Rightbug
2721
That would be really nice if they at least left enough staff to finish off the epic quest in one final expansion. I’m sure it’s unlikely and impractical for a variety of reasons but we can dream.
MrPerson
2722
I quit the game then, not working at Turbine ;) I’m a developer, but not in games and never at Turbine. I’ll rewrite that post to be more clear.
Rightbug
2723
Ah! Gotcha. I thought we had at least one Turbine employee kicking around here. Hopefully not laid off :(
Galadin
2724
I left last year, was in Data Analytics, not dev. But from what I have gathered, while some of the LOTRO team was in this, I don’t believe it was decimated. It might mean scope tightening for the next expansion, but I don’t expect them to be stopping yet. Both DDO and LOTRO were still profitable a year ago, and with attrition I am sure they have to recalibrate investment/return regularly.
One side effect of raising the level cap is auction house inflation. Scrolls of greater empowerment which used to go for about 5 gold now sell for 20 gold! Maxing out my legacies seems pretty near impossible at those rates. (Yes, the legendary grind is silly because the weapon will be obsolete within a couple of levels but I play slowly so maxing out my gear every ten levels is part of where I find my fun.)
One helpful hint – After wasting way too many relics refining them at tier 5, the recommended optimal point for refining shards per the forums, I realized that the cheapest method of farming shards by far is refining crafted relics. Aside from those you can craft yourself, high level crafted relics can usually be bought at the auction house for between 1-2 gold yielding hundreds of shards each. I wince now thinking of all the kudzul tablets I wasted melding relic up to tier 5 and then deconstructing.
I’m not sure what solution I’m looking for with LOTRO, but I feel like the game has turned into a bit of a sprawling mess that runs not so well on my brand new PC. I don’t love the mounted combat, and that seems to take over a lot at the 85 level range. A lot of quests felt like padding, systems feel bubble gummed onto what was the core game when it was just the first fifty levels.
Again, I don’t know what the answer is and it makes sense that you would want the settings to get more epic as the game (in theory) got closer to Mordor. I still enjoy the story focus. And I know you need to put more in there than just leveling for the people who are really out there toward the current endgame. It just seems like there was this really charming, story-driven MMO when it was Shadows of Angmar or whatever. Adding the ability to solo the entire story was a nice touch. But so much of the game now feels unwieldy to me, but maybe I would feel that way if I had gotten near the level cap for World of Warcraft or whatever.
Razgon
2727
Yeah, I’m there with you. For the first time in close to 7 years, LOTRO is not on my gaming pc. Its a shame, because it still looks gorgeous, but man…they destroyed it more or less with grind, poor expansions and VERY poor questing after Moria.
As a lifetime member, that makes me sad.
I loved the level 75 content but the second I moved on to Rohan my performance took a major hit and, yeah, I’m not enjoying the mounted combat at all. The mount grind does not interest me in the least. (Whereas I’m totally willing to waste massive amounts of time on the legendary weapon grind.)
I’ve been working on gearing out my 75 champion, then I think I’ll work on the world renowned meta deed. After that, I’ll give Rohan another shot but I suspect I’ll be dropping the game not long thereafter. (Which is why I’m milking the lower level content currently.)
It strikes me that the last two expansions have been focused more on gimmicks (mounted combat, massive battles) than on just expanding the formula that worked so well for 75 levels prior. Maybe some people would complain that it’s just more of the same but new stories, new regions to explore, new mobs – That all would have been enough for me.
Agree with this completely.
Someone wrote about freezing LOTRO at Mirkwood, but I’d like to see a classic server stood up that’s pre-Moria but with Evendim and the spring 2008 overhaul of Angmar.
I got one character to 95 and quit the game, doubt I play the game much more at this point. Even with new content it all feels so blandly uninspired and regurgitated.
dwolfe
2731
While I love the idea of an accelerated progression server (ala Everquest?) there were too many bugs at launch. Fate didn’t actually contribute to ICPR (making a minstrel’s life bad). Perhaps 12 months frozen between major releases, halfway point for a single major raid/content drop? Introduction of Warspeech and Evendim was the high point. Legendary weapons were ok, when they were promised to level FOR THE LIFE OF THE CHARACTER rather than being another disposable item.
I miss the old lotro, but there are major quality of life improvements I wouldn’t want to lose (bag space, guardians as tanks who couldn’t grind enough silver from mobs to afford repairs if their raid wiped a couple of times). I have no clue how to even play the high level game, after many many hours of raiding up through moria.
yea; Legendary Items were one of the great things from LOTRO (Along with the skirmish system, “Land” soldier/Companion) and a few other bits and pieces…
I just wish they’d be usable past level 10+, even if that was pretty good (compared to replacing it at level 2+ with everything else…)
Exact same thing happened to me, only I truly hate the Li system as well.
Running a second character through content that I didn´t really see on my Lvl76 hunter. My cappy has been questing in Angmar (love it) and Misty Mountains (meh with the exception of Goblin town). The way toons level tho, soon she´ll be 70ish, will hit the Rohan wall and will go to the vault of characters I remember fondly. After that, don´t think I´ll be playing anymore. Maybe the Startrek mmo…
'Big update last night. I can’t link to release notes from work but the main changes include:
– Changes to inventory bags. You can move storage slots from one bag to another, even cramming everything into a single searchable bag if you like. It’s also easier to lock contents.
– You can now attach up to ten items to a single mail message. VIPs can check mail remotely.
– New content featuring the fall of Isengard
– Revamps of the Trollshaws, Misty Mountains and North Downs.
It sounds like the new epic quest stuff has to be completed after book 13 so yes on that front but the revamps of the lower areas should be available to everyone who has those zones unlocked.
I also forgot to mention that you should get a shit-ton of skirmish marks and maybe some loot boxes and keys when you log in – They’ve added a bunch of meta quests for every zone and you get credit for what you’ve already completed. Specifically, there is a meta-quest for each zone for completing all of the slayer deeds, all of the exploration deeds and all of the quest completion deeds.
Patching now. Glad I moved this game to Ramdrive, would’ve taken ages otherwise. 1560/2837. Tick Tock Tick Tock.
Dont think my inventory has room for any updates. Hopefully I can get a bigger bag. Suppose my bag-addons will all break with this update though.
Haha, Been ingame 5 minutes and the updates are still ticking on the screen.
Shame the Deed Log doesn’t have a “summary page”.
Edit; Ah, I’ve missed the customization of character looks this game has when playing Brown Scrolls Online. Really are some nice cloaks in LOTRO.
Wait, so if I buy the inventory upgrade, it adds 5 slots to every bag? Or just 5 slots per character total?
Hmm, the only inventory update I saw, for 995 is 15 slots on the current character (unfortunately). Really sucks that it doesn’t unlock 15 slots for all characters.
Make sure you upgrade your inventories with GOLD first… until it is no longer possible.
Here are the patch notes. Nice to see that they’re doing the region revamps again.
Solo-able Goblin Town!
