Game philosophy change - game world immersion or end-game race?

[Sinkhan]

No, once again you are wrong. They simply waited until Warner Brothers bought Turbine whole and decided to sue the people with the money. NO moron on the planet would sue a subsidiary. Obviously, you don't know much about business. They were playing it smart, which apparently you cannot see. They waited and bid their time until Warner Brothers owned it all and after a few years of established income, then, they go after it all in a suit. And guess what, they usually settle out of court, sure. But this is different and Warner Brothers knows it which is why they are counter suing.

You see this one is not just about money squabbling. This one is about rights. Digital content is a separate classification of merchandise and online gaming is even another legal classification that were apparently never actually discussed. Warner Brothers is counter suing in my opinion because they know damn well that they don't have the rights to operate or create LOTRO.

But this case is apparently not settled yet and most likely will not be. You see, this case is not about giving Warner Brothers rights at all. It is about money made from rights that they did not have. Warner Brothers would still have to negotiate for the rights to begin with and they may not give them to Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers may certainly say that the rights simply aren't worth it after paying 80 million is license violations for all online games.

[Dordain]

Stimulating game play is what you make of it. High failure risk for no purpose other than wasting time is not something I call challenge. I call that tedium.

Yes, but you only speak for you, and you alone. Your opinion of what constitutes "tedium" is far from being some sort of universal truth. For me personally, your idealized, challenge-less gameplay is utter tedium in the extreme. Again, different strokes for different folks. Why would you wish to impede other people's notion of fun, especially when it costs you literally nothing not to?

You are aware that the entire draw of raids in LotRO and literally every single other MMO that has ever offered group content is to take on very tough "High failure risk" content that is frequently failed, right? Is every single raider in MMO history "wasting time" via your own very personal metric? Are their opinions and playstyles somehow of less tangible relevance in the grand scheme of things than your own?

Also, "wasting time"? This is a game. We're all wasting time here when you get right down to it. What about the groups of Hobbits and Elves I see dancing and playing music in Michal Delving and in Bree's crafting hall? Are they wasting time too? Or should they be solely engaged in the important work of making all of their pixel-people's numbers go up as fast as possible and completing all of the game's content as fast as humanly possible?

[Lashmore]

You see, this case is not about giving Warner Brothers rights at all.

No one would sue a company in order to give that said company rights....so....wut??

The amount of guessing and self-imposed beliefs in your last paragraph that isn't from any past or current lawsuits - just your guesses why - proves a few things...about you rather than the actual case. Everyones replies have been based on past history and reading the fine prints of the sales from 1969 of rights to present, and the pitfalls in between.

You are fueled via anger (most notably with your deleted thread about you hiring a firm to sue against the epic no logner free issue ((which was quite an amusing read))- which will go no where) and therefore no matter what truths are spoken, you are able to translate quite broad statements any which way which links to your own belief and wish.

You have lost any and all credibility.

We who have replied to you, however, have supplied only fact based on past, present and legal history.

That's the last I will say on this. if I wanted to talk to a brick wall, my house will give me some creaks in reply that are rather fascinating.

[Sinkhan]

Past legal cases are not pertinent to this case. This case, which I posted the case document of, is stating that Warner Brothers does not have the right to create digital content and online games. That means LOTRO for you slow people. The counter suite is Warner Brothers claiming that because of the lawsuit, they had to cancel their gambling and slot machine agreements and that the Tolkien Estate is responsible for the cancellation and the money lost from it. Ha, no judge in the world is going to side with Warner Brothers on that one. They never had the rights to create online LOTRO Gambling in the first place. The joke here is Warner Brothers, not the Tolkien Estate.

Yes, I have reviewed the other lawsuits and so far, the Tolkien Estate has won every single time. They chose to settle the cases eventually instead of push them.

But this one is different. The Tolkien Estate wants 80 million for breach of rights. That's it. They are stating that Warner Brothers does not have the right to even create LOTRO or run it or any other digital content. A DVD is not classified as a physical product, but a digital one. I can't believe that you friggen people even tried to make that claim. What a joke! Besides, if you ever actually bothered to read your LOTRO license agreement you would know that you are not buying or owning any software at all. When you buy an expansion you are not buying merchandise, even if it is shipped on a CD or DVD. It is merchandise to the store that you bought it from, but to LOTRO and Warner Brothers you are buying the right to "use Warner Brothers and Turbine's software". You don't own a damn thing except the physical disk and other materials. The game itself is the digital content that Warner Brothers (and Turbine) apparently do not have the rights too. The expansion that you "bought" is only the rights to use software the Warner Brothers and Turbine own, not you.

So, just like the other cases that I did research, I fully expect that the Tolkien Estate will win this one as well. Why? Here is the history of what went down.

Turbine licensed what they thought was the rights to create LOTRO from a company called The Saul Zaentz Company. The Saul Zaentz Company owns a company called Middle-Earth Enterprises. Turbine acquired a "Merchandising" license from Middle-Earth Enterprises. If you notice, The Saul Zaentz Company and Middle Earth Enterprises are named in the suit. Here is the link and the copy:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sit..._Complaint.pdf

THE SAUL ZAENTZ COMPANY
IN-C. d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises, a Delaware corporation; and
DOES 1-10, inclusive,

In this suit, Tolkien Estate is claiming that Saul Zaentz and Middle Earth enterprises never actually had the right to license digital content and therefore could not give those rights to others. Here is the Middle Earth Website where Turbine bought their so called "Merchandising" rights.

http://www.middleearth.com/licensing_contacts.html

The Tolkien Estate is claiming (and could obviously prove) that those original merchandising rights that Middle Earth Enterprises sold to Turbine never actually included digital content or online gaming. That is the crux of this suit. They simply waited until Warner Brothers owned turbine and other "merchandising rights" before deciding to sue anyone for any money gained from rights that were never actually granted. Bear in mind, at this point, Warner Brothers and Turbine (according to claim) are running and creating this game without any actual legal ability to do so under license. That's friggen huge.

At this point, the suit must first establish that Warner Brothers, Middle-Earth Enterprises never actually had the rights first and get awarded any judgments from it before generally being able to force Warner Brothers to shut down LOTRO and any other digital content and online gaming of any kind. But I may be wrong there. What they want now is to establish that no one owns the rights to digital LOTR content first and get money from it. If that goes their way, the Warner Brothers would have to re-negotiate for digital rights and guess what, that may never happen at all.

In short, yes, LOTRO could be finished any day now. But, I am not involved in the case, so, I don't know how its going.

[Torathon]

In short, yes, LOTRO could be finished any day now.

I feel like the insanity of where Sinkhan has taken this thread has nothing to do with the original contention, which is that Lotro may be forgetting the players who don't want to rush to the end-game. Even if it was somehow related, this is the third thread he or she has used to threaten Turbine of impending doom.

Not that this carry-on isn't great fun.

[Lashmore]

Been waiting for the banhammer to hit in that regard, the only thing to do is reply to anyone sensible in how they reply to anything posted, like the guy before my last. Ignore Sinkhan's, but if anyone presents anything sensibly, sure, listen.

As for game philosophy change - well tbh even on my lower level alts XP bonus' don;t matter to me or effect my gameplay at all. I'm here for the world not the mechanics and I can do roleplay events of any style with any mix of levels in the group and it works fine.

[Sinkhan]

Ha not valid! I just explained the entire reason WHY the game philosophy has changed. Warner Brothers (who owns Turbine completely) is getting sued for 80 million dollars and the claim that they have no right whatsoever to even create or run an online game. So, Warner Brothers is making Turbine suck this game dry for money before it all possibly blows up in their face and the whole thing possibly gets shut down.

Why no boxed retail expansion? (its merchandise and if they sold merchandise they would have to give Tolkien Estate royalties for it the sale of it)
Why the 100% xp bonus for 30 days? (its because they want people to level as fast as possible be able to buy expansions before the suit is settled)
Why are they forcing people to buy the expansion just to do the epic story line? (its again because of the lawsuit and wanting money now before it all goes kaput!)

Yes, the entire philosophy has changed completely to be about money as much as they think they can get away with. And this is just the beginning. I expect that it will only get worse as time goes on. What do you think will happen when Warner Brothers loses the 80 million suit and is told, no, you don't have the rights to digital content and online gaming? Ha! If they don't renegotiate digital rights ASAP after the lawsuit then this game is history folks!

Yes the philosophy is entire different. Its called panic and survival mode. Right now, all they can see is money. Players simply aren't in the equation from what I have seen.

[Neumi]

... That was a paradigm shift for us. Allowing players the option of purchasing a disable. Unless you were on this side for those discussions you can't imagine what a very real shift that was.

Maybe you guys can have another paradigm shift that results in selling a account wide skill for the same price that toggles XP gain on and off?

You see ... I stopped playing on bonus XP weekends. I DID buy Turbine Points already and do not hesitate to spend the ones I get from being VIP and the ones I earn in game. But I don't see a point in buying something that expensive just to avoid outleveling the content. now with the extended bonus XP time, I won't play at all for a long time except the festival because I want some bounders bags. I will grumble at the XP I get because someone had the "great" idea to put the event quests at the same level as the character, but I will play it anyway. I won't however buy a XP disabler, not as long as it's that overpriced. If it's going to stay char bound, I will wait until it costs 100 TPs per char. Since that won't happen anytime soon, I probably won't need it ever, because at some point all of my chars will reach max. level.

[monteeburns]

The sad thing is, I bet that Turbine employees are not even being told the truth about this lawsuit and what it really means. I have seen it happen before. "Its about Gambling and not related to us", I bet that's what they told all the employees of Turbine. This at the same time trying to suck LOTRO players dry and change the tune of previous long term statements like, "Epic content will always be free". Ha!

Yes, things are up in the air as much as any company can be. When the original creators of Turbine sold the company lock stock and barrel to Warner Brothers and themselves got out that was the sign that people should have taken note of. Happens a lot these days where the lawyers talk to the owners and say, "Hay, we have a major problem here". Then the owners bail on the company and tell all the employees, "Everything here is fine" while the owners themselves are walking out the door and selling out for less than its worth at the drop of a hat.

That's very true. A good friend of mine had a fairly high ranking job at one of the UKs biggest banks, one morning a few years back there had been a meeting with the regional bosses and nothing out of the ordinary was mentioned, as far as they knew it was 'buiness as usual'. The same afternoon, it was announced that the bank was on the verge of going bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the government in one of the biggest banking collapses ever seen in the UK. Those in the trenches won't usually get to find out until they get told to vacate their offices. If there is a real chance of Turbine being seriously impacted by this lawsuit though, they'll have enough warning and sufficient time period to really turn the screw though. I'm not sure that we're at that stage yet. imo the epic quest no longer being free is more a case of not having enough content without throwing it into the xpac rather than related to any lawsuit.

[Edrogar]

But for players like me - who prefer gameplay that requires a modicum of skill with an actual risk of death involved - there should be a server made available for us.

No, there shouldn't, it should never have been dumb'ed down to the skill level of a six year old in the first place, what there should be is an easy mode server for those who can't handle the real game.

[Edrogar]

(its merchandise and if they sold merchandise they would have to give Tolkien Estate royalties for it the sale of it)

No they wouldn't.

Firstly: They would only have to pay royalties for stuff outside of the license, hence why they paid for a license in the first place.
Secondly: The Tolkien estate has absolutely nothing to do with and no control over any license or material in reference to LOTRO, that aspect of the LOTRO license and IP is no longer owned or controlled by the Tolkien estate and hasn't been for many years, the Prof himself sold all rights to certain parts of the LOTR IP to Middle Earth Enterprises a long time before he passed away, the LOTRO license is issued and controlled by MEE under their IP rights.

[Edrogar]

That's very true. A good friend of mine had a fairly high ranking job at one of the UKs biggest banks, one morning a few years back there had been a meeting with the regional bosses and nothing out of the ordinary was mentioned, as far as they knew it was 'buiness as usual'. The same afternoon, it was announced that the bank was on the verge of going bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the government in one of the biggest banking collapses ever seen in the UK. Those in the trenches won't usually get to find out until they get told to vacate their offices. If there is a real chance of Turbine being seriously impacted by this lawsuit though, they'll have enough warning and sufficient time period to really turn the screw though. I'm not sure that we're at that stage yet. imo the epic quest no longer being free is more a case of not having enough content without throwing it into the xpac rather than related to any lawsuit.

Very true, my current job involves building management for leased commercial and corporate properties, when a certain bank with rock in its name took a nose dive before being bought out they moved out of one of our properties.

Friday afternoon i had a meeting with them about issues with the air conditioning, not a hint of trouble, everyone seemed happy. Monday morning i popped in to update them on the issue and walked into an empty building, everything had gone, right down to the carpet tiles, we're still trying to settle a claim over unpaid rent.

[ElanorFb]

Can I sue for being annoyed by this?

[Jamm-Sproot]

I find the biggest problem about fast levelling is that you cannot turn in deeds. This can make gaining rep really hard in some areas that don't have sufficient rep giving quests, unless you spend TP's or repeat the same repeatable daily quests for weeks. Worst for this is Lone Lands.

[Torathon]

I find the biggest problem about fast levelling is that you cannot turn in deeds. This can make gaining rep really hard in some areas that don't have sufficient rep giving quests, unless you spend TP's or repeat the same repeatable daily quests for weeks. Worst for this is Lone Lands.

Garth Agarwen is the way to go, so long as you have a group or are highly enough levelled, as it is non-scaling.

[monk_tbd]

Worst for this is Lone Lands.

You can craft yourself rep items for the Eglain.
Depending on your vocation this could be rather simple (e.g. if you have a vocation that covers cooking) or a bit more effort.

[Brom_Ironfist]

You can craft yourself rep items for the Eglain.
Depending on your vocation this could be rather simple (e.g. if you have a vocation that covers cooking) or a bit more effort.

I did this just recently. Used my Historian to farm grains and sent them to my Weaponmaster to make traps...easy rep.

[DirkBadgewick]

You can craft yourself rep items for the Eglain.
Depending on your vocation this could be rather simple (e.g. if you have a vocation that covers cooking) or a bit more effort.

/handtoforeheadslap

You just solved one of my problems in game. I didn't even remember the rep items.

Now can you find a way to prevent me from having to run Rescue in Nurz Ghashu two thousand times for Edlgang rep.........

[Sapience]

Guys, please don't feed the trolls.

Back on topic I have good news. A little good will for players who didn't have a chance to buy the XP Disabler when it was 20% off a few weeks ago.
Here's a coupon for 25% off that's good for 5 uses per account.

Coupon code: SLOWME

It gives 25% off of the XP disabler ONLY.

[manstan]

Guys, please don't feed the trolls.

Back on topic I have good news. A little good will for players who didn't have a chance to buy the XP Disabler when it was 20% off a few weeks ago.
Here's a coupon for 25% off that's good for 5 uses per account.

Coupon code: SLOWME

It gives 25% off of the XP disabler ONLY.

Hey look, someone listened. Now if I hadn't just spent all my TP on Enedwaith I'd get one for the only character I don't have one for; the one that just gained a level making pie crusts and watched as most of her quests went gray.

Guess I need to get in there and do some deeding

[Viniel]

Guys, please don't feed the trolls.

Back on topic I have good news. A little good will for players who didn't have a chance to buy the XP Disabler when it was 20% off a few weeks ago.
Here's a coupon for 25% off that's good for 5 uses per account.

Coupon code: SLOWME

It gives 25% off of the XP disabler ONLY.

Thanks!!

Much appreciated.

[Willim]

Guys, please don't feed the trolls.

Back on topic I have good news. A little good will for players who didn't have a chance to buy the XP Disabler when it was 20% off a few weeks ago.
Here's a coupon for 25% off that's good for 5 uses per account.

Coupon code: SLOWME

It gives 25% off of the XP disabler ONLY.

Nice one, thanks Sapience!
So it seems Turbine DOES care about us ;-)

[Nickysmom]

Guys, please don't feed the trolls.

Back on topic I have good news. A little good will for players who didn't have a chance to buy the XP Disabler when it was 20% off a few weeks ago.
Here's a coupon for 25% off that's good for 5 uses per account.

Coupon code: SLOWME

It gives 25% off of the XP disabler ONLY.

Thanks a bunch, Sapience.

[Jeremi]

No, there shouldn't, it should never have been dumb'ed down to the skill level of a six year old in the first place, what there should be is an easy mode server for those who can't handle the real game.

Pie on the sky Edrogar. Those days are over, and companies are going to appeal to the masses, because that's where most of the money is. Like it or not, me and you are in the minority - and MMORGPs are no longer about skill or strategic multi-player gameplay. The days when getting max level actually meant you accomplished something worthy are long gone. It's become a race to the bottom.

The reasons for this? I blame the influx of the social media crowd - who really had no business playing MMORPGs to begin with. They have nearly (if not already) effectively ruined the entire genre with their dollars and morphed what used to be a meaningful experience into a mindless button-mashing race to the end. In short: they wanted Facebook with an easy mini-game attached - and it looks like they got what they wanted. I wish they would have stuck to chat rooms and online co-operate games instead of raiding the MMO market. But oh well, what's done is done.

Luckily I can still solo group content on this game and have some fun. But the solo content is pathetic and not worth my time. And in this day and age, hoping for a single server with content that isn't absurdly easy and incentivizes actual multi-play is about as much as we can hope for. Because expecting the tide to change is unrealistic I think, and not going to happen.

[Tenuke]

A little more research eh?

Here is the actual court document!

http://www-deadline-com.vimg.net/wp-...1120024937.pdf

Here is the quote from section 1 about online games (not gambling). Gambling games is covered under section 2.



Warner Brothers and Turbine apparently never had the right to make LOTRO in the first place. That is the suit anyway. Warner Brothers is counter suing for destroying the value of licensing. So, the point here is, do the research yourself first before accusing other people of not doing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_Enterprises is who gave turbine/wb the licence for LOTRO...
But like someone said the tolkien estate sues randomly every now and then and actually do get paid then outside the court 8-o

Propably bigger the company getting sued, easier for them to pay some 'shut up and go away' -money instead of actually spending maybe years figuring out those lawsuits in courts =)