When will or will we ever see any of the draft trait trees?

[Seldomblue]

I remember back when WoW had trait trees, they would release the drafts much earlier than release of the XPac. There would be changes, some major, to what the final trees would be from the drafts, but at least we would get an idea of the changes. It is pretty evident that there will be trees (which I prefer), so giving the users a look even if it's not final doesn't seem like a big deal. If Turbine is worried about fueling the nay sayers... well they will complain regardless.

FYI - Contrary to many people's beliefs that I see on here. WoW now has a very similar trait system to what current LoTRO is.

[Nymphonic]

But Blizzard is it's own company that owns the IP. WB is notorious for being tight lipped on everything.

[Belnavar]

The problem is people tend to overreact to early work in progress stuff which hasn't been properly balanced and polished. This is what beta is designed to help with. I don't think it would be helpful to show people rough stuff that could give them a bad impression of things.

Arguably the class dev diaries are a sneak peak, given they don't go into a lot of detail and suggest that some stuff is still being changed based on beta, etc.

-Bel

[Khafar]

I doubt we'll see them until the NDA drops on the beta. Turbine has been burned repeatedly by releasing information too early, then listening to all the players accusing them of lies, screwing everything up, ruining a great idea with changes that came afterwards, etc.

Of course, I'm going to just go AWOL from the forums at that point (NDA drops) until I've been playing Helm's Deep myself for at least a month... don't want the sky falling on my head .

Khafar

[Nymphonic]

I doubt we'll see them until the NDA drops on the beta. Turbine has been burned repeatedly by releasing information too early, then listening to all the players accusing them of lies, screwing everything up, ruining a great idea with changes that came afterwards, etc.

Of course, I'm going to just go AWOL from the forums at that point (NDA drops) until I've been playing Helm's Deep myself for at least a month... don't want the sky falling on my head .

Khafar

I'll be here at work watching the forums and enjoying the fireworks.

[Widoch]

I remember back when WoW had trait trees, they would release the drafts much earlier than release of the XPac. There would be changes, some major, to what the final trees would be from the drafts, but at least we would get an idea of the changes. It is pretty evident that there will be trees (which I prefer), so giving the users a look even if it's not final doesn't seem like a big deal. If Turbine is worried about fueling the nay sayers... well they will complain regardless.

FYI - Contrary to many people's beliefs that I see on here. WoW now has a very similar trait system to what current LoTRO is.

If my experience in the RoR BETA holds true for the HD BETA, there are a ton of people who have already seen the trait tree drafts. In Riders of Rohan they were throwing around BETA keys like candy at a parade.

[djheydt]

I'll be here at work watching the forums and enjoying the fireworks.

I'll make popcorn.

[LaGere]

I doubt we'll see them until the NDA drops on the beta. Turbine has been burned repeatedly by releasing information too early, then listening to all the players accusing them of lies, screwing everything up, ruining a great idea with changes that came afterwards, etc.

Of course, I'm going to just go AWOL from the forums at that point (NDA drops) until I've been playing Helm's Deep myself for at least a month... don't want the sky falling on my head .

Khafar

I can't believe the truth ever hurt any buisness. Waffling on the other hand could destroy you

[Khafar]

I can't believe the truth ever hurt any buisness.

Premature information release most definitely has. I've seen it repeatedly in LOTRO, and I've seen it in the company I work for too. When they're final, they should release some more information - or just drop the NDA and let players provide it.

Khafar

[Shukar]

I can't believe the truth ever hurt any buisness. Waffling on the other hand could destroy you

The truth may not hurt your business, but *half* of the truth might. I think they've released all the info they're comfortable releasing at this time. They're not done with designing the trees so they don't want to tell folks things that they might need to change later. They HAVE been hurt by telling the world things that they then had to change later.

[Minquinn]

If my experience in the RoR BETA holds true for the HD BETA, there are a ton of people who have already seen the trait tree drafts. In Riders of Rohan they were throwing around BETA keys like candy at a parade.

I think what the op is referring to is the ability to tweak a classes trait tree on a website rather than in game. WOW has released (to the public) new trait trees during the actual beta.

The main reasons for my leaving that game is that the trait trees were revamped beyond recognition from the older releases. And luckily I found out about this long before they were even accepting preorders, and atleast 2 months before release. Which had an affect on my decision to buy the xpac based on those changes. Telling the public non beta testers over and over again that they are :

A. Revamping the classes
B. narrowing the skills used
C. Tuning the classes better to working in groups

is just not enough information to justify a preorder. At least in WOW with cataclysm the changes were introduced into the live game almost 2 months before xpac launch. And the skill trees were available for viewing at least 2 to three months prior to that via a tree preview on their website that could be altered based upon level to see a preview of what you would be getting. If they hadn't done this I still may have bought the xpac. Which I then would have kicked myself for afterwards.

Premature info should be leaked in various degrees in order to receive player feedback, as beta testers are a small subset of the player population. Most development teams care about those opinions as well. And as far as being tight lipped about the lore, that really has nothing to do with in game mechanics.

And over reaction is sometimes good to see what it is your player really want.

[LaGere]

Premature information release most definitely has. I've seen it repeatedly in LOTRO, and I've seen it in the company I work for too. When they're final, they should release some more information - or just drop the NDA and let players provide it.

Khafar

That would be the part I said about Waffling. Sure waffling has hurt this company and it should. It's just so much easier when you tell the truth. But if you hide behind word games then the backlash should be severe and everytime they have, it was. They didn't say what they meant or mean what they've said and that will always come back to bite you in the rear. Hopefully they have learned their lesson and that doesn't mean silence it means truth.

[Khafar]

That would be the part I said about Waffling.

It's not "waffling" when you release information long before a feature is complete, and then it changes during development and testing. It's "premature information release". Things change. They always will... changing market conditions, schedule pressures, early feedback from internal testers, early feedback from NDA testers, unforseen technical problems, whatever.

Telling people any details about these features until they're very close to "final" is stupid, and that's the lesson I hope Turbine has learned. I haven't been for a few years now, but I used to be in Turbine's NDA program. In fact, I have been for several of their games. We saw features all the time which were radically different when they went live than they were the first time we saw them. Some of these features were cut entirely, never to be seen again. Can you even imagine what players would say if that information had been discussed in public? That's a big reason the NDA exists. The vast majority of players are blissfully ignorant of all the iterations that have happened (or even the fact that some features were considered at all), and only get to see the final product. That's as it should be. And only talking about it when they're at or near "final product" is as it should be too.

Khafar

[Seldomblue]

I guess what I was getting at is the final product is out in a month and a half, so I figured they'd release a bit more than a screenshot of one of the classes trait trees. Like mabe just a partly functioning gui on to website or something. And maybe release one class each week.

[Seschat]

Premature information release most definitely has. I've seen it repeatedly in LOTRO, and I've seen it in the company I work for too. When they're final, they should release some more information - or just drop the NDA and let players provide it.

Khafar

When they're final, it will be to late to fix any major detriments to game enjoyment that those of us not blessed to be part of closed beta discover. By the time an expansion reaches open beta, mst modern gaming companies are looking to fix minor bugs that slipped in under the radar, and stress test new systems with larger numbers of simultaneous players.

[hey_dol_merry_dol]

When they're final, it will be to late to fix any major detriments to game enjoyment that those of us not blessed to be part of closed beta discover. By the time an expansion reaches open beta, mst modern gaming companies are looking to fix minor bugs that slipped in under the radar, and stress test new systems with larger numbers of simultaneous players.

Part of the stated motivations behind moving to trees is they are easier for them to modify in response to internal monitoring and player feedback. They managed to make some pretty big changes to the mounted trees (albeit with delay) I don't see why the class trees won't be similarly malleable.

[Vandervahn]

The difference between Blizzard (and many other established developers) and Turbine is that Blizz knows what their major feature set is going to be like, one month short of launch. Sorry Khafar, but, this is should not be "premature information" - a month and change to launch, remember? As much as you like to blame the player (which isnt generally untrue)... if they dont have the system in presentable state at this point in time, the problem is the development cycle and not the playerbase reaction. And its not only the trait trees, its also big battles and the "new combat" owing to the changed skill sets.

No, its Turbines PR policies that are odd here, not the customer expectations of how to handle the release. Well, they are of course free to reveal their product the way they want, but the current situation uncannily resembles the release of the last expac, and we all remember how well that went. I´m not a regular MMO player so I cant say wether thats the usual, but I have rarely before in many many years of gaming seen so unready releases as in LotrO. Well, maybe the Total war series, but each iteration of THAT throws you to death with features and gimmicks to make up for the "wait-for-patch".

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I can't believe the truth ever hurt any buisness. Waffling on the other hand could destroy you

The difficulty is there is no truth to tell. The current implementation is never going to seen by us in live. We going to get something that does not exist yet. Turbine does not know what that something is going to be.

It is like the situation Ms. Yula in for dinner Saturday night. All she knows is I am cooking a meal for the two of us. Later on this week I will be provided a time range for the meal. I have no idea what I am going to prepare. There is a lot of freedom when the generic requirements are one meat, 3 veggies, bread and a beverage. It could be a meat and veggie stew with a roll of biscuits baked. Or perhaps grilled corn on the cob, skewers with meat and veggies and home made scratch baked biscuits. I will not know to Saturday. I will make out the plan and get the components after she she leaves in the morning. It may get delayed to Sunday - get a Ms. Yula "blow up my plan" call telling me that she is going to be home late.

Sure it might be nice if Turbine had locked in the feature a month or more before launch. That is not the way Turbine works. Turbine locks in right before launch.

Where I work we typically halt any changes on how a feature is supposed to work 8-12 week before launch. The last 2-3 months is spent fine tuning the package and features to kill all the bugs. The problem with our scheduling is that if there is a "Working as Intended" but not "Working as the customer wanted". It takes a long time for the change to occur. It could take 4-6 months to gets a change in. We got 2-3 months where no design or requirement changes are allowed. We do monthly updates. The first monthly update usually is more fixes for achieve better "Working as Intended". Design change start to arrive in patch 2 or 3.

[Khafar]

When they're final, it will be to late to fix any major detriments to game enjoyment that those of us not blessed to be part of closed beta discover.

Correct. Those of us not in the beta will have zero meaningful feedback on these. But honestly, I just can't work up enough ego to claim that my feedback is going to make the difference between doing it well or doing it poorly. At a minimum, hundreds of other players will have offered theirs. That's good enough.

Khafar

[LaGere]

The difficulty is there is no truth to tell. The current implementation is never going to seen by us in live. We going to get something that does not exist yet. Turbine does not know what that something is going to be.

It is like the situation Ms. Yula in for dinner Saturday night. All she knows is I am cooking a meal for the two of us. Later on this week I will be provided a time range for the meal. I have no idea what I am going to prepare. There is a lot of freedom when the generic requirements are one meat, 3 veggies, bread and a beverage. It could be a meat and veggie stew with a roll of biscuits baked. Or perhaps grilled corn on the cob, skewers with meat and veggies and home made scratch baked biscuits. I will not know to Saturday. I will make out the plan and get the components after she she leaves in the morning. It may get delayed to Sunday - get a Ms. Yula "blow up my plan" call telling me that she is going to be home late.

Sure it might be nice if Turbine had locked in the feature a month or more before launch. That is not the way Turbine works. Turbine locks in right before launch.

Where I work we typically halt any changes on how a feature is supposed to work 8-12 week before launch. The last 2-3 months is spent fine tuning the package and features to kill all the bugs. The problem with our scheduling is that if there is a "Working as Intended" but not "Working as the customer wanted". It takes a long time for the change to occur. It could take 4-6 months to gets a change in. We got 2-3 months where no design or requirement changes are allowed. We do monthly updates. The first monthly update usually is more fixes for achieve better "Working as Intended". Design change start to arrive in patch 2 or 3.

But if you started preparing and working on this meal from Jan. You should have by now a clue as to what you are preparing and How it fits into your existing lives I would hope. and so would the mrs. You would know and be able to spit it out verbatim. the difference here is your meal won't keep forever so it must be prepared at the last moment, this game is nothing like a meal preparation.

[Nuuma]

I think what the op is referring to is the ability to tweak a classes trait tree on a website rather than in game. WOW has released (to the public) new trait trees during the actual beta.

The main reasons for my leaving that game is that the trait trees were revamped beyond recognition from the older releases. And luckily I found out about this long before they were even accepting preorders, and atleast 2 months before release. Which had an affect on my decision to buy the xpac based on those changes. Telling the public non beta testers over and over again that they are :

A. Revamping the classes
B. narrowing the skills used
C. Tuning the classes better to working in groups

is just not enough information to justify a preorder. At least in WOW with cataclysm the changes were introduced into the live game almost 2 months before xpac launch. And the skill trees were available for viewing at least 2 to three months prior to that via a tree preview on their website that could be altered based upon level to see a preview of what you would be getting. If they hadn't done this I still may have bought the xpac. Which I then would have kicked myself for afterwards.

Premature info should be leaked in various degrees in order to receive player feedback, as beta testers are a small subset of the player population. Most development teams care about those opinions as well. And as far as being tight lipped about the lore, that really has nothing to do with in game mechanics.

And over reaction is sometimes good to see what it is your player really want.

You make me wish Turbine was a little more like Blizzard with this.
I don't want to see a rushed product, but having access to a lot of features about a month or two before the xpack is launched is nice.
It lets players see some of what is to come.
But, alas, Turbine is not Blizzard.
We will get HD without much preview (except for the Beta Players).
And the people who pre-purchased will either love it... or kick themselves later.
Though, I did love what Blizzard did with the trees. Loved it.

[Skippa]

[QUOTE=Yula_the_Mighty;6953165]The difficulty is there is no truth to tell. QUOTE]

Ok I'm afraid I have to agree with a few other posters; it's a month from release if they aren't finalized and in major tweaking phase then yes maybe they should start making phone apps instead of MMo's. No imho the current silence is completely about securing more pre-orders.

[YamydeAragon]

...There would be changes, some major, to what the final trees would be from the drafts, but at least we would get an idea of the changes...

The answer is beeing around for a while: http://www.lotro.com/en/content/revitalize-your-role

Trait Trees:

[LaGere]

The answer is beeing around for a while: http://www.lotro.com/en/content/revitalize-your-role

Trait Trees:

What answer do you see here? I can't read a single power or tree name. there is no info here,no answers other than gee its kinda pretty.

[Crell_1]

http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/helms-deep-art-design

This article had some useful details about the information release timeline.

The visual tours will be continuing over the coming month. In 2 weeks, Turbine will be showcasing the sweeping class changes taking effect with the expansion, and 2 weeks after that they will be showing off the big battles that take place at Helm's Deep. Stay tuned!

We might actually get some solid details about the class changes in two weeks. Hopefully this will include some detailed looks at specific trait tress.