Oldschool server?

[K1llyah]

What?
Lately I've been thinking about the server merges. We know that they are inevitable and are bound to them. However, that's not what this discussion thread is about. Since they are working towards a smaller number of servers and will likely disregard a server, my idea is to make an oldschool server. Lotro's 8th year anniversary is soon upon us and this would be a magnificent gift for the players. However, I do know if this were to be implemented, that this discussion / suggestion (if it ever makes it to the suggestion forum) was posted far too late to be released in the live game on short notice.

why?
There are a number of reasons I personally could think of to make a server like this. The first one being simply nostalgia for many players.
The second one being a craving by players who didn't know about lotro at that time.
Another reason is to no longer have to buy a level disabler if you want to enjoy raids in the classic way. As we know, there are entire Old school kins on the live servers doing playing the content. Yet replaying the content on live servers often is not satisfactory due to many changes in the past couple of years making the characters stronger than they originally were.

Who?
Similar to Runescape's Old School release I would think it makes sense to gate this content behind VIP. That would also give a good reason to many players who are not interested in the Ettenmoors to buy vip. Plus of course, that Turbine would likely see an increase in the amount of vip players.

How?
Personally I don't know anything about what it takes to revert a server back to an earlier point in time. I don't know if Turbine simply has a back up or something like that.


Discussion topics:
-Oldschool server, possible at all?
-VIP or not?
-Which Update?
-Why is it a good or bad idea?

[ertr]

Threads discussing the possibility of an old-school server seem to pop up about once per month or so. For a full discussion of the subject see any of the multiple existing threads regarding this.
Short version: Extremely unlikely to happen. Too much work for Turbine to support multiple codebases at the same time.

[Parmveer]

I've also been thinking about an old school server and I'm glad you brought it onto the forums.
I'd be more than happy to pay for VIP just to play on an old school server with a fixed cap.
I am more of a PvP player and well in my opinion PvP used to be a lot better than its current state due to the simplicity(no essence gear, trait system).

This could potentially be the best idea for turbine at this point of the game, due to the fact many players who have quit could return
and if they make a fee to play on the server, big money made.

The only thing turbine would have to do to the server is bug fixes, so it wouldnt take to much time after the initial getting back the old server.

/signed for old school server

[BangoTwinkletoes]

If Turbine could make a decent amount of money out of it then they'd do it. However there are some other factors:

- They just don't have the resources available - the people that are left working on lotro are probably not that many and they're focussed on getting the the last of the content out until 2017 by which time I suspect most of the development will have stopped.

- They don't have access to the old SOA or SOA & MOM code base or they just cannot recreate it. Assuming this is what you mean by "old school". Then again they did find AC2 sitting on an old machine in a corner when they thought that was long lost and got that up and running so never say never.

- They don't have the people around who know the old SOA & MOM codebase in order to get it up and running.

But who knows what's achievable. Stranger things have happened.

[Beaniemooch]

They've said a number of times it's not likely/possible. To me though it wouldn't even be "old school" unless they rolled back trait trees and other changes made to the code base since then, because even with a Stone of the Tortoise now our toons are terribly OP compared to original level 50 cap versions.

I just don't see a return on their investment for this, and money is king.

[Weaved]

As disheartening as it is to hear that this is pretty much an impossibility, I'll just throw my hat in the ring and say I'd gladly (...continue to...) pay VIP if Turbine were to make this a thing. I'd even be willing to spend some additional money on it. SoA was something that meant so much to me, as it was my first real MMO experience. Being challenged every step of the way and forcing you to learn and adapt to the map, its monsters and the many varied locations required for quests and puzzles for instances / fellowship quests / raids... It made me really appreciate the time I spent with the game; and conquering those challenges became all the more rewarding. Are there ways to limit your potential nowadays and restrict yourself until you get closer to vanilla lotro? Sure, but it still doesn't feel quite the same. That, and there have been changes made to the game over time, of course, that help further erase the old Middle-earth...

Yeah, I'd be all in for an old school server. Even if it'll never happen.

[K1llyah]

- They don't have access to the old SOA or SOA & MOM code base or they just cannot recreate it. Then again they did find AC2 sitting on an old machine in a corner when they thought that was long lost and got that up and running so never say never.

- They don't have the people around who know the old SOA & MOM codebase in order to get it up and running.

That is exactly what I didn't know and why I created a discussion instead of a suggestion. A suggestion for something like this would require a more elaborate explanation of how, what, when etc. than current post. And , frankly, somebody who at least knows stuff about it instead of just a dreamer like me

[gripply]

Threads discussing the possibility of an old-school server seem to pop up about once per month or so. For a full discussion of the subject see any of the multiple existing threads regarding this.
Short version: Extremely unlikely to happen. Too much work for Turbine to support multiple codebases at the same time.

Then they still could allow the old code to be used by a fan company. Or something like this could happen. Might I suggest, based on the Mithril Edition?

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2651

This is a common theme in mmo's which is why it keeps coming up.

[Bulbous]

There have been a lot of ideas floated around lately that cater to segments of the playerbase. I think, at this stage of LOTRO's development, if it's not something for EVERYONE, then it isn't going to happen. They just don't have the manpower to develop something that will interest a minority of players.

[Xhiu]

Then they still could allow the old code to be used by a fan company. Or something like this could happen. Might I suggest, based on the Mithril Edition?

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2651

This is a common theme in mmo's which is why it keeps coming up.

Sure, why not?

Turbine would be perfectly ok with competing with their own code run by someone that is probably not getting much money becuase fans ouldn't collect a sub on code that didn't belong to them, right?

This is a bad idea, unless you feel spending 2 yers putting it together for 1 year of nostalgia play is a good idea. This would decimate servers further as people would flock to this server because (1) its new, and (2) everybody else is going to be there (3) nobody would be on the mid pop servers cuz they'd be where the action was. This would cause more people to leave the mid pop and create another downward spiral.

Besides... you will still have people saying, "Yeah this was a good effort but I still miss SoA. This is not like what it was back then." Of course not. You will never get that feeling back. You can only be a virgin once.

[gripply]

Sure, why not?

Turbine would be perfectly ok with competing with their own code run by someone that is probably not getting much money becuase fans ouldn't collect a sub on code that didn't belong to them, right?

This is a bad idea, unless you feel spending 2 yers putting it together for 1 year of nostalgia play is a good idea. This would decimate servers further as people would flock to this server because (1) its new, and (2) everybody else is going to be there (3) nobody would be on the mid pop servers cuz they'd be where the action was. This would cause more people to leave the mid pop and create another downward spiral.

Besides... you will still have people saying, "Yeah this was a good effort but I still miss SoA. This is not like what it was back then." Of course not. You will never get that feeling back. You can only be a virgin once.

I don't think this idea has ever "decimated" any game previously. I personally would still play here and sub as often as I do now, I like CS, and I like progress. But I'd still wander over there to see what's going on, it would be great to re-experience the game as it used to be. I kind of miss fellowships for deeds (not because it's faster, because the landscape mobs will kill you, lol). That kind of play is a very very small minority. Fun is fun.

Maybe it would give people a reason to not whine so much over little things... I mean back then you had to KNOW your class, there wasn't so much alting and shallow knowledge. Some people just aren't into that, they'd rather play an easy game. Most people, probably.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

That is exactly what I didn't know and why I created a discussion instead of a suggestion. A suggestion for something like this would require a more elaborate explanation of how, what, when etc. than current post. And , frankly, somebody who at least knows stuff about it instead of just a dreamer like me

We're all dreamers at heart! I'd jump at the chance of playing on a SOA world (SOA with book 15 added, so including Eregion). If such a server did prove popular and "decimate" the low and mid population servers, then it would just go to show that the f2p argument was false. But I doubt we'll ever see that happening

[Bulbous]

I personally would still play here and sub as often as I do now, I like CS, and I like progress.

So, Turbine would lose money on you. Me, too. And probably every single person who has joined since the servers changed. Which is exactly why this idea is a non-starter.

[maxjenius]

How many people really are willing to pay extra money to play yesterday's game? Not many, I suspect.

[K1llyah]

How many people really are willing to pay extra money to play yesterday's game? Not many, I suspect.

Take an educated guess about the ettenmoors population and you have your answer i guess.

[maxjenius]

Take an educated guess about the ettenmoors population and you have your answer i guess.

So maybe 5 people.

[Frelorn]

Not to step in here and burst anyone's dreams here, but I guess that's kind of my job... We have seen this question come up on every online game I have worked on since Asheron's Call and the answer has always been the same, this is not something that we would do.

First off there is the many, many updated back-end systems that have been updated that would not be compatible with older versions of the game that include but are not limited to our billing system, security updates, actual hardware setups, and CS tools. Basically we would have to build a back-end infrastructure that would be compatible with the older version of the game, and no we can't just use an older version of those systems we have on backup. The security features we must have now would render those old systems unable to work. In short it would be a tremendous amount of work to get something like this done that would eat up the time of everyone and nearly every department related to LOTRO in here to make something like this even possible. That of course would mean no regular development, or very little would take place during that time.

So while not impossible, this is very likely to never happen given the overall amount of work it would take to even consider making it possible.

[istvana]

>We have seen this question come up on every online game I have worked on since Asheron's Call and the answer has always been the same, this is not something that we would do.<

Though it has been done - for a while I played on classic servers with Dark Ages of Camelot.

Granted that followed a truly atrocious expansion that outraged a large percentage of their player base (Trials of Atlantis). LOTRO has no reason to devote those resources to such a move.

[maartena]

Not to step in here and burst anyone's dreams here, but I guess that's kind of my job... We have seen this question come up on every online game I have worked on since Asheron's Call and the answer has always been the same, this is not something that we would do.

First off there is the many, many updated back-end systems that have been updated that would not be compatible with older versions of the game that include but are not limited to our billing system, security updates, actual hardware setups, and CS tools. Basically we would have to build a back-end infrastructure that would be compatible with the older version of the game, and no we can't just use an older version of those systems we have on backup. The security features we must have now would render those old systems unable to work. In short it would be a tremendous amount of work to get something like this done that would eat up the time of everyone and nearly every department related to LOTRO in here to make something like this even possible. That of course would mean no regular development, or very little would take place during that time.

So while not impossible, this is very likely to never happen given the overall amount of work it would take to even consider making it possible.

Would the following be possible?

- A server that has a "progression time line", opening a new (existing) expansion every 6 months.
- The server would be on the same patch level as the current game, no exceptions.
- Every 6 months, access to a new expansion is opened, until the server reaches the current level.
- The level cap is set to the level cap of the current "allowed" expansion.

In essence, the server would have all current game features, such as roaming threats, not having to loot corpses, the trait-tree system, etc, etc.... it would on the back-end be virtually identical to any other server, it would receive the same patches as any other server, etc, etc.... the only difference is that every 6 months a new expansion is opened/allowed. So, start with 6 months of Angmar, then 6 months of Moria, then 6 months of Mirkwood, 6 months of Isengard, 6 months of Rohan, 6 months of Helms Deep, and 6 months after that the server will be pulled to whatever is coming next. In the 3-month intervals in between, things like Eregion, Lothlorien, Enedwaidth, Great River, Wildermore, etc could be released. (give or take a week or two when the next patch/maintenance is scheduled to open up the content).

As said, same patch level as current servers so with all the "reworked" zones such as the new moria, the new bree, north downs, trollshaws etc. Also the same crafting system, well you get the idea.

Every 6 months, the level would be raised to the next level. So a "soft cap" would be in place which has the same effect as the stone of the tortoise, not allowing leveling when 50, 60, 65, 75, 85, etc has been reached. Of course the expansions would be present on the server, but when you attempt to roam into those areas you will get a "you do not belong here" message, similar as you would get if you managed to get to the Moors by bugging the hell out of north trollshaws and entering the area that was never finished, and you would get transported back to the nearest circle of death.

While not completely the original game, it would give people a new path to follow using the game in its current, fully patched up state, with just a few modifications that would not allow leveling after a certain level, and/or access content not yet "approved".

This would allow the game to continue to use the same back-end systems , billing systems, hardware, patches, etc, etc, etc.... And the modifications would be relatively minor compared to a fully "old version" game.

[gripply]

So maybe 5 people.

So then, it's not a threat to the business of regular LOTRO? Just like I said.

[muddytrousers]

IDK as I would be a change to the this type of server. But one idea comes to mind. Try use the forum and make a player declared old school SoA server. Post of it on the here on the forum and recruit for it much like kin's do. Same could be done for PvP folks. Course it's up to those involved to organize and recruit for such things. and I'm sure it'll take time.
idk the history of landy's RP channel but it's not a turbine declared rp server , I beleave its a player declared rp.

[djheydt]

Not to step in here and burst anyone's dreams here, but I guess that's kind of my job... We have seen this question come up on every online game I have worked on since Asheron's Call and the answer has always been the same, this is not something that we would do.

First off there is the many, many updated back-end systems that have been updated that would not be compatible with older versions of the game that include but are not limited to our billing system, security updates, actual hardware setups, and CS tools. Basically we would have to build a back-end infrastructure that would be compatible with the older version of the game, and no we can't just use an older version of those systems we have on backup. The security features we must have now would render those old systems unable to work. In short it would be a tremendous amount of work to get something like this done that would eat up the time of everyone and nearly every department related to LOTRO in here to make something like this even possible. That of course would mean no regular development, or very little would take place during that time.

So while not impossible, this is very likely to never happen given the overall amount of work it would take to even consider making it possible.

Thank you, Frelorn, for telling it like it is.

I've been playing Turbine games since a month after AC1
launched. I love you guys and I love your work. And I
clearly remember how special-rules servers never made
you enough money to justify their existence.

KBO....

[frickinmuck]

Just my 2 cents, but it seems that the team is stretched enough trying to get to Mordor, let alone adding a nostalgia server to the list of things to do. I would definitely sign up for a SoA server, but not so sure whether I'd trade it for a trip to Mordor, Minas Tirith, etc.

[frost702]

First off there is the many, many updated back-end systems that have been updated that would not be compatible with older versions of the game that include but are not limited to our billing system

I wouldn't want the Turbine Store in my old-school server anyway. Boom, knocked off thousands of man-hours of development.

Now start working on this. You've admitted that you have all that you need backed up. If Turbine committed to it, we could definitely see this happening in the near future. Take a look at 2007 runescape if you want to see how much money it'll make.

but not so sure whether I'd trade it for a trip to Mordor, Minas Tirith, etc.

I would in a heartbeat.

Would the following be possible?

- A server that has a "progression time line", opening a new (existing) expansion every 6 months.

No. You want to seriously witness all the failures of this game AGAIN? Keep it in SoA.

[Xhiu]

I don't think this idea has ever "decimated" any game previously. I personally would still play here and sub as often as I do now, I like CS, and I like progress. But I'd still wander over there to see what's going on, it would be great to re-experience the game as it used to be. I kind of miss fellowships for deeds (not because it's faster, because the landscape mobs will kill you, lol). That kind of play is a very very small minority. Fun is fun.

Maybe it would give people a reason to not whine so much over little things... I mean back then you had to KNOW your class, there wasn't so much alting and shallow knowledge. Some people just aren't into that, they'd rather play an easy game. Most people, probably.

DAoC. Its still up but its 10 merged servers that never before on the selection list. You can still enter the old servers but only to transfer your toons to one of the new servers. They recently shut down the open world pvp server(s). The only specialty server that still might be up is the cooperative server, which would be like players picking a Reaver as a class and grouping with a mini and a champ to do CD. Not sure where you could look up the history of daoc server closings, which started with server merging and later to classic rule set... like removing LI's, essence armor etc. They couldn't go back to the original as it never went beyond a level cap of 50. Ask anyone who was playing daoc when this game launched what ToA was and how hated it became leading to the creation of classic servers.