LotRO not working on new dungeons, has no plans to merge servers from massively.joystiq.com

[Sardonyx]

Steam is actually a good outlet. It is another way to reach a good amount of prospect of players. If what you are saying that the mass of 3700 players is lower then the real amount of LOTRO gamers then that is true. But If 40% of this mass decided to leave just in 14 days, do you honestly believed that the medium of players that don't use Steam don't feel the same way? I don't use Steam and I hardly log in, I just claim my hobbit weekly presents and log off.

To be honest, if you hate the customer service or a product don't you go back to the store and complain as well?

It's dangerous to generalize from a sample like Steam though. For example, here's an alternative explanation for the observed decrease that isn't as doom-laden. The time-frame of the decrease also correlates with the Winter Steam sale, a time-frame in which you'd expect Steam users to be buying and playing a lot of new (to them) games. For LOTRO usage to stay stable during such a time would be unprecedented.

[frickinmuck]

I'm not trying to pick on you but seeing this is like an itch I just have to scratch... I really don't understand why there are players that actually buy this tripe. A year of fixing bugs? I understand completely that no game anywhere will be bug free...things happen especially with an MMO. But come on, what you're saying is they broke the game so badly it will take them another year to fix it? Why was it broken so bad in the first place? You know if GM sells a car and publicly says it will take them another year to get the transmission in working order that isn't acceptable, they sold a bad car period. It used to be reasonable and even accepted that turbine would release content AND make sure it was at least in working order...The fact that they can no longer do both is upsetting and IMO troubling for the future of the game.

That is not at all what I am saying, not even in the same area code as what I'm saying, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't put words in my mouth.

It's really absurd for people to act as though bugs are in any way unusual in a game. I mean, name ONE MMO that doesn't have bugs. Bugs are par for the course, particularly when there are changes to core mechanics and brand new, sophisticated systems and mechanics being added to an existing game. The supposed brokenness of LotRO is greatly exaggerated anyway. But this year is about Turbine trying to address some of the requests players have been making, including bugs, including content in some areas that haven't been expanded upon yet, including housing, including other things that you can read in more detail elsewhere.

What I don't understand is how players can complain and complain, and then when Turbine listens and says, "You know what? We're going to hold off on throwing all our resources into a big expansion this year, and instead work on fixing bugs, refining the world and some of the game mechanics, and fleshing out content in some of the areas you've been requesting." The response is more complaining. Do you want the bugs fixed or not? Do you want to see some of the complaints that players have been making about neglect in various areas of the game addressed, or not?

This is why people like me shake our heads and say, "There is no satisfying some people."

And yeah, people have been requesting instances and raids a lot lately. Keep doing so and maybe they will listen and add more in the future. We can't expect everything to happen at once. That's unrealistic.

It's dangerous to generalize from a sample like Steam though. For example, here's an alternative explanation for the observed decrease that isn't as doom-laden. The time-frame of the decrease also correlates with the Winter Steam sale, a time-frame in which you'd expect Steam users to be buying and playing a lot of new (to them) games. For LOTRO usage to stay stable during such a time would be unprecedented.

Good point. I know a lot of my Steam friends have been buying a LOT of new games and it's been harder to get them in to play LotRO lately, but that doesn't mean they're never coming back, or that they've 'quit' out of some sense of dissatisfaction.

[Lohi]

The expectation for a subscription based MMO is that content* is regularly released.

I'm sure there will be content, it just won't be raids/instances. Most likely new zone with quest pack for the most part, of course a new epic chapter to go with it, and maybe a chance for a skirmish, rescaled older instance, or new epic battle (not sure where that would fit though). Granted, this may not be content you like but it is content.

And this is not news they did clearly state last year that there were no planned instances or raids yet. Though I can see some people thinking they could start planning one and then have it show up mid-year, but history and experience says that things being planned tend to show up mid-year after an expansion. If there was something for June time frame they would have started on the landscaping as soon as Helm's Deep was done which would have meant that the planning would have started before then.

Yes, they state "2014",

Ya, I had forgotten the no-expansion thing. I assumed "2014" meant that part of it before the new expansion (just like some people treat "2013" as the pre-HD part of the year).

[bobbylobs]

It's dangerous to generalize from a sample like Steam though. For example, here's an alternative explanation for the observed decrease that isn't as doom-laden. The time-frame of the decrease also correlates with the Winter Steam sale, a time-frame in which you'd expect Steam users to be buying and playing a lot of new (to them) games. For LOTRO usage to stay stable during such a time would be unprecedented.

I would agree with that possibly being a factor, however the log in graphs show exactly the same trend
http://wavehh.dyndns.org/lo/plot-cool-mean-ytd.html http://wavehh.dyndns.org/lo/yearsall.html

it may be unprecedented for a game to remain stable during something like a steam sale, but also in the last months this game has had a lot going in its favour(or seemingly):-
a new expansion based around one of the most iconic parts of the book,
a new style end game,
a major class overhaul,
christmas holidays,
50% HD sale,
2nd hobbit movie.

I would say to only remain stable during all those things that should have boosted your log ins and steam figures is not good news at all, whats going to happen between now and March now that everyone is back at work/school, and the pull of the Hobbit movie wears off and the people who bought HD in the sale get bored with it? there is nothing coming till then to stop that slide, the game isnt going to get more appealing to those people who are not logging on anymore, thats why we need a proper end game something that people invest in a challenge that takes time to overcome, not a time sink behind a grind that forces players into a grin and bear it or leave decision.

[Lohi]

I don't want iconic lore moments as filler. I want raids and instances.

I don't want more countryside to explore - especially in older areas where it won't be the latest ore with emerald shards, because right now that's end game, baby. I want raids and instances.

I don't care about housing and cosmetics and festivals and kin revamps. I want raids and instances.

I do think you're in the minority here though. Most players want the iconic lore moments to be the number one priority. This is not a heavy raid/instance oriented game and it never was, not even the first year it was open, whereas it has always had very passionate Tolkien fans, a large casual player base, and so on. You'd see double the amount of rage quits if Turbine announced they were dropping the lore moments so that they could devote more time to raids.

Of course, quite a lot of players really want both. I want both. But we may not necessarily have the choice to get both.

or basically we're still stuck with nothing to do here and no reason to log in.

Which is basically what's been happening for several years for people who do the quests and then say "but there's nothing to do now except instances and raids!" But of course they just stop subbing for a few months until the next book arrives, or show up as premium to socialize with old friends at festivals, etc. Even when this game was brand new that was a very common cycle. Kinship populations would double every time there was a new book for a month and then drop back down again.

Leaving the game now is not permanent, everyone who's upset and quitting today is allowed back at any time even without a subscription. So ya, if there's nothing to do then there's nothing wrong with leaving for awhile, it's the common sense thing to do.

[Lohi]

I like how you use the word "We" as you know all the ins and outs of this process.

I meant "we" as in "the Lotro player and developer community", the people interested in the well being of the game. I'm not a lawyer but I have seen a very similar process before regarding a licensing agreement.

Also, you are calling Massively a dubious website?

Given that it was Massively who seemed to start this rumor of imminent death because of the license then ya, it's a bit dubious. But that's no surprise, news web sites in general don't have a lot of solid journalistic credentials behind them, and gaming news web sites are even less solid as a whole. They wanted a flashy headline to drive eyeballs to the web site. The article even acknowledges that it has a doom and gloom headline. Yes, the author has written some good LotRO articles in the past but that's no excuse for this type of story. It created a conspiracy theory.

[Lohi]

I must have run The Rift 100 times over the years, and I wish it was still practical to get 12 lvl50s to go to the place.

Some are better than others. I've run Bells of Dale 3 times total. It was not that interesting. Battle for Erebor maybe 3 times too. The other Erebor raid I never ran. Carn Dum I've done many times on all my alts who are that level or higher. A lot of people love Ost Dunhoth but I find it somewhat boring, and silly in spots (all those target markers are bizarre, focusing on explicit game play tactics while destroying immersion or story). I liked Draigoch but the typical end game raiding weren't fond of it.

Not sure what that means except that different people find different things fun to do.

[Whatevaplz]

It's dangerous to generalize from a sample like Steam though. For example, here's an alternative explanation for the observed decrease that isn't as doom-laden. The time-frame of the decrease also correlates with the Winter Steam sale, a time-frame in which you'd expect Steam users to be buying and playing a lot of new (to them) games. For LOTRO usage to stay stable during such a time would be unprecedented.

Good thing Winter Steam Sale comes every year and the graphs shows the same exact trend. Nope didn't see it last year, I must be mistaken.

[Alex53]

The Rift is not end game, and hasn't been for ages. I still do the Rift and still enjoy it, but if it was all there was at end game I would have gotten bored with it for sure. The thing is, raids are a lot of fun, grouping is a lot of fun - the larger, more challenging the group, the more fun it is. I totally agree. But if that's all there is to do at end game - a raid or two - it does get played out fast. Maybe 4 or 5 times was an exaggeration, but truly, after a couple weeks of doing a raid, it does start to get very tired.

I want to agree with you, the problem is that what we get instead of raids/instances is stuff that is less re-playable than raids...skirmishes and battles.

Now, I know you can't possibly produce end-game raids or group instances fast enough to keep everyone interested all the time, but on the other hand there are perfectly good ones that sink into irrelevance and may have never even been played by newer players simply because you level past them before you can get a group to go to them.

I think a good scaling system would make sure all the existing 6-man instances and raids can be played at level cap, so then instead of having a small choice of which ones to do at level cap you have the full pool of every raid/instance available to you. OK, so to a 6 year veteran that might still be stuff he's done before, but to a large proportion of the player base a lot of it will be unknown terrain that is currently being wasted, and even the 6 year veteran will prefer to be able to have all that choice.

I just find it incredible that perfectly able developers still don't have a good solution to adjusting difficulty/challenge of a dungeon so that it remains playable irrespective of level. The scaling that was implemented almost systematically made the instances poorer by changing them beyond recognition, making them feel like skirmishes and lowering the difficulty to the point that the original challenge was completely lost. All they had to do was change the loot and the monster levels.

[Danchir]

What I don't understand is how players can complain and complain, and then when Turbine listens and says, "You know what? We're going to hold off on throwing all our resources into a big expansion this year, and instead work on fixing bugs, refining the world and some of the game mechanics, and fleshing out content in some of the areas you've been requesting." The response is more complaining. Do you want the bugs fixed or not? Do you want to see some of the complaints that players have been making about neglect in various areas of the game addressed, or not?

Naive, due to a common mistake around here - changing cause with effect. The change in the game's direction comes not because 'people wanted it', but because the previous model didn't hold the line. The producer's letter means nothing else than 'We are switching to Plan B'. The single obvious reason is that 'Plan A' wasn't successful. The fact that the resources are now just enough for 'fixing bugs' which matches some players' desire to have bugs fixed is more of a coincidence. Please don't try to present this as 'We listened to you, guys!!'. They could re-direct to small housing or kinship modifications and there would still be people who welcome that too, maybe even more people. Because, 'The supposed brokenness of LotRO is greatly exaggerated anyway.', right?

As for the bugs fixing itself - don't be too quick to take it for granted either. I've seen Draigoch 'getting fixed' so many times to no avail that I can't even believe official patch notes anymore. Seeing is believing, things are really at that level currently.

[Alex53]

Some are better than others. I've run Bells of Dale 3 times total. It was not that interesting. Battle for Erebor maybe 3 times too. The other Erebor raid I never ran. Carn Dum I've done many times on all my alts who are that level or higher. A lot of people love Ost Dunhoth but I find it somewhat boring, and silly in spots (all those target markers are bizarre, focusing on explicit game play tactics while destroying immersion or story). I liked Draigoch but the typical end game raiding weren't fond of it.

Not sure what that means except that different people find different things fun to do.

I agree, we all have our favourite instances. My point is its a bit silly that there is a wealth of raids and 6-man instances in the game which a lot of players have never played and some would like to play again while at the same time there is a small amount of stuff to do at level cap. It seems like a waste to me.

They have made some steps in that direction, but the manner in which they scaled stuff like Helegrod took away all of the challenge and playability from the original raid, and turned it into a rinse and repeat experience.

I haven't been to Barad Guldur since they scaled it, but I hope they learnt from Helegrod and have scaled it without ruining it, simply adjusting mobs and loot, in which case I would applaud what they have done and hope that they proceed to scale the many other classic instances such as Carn Dum, Urugarth, The Rift, Dar Narbugud, etc. on that basis.

And then it would not be that much of a tragedy that there are no new raids in 2014.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

Anyone who is semi-serious about wanting to raid in lotro is better served by rolling one or two alts and keeping them at either lvls 50, 60 or 75. The non-scaling raids offer (in my opinion) far better challenge plus of course one gets access to the rest of scaling content, including OD at 65. Seems that there is no real advantage levelling all the way to 95 if one wants to focus on raiding, unless pvp is also a consideration.

The only issue is finding a group of 12+ that regularly raids that content. Interestingly, the instant lvl 50 was probably a boon to those who want to do this so it may have created a bigger pool of "twinks" at these levels.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

Duplicate post.

[Calem]

Casual players who take time to soak up the lore, embrace story lines and develop characters without significant challenges to overcome appears to be the target customer market, get on board and enjoy your journey.

[Alex53]

Anyone who is semi-serious about wanting to raid in lotro is better served by rolling one or two alts and keeping them at either lvls 50, 60 or 75. The non-scaling raids offer (in my opinion) far better challenge plus of course one gets access to the rest of scaling content, including OD at 65. Seems that there is no real advantage levelling all the way to 95 if one wants to focus on raiding, unless pvp is also a consideration.

The only issue is finding a group of 12+ that regularly raids that content. Interestingly, the instant lvl 50 was probably a boon to those who want to do this so it may have created a bigger pool of "twinks" at these levels.

Out of curiosity, how much money/TP on top of his subscription does a VIP have to spend per character to create a character, get the instant level 50 item and then lock levelling at lvl50?

[BangoTwinkletoes]

Out of curiosity, how much money/TP on top of his subscription does a VIP have to spend per character to create a character, get the instant level 50 item and then lock levelling at lvl50?

Probably quite a lot. It's not an ideal situation I'll agree but for someone who wants to play lotro and also raid, then rolling a twink and doing the older content is the better option than sitting at 95.

Or to put it another way, it's making the best of a bad situation.

[RicardoFurriel]

I meant "we" as in "the Lotro player and developer community", the people interested in the well being of the game. I'm not a lawyer but I have seen a very similar process before regarding a licensing agreement.


Given that it was Massively who seemed to start this rumor of imminent death because of the license then ya, it's a bit dubious. But that's no surprise, news web sites in general don't have a lot of solid journalistic credentials behind them, and gaming news web sites are even less solid as a whole. They wanted a flashy headline to drive eyeballs to the web site. The article even acknowledges that it has a doom and gloom headline. Yes, the author has written some good LotRO articles in the past but that's no excuse for this type of story. It created a conspiracy theory.

I'm going to make sure I keep this in mind the next time I read another Justin Olivetti article. That includes the other 50 articles he wrote in the past praising the job Turbine has done in LOTRO, including those where it seems he hasn't explored such features. Or the articles that resemble an official press release.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I'm going to make sure I keep this in mind the next time I read another Justin Olivetti article. That includes the other 50 articles he wrote in the past praising the job Turbine has done in LOTRO, including those where it seems he hasn't explored such features. Or the articles that resemble an official press release.

Similar to those who live in the public eye, use the press to underpin their carefully crafted images, make money from the commercialisation of their image.... and then complain that their "privacy" has been invaded when a not-that-flattering photo of them appears of them on a front cover in some "Ugandan Discussions" or other activity they'd rather we'd not know about.

[Alex53]

Probably quite a lot. It's not an ideal situation I'll agree but for someone who wants to play lotro and also raid, then rolling a twink and doing the older content is the better option than sitting at 95.

Or to put it another way, it's making the best of a bad situation.

I've done just that before. The real problem is getting a group of people who have done the same thing.

I find myself wishing Turbine would create a LOTRO:SoA server with the game as it was just before Moria was released.

[frickinmuck]

Good thing Winter Steam Sale comes every year and the graphs shows the same exact trend. Nope didn't see it last year, I must be mistaken.

Actually it does show a similar dip. In fact, current Steam login numbers are at almost an all-time high.

I think a good scaling system would make sure all the existing 6-man instances and raids can be played at level cap, so then instead of having a small choice of which ones to do at level cap you have the full pool of every raid/instance available to you. OK, so to a 6 year veteran that might still be stuff he's done before, but to a large proportion of the player base a lot of it will be unknown terrain that is currently being wasted, and even the 6 year veteran will prefer to be able to have all that choice.

I just find it incredible that perfectly able developers still don't have a good solution to adjusting difficulty/challenge of a dungeon so that it remains playable irrespective of level. The scaling that was implemented almost systematically made the instances poorer by changing them beyond recognition, making them feel like skirmishes and lowering the difficulty to the point that the original challenge was completely lost. All they had to do was change the loot and the monster levels.

Well, to be fair, we don't know what was involved in scaling instances, or why they took the approach that they did. But I do agree that scaling instances seems to be the best interim solution to this ongoing end-game issue. However they choose to go about doing that, it's the solution that offers the best of both worlds - giving end-gamers more to do while leaving resources open for developing the new content they want to work on this year. I know from the Sapience gameplay chats of the past couple weeks that scaling more instances is under discussion. However, those aren't likely to include the Rift, because the concern is that it's some of the most beloved content in the game and changing it may anger more people than it pleases. However, other Angmar instances are likely being scaled.

I think one solution they should consider is to give people an option when launching an instance, to play the original or the scaling version. Or else make it so that if you open an instance through the instance finder you get the scaling version, but trekking to the actual location on the map allows you to open the original, non-scaling version. There are likely technical reasons why keeping both versions is impractical, but I would love to see that happen. That would make it possible for them to scale the Rift while still preserving the beloved original for those wanting to run through it at 50.

Naive, due to a common mistake around here - changing cause with effect. The change in the game's direction comes not because 'people wanted it', but because the previous model didn't hold the line. The producer's letter means nothing else than 'We are switching to Plan B'. The single obvious reason is that 'Plan A' wasn't successful.

As is evidenced by which facts to back up your claim, exactly?

The fact that the resources are now just enough for 'fixing bugs' which matches some players' desire to have bugs fixed is more of a coincidence. Please don't try to present this as 'We listened to you, guys!!'. They could re-direct to small housing or kinship modifications and there would still be people who welcome that too, maybe even more people. Because, 'The supposed brokenness of LotRO is greatly exaggerated anyway.', right?

As for the bugs fixing itself - don't be too quick to take it for granted either. I've seen Draigoch 'getting fixed' so many times to no avail that I can't even believe official patch notes anymore. Seeing is believing, things are really at that level currently.

They are doing a lot more than just fixing bugs this year. I feel like I did when discussing class changes - certain players would just continually attempt to alter the facts to fit their doom and gloom scenario. But look at how happy people are with the changes now. Same will happen here - there will be some great new content to accompany the bug fixes and people can stop pretending that there's nothing new happening this year.

Some are better than others. I've run Bells of Dale 3 times total. It was not that interesting. Battle for Erebor maybe 3 times too. The other Erebor raid I never ran. Carn Dum I've done many times on all my alts who are that level or higher. A lot of people love Ost Dunhoth but I find it somewhat boring, and silly in spots (all those target markers are bizarre, focusing on explicit game play tactics while destroying immersion or story). I liked Draigoch but the typical end game raiding weren't fond of it.

Not sure what that means except that different people find different things fun to do.

I actually am one of the few who enjoy all the Erebor raids. I don't really consider them raids, though - not really. They are a bit thin in that regard. But they are enjoyable to me. You should try the Fires of Smaug - that one is actually the best of the 3.

[RicardoFurriel]

As is evidenced by which facts to back up your claim, exactly?



I feel like I did when discussing class changes - certain players would just continually attempt to alter the facts to fit their doom and gloom scenario. But look at how happy people are with the changes now.

I make your words mine: which facts do you use to back up your claim? Your feel?

If that's the case, then I feel that people who actually bothered with mix/max, stat caps, cap mits etc are long gone. The reason: there's absolutely zero (0) reason to develop your character to its maximum potential. And that for me ruin a) the classes themselves b) the challenge in achieving better builds c) desire to participate in cap level content, which subsequently led to total alienation of a certain player base.

PS: incoming shortly: yeah, that player base was in the single digits, therefore not really the focus right now.

PPS: incoming as well: raids are not gone forever. They will come later eventually.

[Whatevaplz]

Actually it does show a similar dip. In fact, current Steam login numbers are at almost an all-time high.

Are you looking at the same exact graph? http://steamcharts.com/app/212500#All Can you point me where you see the same nose dive?

[Danchir]

As is evidenced by which facts to back up your claim, exactly?

The simple fact that the annual expansion model was changed is already enough of a proof that something went wrong, or at least very unsatisfactory. This has nothing to do with devs' desires and abilities.
When the army is too small, you don't spread it thin all over the place, but keep it compact and use it for small tasks, one at a time. This is what happens now and it's actually good, as well as inevitable. I myself welcome the slower content pace and bug fixing. Worth to point out, though, that the problem before wasn't the release speed, but the longevity of the content. This same problem still exists at 'lower speed' however, so I'm patiently waiting to see what happens. I try not to be pessimistic and hope for something different than 4 x Great River with Hytbold grind attached to each.

They are doing a lot more than just fixing bugs this year. I feel like I did when discussing class changes - certain players would just continually attempt to alter the facts to fit their doom and gloom scenario. But look at how happy people are with the changes now. Same will happen here - there will be some great new content to accompany the bug fixes and people can stop pretending that there's nothing new happening this year.

You are deviating from the point. I know very well what was announced, but we were talking about the bug fixing, weren't we? You used it as a 'We listen!!' argument, and I said that's naive. If anything, they don't even need to listen too carefully about all the game bugs people are complaining from constantly. Just opening the window will do the job, as the wind will carry the screams from lands unseen. Just kidding, the players are not that many. Anyway, such an argument could hold grounds a year and a half ago, when the duct tape wrapping the game was still holding. Focusing on game stability, lag, bugs, overall performance - this should have started right there. With East Rohan as 3-4 small zones, and a wonderful and huge West Rohan expansion with the class revamp and proper recreation of the HD battle. Some finance expert is perhaps looking at his charts right now and is wishing he could turn the clock backwards. But you can't, bro. So tighten the tie and wipe the sweat. Time to save the ship.

That said - and to repeat it again, - I know that new content was promised as well, not just bug fixing. Acknowledged. Just don't be so quick to say what will and will not happen through an entire year ahead, unless you can see into the future. As I said, seeing is believing, nothing short of that. If 3 GR-size (and -quality) zones are released during 2014, I'll call it a win. If there is a 6-man attached to one of them, I'll count the whole thing as '4 zones'.
As for the 'happy people' - you know, everyone can talk some words, if that's the point. Oh, look at the unhappy people over there. Can't see them? Of course not, they are not logging.

[Beaniemooch]

They are doing a lot more than just fixing bugs this year. I feel like I did when discussing class changes - certain players would just continually attempt to alter the facts to fit their doom and gloom scenario. But look at how happy people are with the changes now. Same will happen here - there will be some great new content to accompany the bug fixes and people can stop pretending that there's nothing new happening this year.

I actually am one of the few who enjoy all the Erebor raids. I don't really consider them raids, though - not really. They are a bit thin in that regard. But they are enjoyable to me. You should try the Fires of Smaug - that one is actually the best of the 3.

You and I must be looking at different forums and talking to different people - I look but don't see how happy people are with the changes. I see actually more and more people UNhappy with the changes, even those who originally thought they would prove to be good. Turbine also stated during beta they expected the forums to erupt for 2 weeks and then settle down, which I haven't seen happen either.

You are one of the few that enjoyed all the Erebor raids. They were not really raids, we agree on that, because they were thin. I did try Fires of Smaug and we used to farm it 2-3 times a raid night at T2c in less than 20 minutes. But there was no progression, no real sense of accomplishment like there was when you finished the last boss of BG on original level or DN on level. It was very lacking in that regard and extremely easy to get through compared to raids in previous expansions.

If by doing more than fixing bugs you mean possible housing changes, new areas without instances or raids so basically no point in going through them....yes. But for those who like group content we were let down with HD and we're not even getting a bone for the foreseeable future.

[CosaNostraPizza]

Are you looking at the same exact graph? http://steamcharts.com/app/212500#All Can you point me where you see the same nose dive?

NM that charts messed up