I Quit

[Hallandil]

spoken by somebody who hasn't the faintest idea how much customer service matters. Me? I've been in tech for decades. I know how much it takes, i know that other games have worked hard to update core code and the servers, and i know that everything i see indicates that ssg isn't interested in doing that.

thank you.

[Meshuggenah]

Spoken by somebody who hasn't the faintest idea how much customer service matters. Me? I've been in tech for decades. I know how much it takes, I know that other games have worked hard to update core code and the servers, and I know that everything I see indicates that SSG isn't interested in doing that.

A person who has "worked in tech" should have a bit more understanding of how difficult a task it is to maintain a massive product with a subsistence level skeleton team. Let alone develop or redevelop new content.

I'm sure you're right, though. The most sensible explanation isn't that SSG doesn't have the resources to overhaul 15 years worth of content on an outdated platform. It's that they're deliberately sabotaging their own product so they can all be unemployed. That way they'll have enough free time to attend the next Illuminati meeting under the mountain and show off their new moose hats.

[Hastran]

If someone is going to quit over Session plays and not Lag their priorities are very different from mine. I have had no Session play that could not be completed...I do rearrange some of the skills to make their use more intuitive. Please don't remove content. Please don't waste time appeasing the "No Session play" group when you could spend the resources working on lag causing issues..... and that is my attitude about pretty much everything...."LAG" is the battle that needs to be fought, not all the trivia people want to complain about.

[Askelin]

Idk bro... Have you like... Tried reading the tooltips on the skills?
The lag is a genuine issue a lot of people have. But believe me when I say this, you only experience the lag at its worst during raids, pvmp and cases where there are a LOT of players doing things in the same area (band events for example). Assuming OP is struggling with something as straightforward as session plays I doubt they have reached the endgame and could not know the true horrors of lag in this game.

Other than that. Sucks you're leaving I guess. Hope you find a game more suited for you!

[Froyo_K_Baggins]

A person who has "worked in tech" should have a bit more understanding of how difficult a task it is to maintain a massive product with a subsistence level skeleton team. Let alone develop or redevelop new content.

I'm sure you're right, though. The most sensible explanation isn't that SSG doesn't have the resources to overhaul 15 years worth of content on an outdated platform. It's that they're deliberately sabotaging their own product so they can all be unemployed. That way they'll have enough free time to attend the next Illuminati meeting under the mountain and show off their new moose hats.

At least your account name is correct. However, yes I do know what it takes and any competent team would have started working on it years ago. They're not sabotaging it, they're just not competent and would rather rely on addicted folks spending enough money to keep their paychecks coming. Getting bought out also helped with a cash infusion. Sadly, I can't vaguely believe it's being spent on what's needed.

[Meshuggenah]

At least your account name is correct. However, yes I do know what it takes and any competent team would have started working on it years ago. They're not sabotaging it, they're just not competent and would rather rely on addicted folks spending enough money to keep their paychecks coming. Getting bought out also helped with a cash infusion. Sadly, I can't vaguely believe it's being spent on what's needed.

Or perhaps, as I've already said, they lack the resources to redesign a decade and a half worth of content.

I know you keep saying you know what it takes to run an MMO of this scale but the language you use gives the impression you think there's a magic wand involved.

[Dervacus]

I agree that it would have been more helpful if the original poster gave us more information. To start, what is the quest?

It's shame that people that were trying to help by having the OP try some suggestions are immediately trolled. Then someone who was not the OP posts a screenshot of their speed test...not even sure what to make of that lol. Were they having the same issue for the same session play? The session play that was never identified? Were they simply showing that they experience lag with a decent speed test? Not sure...

I too am skeptical that a player who has been playing since launch can't handle 4-6 skills for session play. I don't mean that as attack to the OP, it just seems odd to me.

With that being said -- Skills not firing off is a legit problem. I experience that same problem from time to time, but it has very rarely ever caused me to not complete the task at hand and usually only lasts me a short while. Most of the time it's a matter of waiting 20-30 seconds to let more loading happen.

They don't like playing something other than their character, that's a legit personal preference. There are people in my kin that don't like session play. Personally, I really enjoy some of the session plays and the others I don't mind. It's usually a cool experience to get some insight to the story.

I, myself, had an issue with a session play several months back and it was due to a bug that has since been corrected.

What is the quest?
Did they check Lotro-wiki?
What server were they on? type /loc
What is their internet connection like?
What is their system?
Does lowering their graphics help?
Is that problem only during that session play?
Did they fill out a ticket or bug report

Trouble-shooting is not saying the player is wrong. There is obviously a problem, so let's work towards finding out what is causing it. If the problem is lag, then so be it, but maybe the OP was experiencing something else that could be interpreted as lag

[Gandolf_TheOld]

As with every game development question that ends with 'shouldn't be so hard, could it?' the answer is 'yes, it is actually that hard.'

Because it's not just 'did you complete this quest before?' It's 'did another character complete this quest before?' And if the answer is yes, then what do you do? If all you do is ask the question, then the quest gets skipped -- it's as if you've always had that quest completed. In the extreme case, anything that depends on that quest being completed is now completed from day one, which likely wreaks havoc on anything that listens for it: other quests, phasing NPCs, usage requirements on doors and anything else that cares about it.

So now you need to build in a new case: a special quest that you get if Another Character completed the sessionplay quest, one that's exclusive (so you can't get both it and the Original Quest at the same time), and this one acts like a detour that you take if you want the sessionplay quest to become optional if Another Character already did it. So at a minimum, in addition to 'setting a one or zero flag' (which also, by the way: not as simple as that), you're then making a new detour quest for every sessionplay in the game.

It's a good example of Game Designer Brain. It's never as simple as you want it to be, and part of the challenge is thinking through all of the various permutations that you need to make sure it works like you want it to. In addition to all the other work you have to do.

MoL

Thus, the reason Game Design Degrees were developed.

So you think you can do better than the Game Devs at developing and designing a game?

https://thebestschools.org/rankings/...esign-schools/

or

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges...on-development


At least one is a Big Ten school.

I wonder how many SSG Devs have this degree, or a BA in Fine Arts or a Master's in Computer Science?

Tip of my hat to all the Devs in all the games, you're all some smart cookies.

[auximenes]

The first thing I do as soon as a Session Play finishes loading is type: /ui layout load X

Yeah, I do make use of that command, I even have text aliases set for both save and load; I simply don't like having to reset it at all.

The combat in some sessions can be slow and feel clunky, I agree. Session Play should be about the story rather than any combat, whatever combat there is should be quick and painless (for the player, anyway – the character is another story) and not involve a lot of different skills or any with long cooldowns.

Totally agree the session plays should be focused on the story. Some of the session plays could use a little work to make them flow faster, especially combat.

[sting-sethkan]

Your lag shouldn't be that bad. I suspect you are using a flaky wifi connection. This can be troubleshooted and probably improved, or you can switch to wired ethernet and probably see a vast, immediate improvement. I'm sorry you are leaving the game, but maybe someone else can benefit from this advice.

Directly connected to cable. Pay for the fastest service too. The game is getting worse as time passes.

[Hetweith]

Or perhaps, as I've already said, they lack the resources to redesign a decade and a half worth of content.

I know you keep saying you know what it takes to run an MMO of this scale but the language you use gives the impression you think there's a magic wand involved.

no sympathy. the dev team put the game in this position. the lack of cash is theirs to own. and as for "it's hard"? brain surgery is hard...it's why i dont do it and on the other hand when looking for a brain surgeon i wont select the guy with the "it's hard" excuses. if it's too hard for them, there are other lines of work that may suit them because being a dev in a MMO may not be for them.

[whisper.earendil]

Yeah, I do make use of that command, I even have text aliases set for both save and load; I simply don't like having to reset it at all.


Totally agree the session plays should be focused on the story. Some of the session plays could use a little work to make them flow faster, especially combat.

Yar, I think these two are my own biggest issues with it. I hate that, for instance, the really interesting ranger content I just finished up through Wildermore? I had to /ui layout load ON EVERY SINGLE ONE. COME ON. IT WAS ALL THE SAME RANGER CONTENT. AT LEAST SAVE IT FOR A SERIES OF SIMILAR AND RELATED SESSIONS.

And then it is all so *slow* and *clunky* and not stimmy, and not... entertaining. I wonder if MoL could at least look into going back and tweaking things. We already know that some of the session plays did get broken with the recent stat curve changes (I, too, died on some of the Enedwaith epic book openers), so perhaps if they're in there looking already they can see why there's skill lag, why the skills hit for so low, and why they can't have a setting that just uses your own ui layout or the one you set for the first session plays you did for those segments.

And just... please, I want to enjoy them. Make more of them, that's fine, the recent ones I've done have been pretty cool. But make them less ... of whatever all this is.

[Askelin]

Thus, the reason Game Design Degrees were developed.

So you think you can do better than the Game Devs at developing and designing a game?

https://thebestschools.org/rankings/...esign-schools/

or

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges...on-development


At least one is a Big Ten school.

I wonder how many SSG Devs have this degree, or a BA in Fine Arts or a Master's in Computer Science?

Tip of my hat to all the Devs in all the games, you're all some smart cookies.

You don't exactly need a degree to understand the principles of game development. But Lotro is an entirely different beast and at this point I am willing to speculate that modernly educated devs may even struggle with how such an old engine works.

I noticed too with a lot of the suggestions given to Orion that when he says "it's not as simple as that", he means it.

Yar, I think these two are my own biggest issues with it. I hate that, for instance, the really interesting ranger content I just finished up through Wildermore? I had to /ui layout load ON EVERY SINGLE ONE. COME ON. IT WAS ALL THE SAME RANGER CONTENT. AT LEAST SAVE IT FOR A SERIES OF SIMILAR AND RELATED SESSIONS.

And then it is all so *slow* and *clunky* and not stimmy, and not... entertaining. I wonder if MoL could at least look into going back and tweaking things. We already know that some of the session plays did get broken with the recent stat curve changes (I, too, died on some of the Enedwaith epic book openers), so perhaps if they're in there looking already they can see why there's skill lag, why the skills hit for so low, and why they can't have a setting that just uses your own ui layout or the one you set for the first session plays you did for those segments.

And just... please, I want to enjoy them. Make more of them, that's fine, the recent ones I've done have been pretty cool. But make them less ... of whatever all this is.

It's not skill lag. It's just the skills being so old and outdated that when played in comparison to modern lotro they feel incredibly clunky.
IIRC there was some adjustments to a handful of session plays that lowered the amount of skills they had and made the mobs in the zones far easier to kill. But yea I am not surprised that this system keeps being thrown out of balance with all the stat scaling changes... Kind of like how monster play will at times get completely messed with when they adjust certain monster balance... A sort of halo effect from how they set both systems up.

I still think session plays are a neat concept. But it never got the lick of polish the rest of combat did over time.

[Blato]

SSG is still on its "You think you do, but you don't" phase that almost killed world of warcraft.

[OldMadeOfLions]

That's probably one of the biggest non-answers you've ever given on these forums.

I love it when someone says their catchphrase!

But the funny thing about that non-answer is that it (and the follow-up elaboration) is the Actual Factual Reason we haven't made the sessionplays optional, rather than your idea that I have the power to steer the 'creative vision' of the whole project, or that I delight in making people redo my content over and over until they hate it. It's not as if I'm against making optional detours to allow people to circumvent parts of the game they don't enjoy -- the Storied Tales for Helm's Deep were a six month stretch-goal project I volunteered to make, after all ('worse than the originals!' raved at least one critic, allow me to take a bow) -- but over the years other parts of the game where we've done things like this (such as the Solo or Fellowship versions of 'Retake Weathertop') generate a lot of confusion, so it's not the simplest thing to figure out.

The way I'd probably go about doing it is adding an optional step to each sessionplay quest that advances if you complete the sessionplay OR if you talk to a guy that just shows up for that very purpose. If I wasn't already in the game, maybe it could be me, and he could scold you for not being interested in his Art after the fiftieth time of experiencing it.

As for the other things you're mad about, anything I'd say about them would truly be non-answers, because I only know what I know. I think the malevolence of the dev team (any dev team, in any game, actually!) is often exaggerated. Every team wants their game to be better, and the job is trying to get it there.

MoL

[alwaysbroke]

That's probably one of the biggest non-answers you've ever given on these forums.

Regardless of whether SSG continues to "use" a system or not, they still exist in the game as someone who levels from 1 to 140 and has to experience them whilst completing the epic, landscape content and storylines that you yourself placed in the game up to a decade ago.

I get that you have some weird obsession with ensuring that players experience your "creative vision" of Lord of the Rings but it's coming at a massive detriment to the gameplay.

If anyone at SSG actually CARED about making the levelling process more streamlined, then level 65-105 would have considerably more quality of life updates outside of the epic story. The broken crafting recipes, missing items, out of date instance/stats on gear give a strong indication that your process of "streamlining" is really just a push to purchase the newest Valar.

Look I get it, some players of this game for some reason will pay hand-over-foot to skip this section of the game without question and that's the niche audience that funds the game.

Just don't expect to have your comments about artistic integrity taken seriously when there's that gaping hole in the game to begin with.

Oh, has session play become the scapegoat of this thread? I've always enjoyed session play as a story telling mechanism. Put your leveling on hold for 10-15 minute tops. It's hardly a good example of things that need fixing. More of a "if it ain't broke"... Mordor Besieged was a nice change of pace. Instead of putting your leveling on hold you get to keep leveling through the "session". I wouldn't pay to skip session play. I still support the game. I don't think I'm niche. I don't think the audience who supports the game are niche. Neither do they look for reasons to say they're niche. It's a player supported game with limited capital at any given time to make changes (expansion content is more of an investment fund).

In my most recent run through the game I've not seen the massive detriment to gameplay you mentioned (just reaching 105 now). I found I enjoyed everything more because I tried to stick to session play, epics, landscape in correct order. If you find it's a massive detriment then you should be playing on legendary servers. Most of the gameplay revolves around legendary servers. Take the new legendary weapon system --designed for legendary servers with periodic caps. Those landscape areas, epics, storylines that don't appear to be streamlined during leveling make sense on a legendary server.

Now I'm not saying there aren't things to be fixed... but that's a different topic/stream. I do like SSG's current goals and hope they can meet them... in time for next anniversary hopefully sooner.

edit: to address OP's other concerns

Is the lag you experience (ignore explanations from other people temporarily) caused by your network connection or the server. If you have the connexion status icon showing you'll see packet loss increasing/decreasing if the the cause of the lag is your connection. This might be a VPN endpoint which has a bad path to SSG servers. The only option in this case is choose a different VPN endpoint. It doesn't matter if it works otherwise, that endpoint has a path/routing problem. You might also see little packet loss (around 1%) but have periodic packet fragmentation/mtu problems in which case ingress/egress traffic periodically stops. This is also the VPN endpoint or your internet connection. This is trickier to spot. I sometimes find I need to start a download to consume bantha before I can see the periodic drops in ingress/egress traffic on a traffic monitor. I use a VPN so it's solved by changing endpoints.

On the other hand if you see no packet loss (around zero) in-game connexion status, traffic continues without interruption both in-game and in your traffic monitor, and you experience the lag symptoms (invalid targets, unable to attack, unable to move, etc), then it's SSG's server. I still see this periodically even with reduced population numbers, mid week, during otherwise off-peak hours, instanced and/or landscape. It's only ever blocked progress until server lag subsides.

The point, OP, is that there no way you're having constant lag in session play unless it's an endpoint routing/path/mtu issue. Something within your control.

[auximenes]

I love it when someone says their catchphrase! But the funny thing about that non-answer is that it (and the follow-up elaboration) is the Actual Factual Reason we haven't made the sessionplays optional, rather than your idea that I have the power to steer the 'creative vision' of the whole project, or that I delight in making people redo my content over and over until they hate it. It's not as if I'm against making optional detours to allow people to circumvent parts of the game they don't enjoy -- the Storied Tales for Helm's Deep were a six month stretch-goal project I volunteered to make, after all ('worse than the originals!' raved at least one critic, allow me to take a bow) -- but over the years other parts of the game where we've done things like this (such as the Solo or Fellowship versions of 'Retake Weathertop') generate a lot of confusion, so it's not the simplest thing to figure out.

/e claps in approval.

[SurrealStorm]

I love it when someone says their catchphrase!

But the funny thing about that non-answer is that it (and the follow-up elaboration) is the Actual Factual Reason we haven't made the sessionplays optional, rather than your idea that I have the power to steer the 'creative vision' of the whole project, ...

What? I'm Shocked!

... or that I delight in making people redo my content over and over until they hate it.

At this point, with some of the responses, I'd be shocked if you didn't start forming a plan to make this happen, an evil, diabolical loop of sessionplay to trap and ensnare only those who disapprove

As for the other things you're mad about, anything I'd say about them would truly be non-answers, because I only know what I know. I think the malevolence of the dev team (any dev team, in any game, actually!) is often exaggerated. Every team wants their game to be better, and the job is trying to get it there.

MoL

I think this is the most honest, most truthful answer anyone has given in a long time. I wonder if some people don't understand this. I'm sure there are some where it is 'just a job' however I somehow doubt working on a 15 year old LotR MMO is 'just a job' for any of the developers that work on it.

~SS

[Meshuggenah]

no sympathy. the dev team put the game in this position. the lack of cash is theirs to own. and as for "it's hard"? brain surgery is hard...it's why i dont do it and on the other hand when looking for a brain surgeon i wont select the guy with the "it's hard" excuses. if it's too hard for them, there are other lines of work that may suit them because being a dev in a MMO may not be for them.

It's not a matter of being "hard." It's a matter of resources. Every change made takes X amount of time and money. A small developer doesn't have the resources to overhaul 15 years worth of content overnight.

It's true enough that SSG did put themselves in this position by choosing to take over a game that was already in decline. They could have just let LOTRO shut down when AT&T decided the game wasn't profitable enough to bother with.

[LagunaD2]

It's true enough that SSG did put themselves in this position by choosing to take over a game that was already in decline. They could have just let LOTRO shut down when AT&T decided the game wasn't profitable enough to bother with.

... and found themselves unemployed.

[LagunaD2]

rather than your idea that I have the power to steer the 'creative vision' of the whole project, or that I delight in making people redo my content over and over until they hate it. It's not as if I'm against making optional detours to allow people to circumvent parts of the game they don't enjoy

During Gundabad beta, you adamantly refused to allow people to enter the new content they were paying for without completing (or re-completing) the ~3.5 hours of obsolete gameplay leading up to it, because (paraphrasing closely) you had "put a lot of work into it."

Only when - as predicted - the proverbial hit the fan (the turbine?) on launch day did you finally relent and (almost instantly) produce a hot-fix with the on-ramp that you had been claiming for months was unworkable because reasons...

[Polymachos]

Directly connected to cable. Pay for the fastest service too. The game is getting worse as time passes.

Do you mean with that, that the game is fine when you are playing, but gets ever worse over the course of time? In such a case I would have a look at the temperature inside your PC, eg with SpeedFan (freeware from Almico). It is a bit dated but should be able to read the temperature.

Also, on which server are you playing, at which times of the day?


Greetings, Polymachos

[OldMadeOfLions]

During Gundabad beta, you adamantly refused to allow people to enter the new content they were paying for without completing (or re-completing) the ~3.5 hours of obsolete gameplay leading up to it, because (paraphrasing closely) you had "put a lot of work into it." Only... on launch day did you finally relent and (almost instantly) produce a hot-fix with the on-ramp that you had been claiming for months was unworkable because reasons...

Alert the media: sometimes I get one wrong.

The lack of an on-ramp for Gundabad wasn't me forcing you to do my quests because they were a lot of work, though. That was a case of me figuring most people would have a character that had gotten to the 'let's open up Gundabad' stage. And if they really wanted to get in there, they could use one of the other ways in. It made sense to me. The 'design' part of game design is the one you're having an issue with, I think. Games don't just appear out of nowhere - they're made by humans, and sometimes a human is going to disagree with you. I figured it would be fine, and it turns out it wasn't, and I changed it. "Almost instantly," you remind me, and thanks for that! I really am a paragon of speedily responding to criticism.

MoL

[Polymachos]

I've been in tech for decades.

Then you will have seen the following happen more than once:

A program doesn't work properly any more.

Someone goes through the source code (if still available) and stumbles over a line that seems to make no sense. For what language was that made? Well, we have some retired programmers, don't we? (rummages through the telephone book). Darn. that number is no longer in operation? Maybe a search engine...

Hello? Is this the programmer I am looking for? Oh, you are his wife? He is on a fishing trip? When will he be back? I'll call again.

Hello?`Did you make this line? What does it mean? Oh, it was done by someone else? Do you have a hint how to find him? Any contacts?

Hello, it is you who made this line? Yes? Great... what, it should be working fine, had done so for years? But it doesn't any more... Yes we have new rigs, and yes, we are now working with the version X of the programming language Y... ah, they removed that function because of eploits? Now, how I do that? Any hint? Manual? That was long ago, that these companies would make extensive manuals along with their programs... okay, what was the purpose of that line you inserted - to slow the program down? Why?

Because already then the program would else stumble over its own feet, or fill the ram with rubbish until nothing will work, because the garbage collection cannot keep up? omg

Darn. How do i fix this?


Greetings, Polymachos

[Innocentte]

I want to thank those folks who answered and attempted to offer help. I will try to clarify a bit.

* I have been playing since launch and have completed the session play in question a number of times.

* While I do not like session play for the reason mentioned, I have been able to get through them all previously.

* Cannot remember the name of the session play I was doing; it is the one in Rohan where you have to kill 50+ mounted riders. The issue is that the enemy reinforcements are based on a timer, so if you don't kill the current ones fast enough, they just pile up and overwhelm. Since the lag is so bad that only about half my mounted strikes actually trigger, there is no way I can keep up with it.

* The lag is not my system nor my router nor my connection. The game plays fairly smooth in the morning (PST), but when prime time on the East Coast starts up, everything goes lag city. My guess, based on the behaviors I see, is that it is a database issue. I would put a bet down that SSG moved the database to a cloud system. This game actually ran better back when it launched and had many more players on older hardware.

* I also play a lot of other games. MMOs and Single Player. Pretty much all of them with higher demands than LOTRO. I have no issues like the ones I have in LOTRO on any of them.

* I really don't want to walk away, I have 8 months remaining on a year subscription. But I just cannot take it anymore. I will, of course, monitor the various game sites for news that whatever is the problem may have been fixed. Then check here to verify it. Then download and validate it.

LOTRO is my favorite MMO and it is just a dang shame that SSG has let it get to this state.

Hope to speak with you all again. Sooner rather than later, I hope.