So much truth in this article...

[sansa78]

Dol Amroth: Haven't been to the city myself but judging from the photos posted in the article as well as google the whole place is ugly as hell and full of reused assets.

I'm not going to comment on anything but this from your response. You haven't been to the city. All you're basing your opinions on are screenshots from the opinion article and google. I've been there for quite a while now. Many of us have. I'm actually very impressed with this release. It's better than both the Rohan expansions were by far. So what if textures and items such as crates and so on - or even mobs and people - were reused? It's common to reuse textures and items so as to make it easier and quicker. If the texture fits, why not? If the tree is right for the landscape, even if it's been used in 5 others, why not reuse it? It saves a ton of time for the developers. Why create a new texture for a rock or a wall when an existing one fits with the surrounding landscape well? Creating new textures and items adds more time to the release and time means money. Do you want to do without a quest or an instance because all of the textures have to be brand new? I know I wouldn't. Yeah, I'd prefer armour pieces to each have a new look, but I'm not going to begrudge them the ability to release something in a timely manner, within their budget, over armour pieces or rocks or trees looking different than the rest of the landscape or armour.

And if that's not enough here's a nice little analogy for you. It's kinda like making dinner. If you had baked potatoes and ham last night with dinner and have enough left over to make a baked potato with diced ham salad tonight to go along with a hamburger dinner, why wouldn't you reuse the leftover potatoes and ham, thus saving some time and money on a different side? Oh, and reusing the potatoes and ham leaves open some space that might have been occupied with a new side dish after dinner. Same with textures and other assets. Reusing the old, just duplicating it, leaves free space that might have been occupied with new items.

One final thought: don't knock it till you try it. If you haven't personally been to Dol Amroth, don't try to say anything disparaging about it. It only makes you look bad, because you really don't know what you're talking about.

[Geldeger]

I'm not going to comment on anything but this from your response. You haven't been to the city. All you're basing your opinions on are screenshots from the opinion article and google. I've been there for quite a while now. Many of us have. I'm actually very impressed with this release. It's better than both the Rohan expansions were by far. So what if textures and items such as crates and so on - or even mobs and people - were reused? It's common to reuse textures and items so as to make it easier and quicker. If the texture fits, why not? If the tree is right for the landscape, even if it's been used in 5 others, why not reuse it? It saves a ton of time for the developers. Why create a new texture for a rock or a wall when an existing one fits with the surrounding landscape well? Creating new textures and items adds more time to the release and time means money. Do you want to do without a quest or an instance because all of the textures have to be brand new? I know I wouldn't. Yeah, I'd prefer armour pieces to each have a new look, but I'm not going to begrudge them the ability to release something in a timely manner, within their budget, over armour pieces or rocks or trees looking different than the rest of the landscape or armour.

And if that's not enough here's a nice little analogy for you. It's kinda like making dinner. If you had baked potatoes and ham last night with dinner and have enough left over to make a baked potato with diced ham salad tonight to go along with a hamburger dinner, why wouldn't you reuse the leftover potatoes and ham, thus saving some time and money on a different side? Oh, and reusing the potatoes and ham leaves open some space that might have been occupied with a new side dish after dinner. Same with textures and other assets. Reusing the old, just duplicating it, leaves free space that might have been occupied with new items.

One final thought: don't knock it till you try it. If you haven't personally been to Dol Amroth, don't try to say anything disparaging about it. It only makes you look bad, because you really don't know what you're talking about.

Dol Amroth is my least favorite place of this update, it's a swan theme park. Too many swans, decorations, statues, deformed kings faces. It feels like a museum / theme park, not a Middle Earth city. I don't mind reusing old art assets (frankly I rarely notice it), but any assets (old and new) should be used with moderation. In this case, my impression was that someone just went on a copy pasting spree. Take away 80% of decorations or replace them with something more subtle, and it would look more like a real livable city.

I really liked Pathes of the Dead, Morlad (spelling?) was also an interesting little town. The rest of it also looked mostly well. But Dol Amroth was way overdone, in my view.

[Vehdren]

The writer of the article is clearly living in the past and its a past that is coloured by only the good memories.

He does however make some valid criticisms. There are two things that have really hurt this game over the past few years. The first was mounted combat. Really poorly implemented, gimmicky and totally detracted from the game. The fact that Update 14 has for the first time moved away from mounted combat is a hugely encouraging change.

The second is the neglecting of raiders and raid content. This has severely damaged the game for a bunch of reasons I'm not going to restate here. If Turbine could recommit to even a minimum of new raid instances then things would bode a lot better for LOTRO.

[Damojo]

The part of your post that I thought was daft was the "why even make instances". Look, you stated yourself that you don't like to raid. So for me to sit here and explain to you the value of creating a mulit tier loot system for T1 and T2C instances isn't going to mean a damn thing to you. Side note: I don't remember even mentioning anything about "guaranteed loot".

Easy, make more rewards in instances like Fornost T2C compared to instances like Sambrog. 3 gold essences per chest in Fornost, 1 gold essence in GB. But you wouldnt know what those are since you dont raid.

And there is absolutely no point in bringing up the last comment cause he is acting perfectly reasonable right now.

I don't raid in Lotro. Not the same thing as I've never raided. I raided a lot in WoW thanks, got several T-shirts.

Was it fun? Yeah sometimes it was a howl. But other things were not so much fun - the time invested, "just one more run", people going link dead or not showing in the first place, hanging round for bio-breaks and smoke times, "need bandits", DKP, "Siamese twins" who have to be invited as a pair....... not so much. But these aren't the reason I don't raid here.

I made the decision based on what raiding as an activity did to me and the people around me in game. The obsession with items and achievements, the feeling we were somehow "better", the petty bickering over rewards, the inward looking focus to everything we did........ the same things we see evidenced in some members of the raiding persuasion on these boards. So I decided not to do it any more. It wasn't worth it for the bragging rights or marginally better gear or mount or crafting ingredient to me. If others want to do it, crack on. I'm not asking for it to be removed.

But why should it have different rules to the rest of the game? If I want to crit when crafting, it's random. Will that node have an emerald shard in it? it's random. Mobs dropping lootboxes or keys? Or mobs dropping shards? What about skirmish rewards? Shall we change these too, take all the chance out of the game and turn everything into a numbers game, where the players grind out each predictable reward, one after the other? Lotro by spreadsheet - doesn't sound like fun to me. But there is easily as much justification, if I invest hours into ore-harvesting why shouldn't I have a guaranteed return? Emerald shards are valuable at auction, and necessary for top-tier crafting. Why should I suffer random drops?

No, my suggestion to just hand out rewards wasn't serious, but the sentiment is real enough. We all know new instances will be run once, to see what's in there, or for a server first. And then the grind begins, and groups run the lowest difficulty, quickest instance for a given loot table. If instance (a) has one chest, and instance (b) three chests, people will run instance (a) if it takes a quarter of the time. If T1 and T2C award the same loot, people run T1. it has nothing to do with challenge, or working as a group, it's all about shinies.

[Fratonia]

He then says... "Before we get to Update 14, I’d just like to talk about the elephant in the room first. Its name is Helm’s Deep." According to whom? He makes that statement right away as if it is an undisputed fact that everyone thinks Helm's Deep was horrible. Sure, some people were not happy with it. But, the way the author states it is made to sound as if everyone (or at least a clear majority) hated Helm's Deep... which is definitely not the case.

I don't know what's so bad in the statement you quoted. "Elephant in the room" to me just means that it is big. Do you deny that the Helms Deep expansion was big?

The author was disappointed with several things that it brought, true. Some of the things he mentioned have been disappointing to many players.

BBs for example - some players actually like them, some don't (including me). I only do them (I'm forced to) to finish the epic quest line. The length, broken side quests, class based skill difficulties and not working aggro mechanisms are enough to keep me away from them.

Trait trees? My opinion about these is divided. Playing mixed builds is only feasible at higher levels because only there you have enough points to spend. On the other hand you get access to some very nice skills early in your career which is nice for low level characters. I have learned to live with the trees and I'm not bitter about the change. Are they an improvement? To some yes, to some no. To me it's a so and so.

The author didn't say that the whole expansion was horrible. I would certainly disagree with him on that because in my opinion the region was fantastic and I very much liked the questing part (something others will disagree with me ). He just said that certain aspects of the expansion were bad and I have to agree to some degree (BBs). Unfortunately if those innovations are what the author was looking forward to most then I can understand why he was so disappointed.

[bucko39]

But why should it have different rules to the rest of the game? If I want to crit when crafting, it's random. Will that node have an emerald shard in it? it's random. Mobs dropping lootboxes or keys? Or mobs dropping shards? What about skirmish rewards? Shall we change these too, take all the chance out of the game and turn everything into a numbers game, where the players grind out each predictable reward, one after the other? Lotro by spreadsheet - doesn't sound like fun to me. But there is easily as much justification, if I invest hours into ore-harvesting why shouldn't I have a guaranteed return? Emerald shards are valuable at auction, and necessary for top-tier crafting. Why should I suffer random drops?





Ok...first off, whether or not you crit during crafting IS a numbers game--based on the type of tool you have on hand. Second, you can't honestly be comparing the act of solo farming a mining node (which you can do naked, armed only with your crafting tool and get the same result) to the dedication, challenge and teamwork applied to completing a T2C raid.

And as for your raiding experience in LOTRO--sounds like to me you were hanging with the wrong crowd. Now it looks like you are using that generalization to form your opinions on anything that deals with raiding (actual instances, loot etc.) Sorry, but I know a lost cause when I see one. Moving on...

[Brandon_Blackbird]

I don't know what's so bad in the statement you quoted. "Elephant in the room" to me just means that it is big. Do you deny that the Helms Deep expansion was big?

That's not what elephant in the room means. Elephant in the room is "something that is a problem that no one wants to talk about".

[Fratonia]

That's not what elephant in the room means. Elephant in the room is "something that is a problem that no one wants to talk about".

Ok, I didn't know that this has a special meaning. I can't even translate this with "Elefant im Porzellangeschaeft" because this has just another meaning.

Thanks for enlightening me about another english phrase that I still had to learn.

[Dolamrothdame]

Dol Amroth is my least favorite place of this update, it's a swan theme park. Too many swans, decorations, statues, deformed kings faces. It feels like a museum / theme park, not a Middle Earth city. I don't mind reusing old art assets (frankly I rarely notice it), but any assets (old and new) should be used with moderation. In this case, my impression was that someone just went on a copy pasting spree. Take away 80% of decorations or replace them with something more subtle, and it would look more like a real livable city.

I really liked Pathes of the Dead, Morlad (spelling?) was also an interesting little town. The rest of it also looked mostly well. But Dol Amroth was way overdone, in my view.

Seconded. Too low level to play there, but I burnt MC and a token of Swift Passage to go take a look, since it's always been one of my favorite places (as you can imagine, judging from my forum name). Liked Gondor, was very disappointed in the theme park feel of the architecture of Dol Amroth. There were things I did like about the city-the docks, the minstrels' quarter, the Swan Knight headquarters, the view over the harbor. But all those banners need to be Ered Luin blue, not turquoise, and the stupid wings and heads really need to go. The basic architecture would have looked much nicer without them. Dol Amroth should be tasteful and elegant, not kitschy. Also, I certainly could have done without all the swans and fountains in the throne room. All I could think of was that there had to be a Guano and Mildew Removal Faction in the city somewhere.

[dannypl]

I actually took time to read a good bit of the article. I can say with absolute certainty that more than 50% of the article is filled with personal opinions passed off as "fact" (which doesn't really work no matter how you slice it... opinions don't equal fact... ever)... makes a number of unproven claims... and in several cases ignores clear evidence that runs contrary to many of those claims/opinions.

All of that serves to only destroy any credibility the author might have had. It is merely an opinion piece... a very poorly written piece at that... and nothing more. The author is welcome to his own opinions and has the freedom to express them. That doesn't mean he is free of being challenged... particularly where he is factually wrong and/or the evidence contradicts him.



In truth, the trait trees sought to condense our skills such that there weren't so many skills all trying to do the same thing... or skills that really were not all that useful were removed and (in some cases) replaced with better skills... or we were given traits that made many skills far more useful.

As far as "low-level hybridization"... there never really was any such thing. It wasn't really until in the 40+ range that you really started checking off your class/skill deeds and unlocking enough traits to even try to really make a useful build. Now, a lower level character can start truly making a "build" from the start with (in many cases) earlier access to some skills you did not have access to until very late in your journey. This has resulted in a generally easier time leveling than previously experienced.



So, you would rather have the developers keep stringing us along on a possible housing update? Or, would you rather have them be honest that a Housing Update just isn't on the table right now?

Also, I like how you make assumptions about "resources" when there is no data available giving anyone a clue what Turbine's resources are. It seems you have learned well from your Masters how to make assumptions/opinions and try to pass them off as "fact" when you have no source to support your claims.

Btw... I'd call introducing a new class a smart move on Turbine's part. A new class that many people will want to try.. naturally meaning additional revenue because you will probably end up needing to buy a few things for your new Beorning.



Well, seeing as your first part "Raid and Group content gone" is completely false... please explain to me what reason anyone has to read further? I still see plenty of raid and group content in the game. The Instance Finder and Ettenmoors are still there.

As for the infamous "10%" quote... I am consistently amazed at how so many people continue to throw that quote out... but fail to understand what was meant by it... and in some way use it as an excuse to not make more raid/group content (or claim that Turbine uses it as an excuse). And, no, I am not going to waste more time re-explaining the quote.



The way I understand it, PvMP hasn't really had a "dedicated" developer to work on that area until more recently. But, it seems Jinjaah is trying to make some progress.



Not been there yourself, but you are ready to make judgements. Good call! Adds to your credibility!


Clearly you must have learned your lessons well from your Master (the author of the article).

You take a persons post and dissect it piece by piece in an effort to bash a player because you don't agree with the direction the game has taken... Really inspiring from a council member... How do you like it when others do the same to your posts?

I actually took time to read a good bit of the article.

So in other words you didn't actually read the whole article did you...

I can say with absolute certainty that more than 50% of the article is filled with personal opinions passed off as "fact" (which doesn't really work no matter how you slice it... opinions don't equal fact... ever)... makes a number of unproven claims... and in several cases ignores clear evidence that runs contrary to many of those claims/opinions.

You can say with absolute certainty that more than 50% of that article is BS? Can you prove that? Of course you can't because you pulled that number out of thin air to make your response look more scientific...

So, you would rather have the developers keep stringing us along on a possible housing update? Or, would you rather have them be honest that a Housing Update just isn't on the table right now?

I believe his point was that it was a broken promise from the start, but I suppose that was his personal opinion and not a fact? You're also implying that by fessing up to the fact that the housing update will not in fact happen somehow excuses the fact that they DID string people along for quite some time, implying that it was "on the table".

Well, seeing as your first part "Raid and Group content gone" is completely false... please explain to me what reason anyone has to read further? I still see plenty of raid and group content in the game. The Instance Finder and Ettenmoors are still there.

Please you know exactly what he is talking about and throwing out a red herring by saying "I still see plenty of raid and group content in the game" pretty much shows how biased your opinions are... Ya there's group content, the same content we ran at level 55, level 60, level 65, level 75, level 85, level 95...

The way I understand it, PvMP hasn't really had a "dedicated" developer to work on that area until more recently. But, it seems Jinjaah is trying to make some progress.

Just as opinion does not equal fact, seeming to try to make some progress does not equal actually making progress either...

[Brandon_Blackbird]

Ok, I didn't know that this has a special meaning. I can't even translate this with "Elefant im Porzellangeschaeft" because this has just another meaning.

Thanks for enlightening me about another english phrase that I still had to learn.

Not a problem. English is full of these ridiculous phrases

[Frelorn]

This thread has gone far enough and will only server to incite further bad blood.