Middle-earth Feedback: The Prancing Pony

[Ramen]

Post your comments about The Prancing Pony below!

[Rook57]

The Inn looks as you would expect, but it really needs to have patrons actually sitting on the benches in there! It looks really strange when not a single soul is sitting at the tables.

Makes you wonder if they are all afraid of getting splinters!

[Diela]

Great place... I especially liked when my minstrel, in order to complete one of her class quests, had to stand on a table and sing a song. Nice touch!

From a gameplay standpoint, though, I really wish you'd either move the Milestone out front a little further down the street, or move the Chpt. 1 quest starting NPC to another location. The Prancing Pony is just way too laggy with so many people loitering in the area for those two reasons.

[Kril]

Great place... I especially liked when my minstrel, in order to complete one of her class quests, had to stand on a table and sing a song. Nice touch!

From a gameplay standpoint, though, I really wish you'd either move the Milestone out front a little further down the street, or move the Chpt. 1 quest starting NPC to another location. The Prancing Pony is just way too laggy with so many people loitering in the area for those two reasons.

Milestone maybe, but you can NOT move Strider from the PPI, if you want to move him to a dimly lit back corner of the common room, sure, but there is no WAY he should have been anywhere but the PPI. As for the milestone, the PPI is one of the best known landmarks in all of Middle Earth. It is the hub of everything, smack dab in the middle of all the free peoples towns, no, even the milestone should stay. I'll deal with any lag when it has this much to do with the storyline and lore.

[rook818]

It feels about right...maybe not lievely enough but that's what players are for. Only feedback I have is to make the picnic-table benches sittable.

[kingb33]

Definitely not lively enough....Not how I envisioned it from the books....I always envisioned the Prancing Pony packed with patrons at all times and at nightime would be filled with the more scummy type people. I love LOTRO and the job they did with it, but the Prancing Pony was a big disappointment for me. Hopefully they add stuff to it when they do updates and patches over time.

[kabhal]

More drinking, more smoking! There should be a fricking smoke cloud on the ceiling (at least in the evenings when it's packed). Games of chance should be played in a corner (for dice) or on a table (for cards). Patrons (npcs) coming and going would be nice. More ambient sound. Patrons yelling for drinks, general murmuring and rumour-mongoring (you catch snippets of "...something about black riders.") etc. I could go on. Basically it should be a popular TAVERN in MIDDLE-EARTH during TUMULTOUS TIMES. And having Barliman stand in one place the whole time is just ridiculous. He should be jittering around all over the place and fussing over everything.

[elderfoster]

More drinking, more smoking! There should be a fricking smoke cloud on the ceiling (at least in the evenings when it's packed). Games of chance should be played in a corner (for dice) or on a table (for cards). Patrons (npcs) coming and going would be nice. More ambient sound. Patrons yelling for drinks, general murmuring and rumour-mongoring (you catch snippets of "...something about black riders.") etc. I could go on. Basically it should be a popular TAVERN in MIDDLE-EARTH during TUMULTOUS TIMES. And having Barliman stand in one place the whole time is just ridiculous. He should be jittering around all over the place and fussing over everything.

Wow, wonderful insights! I agree wholeheartedly, this would make PPI come alive and be an incredible experience.

LOTRO rules!

[Downtownrobots]

I've had to move my home away from the prancing pony, i use the milestone just outside the south bree gate now....too many times i've mapped home and had one huge note of music that hurt my ears from everyone playing music loading at once....The prancing pony is nice, but too many things there...the bard...the mailbox...the milestone....chapter 1....too many things going on in one small area makes my puter unhappy

[99X]

More drinking, more smoking! There should be a fricking smoke cloud on the ceiling (at least in the evenings when it's packed). Games of chance should be played in a corner (for dice) or on a table (for cards). Patrons (npcs) coming and going would be nice. More ambient sound. Patrons yelling for drinks, general murmuring and rumour-mongoring (you catch snippets of "...something about black riders.") etc. I could go on. Basically it should be a popular TAVERN in MIDDLE-EARTH during TUMULTOUS TIMES. And having Barliman stand in one place the whole time is just ridiculous. He should be jittering around all over the place and fussing over everything.

Excellent! exactly what it should be like. The Pony at night should feel a little more seedy and crowded then during the day, and if it would be possible to click on the benches or bar stools and have your character sit on them, even better.

[lefty1117]

needs more cowbell

[Khazhurud]

More drinking, more smoking! There should be a fricking smoke cloud on the ceiling (at least in the evenings when it's packed). Games of chance should be played in a corner (for dice) or on a table (for cards). Patrons (npcs) coming and going would be nice. More ambient sound. Patrons yelling for drinks, general murmuring and rumour-mongoring (you catch snippets of "...something about black riders.") etc. I could go on. Basically it should be a popular TAVERN in MIDDLE-EARTH during TUMULTOUS TIMES. And having Barliman stand in one place the whole time is just ridiculous. He should be jittering around all over the place and fussing over everything.

I agree with kabhal! I also agree with the complaints about that general area of Bree being an all out lag-fest; even on my beast of a machine.

And it could use slightly more cowbell

[Armedeus]

These places should have instanced activities ie new interactions and emotes not available in other places.

inside the bar will be an npc asking trivia questions about the game such as
a window will pop up and there will be a question and answers to choose from.
you will click an answer and the first player to do it correctly first will win some silver or some potions.

Get drunk...we all know that routine

Pick Fight
Accept fight
refuse fight
attack anyhow

have beer bottle over the head animations

an entire table of guests drinking and cheering or even singing songs.

there should be a drinking contest...eating contest, and it will be based on a combination of selected traits who will eventually win, with the loser passing out on the floor for 5 minutes.

mabe even a bouncer who will be able to escort someone out by 3 or more other players interacting with the boucer....you get a window and type in a players name.

you can fight/spar the bouncer but then the local constable will show up and arrest you...hehe

Then theres those sheriffs.
If a sheriff or town guard see you fighting you will be arrested.
You wont want to spar in front of them.
A sheriff will arrest you on sight, even come after you if you are in town. He will arrest you and you are forced to walk with him (handcuffed) to the town jail...you will be jailed.
You can interact with the jailkeeper and request to see the Mayor and pay him a small fine to bail out of jail.

Otherwise you are stuck in jail for 1/2 hour playtime but all is not a loss.
while in jail you would be able to work on your skills unlimited.

Such things add a lot to a game and make power leveling seem old fashioned and boring.

[Slees]

A minor quibble, but the sign should read "The Prancing Pony by Barliman Butterbur". I think the inn is fine, but Butterbur should be moving around the place. He's just "that busy".

[PaulH2]

I'd have to agree that the Prancing Pony seems very quiet as it is. I know for performance reasons many more NPCs probably can't be added, but I'd like to see more action from what we have. As has been suggested, loud drinking, smoking, singing, games etc., maybe even the odd fight.

Having the place busier (and seedier) at night would also be handy.

As for Barliman, I agree he should be moving around all the time, and not just in the main area, he should pop out to the kitchen from time to time. Several other quest giving NPCs move around, and Barliman should too. He should be hard to get a hold of, he's so busy.

Overall, I think what I'm getting at is that a compromise should be possible to make the place look (and sound) much more busy without impacting performance.

Paul

[Ilegolasi]

The Prancing Pony is really cool. It actually looks like a real inn with people sitting and drinking, and there are people playing music.

[Zyrxagor00]

I understand that there is some trick to sitting on chairs. That's not good enough. You need to make the chairs and benches "clickable" so that if your character is within a pace of them, he will sit at them. Being able to sit at the benches inside of the inn would increase the activity there. I STILL hold with making some social accomplishments that are not just merely emotes. This would be one of the strongest and most unique points of the game. Social accomplishments would go like this:

A character begins playing an instrument. Another player joins this activity by clapping or dancing (with the player selected) with him. Other players chain to this activity by selecting one of the participants and joining in. If at least six players do this, for at least 30 seconds, they all get a SIGNIFICANT buff to moral or various resistences or vitality for one hour. The buff has to be long enough to be used in the game. The PPI is far enough from most everything that you need a pretty significant buff to be of any use. Players GROUPED would be ineligible for social accomplishments because it would become common practice for every group to do this as a routine of grouping. That should not happen. The whole reason for social accomplishments is to bring NON-GROUPED players together. So groups are ineligible for social accomplishments.