Twenty Questions with the LOTRO Dev Team

[zagreb000]

Until we come to a clear and accurate definition of Rank Farming and a clear and infallible way to identify (nothing posted in this thread to date qualifies) those who meet that definition, no.

Yeah i understand why it takes a couple years to figure out such a thing. The developers are ents!
Or they just dont give a.... chocolate cowered marshmallow!...

There are obvious cases of rank farming. Start with those.

[Al.]

That makes my point stronger. Not weaker.


You say that as though such an observation obviates the need for the canceled "phase 2" of the LI revamp. . . as if the issues people have with the LI system has anything to do with such things.

But it's moot. They canceled phase 2.

The LI system as it currently exists is a cash cow for Turbine. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any substantial revisions to it now.

--H

No it makes your point weak, you at this point want the game to sink and disappear because it doesn't appeal to you anymore. IMO

Sapiece*Nudge* *Nudge* Any word on LI revamp before or after helms deep? would be great news,

[Hurin]

No it makes your point weak, you at this point want the game to sink and disappear because it doesn't appeal to you anymore. IMO

Your substance-free assertion intended to aggravate aside. . . please explain what "it" is and how "it" makes my "point" weak considering that my "point" is a well-known and documented fact: That Phase 2 of the LI revamp was explicitly canceled (in a letter to the community from the game's producer). With no reason provided.

[Al.]

Your substance-free assertion intended to aggravate aside. . . please explain what "it" is and how "it" makes my "point" weak considering that my "point" is a well-known and documented fact: That Phase 2 of the LI revamp was explicitly canceled (in a letter to the community from the game's producer). With no reason provided.

Forgot to link your "well known fact: phase 2 is cancelled", Update 2:LI revamp was ageas ago, and possibly an update to existing system is required.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

However, since it affects one of my mains, it's huge to me. (para) My further question at this point is, how do I track where a bug is in this chain of events? Do I need to call support? Do I need to PM someone? Do I submit multiple bug reports? I'm very much at a loss on how to rectify this in-game problem for which the GM had no answer except put in a bug report. Any suggestions out there? Thank you in advance.

You do not. The process is completely opaque to us. There is no way what the current status is. It could be any of the following:

1) Not a problem - No change planned.
2) Minor problem - Change scheduled for the release of Helms Deep
3) Problem - we are not going to fix it.
4) Fixed and released quietly without telling us. 99.9% of the bugs are fixed this way. Some of these fixes do not work. I generally write a new bug report after each major content update.
5) Add more possibilities

I do not know of any software development organization that has fully transparent system for bugs.

My company offers a tracking system for customer reports of any kind of problem. A customer reports a problem that turns out to a software bug then Customer Service Report (CSR) gets an official bug report number. The customer can never access the bug report with all its details that software developers like me work with. Somebody in Customer Service has to sanitize and create updates to the CSR based on the progress with the bug report. This entire customer process is a Premium service. Customers have to pay to submit CSRs, talk to a Customer Service Engineer (CSE) or access a CSR remotely. A person can only see their CSRs or if the customer is a company - the person has to be authorized to access their company's CSRs.

I can not speak about Turbine's bug process. For us, customer bug reports and interfacing with customers is large expense. Without the dollars from the customers we could not afford to provide any details. The other big problem is that bug reports include a liberal dose of corporate confidential information about how the product works. What problems has. How much it costs to fix problem 137,364. None of which we our competitors to get access to.

[Sezneg]

It won't be 5.0 The delay is because none of our services use stock, off the shelf, copies of VB. There are integration issues and there is the need to make sure that previous modifications did not create problems for migrating data when we update. And, obviously, finding work arounds if there are any issues.



And that is a large part of the ongoing discussion. You can begin to get an idea of how this isn't 'easy' or 'simple' just by the questions you are asking.



Until we come to a clear and accurate definition of Rank Farming and a clear and infallible way to identify (nothing posted in this thread to date qualifies) those who meet that definition, no.

I don't think you need to have a system for banning people for "rank farming". Rather i think you could get by with systems changes to discourage the practice.

1. Disable deleting a creep character. Want a new name? Pay for it. Deletion and rerolling of creep classes is really only useful for questionable things like rank/commendation farming.

2. Make a TOS addendum to policy for multi-boxers. Simply disallow it in the ettenmoors. You can create very simple and understandable guidelines for your GM staff to sort this out. There's a very clear line of action (are they in the ettenmoors? If yes; this is actionable. If no; ignore), that would be no more difficult to enforce than the current TOS.

I don't think you'll ever be able to catch every person farming rank. Especially since most will be doing it slowly with a single alternate account (and frankly it's impossible to sort out the ones using a friend's actual account for this sort of thing). You CAN however discourage the "high gainers" who are farming 4-5 accounts at a time and constantly rerolling the reavers to reset their rating.

[Sapience]

The other big problem is that bug reports include a liberal dose of corporate confidential information about how the product works. What problems has. How much it costs to fix problem 137,364. None of which we our competitors to get access to.

I'm going to steal this little piece of info from Yula. It's a very good answer to the "why don't you tell us...X" questions we're often asked. Basically anything that comes down to sharing business data, processes, confidential information and such is a non-starter.

[Wilkens]

Yeah i understand why it takes a couple years to figure out such a thing. The developers are ents!
Or they just dont give a.... chocolate cowered marshmallow!...

There are obvious cases of rank farming. Start with those.

Since there is no agreed upon definition of rank farming your assertion is false. There may very well be cases that have the feel of rank farming but without a clear definition of what is (and isnt) its a subjective categorization by definition. Moreover working backwards from conduct to create a rule is by far the worst way to do things. Rather the best way is to create a rule and test it against past behaviors to see if it would reach the intended conclusion, then keep tweaking the rule until that is true.

Saying behavior "x" is clearly rank farming so it should be banned is a horribly ad hoc way to do things not in the least because it entirely reactionary and so you will always see folks nibbling at the edges to.see if they can get away with something because it isn't "technically" behavior "x".

[Al.]

I'm going to steal this little piece of info from Yula. It's a very good answer to the "why don't you tell us...X" questions we're often asked. Basically anything that comes down to sharing business data, processes, confidential information and such is a non-starter.

Thanks Sapience, hope the LI system is part of those questions not answered.

[Hurin]

Forgot to link your "well known fact: phase 2 is cancelled"

So, it's really come to this sort of pedantic antagonism now? Every statement of fact must also have a link attached no matter how universally stipulated such a fact is?

As an aside, that's pretty neat how you completely ignore the questions that demonstrate the substance-free nature of your earlier assertion that some "it" has rendered my "point" somehow "weak". . . and you then merely move on to asking for documentation of things nobody (else) actually doubts took place.

The announcement of a major LI revamp broken up into two phases did indeed take place in a Letter to the Community:

Next Steps with Legendary Items – We’re planning on doing two upgrades to Legendary Items next year – one in the Q1 release, and one later in the year. The goal is to respond to a bunch of your feedback and to incorporate some more versatility, flexibility and less randomness into the system. We’ll certainly be releasing a dev diary on the Q1 changes as we get into next year.

The announcement that phase 2 had been canceled was not quite so happily publicized but can be read about here among other places.

Again, I'm not sure why you required those links considering that nobody doubts that any of this happened. They were going to substantially revamp LIs, and then. . . *poof*. . . for some reason they decided against it.

Here's the truly sad thing though. . . we agree that LIs need a revamp. Yet your ideological blinders won't even allow you to acknowledge the most likely reason why that revamp was called off in the first place. And why we're unlikely to ever see anything close to the revamp that the players clamoured for all those years ago.

We may get some F2P-era, heavily monetized system. . . but we will never get the system we had all hoped we'd get when the revamp was originally announced.

Anyways, this thread is not about Legendary Items or your ongoing beef with me. You asked about an LI revamp and I provided you some background of which you seemed unaware. It's unfortunate that you saw the need to take such information and turn it into another invective-filled argument as you have in other threads. I won't assist you in derailing this thread further.

--H

[Al.]

So, it's really come to this sort of pedantic antagonism now? Every statement of fact must also have a link attached no matter how universally stipulated such a fact is?

As an aside, that's pretty neat how you completely ignore the questions that demonstrate the substance-free nature of your earlier assertion that some "it" has rendered my "point" somehow "weak". . . and you then merely move on to asking for documentation of things nobody (else) actually doubts took place.

The announcement of a major LI revamp broken up into two phases did indeed take place in a Letter to the Community:

Next Steps with Legendary Items – We’re planning on doing two upgrades to Legendary Items next year – one in the Q1 release, and one later in the year. The goal is to respond to a bunch of your feedback and to incorporate some more versatility, flexibility and less randomness into the system. We’ll certainly be releasing a dev diary on the Q1 changes as we get into next year.

The announcement that phase 2 had been canceled was not quite so happily publicized but can be read about here among other places.

Again, I'm not sure why you required those links considering that nobody doubts that any of this happened. They were going to substantially revamp LIs, and then. . . *poof*. . . for some reason they decided against it.

Here's the truly sad thing though. . . we agree that LIs need a revamp. Yet your ideological blinders won't even allow you to acknowledge the most likely reason why that revamp was called off in the first place. And why we're unlikely to ever see anything close to the revamp that the players clamoured for all those years ago.

We may get some F2P-era, heavily monetized system. . . but we will never get the system we had all hoped we'd get when the revamp was originally announced.

Anyways, this thread is not about Legendary Items or your ongoing beef with me. You asked about an LI revamp and I provided you some background of which you seemed unaware. It's unfortunate that you saw the need to take such information and turn it into another invective-filled argument as you have in other threads. I won't assist you in derailing this thread further.

--H

I will be brief

First, your links you posted give insight to a revamp, the one you claim "cancelled phase 2" is not even a single developer mention it was postponed or cancelled, in other words the possibility is there and more than likely devs are working on it.

Second, F2P is not the monetized-monster you put it to be, its more like a trend to play more games and decide how much you spend on it, call it loyalty and future tiumes trend, you might not like it but you definetly can't demonized it like you have.

[Sapience]

The LI Question was asked and answered in the March 21, 2013 Twitter Dev Chat.

Q19: Avengingbananaslug - Are there any plans to rework the legendary item system?

A19: Evan "Verizal" Graziano
At this time, no, there are no plans to rework LI.

[Hurin]

I will be brief

You have a habit of doing that when there are things you would rather not address or questions you would rather not answer.

First, your links you posted give insight to a revamp, the one you claim "cancelled phase 2" is not even a single developer mention it was postponed or cancelled, in other words the possibility is there and more than likely devs are working on it.

First, going from "planned" to "not planned" is synonymous with canceled.

Second, though you consider it "more than likely" that devs are working on it, Sapience just told you that they are not.

Second, F2P is not the monetized-monster you put it to be, its more like a trend to play more games and decide how much you spend on it, call it loyalty and future tiumes trend, you might not like it but you definetly can't demonized it like you have.

I merely point out the unintended and often poorly understood and documented undesireable side-effects that such a business model has on the games that adopt it. And there are many. That you find it necessary to characterize this as "demonizing" and assert/demand that I "can't" do so is somewhat telling.

Anyways, you asked your question, I provided you with historical background, and now Sapience has given you a direct answer. The prior revamp was canceled. And they are not currently working on a new one however "more than likely" you might consider the possibility that they are.

Take Care,

--H

[Al.]

Thanks for the reply Sapience.

To hurin, I posted around the same time Sapience did, I didn't see the post until now.

Seems you were right on this.

[Tbeard77]

A very informative thread, thanks for sharing!

As a budding software developer myself, I'm curious if you would be willing to share some of the best practice patterns your team employs when architecting a massive game such as this? For example, do you use architectural patterns similar to MVVM of MVC, TDD, etc.. in order to build application layers that are decoupled and code that is more easily maintained and scalable?
Just curious on how the pros do it. Thanks! Keep up the great work!

[zagreb000]

Since there is no agreed upon definition of rank farming your assertion is false. There may very well be cases that have the feel of rank farming but without a clear definition of what is (and isnt) its a subjective categorization by definition. Moreover working backwards from conduct to create a rule is by far the worst way to do things. Rather the best way is to create a rule and test it against past behaviors to see if it would reach the intended conclusion, then keep tweaking the rule until that is true.

Saying behavior "x" is clearly rank farming so it should be banned is a horribly ad hoc way to do things not in the least because it entirely reactionary and so you will always see folks nibbling at the edges to.see if they can get away with something because it isn't "technically" behavior "x".

Clearly rank farming exists. The label "rank farming" applies to something. I often take as an example a freep hiding behind a rock and farming his creep repeatedly,for hours on end, while multi-boxing.They are trying to decide what to encompass into the definition of rank farming. Not one thing, but numerous things. Rank farming is completely subjective at this moment, i agree with that but obvious rank farming does exist. What is it? It is the root from which everything subjectively understood as rank farming comes from.
My suggestion is to start with something. Decide what that root is and start with fixing it instead of waiting to determine everything that falls into that category.

I broke it down so you understand my point....... So yeah, not much you said really applies to my comment.....

[Malachi108]

I'm going to steal this little piece of info from Yula. It's a very good answer to the "why don't you tell us...X" questions we're often asked. Basically anything that comes down to sharing business data, processes, confidential information and such is a non-starter.

Might we assume that the issue of Turbine' LOTR license supposedly ending in 2014, which comes up pretty often now, is not mentioned by any Turbine employees due to such restrictions and not due a CONSPIRACY!!1 to shut LOTRO down next year?

[Danchir]

We know that the LI system is not about to change, as stated in the mentioned dev chat.

The more I try to use it to a decent level on more than 1 or 2 chars, the more I'd like to see it not revamped, but removed. As in 'it never existed'. There's nothing 'legendary' about it anyway, except the grind for relics, not to mention shards. There is no real/unique customization for a given role of a given class, and for a purely dps class there is no customization at all. And this customization doesn't include a cosmetic component, but that's the least of a problem.

Not only its removal will free countless vault slots now taken by its components, but (more importantly) it will untie the devs' hands for faster changing of classes' skills and mechanics, w/o care for this extra burden.

No, you don't have to start with the 'it's about the money' and 'how do you propose to compensate monetary value?'. I always find such questions out of the point. I play a game product here. I'm not an accountant, I'm not a game dev. I can only say what I like and dislike, it is beyond me how problems are dealt with, regardless of how interesting the process may be.

About MC:
I like the idea of mounted combat and appreciate the maximum to which it is extended, given the technicality issues involved. What I don't understand is why those technical problems were not predicted and, if not removable, why the entire MC had to be introduced at all. So much effort was clearly input to it, yet it is not usable for serious group content and the rubber-banding is such a hassle. The whole thing is like a pretty but unusable object hanging above the fireplace. It is like the most expensive cosmetic cloak in the galaxy.
To say the least, you could try to not place raid-size WBs in thick forests with dense extra mobs possessing skills for CC and reducing the control over an already clumsy horse. That, if not the rest, was completely avoidable and related to zone design, not to MC design.

About instances:
I like CD, Uru, old-school Fornost and the GA-cluster, GB is cool too. If a new IC is not on the way, perhaps some of these could be revamped.
I'd really like to see locks introduction for scaled content and not purely-RNG-based loot system.

I hope in the next portion of HD-information we'll get some insights about those. Old or not, the game is nice and still has a lot to offer, as it offered a lot in the past.

[Hiritier]

About instances:
I like CD, Uru, old-school Fornost and the GA-cluster, GB is cool too. If a new IC is not on the way, perhaps some of these could be revamped.
I'd really like to see locks introduction for scaled content and not purely-RNG-based loot system.

I hope in the next portion of HD-information we'll get some insights about those. Old or not, the game is nice and still has a lot to offer, as it offered a lot in the past.

I really want to know the answer for the loot system in the next 20 Q-A too. The loot system now is the main reason make me sick. It should be more effort/reward based. And the old instances revamped are nice too, but please make them popular (by a proper reward) not just scale them but make them too easy (like Samborg), or the reward not worth to run (like SG, LT or SS).

[Sapience]

I really want to know the answer for the loot system in the next 20 Q-A too. The loot system now is the main reason make me sick. It should be more effort/reward based. And the old instances revamped are nice too, but please make them popular (by a proper reward) not just scale them but make them too easy (like Samborg), or the reward not worth to run (like SG, LT or SS).

The loot system question was answered in a twitter chat. There are no plans to go back to the old system.

[Jadzi]

One thing I've been curious about is the design process for armor. I know the devs have mentioned things about it in the past, such as the fact they have a certain number of base meshes they can rig textures to, generating different effects from a single skeleton. Or that they had a certain number in SoA, and nearly doubled that number in Moria. But what about the process of modeling that armor? Any new tricks or creative innovations to boast of?

For instance, a lot of armor seems like it was built on a male human frame, and then adapted to the other six body types, sometimes to comical effect. In a few recent cases, such as Cel-crus, there's actually gender-specific variations. Is that something we'll be seeing more of in the future?

[bastiat1]

The loot system question was answered in a twitter chat. There are no plans to go back to the old system.

Can't really blame em. Over 3 trillion mobs have been slain in Diablo 3. A very large percentage of the population loves mindless faceroll lottery games. Turbine is just feeding the hunger.

[Wanderv]

Can't really blame em. Over 3 trillion mobs have been slain in Diablo 3. A very large percentage of the population loves mindless faceroll lottery games. Turbine is just feeding the hunger.

I'm not sure it works fine in Lotro. I see a steady decline of players' numbers...

[zagreb000]

Can't really blame em. Over 3 trillion mobs have been slain in Diablo 3. A very large percentage of the population loves mindless faceroll lottery games. Turbine is just feeding the hunger.

I think they adopted that system because of Diablo 3. Every business is aware of its competition. They seen Diablo 3 was popular and that the loot system is of huge importance to the game so, yeah, they thought it could work for Lotro if it worked so well for Diablo 3. A tweak here and there.
If another popular game comes out with a different system and it isnt hard to implement into Lotro, we might be seeing that. Just a hunch for most part, really.

EDIT: just another, probably bad idea. But maybe add a new loot tier? Something similar to WoW legendaries. They could have fun with Aragorns old sword since it is unknown what happened to it (i hope im not mistaken). It wouldnt really be lore breaking. Even if you made it with bad stats and just put in the description: "Aragorn wielded this sword as a ranger, or did he?"

[dreamcreatorx]

The loot system question was answered in a twitter chat. There are no plans to go back to the old system.

Any chance of getting gold drop items from raids turned into unique?

Our Minny just received her 3rd gold hat last night, while others continue to suffer.