A Look at LOTRO's 2023

[Elmagor]

It's possible that the new class could be like the Beorning i.e. a new race + new class.

So it could be River Hobbits.
But it could also be Haradrim.

Fun times. Thank you for the latter.

Corsar? Goblin? River Hobbit? River Beorning?

[Tralfazz]

This all looks good.

Only thing I didn’t like was reading about the elimination of Vocations to allow players to mix and match whatever Professions they want. I know that this will be greeted positively by many players but I think that choices should have consequences not all of which should be positive or synergistic.

I do hope the crafting revisions will result in more recipes – both “automatically” earned as a crafting tier is unlocked and learned from dropped recipes – through those tiers that have little to none of such recipes.

I’d also like to see all but the current level-cap crafting tier items to be craftable using nothing but Universal Ingredient Packs. Currently, UIPs become nearly worthless long before the final crafting tier. UIPs do cost LOTRO Points, after all, and anything created with them can only be used by characters of the creator’s account and sell for only 1 copper each which prevents UIPs from upsetting auction house values or devaluing gathered resources.

[Hydgal]

It is a very positive thing to see this kind of roadmap, and I'm looking forward to reading the upcoming dev posts with more details and clarity. My only question for now, is...

...when are you going to make The Rift scalable? It's the best raid in the game and I'd love to revisit it in again with some of the old challenging feeling reinstated. Are there any plans for this at all?

[Aurora7]

Orion & Scenario:
Thank you.

This looks very good. And ambitious!


Regards
Aurora7

[gildhur]

SO excited about all of this.

FINALLY, Umbar!

FINALLY, I can collect wood, ore, and scholar nodes on a single character!

FINALLY, after-battle Gondor!

FINALLY, the end of Angmar! For real this time!

FINALLY, the Saga of Jajax continues!

So, no new area this year until the new Gondor in Autumn. And I can hardly call that new area.

I can understand the need to cater to new players (Cardolan) and save workhours by not introducing a new area, but I will miss the on level questing for my level cap characters

After-Battle Gondor is in the Spring, as the post and graphic says, not Autumn. Before the Shadow with its TWO new landscape zones was just released TWO months ago, and you're already demanding more? Good grief. Two landscape updates per year has been standard since just after launch. This schedule is entirely on par with that.

Ahh, okay. Sorry, Scenario, but that sounds just a tiny bit too inconsistent to me... I don't like the idea of the world becoming... *disjointed*, like "re-imagined" here or there as in a brand new take, but the old one still existing in the other place. I like things being consistent if they can be. Which they could have been here. At least that's just an instance but still... the idea that you guys waste time redesigning old stuff that worked (honestly, what was wrong with the old Carn Dum visually? It felt great and everyone says it) it just doesn't sit right with me..

It's no more "inconsistent" than After-Battle Minas Tirith, Mordor Besieged, or Defense of the Prancing Pony. Landscape and instance areas in this game are set at a specific time because they're about a specific point in the story. Sometimes new stories get told in places you've already been. That's not a "waste of time." We defeated Mordirith and the Angmarim, but as we found out later, what was left of them allied with the orcs in Gundabad. After we retook Gundabad, we still haven't found out all of what the Angmarim were up to. I suspect we'll do that in RCD.

Imagine complaining after reading that letter full of gobsmacking new content updates. Couldn't be me.

[Scenario]

Not to belabor the point, but it doesn't answer the original question of does "New Biomes" mean new regions/landscapes with the expansion?

More details will become available at a later point.

[IanMacLyr]

This all looks good.

Only thing I didn’t like was reading about the elimination of Vocations to allow players to mix and match whatever Professions they want. I know that this will be greeted positively by many players but I think that choices should have consequences not all of which should be positive or synergistic.

I do hope the crafting revisions will result in more recipes – both “automatically” earned as a crafting tier is unlocked and learned from dropped recipes – through those tiers that have little to none of such recipes.

I’d also like to see all but the current level-cap crafting tier items to be craftable using nothing but Universal Ingredient Packs. Currently, UIPs become nearly worthless long before the final crafting tier. UIPs do cost LOTRO Points, after all, and anything created with them can only be used by characters of the creator’s account and sell for only 1 copper each which prevents UIPs from upsetting auction house values or devaluing gathered resources.

Interestingly, this would cut down the need for many alts to establish a crafting ecosystem for any single account.

[IanMacLyr]

Dang it! Treebeard has become my main server... but now I'm going to feel compelled to return to Crick and update my cap/near-cap toons.

Thanks for planning so much great content that it makes my choices difficult.

[WantsToSeePatchNotes]

Looking forward to almost all of this.

In the crafting changes, could you please take a look at making rep recipes bind to account instead of to a single character? I'm looking especially at Fangorn. Maybe also make some of these single-use recipes permanent when they're this old.

Also, I second the poster who wanted more uses, especially at tiers before the current, for Universal Crafting Ingredients.

And also, also, please, please make the fireworks from Lobelia's quest repeatably obtainable, perhaps by crafting. They're the best fireworks in the game, IMO.

[Ryvick]

Not a very exciting look at the future if you ask me.

1. I'm a landscape player and it looks like I wont be doing anything till Autumn.

2. The proposed change up to crafting (while necessary) sounds like it wont be going back to pre-Mordor it will largely be continuing the nonsense of "need to raid" crafting.

3. It looks like largely Delving and Mission (Furthering Adventures are just Missions) content that gets old FAST.

4. These 4 LI reward tracks I will be skipping with nothing new to do to progress them.

All in all a sad announcement for the near and Mid term.

[Scenario]

1. I'm a landscape player and it looks like I wont be doing anything till Autumn.

That is incorrect. The Q2 update will include the beginnings of post-war Gondor.

[Kirchenmaus]

I'm happy with most of the news. I'm looking forward to the crafting changes, the return to Gondor, the class updates and I have high hopes for nice rewards at the festivals.
What I'm less happy about, however, is the level increase again. Level 150, that's becoming more and more daunting for new players. Why not a level and number crunch, as is now common in World of Warcraft? The huge numbers are now completely confusing. And playing a new character from 1-150 is getting tougher and less attractive.

Also, I was looking forward to Southfarthing in the Shire, which is still closed, and maybe a premium housing in the Shire.
Or what about Lindon and the Grey Havens? Why isn't Eriador being expanded further? Also there you could design quest areas for end levels.

A new class is imho not needed again. Rather optimize the balance of the previous classes finally.

And the most important thing this year should be the performance of the game. Because no matter what new content you bring, it will stutter and be little fun, if you do not improve the engine or replace it or whatever is necessary so that the game does not stutter and I can quickly submit quests, instead of standing 30+ seconds in front of the NPC for the submission ... It massively ruins the enjoyment of the game, no matter how great the stories and landscapes are.

[Strider5548]

Thank you for the letter, I agree that the format and scope is much better than what we have seen in the past. I have a few questions after quickly reading through, apologies if they've been answered elsewhere...

1) Will the new instance clusters be scalable, or only available for level 140 players?

2) I know it's too early to say, but can we please consider how power scales across levels as the power system is being revamped. Power is, for many classes, completely ignorable at level 140 today. For a level 75 champ on Treebeard, you can't get through 80 seconds of a dummy parse without running completely out of power even with food and power pots. If the goal is to insert power management as a consideration in combat, the rate at which power is consumed should be considered for all classes across all level caps. I'll just throw one quick thought here as well, I do hope that the end result does not slow combat down.

3) Crafting rework sounds great, frankly I wish there were more systems updates like this planned for '23! Is the plan to allow players to have more than 3 professions on an individual character? I hope the answer is yes!

4) PvMP events sounds great. One request, I really hope there are no time gated rewards/deeds that can never be earned again associated with these events for players who either can't make them during a particular one or for those of us on legendary servers who don't get to enjoy PvMP at all until our servers close.

5) 'New Gondor' sounds interesting, but I think most players hate the idea of 'before battle' 'after battle' zones, especially when you have different coordinate systems (why??) for the same area like Minas Tirith which already has 3 versions of the zone. What I'd love to see is a clean up of the current before/after versions so that the zones integrate more seamlessly into an open world, and once a character passes a certain time in the game, the old versions become accessible via ports like other historic zones, and the current versions are what players see in the open world if running from say Rohan to Gondor. Would really love to see one consistent coordinate system for all versions as well.

6) "...and an expansion of the Delving system to higher difficulty tiers." Am I understanding this correctly that there will be more than 10 tiers in the future?

Thanks again for the communication, looking forward to another year of LOTRO.

[Valather89]

Most of all, I just like the reference to "the next 15 years". Of course, such a long-term thing is bound to be mostly driven by hope, but I don't know... reading something like that from a game that is already a 15 year-old game is pretty heartwarming.

I may not always play LOTRO and I may not always actively spend money on it, so I suppose it could be called hypocritical, but I just love knowing that its Middle-earth is there for me to come back whenever I feel like it, as a refuge.

Okay, specifics:

- Some slight disappointments out of the way: no Elf/Hobbit housing, another year without River Hobbits (they're basically a running joke/meme at this point), no new Eriador zones (okay I fully understand this one after such a great 2022, but what can I do? I just love Eriador), no mention of performance or changes to the UI.

- New class: exciting, and I'm not that surprised. Every game does that from time to time, so it must have proven to be a very financially rewarding addition for an MMO. As for its name and role, the playerbase seems pretty evenly split in two sides: ranger class (mix of captain and hunter, mostly) or, since we're going to Umbar, a corsair/pirate class based on swashbuckling and agility. Both things sound pretty cool - not that getting something nobody sees coming wouldn't be nice as well.

- Crafting revamp: a part of me will miss the old Vocations, but I think it'll be good for the game as long as we can still get at least three professions (4 would be nice though). Let's be honest here: LOTRO is so big that it can be a pretty lonely experience when you're leveling up, and you can't always rely on others for some mats, so being able to customize your crafting to better suit your needs should be good for the players.

- Warden and Captains revamp: they're basically my two favorite classes so I'm very interested to see how big the changes are. I especially hope its blue lines get a boost.

- Power management: let's see how they'll do it, but I do agree it should be a more important aspect to the gameplay that it's been for many years.

- Carn Dûm: not that interested in that one personally since it comes without a landscape change (can't deny I would have loved to get a more snowy and less Mordor-y Angmar after the fall of Mordirith and the Witch-king, for example, but maybe it is too soon for that), but the instance cluster was hinted at 4 months ago so we knew it was coming. I do agree that endgame players needed some meaty content and here it is, though.

- UMBAR! That might be the most different region to anything already in the game we've ever gotten, both from a geographical/climatic point of view and even a cultural one, so I'm not surprised the worldbuilding and narrative teams being excited for it, and I completely trust them to do a great job.

- "New" Gondor: not many specifics have been shared so far other than it being after-battle. No mention of Harondor or Anfalas, but I can see them extending South Ithilien a little to the south, up until the Crossings of Poros perhaps? Or maybe some of the existing regions will become less narrow. I don't have a clue, but Spring can't come soon enough.

Thank you very much for the letter, I like that it went very straight to the point, and the subsequent posts from the devs communicating with the players.

[Aranaan]

Interestingly, this would cut down the need for many alts to establish a crafting ecosystem for any single account.

True, but it will also increase the revenue to SSG, when we need to buy more storage space, if we remove the numerous toons we use today to store everything.


Lots of information about in-game developement, which is great and much appreciated.
SSG does a great job making middle-earth more and more available to us, but I do miss information about the hardware performance of their servers and how they will adress that in 2023.
Working on it (lag) responses, sounds like quick fixes when needed and not a permament solution. The lag is terrible now, worse than it has been for years, please adress it SSG.

[LinRaN]

If you will win lags, players on Ettenmoors will have absolutely new level of experience. Pvmp (big fights) is great theoretically, especially with changes of last year. I wish all us luck to see in this year progression about no-lags-Etten. Cheers, devs! I love your game.

[Mithithil]

Sounds like a prospect of Umbar and Harondor plus Near Harad to me. If the visuals are as good as Cardolan we are in for a treat. I'm liking the idea of evil leaders trying to fill the power vacuum, it has that rather nasty air of beleiveability which is always good for immersion and storylines. A desert survival mechanic would be an interesting twsit, in the manner of Forochel's bitter colds, although we didn't have one in Gorgoroth, also a desert. Looking forward to it all.

[Bromlin]

I feel like I'm the tiny little dev in your head, because you've checked some points on my wish-list again. After finally being able to play a hobbit lm in 2022, I ever since wished the darn vocation system would disappear, and here we go. Along with a hopefully convincing rework of the whole crafting experience.

What I'm wondering is, will the professions still be limited to 3 per char or will there be a way to expand this, maybe by Mithril or even by default? Like in GW2, where you can buy additional profession slots, or even like FF14, where you simply can do everything on one char? Or will we at least remember the profession progress when switching?

Also, though I understand you won't be giving us details at this time, I'm very keen on knowing what kind of class we can be expecting. Will it be mainly melee again, which I hope will not be the case, or ranged, caster-like or even something complety different, maybe tied to a race like the Beorning?

My future wishes:

- A hobbit subrace, call them river hobbits or whatever, so that I can finally have majestic sideburns or even a beard on my hobbit, and I won't need an excuse for wearing shoes anymore. Count on me buying a race change token.

- Premium hobbit housing. Maybe the most important thing. I want my virtual home look like those cozy Yondershire homes.

Thanks for reading & keep up the good work!

[Aleziana]

Re-imagining in Senario's head means using 2009 assets into 2007 assets which according to screenshot i see Dolguldur inside Carn Dum. Very "RE IMAGING" . Devs believe (for some reason) that everything came after 2007 is "Brand new" in their heads. This is just cheap and eyeshore.

New class is a joke to make. Because Browlers was a succes and now you wanted to move on with more classes. SSG team barely exist with 11 classes and they want more? jeez. Atleast don't make it another heavy class.

[TesalionLortus]

It's no more "inconsistent" than After-Battle Minas Tirith, Mordor Besieged, or Defense of the Prancing Pony. Landscape and instance areas in this game are set at a specific time because they're about a specific point in the story. Sometimes new stories get told in places you've already been. That's not a "waste of time." We defeated Mordirith and the Angmarim, but as we found out later, what was left of them allied with the orcs in Gundabad. After we retook Gundabad, we still haven't found out all of what the Angmarim were up to. I suspect we'll do that in RCD.

Imagine complaining after reading that letter full of gobsmacking new content updates. Couldn't be me.

Sorry but no, you're totally wrong. After-Battle happens after battle, which is why it actually looks like this because it's ravaged. Besieged happens in the past and it's different because that's how it actually looked in the past. Defense of the Prancing Pony is an old one-off skirmish thing, totally off in its own separate bubble, so it doesn't affect much of anything. Or Dale, which looks different on landscape and doesn't exactly much with the earlier instance version, but that one is totally understandable because they developed these unique Dale assets later and still tried to give it a quite similar spin that we know from the instance for some consistency, so that's commendable. Oh, and Minas Morgul that's seen as an imposter in the Before map lacks some details or its beacon light, but that's because it wasn't yet created at that point, so understandable, but silhouette is still pretty similar so you get some serious consistency there, it's clear that they already had a solid idea of how it was going to look like.

In comparison, the recent example is redesigning and taking a different design approach to something that was already existing on landscape in its finalized form and and that story is set in quite recent time, so it's literally impossible that it changed or was suddenly completely rebuilt. That's just introducing internal in-world inconsistency for no reason at all. Well, okay, actually - I did agree with Scenario there might be a practical reason here, since you gotta have different corridors and stuff in a different instance than the exact same like in the past, but the result is still far more inconsistent than anything that was done in the past so you're wrong and there is certainly no narrative reason for it. But I'm fine in general... IF they take away these black Dol Guldur towers or at least retexture them to actually much the rest of it. And still, if any of these was made part of actual landscape called "Angmar After"... with such alternate look/inconsistencies... then I would surely riot!

Imagine complaining after reading that letter full of gobsmacking new content updates. Couldn't be me.

So... just because there is new content at all, no matter how, no matter where, no matter what is told, I should never express concern over what worries me or affects my immersion of this amazing world? Couldn't be me!

It's still far from complaining, just concern like communicating my world design and/or narrative worries, but no real basis to judge yet. However, I will be sure to complain if the content comes out and totally disappoints me and immerses me less than the game usually used to

[TesalionLortus]

Re-imagining in Senario's head means using 2009 assets into 2007 assets which according to screenshot i see Dolguldur inside Carn Dum.

:O Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. No offence to Scenario but the choice really feels so terrible here. I guess the intention was to maybe give some of the spots the "bastion" treatment since it never really had "more practical" larger towers where troops could be stationed? Or something? But it doesn't work if you just slap a completely different piece of architecture on it, not to mention differently colored. But even then Carn Dum didn't really need that kind of treatment, it already had perfectly looking towers and functional iron-covered ramparts of its own, being a pale shadow of its former self (presumably). Like, why would anyone need a bold Dol Guldur tower, if any of that older stuff was quite imposing, architecturally in line and quite understandable in the context of what Carn Dum of the present day was :





(Some parts of it had this "iron garbage" feeling of the evil guys there constantly adding new iron elements/ramparts/towers to it and it felt very believable in a twisted way, considering the place or that Sauron would never put that much of effort into it considering its served its original purpose long time ago - like, far more believable narratively than a bold perfectly black tower still standing after all these year since its prime and never touched/collapsed by the good guys...)



PS:

This, the change of pale pillars in the Barrow-downs which were replaced with the awkward Dwaynes, or the mention of the new "old" Arnorian ruin sets equivalents for Rhudaur/Arthedain (which were just made from Cardolan set, I assume) really makes a bit worried about the mentioned "Landscape updates" (which some people say they have intention to go back to and remade old zones???). Like, I guess you can spice up some vegetation someplaces or add some extra details in the form of ground rocks/addons/rubbles/windows where due (looking at you Fornost)/and so on. But a huge NO to changing anything that works and most of these sets feel ok, even for 2023, they're actually good and feel nice, with merely some bad apples among them. And I understand updating things that really look bad, like super edgy or pixelated, but if you do that you gotta take extra care to update them in a way to exactly convey the original take/look/color/feeling, not just slap something else entirely in its place not to mention an asset from a different set. So I really hope these landscape updates make me excited and in love... and not ruin things or make everything feel less varied/unique than it used to, which just happened to this new Carn Dum

[SSG_Orion]

2. The proposed change up to crafting (while necessary) sounds like it wont be going back to pre-Mordor it will largely be continuing the nonsense of "need to raid" crafting.

While all the details are not ready for full reveal yet, I can say this. The changes will not extend pre-Mordor to start. We will NOT be requiring you to raid to craft top end gear. Stay tuned, we want to get your feedback on our crafting ideas and will be putting more thoughts out on this system update soon.

3. It looks like largely Delving and Mission (Furthering Adventures are just Missions) content that gets old FAST.

Delvings are being expanded, but they are hardly the largest piece of what we are planning. By comparison, they are very small.

[TesalionLortus]

Btw, @Orion does the "I'll be taking a look at mounted combat and whether it can be fixed" still hold for 2023?

[1Asy1]

It is indeed a much better update, compared to the past.

For me is missing one important area, Performance, I would have personally appreciated a solid update on when we're likely to see significant performance improvements.

Are we likely to get a dedicated update, the holding message of "we're working on it" is getting a little stale?

Thanks,

Lob

[aleczander]

A few people have mentioned lag/performance, and so far you guys have ignored its existence completely - both in the letter itself and the responses on this thread. This leads me to believe that you have nothing to say right now that wouldn't cause more worry or disappointment than hope. The silence is loud.

Before I even started reading the letter, I said to myself, "Please, acknowledge the lag problem, at the very least."

You guys seem to avoid the "lag problem" like some plague unleashed by Lhaereth (which is a good story, btw - Lhaereth, not your failure to deal with lag).

Are we waiting on some third-party vendor (contract) to "update/upgrade" or replace the servers maybe this year, maybe next, or what light can you shed on this years-long issue?

Otherwise, Umbar, crafting updates, other landscape stuff, etc. sounds ambitious and hopeful. Speaking of ambition, I'm tempted to begin doubting that you believe everything in the letter can actually be accomplished this year, otherwise, you'd have said something like "exciting." Maybe I'm too cynical in this one department, but honestly, I'm ok with delays if it means more polish. How's the hiring been going for SSG?

Finally, thank you, Orion, for stepping up and wearing these new hats and dealing with all the BS inherent to the forums.