Update 9: Against the Shadow and the Rohan Instance cluster

[Kril]

It occurs to me that these Lonely Mountain/Dale instances will be the first instances in LotRO that won't actually have actual physical entrances in the game.

There are some Skirms that are completely seperate from the world map (Icy Crevase/Storm of Methedras) as well... The initial 3 3-mans however, will all have world map equivalents as well (2x MM, 1x Mirkwood), and the tie in COULD be 'Flight to Dale' (DOH! Maybe I was right about the eagles!!! ) being MC from eastern MM through Mirkwood bringing us to Dale for the final two?

[MasterWarden]

Could be as hard as the Watcher was back in MoM....

Going to go ahead and hope that this was a joke...

[Jamesm429]

Just curious - but over the past 6 months, what have you been doing as a raider? Has there been enough content to raid weekly in this game recently? Is it doing the same thing over and over again? How often do you raid?

(and I honestly don't know because I don't raid at all, so am curious)

Yes, we raided OT T2 at least two times a week. As raiders, we like to raid. We still do OT T2 since the update. Right now we are doing more skirms than ever, but nothing like have 24 peeps in TS doing skirms and all having fun. Thats what a game is about. To have fun.

[Mindorin]

You guys are funny with "wow awesome 3 three 3 raids!!!!!" It's 3 bosses, in apparently separate instances? You do realize that OD had 6 bosses and Tower had 5 never mind BG and Rift.. Waiting so long for only 3 is pretty lame.

But at least we get to pick two of our friends to /headdesk a couple 3-mans that have nothing to do with RoR for a couple months. Why do we keep playing this game again?

Sapience do you dread bringing us this lackluster information or is this something that excites you as a player?

[Guiwinner]

I hope one boss will be on mount or trash pull will be on mount ...

Anyway the only word for that is SHAME !

Make an expansion without an end game for so many months and sell this expansion at half price after few months it's the best shame of ever !!!!

I no have idea about what you are doing but ... you need to improve your job !
You can't leave people with 5 daily ...

[Jaedor]

I'm going to guess that the Turbine layoffs had something to do with both timing and scale of the instance cluster. Granted, these projects are often laid out years in advance. But when stuff happens and you have to make do, it can resemble what we've got here.

All the same, it will be new content, new loot, new challenges, new stories and new things to do. Good stuff.

[Armaius]

There are some Skirms that are completely seperate from the world map (Icy Crevase/Storm of Methedras) as well... The initial 3 3-mans however, will all have world map equivalents as well (2x MM, 1x Mirkwood), and the tie in COULD be 'Flight to Dale' (DOH! Maybe I was right about the eagles!!! ) being MC from eastern MM through Mirkwood bringing us to Dale for the final two?

Fair enough, I wasn't taking skirmishes into account - I was thinking the regular old instances.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

The instances are all set in the War of the Ring (our current timeline, not the Hobbit). It will make sense when you get the quest from Gandalf.

The 12-man instances are the Battle of Dale, and could be thought of as wings of the same raid. We separated them to give context to the story as the battle proceeds over the course of a week.

Smaug is dead, but the Easterlings have new challenges in mind for you (and new engines of war).

We are going to Dale and the Lonely Mountain as part of this story, but will not be adding new landscape in the area with these instances.

I hope this helps!

Cheers for the clarification - I'm glad we're not attempting a time hop, and I know we can trust that there will be a good storyline accompanying it (if you're expanding into Dale and the Lonely Mountain but aren't going to be adding the region in the near future, then the storyline needs to be In Their Absence-esque, not as bad as Orthanc's story).

Little disappointed that February isn't going to see these instance brought out with the respective regions, but I am still hoping for an Enedwaith/GR type region in May-time (the three months should give adequate time to add something, though whether this goes north of Lothlorien, or continues south as many have suggested, I'd be happy with either).

Also, I get the logic behind releasing the 3 3 mans in December, but would have preferred 1 3 man and 1 6 man - the only reason that I thought this wouldn't be the case is because the 3 3 mans (Iorbar, Goblin-throne Room and Scuttledells) all take place in regions which already exist, and I hoped we'd be seeing the Battle for Erebor in addition to the landscape... but in terms of the duration of the Hobbit film, there are still 2 more years for that to take place.

Little point here, if you ever do consider expanding into the territory of The Hobbit, I shall be very upset if we don't visit the Carrock and Beorn's home

And the issues that people have with single boss raids I don't mind so much - I'm sure that they will be challenging, and while less than OD and ToO (on 6 and 5 bosses respectively), I'm sure that they will be made fun (nothing can live up to the Rift), however I am worried about (if the currency is the same as we had in the Isengard 3 mans) how we are expected to sort out our LIs with seals/meds, without the weekly raid dose. I'm hoping that an increase in currency output is on the cards.

Also, aside from raiding, as this post is also about U9 generally, I'm hoping to see a continuation of the epic book (wherever MoL decides to take it) both now, and when a new region is released in May-time(ish), because they really are my favourite part of LOTRO.

[Haradim]

Also, the devs are being forced to utilize their Timelord powers more and more - to get all the way from Rohan to Dale and still be within the timeframe for the books.

We casually time-travel all the time when we go to Bree and so forth, why not go to the legendary mountain

Out of curiosity, is an Erebor landscape addition in the cards for the future? (Not for update 9, mind you, but at some point so distant that there isn't a set date). I remember noting that the Rhovanion map had a spot for Northern Mirkwood, and there was also the matter of Gladden Fields, which was labelled like it was a map that wasn't in the game yet.

Seems unlikely since we will still be moving into major new landscape areas down south. Though I suppose there could be room for "novelty" regions, like Frostbluff, that just happens to be in area...

[Erebthoron]

What about let's wait and see?

[ShotgunStalker]

Lets hope only one of the Raid fights is Draigoch/Turtle-esque and the other two are complicated, long, tough boss fights.

I don't understand this....why do so many people want the raids to be hard?

Well, i'm happy as long as Turbine made at least one of the instances possible for people who are not "hardcore" ._.


A turtle kinda raid would be nice tho...really like that one!

[Saniko]

Given the time line, and distance we'll be travelling, are you finally caving into the demands for ridable eagles?!?!?!

By my count we've "ridden" eagles twice already, once in GR and once in ToO.

Story, not raiding, is still the main draw for me, so personally I'm happy to see the Hobbit tie-in. As a kinnie said, having just the 3mans available at first could help get more folks interested, geared, and ready for the raids (we're a casual kin)...but, can't make everyone happy.

[Ferthcott]

I don't understand this....why do so many people want the raids to be hard?

Because there is something called Tier I ?:P

[MrWarg]

I don't understand this....why do so many people want the raids to be hard?

Because some people like a challenge. A very easy piece of content has less replay value for some people than a difficult piece of content.

[Frisco]

Now I can see why they felt comfortable cutting off communication and telling us half-truths about the "cluster".

Some people are just happy that we get *anything* (low expectations) since they assumed we were being lied to from the beginning, and the rest are too worked up about the splitting and the lack of a multi-boss raid to even care about something as inconsequential as honesty or communication. And in the meantime, Turbine saved themselves 2 months of substantial complaints, plus the time it would take to post the truth, and $20 from every person who took their words at face value.

Well played, WB. Well played.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

With the six week delay in the expansion release, I never expected the Instance Cluster to be delivered in 2012. I was expecting a February, 2013 delivery date. I think the decision to give us some instances in 2012 is the best decision given the situation.

[Thwapp]

Are we paying for this abuse or is it extra? These instances have NOTHING to do with RoR. Nothing.

WB is evil and I hate them!

I'm seriously considering buying Pandaland and trying out WoW again....

[furtim]

Not only are we going to the Lonely Mountain, we're also getting three new raids?

Gonna be a heck of a February.

EDIT: Ah, I see, it's sort of a multi-wing deal, like Saruman was. Still cool.

I think my main disappointment is that we won't have a new 6-man instance with U9.

[Faitha81]

If the three 12 man raids or a least 2 of them are up to the watcher sorta standards it wont be so bad , very disappointed theres no multi boss raid or the fact its such a long wait till we get a new 6 man and the raids. Feel let down again and really seems more than ever the expansions are just rushed out with little care to the player base .

[Lardos]

Hello Turbine,

this the biggest content , i have ever seen NOT. Shipping in 2013 (Currently Planned for February) its look like a bad joke, but its NOT the first of april!

Please make a poll who likes to play 3 player instance and who will play a RAID of 12 players. And who likes a cloak, shoulders or other worst loot in his chest! Please make a 12 player instance with a good loot table, FAST!!!

Thank you.

[Vincent_Price]

"Moooaaah...Moaaah We get no raids"

Announcement for Update 9 which includes Raids follows :

"Moaaaah!!! Single Boss Raids! moaaaah"

Announcement for West Rohan with Helm's Deep SUPER-RAID gets public :

"Moaaaaaaaaaaaah! Turbine didn't give us free TP to buy the Expansion! $$!@##@ Turbine!!!!!11 QQ"

...

few questions guys.

Does anyone remember the massive QQs we got in Roots Of Fangorn? And most of the people could pull Frushkul, but couldn't defeat the spider in the end.
What does the fact that a raid is "single boss" have to do with a raid being difficult?
Really you believe such a thing? You may get less loot (aka strongboxes) but other than that, it doesn't mean it will be easy.

You guys need to take a big break, if you're raging over these small issues and i would recommend from gaming in general.
Go hiking, enjoy nature, then come-back.

(coming next : we'll get answers on why this is still a huge issue and more crying. Stay with us!)


It keeps getting worse...

"Feel let down again and really seems more than ever the expansions are just rushed out with little care to the player base ."

really, except the fact that Rohan has some bugs, this here deserves a facepalm. Have you even played quests in Rohan? ... last post on this thread from me.

Thanks Sapience for the update!

[LagunaD]

What a pathetic failure this game has become.

[zalladi]

As long as that extra polish for the February raids doesn't mean we will have three more buggy Draigoch-like instances, that's fine by me.

Looking forward to them.

[shamshe]

3 single boss raids rly? No multiboss raids
Why not take the few good raids in the game and make them 85? thinking of (mostly) Rift but also Dn, ToO
Lotro is not paying that much attention to the hardcore raiders as it used to do. Guess it's all about the lore nowdays and the storyline. The few good raiding kins in the game will (like many people think) disband and most hardcore raiders will start playing other raidfriendly games.
I've been thinking of picking up wow again after reading this. But guess we'll see watcher was fun and a nice raid dragon raid was totaly the oposite we'll have to see wichone of the 2 it will be

[Ferthcott]

I think I found missing 6-mans.

Is Fornost finally on reasonable level reward - wise or it's going to require serious loot table revamp in/after U9? Pretty sure fate of this set of instances was the saddest part of 2012, which also means they are not "done to the death" skirmish-style.