Update 9: Against the Shadow and the Rohan Instance cluster

[LagunaD]

When we made the decision to delay the release of the Rider’s of Rohan expansion, we also made it clear that we would still honor our commitment to release the instances this year. Because of the delay in shipping Rohan, development time for the year was obviously reduced. This left us two options; either delay the entire instance cluster until 2013, or release those instances we felt could be completed with the highest degree of polish in December and delay the others until they are ready (currently expected to be February).

I find it revealing that (according to Sapience) actually following through on the commitment ("we made it clear"...lol) to release the content on time was never even considered. Content which people had paid for in advance with a clearly advertised delivery date, I might add.

What about the option of committing additional resources to make up for your failure to deliver the expansion itself on time?

Instead you cut back on developers and renege on a "commitment" that there was apparently never any intention of honoring from the moment it was made.

[Gondalen_Drake]

...You are still playing, so why complain saying that you have given up hope when you still play?...

Because i got a Lifetime Sub, and im lookin into lotro whenever somethin new arrives. nevertheless , for me and for many others this " instance cluster" is nothing but a heap of senseless, brainless fast programming dung.

i got no intrest in mirkwood or misty mountain instances these areas are beyond me 2 years ago. there will be allways those type of players who could be send into a hello kitty instance and they would still love it ... think about it ;-)

we in germany got a saying " small ghosts are easily entertained"

[Feraxks]

Gotta love the drama around here.... :rollseyes:

But the popcorn is good!

[Silverangel]

This looks good. Seven instances surpasses expectations. I have some sympathy for the raiders for reasons already stated. On the other hand, I've been listening to moaning about Draigoch bugs for a year now, so it seems hypocritical to complain that the raids aren't coming out before they are ready. It takes a lot of work and debugging to make them. And surely more can be counted on than three more turtles.

[Gondalen_Drake]

This looks good. Seven instances surpasses expectations. I have some sympathy for the raiders for reasons already stated. On the other hand, I've been listening to moaning about Draigoch bugs for a year now, so it seems hypocritical to complain that the raids aren't coming out before they are ready. It takes a lot of work and debugging to make them. And surely more can be counted on than three more turtles.

RoR was presold with the IC in July , now we get 3 3 man and the rest in the next year... sorry we gave them money they didnt or wont deliver what they promised. we have all rights to complain!

[BrynleyDK]

Overall happy we finally have some news.

just why couldnt we have had

2 times 3 man instances

2 times 6 man instances

2 times single boss raids

1 times multi boss raid

Can it be that hard to have expanded one 3 man idea into a decent 6 man one?

As for the 3 raids we have we all assume single boss means lair raid (dragon vile maw) but it is still possible it means a single raid with only a complettion lock doesnt mean we cant have one that has multiple trash fights with a sub boss or two..

ideally given the three raids we have that is what i would like to see 1 raid with plenty of trash lots of tactics.

1 raid like vile maw. challanging

1 raid like filikul or dragon that can become tank and spank

[Bond007]

The more I read it, the more these raids simply sound like cheesy skirm raids. Please tell me they're at least somewhat challenging, the mechanics in RoI were basic enough for a two year old, and one fight was so faceroll-ishly easy that one "raiding" kin on Gladden literally spent every week running alt runs of lightning t2 just to hoard first ages, never trying anything harder because they didn't need to.

Stop catering to lazy people. Or, if you are gonna do it anyways, at least give SOME cake to the people who want a challenge (hint: not an impossible fight with broken mechanics). Please, please, PLEASE don't slap together a half-hearted "raid" that any 12 goons can do by simply getting together and pushing through to victory. That's not a raid. It just insults those of us who desire a tough victory, something actually worthwhile.

[bastiat1]

Purely by population numbers, it's probably not worth it to Turbine to develop content for that small group of people, but Turbine has done so in the past and those of us in that group always hold on to the hope (perhaps futilely) that Turbine will continue to do so.

There were at least 115 kinships raiding Orthanc and posting in the progression thread. Probably at least 20 players per kinship. I'm sure there were more raiding and not posting. I know not everyone is progression raiding, but virtually everyone seems to be wearing raid gear from T1 pugs. Most raiders that I know also do just about everything else the non-raiders do.

I hear what your saying, I'm just hoping there is some tracking statistic that shows it's not true.

[Aethelwald]

It would have been, frankly, absurd to not try to take advantage of the upcoming movie. Even if it does poorly it will still bring more customers here.

But this renders mounted combat a gimmick. No big deal for many or even most, I imagine. Yet for those of us who hoped mounted combat would represent a future direction for the game, it's the end of the road. Either that or be demoted to foot soldiers once more, alas.

[Veynn]

sounds like those who cant use their warsteeds properly are rejoicing. *rolleyes*

[Requiemslove]

Hey guys. Moving away from the clusters a minute, i have to know what exactly is going to happen with western rohan? Someone mentioned the word exapnsion with that? Surely not, to my understanding all of rohan is supposed to be one big expansion yes, and that the whole thing is just too big to release all in one go. So when is western rohan coming, in December, or in Feburary?

[Morat]

... [snip]
Not to be mean, but this game has proven, time and time again, that it is catering to the Bozos that play and not to the serious gamer.

Yikes! Not to be mean, but you might want to count to 10 before hitting 'send'.

[Lothirieth]

It was too easy for regular raiders. Not too easy for a lot of PUGs though.

I disagree. Sure pugs can wipe at it, but pugs have been quite successful running it, unlike Saruman T1 or ToO T2. Aside from T1, I do not think a raid's difficulty should be based on what a pug could do.

When you say "casual kins" you mean kins with enough players to get together to run it together, presumably I think kins that actually do raids or instances together.

I'm thinking of one that takes a while to get ToO T1 done.. quite a while on Saruman (if they ever did.. I'm not sure) and has never been able to complete a ToO T2 wing, that raids together a couple times a month if they can pull the numbers together.

We should never judge difficulty of content based upon what the top tier of players think.

Which I wasn't doing regarding Draigoch.

[Keidnard]

I just want some Rohan related Instances with entrances in Ost-Emnet, thats what i paid for when i bought the Rohan Addon.

Instances related to The Hobbit Movie are ok, but thats not what i ordered, when i bought the Addon. Those announced Instances could have been another upgrade you could buy with Points or something, that would be great .. but not as part of the Rohan Addon..

Now i feel betrayed.. cause i get some hobbit instances instead of rohan instances for my addon payment .. and when rohan instances will show up somewhen later, i will likely have to pay again for them..

[jackstryker]

very sad news, not only a delay but not even a real raid.

[Erlessa]

I love where were going to story-wise but...

1 6man and 3 raids?

I really hope you bring another instance & raid cluster with a new area and not bring an expansion for autumn.

[Garamell]

This is wonderful news.

[Vincent_Price]

People complaining about instances raids :

1) There are those that complain about the 12 instances have a single boss. They complain because they'll be easy and boring.
They've tested them and they know.
2) People complaining about 3 man instances. They're saying "We will get 3 instances for 3 in the first part? Who wants this kind of playing? It´s usually so hard for the support classes!" (this is an exact post a few posts before me). So they're too hard for them and they want something easier.
This kind of contrasts the 1st complain where people want difficult instances.
Those people also play-tested the new stuff and they know.
3) We got people that hate the idea of Turbine bringing us 3 small fellowship instances before on December.
4) We got people that hate the idea of Turbine bringing us new instances at all because it's not Rohan-based. Yet if they were Rohan based and had mounted combat, people would complain before the instances were released cause we would surely get laggy instances (just cause of the mounted combat). This would even be before they've tested those instances.

The facts now :

Most of them were raging cause we didn't have an announcement for the new instances. Announcement is here. Moaning mostly based on predictions.

Turbine has been working on Mounted Combat for years. And they claim there's much more stuff to improve. They're also working on the server issues with the next update coming at November 28th. So yes. Whether you want it or not they don't have people working only for Instances and New Content. They also have people working on bugs and stuff that'a already there. And hopefully on scaling the instances?

Moaning like little kids about stuff that's not even here and you haven't played, is just dumb. People already putting down the new instances saying it will be &&&& without even playing them - without even seeing a single screenshot...

At least up until now. So relax.

[Baritone]

I love all the whiners, obviously most of them replying to this post have never had any business experience. Turbine had made the decision to delay RoR instead of rushing it like any other MMO that broke down(swtor launch) because they knew it wasnt ready. A result of that was delaying the IC, which they are doing everything they can to at least give us the 3mans next month.

I have alot against the way LOTRO has turned out over the years, I hate the turbine store and wish it a horrible death, but from a business point of view it makes money and it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY in any business. Rohan is beautiful and I'm glad they are delaying half the instances til they are ready. So those that keep giving Turbine all the hate about how they run the game, I guarantee you if any other company had the LOTR/Hobbit license they wouldnt have given us half the badassness of Middle-Earth as Turbine has.

Keep up the good work guys

[Cindir]

...

Moaning like little kids about stuff that's not even here and you haven't played, is just dumb. People already putting down the new instances saying it will be &&&& without even playing them - without even seeing a single screenshot...

People are smarter than you think. Some posters wanted a multi-boss raid, and did not get it. Also, the game was designed for full fellowships. If you have a 3 man, you cannot have tank, healer, DPS, and support. Someone is left out. Like many other said, people don't run 3 mans very much.

My own thoughts on the IC:
if the 3 raids are like wings of 1 raid (as Rowan or someone said), then basically the IC just has one raid. So in reality it is smaller than they want it to appear.

Part 1 RoR IC = 3 3-mans
Part 2 IC = 1 6-man and 1 12-man raid.

[Daeross]

---and there was also the matter of Gladden Fields, which was labelled like it was a map that wasn't in the game yet.

What's more, in Lórien there's a gap in the northern hills, just below the Gladden Fields... but you can't get through it yet, because there are some boulders there. I love finding the possible 'gateways' to new areas!

Thank you, Sapience and Rowan, for all the info!

[gabrielthorn]

The least Turbine could do was make at least 1 raid to satisfy the raiding kinships that keep this game alive.

[ElricM]

They advertised Rohan as biggest expansion ever and now we get only 1 6-man and 3 stupid 3-man instances. But at least we know now, why they did not announce this earlier, because noone would have bought this biggest no-content expansion ever.

[Raven-EU]

Not to be mean, but this game has proven, time and time again, that it is catering to the Bozos that play and not to the serious gamer.

I don't have factual numbers to back this up but I guess the "Bozos" outnumber those adhearing to your playstyle (and mine for that matter) by 10:1 at the least. In fact 100:1 may be a more likely ratio. Now, if you're willing to spend $100 on the game each year but those 100 people only spend $10 then which group do you think Turbine is most likely to cater to?

I'm affraid this game is so much more "their" game than it is "ours" but that's OK as long as I get my corner (difficult raid content) to play with.

[Ryaden]

so... this game is dying... back to GW2 and SWTOR...? all this announcement did is cause me to lose more faith in LOTRO, my favorite MMO...