Update 15 - Will we join aragorn or keep playing the disposable garbage mopper again?

[grrgwrigo563]

LORE RANT- This is my personal opinion.

The way the Epic story is developing makes you look like the insignificant garbage cleaner who no one pays attention to, nor considers worthy of sharing any important plan. In Shadows of Angmar, Moria, Rohan at least the quests were dignified and you were considered something. Now after running around and finally uniting the Grey company, at the end of Epic 3 everyone was sharing drinks and passing around praises. Now you get teleported from the stairs of Orthanc to Dunharrow, completely skipping at least 5 chapters, to find Aragorn leaving you behind again and completely forgetting about you as if you were a Rohan peasant. At least we should have been given the respect of consultation. Instead the big people go about their business and you get to follow and try and find ways to make yourself feel important.
Can we catch up with Aragorn in Update 15 please, or are we no longer "Allies of the King" and our lineage is too low to join his mighty company?

[TKH]

I would rather not following Aragon's and big characters in the novel. The setting will geta lot tighter to the end where epic events hardly have any place for you to fit in. Though you an play in these events as through session play, but it is not nice enough to replace playing the story with your own character.

To me, big guys can do whatever they want according the novel/ I don't find follow behind them just to get sidetracked somewhere is something unpleasant. In fact, the other regions that have little role in the book is the strong point of this game, where players fight other wars to protect the peace behind the main story of LOTR.

[Amennator]

I believe Rowan and perhaps MadeofLions stated that starting with u14 we will be treated as the heroes we should be. Your statement about questing in the previous areas was more dignified. Do you forget shoveling goat poop, or how about cleaning tables in rohan. Unfortunately it's not the "big stars" treating us poorly. It's the npcs are extremely lazy. So lazy it's amazing they bother to stand around as they do.

[Elemiire]

I would rather not following Aragon's and big characters in the novel. The setting will geta lot tighter to the end where epic events hardly have any place for you to fit in. Though you an play in these events as through session play, but it is not nice enough to replace playing the story with your own character.

To me, big guys can do whatever they want according the novel/ I don't find follow behind them just to get sidetracked somewhere is something unpleasant. In fact, the other regions that have little role in the book is the strong point of this game, where players fight other wars to protect the peace behind the main story of LOTR.

I somewhat agree with this.

I understand that this is a game and people want to be a part of the story and the main events, but I don't agree with having the players hang out with the company at the drop of a hat. Maybe I'm just conservative, but I don't think we should be anywhere near Aragorn&Co most of the time... then again, I was one of the minority that entirely and strongly disagreed with having us on Helm's Deep... And I still think that. We should have never been 'a part' of the events in Helm's Deep and we should not influence major events from the novels.

[mjk47]

We should have never been 'a part' of the events in Helm's Deep and we should not influence major events from the novels.

I can assure that my character's participation in the Epic Battles at Helm's Deep had absolutely zero influence on the event!

[Brya]

MadeOfLions (the dev responsible for the epic) has acknowledged this and stated on the forums that in Volume 4 your character will be acknowledged as a hero in their own right after their deeds over the past three volumes. So you shouldn't be treated as an errand boy (or girl) anymore.

[tamlong]

LORE RANT- This is my personal opinion.

The way the Epic story is developing makes you look like the insignificant garbage cleaner who no one pays attention to, nor considers worthy of sharing any important plan. In Shadows of Angmar, Moria, Rohan at least the quests were dignified and you were considered something. Now after running around and finally uniting the Grey company, at the end of Epic 3 everyone was sharing drinks and passing around praises. Now you get teleported from the stairs of Orthanc to Dunharrow, completely skipping at least 5 chapters, to find Aragorn leaving you behind again and completely forgetting about you as if you were a Rohan peasant. At least we should have been given the respect of consultation. Instead the big people go about their business and you get to follow and try and find ways to make yourself feel important.
Can we catch up with Aragorn in Update 15 please, or are we no longer "Allies of the King" and our lineage is too low to join his mighty company?

I totally agree, the more I play this game, the more I actually feel disconnected from the main point of what LOTRO is about and the book epic quests have been poorly thought out and don't make me feel like an important part of the story, which surely is the point that although not part of the fellowship we should feel that even if unseen we are helping the ring actually progress to Mordor.

[Vazoth]

MadeOfLions (the dev responsible for the epic) has acknowledged this and stated on the forums that in Volume 4 your character will be acknowledged as a hero in their own right after their deeds over the past three volumes. So you shouldn't be treated as an errand boy (or girl) anymore.

This would be much appreciated. I'm currently catching up to Moria with the epic quests and I have to say: "They are horrible".
It irks me that the quests are so linear, you can't influence them at all. You're pretty much just the guy running from NPC to NPC in order to trigger some scripted events. Not to mention the stupid escorts, which would go much smoother, if I was the one in charge. Should I encounter a problem I could ask the NPC for help. This would make the game feel more like a game, instead of a badly staged movie.
I'd rather have epic quests where I witness the progress of the fellowship as a third uninvolved person, but on the same hand would be able to make a significant impact elsewhere. Turbine could give itself a little bit more freedom and create own epic quests, which don't need to be specified in the books. After all they are making their own game and don't just recode the books into a game. These quests could be designed with a much better gameplay, instead of the current reading with 2-5 mins travel breaks in between and occasionally some fighting.

Imagine reading a book and stopping for a minute everytime you've finished a page. Sounds awful, right?

I am sick of the situations, where I lose control over my character, so that the enemy can get away over and over again. I want to get the impression that I am the only one, who can stand up to the task, rather than just being the first guy to come around. It would be awesome, if there were quests with different paths to take, but I'm not expecting this from Lotro.
I guess I'm just spoiled by single player RPGs in this matter.

[DirkBadgewick]

I can assure that my character's participation in the Epic Battles at Helm's Deep had absolutely zero influence on the event!

I agree 100% with this post....

...any my desk will need the coffee cleaned up from me laughing.

[OldMadeOfLions]

Can we catch up with Aragorn in Update 15 please, or are we no longer "Allies of the King" and our lineage is too low to join his mighty company?

It's possible to be a hero without tagging along with Aragorn all the time, though, and that's been a major tenet of the Epic Story from the beginning. The more we insert the player into the events of the book, the more obvious it becomes that such a major player would have been mentioned, and some harm is done to the suspension of disbelief. I think the most effective story-telling involves heroic actions that affect but don't interfere with the main narrative of LotR, that can comfortably exist just "off the pages" of the original story.

We do have an obligation to depict some of the best-known and well-loved scenes from the book, but it's a balancing act. Just tagging along with Aragorn while he gets all the best scenes wouldn't be that fun, but neither would never seeing him at all.

I think the description of our heroes as 'disposable garbage moppers' minimizes their accomplishments to a rather silly degree. I think much good was done facing the Champion of Angmar, braving the dark of Moria, saving the Kingdom of Rohan, and hindering Saruman's plans for Middle-earth.

MoL

[Decaran]

It's possible to be a hero without tagging along with Aragorn all the time, though, and that's been a major tenet of the Epic Story from the beginning. The more we insert the player into the events of the book, the more obvious it becomes that such a major player would have been mentioned, and some harm is done to the suspension of disbelief. I think the most effective story-telling involves heroic actions that affect but don't interfere with the main narrative of LotR, that can comfortably exist just "off the pages" of the original story.

Completely agree with this. I actually would have liked to see even more separation from Aragorn in the later books of Volume III. Would have been nice to have us sent by Aragorn/Eowyn to secure different places in West Rohan (and not be at the Battle, as we're busy!), as I'm quite certain my dwarf Rune Keeper was never mentioned (in the books) as being at the battle of Helm's Deep This could have kept it "epic" in the sense that we were directly following orders from Aragorn, but also not lore-breaking.

[Valamar]

I totally agree, the more I play this game, the more I actually feel disconnected from the main point of what LOTRO is about and the book epic quests have been poorly thought out and don't make me feel like an important part of the story, which surely is the point that although not part of the fellowship we should feel that even if unseen we are helping the ring actually progress to Mordor.

Keep in mind that even Aragorn has no part i helping the Ring progress to Mordor.
He is "doing his own thing."

[Silmelin]

I don't feel like my characters are somehow "too good" to help peasants, and I don't want to be too close to the Fellowship because then I'd feel like a Mary-Sue character in a LOTR fanfic I don't want all NPC's, even strangers that my character has never met, to bow down and feel that my characters are somehow too high up and mighty for them to dare asking for help. So far none of my characters are that stuck up XD

For me it's more important that there are many different types of quests so people have more to pick and choose between (or as me, do all of them ), and I really hope we don't lose out on "simpler" tasks to only get to do heroics from now on. In my book a hero is someone who is helpful and can do mighty deeds and still don't look down on those who can't, saying "I'm too awesome for you so I only help kings now". And someone who kills a dragon and then go bragging about it and sneers at poor people and feels themselves too good to help those who aren't as well off... Well, they're the opposite of heroes.

Please don't completely take away helping out with smaller things, because this Middle-earth has quite a bunch of modest heroes walking the same path as the Mary-Sue heroes

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I don't feel like my characters are somehow "too good" to help peasants, and I don't want to be too close to the Fellowship because then I'd feel like a Mary-Sue character in a LOTR fanfic I don't want all NPC's, even strangers that my character has never met, to bow down and feel that my characters are somehow too high up and mighty for them to dare asking for help. So far none of my characters are that stuck up XD

For me it's more important that there are many different types of quests so people have more to pick and choose between (or as me, do all of them ), and I really hope we don't lose out on "simpler" tasks to only get to do heroics from now on. In my book a hero is someone who is helpful and can do mighty deeds and still don't look down on those who can't, saying "I'm too awesome for you so I only help kings now". And someone who kills a dragon and then go bragging about it and sneers at poor people and feels themselves too good to help those who aren't as well off... Well, they're the opposite of heroes.

Please don't completely take away helping out with smaller things, because this Middle-earth has quite a bunch of modest heroes walking the same path as the Mary-Sue heroes

Urgh no thanks. My hobbit was at his finest when carving a path through the epic quests - venturing into the great barrow, helping to vanquish Ivar, saving Trestlebridge, thwarting the schemes of the nazgul at Helegrod, battling Mordirith at the gates of Carn Dumn and then helping to save Narmeleth from herself - all the better when teaming up with others to win the day! The vol 2 epic was just as fantastic and seeing Mazog die at the end is always worth a cheer. Don't really want to have to spend most of vol 4 running around cleaning up other people's dirty dishes.

[cdq1958]

It's possible to be a hero without tagging along with Aragorn all the time, though, and that's been a major tenet of the Epic Story from the beginning. The more we insert the player into the events of the book, the more obvious it becomes that such a major player would have been mentioned, and some harm is done to the suspension of disbelief. I think the most effective story-telling involves heroic actions that affect but don't interfere with the main narrative of LotR, that can comfortably exist just "off the pages" of the original story.

We do have an obligation to depict some of the best-known and well-loved scenes from the book, but it's a balancing act. Just tagging along with Aragorn while he gets all the best scenes wouldn't be that fun, but neither would never seeing him at all.

I think the description of our heroes as 'disposable garbage moppers' minimizes their accomplishments to a rather silly degree. I think much good was done facing the Champion of Angmar, braving the dark of Moria, saving the Kingdom of Rohan, and hindering Saruman's plans for Middle-earth.

MoL

Not only that, but the heroes of classical mythology had no problem doing the 'menial' tasks of life. That's the mark of a hero: a person humble enough to 'clean up muck' and not complain, in addition to not being enamored of battle. Just my opinion .

[djheydt]

I understand that this is a game and people want to be a part of the story and the main events, but I don't agree with having the players hang out with the company at the drop of a hat. Maybe I'm just conservative, but I don't think we should be anywhere near Aragorn&Co most of the time... then again, I was one of the minority that entirely and strongly disagreed with having us on Helm's Deep... And I still think that. We should have never been 'a part' of the events in Helm's Deep and we should not influence major events from the novels.

Agreed.

However, Pelennor Fields was a huge battle in
which many different tribes and nations competed.
I'm inclined to think the Lore would not be violated
by having Men, Elves, and Dwarves from far-off
regions participate. It's harder to make a case for
having more Hobbits than one, but (as Merry pointed
out after the battle) sometimes it's just as well to
be overlooked.

Lore-junkie from way back
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V

[cdq1958]

I don't feel like my characters are somehow "too good" to help peasants, and I don't want to be too close to the Fellowship because then I'd feel like a Mary-Sue character in a LOTR fanfic I don't want all NPC's, even strangers that my character has never met, to bow down and feel that my characters are somehow too high up and mighty for them to dare asking for help. So far none of my characters are that stuck up XD

For me it's more important that there are many different types of quests so people have more to pick and choose between (or as me, do all of them ), and I really hope we don't lose out on "simpler" tasks to only get to do heroics from now on. In my book a hero is someone who is helpful and can do mighty deeds and still don't look down on those who can't, saying "I'm too awesome for you so I only help kings now". And someone who kills a dragon and then go bragging about it and sneers at poor people and feels themselves too good to help those who aren't as well off... Well, they're the opposite of heroes.

Please don't completely take away helping out with smaller things, because this Middle-earth has quite a bunch of modest heroes walking the same path as the Mary-Sue heroes

Oh I agree with this so very much! For me, it is more heroic to do the simple things of life, which include cleaning up muck, than be a warrior who lives only for battle.

[Ingiogal]

My own preference is that we remain physically separate from the main players of the books but that we can become more integrated in the world that includes them. I don't see my characters as floor-moppers but at times I do feel like I'm fighting the fluffy side of the war. It would make it feel more like we're all part of one war instead of dealing with a lot of sidebar stuff that feels like a distraction when we can't readily see so much of what we do as relevant to the bigger war.

I do think that this is going to become more important and is even more doable now that events have reached a stage where the fellowship's secret is pretty much out. We're confidants of the people who are shaping events off screen and we should be taken more into their circle and feel that we have a role. After all, we've crossed paths with the fellowship many times. Celeborn, Galadriel, Elrond and all the members of the fellowship are fully aware of where we've been and what we've been doing. Therefore, I'd like to more frequently encounter people who have a message to me from the major players and that link me to their goals and needs. More knowledge that we are held in value and being integrated into the big picture like that would go a long way to correcting the floor-mopper perception of our characters. Our goals are their goals now and I want that seen as a priority shaping all our events.

For example, we arrive in a new region and we get to meet our local allies. Their leader bestows a quest on us with "My lady Ingiogal, a message awaits you. Lord Elrond sends his regards and a request. He suggests that you are the hero if I supply the plan. A force from XX is being dispatched to alter YY event. I believe if you undertake ZZ quest we can send those orcs packing." And we do get a share of that now, I just think we need more of it. We can enrich the overall story experience by doing it more. For example, we might be questing thinking we're aiming at a particular goal from the book and see that we aren't going to be there because some weird event occurred as happens in war and our mission got radically altered. (Not that this is going to occur in LOTRO, it's just an example of how I'd like to see my characters interact with the big picture.) "The army you were to meet on the Pelennor Fields hasn't met its objectives in time. You cannot march in force with them to join Theoden of Rohan. Your new mission is to attempt to harry the orcs at points 1, 2 and 3 on the map as a guerilla force either solo or with a small party of allies you might have. Good luck." Then we find that Theoden fell. We wonder if we could have made a difference but we can't dwell on might have beens, instead we have to buck up and soldier on. Just by saying that we were intended to be with a main player like Theoden makes the difference even when we can't actually play to alter that event. Does that make sense?

That's what I'd like to see: us as part of a larger mission while still performing our own small roles.

[TharbadThief]

Not only that, but the heroes of classical mythology had no problem doing the 'menial' tasks of life. That's the mark of a hero: a person humble enough to 'clean up muck' and not complain, in addition to not being enamored of battle. Just my opinion .

There even is a quest thread in Edoras where you have to show a local minstrel that all those menial tasks can be heroic as well Citing Lotro-wiki:

"Objective 1

• Collect pelts from animals (0/6)
• Collect nettles for soothing tea (0/4)
• Collect burdock for soothing tea (0/4)
• Speak with Atwald at your side

...Atwald: 'Come now...truly? This is your heroic work? It is dirty, I grant you, and boring too. The old woman has no cares -- she gets to be wheeled to Dunharrow without any exertion. She should count herself lucky.'If I promise to stop singing sour songs, will you release me from this tedium?'"

Later on, Atwald changes his mind:
"'I have learned today that heroism takes many forms. I may not have skill with a sword, but if I can inspire our people during this difficult time, it will be enough."

I lol'd when doing that quest the 1st time. It felt like a gentle slap in the face by devs.

Edit: source: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Ques...Unhappy_Burden

[welden]

I somewhat agree with this.

I understand that this is a game and people want to be a part of the story and the main events, but I don't agree with having the players hang out with the company at the drop of a hat. Maybe I'm just conservative, but I don't think we should be anywhere near Aragorn&Co most of the time... then again, I was one of the minority that entirely and strongly disagreed with having us on Helm's Deep... And I still think that. We should have never been 'a part' of the events in Helm's Deep and we should not influence major events from the novels.

I also agree that we shouldn't have been part of the battle of Helm's Deep...at least not the way Turbine had it!

We should have arrived with Gandalf and Eomer at the earliest! We have always been trailing the fellowship from the beginning and our arrival in Rohan should have only given us enough time to join the battle at Helm's Deep after it had started.

Upon that arrival Turbine could have had us fight our way through the masses, through to the catapalts and trebuchets, and then eventually battle our way to meet up with Aragorn and King Theoden! This would have been a totally different scenario to the Epic Battle System that was introduced with Helm's Deep but it would (imho) been more in keeping with the lore and more importantly more widely excepted than EBs have been. It also would have been more epic!!!

It is not instances, raids and exciting pvmp that is the life blood of Lotro! It is the compelling story telling and our involvement in these events as we would imagine ourselves being...albeit behind the scenes because JRR Tolkien never mentioned our specific characters in his books. However, he did mention that a lot was happening outside of his narrative and that is where we fit in.

'Made of Lions' if you are indeed the main story teller behind Lotro then you have a lot on your shoulders because it is the excellent story telling that made Tolkien's Middlearth such a compelling and interesting place to visit and explore. You have mighty shoes to fill and the ultimate success of Lotro as we make it to Mordor largely depends on it!

Welden

[Sapience]

Oh I agree with this so very much! For me, it is more heroic to do the simple things of life, which include cleaning up muck, than be a warrior who lives only for battle.

Even Hercules had to muck a few thousand stalls in King Augeas' stables.

[Damojo]

Keep in mind that even Aragorn has no part i helping the Ring progress to Mordor.
He is "doing his own thing."

Provided one hell of a diversion though

[Reximus]

The War of the Ring takes place on many fronts and is fought in many ways throughout middle-earth. If anything, I think the player story has suffered a bit since we entered Dunland for being too close to the major characters of LOTR, but that is probably the price to be paid to be able to be part of these iconic places. We are heros of Middle-Earth, but not THE heros, and I'm pretty ok with that.

[Danchir]

Even Hercules had to muck a few thousand stalls in King Augeas' stables.

Yet those who made him do his deeds are the bad guys in that story.

[JeauxLOTR]

Even Hercules had to muck a few thousand stalls in King Augeas' stables.

That explains:
Discovering the Descendant Quests