Team Members Discuss Bringing High Elves to Life - Lord of the Rings Online - MMORPG.com

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Team Members Discuss Bringing High Elves to Life - Lord of the Rings Online - MMORPG.com

Lord of the Rings Online News - Two Lord of the Rings Online team members have participated in an in-house interview about how they worked to fit their inspiration for High Elves into the lore and to ensure that their animations suited them. Art Director Todd DeMell and Senior Animator Robert Tighe each spoke of their specific role in bringing High Elves to life.

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Wizardry

Game itself i felt was too dated,not enough good systems,world felt at times completely dead,imo the game itself if a complete package,maybe 40 bucks even still i felt the game was not good enough,i lasted only a week then had enough.

Sagethorn

yup, not putting the class and race in the regular version is a cash grab and they should be ashamed for charging those prices.

MrMelGibson

Sagethorn said:

yup, not putting the class and race in the regular version is a cash grab and they should be ashamed for charging those prices.

That seems foolish and will split their community. I can understand the race and class being behind an expansion paywall. But why would you put both behind a collector's edition or w/e? Not only is that a cash grab, but a desperate one at that.

Murmaider

The sad things is, it's only a race and not a class.
It just doesn't justify them asking for more money as it only provides a cosmetic, pretty much.

On top of that, they made it seem like the race would be part of the expansion, but then leave it out of the basic package.

There's not a lot of happy people with this decision.
I myself, will just wait to use my points to buy the expansion in the winter because of this decision.

Originally, I was more than willing to throw money at the expansion.
Now, I'll get it for free with my points accumulated from being a lifer.
I can wait.

meonthissite

I am amazed people still play this game seriously I am because of the pricing the lack of access to content without constantly having to pay money for everything, there's serious problems leveling to catch up with your friends and you basically spend all your time alone on the game. How can they still call their game an mmorpg when you spend all your time on maps leveling with 1 or 2 people and that's generous and few and far between. It's honestly sad.

Theocritus

Kinda wish they'd make a new game instead of breathing life into this one...many of us moved on from this years ago

JeroKane

At least they have now shown their true colors and I made the right decision to finally dump the game and move on! Let it die already! /shrug

Po_gg

Theocritus said:

Kinda wish they'd make a new game instead of breathing life into this one...many of us moved on from this years ago

And an another many of us still play... but nevertheless I agree with other, the pricing is stupid on this one. Usually I buy the largest packages, because I'm a collector and those are (used to be) fairly priced, well, not with Mordor.
A package worths maybe $70-$75, for $130, why the f.ck should I pay almost double the price? Oh, just because there's "ultimate fan" painted all over on it... guess what, maybe I'm not "ultimate" enough

Lithuanian

There is nothing wrong with pricing. The question should not be "why does private company charge so litte/much?". The question should be: why do I get so little/much for this price?
$130 package may be right if it means auto-granting all content given (if player does not have something), High Elf, some Lotro points, some mithril coins and yes, some free game time + account bound stuff + fluff...heck, even free Premium house. If I was SSG employee, I would calculate expansion price for cash in such way: if $130 means, say, 10,000 Lotro points - we should give stuff for same 10,000 Lotro points + fluff (which won't be in store). Or even give more, provided it's account bound (say, expansion value in LPs is some 15,000 LPs). And yes, I'd include High Elf to all Mordor purchased for cash.
Yes, High Elf should have been class, nto just race (i.e. skin) with its own starting area etc.
In short - SSG made almost all errors they could: divided community (purchase for LPs is at winter), overpriced content (user gets not so much for ultimate package) and made High Elf just a racial skin.

shetlandslarsen

Well though the pricing in lotro is a bit steep at the moment gaming in general is still a cheap as hell hobby to have. When i think about the ridiculous amount of hrs i have been gaming in my life

JeroKane

Sagethorn said:

yup, not putting the class and race in the regular version is a cash grab and they should be ashamed for charging those prices.

One just has to look at WoW or FFXIV and their expansions. Especially FFXIV is a great example.

35 bucks for a full expansion, that also includes the previous expansion!! You get a ton of new content and features added to the game, including two whole new classes (+ 2 new classes from previous expansion). All included in the basic package!

Then you have LOTRO and SSG dares to charge 40 bucks extra what is nothing more than a racial skin LOL! /facepalm

Well I guess that is why FFXIV has over a million subscribers and LOTRO is scraping desperately to get by.

daltanious

Started to play again after years of absence as heve currently nothing great to play. So far enjoying this week again, but game sorely needs upgrade, graphics were pretty bad at time of releaase, physics are horrible, ..... Wow have improved in all areas this years, upgraded models, animations, ... everything. Could be truly great game otherwise. I suspect after month or two will again have enough of game in current state. And I'm sorry for this, but Lotro as it is is not able to keep me interested for more.

Filbur

You really can't compare LOTRO to WOW or XIV. Standing Stone has neither the financial resources nor employees to overhaul the game completely like Blizzard did in the past. It's a miracle that there even is another expansion after all these years, let alone new assets, a avatar overhaul, a new race and five new areas with epic story. Standing Stone Games took a huge risk by leaving Warner Bros. and going independent, so LOTRO players should be thankful somehow. Yeah, the packs are overpriced and the high elves should have been a part of the base pack. But maybe this is what it costs to keep an indie studio up and running these days.

Sovrath

Lithuanian said:

There is nothing wrong with pricing. The question should not be "why does private company charge so litte/much?". The question should be: why do I get so little/much for this price?
$130 package may be right if it means auto-granting all content given (if player does not have something), High Elf, some Lotro points, some mithril coins and yes, some free game time + account bound stuff + fluff...heck, even free Premium house. If I was SSG employee, I would calculate expansion price for cash in such way: if $130 means, say, 10,000 Lotro points - we should give stuff for same 10,000 Lotro points + fluff (which won't be in store). Or even give more, provided it's account bound (say, expansion value in LPs is some 15,000 LPs). And yes, I'd include High Elf to all Mordor purchased for cash.
Yes, High Elf should have been class, nto just race (i.e. skin) with its own starting area etc.
In short - SSG made almost all errors they could: divided community (purchase for LPs is at winter), overpriced content (user gets not so much for ultimate package) and made High Elf just a racial skin.

Well, I think that's the crux of the issue and probably what people are really complaining about.

I have no problem with the prices. Heck, they could double the "price" of the highest tier and it would be fine, provided that there was enough there that I felt it justified the price.

My guess is that they just need money and this is how they are going to get it.

Also, we need to remember that Standing Stone Games is not the publisher, it's Daybreak, so I strongly suspect they have something to do with the pricing.

Murmaider

I do believe the price is Daybreaks doing.
I also believe they realize the name attached to this expansion (Mordor) is huge to fans of Middle-Earth and are trying to gouge every penny they can out of the name.

Maybe they understand that after this, another expansion will never be as huge of news to fans.
Thus, they are taking advantage of the players.

I have a feeling that any future content for LoTRO will be in quest pack updates only and thats something DBG will probably not profit from much.

Regardless, it's still a big middle-finger to the players as the bonuses in the expansion packs are not worth the price.

Murmaider

It's my understanding that Turbine never broke off from WB to form SSG.
Instead, WB cut ties as it was no longer a big money maker for them.
So, a group of devs that believed in the game formed SSG and bought the rights. Which is swell.

However, they needed a publisher (DBG) to help. Unfortunately, DBG doesn't have the greatest track record and the expansion pricing does nothing but add to their lacking accomplishments.

Ozmodan

I think a lot of people that still play could care less about the new race.  All the grousing about the pricing really matters not in the long run.  The basic package is what most will buy,  The few with money to burn will buy the more expensive ones.  You still get to play Mordor.  Who cares about anything else.