Do Turbine care about the community at all?

[burlezque]

Do Turbine ever listen to the community? For years, me and many others have waited for example: new hairstyles. I've never seen this mentioned by Turbine.
So long have people been literally begging for new hairstyles and better looking clothes (like the ones from Rohan), but it feels like they don't even care.
Have they ever answered to this? Do they care at all?

I love the game, but sometimes I get tired of this lack of response from Turbine. It would make the game and the experience so much better. For me, anyway.

(Although, one step in the right direction - The Anòrien dress. Will they make more Rohan clothes available?)

My point is. Have they ever said anything at all about this?
And as I said, I do love the game. But sometimes I feel like abandoning all this because of the lack of response from Turbine.
I just want to know. Do they care at all?

Guess I just needed to ventilate a little. Phew.

[Fratonia]

Turbine implements what they find worthy of implementing, when they have time to implement it. They don't announce it up front.
Just look at the cosmetic weapons/shields feature. We have requested this for years and suddenly - cosmetic weapons and shields! It was a very nice surprise, at least for me.

Just make your suggestions and in time they may get implemented.

[Scirocco]

Do Turbine ever listen to the community? For years, me and many others have waited for example: new hairstyles. I've never seen this mentioned by Turbine.
So long have people been literally begging for new hairstyles and better looking clothes (like the ones from Rohan), but it feels like they don't even care.
Have they ever answered to this? Do they care at all?

I love the game, but sometimes I get tired of this lack of response from Turbine. It would make the game and the experience so much better. For me, anyway.

(Although, one step in the right direction - The Anòrien dress. Will they make more Rohan clothes available?)

My point is. Have they ever said anything at all about this?
And as I said, I do love the game. But sometimes I feel like abandoning all this because of the lack of response from Turbine.
I just want to know. Do they care at all?

Guess I just needed to ventilate a little. Phew.

Honestly, this is the first time I've heard of a desire for new hairstyles. I don't remember seeing this mentioned, period, much less by Turbine.

[Frelorn]

With a smaller team we have to prioritize what work gets done and when. To use the example above the team could work on those items, but the sacrifice for those would be less new actual game content. Right now we are in a place where we feel that players want more content and things to do. This does not mean at some point we won't add new hairstyles or clothing items, but right now there are things that are higher on the priority list.

[peachykins]

Honestly, this is the first time I've heard of a desire for new hairstyles. I don't remember seeing this mentioned, period, much less by Turbine.

There have been numerous threads through the years asking for this in the suggestion forum.

I would love seeing a complete overhaul of the characters with updated features & new ones(ex. new hairstyles)

IMO many of the the hairstyles we have look just horrid & ridiculous.

[Snowlock]

With a smaller team we have to prioritize what work gets done and when. To use the example above the team could work on those items, but the sacrifice for those would be less new actual game content. Right now we are in a place where we feel that players want more content and things to do. This does not mean at some point we won't add new hairstyles or clothing items, but right now there are things that are higher on the priority list.

So what is coming with the next update? It's been a long time since Turbine were this secretive about future plans. We knew, for example, about Minas Tirith in early 2014 (around update 13). I'd expect there to be a prod letter after Christmas, but it's getting a bit odd to have heard so few (as in no) hints for next year.

[DiogoVP]

So what is coming with the next update? It's been a long time since Turbine were this secretive about future plans. We knew, for example, about Minas Tirith in early 2014 (around update 13). I'd expect there to be a prod letter after Christmas, but it's getting a bit odd to have heard so few (as in no) hints for next year.

Agreed. I could list a dozen of mistakes Turbine has made throughout the year that could have been avoided if the planned changes were communicated earlier to the players and if there was actual *talk* between the devs and community.

[Frelorn]

So what is coming with the next update? It's been a long time since Turbine were this secretive about future plans. We knew, for example, about Minas Tirith in early 2014 (around update 13). I'd expect there to be a prod letter after Christmas, but it's getting a bit odd to have heard so few (as in no) hints for next year.

Not really being secretive, just not quite ready to announce the future plans until the Producer's letter comes out.

[bucko39]

Agreed. I could list a dozen of mistakes Turbine has made throughout the year that could have been avoided if the planned changes were communicated earlier to the players and if there was actual *talk* between the devs and community.

Careful, someone is a post deleting mood today

[DiogoVP]

Not really be secretive, just not quite ready to announce the future plans until the Producer's letter comes out.

There are many things that can be announced earlier to the players imo. For example, this year we had many legacy changes on the LIs and many of them were ridiculous, frankly. Of course I think a dev shouldn't consult the players regarding every change, but sometimes I think some of them are just too self-contained. I know that you guys keep saying you guys are making the effort to read all of the feedback that is being given but what I would like is actual conversation. Sometimes announcing "We're going to change things like this and do this" is not enough and it would be more constructive for both sides (players and devs) if it was "We're changing things like this and do this because of this and we hope that it'll improve that". If we understand what is the thought behind a change that is being planned, we can give more useful feedback and even argue better against the things we disagree.

[Snowlock]

Not really being secretive, just not quite ready to announce the future plans until the Producer's letter comes out.

Constructively.. There's been 8 years of fan feedback saying they by and large don't prefer the long periods of silence followed by a brief info-dump strategy. Smaller hints seeded throughout with the Prod Letters providing depth (specifically, a schedule) is preferrable.

[Xhiu]

There have been numerous threads through the years asking for this in the suggestion forum.

I would love seeing a complete overhaul of the characters with updated features & new ones(ex. new hairstyles)

IMO many of the the hairstyles we have look just horrid & ridiculous.

I'd rather they go to their parent company and beg them for some Motion Capture assistance. Yes, I know older computers won't be able to handle that but the game is already done for them. Option them out of it. Charge for MC in the store. There is your overhaul. I'm betting WB has some stuff already digitized that can be reused, since they have the IP rights now. No?

[Aedfrith]

There are many things that can be announced earlier to the players imo. For example, this year we had many legacy changes on the LIs and many of them were ridiculous, frankly..

And it's not as if they hadn't been told this at great length on the bullroarer forums - yet went ahead anyway. It's another example of them listening in their own sweet way, perhaps the greatest of which (for certain values of "great") was the way they trampled over the minstrel class.

[Erennor]

Frelorn, in days ahead when I have the spare time for it, I want to write fleshed out suggestions (with pictures, videos, and maybe more) and post them in a dedicated thread, and this is one in the list: player character models.

There is much to say here and demonstrate this very well, but I will leave that for that future dedicated thread. But in brief, since I see that you are here and replying, is it not possible to have the same appearance and animation as the npcs? They are after all playable through session plays. Thus the work and animations for them has been done (though I guess it will need more work to connect this as a player-character due to weapons and other game-mechanics).

Npcs are much more realistic both in face and stature, as well as the way they move and run and perform actions (I will record many clips about this to show the easily noticeable difference and compare with our characters).

But for now, here is a video showing a person playing such a character.

Also, for those that do not know of these things, Turbine has listened many times to player-suggestions. Some that come now to mind are:

Instance Finder
Increase Draw Distance
Beorning
Disable involuntary emotes
Mounted Combat (which perhaps was planned but still it was suggested long before)
Give the choice to solo the epic story line

And more that I cannot now recall.

[Vyvyanne]

Constructively.. There's been 8 years of fan feedback saying they by and large don't prefer the long periods of silence followed by a brief info-dump strategy. Smaller hints seeded throughout with the Prod Letters providing depth (specifically, a schedule) is preferrable.

We work at a very quick pace in order to get fixes and updates out to you the players as fast as possible, this means that schedules and details are constantly in flux. Dropping hints to early could get players excited or disappointed about things that later have to be scrapped or changed. We are trying to correct past history of talking about things that never surfaced leading to a disappointed community. Now we talk about things only when we know they will happen and have enough solid detail to share. The player's council see's a little more of the earlier plans and theory stuff because they are under NDA and thus acknowledge what is talked about there may never see light of day. I avoid talking schedules as much as I possibly can because I know first hand that working in a live online environment is filled with things from weather disturbances to an unforeseen conflict between back end systems that can throw a schedule wildly off-course. We could predict conservatively, but then if things go well we would be holding back things to meet an arbitrary date that was announced that could have gone out sooner. Better to simply release when ready and not be tied to dates on a calendar.

As for the original suggestion on this thread we do listen and we know both the desire for new hairstyles and updated character models. We want these things too, but we also need our artists to be creating visuals for any new loot dropped in content, icons for skills and UI's, new environments, NPCs, monsters etc. In between these things they chip away at the other requests a little bit at a time, but it is all a balancing act. We are working on these things, but other needs for progressing the game story itself often take priority.

My point is we do care a lot about our community. I spend at least an hour of my work day or more here on the forums reading and responding as appropriate as well as hours in the game watching world chat and we do take it all in. Lord of the Rings Online is about creating Tolkien's world for you to enjoy and that is what we work towards every day, but we also have the limitations of time, scope and budgets to contend with as do all software developers trying t please several million people at once.

We thank you for your suggestions and continued participation in this world with us! Keep them coming, we hear you!
Vyv

[burlezque]

Thank you all for replying! It means alot

[Coruven]

I thought the issue with long hair (and it has come up before) is clipping. It looks fine on an NPC who has limited or no motion, but on a PC the hair would frequently end up "piercing" the character's shoulders and neck.

The same for many outfits that NPC's wear.

Maybe there's other stuff Turbine should be doing, but I think this one has to be ruled out for technical issues.

[??????]

seriously ? a hairstyle? im beggin em for years to fix big battles bugs and ban account sellers ... hairstyle

[Thorsock]

I thought the issue with long hair (and it has come up before) is clipping. It looks fine on an NPC who has limited or no motion, but on a PC the hair would frequently end up "piercing" the character's shoulders and neck.

That is my guess as well. We see it in SWTOR too frequently. Especially with the long hair style that we have dubbed "The Legolas" (it looks just like Orlando Bloom's hair in the movies). But SWTOR has so many clipping issues (Jedi robes look great until you try to move or, by all the blessed midi-chlorians, fight).

I wonder if Turbine can access the character databanks to determine which choices for hair, etc., players choose most ... and least ... often. Maybe replace the ones no one uses with something else ... else.

[Ferathyr]

Do Turbine ever listen to the community? For years, me and many others have waited for example: new hairstyles. I've never seen this mentioned by Turbine.
So long have people been literally begging for new hairstyles and better looking clothes (like the ones from Rohan), but it feels like they don't even care.
Have they ever answered to this? Do they care at all?

Not doing what you demand they do is NOT an indication of a game developer "not listening to the community", more that what you ask for is not a priority to them. In fact I think game developers as a whole should listen to their communities less. We would end up with fewer dumbed-down-for-the-masses games.

[greendarner]

[snipped] we know both the desire for new hairstyles and updated character models. We want these things too, but we also need our artists to be creating visuals for any new loot dropped in content, icons for skills and UI's, new environments, NPCs, monsters etc. In between these things they chip away at the other requests a little bit at a time, but it is all a balancing act. We are working on these things, but other needs for progressing the game story itself often take priority.

Oh please oh please oh please! You have quite a few players out here who would LOVE LOVE LOVE a chance to design hairstyles. Do a contest as they did with horses (lo, these MANY MANY years ago)! We want to, we want to!

Scirocco, you haven't been paying attention if you've never seen any mention of hairstyles. I see it all the time; I may even be one of those grousing about it.

Re: Long hair clipping -- and yet, amazingly, the elves still have long hair styles (and yes, they do clip, often, as do shins through boots, and butts through cloaks, to name a few others). Human females have a few somewhat long hair styles. It has partially been addressed by wearing a hat that makes it look like you've pinned your hair up (too bad the hats are mostly hideous). One huge problem with hairstyles (particularly human females) is that they are so close to the skull they look painted on.

Erennor, you have to be joking, saying that NPCs are better looking than our character models. All their faces are blurry, as if someone tried to erase them at some point. I have to go out, but I can post examples later if you want to see what I mean. Easier, however, to go to any of them and just scroll in close. Wear your glasses if you need to.

[Unthariel]

There are much more popular games that has no more than 5-10 hairstyles and you have to pay for most of them, so I wouldn't bother anyone with the need of new hairstyles since there are a lot of them available already in LOTRO. I would rather say that new face models are needed because no matter which face you choose, character will look more or less the same. Which is quite bad for some of them, like Male Elf, who looks terrible and you can do nothing about it.

But still, those are very minor things(things that should be cared for even before game release, btw). I think the plan is to finish the main content and storyline, bring main story do the end, and after this focus on small overall improvements. And I totally agree with this, considering the circumstances. This is not very acceptable in normal situation, in new games, when you should first perfect the basis and then eventually focus on expanding anything, but since the game is 8 years old and its already close to the end of main content and very most part of it is already released, giving up development of main content and focusing on small repairs and improvements is not a good idea at the moment. New hairstyles won't keep players in game and new character faces won't earn money. Such things will probably or hopefully arrive when game enters maintenance mode.

[Snowlock]

We work at a very quick pace in order to get fixes and updates out to you the players as fast as possible, this means that schedules and details are constantly in flux. Dropping hints to early could get players excited or disappointed about things that later have to be scrapped or changed. We are trying to correct past history of talking about things that never surfaced leading to a disappointed community.

True. I was thinking about the housing revamp reversal's reaction after I wrote that, and I suspect that's what you're referencing. But, just because some community members can't come to grips with that, doesn't mean you pull back. The implication of the quoted is that Turbine is scared of the reaction of its community. Well, fear is adversarial. How can we be a community if we're adversaries?

If you give us information, people complain. If you don't, people complain. You're never going to please us all, you can't; and Turbine has made alot of mistakes in LOTRO trying to please everyone. I would strongly advise you to stop trying. Information is always better than no information, because it cuts down on negative speculation and it engenders enthusiasm. We're a "trailer" culture. Give us things to look forward to, and if they don't come to pass, or they get delayed, that's life sometimes.

Are there new landscape regions coming in 2016? Will the epic continue in 2016? These are meta/high level questions about LOTRO that we should know already, just so we have something to think about and talk about, not just on the forums, but in the game too. The smaller detail stuff can wait sure. But 2016 seems to be a big black hole.

[Coeprandua]

Right now we are in a place where we feel that players want more content and things to do.

I assume by more content and things to do you mean something tangible like new landmasses, quests and dailies. If this is so, I don't know where you are getting it from.

We have now three times too many areas to level up to 100 and to do the exact same gear progression in. I want to be very reasonable, so I'm not saying they all look and feel the same, but they are closely the same. West Gondor felt new and refreshing after East and West Rohan. Central Gondor felt like West Gondor at night and East Gondor felt like more of the same. Old Anórien, more of the same.

Personally, I am tired of Gondor, because we've had it (and nothing but it) for two years. If you bring new landmasses, they would need to be something different that give us a nice break, something like Wildermore was to Rohan.

[Dworin]

I assume by more content and things to do you mean something tangible like new landmasses, quests and dailies. If this is so, I don't know where you are getting it from.

We have now three times too many areas to level up to 100 and to do the exact same gear progression in. I want to be very reasonable, so I'm not saying they all look and feel the same, but they are closely the same. West Gondor felt new and refreshing after East and West Rohan. Central Gondor felt like West Gondor at night and East Gondor felt like more of the same. Old Anórien, more of the same.

Personally, I am tired of Gondor, because we've had it (and nothing but it) for two years. If you bring new landmasses, they would need to be something different that give us a nice break, something like Wildermore was to Rohan.

Speaking quite personally, I have to disagree with you somewhat. I have been enjoying Gondor. I really like the cosmetic look of the heavy armor there, and enjoyed the quests and the graphics as I worked my way over from Dol Amroth. So I give kudos to Turbine, for what that's worth.