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Lord of the Rings Online: Volume III, Book I Tour
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy writes this recounting of his preview tour of the upcoming Volume III, Book I update to Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online.
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I recently had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Aaron Campbell the other night and being walked through some of the key features of Turbine's latest additions to Lord of the Rings Online. With the Spring Festival just around the corner (the end of March to be exact) and the release of Volume III - Book I of the epic quest coming down the pipe in just a couple of weeks, there was a lot to cover. Never light on the amount of content they pump into Tolkien's world, Turbine's definitely throwing a good slew of bright and shiny things at players with their most recent free update. I logged into the game as a developer-juiced Champion named Clara, met up with Aaron's stout dwarven Guardian and we were off.
Read the Volume III, Book I Tour.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Thanks for the nice update.
Any news on the dx11 update that was announced for Q1 2010?
Suh-weet!
It should be ready just about the time I've finished STO.
I am enjoying lotro atm however, I do worry how much the dev's are focusing on skirmishes as that is my least favourite part of the game. I wish they would focus more on the crafting and housing.
I do wish housing had a litle bit more love. I would like to be able to craft in my home.
But that would ruin the cities. (social areas actually as there are no actual cities in lotro except for Bree as a town.)
I think that's the worse thing that any game developer can do. Whenever they move functions from the cities into guild halls and homes the cities empty out and then the game seems devoid of life.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Nooo that's a recipe for disaster in terms of community, it's happened in countless other games. The housing does need a lot of work, free placement of items is really the only solution though. As it is at the moment it feels very tacked on, which is exactly what it is.
Problem is that the engine they've built the game on is ridiculously limiting of what they can do... the legendary weapons system is testament to that as well.
I may come back to check the game out again soon though, my lifetime sub is still ticking away.
Looking forward to this, skirmish instances are starting to appeal more to me.
Skirmishes are fun and a good thing to do if ya only have an hour or two at hand,
so the duoing option is a realy good thing.
But when they turn out like daily quests for the bonus tokens to improve your LI they are a grind.
Housing is just ..well .. dead, realy got no use but extra storrage room.An upgrade here with an social aspect would be
appreciated by many.
Killing boars spiders crows and wargs(the overuse of the same mob modells) at max lvl exactly
as at lvl 1, i know they cant do much about it cause of the lore but still it becomes a bore.
The new ice dungeons sound interesting hope they think about givin us some new mobs to look at too.
Li system aint what we have been promised, these items don´t realy grow alongside with us,
they can be improved yes, but we need to discard for the next better lucky roll, and then maybe again for the next max lvl raise.
Thats what you got to do if you want to group and not be laughed at. Lets pray they make a healthy change to that too.
Stop the Lottery and let there be a way, once you have found a likable weapon to keep it and fight with it for ever and ever ^^
Lot of grinding nowadays in Lotro and im so sorry for that 8(
Still we should be greatfull for every free update and the case that for now there are no micro transactions on the horizon.
Lets hope the epic quests turn out to be well entertaining
____________________
It`s alright
AC2,AO,D&L,Lotro,VsoH,SWG,Uo,HGL,Drunners,CoH,GW,Potbs,PWI
Eq2,Dofus,WoW,WWIIO,Ryzom,Planetside,EvE,TR,DDO,RFonline,FOM,VC,..etc blabla
also hobbies....staring at loadingbars
WOO shrew stomping contest cant wait.
lol , i agree with the idea that housing needs a little more love also pvp in my opiion as there should be at least a new area for pvmp or a battleground sort of thing because ettens is getting a bit boring.
just what we need... for lotro to try to become WOW
coke tried to become like pepsi and look how that turned out.
quit focusing on the hack and slash it gets boring very quick especially when its so dumbed down.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
I hope they'll never do that, as pointed by others it would simply kill socialization.
Yet setting houses in instanced neighborhood made them look like ghost cities also removing players from the social hubs while they are there.
There are mostly two things that would greatly improve them. The first one being implementing free item placement as in EQ2 and SWG. The second one being adding instanced player houses and apartments in NPC cities.
With free item placement it would be interesting to be able to rate others houses, meaning you would be able to see the scores and easily select the best ones to give them a visit.
However this isn't a mundane task and even if the devs are considering adding free item placement m y guess is they don't see housing that much used by players in LotRo. Thing is with the instanced neighborhoods even SWG houses decorators like myself left their house decay.
Another needed part is to delete and redo most of the house floor plans, that not only does not fit the exterior, but also don't look realistic nor convenient. For that they should hire some architect and a medieval historian. No need to be utterly realistic in an MMO, however it's good to base design on commonly known references.
However all in all a nice update for LotRo, once again a well thought quality product. congratz Turbine!
But that would ruin the cities. (social areas actually as there are no actual cities in lotro except for Bree as a town.)
I think that's the worse thing that any game developer can do. Whenever they move functions from the cities into guild halls and homes the cities empty out and then the game seems devoid of life.
I didnt see that side of it. When playing UO and Dark Age Of Camelot it was just convenient.
But that would ruin the cities. (social areas actually as there are no actual cities in lotro except for Bree as a town.)
I think that's the worse thing that any game developer can do. Whenever they move functions from the cities into guild halls and homes the cities empty out and then the game seems devoid of life.
So true. I remember when they did that in Dark age of camelot. You could craft and have vendor directly in your house and the big city, like Tir na Nog were all empty after that. I love to see people around me when I craft in Bree or the Moria
About the article, I really like the path lotro is taking and I can only imagine how epic Rohan will be.
I love that they are making Volume one all soloable now. The stories and questing lore is some of the best in any game. With my hectic playing hours and very slow server, I had nearly given up on ever completing them.
Housing is also one of my favorite parts of Lotro. The idea of having crafting in your house is initially a good idea in that it makes sense that maybe a kin house could afford to do it. But I agree that it would destroy social hubs. I'd like for them to make it where you can own multiple homes or 1 home for every character. It's just silly that it's one per account when nearly every house in each district is rotting. I could finally get to use my decorations instead of rotating 1/20th of them.
From an IT point of view a house and even more all items into it takes space into a database impacting performances, maintenance and increasing backup size so cost. Guess now you understand why you only have 1 house per account.
I expect to see free item placement implemented in Turbine next MMO, along instanced players houses/apartments in NPC cities.
I get that but every neighborhood is instanced for the reason of reducing lag. And if each neighborhood was a bustling suburbia I would've had doubts about saying that. But at least on my server, I spent some time just running around some random ones and in every one, only 2 or 3 houses out of hte entire neighborhood weren't in decay.
Now that means that they already have the houses in place for the reamining players to own a few more houses. Instead of 1 per character, maybe 1 per homestead. I just really want to find some kind of common ground that would allow me to use more of my decorations.
"It's nice that Turbine acknowledges the different preferences of its players and has the foresight to design around them."
Sorry not so fast.
There is a pretty decent segment of Turbine's Lotro pvmp community having an opinion and a paid up account that counters that claim. Mature civil discussion near 700 posts and growing, 26,000 views and growing, developer comments 0 -
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=250042
In a nut shell there is a loyal pvmp community in Lotro. But it really does look like Turbine would rather have that player preference wither and die on the vine. Pvmp as a play preference was good enough to feature on box sales and that was good enough for Turbine.
Sure Lotro is a pve centric game. But there is no denying that there is pvmp in game. As a matter of fact about the only time Turbine acknowledged their pvmp community was back in beta when they were tickled pvmp was a sleeper hit. Sleeper hit, tons of potential, plenty of big things in store for the years ahead, they said. Turbine's pvmp 'Unique Snowflake' is the stalest fart in the room. 700 posts/26,000 views developer response 0.
Still one of the best MMO's out there but they certainly could expand PvM.
1. they still dont have slippery ice that was requested babk when forochel was released
2. they still dont have boats back when evendim was released (teleporter)
3. skirmishes are boring hack and slash leave that in WOW where it belongs get some lore and content! depth and emotion and drama! smarter AIs
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
But that would ruin the cities. (social areas actually as there are no actual cities in lotro except for Bree as a town.)
That was ruined already with skirmishes and over-use of instances. The cities are dead on one of the most populated EU server - Snowbourn.
They don't want to lure players away from the persistent world and social hubs with better housing system, so they keep on adding more and more instanced skirmishes? That doesn't make any sense.
REALITY CHECK
But that would ruin the cities. (social areas actually as there are no actual cities in lotro except for Bree as a town.)
I think that's the worse thing that any game developer can do. Whenever they move functions from the cities into guild halls and homes the cities empty out and then the game seems devoid of life.
That’s because DEVs refuse to let people live in the city, when we should be able to hire rooms in the inns or have apartments like in eq2 ..... why on earth did they move leaving area away from city, when it should have been part of it ...
Also that bizarre Turbine's obsession with mini games in lotro is rather concerning ... such as chicken run , ale thing etc ... they should be focusing on whole world and make it more believable and compact as someone said housing , yes its near to useless.
House could be so much more also fishing is a joke more like a mini game , instead of being a major part of food supply , its a bloody hobby in other words a joke, no good fish recipes , no reason even to use it except for one quest in Forochel....you cant even roast your catch over camp fire with your hunter ....
Turbine is losing a grip
I hope they'll never do that, as pointed by others it would simply kill socialization.
And I hope you are wrong, and I hope they do all the things you state underneath
Yet setting houses in instanced neighborhood made them look like ghost cities also removing players from the social hubs while they are there.
and whos fault is that ? for I am sure not players ,,,, Its because Turbine Devs made a stupid dessision and moved living area away from city , instead making neighborhoods as a part of the city / s or give us instanced appartments (EQ2 ) like or let us hire rooms in inns ....
so you are now saying because they messed it up first time they should not be even doing it at all ?
I say wrong
There are mostly two things that would greatly improve them. The first one being implementing free item placement as in EQ2 and SWG. The second one being adding instanced player houses and apartments in NPC cities.
So why dont you just suggest they do that instead of saying , housing should not be improved
With free item placement it would be interesting to be able to rate others houses, meaning you would be able to see the scores and easily select the best ones to give them a visit.
However this isn't a mundane task and even if the devs are considering adding free item placement m y guess is they don't see housing that much used by players in LotRo. Thing is with the instanced neighborhoods even SWG houses decorators like myself left their house decay.
More mundane then Skirmish and all other silly mini games such as a chicken run ?
Skirmishes as fun as they might be till you get bored of its repetitive content , dont make a comact world with lotro as one , it all feels like a separate mini games , in fact in regards to the game as whole you have no reason to do it ....
If the solders you train you could summon outside skirmish and use them as a replacment for a missing fellow member when you cant find enough people ...whell that would then kind of justify it ... and give a reason to
Another needed part is to delete and redo most of the house floor plans, that not only does not fit the exterior, but also don't look realistic nor convenient.
Thats subjective , and no need to do any of that , just make furniture free to place anywhere and give us reason to visit the house ;
-Wardrobes for clothes-Racks for weapons we liked so we can display it
-slot -table tables for food , bookshelf’s and other furniture that can slot items we would like to keep
Oh well more and more instances and not a whole lot more of anything else. New crafting icons an some crafting recipies to spend cash on as if we already did not have enough cash gras in the system.
All I can say is each update LOTRO looks more and more like the old DDO each update. Just keep adding more and more istances and it might look like STO before its over.
I washed my hands of lotro. They got my 199, never ever again will I buy a lifetime sub ever. Never ever again will I do business with Turbine, as I have leanred to distrust everything they do.
Ok I didn't mean I wish they would focus on crafting in housing lol, I mean I wish they would put more thought into the crafting content and allow me to actually place my house items in my house that are in my bank instead of restricting me to placing a few items down in restricted areas. Instead of focusing on skirmishes
agree 100 % even focusing more on crafting and housing would not be that bad idea ...
in order to take in world as it is , as whole .... crafting and housing are quite important for immersion