun it is. I know this is a post about festival suggestions but I would love to see a sizeable improvement in cosmetics (and maybe character models) in the future as well. Festival rewards are just a great area to start.
1. Chicken Ball
2. Fewer quests that require competition for items with other players, especially in small crowded areas (flowers, envelopes, shrews, eggs, etc.)
3. Banishment of all horse-tablecloths to the fires of Mount Doom
4. A more sensible festival currency system and an end to deed-gating for festival barter rewards
I agree with you wholeheartedly. The elves seem forgotten after all the other festivals. I think it would be neat to do an elf festival.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShireDweller
I think it would be fun to have a few group/fellowship quests in some of the festivals. After all, festivals are about everyone gathering together to enjoy the season and all it offers, right? If the quests were done well enough where they offer a nice reward and a fun goal, but weren't necessary in completing the story-line or earning all the barter rewards, it would be nice. You could actually enjoy the festival with other people instead of constantly soloing and grinding out quests. It could mix things up a bit and offer a different festival experience.
Get rid of the incredibly annoying icon that pops up every day or every time I log in or every time I level trying to force me to go to a festival I have no interest in. In order to get the yule war steed appearance in the 2012 yule festival I had to do 120 quests before it ended - no carryover to the next year - and it burned me out. I haven't been to a festival since and I resent the oversized icons that continuously appear.
[QUOTE=VeteranLurker;7043451]I.A. Unlike some here, I actually don't play in the Moors -- but I can see the allure of creeps wanting to escape and invade the free-lands. But how could this possibly be accomplished without 1) totally breaking lore (e.g. even the Nazgul couldn't find Rivendell), and 2) totally terrorizing freeps who do not want to be terrorized?
1) I'd restrict the incursion to anywhere that is not guarded by freep NPCs. So all of the cities and starter zones are off-limits (rather, the creep is insta-killed by the uber-level NPCs at the gate). Probably also need to close off the housing neighborhoods. And make stable-travel safe between zones (it probably already is).
2) Default toggle option for "I don't want to play your reindeer games" if you want to be immune from creep attacks (unless you go into the Moors of course). Works just like the immunity for forced-emotes: the creep can try, but you won't be affected.
What does this leave for the rampaging creep-horde? Only those characters with the option turned on who are out in the landscape somewhere. But if you are killed once, then you are immune for some period of time (to avoid groups of creeps just sitting at the rez circles, or repeatedly chasing down someone who is just trying to turn in a quest or somesuch). Still, it might be interesting if it is well-balanced, limited duration, and perhaps if there are consequences for the creeps (lose prestige if your raid 'fails'?).
Well lore breaking? I mean maybe for the peoe really really into the lore it may be weird but I personally don't think one night would be to big of a deal which would be my same answer for what about the lobbies? Well I think people could skip playing for one night if it was a big problem but I really don't think there would be that many creeps in that big of a world. And again it's only one night don't think it would be to big of a deal.
Also if people have fun they it could get them intereste in pvmp which means more VIPs for lotro....
Also what do you think about upscalin all freeps so all pretty even fights so all freeps on Halloween night from 9-12 get up to level 95? Maybe
Buckland looks like a great place to hold a festival!
My main suggestion for festivals, far above all others, is don't add a lot of festivals. I would much rather see the existing festivals increased in duration, with more activities and quests added to them. I don't want to feel like I'm on a constant grind, putting off questing and other social activities to hurry up and gather holiday items before an event ends. Festivals add a lot of "clutter and noise" to areas that are normally quite beautiful and scenic, so please don't have one festival lead straight into another... and another.
In particular, I would love to see new plays for the Frostbluff stage. Perhaps add a new story each year, and let the show go through each one on a rotation. The announcer could let people know which story is coming up next. You might even add a "costume closet" to the backstage area, so that actors can equip appropriate clothing into a cosmetic slot while waiting for the show to begin.
I would love to see more equestrian activities and quests added to the Spring festival. (No surprise, there!) A nice steeplechase with different kinds of obstacles would be excellent.
Add some kind of Turkey chase to the Fall festival. Perhaps we have to run around a pen, catch a Turkey, and carry it to a shipping crate without it wiggling loose. At the end of each round, the farmer can "pardon" all the turkeys. :)
I have a few suggestions.....
-Change the path of the Hedge Maze for the Spring Festival
-Change the locations of items in the Haunted Burrow.
-More quest in Winterhome
-Add more Farmer's Faires. Move them to different towns. I.E.-Buckland, Brockenborings, or even to Staddle
-Add different performances in the Frostbluff Theatre.
LESS GRIND. That is the single-most important thing, IMO. I can't say how terribly exhausted, annoyed, and aggravated I get when festivals come around. Festivals should be FUN. Grind does not equal fun. As they are currently, it isn't too bad for a single player. But what about those with alts? Why should we be penalized for loving the game so much that we created so many toons? Grind has its proper place in MMOs, yes. But festivals should be purely about fun. OUR fun. OUR enjoyment. But right now they are too grindy, mMost particularly if they are left to chance (such as those stupid fishing quests/deeds), though also due to simply the time spent just running errands for NPCs.
More cosmetics and decor, and PLEASE more war-steed cosmetics in particular. And not all the fancy ones. I want some trashy looking cosmetics. Why do we all look like either: A) We stepped out of My Little Pony, B) We stepped out of a Disney princess story, or C) We stepped out of the biggest war-scene ever. Can't we have normal WS cosmetics? Or ragged ones? Our characters have theoretically crossed over a dozen lands, been in desert, forest, mountain, cave, ice wasteland, bog, and every other environment known to humanity. Well, except lava, I guess (though we did get some of that in Moria, and perhaps other places I've forgotten). Some ragged, tattered and torn cosmetics would be nice.
Frostbluff is awesome. Can we have something like that for the other festivals? Okay, I get that it'd be hard to move all that AA and IL stuff inside a zone like Frostbluff, and the same with the horse races. But can't everything else (EVERYTHING else) be moved to special zones just like Frostbluff? I guess the Anniversary and Farmer's Faire can stay outside, but the Spring, Summer and Autumn festivals would be nice to have inside a special zone.
I'll keep thinking on this and come back later.
More DANCES!
Combat based yearly event!
Who is the best dueller? or can we make group based duel event 6 on 6?
or
Arena event for fellowship or 12 man - really, really crazy hard fight but with simple machanics so its about how good the players are with those classes. a bit like the barrow down survival which kin can last the longest and post it on forums or make a statue each year with rankings.
I feel like the amount of housing decorations is lacking severely! So how about introducing region-specific furniture within the festivals? For instance: elven furniture bartered in Duillond/Celondim, dwarven in thorin's hall and so on! These items being based around the season or festival (of course!)
Also instead of the majority of the festival interaction being Player-NPC make it Player-Player. This could be anything from team participation (like relay races) or player-versus player (such as Horse Racing, eating/fishing contests, etc)
Very small events (like the Treasure Hunt) that are only active on for a couple of days every so often, and not related to a season. Things that come to mind are:
- "Keepsake Vendor"
One or more NPC's that vendor event trophies and cosmetics for these mini-events. These NPCs are always available and do not despawn when an event is over, but only sell their wares for Keepsake Tokens. A currency that will only be available from the mini-events.
- "Hidden Objects"
Random spawns in a designated area, preferably a creepy and narrow area like the Old Forest, but even the areas could be random. These spawns contain either Keepsake Tokens and/or simple items such as speed boosts or even xp boosts. The tokens can be used to barter with a Keepsake Vendor.
- "Collector's Items"
Random drops that form collections. For example a collection of 10 different flowers, or 10 different bags, or 10 different pets. When a collection of 10 is complete it can be exchanged for a reward at the Keepsake Vendor. Some collections may be harder to complete than others depending on drop rate. For example the River Fish collection may be easy, but the Golden Statues collection may be really hard.
Sounds good to have a region devoted to holiday stuff, but not sure if that's LOTR enough for the game. It would be nice if the quests changed from year to year, like when they changed Bilbo's birthday. Instead of: complete such and such quests deeds for festivals, how about fest rep or deeds that count your quest completions like class skill deeds. Rep would work more like guild rep so you could increase it down the road. So instead of having harvest, summer, winter, treasure....barter items, you'd have Festival Coins that could be used/exchanged at any festival.
Do I really have to run the same course for the Inn league at every fest? why not mix it up a bit make me go to MD before Brock or whatever. Haunted burrow is cool, but the same quests every year, by this point it takes me around ten minutes to run my character through, then Im done and bored with the fest until server reset. Simple things like changing where the items are located would at least add a little spice each year.
The horse race tracks changed around Moria, I think, but what's wrong with the horse race guy changing up the course every year? And we're not really doing anything for him. Most quests involve us helping someone and then we get paid. How is running that race helping the horse guy? We should have to pay to run the race, say with Festival Coins. Then bring back the horse tokens and make fest horses more valuable/rare/buffed up. Not sure how hard it is to make new horseys but changing the appearance of the fest horseys each year would be cool. Maybe you could even save up a lot and buy a Festival Horse that you could equip with different holiday (festival) appearances. Of course you'd have to be kin with the Festival faction to get it.
Festival fishing trophies (i mean we do have to fish a lot lately - update those)
I have to consume 300 or something haunted barrows items to complete a deed. that seems a wildly high amount. The cd is like 20 minutes, you can only get x amount of barter items a day. For a completionist, its absolute torture.
Did I miss it or is there not a pop up that tells me about pirate day/fest? I miss it every year. why isn't that a bigger deal?
my point? new quests for the old fests
I fear I only have complaints to contribute to this. Storytime:
I used to love festivals. I started playing during a summer festival, I was instantly charmed. I met friends in game because of festivals later.
But there always were the consumables. And it got worse over time when my tolerance for them dropped to zero and below and I only know hate now. The block setting happened but it is not good enough in my opinion. It bothers me that people can still get points for chasing after me. It goes to the territory of them using my characters for some gain.
My server got lot of new people at one point and there is really no downtime with less people around anymore either, it used to be my escape.
Festivals have became running away from strangers who I will now by default think as horrible people.
Then there was the change to the winter festival last year. I learned about it, I read about it. I completely skipped it, visiting the winter town only once to check a vendor and not spending a single token. This year I'm just thinking that I can have a break from lotro again since I don't have to worry about winter festival, yay!
I was also sad to lose the tradeable festival ticket system.
Then happened that there were only few new items to barter this year...
I don't know what else to say. The charm has all been fading for a good while for me. :/
1- Don't create more events/festivals, instead work to turn more interesting the already available ones, like more time (2 weeks can be too few time, especially for people with many alts) and more quests
2 - At least during festivals, a swift travel horse to Hobbiton and the Bree Festival Grounds
3 - Some of the daily quests/events, like the hidden chest in the Haunted Burrow are locked in a exactly 24h timer, change them to reset with the server, like all the other dailies
4 - If failing a horse race, retrying must be possible in the same moment or even 5 minutes later, like in other cases, not after waiting 1h
5 - Change the Farmer's Faire Egg Hunt, when even a solitary player can't win because the round spawned insuficient eggs, something is very wrong. Maybe something like the flowers quest in Spring Festival (grab many eggs you can in a limited time, but in a bigger area and a bit more time and you always will receive at least a single token and accounting for the deed)
6 - Turn rewards like mounts, war-steeds cosmetics and emotes in bound to account (this one must be considered not only in festivals, but in things like warbands lootboxes too)
7 - The Treasure Hunt event has some of the possible drops available at the barter vendor too (some are exclusive of the barter), same at the Spring Festival where was possible to get some things both from the gift boxes and directly with barter, maybe some more drops can be available at the barters, then those who are lucky or like gambling can continue trying their luck with drops and the others at least will have a opportunity to get that mount or festival recipe or something.
8 - Put the Farmer's faire in a instanced area or at least remove the normal non-festival NPCs from the area, is troublesome enough trying to check the speeches of the drunken NPCs with all the text floating around without extra noise from desnecessary NPCs
9 - In the Haunted Burrow, permit some quests to be taken at the same time to economize time (when someone had a lot of alts, 20-30 min per char can be a lot of time)
10 - The festival quests give IXP too, what about a forge-master and relic-master both in Hobbiton and Bree Festival Grounds, at least during events? Same in Winterhome
Allow us to earn previous year's rewards during the event. Take for example, this year's Yule event: 75 mithril for one steed, on one character, is a bit past exorbitant.
Those steeds are from YEARS ago. The one from last year can be gotten with festival tokens.
I am now disappointed in the festival and have little wish to do it. No new housing items! I had hundreds of tokens saved up from last year, so I don't need to grind for any more. Again, if you are having trouble coming up with ideas, ask us players! We're full of ideas! The more artistic ones might even make a drawing for you.
If they had them in the store, which allot of times they do, you'd have to use tps to buy them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seschat
Personally, I find the multiple token currencies for each festival to be annoying. There should be a single festival currency for all festivals.
I like this ideaQuote:
Originally Posted by stormshadowking
Quote:
Originally Posted by stormshadowking
Let me know when this will be. I'll make sure I don't log into the game when this happens. If I wanted PvP, I'd go to the Ettenmoors.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Please tone down the mounts. They're so garish now that it's been YEARS since I've even wanted a festival mount.Quote:
Originally Posted by rosey21
Me wants a Shire pack-horse.
I am sure that this has been brought up, but is worth mentioning. On the Yule fest (and it only seems to be this fest) the "gating" of rewards. Requiring me to complete x number of quests, to get the steed. Being an adult, with a family and a job, this is ridiculous. When you limit the number of times I can complete a quest in a given period (with the only solution being spending MC's) and requiring something like 120 quests completed to earn the right to a steed...well, all I can say is miss a day or two, and you are out of luck.
As I mentioned, this was only the Yulefest. On the other fests, I appreciated the fact that if I missed a day, I could run my beer deliveries, do the fest quests, and stay on track. Requiring special currencies, quest completion gates and grinding, seemed like a thinly veiled money grab. Miss some quests? Well, sorry about that. Feel free to spend money for resets though! I go to fests to have fun, get some need steeds (I collect) and enjoy the season. Not be in a fevered race to complete as many quests as possible, I have wasted the entire time.
Not in the slightest. Watching Creeps gank lowbies? No thanks. Picture a new player, fresh to the game...steps out of the starting instance....and gets one-shotted. Respawns at the rez circle...gets one-shotted by campers. Logs off in disgust. Even for not so new people, this would suck. You could get exactly zero done that day. Packs of creeps roaming all over... One of the things I (and others, I 'll wager) like about this game is PvP is in it's own world.Quote:
Originally Posted by stormshadowking
Reminds me of my first (and only) venture on Darktide on Asheron's Call so many years ago. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Datheor
In my kin we sometimes run a riddle-based treasure hunt, where we will position officers around middle-earth with riddles, the answers to which will be the location of the next riddle and so on. Would be good to have something like this. Can be a random event that runs for a day every couple of months. NPCs at each place could have a set number of riddles for them, say, 3 riddles, and will select at random one for the player - creating a number of pathing options to make it more challenging. For us the winner would be the first to complete the chain and reach the end, but in the game we could have some fun rewards at the end (like the master of riddles title) or some cool house items etc.
Please add the festival tokens to the Inn League and the Ale Association
I thought they were already there, at a conversion rate of 3:1?Quote:
Originally Posted by lockecd
Please stop handing out ridiculous exp rewards for festival quests.
My lvl 89 loremaster just handed in a single quest and was awarded >23k exp + LI exp (causing a levelup there).
This is far too high!
I personally would prefer that festivals are festivals and do not mingle with your character development at all. They should only be funny to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyaha
I agree... :)
Probably something along the lines of a grand hunt. Considering how many hunting quests there are in LOTRO it could fit in with lore. The kings of Rohan also hunted wild animals.
Hunt creatures of nature in a for drops (like barter tokens during the anniversary event). Drops across Middle-Earth.Quests in different locations such as esteldin, adso's camp, thrasi's lodge, thorenhad, forochel, hrimbarg, dolven-view, lorien, mirk-eaves, galrev, camp saeradan (?), forlaw, or harwick. Warband-like packs of wolves, wargs, lynxes, and bears could be spawned, as well as herds of moose, aurochs, mammoths, and elk could be spawned to make quick events in an area to make the event more interesting. Supply larders, provide warm clothes for the cold, kill threatening creatures for quest ideas. It would be a nice way to get people to explore middle-earth and see the good landscape as well as level up in different regions and not have to go out of their way to a town for a festival. Baterables such as meat, hides, trophies, etc. could be traded for rewards. Updated taxidermists will accept rare barterables to make decorations specific to festival. Increases chances for taxidermy barter drops in certain instances ( e.g. little turtle-shell from filikul). Could also run supplies. Rewards would be things like a furniture (glow-fly candlestand , drakeling mobile , meat rack) , unique food items (Rohirric boar bacon, Fried avanc tail), and cosmetics (Winter-tusk fur coat, drake-helm).
How about you fix the fact that Inn League and Ale Association badges cannot be bartered for Yule Festival tokens?
This was broken when you implemented Festival Tokens as the singular festival currency, or were going to, and then never did, and that was what, two years ago now? and still broken?
Yeah. How about you fix what you broke before you add anything new? I realize you can't charge mithril coins for fixing what you broke, but it'd be a good way of pretending that it isn't all about the money.
I disagree with this. I like the fact that I don't lose character advancement any more by participating in festivals. Cut the xp? Ok, I can go for that. None whatsoever? I'll end up skipping the fests like I used to before they added character experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyaha
I am trying to think in more festival to do, it's kinda hard you know. Maybe something like vacations or thanks giving... or the Royal Festival, with cosmetics like for kings and queens :D and about the old festivals, add more new items every year... that would be nice
Most of what others have said I agree with.
Most of all, festivals should be fun with minimal grind. Agreed we should put in a bit of effort to get the rewards, but they still need to be fairly achievable. Single tokens would go part-way towards that perhaps, as well as reducing the size of the gated deeds for the Frostbluff barter items.
The return of dresses, please, please, please. I realise that robes are easier since both males and females wear them, but the lack of dresses was a real disappointment this year. The tunics could do with a revamp too, I'm not keen on the 3/4 pants look (on tall folk at least).
More dances for each of the races. Men have a 3rd one, which is rep gated, but would be great if we could have more for each other races.
More seasonal circlets, like holly for the yule and Autumn leaves for Autumn. The Harvest-brew circlet is great, but wish it was dyeable!
The Spooky Bat gear, while I essentially liked it, didn't really live up to being 'spooky' (unless you count sitting on a bat while wearing the robe!). A bat-type mask would have been awesome. Some Autumn-fest spooky masks would be great, more than the goblin and bucket-head we already have.
Complete sets of housing items for each season, such as the welcome mats, walls, perhaps even floors.
The look of steeds could do with a change of direction too. As many others have said, enough with the blankets, or at least provide an option. Would be cool if we could get past fest steeds as warsteed gear (I guess that's even less likely than for rep steeds).
As for festivals in general, I think any new ones need to be short term ones (2-5 days), and it would be great if there was one for each of the races. Hobbits have Bilbo (& Frodo's) birthday, could perhaps count the Treasure Hunt for Dwarves (though Durin's Day would be great), there's also been good suggestions for Elves. The Summer fest needs something special too, perhaps swimming races as one or two others have suggested (similar to the horse races). Would also be great to have a cycle of the fests getting future revamps, like there seemed to be in the past. That would help keep it fresh for those of us who have been doing them for a number of years now, but also give some time for new people or alts to get rewards and titles etc. One fest a year that has some new stuff (after they all get a little bit of new stuff next year, Summer being the main one hopefully) I think would be a good way to go.
Additional new quests each year for the existing festivals. Particularly good are new mechanics. Fancy like Frostbluff Theater or a little simpler like the eating contest, both are good. The chicken-egg game at Sanderson's was a nice one, too. Shrew-stomping.
My earlier post about letting creeps out on Halloween got some people saying they would like that and people saying they wouldn't
how about this
On Halloween night from 8-12 (or something idk) creeps are let out ect ect like i said before but every freep from that time is upscaled to 95? that way it would still be a a scare but not a zerg fest
just ideas to add to my earlier post
Apart form the fact it would make no sense in game? (I believe this was mentioned earlier) With nothing to gain from it, what is the point? (No XP, Infamy etc.) it would just be a mindless exercise.Quote:
Originally Posted by stormshadowking
My 87 Mini got nearly 32k for accepting and completing the 'get the map for the festival put into your bag' quest.
Why is this?.. its a festival... and I literally did nothing but push two buttons for it while standing in Galtrev.
I'd like to see a Wild Hunt added to the Yule festival. To those who are not familiar with it, the Wild Hunt was a mythological event associated often with Yule in Northern Europe where at night Odin/other god etc would be seen at night hunting on his horse with a number of other riders and dogs sweeping though the forest. There were lots of different versions of this myth depending on the place, including ones where the Hunt's dogs were hell hounds that sweeped hapless people who were out at night off to hell. The Hunt is typified by being preceded by the howling of the dogs.
This website explains the myth better and far more eloquently than I: http://bit.ly/19g7qaw
My idea for LOTRO's Wild Hunt could be that at night, in-game during December, the Wild Hunt can pop up anywhere in Middle-earth. Instead of Odin, the hunt could be lead by Oromë (or someone who looks like him if rights do not allow) who is hunting perhaps a huge fast moving elite that runs across the map as fast as a warsteed. The Hunt would have mist around it making it look more ethereal and it could start snowing when it appears. Players can join in the hunt on their warsteeds and help take down the huge evil beast. If it is too difficult to add warsteed abilities in older areas this could just spawn in Rohan.
There could be a version of this that only spawns in the Ettenmoors that is instead lead by one of Sauron's Lieutenants, with hounds (hellhound looking) that kill anyone in their path. The creeps could join this hunt and their objective would be to take out as many freeps as they can. The freeps would have to group up and try to take the hunt down.
All players would get tokens for taking part which could be exchanged for cool cosmetics.
A gift exchange event would be nice too. Perhaps tokens could drop at Yule like they do at the Anniversary Festival, but the difference being, you can not spend them on yourself or alts - you have to use them to purchase gifts for other players/kinmates.
During Harvest Festival/Halloween it would be good if special ghost warbands could appear randomly at night and drop special ghooly and ghastly items in their boxes. During this festival we could also have some new quests in the Barrow Downs. Perhaps a hapless group of Hobbits get captured whilst on a ghost tour and we have to rescue them. They could be in any of the barrows which would be random each time.
During Spring Festival we could have an event where we have to collect seeds from across Middle-earth and then plant them in the shire. If enough seeds are planted based on the entire server, in summer a beautiful flower display blooms and perhaps a new tree begins to grow. The tree would grow steadily with each season and there could be specific quests to help nurture it that enough people on the server would need to perform for the tree to continue growing.
What about some kind of festival on Tolkein's birthday? Could say it's a festival for the first king of Men or something. I dunno. :P But why not have a festival for the man who created the world we all love?
I would quite like a zone similar to Frostbluff in Yule for every season event e.g spring,summer and autumn.
I would also like festivals to expand into higher areas such as Rivendell,Rohan,Dunland,Lorien ,North Downs,Evendim,Forochel etc
Perhaps also warsteed cosmetics of older festival steeds?
So many good ideas and it is clear that like housing, some people like festivals, some people do not. I really like them for the respite from questing. For my own part I would ask...
* Don't add more, enrich what we have; don't extend duration, it's right-sized.
* Do add new areas for festivals (like Winterhome). Gladden fields for Spring? Belfalas in southern Gondor for summer? Create new places
* For the 2 festivals that did create new places (winterhome, haunted burrow), expand them in size.
* Make it a rule to always add a new quest type or two while dropping a few others. Too static and I've seen that same play too many times!
* What a great idea to think of more group-based events like the theatre and my personal favorite...clubbing.
Consolidate all past festival tokens
I used to really enjoy festivals- they were a nice, fun break from my normal gameplay. However, I have stopped bothering now. Why?
1) Too much grind. I have to grind for just about everything at level cap already- I want the festivals to be fun, not just ANOTHER grind. The Yule deeds last year were the final straw. Needing to grind a ridiculous number of quests for a festival reward was terrible, and it was made worse by the fact that after having done the quests quite a bit the year before, no credit was given for the past completions.
2) TP/Mithril Coin corruption. Designing new events in a way that practically forces you to spend TP/MC is aggravating, especially since everything in game is being monetized. I don't want a hard sell environment at something that is supposed to be fun and festive.
3) Lackluster rewards. How one feels about the look of the horses and cosmetics is certainly subjective, but I feel the past few batches have been a bit lackluster. Beyond cosmetics and horses, there is very little to entice me to join the festivities despite #'s 1 and 2. Star Trek Online's Winter and Summer Festivals offered SHIPS as the big festival draw (on top of special foods, cosmetics, pets and snowball weapons). They could be acquired by doing one specific quest per day for the bulk of the festival period. And the ships were really good ships for gameplay as well- not just a shiny vanity item that was useless in real gameplay.
4) Special Events within the festivals. You kind of did this with the Theater in Frostbluff, but it could be expanded more. In Q's Winter Wonderland over in STO, periodically an army of snowmen invade the festival area, requiring players to work together to stop it with snowballs and special weapons earned from the festival. You can also team up with other players to defend a gingerbread man colony from a snowmen attack. Its fun, festive, and a wildly Q-like experience. LOTRO doesn't have Q to really go crazy with festival stuff, but would it be so terrible for the fall festival to have a special team-based thematic PVP battleground to pit a team of freeps vs a team of creeps? Or have a PVP foodfight between teams of freeps? Or a PVE event were people have to work together to for a bit- like having the Sackville-Bagginses decide they want to ruin the festival and they send some hobbits to steal food from the party area and the players need to slap them or chuck apples at them to drive them off.
Add a scavenger hunt that takes place in the area's player housing neighborhood. A list of clues could indicate the address where something needs to be put down or picked up. The reward for the scavenger hunt should always be housing related or perhaps -- as a second option to give players a choice if they don't want the housing item -- festival tokens.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sapience
Im thinking something in the housing areas when it hits festival times. Youd think in the middle of a celebratory festival the hobbits etc would be there celebrating - instead its....dead. In fact what ever is there a point in the housing area aside occasionally looking at your house, and using the storage.
Have on where you have to run around the neighbourhood. Maybe deliver gifts to your neighbours, or race around. You know actually see around the place, have a reason to go there, and so something - see something happening there....
Also def do something with resources you already have - the tag game being one, its so out the way im sure half the population dont even know about it, have it smack bang in the middle of the festival, there would be lots playing. Bring back hobnanigans! And probably some more use of the chickens.
Er... Hide n seek in bree, a npc sends you on a hunt for another that spawns somewhere random.
Races that are actually races, I remember when you had horse racing against other players - dont have to force people to but it would be an added bonus to be able to do that if you so wished, even more so that we have the slowdown areas now.
How about one akin to the horse quest with the session play at the farm (the one with ordering Riders of Rohan - an epic one avoiding mud pits) or the dwarf/hobbit races but one where you can actually join in, eating the wrong thing slows you down/speeds you up.
Im sure we could have something similar to the bounders tokens mechanic - but something smaller like building the biggest cake/party, everyone contributes. Time limit = length of festival, something good for all if completed.
Dont drop quests, just add 1 or 2 more a year, oh and whats up with the elf festival area, is it ever actually used apart from 1 festival? And i know ive been dissapointed going to thorins hall hoping for something like the clubbing to find it empty. The only thing being able to do is the miniscule amount of things in the pub downstairs. (dance,geode and ale I think was all that was there, wasnt worth leaving the shire)
And more beer related ones, beer is always good.
Don't you guys think that people in Middle Earth should focus more on DEFENDING rather than celebrating the rise of Sauron? There are too many festivals already and I'd like to see more important improvements in the game, and addition of EXPLORATION instead of pure old-fashioned running in circles to deliver beer for lazy Dwarves or Hobbits!
Which festival celebrates the rise of Sauron?Quote:
Originally Posted by BosDragon
One could argue that the festivals are what we're defending. The 'normal' people and their way of life include festivals, and Sauron would take that away.
I think it would be a great idea to make a Trade Fair (for example in Bree) where players of different professions(for the most part) or just players that can offer something special will be able to open there little wooden store. And there also could be a special ability (like the 'calling buyers' and 'yells' to make a feeling of fuss and business). But there is an auction hall some of you may say but what do you think about the real feeling of skilful crafting and trading in Middle-Earth. It is kind of roleplay event when all players can easily sell off different items they've made or found at good price (because it is difficult to compare prices in such fuss) and may be win some exlusive recipes in festival's competitions (why there isn't a toymaker profession or such recipes for jeweler, tailor, woodworker or scholar) (there should be some unusual recipes, may be even useless). And so there could be some things like apple- or mushroom-collecting to make a feeling of prepairings to the Trade Fair.
I think the event should come to Middle-Earth when the snow starts melting. It will be the symbol of re-borning of nature. So it is.
I am currently running all my avatars with the stone of the tortoise having levelled up far to quickly due to earning experience points at festivals (the 1 month double up pre HD did not help), I have level 30 characters that are only just completing the quests in the Northern Barrow Down's. Could the amount of experience awarded be reduced? Or is the idea to get us all levelled up quicker so that we need to buy the expansions!
What about a day of the dead as part of halloween. The old graveyard outside Bree would be an ideal location, quests could revolve around finding candles/ flowers to lay on gravestones, cleaning old moss of head stones, replacing the old gate, tracing down a particular grave from the register at the town hall etc. The area does exist and after 10 months of play I haven't seen it used for anything.
I was trying to be sarcastic there. I'm a bit tired of festivals and celebrations in Middle-Earth especially because as Rohan is now under full attack and people in Middle-Earth should focus more on war and less on celebrations because celebrations aren't going to help the Free-Peoples to defend against Sauron.Quote:
Originally Posted by BosDragon
My comment is hiding a deeper message. We need more focus on game mechanics development and more focus on improving the game instead of adding more pointless festivals to LOTRO.
My take is that Turbine is already working on other improvements to the game, and that a call for suggestions re festivals/events is separate from that. The festivals/events are a valuable part of the game; it doesn't necessarily need to be expanded, but it could definitely be improved.
To that end, please put in a new play for the G.L.O.B.E. theater each year. Keep the same three parts (villain, etc.), same rewards/titles, but PLEASE make it a different play each time. Once you have a few of them, then you could alternate them by the week to add variety.
I like the above suggestion re a Wild Hunt. A warsteed version for Eastern Rohan and a regular-steed version for lower-level areas would be nice. There are already rare/elites around the lower-level areas, and warbands in Rohan -- just bring in Orome and grab players for the ride (allowing option to pass/opt-out just like the appearance of warbands in the regular game). But do add some intense atmospherics for it -- thunderstorm in Rohan, blizzard in snowy areas, etc.
Every time I visit the theater in Frostbluff ... every time I go backstage ... I want a theater like that for players to use in the regular game! Layered/Instanced/Whatever so that the audience is in one place, and the performers are on the stage -- and the griefers cannot come up on stage during the show. The backstage layout in Frostbluff is great -- with NPCs and little rooms etc. I want that for musical performances in-game. Have one in the Shire, Thorins, Celondim/Duillond, and a big one in Bree, each with their own decorative style. Once the bugs/dynamics are worked out, add one in Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien, and Edoras. Perhaps have some decorating options that players can choose from (furniture options for the stage, like decorating a house), and some wardrobe and held-item options also (can copy them to a special outfit slot, which disappears when you leave the theater), and a bard with musical instruments if you need them. Perhaps have a generic performance put on by NPCs whenever a player-group isn't using it. The kicker is to figure out how to arrange usage -- how to allow reservations in advance, without allowing one person to grab all the sign-ups. Perhaps allow one signup per account per week? Have a merit/demerit system? Perhaps allow kins to signup based on size/longevity/something? There has to be a way to make it work; the Frostbluff Theater is already most of the way there.
There have already been some fantastic responses in this thread.
I agree that we've seen enough blankets on horses for a while. I pick those horses up for the sake of completion, but wouldn't be caught riding one.
Please remove the mithril coin unlock for quest refresh and put it back on a timer of 1 hr or even 30 min. Why penalize someone who is truly enjoying your festival? Let them have as much fun as they'd like; it will only populate the festival and make it seem more enticing for other festival goers. Wouldn't it be great if people hung around Winterhome long enough that the snowball fights were actually of good size? If you really need to monetize festivals, you could put all of the reward behind MC as an option for those who don't want to quest to earn them.
I'm fine with the current system where only this year and last year's mounts are available for barter. Long past steeds available for TP is ok, but I'd prefer it mean something to have been at the past event. If you are going to sell past steeds in the store, make the war steed cosmetic for it and either port it to those characters with the base steed or offer it at a discounted rate if you have the base steed skill.
Please unify all festival tokens. This was supposed to be accomplished long ago.
Beyond that, I agree with everything below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by PKCrichton