The Road to Mordor: Could Lord of the Rings Online end in 2014?

[Brinswith]

True, that was a dreadful misjudgment. But relevant to LOTRO and this thread given 'the major class revamp' we're having imposed on us without any discussion. Given the mess made of even relatively simple changes recently I'm not at all confident this isn't going to be a shambles.

Oh i am 100% with you on this, and i would have hoped that Turbine looked at what happened to SWG when they decided to start this "major class revamp"

[Zippy10521]

Wonder when this journey ends if another company, like Trion or something, will pickup the story and start it again?

[Thorwyn99]

True, that was a dreadful misjudgment. But relevant to LOTRO and this thread given 'the major class revamp' we're having imposed on us without any discussion. Given the mess made of even relatively simple changes recently I'm not at all confident this isn't going to be a shambles.

Never played Galaxies so no clue how bad the NGE was.
Well just speaking from WOW experience when they were set on class changes they never asked if that's ok with players, they at best ask for input on tweaks.
During my playtime there they broke my warrior fully 2 times, i adjusted around that though. Actually over the years they broke tons of classes with little input but mostly people adjusted.
The healer change in Cata was what completely broke it for me, although i was set on leaving at that point anyways.

Uh what was my point, oh yeah i'm actually dreading the class revamps but i didn't expect them to have a discussion about it.
The best i expect is something around the lines of : Here's what we got check if we can tweak something plz.

[Neumi]

I've just seen the following thread on Massively.

After a month you can assume that at least 20 other people posted about it.

[Neumi]

Wonder when this journey ends if another company, like Trion or something, will pickup the story and start it again?

Only if they get the licences .. it's not about Turbine, it's about the licences.

If the licence brings money to the owner, then it goes on. If they have a feeling someone else would do better (pay more), then they will give him the licence.

[Mysterion]

LOL just like ones here were boasting on GW2 going to kill this game. Same ol same ol hyperbole garbage.

Just because that game will have a new engine doesnt mean everyone is gonna flock to it & love it.

Regardless of competition, to me it feels like LOTRO is an aging game that continues to get F2P upgrades while general game play declines. The player base seems to be getting smaller, especially in the raiding community. There will always be diehard fanboi homers that will never be able to see the trees from the forest with regards to LOTRO. Still doesn't change the fact that the game is pretty terrible in its current state. I for one will not purchase HD until a firesale occurs (black friday/holiday sale) that will inevitably come. Why? Well b/c the quality of this game has declined so much that I know it will not be worth the $40 asking price. My guess is that it doesn't sell well and the cycle of the game declining, store getting more shady continues.

[Thorwyn99]

Regardless of competition, to me it feels like LOTRO is an aging game that continues to get F2P upgrades while general game play declines. The player base seems to be getting smaller, especially in the raiding community. There will always be diehard fanboi homers that will never be able to see the trees from the forest with regards to LOTRO. Still doesn't change the fact that the game is pretty terrible in its current state. I for one will not purchase HD until a firesale occurs (black friday/holiday sale) that will inevitably come. Why? Well b/c the quality of this game has declined so much that I know it will not be worth the $40 asking price. My guess is that it doesn't sell well and the cycle of the game declining, store getting more shady continues.

Sorry, the game is terribly in the current state is an opinion not a fact. Just as well as lotro is the greatest game ever made is an opinion and not a fact.

[Zippy10521]

Sorry, the game is terribly in the current state is an opinion not a fact. Just as well as lotro is the greatest game ever made is an opinion and not a fact.

Being an avid mmo'er, I would have to say that lotro is by far the laggiest/buggiest of any game i care to play. The art style and music are wonderful though.

I hope that eventually this game gets a good revamp.

[Thorwyn99]

Being an avid mmo'er, I would have to say that lotro is by far the laggiest/buggiest of any game i care to play. The art style and music are wonderful though.

I hope that eventually this game gets a good revamp.

Not an avid mmoer but a gamer since i'm 8 lol.
I'd say lotro is par for the course for it's age, seen much better and seen much worse in games general.
I imagine the codebase for lotro is a big mess though.

Actually let me retract this some the game is way too cpu/ram hungry for it's age, and it absolutely hates SLI lol.
But on the bug and lag side i doesn't perform worse than the other mmos i played.

[Edrogar]

Being an avid mmo'er, I would have to say that lotro is by far the laggiest/buggiest of any game i care to play. The art style and music are wonderful though.

I hope that eventually this game gets a good revamp.

You must never have played Dark Age of Camelot, Star wars Galaxies or Age of Conan then, that's three right there that are/were laggier and buggier

[manstan]

Seems a lot of this game is being judged by the level cap. Not everyone is at level cap. I've been playing a bit over a year. I don't get in a hurry, I bought 6 XP disablers to slow down my leveling. I am no where near level cap.

I have to wonder how many people that are griping about the deficiencies of level cap went out of their way to get there as fast as possible? Power leveling just means finishing the game sooner.

Once I'm there I will probably quit. I'm not jumping on some repetitious quest treed mill just to keep busy.

Right now my main is in the misty mountains. It is quite apparent there is few quests in the area so the devs have me running from one end to the other to make it appear like there is more to it. Just time burners. It's a bit aggravating to have to spend 20 minutes running from point A to point B just drop off one thing and be sent back to point A. I'm really hoping the rest of the quest areas aren't this bad.

And I'll have to agree. It is quite apparent the crew that made the early on areas aren't the same ones that made this area and I highly doubt the same ones that work on the end game. I don't know if the devs are running out of ideas or the new ones just aren't as creative.

LOTRO is a prime example of the issues of building a game world based on a series of books. Those books have an ending. So does the game end at that point? Usually. Not what you want if you want a game to go the distance, to still be playable once the story is done. The only way to save LOTRO is to step away from the books so the game can be more open ended and on going.

So does it really matter if the game goes under in 2014 or 2017? Once they get to the last chapter it will be done anyway.

[Kongas]

Seems a lot of this game is being judged by the level cap. Not everyone is at level cap. I've been playing a bit over a year. I don't get in a hurry, I bought 6 XP disablers to slow down my leveling. I am no where near level cap.

I've been here since the beginning thanks. And as an officer of a kin I've seen new members go from L20 to cap in a matter of weeks not the years it took me in the days before Solo-Lotro. This is a game designed to get people to cap as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. That it can then sell people like you XP Limiters and make you feel it is a good thing is funny.

[Neumi]

Not an avid mmoer but a gamer since i'm 8 lol.

That only means something if you tell us how old you are
I am a gamer for ~27 years now.

Lotro sure has it's problem. It was never a shiny piece of software to begin with, but it has a great setting and music.
The classes are ok. The lag is horrible, the end game content almosst non existent, as all we do is hunt for better equipment and that can't be the end goal of a good MMO. Apart from that there is nothing to do in this game sadly.

[mr_toad]

If LOTRO was as bad you some of you are saying it is, it would have had to shut down already because virtually no one would want to play it. In fact, LOTRO is a fun, immersive MMO that has been good enough that paying customers have kept it running for over 6 years. That is a FACT -- paying customers have kept this game running for over 6 years. I'm guessing that paying customers will profitably support this game at least another 6 years, but that is just a personal guess and opinion.

Actually Lotro is being slain by an increasingly toxic forum community, most of which probably don't even play the game anymore.. just troll, who spend their spare time telling people how much the game sucks, arguing about lack of information when the information is right in front of them and whining complaining and boo booing about having to fork out money on a game that they haven't even bothered to pay a sub for since the game went free to play.

These are my sentiments exactly Firemane0. I log into the game, play 2-8 hours every day. I play solo, groups, raids, PvMP, skirmishes. I have a great time. Most of the people I play with or against have a great time. I come and read the forums. A small but vocal group of "Debbie Downers" who circle hyena-like around any complaining issue that they can rant their extremist hyperbole against. Everyone has a right to their opinion, don't get me wrong. But there are a lot of other people and opinions out there that are enjoying this game and paying money for it. You can trash this game all you want night and day but that isn't going to stop what is in my opinion the "silent majority" of players who don't post here and are overall enjoying LOTRO.

So, turbine putting weak raids, weak group content, terrible mounted combat, boring daily quests, solo only update, nerfing UI and launcher is perfectly fine, while people stating the obvious, that devs are worse then ever, are to blame?
Brilliant.

I've been raiding, grouping, mounting up, doing dailies, soloing, and PvMPing -- and loving all the content. I've an old-school crpg'er and have quite high standards for what I want to see in a rpg game. Turbine almost always meets or exceeds these standards for me. To say that all the content released in the past 1 -2 years is low-quality is in my opinion the height of contemptible trolling. It’s insulting to all the devs, artists, world-builders, and others who have put long-hours into developing some pretty cool quests and systems. Maybe you personally haven't liked it, maybe there are ways it could be improved, but to say it's low-quality is such off-base, hyperbolic, trolling it makes me lolz.

Just before anyone accuses me of trolling, I play the game daily for up to 8 hours i always have. I feel i should be excused in my sense of entitlement to be critical of the company that i see bleeding the game and the community dry of fun and money.

I guess our perspectives differ here. I see a company that is working as hard and as fast as they can to get out fun, middle-earth inspired content to us. Ellemere clearly you care about the lore and the game very much. You are entitled to your opinion. But I think there are a lot of people who feel differently in a positive way.

Look, all you who have been complaining so much -- if this game was really as bad as you all are griping, it wouldn't last even a few more months (in fact, if it was as bad as you are complaining it would have had to shut down already.)

[Thorwyn99]

That only means something if you tell us how old you are
I am a gamer for ~27 years now.

Lotro sure has it's problem. It was never a shiny piece of software to begin with, but it has a great setting and music.
The classes are ok. The lag is horrible, the end game content almosst non existent, as all we do is hunt for better equipment and that can't be the end goal of a good MMO. Apart from that there is nothing to do in this game sadly.

Oh sure, i'm 32 so 24 years :P.
MMO was for me Daoc -> Lineage2 -> World of Warcraft -> Lotro -> SwTor -> Tera Online -> GW2 -> Lotro.
You described the End game of at least 5 of those. For Daoc i would replace it with hunting for RR back when i played.
There's one month of rift between WoW and Lotro but i was bored to tears before the month was over, so i can't rightly count that.

Oddly enough i really enjoyed GW2, till the people insisted there needed to be some kind of gear progression and ANet found it necessary to appease them.
I quit in disgust when they did that, i don't think i've seen a turn around like that of any gaming company before (I mean in context to what they advertised and promised).

So far a good friend of mine and me are enjoying Lotro and we're really not hunting for gear since we're pretty much decked out in all the stuff we need and hunting after golds seems pointless.
Not having to worry about upgrading my gear actually personally makes me feel much more free nowadays, but i do still enjoy getting shinies.

[Zippy10521]

You must never have played Dark Age of Camelot, Star wars Galaxies or Age of Conan then, that's three right there that are/were laggier and buggier

Tried AoC when it released and yes it was very buggy lol. The other 2 i have never tried and actually thought they were dead. I was comparing lotro to Rift,WoW, GW2, SWTOR and Warhammer Online more than anything.

I think a brand new lotro in a year or two would be pretty sweet. Let this one get to Mordor and then release a brand new one.

[Jeffor]

SOE and EA.... Yes i'd say they very much are.

LOL that's what I was thinking.

People, since when do gaming companies keep their players up to date on legal proceedings? I would like to know as well but no answer does not mean fill in the blanks with a worst case scenario. I would expect the license to be renewed.

[Thorwyn99]

Tried AoC when it released and yes it was very buggy lol. The other 2 i have never tried and actually thought they were dead. I was comparing lotro to Rift,WoW, GW2, SWTOR and Warhammer Online more than anything.

I think a brand new lotro in a year or two would be pretty sweet. Let this one get to Mordor and then release a brand new one.

Bug wise all of the ones you mention were unplayable at one point or the others during the time i played lol.
But yeah except for Wow their engines are much newer (And even Wow upgraded once in a while over the years) and run better too.
Actually wait Swtor doesn't the hero engine is really &&&&&& imo.

If Lotro is gonna get a revamp i'd say it will be lotro2. I think the engine is such a mess by now it would be hard to do a real revamp.

[Vellrad]

I've been raiding, grouping, mounting up, doing dailies, soloing, and PvMPing -- and loving all the content. I've an old-school crpg'er and have quite high standards for what I want to see in a rpg game. Turbine almost always meets or exceeds these standards for me. To say that all the content released in the past 1 -2 years is low-quality is in my opinion the height of contemptible trolling. It’s insulting to all the devs, artists, world-builders, and others who have put long-hours into developing some pretty cool quests and systems. Maybe you personally haven't liked it, maybe there are ways it could be improved, but to say it's low-quality is such off-base, hyperbolic, trolling it makes me lolz.

LOL

Are you trying to say erebor cluster is of equal quality as, for example, OD or BG?

Really?

Raid where we fight 2 trolls don't deserve to be called raid. And BTW those artist you mentioned simply reused Moria exit in bfe.

What else do we got in this cluster?
Repel waves of mobs for 10 minutes?
Finally we was given a new skirmish, too bad its more boring than the ones we had, and there are no marks between waves.

And there is Smaug, which is actually a raid.
Easy and boring, as it consists mostly of running up and down, but there are trash, bosses and some tactics.

Do you really say theese raids are on the same levels as what we had in past?
Because, everyone I met in game says no.

[Neumi]

Oh sure, i'm 32 so 24 years :P.
MMO was for me Daoc -> Lineage2 -> World of Warcraft -> Lotro -> SwTor -> Tera Online -> GW2 -> Lotro.
You described the End game of at least 5 of those. For Daoc i would replace it with hunting for RR back when i played.

I have never seen the end of TOR, I was bored long before that. And the bad support drove me from the game for good.
What I miss here are things to do apart from repeating instances and quests all over and over again. Also raids can become boring. Sure, they can be challenging and whatsoever, but what for? For a gold equipment item ...
Where are the other things to do? Why not have some random treasure hunting? Player cities? The crafting system is kinda pointless, just a grind like everything else and what for? For a crafted relic for the weapon ... great.
Maybe I am a bit too old fashioned, but I remember a time where equipment was not the only important thing in a MMO.
Well, I am no big MMO player anyway, I prefer story based SP games. My first one I started only about 7 years ago and I only played a few since. Only 2 really caught me: SWG and LotRO, TSW is nice, WoW is not really my thing, TOR is just bad, DCUO I could not take seriously, STO was boring. I also installed a few asia style F2P MMOs, but none of them survived the first hour. I like LotRO, the gameplay is ok, even if the lag is a pain. But I really miss how much I was able to put into my chars in SWG. Become a dancer for fun, a trader, pilot ships starting with fighters up to vehicles for 9 players, build many different vehicles, build weapon components, do some math to find the best resources for each component, go on a treasure hunt, set up houses and cities, create a few simple storylines myself (with tools in the game), defend cities from NPC invasions, ...

[Mysterion]

Sorry, the game is terribly in the current state is an opinion not a fact. Just as well as lotro is the greatest game ever made is an opinion and not a fact.

Via twitter:

We are currently investigating connectivity issues.The game worlds are up,but some players may experience an error when logging in. #LOTRO

Thu 06 Jun 09:45

This game is broken all the time.

[Thorwyn99]

Via twitter:



Thu 06 Jun 09:45

This game is broken all the time.

The login problems are bad the last few weeks that i'll agree with.

[Thorwyn99]

I have never seen the end of TOR, I was bored long before that. And the bad support drove me from the game for good.
What I miss here are things to do apart from repeating instances and quests all over and over again. Also raids can become boring. Sure, they can be challenging and whatsoever, but what for? For a gold equipment item ...
Where are the other things to do? Why not have some random treasure hunting? Player cities? The crafting system is kinda pointless, just a grind like everything else and what for? For a crafted relic for the weapon ... great.
Maybe I am a bit too old fashioned, but I remember a time where equipment was not the only important thing in a MMO.
Well, I am no big MMO player anyway, I prefer story based SP games. My first one I started only about 7 years ago and I only played a few since. Only 2 really caught me: SWG and LotRO, TSW is nice, WoW is not really my thing, TOR is just bad, DCUO I could not take seriously, STO was boring. I also installed a few asia style F2P MMOs, but none of them survived the first hour. I like LotRO, the gameplay is ok, even if the lag is a pain. But I really miss how much I was able to put into my chars in SWG. Become a dancer for fun, a trader, pilot ships starting with fighters up to vehicles for 9 players, build many different vehicles, build weapon components, do some math to find the best resources for each component, go on a treasure hunt, set up houses and cities, create a few simple storylines myself (with tools in the game), defend cities from NPC invasions, ...

I enjoyed the story of TOR but i still wish they'd have made Kotor3 instead. Once the story was over it was really boring imo though.

What you'd probably need is a sandbox game, very few of those around at the moment though. In fact i can't think of one right now but there probably is.

[Zippy10521]

Bug wise all of the ones you mention were unplayable at one point or the others during the time i played lol.
But yeah except for Wow their engines are much newer (And even Wow upgraded once in a while over the years) and run better too.
Actually wait Swtor doesn't the hero engine is really &&&&&& imo.

If Lotro is gonna get a revamp i'd say it will be lotro2. I think the engine is such a mess by now it would be hard to do a real revamp.

I completely agree, if there is to ever be a LOTRO2 then it will have to be from scratch. The thought of it is still exciting though

[Glumposneak]

Seems a lot of this game is being judged by the level cap. Not everyone is at level cap. I've been playing a bit over a year. I don't get in a hurry, I bought 6 XP disablers to slow down my leveling. I am no where near level cap.

I have to wonder how many people that are griping about the deficiencies of level cap went out of their way to get there as fast as possible? Power leveling just means finishing the game sooner.

I have a lifetime account.

A few weeks ago I rolled my first warden and bought a xp disabler and applied it at level 7.

I am enjoying it a lot but only to a point.

It's VERY easy even at level 7, I've dome 80 quests in the shire, I haven't used my other characters to kit him out, all I have done is have him craft his own armour.

I can easily take on 3 orange mobs and not even come close to dying without using potions or food, yesterday a red mob attacked me and I had it killed with over 1/2 my life left.

I've died twice so far, once soloing the troll killing bit in needlehole (a small fellowship quest) and I only died as I had no food or potions with me, as soon as I got them, I easily did it, and once when I had to get something from a hill near woodhall while talking to someone in game and i didn't notice 15 odd orange mobs were following me.

Even thoough I am haviong zero trouble surviving (without food except for that one quest) I cant do all the shire quests as I'm not high enough level, It wont even let me complete the scary to brokenborings bit of the postman quest as I'm too low although I've done the rest.

The whole popint of me doing this was to find the game more challenging, while I am having fun, even at level 7 with orange and red mobs, it is simply not a challenge. I have few skills at this level and I am nowhere near the best skilled player.

It seems I'm going to be forced to level just to open the quests up even though I'm not even loosing 1/2 my moral doing things like soloing the small fellowship bit where they throw a stone at the beehive etc, and red mobs are killed with over 1/2 my health left.

Sure it's a fair enough argument that I understand the game more now than when I first started playing, but this is my first warden and I am only level 7. I shouldn't be able to walk over red mobs like I am doing and a few years ago I would have been slaughtered in seconds by trying.

But, another important point is why am I doing this?

The expansion came out, I started it on my main, I liked bits of it, but I didn't find it all that to be honest, I would rather level up a character with xp disabler than finish the latest release. that's the first time I've ever felt like this. I'm not saying areas don't look nice, I'm not saying some of the scenes aren't great, I'm saying as a whole, I'd rather play other parts and see what they actually manage to release in the next expansion to see if its even worth me purchasing it.

It feels more like just walking through a story game with zero real challenge. Sure a couple of the warbands are harder, but everything else it really doesnt matter which skill I use, I still don't die, my burg (main) fellowship manoeuvres are no longer required by people as no one groups any more, glff on Riddermark has become a "mines bigger than yours" gloating channel and if it wasn't for my kin, I doubt I'd actually play any more.

I've played this game longer than any other mmo and subscribe to another vip account as well as my lifetime. But while I am still enjoying myself, I can see a mile away how downhill the game has gone and how fast it's continuing to do so (I can also see how many kin members have left to play other games, kin members who used to love Lotro) and i can also see that if things don't change soon, chances are WB will decide it's not profitable enough to keep investing in. I like all aspects of Lotro from crafting, getting all the deeds/titles/ festivals etc to end game raiding. I don't care if they make parts more solo friendly, I solo most of the time when not raiding or doing instances, but it used to be a challenge, now it isn't.