Sapience confirms no new instances/raids any time 'soon'

[Castorix]

I remember when we had 2 pages online at least around 7pm in the evening. Now it's a miracle if we get to having 10 people online

You're lucky : in my kin, there is usually now... 1 people online
Most of kin mates are casual, but even for them, doing faceroll instances bad stuffed with no chance to die and with same loots (217/186/...) in all instances became too boring

[Whiperandwake]

This is NOT new info, they said back in MARCH of 13 that they would not even start a new instance cluster untill after HD launch... i pointed out then, that meant no raids all year, and i got possitivity trolled by the fanboys

[Angadan]

This is NOT new info, they said back in MARCH of 13 that they would not even start a new instance cluster untill after HD launch... i pointed out then, that meant no raids all year, and i got possitivity trolled by the fanboys

I certainly remember them saying 'no traditional raid or instances with HD' way back then. I don't remember them saying they wouldn't even start anything down the development pipeline until after HD release. But perhaps I just missed that. In either case, anyone who called you out for seeing the future so clearly, shame on them.

[Darlgon]

We’ve heard a lot of you suggest we take a break from the annual expansion cycle, and we agree!

I can't seem to wrap my brain around this statement, it refuses to accept it. Did a large group of players actually say this or was it the turbine employees?

Dang it.. now you make me feel like an apologist for Turbine on this publicity debacle. What was CONSTANTLY asked for was to fix all the buggy content. To make raids that had been broken for years work. To make quests and landscape mobs drop meaningful loot for the levelling tunes passing through like Angmar, since the game changed from when they were at cap. To try to make skills level more smoothly between creation and current level cap in a more linear progression. TO FIX LAG. Maybe to look at the game engine and give it a ground up tuneup. To make the Moors more fun, even if they did not make it bigger. (Balanced, even tho they say the have no plans to expand it.) I know that is no where near what was asked for.

Plus, Turbine got LOTS of "Nice revamp of Bree" comments when it was redone. Some also enjoyed the re-envision of the Ered Luin area. (Even tho I found the elves and dwarfs love each other instead if distrusting each other extremely lorebreaking.) The Everswim (Evendim) revamp made the zone all sparkly and pretty to the newer graphics cards. Think for a minute. What if they did that to all the starter zones? Would it be worth leveling up another alt? For some, it would. For new people who never played, they would look at the world with the same wonder we did when we first logged into Lotro, instead of saying, "Geez, whats with the low-grade graphics?"

For years, during the expansion and growth, people been asking for this stuff. We kept getting told, more or less, "We can either develop new content, or we can fix what is here." By progressing forward, what happened? The mountain of bugs grew so large that somebody somewhere said, "We have to go back and make this stuff relevant for those who will not spend $50 to autolevel to 50."

Ok.. I am back to being depressed.

[Calta]

So you're saying what many others have already said over the past few months: the game is on a downward spiral. Some players wander away, income goes down for Turbine, so they have to cut costs a bit, resulting in less new content, so more players wander away, income goes down more, they cut costs more, new content slows to a trickle, so more players wander away, income goes down more....
.

The discussion of management styles affecting the lack of direction seems truest to me:Kate Paiz letter expresses no vision for the company. No reference to the epic journey and where will lead us over the next two years. It reads like a low level operation managers 'to do' list-not a company leader's vision for the future of their business or the anticipated future market for their product.
Firstly:
It cetainly seems like the game is being run in 'silos' where marketing/game development/projects/new staff all seem to be pulling in different directions. Maybe they hire new people or contract to people who have done a project in their studies/spare time/work experience and 'buy' the project cheap with the hire of new person(s). And there does sem a lot of churn at Turbine. Losing senior experienced project managers means you lose company wisdom and history.

So we get these examples-just a short list of many possible things that show lack of integrated design/direction.

• Half developed BBs as a RTS (with very limited integration into the rest of the game) and loot that doesn't suit the classes it drops for.
• Icons that don't match the rest of the game-I loathe the look of the BB interface and the new class tooltips don't 'match' old ones etc.
• Quests and landscape details in the new areas that are very variable in quality and detail-you can spot the dev by the quest dialogue quality and content.
• New areas still have bards and trainers despite them being redundant.
• Some areas have integrated forge-masters/relic masters as one NPC-others keep their demarcation as separate NPCs.
• Aldburg music is on as ambient sound, not the game music

and the list goes ever on and on.

Secondly:
I'd agree with all the cost-benefit analysis about new instances costing too much, shrinking customer base etc. IF they hadn't spent a fortune and over a year of development time on the class revamp that they can't monetise. Raids and instances they could sell as new packs-in addition to the HD expansion. Heck many of us would pay 5-10 extra for a cluster of a 3 man, and a 6 man and even a new skirm-even if raids (much more complex, admittedly) weren't included.

The following sums up the reason i feel the whole class thing was an unwise decision to use thin resources for no apparent financial benefit or player benefit and also indicates unclear strategic planning.

• The balancing classes for future content is clearly spin-since class balance only really matters in groups/instances and PVP and we aren't getting new development in those areas.
• No new content that needs classes is anticipated for a year- so that wasn't the reason
• Levelling already was pretty easy/fast on most clases-they created a the stone of the tortoise to meet player demand, for this reason-so that wasn't the reason.
• There is no evidence classes are balanced for landscape and there is no new solo content -like Hytbold-or solo class specific content-so that isn't the reason.
• Even the casual -i will never group-soloers have nothing to do after the quests. Epic battles are extremely difficult to solo at first, despite the class revamp-they are much harder than any skirm. There are still many threads on this. So that content/class revamp wasn't really designed for them either.

TL: DR
Seems like the overall vision for the game, and consequent holistic approach to quality assurance is just missing. All the little cogs are spinning as fast as they can but the gears aren't meshing. And no one seems to know exacly what the machine is meant to do. All fairly typical if the markeing excecutive is allowed to determine the product design and development and quality assurance standards of a businesss in my experience.

[Radbug]

Interesting thread, very interesting indeed.

Just would like to point out that the class revamp did have a monetization angle. The third spec costs the equivalent of 850TP per character. I have no idea how well that is going down (I want the third one for my Hunter but not at that price), nor am I suggesting it was a primary motive for the skill trees.


I do wonder if this content thing is about timing. Here's a hypothesis which has been bouncing around in my mind although I have no insider knowledge what-so-ever.

The renewal of the license was kind of "announced" recently. More like causally dropped into a conversation, which to me is odd, but there have been statements to the effect that Turbine/WB have had the license renewed and the game will be supported until 2017. I know there are some concerns about perceived ambiguities in the statements but that is a topic for a different thread.

Now we know that 2013 was spent developing HD and March 2013 (I think) saw the final installment of the much maligned Erebor instance cluster. Given that a raid/instance cluster takes a long time to develop - anywhere from 8 to 18 months from what I've read - and is reputed to be the most expensive type of content to make, was there a situation where a decision had to made taking the possibility of non-renewal in early 2014 into account? The Erebor cluster was delivered in two parts and very, very late so it's reasonable to assume that the raid/instance development cycle (if such a thing exists) was knocked out of synch to the tune of 4 to 6 months. Maybe an instance cluster for HD just couldn't be safely authorised with the possibility of license non-renewal before it could realistically be finished?

There are plenty of smart people who work for companies even if we, the customers, don't always agree with the decisions they make (and Lord knows I've howled a lot at times). I just wonder when the Strategic Planning Team were looking at this, soon after the WB buyout I'd guess, that they looked at this point in time, this very clearly defined point in time, and started putting together plans for a worst case scenario.

I'm probably way off with this, but it's been interesting to type it out and think it through. My glass half full is that with the renewal, hopefully the studio will have the backing and finances to produce some quality content for EVERYBODY going forward. I sincerely hope so because despite my moans and grumbles I do remain very fond of this title and those who brought it to life. I suspect most if not all of us who post here feel the same

Time will tell.

[Reximus]

Thanks Sapience for confirming that there will be no new instances cluster for 2014.
Now, i would suggest for Turbine team to start looking for a new job beacuse that decition its the end of LOTRO.

Let me explain why once again...

Their data obviously says you are wrong, and so is your reasoning. They can tell who is playing what content, and how much those people are spending on the game. If Raids/Instance clusters correlated in any strong way to the financial success of the game, they would make more, not less.

I get that raiders are really not happy, and I'm not going to suggest that they should be, but the MMO marketplace is saturated with end game raiding, and several much bigger games do it better. It's a hard part of the MMO space to compete for, and obviously the numbers show that they aren't doing well in competing for that type of gamer. It seems a significant enough percentage of players aren't playing the content, and those who do play it don't spend enough money on the game to justify the cost of making the content. Raids and instances are typically some of the most complicated and expensive content to make, and different studios address that differently. Blizzard addressed it by making the content more accessible for the masses, Turbine is addressing it by backing off content that isn't playable in multiple size modes. That's just the cold reality of it.

[Whatevaplz]

Their data obviously says you are wrong, and so is your reasoning. They can tell who is playing what content, and how much those people are spending on the game. If Raids/Instance clusters correlated in any strong way to the financial success of the game, they would make more, not less.

I get that raiders are really not happy, and I'm not going to suggest that they should be, but the MMO marketplace is saturated with end game raiding, and several much bigger games do it better. It's a hard part of the MMO space to compete for, and obviously the numbers show that they aren't doing well in competing for that type of gamer. It seems a significant enough percentage of players aren't playing the content, and those who do play it don't spend enough money on the game to justify the cost of making the content. Raids and instances are typically some of the most complicated and expensive content to make, and different studios address that differently. Blizzard addressed it by making the content more accessible for the masses, Turbine is addressing it by backing off content that isn't playable in multiple size modes. That's just the cold reality of it.

How does one tell if a gamer is a raider or a casual?

Better explanation is that there are a lot of MMORPG that is coming out this year alone, maybe Turbine is holding off creating new raids elements so they can counter what the other MMO companies are doing. Or they abandoned it rather than competing with these companies they go with this new "casual theme" they trying to sell to the masses.

By the way the new MMOs that are in trend now are mostly Raiding, PvP-oriented games but according to this company they say they are a "dying breed" and a "single digit" number without any data/graphs presented (Just to appeal with the casual approach, marketing 101, baby) Like you said Raids are some of the most expensive content to make, why are these companies currently developing them? The truth is that Turbine is not the only MMO company on Earth and they either need to change their target audience rather than competing with brand new games that offer a lot more, just to survive... Oh and LOTRO is an old game.

[Anárion_Ancalimë]

Well I for one can't imagine playing a new MMORPG atm. I've played this game from the first day of moria and I it kept me playing every day untill HD. Now after I've leveled up my 4 lvl 95 alts and geared them up from BB's mostly by myself since we didn't have enough numbers to do the raid on several occasions and now there's nothing left to do but level up another alts or stop playing altogether. Have done all deeds on all 4 and I've actually enjoyed doing them over the years but now somehow I just don't find as fun as I used to, but getting off topic here anyway..... I've also tried WoW some time ago and I didn't like it at all tbh. This is the only game I even have it installed on my PC lol. But if the things go the way they are now, I think I'll change my mind sooner or later and give some other MMO's a go aswell since there's nothing left to do exept leveling another alt or going to festivals that have same quests every year.

[Alex53]

Then you should understand exactly what can happen when power surges hit electronic equipment and cycle rapidly through a series of brownouts, blackout, and partial reboots with brownouts and blackouts during the rebooting process. As a former IT manager with 15 years experience in server and networking design I shudder to think of what a typical switch would do under that type or electrical abuse.

If you've never seen a server or switch pretty much eat itself alive under those conditions, you've been very fortunate thus far.

And for the OP, I'm glad someone actually made a post a couple of weeks ago. I have tried to tell people that the raids comment isn't new. In truth, before the live stream on the 10th, I had said it on the one you're referencing and we've been telling players since about August of last year that HD would have no traditional instance cluster or raid associated with it.

Which is why you use a UPS, which not only provides electricity from batteries when power is down, but isolates your equipment from power surges that may cause damage. (Does a data centre exist in 2014 that does not provide a good UPS?)

Which is why networks are built with resilience and switches/routers, if not fully meshed, provide separate routes so there is no single point of failure and you can replace your switch while traffic goes through an alternative switch.

Which is why you keep images and backups of all your servers so that you can restore them quickly in the event of hardware failure.

Unless of course you are operating on a shoe-string budget and you cannot afford any of the above. That, or I really must commend you guys for running a game so successfully for so long from your own garage

[Calem]

While Turbine may not have the resources or inclination as they once did, it is all part of a typical product life cycle, product has peaked, now in decline way past it's peak. For those so inclined, we can still enjoy our gaming, your choice and your choice alone, enjoy your journey.

[Darlgon]

I get that raiders are really not happy, and I'm not going to suggest that they should be, but the MMO marketplace is saturated with end game raiding, and several much bigger games do it better. It's a hard part of the MMO space to compete for, and obviously the numbers show that they aren't doing well in competing for that type of gamer. It seems a significant enough percentage of players aren't playing the content, and those who do play it don't spend enough money on the game to justify the cost of making the content. Raids and instances are typically some of the most complicated and expensive content to make, and different studios address that differently. Blizzard addressed it by making the content more accessible for the masses, Turbine is addressing it by backing off content that isn't playable in multiple size modes. That's just the cold reality of it.

I would counter that with, Turbine started ignoring raiders after the game went F2P, with the most obvious sign with the beta after Mirkwood, and the still broken raid Draigoch. Up to that point, Turbine had been producing good quality raids that kept hardcore raiders pretty happy, not that you can tell all these years later. There were pages of how to beat one raid or another posted in the forums, with tweaks suggested. The community felt like they and Turbine as a team were working on the game. The relationship was not adversarial, as has become pretty commonplace, reading the posts in the last year or so.

This is how I remember this happening. I cant tell you how many people reported that raid broken in Beta. It kept going on and offline during beta as it was being, "tweaked'. After a huge leak, bypassing the NDA, Turbine knowingly released that expansion with bugs, the most obvious being the warden debacle. They made an attempt with the Saruman raids, but, by then the harder core raiders had found other games so they came back, beat it after a month and said, "Well, I guess we are done here, lets go back to xxx." Effectively, Turbine drove away most raiders, except those few of us still here who are here because "Its Tolkien baby". That is now not enough and those left are saying, "Thanks for granting us our freedom by dashing any hope for over a year."

All my own opinion obviously, so start sniping.

[Bhoris_they_spider]

And for the OP, I'm glad someone actually made a post a couple of weeks ago. I have tried to tell people that the raids comment isn't new. In truth, before the live stream on the 10th, I had said it on the one you're referencing and we've been telling players since about August of last year that HD would have no traditional instance cluster or raid associated with it.

The comment you refer to was from one of the 20 questions or dev chats and was ambiguous. One interpretation was that you were just confirming that HD would ship with big battle, however once the expansion was 'out the door' you may well release a new instance cluster in the next few updates. The other interpretation was that there would be no new instances for the duration of the helms deep expansion (at least) i.e. while your characters are L95.

With no expansion currently on the roadmap I wonder if we will receive any new instances prior to the level cap increasing further?

[mrfigglesworth]

Please explain the changes to the nature of the story in this particular expansion that has obviated the need of an instance cluster in comparison to every other previous expansion and the launch pack before that. A cynical voice whispers in my ear that this explanation was drawn up in a wannabe marketing meeting and I'd really rather believe there's a better more legitimate explanation.

I find this explanation easy to fathom. Currently we are in friendly territory part of a full scale war. Up to this point we have always gone to bad guys' houses, knocked on their doors, and sieged their dungeons. Big battles seem like the way to go when you're in a war, and instances/raids seem like the way to go when you're taking it to the bad guy's doorstep. Don't get me wrong, If I had the choice I would choose instances and raids over big battles every time, but Sapience's explanation holds water to me with respect to storytelling.

[doug01]

If history proves anything "new content" will be an area where a typical player can do all the quest in 8-10 hours then be faced with three weeks of rep grinding.

[PoeticNightmare]

I find this explanation easy to fathom. Currently we are in friendly territory part of a full scale war. Up to this point we have always gone to bad guys' houses, knocked on their doors, and sieged their dungeons. Big battles seem like the way to go when you're in a war, and instances/raids seem like the way to go when you're taking it to the bad guy's doorstep. Don't get me wrong, If I had the choice I would choose instances and raids over big battles every time, but Sapience's explanation holds water to me with respect to storytelling.

If that's the case, how do you explain the last raid cluster we got? What did our time in Rohan have to do with Erebor and Dale? There have been plenty of instance clusters that weren't part of where we currently were in the story. All of sudden, now it's so important to make sure that the epic dictates what type of instance content we get?

[Alex53]

If that's the case, how do you explain the last raid cluster we got? What did our time in Rohan have to do with Erebor and Dale? There have been plenty of instance clusters that weren't part of where we currently were in the story. All of sudden, now it's so important to make sure that the epic dictates what type of instance content we get?

Exactly. I feel a bit insulted by some of these explanations tbh.

[Anárion_Ancalimë]

I hope they'll atleast nerf all the classes down to where they should be right now or buff up the few scaled raids and instances we have atm, because this is just ridiculious. What's the point of having a healing minnies or RK's if 2 captains can heal a whole BG t2 raid with challenges on cap lvl?? same goes for OD.

[Darlgon]

If that's the case, how do you explain the last raid cluster we got? What did our time in Rohan have to do with Erebor and Dale? There have been plenty of instance clusters that weren't part of where we currently were in the story. All of sudden, now it's so important to make sure that the epic dictates what type of instance content we get?

Think.. WB had the Hobbit Movie 1 out at the same time....

Marketing.. Lots of new players to be had. Lots of Loto commercial space in the trailers before the movie.

And, I will still stand by the content of Epic Battles, not matter how buggy, HAD to come now, so it was ready for Gondor. HOPEFULLY, Turbine will still be around to reap the fruits to implement them with far less bugs in 2016, or whenever/if the game gets there.

[Beaniemooch]

But if all we get at Gondor is more epic battles, I don't want to go.

[PoeticNightmare]

Think.. WB had the Hobbit Movie 1 out at the same time....

Marketing.. Lots of new players to be had. Lots of Loto commercial space in the trailers before the movie.

And, I will still stand by the content of Epic Battles, not matter how buggy, HAD to come now, so it was ready for Gondor. HOPEFULLY, Turbine will still be around to reap the fruits to implement them with far less bugs in 2016, or whenever/if the game gets there.

Yes, that's exactly my point. It was about marketing and the hobbit movie. It had nothing to do with where we were in the epic story line. So, frankly I don't like being told that the only reason we aren't getting traditional instances is because it wouldn't make sense with regards to the story. It was never an issue before.

If its "we have NOW decided to tailor any future instance content strictly based on epic story", then so be it. But it wasn't always that way.

[PoeticNightmare]

But if all we get at Gondor is more epic battles, I don't want to go.

I agree. I have tried but I just can't get into epic battles. My character feels so empty and useless. I feel like my class doesn't matter at all. I main a champ because I like to fight hard and go all out DPS. I don't want to run around clicking random icons all over the place. I've tried the Vanguard but enemies completely ignored me and went down in a couple hits from NPCs. It's truly sad

[Nleuter]

Yes, that's exactly my point. It was about marketing and the hobbit movie. It had nothing to do with where we were in the epic story line. So, frankly I don't like being told that the only reason we aren't getting traditional instances is because it wouldn't make sense with regards to the story. It was never an issue before.

If its "we have NOW decided to tailor any future instance content strictly based on epic story", then so be it. But it wasn't always that way.

To be honest I would not be surprised if WB forced their hand with those raids. Erebor did not seem like a well planned cluster, instead it felt like a slap-job done in about 3 months. consequently, It is within the world of possibility that Turbine were given their marching orders and lost creative direction in this specific instance, and going forth, I would not be surprised if this happens again at the convenience of Warner Brothers broader aims and objectives.

[Snowlock]

I find this explanation easy to fathom. Currently we are in friendly territory part of a full scale war. Up to this point we have always gone to bad guys' houses, knocked on their doors, and sieged their dungeons. Big battles seem like the way to go when you're in a war, and instances/raids seem like the way to go when you're taking it to the bad guy's doorstep. Don't get me wrong, If I had the choice I would choose instances and raids over big battles every time, but Sapience's explanation holds water to me with respect to storytelling.

<Mrfigglesworth receives mail> It's Galadrial! /gasp. It's titled: An Urgent Summons

"Mrfigglesworth, please hasten at once to Lorien for an urgent meeting"


<Mrfigglesworth maps to Lorien, goes up the White Tree, falls off, goes back up again and clicks on the golden ring above Galadrial's head.>

"Mrfigglesworth, our scouts have revealed that X is in great peril! The enemy has occupied the Y and now threatens all of the free people! You must hasten to gather 11 of your most doughty companions and hasten to X where you must defeat the evil Z and his 5 lieutenants before all is lost. Hurry!"

Pff, cause the story demands it? Bah.

Oh, and besides if Turbine were so interested in story when it comes to instances they wouldn't have massacred their old instances that were so rooted in storytelling. Spamming GB ain't exactly good storytelling and I'm sure they all know it.

[Darlgon]

<Summary of each new xpac.>

Oh, and besides if Turbine were so interested in story when it comes to instances they wouldn't have massacred their old instances that were so rooted in storytelling. Spamming GB ain't exactly good storytelling and I'm sure they all know it.

Thats kinda funny. It is how it works in every new book, isnt it?

And.. yeah.. hate to admit it, but, when they broke up some of the old raids into smaller pieces, they indeed did ignore that they were all one story, didnt they? I never really thought of it taht way. SIGH.