A Letter from Executive Producer Aaron Campbell

[Namesse]

True, yes. It's still tedious, unfun, and something I'd rather avoid.

Agreed, yet I started BB and went afk until they finished - an unranked, single target melee class has no hope of doing anything anyway, so I made better use of the time that my character was in the BB. Definitely unfun game play.

[Nodwick]

This isn't new to be honest. I've always encourage people to read the words written and not to to assign meaning or intent to them. A very large amount of disappointment can be avoided by not trying to dig out some deeper, probably nonexistent, meaning only to find out that it you've created an idea in your mind that did not exist in the speaker's (typers?).

This is an interesting read, but is that true for everything, because it seems that there are things that are written, which isnt true.

[Crell_1]

Agreed, yet I started BB and went afk until they finished - an unranked, single target melee class has no hope of doing anything anyway, so I made better use of the time that my character was in the BB. Definitely unfun game play.

Whether or not you can finish entirely AFK is random. It seems more or less likely depending on what instance. Still. That's 30minutes of my time per battle I'm having to waste.

[ShireDweller]

Welcome back, Aaron!

Looking forward to hearing more from you.

[Thornglen]

True, yes. It's still tedious, unfun, and something I'd rather avoid.

Rather than asking for the Battles to be removed or discontinued, I think I'd like to have people push for improvements to the system if it is really that bad. As it is, MMOs in general suffer from too much of the same thing over and over as you level. For me, LOTRO rises above this only because of the story, the world, and the effort Turbine spends on both of those along with adding the skirmishes, mounted combat, and battles as we go. Limiting that in any way seems like a request to go back to the same old same old.

You will never find me claim Turbine is the best out there when it comes to tech running smoothly in a game, but when it comes to making epic landscapes and locations, I can rarely find fault. The Battles LOOK great to me. I have just started them and am still learning the ropes, so I probably can't say where they are lacking just yet, but I'd like to see them stay, expand, and become fun and flexible enough to interest people. Now, if you just don't like the Skirmish/Battle format at all, I'm not sure what can be done, but if you like Skirmishes and think Battles are horrible, I believe there is room to improve them and make then a great part of the game.

Same goes for Mounted Combat. I am still learning how to not run my war-steed into a wall, but other than not being able to strafe like I can on a normal steed (why? argh! :P ), I am starting to enjoy it. I understand there are some who won't like it at all, but again, it added something new to the game. New is what I need so it isn't just fedex and kill 10 orcs outside (and sometimes inside) the epic.

I think Turbine has been good with starting the new ideas, maybe now what is needed is to polish, improve, and build upon them.

[seekingerin]

Budgeford said in the Ask the LOTRO Team from a couple of weeks ago that revamps of the Trollshaws and the Misty Mountains were on the table for update 13. Is that still the case, or have these revamps been pushed back for a future update?

[Rabbitses]

Thanks for the update Aaron. I'm glad you're back in Middle-earth with us.

[Crell_1]

Rather than asking for the Battles to be removed or discontinued, I think I'd like to have people push for improvements to the system if it is really that bad. ..

I think Turbine has been good with starting the new ideas, maybe now what is needed is to polish, improve, and build upon them.

That doesn't mean that the system needs to be tacked on as a requirement, when additional on-ramps have been accepted in the past. Because BB's are so unlike our characters, to me they're just this side of session play, where I exist in name-only. By gating Book 14 behind book 13, you require me to do all 5 (at the cost of just over 2hrs per character) if you in anyway gate the new region's landscape quests behind the epic. That's just nuts.

[Crell_1]

Budgeford said in the Ask the LOTRO Team from a couple of weeks ago that revamps of the Trollshaws and the Misty Mountains were on the table for update 13. Is that still the case, or have these revamps been pushed back for a future update?

I suspect they're spreading them out so we have a more steady stream of improvements so they can have more stuff to advertise in say, U14 and U15.

[fuzzbox]

Please bring back real end-game raids so I can come back home.

please a simple yes or no.

are end game raids gone forever?

if the game gets any easier my whole kin is gonna quit.

[Thornglen]

That doesn't mean that the system needs to be tacked on as a requirement, when additional on-ramps have been accepted in the past. Because BB's are so unlike our characters, to me they're just this side of session play, where I exist in name-only. By gating Book 14 behind book 13, you require me to do all 5 (at the cost of just over 2hrs per character) if you in anyway gate the new region's landscape quests behind the epic. That's just nuts.

Using the Battles as a gate to advancing the epic is a slightly different topic to the one I was on. That had just been what triggered people's comments about not liking the battles, not wanting more added, not adding mounted combat, etc. My point was more that if the battles were fun to start, maybe it would not be such an issue having them as requirements.

I forget, could you skip the skirmishes in Mirkwood and still get to the end of Volume II?

[fuzzbox]

Im have a couple of founder accounts and My kins was mainly lifers

The reason we have all left due to HD was due to Skills trees changing the classes and the game becoming facerolling simple.

Are any of these concerns being addressed ?

We would love to come back to LOTRO (and start giving you money again) .

I mean this as no disrespect and genuinely want to be able to play again as do my friends family kinmates etc. We are in a bit of a void at the moment.

this speaks for what is left of my kin. the face rolling simple thing.

please address this so we can move on if you don't want us.

[Alcor]

I forget, could you skip the skirmishes in Mirkwood and still get to the end of Volume II?

I don't believe so.

[Rugongrod]

1st. Let me say Hello Rowan.

2nd. The North Downs re-vamp is greatly 'preciated and I can wait for re-vamps of the other 2 areas.

3rd. Long Live LoTRO

[IngeniousMrToad]

way too little...way too late, for me anyway.

[Brinswith]

Great to have you back on board Rowan.

[Rawlor]

Please don't abandon the big battle system like you guys have with skirmishes and mounted combat. Big battles are a different beast which I, in apparent contradiction to the lotro forums, rather enjoy. There are fairly significant problems with BB's, namely:

• Poor-to-no actual introduction to big battle gameplay. Remember how when skirmishes were introducted there were TWO intro skrims to show you how things worked? Yeah, there is none of that with big battles. There's an intro but it's a bunch of text that's easily skimmed over. Nothing *shows* you what to do or expect when you are actually in one. Please revamp this by adding an actual primer/introduction with one or two intro battles that can get a new (solo, and actually solo) player to rank 1 so they can at the VERY least place barricades.
• Poor/terrible instructions & indicators with side quests and main location changes. Have in game indicators of where things are and where people need to go. Make huge glowy arrows on the landscape for all I care, but make it obvious.
• Buggy progression / early-ending of instances. It is very possible, and sometimes a frequent occurance, for the whole BB instance to complete before your last side quest! This is sloppy coding and really needs to be fixed. Multiple times I've had the instance itself "end" while I was finishing up my last side quest... it's incredibly frustrating.
• Need more group big battles. Seriously... only 1 3/6/12 man? That's just silly. Expand what you got.

And besides all those issues I still enjoy them. It took a little while but if you have someone who knows what they are doing show you the ropes they are actually a lot of fun. The problem is someone has to show you, and it's extremly frustrating until then.


Besides that though, seriously where is the group content? My friends miss doing things together and are playing other games just so they can play together. I can barely get people together for a group run once a week these days.

[Lyzau]

This isn't new to be honest. I've always encourage people to read the words written and not to to assign meaning or intent to them. A very large amount of disappointment can be avoided by not trying to dig out some deeper, probably nonexistent, meaning only to find out that it you've created an idea in your mind that did not exist in the speaker's (typers?).

Then what is the point of stating that "housing is high on the list", if it wasn't intended to have any "deeper" meaning other than just stating that it's on somebody's list (and may remain on that list for any number of months, years to come). To me this emphasizes that whatever is written on that elusive list, has no meaning at all, and words referencing to that list, really talk about nothing.

[Leixy]

Then what is the point of stating that "housing is high on the list", if it wasn't intended to have any "deeper" meaning other than just stating that it's on somebody's list (and may remain on that list for any number of months, years to come). To me this emphasizes that whatever is written on that elusive list, has no meaning at all, and words referencing to that list, really talk about nothing.

LOL, I actually agree, turbine does do a fair amount of vague promises that get pushed aside for whatever reason that may be.

[Gedachtnis]

Welcome back Rowan.

Glad to hear about all of the new stuff coming.

As you may know (or not), I'm a supporter of Turbine's Lua interface. I know Turbine is working with a leaner development team but I wonder if the devs that were donating their time to implement the Lua API survived the layoffs and if so, can they get some official support for developing the Lua API? There are literally dozens of Lua plugin developers which provide Turbine with hundreds of man-hours of custom UI development for each hour that Turbine investment. We received a partial update to the documentation this past year (some of the API is still undocumented or inaccurately documented) but we did not get any kind of API enhancements and no bug fixes - Turbine would see a huge return on investment if they would start officially supporting the Lua API.

Please!

I just hope this mail feature for VIPs stays for VIPs. Meaning that it doesn't get sold in the store to be unlocked by non VIPers & that you cannot subscribe a month of VIP to unlock this for your characters. More things need to be solely for VIPs who stay VIP.

You do realize that mail services have been available in the store for quite a while. VIP's will be getting, at least unless we can send also which wasn't mentioned, limited functionality of a Store only function as a VIP Perk. Totally a move in the correct direction, imo.

[DaManx]

If you leave Bree Town and head north, to Saeradan the ranger's cabin, then go due east through the woods behind his house, you'll find a soccer field/pitch kind of structure. On that field was played, in days of old (when the game was still very new), a chicken-soccer sort of sport called Hobnanigans. And very few of us have ever seen it actually played, because it was pulled for technical reasons very soon after LOTRO went live. I'm excited at the chance to pay it for the first time.

I am guessing that is was stopped by the proud folks at H.E.T.A.?

[XinaLotRO]

OMG! Awesome news!

Budgeford -- Please add a sports arena in the North Downs, just like the one in the Horsefields of Bree, but without the game? We're going to lose our spot for horse events and other sports. Perhaps there is a tiny place in the North Downs where it would fit?

[seekingerin]

I suspect they're spreading them out so we have a more steady stream of improvements so they can have more stuff to advertise in say, U14 and U15.

Or they're spreading them out to give each revamp more time. I thought three zone revamps seemed awfully ambitious for one update.

And I'm fine wtih that; I'd rather the revamps be done right than rushed. I'm just curious because I'm leveling up an alt with an XP disabler, and I'd like to know if the Trollshaws and Misty Mountains revamps will be ready for her when she gets there.

[Thornglen]

Please!

You do realize that mail services have been available in the store for quite a while. VIP's will be getting, at least unless we can send also which wasn't mentioned, limited functionality of a Store only function as a VIP Perk. Totally a move in the correct direction, imo.

Unless the mail services in the Store (which I have not looked at, so I don't know for sure) are a 1-time account unlock like currency cap or extra inventory bags, it would not be the same kind of impact.

When you have VIP perks that can be purchased as 1-time account-wide unlocks, the incentive to be VIP for that perk is eroded. The longer you play as Premium, the cheaper that unlock would be per day where as VIP you are paying the same each month for the rental. In some cases it makes the most sense to be VIP for a month and then buy what you need as Premium rather than stay VIP.

What people are asking for are more VIP perks making it worthwhile to stay VIP. Ideally, these perks would not affect gameplay for Free and Premium folks (I saw some suggestions to have a few PvE zones exclusively for VIP and I don't agree that would be a good idea). Something like this mail perk might be a good step in that direction, as you say.

[Gilean-EU]

True, yes. It's still tedious, unfun, and something I'd rather avoid.

Fun is of course subjective, but I wouldn't call EB's tedious, if you think about only completing them so that it counts for the Epic quests. You can basically be semi-afk next to the key NPC (or NPC's) and check that they have enough health to survive. Easier if you are healer class, otherwise you have to DPS yourself as well. About 30 minutes per battle, you can watch TV while you play etc, and then it's over and you never have to do that again if that's what you (as "you" in general) want. At least those are easier to complete than some session play Epic chapters or skirmish ones But at least then you can continue doing the Epic Books!