Classic Servers

[maartena]

If individuals that is not even working for a game company can make private servers of mmos, like wow, warhammer online etc.. SSG should be able to do it too. Make it happen!

All you have to do is convince a SSG employee to steal the code and release it to the internet. Because that is what happened with WoW, Everquest, and other games.

[WorrBinpike]

You have another problem here, the licensing.

Personally i would love to have a private lotro server for my own to play around with, but i guess this will never happen. One reason for this might be the game is 10 years old. Who cares about a 10 year old game, this is not "hot stuff".

[maartena]

You have another problem here, the licensing.

This is also a problem indeed. Where Everquest and WoW owned their own IP, and thus they can decide that they aren't going to try any pursue a private server.... (and as said, when Daybreak Games took control of Everquest they sort of allowed it, as long as there was no profit made) .... Lotro has indeed the licensing to deal with.

Even IF an employee leaks the code, and even IF a private server is setup and even IF SSG would let it slide.... that isn't the end of it. Because you have a game that is based on Tolkien's work, and Middle Earth Enterprises probably WILL go after them at that point as they haven't licensed the IP.

I think we can pretty much forget the whole idea of private servers. Even if SSG will allow them once the game is no longer commercially viable and they are pulling the plug.... it is probably likely that Middle Earth Enterprises will not allow it. They after all can SELL the IP to someone else who still wants to build a game, and typically the ones running private servers are running these servers out of passion, but don't have a bottomless wallet....

[cdq1958]

This is also a problem indeed. Where Everquest and WoW owned their own IP, and thus they can decide that they aren't going to try any pursue a private server.... (and as said, when Daybreak Games took control of Everquest they sort of allowed it, as long as there was no profit made) .... Lotro has indeed the licensing to deal with.

Even IF an employee leaks the code, and even IF a private server is setup and even IF SSG would let it slide.... that isn't the end of it. Because you have a game that is based on Tolkien's work, and Middle Earth Enterprises probably WILL go after them at that point as they haven't licensed the IP.

I think we can pretty much forget the whole idea of private servers. Even if SSG will allow them once the game is no longer commercially viable and they are pulling the plug.... it is probably likely that Middle Earth Enterprises will not allow it. They after all can SELL the IP to someone else who still wants to build a game, and typically the ones running private servers are running these servers out of passion, but don't have a bottomless wallet....

Another point of information to note.
When Turbine still owned and operated Asheron's Call, they were going to allow private servers for that game. When the spinoff happened, legal stopped it. My guess about why? The backend code overlapped with DDO/LotRO enough to kibosh that.

[Bohemond71]

Founder here. I see a lot of naysayers posting what they think were negative things about SoA - yet every single one of these are among the reasons why I would 100% come back to the game for a classic SoA server.

I adored LOTRO in SoA. Thoroughly enjoyed MoM despite some of the obvious issues. SoM was overall ok - certainly the start of the downward slide of PvE but easily one of the best times for moors balance. I still played regularly at both 75 and 85 caps, but I progressively lost interest after the debacle of trait trees and Boring Battles. I basically stopped the moors from HD on and took more and more breaks from the game, spending less and less time in PvE and at the cap. Now I've now got about 8k of LOTRO points sitting unused. Haven't even bothered with Mordor and am unlikely to ever return.

But I would for a classic SoA server. I'd even go founder all over again for both myself and my partner.

THIS is precisely the sort of thing I would love to see again:

My memory ain't what it used to be. . . but back in SoA, pre-Moria. . . isn't it the case that there were no "traitlines" at all? Like not even the Moria version of them where you had "capstones" and such.

• Hunters were single-target DPS. And travel assist.
• Champions were multi-target DPS.
• Lore-masters were debuff and crowd control.
• Captains were buffs. And summoning.
• Burglars were support/conjunctions.
• Guardians were tanks.
• Minstrels were healing.

Gawd. . . I miss that. Back when you played a role. And you didn't whine that others could do things you couldn't. And everyone didn't feel entitled to their character being able to do essentially anything and everything. . . now without even a visit to the Bard.

[Xhiu]

Ehhhh... By time there was goblintown one had MULTIPLE possibilities to level himself on higher levels. Getting max levels required no grinding for weeks but simply by following quests. Even at that point you could skip a lot of quests and get to max with ease. This was around time I got my alt LM capped who skipped a ton of content. Also I find whole post to tell me how my experience was in angmar kinda offending..

I find it a bit funny you have wroten that need of "3 stats" as like somehow negative. we have needed to pay attention to way more than that since introducing of pure stats.

Uh... what classic server would this be? I mean at release, no housing, no cosmetics, no horses? Or the updated SoA where you could level faster because they changed the progression? I was in the moors for about 9 months 2007-2008ish. When I came back to my mini she leveled twice just by logging in.

So 5 traits and 3 legendary traits, right? Mix and match. Inspect allows players to see how another player is spec'd. Rift, Uru, Hele the only raids. No Moria. No Enedwaith. No Eregion. Evendim level 48-50, if it is even there cuz it wasn't original to the game release. Barrows dungeons was also one level 48-50 single crawl. No instanced GB. No level req on rep items, but you had to be around 35 to turn them in... so the only early rep you could get was Mathom... if that is even part of the classic server cuz... thats another thing my freep got when she logged back in. Prior to 2008 there was no rep of any kind. XP only for completing deeds. All players are sub only as there are no LP to buy areas with. Oh and no guild recipes so the shard droppers should make a serious come back. Crafting fail ftw. (the reason guild crafting was implemented) A 4g horse at level 35 was a task in and of itself. No task items. GL in the old forest. Oh and getting out of the intro w/o a fs... I'd log into that server just to patrol the noob intros.

Yeah I see this happening. I don't see any dev resources working on un-fixing the things that were upgraded with the first update.

[Xhiu]

...
Things SOA didn't have.
Stupid amounts of multi-boxing bot farmers.
Endless gold spamming.
Watered down landscape mobs.

Classic SOA make it happen.

I dunno about stupid amts of multiboxing... There were farmers cuz...
There were endless gold spammers.

• In fact you could get out of the intro at level 1 (man lm) stand at the bree gate and spam everyfreakingchannel with gold spam so much in fact that Turbine ADDED the report gold spammer drop down so that people, like me, could play the "Enter Bree town and report the spammer before they get to the last channel" game. It was so bad that nobody could do anything in Bree on a channel until the spammers were reported and ignored. You knew as soon as you saw someone named ghg you had to get ready to report.
• And there was plenty of watered down landscape mobs. They didn't drop much coin or give much xp. Nobody solo'd V1b1c11 (or 1.11 as we called it cuz there was only vol 1)

Am I the only one that remembers this crud?

[Ferathyr]

Classic servers would not work. As it was LOTRO almost faded out completely thanks largely to the epic quest being gated every so often with a forced group quest, forced because landscape elites back then would hand you your rear end on a plate. The Aurochs near Trestlebridge were elites and could easily defeat a character. It was find when there were plenty of players around but once the playerbase spread out then the channels were full of "LFF Weathertop" etc.

[Nymphonic]

I still stand by my earlier opinion. I have nothing against a classic server, but I would never go there. No houses, no cosmetic outfits, waiting until level 35 for a mount, which brings another issue. Eriador is FULL of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Volume 1 with no 5 minute ports, mithril coins, or waiting until level 35 for a mount? Ugh, no way.

I get it, some people love that stuff, and I say more power to them if a classic server comes. For them, I say bring a classic server into the server list.

It's just not for me.

I dunno though, SSG seems to be a small business. I can't see them being able to pull it off.

[Pontin_Finnberry]

I still stand by my earlier opinion. I have nothing against a classic server, but I would never go there. No houses, no cosmetic outfits, waiting until level 35 for a mount, which brings another issue. Eriador is FULL of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Volume 1 with no 5 minute ports, mithril coins, or waiting until level 35 for a mount? Ugh, no way.

I get it, some people love that stuff, and I say more power to them if a classic server comes. For them, I say bring a classic server into the server list.

It's just not for me.

I dunno though, SSG seems to be a small business. I can't see them being able to pull it off.

I think classic servers would be great, In my opinion it would be fun, I mean lotro has been around for 11 years now cause its great MMO. I myself wouldn't care if i had a mount or not cause i like to travel and look around no need for speed. but i have to agree with some I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[Bohemond71]

Eriador is FULL of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Volume 1 with no 5 minute ports, mithril coins, or waiting until level 35 for a mount? Ugh, no way.

When the "back and forth" is no longer fun because it's trivially easy and provides no challenge or reward, then it makes sense that people want so called "quality of life" improvements to skip it.

But for many of us in early SoA, the "back and forth" was enjoyable because the gameplay was fun in and of itself. Landscape combat was fun and engaging for multiple reasons - that people dismissed all too readily in their demands for the game to be progressively dumbed down to the easy mode 1 shot kill we have today. Things like pathing mobs, much greater aggro ranges, larger morale pools, were dismissed as unnecessary inconveniences that supposedly made combat just take longer, not more difficult. But such claims were wrong. Longer fights meant we actually had to use all our skills - we had to have rotations in landscape! We had to develop situational awareness, as the longer fight meant a greater risk of pulling adds or respawns that we might not be able to handle. We even had to routinely use CC skills in landscape. Duoing - while still enjoying a challenge - was even viable during much of SoA.

As I said earlier, I'm confident that pretty much 99% of the things people bring up as negative about SoA are genuinely positives in my mind and I'd certainly be willing to pay to experience them all over again.

[Findun]

[...]As I said earlier, I'm confident that pretty much 99% of the things people bring up as negative about SoA are genuinely positives in my mind and I'd certainly be willing to pay to experience them all over again.

same here, and no, this has nothing to do with nostalgia. I'd just prefer SoA lotro rather then the dumbed down easy mode we have today. oh and one more thing: i loved the crafting system back then. it was challenging and extremly rewarding if you put time into developing it. exactly how it should be in an mmo. rewarding!

[Xhiu]

When the "back and forth" is no longer fun because it's trivially easy and provides no challenge or reward, then it makes sense that people want so called "quality of life" improvements to skip it.

But for many of us in early SoA, the "back and forth" was enjoyable because the gameplay was fun in and of itself. Landscape combat was fun and engaging for multiple reasons - that people dismissed all too readily in their demands for the game to be progressively dumbed down to the easy mode 1 shot kill we have today. Things like pathing mobs, much greater aggro ranges, larger morale pools, were dismissed as unnecessary inconveniences that supposedly made combat just take longer, not more difficult. But such claims were wrong. Longer fights meant we actually had to use all our skills - we had to have rotations in landscape! We had to develop situational awareness, as the longer fight meant a greater risk of pulling adds or respawns that we might not be able to handle. We even had to routinely use CC skills in landscape. Duoing - while still enjoying a challenge - was even viable during much of SoA.

As I said earlier, I'm confident that pretty much 99% of the things people bring up as negative about SoA are genuinely positives in my mind and I'd certainly be willing to pay to experience them all over again.

And then I remember in the man intro my captain getting hit twice waiting for a skill to come off of cd. Not a particular skill, ANY skill.
Duoing was great if you could find someone on the same quests you were on, when you were on. Not having a duo buddy meant PuGs. Sometimes they still do. Grouping up is fun when you want to do that. Forcing people to group up hardly ever is fun. Hardly. Sometimes you get lucky.

People tend to remember SoA fondly because the leveling was new. The zones were new. The people were new. I remember my kin shortly before Moria. "Forming a group to do goblin town for pages. Anyone need?" This was to do something. This is when pages dropped. There were people that did solo gt, and gb, and hi, and sarnur. And this was before they split up. At level 48, which is pretty high for classic SoA, there were things you did and you did them solo. Like Anuminas landscape. And if you were not 48+ you were told no, you aren't high enough level. So you have a whole group of people that cannot play with the majority who are close to level cap or are level cap.

Then the lot of them are ready for something else. Do you really think that after 2 years of Helegrod or Urugarth or Carn Dum every freaking Friday night, it won't get old? I remember right before Moria the kin was scrambling to get the rest of the epic done as 1-8 was SoA. 9-15 was shortly before Moria. Nobody, was running the big three, partly because there was an epic that needed finishing but partly because people were tired of doing the same thing.

With that, does anyone think there would be enough people that want to do an old school 4 hr CD run for more than 2 years and keep that server afloat financially? Making it sub only would be very tricky so you'd have to sub to be able to log in. Hmmm?

[siipperi]

And then I remember in the man intro my captain getting hit twice waiting for a skill to come off of cd. Not a particular skill, ANY skill.
Duoing was great if you could find someone on the same quests you were on, when you were on. Not having a duo buddy meant PuGs. Sometimes they still do. Grouping up is fun when you want to do that. Forcing people to group up hardly ever is fun. Hardly. Sometimes you get lucky.

People tend to remember SoA fondly because the leveling was new. The zones were new. The people were new. I remember my kin shortly before Moria. "Forming a group to do goblin town for pages. Anyone need?" This was to do something. This is when pages dropped. There were people that did solo gt, and gb, and hi, and sarnur. And this was before they split up. At level 48, which is pretty high for classic SoA, there were things you did and you did them solo. Like Anuminas landscape. And if you were not 48+ you were told no, you aren't high enough level. So you have a whole group of people that cannot play with the majority who are close to level cap or are level cap.

Then the lot of them are ready for something else. Do you really think that after 2 years of Helegrod or Urugarth or Carn Dum every freaking Friday night, it won't get old? I remember right before Moria the kin was scrambling to get the rest of the epic done as 1-8 was SoA. 9-15 was shortly before Moria. Nobody, was running the big three, partly because there was an epic that needed finishing but partly because people were tired of doing the same thing.

With that, does anyone think there would be enough people that want to do an old school 4 hr CD run for more than 2 years and keep that server afloat financially? Making it sub only would be very tricky so you'd have to sub to be able to log in. Hmmm?

Carn Dum didn't take 4h if you knew what you were doing. It's not really about getting old. It's just playing the content again that is properly balanced. Thing that you can't do on live. For most people it wouldn't be main way of playing the game but many would sub for such game especially as sub perk.

[Nymphonic]

When the "back and forth" is no longer fun because it's trivially easy and provides no challenge or reward, then it makes sense that people want so called "quality of life" improvements to skip it.

But for many of us in early SoA, the "back and forth" was enjoyable because the gameplay was fun in and of itself. Landscape combat was fun and engaging for multiple reasons - that people dismissed all too readily in their demands for the game to be progressively dumbed down to the easy mode 1 shot kill we have today. Things like pathing mobs, much greater aggro ranges, larger morale pools, were dismissed as unnecessary inconveniences that supposedly made combat just take longer, not more difficult. But such claims were wrong. Longer fights meant we actually had to use all our skills - we had to have rotations in landscape! We had to develop situational awareness, as the longer fight meant a greater risk of pulling adds or respawns that we might not be able to handle. We even had to routinely use CC skills in landscape. Duoing - while still enjoying a challenge - was even viable during much of SoA.

As I said earlier, I'm confident that pretty much 99% of the things people bring up as negative about SoA are genuinely positives in my mind and I'd certainly be willing to pay to experience them all over again.

And that’s my point. Some people like that style of gameplay. Different games for different gamers. That’s why I have no problem with the existence of a classic server.

It’s just not for me.

[Bohemond71]

Duoing was great if you could find someone on the same quests you were on, when you were on. Not having a duo buddy meant PuGs. Sometimes they still do. Grouping up is fun when you want to do that. Forcing people to group up hardly ever is fun. Hardly. Sometimes you get lucky

I did a lot of duoing with my brother in SoA. Both on landscape and instances. We even managed to duo a big chunk of CD (LM and sword and board champ)

Soloing was viable in SoA too. Sure, you couldn't solo everywhere - nor did we expect to. If we wanted to do group content, we did group content. We didn't consider it "forced".

Nowadays I duo with my partner in various coop games. We would enjoy the original SoA duo experience.

However, current landscape is borderline forcing soloing. We played together recently before Mordor from 1 to 105. Far too much 1 shotting meant one of us would be left struggling to get a single skill off. Made learning rotations impossible. Using skills for class traits was an utterly unnatural, forced process.

Then there are the forced solo instances that break up the flow and immersion. With no option to run without the inspiration buffs, most of the book quests were ruined with forced easy mode. We played through mostly orange and red quests and it was still far too easy.

A couple of years ago I took a champ from 1 to low 60s without using a single skill or class trait - just auto attacks. From memory he died a total of 5 times. Didn't cheese with crafting xp either - levelled of quests (vast majority white yellow orange). Finished all SoA and MoM epics on or above level. No grouping or outside help. It was actually quite challenging and surprisingly enjoyable (the only reason I stuck with it so long) - the fact remains, that shouldn't have been possible. The vast majority of LOTRO is currently broken. It really doesn't even qualify as a "game" in the truest sense of the word.

I don't want to deprive anyone of their risk free Middle-earth graphical walking simulator social chat computer program. But I'd like to play an MMORPG set in Middle-earth again.

[Itachi1337]

They will never bring classic server, this game is not WoW.. It's waste of money

[Xhiu]

And then I remember in the man intro my captain getting hit twice waiting for a skill to come off of cd. Not a particular skill, ANY skill.
Duoing was great if you could find someone on the same quests you were on, when you were on. Not having a duo buddy meant PuGs. Sometimes they still do. Grouping up is fun when you want to do that. Forcing people to group up hardly ever is fun. Hardly. Sometimes you get lucky.

I did a lot of duoing with my brother in SoA. Both on landscape and instances. We even managed to duo a big chunk of CD (LM and sword and board champ)

Soloing was viable in SoA too. Sure, you couldn't solo everywhere - nor did we expect to. If we wanted to do group content, we did group content. We didn't consider it "forced".

Not sure why you quoted this. If you read what you quoted, again, it says, Duoing was great if you could find someone on the same quests, etc. That means that well... duoing is/was great. I duo myself. I didn't do it back then because *I* did -not- HAVE a duo partner. Nobody. I had to PUG if I wanted any kind of fellowship. PuGs are ugly imo. If I could not solo landscape, which at times I could not, then I was F.O.R.C.E.D. to PuG, as in forced group. Its not the kinda force where you would be put in a group by the game. Turbine tried that with the Instance Finder. Originally it was supposed to put you in a group for w/e reason you wanted to group up, as in an instance. It didn't work so well. So please explain to me what point you were trying to make.

Nowadays I duo with my partner in various coop games. We would enjoy the original SoA duo experience.

However, current landscape is borderline forcing soloing. We played together recently before Mordor from 1 to 105. Far too much 1 shotting meant one of us would be left struggling to get a single skill off. Made learning rotations impossible. Using skills for class traits was an utterly unnatural, forced process.
Then there are the forced solo instances that break up the flow and immersion. With no option to run without the inspiration buffs, most of the book quests were ruined with forced easy mode. We played through mostly orange and red quests and it was still far too easy.

I always complain to my former duo partner, and she complains back at me about this same thing. We often get out of the solo instances and, upon turning in the quest, forget we are not in a fs and wonder where the other person went, on the radar. No green dot. Very annoying. MoL says it was important to do it that way. I don't remember why but as annoying as it is, I'll go with what he said.

A couple of years ago I took a champ from 1 to low 60s without using a single skill or class trait - just auto attacks. From memory he died a total of 5 times. Didn't cheese with crafting xp either - levelled of quests (vast majority white yellow orange). Finished all SoA and MoM epics on or above level. No grouping or outside help. It was actually quite challenging and surprisingly enjoyable (the only reason I stuck with it so long) - the fact remains, that shouldn't have been possible. The vast majority of LOTRO is currently broken. It really doesn't even qualify as a "game" in the truest sense of the word.

I don't think many people in this thread would argue with this. Its old news. The thread is about a classic server.

Carn Dum didn't take 4h if you knew what you were doing. It's not really about getting old. It's just playing the content again that is properly balanced. Thing that you can't do on live. For most people it wouldn't be main way of playing the game but many would sub for such game especially as sub perk.

Because we all came to the table knowing how to do CD. We all knew what was the optimal group make up and never allowed anyone not of that role into the dungeon. I don't even know how to get anywhere in Carn Dum.

Where do you see calls for classic servers? How many people have you talked to that said they would pay to play on old school (yet to be determined) server(s)? How many of them said they would. I remember a lot of people posting they would pay rl money if they could increase the size of their housing chests. When that became available I saw a lot of posts, some from the same people that said they would pay for them, complain that they had to buy them and would not participate in a blatant money grab.

Side note: What level was the old quest in Cirith Nur? Its the instance inside the encampment, not in the landscape. And what is the quest's name? <<<without google's assistance.

editorial note: I said I would pay for the extra storage, and I was appalled at first... then I remembered that I pushed for this on the forums, in effect, put in an order for that thing... and I bought it with rl money$$.

[siipperi]

Because we all came to the table knowing how to do CD. We all knew what was the optimal group make up and never allowed anyone not of that role into the dungeon. I don't even know how to get anywhere in Carn Dum.

Where do you see calls for classic servers? How many people have you talked to that said they would pay to play on old school (yet to be determined) server(s)? How many of them said they would. I remember a lot of people posting they would pay rl money if they could increase the size of their housing chests. When that became available I saw a lot of posts, some from the same people that said they would pay for them, complain that they had to buy them and would not participate in a blatant money grab.

Side note: What level was the old quest in Cirith Nur? Its the instance inside the encampment, not in the landscape. And what is the quest's name? <<<without google's assistance.

editorial note: I said I would pay for the extra storage, and I was appalled at first... then I remembered that I pushed for this on the forums, in effect, put in an order for that thing... and I bought it with rl money$$.

And? You know all instances takes longer to do first time. But thats just first time, then you know where to go and what to do and run time reduces substantially and unless you arent after certain class item you just go straight for the fortress or if some specific class item neeeded to the certain boss. where i see calls for classic servers? Pops on forums every few months usually several page discussions. Just like this.

[Bohemond71]

Not sure why you quoted this. If you read what you quoted, again, it says, Duoing was great

I read what you said the first time. I was generally agreeing with you.

Duoing was great fun. This was made possible due to the overall challenge of landscape and clearer differences between classes (which incidentally made alts far more rewarding and viable than they have been for a long time, since trait trees at least)

My point was that this style of play is no longer possible in the current game, and that it is one of the many reasons I would return to the game for a classic SoA server - and pay through the nose for it. Now there is little to no solo landscape challenge anywhere. Certainly none in what I feel were the best parts of the game - SoA and Moria.

Because we all came to the table knowing how to do CD. We all knew what was the optimal group make up and never allowed anyone not of that role into the dungeon. I don't even know how to get anywhere in Carn Dum.

Actually, when we duoed a large part of CD, it was one of our first times there. The overall challenge of the landscape until that point had prepared us well.

Where do you see calls for classic servers? How many people have you talked to that said they would pay to play on old school (yet to be determined) server(s)? How many of them said they would.

Many times over and over. Started slowly since the 65 cap, gradually accelerated until trait trees when pretty much everyone I regularly played with liked the idea of a classic server of some kind. I couldn't give a number. None of us know what would be required to make the server financially viable.

I've seen it requested periodically on these forums. When I do, I add my 2c to let whoever is in charge know there is interest. Of course I understand it is unlikely - but not too long ago, a new raid was never going to happen either.

As to your point that people will offer to pay and back out later, I agree that's an issue. If they ran a kickstarter, I'd be happy to pay upfront. There's that problem solved.

Not sure what your point is regarding Cirith Nur. I don't remember. I do remember there was plenty of SoA that wasn't perfect, but I would happily tolerate that for all the stuff I do want. Yes, plenty of quests were oddly levelled for their regions. And you typically outlevelled crafting such that it was only ever useful for a main during the 15 and 50 level caps.

[Capt.Hunor]

Classic servers are not possible anymore as there is no SoA Server release and SoA client backup. So it has no sense to dream on it :-)

[Bohemond71]

Classic servers are not possible anymore as there is no SoA Server release and SoA client backup. So it has no sense to dream on it :-)

I've seen this argued before. I've also seen it mentioned that the backups do exist but getting them to run on modern operating systems and hardware would be virtually impossible.

But even if either is true, that doesn't necessarily mean a classic server is not possible. A remake of a classic server with the current game engine is certainly possible. That doesn't necessarily mean viable, nor does it mean they can necessarily get close enough to a classic server.

At the very least, I would be surprised if they didn't still have a backup of the old (vastly superior) trait system. That would be a great start. Old design documents or dev diaries are bound to be of help too.

[WorrBinpike]

In Runes of Magic you had an instance on level 55 called Hall of Survivors. It took months until it was clear. A really good guild needed approx 7-9 hours to clear it. So to speak of Lotro, i dont see it that really much people play on a server where you can't use a mount till level 35. Same in Runes of Magic. In 2018 you can't create instances, where people are need to last for 7-9 hours. It's a matter of time the people are willing to spent nowadays.

This is 2018. Things that worked years ago, won't work 2018.

[Xhiu]

I've seen this argued before. I've also seen it mentioned that the backups do exist but getting them to run on modern operating systems and hardware would be virtually impossible.

But even if either is true, that doesn't necessarily mean a classic server is not possible. A remake of a classic server with the current game engine is certainly possible. That doesn't necessarily mean viable, nor does it mean they can necessarily get close enough to a classic server.

At the very least, I would be surprised if they didn't still have a backup of the old (vastly superior) trait system. That would be a great start. Old design documents or dev diaries are bound to be of help too.

Think of it this way:

You live by yourself. You really want some good steak, but that may be hard to find (unless you live in Texas) so you ask around and your neighbor tells you that the best cuts of meat are at Costco. They have the leverage to get the distributor to make things the way they want... So you go to Costco.

When you get to the meat department you notice that there is a reasonably priced section (small) that is selling Prime cuts of meat. After ringing the bell for the Meatcutter you are informed that he cannot sell you just one or two steaks. You have to buy the whole package. This package of meat is the game you want. The classic server. You study it carefully. You really really want it badly. The problem is you don't want to be eating beef for the next two weeks. You are a stickler for properly prepared fillets, so you don't want to take the pile home and freeze 3/4 of it, or let it go green in the refrigerator.

Do you spend the $80 for one cut of meat you are going to throw away after one meal? <<the dilemma SSG has. While YOU personally might plop down the $80 for the good beef and freeze the rest, maybe the designers don't want to throw away that much money when they could buy some veggies and maybe a chicken and have a really good meal for maybe $35. If what you want is not cost effective you have to make that decision. As a business, SSG has to look at their bottom line. IMHO you want prime rib and you cannot afford anything but ground beef. Yes, that steak looks nice but you are spending the rent money on one meal. Up to you.

[siipperi]

In Runes of Magic you had an instance on level 55 called Hall of Survivors. It took months until it was clear. A really good guild needed approx 7-9 hours to clear it. So to speak of Lotro, i dont see it that really much people play on a server where you can't use a mount till level 35. Same in Runes of Magic. In 2018 you can't create instances, where people are need to last for 7-9 hours. It's a matter of time the people are willing to spent nowadays.

This is 2018. Things that worked years ago, won't work 2018.

I had to google this and fights seem to take 5-15 min and trash is easy on original level on raid difficulty. So nah, just urban legends like urban legends like rift taking several days to finish when you could do it in one night. Throne actually legitly took good 3h on farm mode (around u19). It was really good phase if you got to UO within 2h, which could stall progression and after that it was still over an hour more. 15mins on UO, 10-15 mins on trash, 10 mins on nazguls, 20 mins on gothmog with small break in between bosses. And it needs to be stated, only very few groups truly had it on farm mode. First few times doing doesnt matter and does not indicate how long raid takes to clear. It just means time is wasted on wiping. And many groups spent good 6-9 h in there doing first challenger.

Heck even abyss challenger took 4-6h for most groups initially, or longer. So totally normal for raids that are still not on farm mode.

Lastly who cares if you cant use horse till 35 level. It was like that for long time...