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[Preview] Lord of the Rings Online: The Beornings and Central Gondor Are Coming
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Recently, we were invited by Turbine to check out Lord of the Rings Online's Update 15. In it, we were presented with a first look at the Beorning class and also the new big battle that centered around the off-camera lore story of the retaking of Pelargir, an important Gondorian port that Aragorn and the Grey Company needed to liberate in order to prevent a devastating attack upon Minas Tirith. Backed by the summoned army of the dead, the former Oathbreakers from the Stone of Erech, the would-be king of Gondor and Arnor needs the players' help in achieving his goals, else darkness will consume Middle-Earth.
Read more of Jean Prior's Lord of the Rings Online: The Beornings and Central Gondor Are Coming.
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Comments
Just to correct this article.
You are right that Turbine does only have the Lord of the Rings license.
What you forget is that Turbine has been bought by Warner Bros quite some time ago.
Warner Bros owns the LOTR and Hobbit licenses and as such, Turbine has now access to both.
If they allow me to transfer for free my chars I'll come back to the game.
That's somewhat odd logic.
It assumes that the only reason a person would leave is because of dungeons.
I recall the guild I was in "leaving" for SWToR. As a matter of fact, we got tired of dungeons rather quickly because there's only so much you can run them until they get stale. for me that was 4 times. I think people left because the game wasn't much fun at a certain point. Possibly because it's a theme park and they just aren't fast with their content.
I don't play much anymore because it's just them adding on stuff and more stuff that really doesn't feel much like lord of the rings.
The legendary item system was always crap to me. The new armor system seems just another way to keep players busy. What was that PvE gear grind? Helegrod or some such thing where you had to earn faction and then the city would be rebuilt? Gah! How boring.
And yet I think I've over 1100 hours in Skyrim and still climbing. And I'm still playing morrowind.
I can't enter many places in LOTRO without being on some quest. I still go into Goblin Town with my level 93 or so guardian just because it's at least interesting.
Their warhorses jump all over the map making them practically unwieldy to use. I purchased helm's deep but can't get the interest to really play it as it seems ridiculous.
Why couldn't they just had made two versions, pve that was just a battle (without all that "big battle" nonsense) and pvp where you cold fight other players?
It's just too dull for me at this point.
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
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
It was the community that didn't want more dungeons.They wanted all the problems sorted,the community also didn't want another xpack releasd to quickly because they were just giving us fetch quests.me,i would rather they sort the game out and get it right before they add more stuff.no point adding stuff without fixing whats wrong with the game in the first place.
Thank you for sharing this information. Much appreciated Jean Prior.
As for your questions..."Isn't the whole point of having a test server and releasing content there and asking players to test it before it goes live to ensure you don't have to do major updates after it launches? Was Turbine not getting enough decent feedback from the players who participated or weren't there enough players to provide suitable bug reports?"
If you know the full history of this MMORPG, both the Player's side of it and the Dev's side of it, and how they related to each other over years through all the changes since Launch, then you can figure out the answers you seek.
Check out today's stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/b/583478518
It shows stuff from U15's new epic battle from 20 mins in.
edit: the footage from the battle starts around 30 mins.
Oh give me a break. You obviously have not played in ages to be spouting such nonsense. Current players are into the story not raids.
Hytbold! That's it, thanks!
did that once and that was it.
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
Watched the live stream, looks good.
Played around 2K hours of LotRO via Steam and stand alone client in 4 years of play and I'm not sure what server(s) poster(s) in this thread are on to see chat filled with players requesting more dungeons and raids. What I do see on the four servers I have toons on Arkenstone, Brandywine, Gladden and Landroval is tons of new players asking alot of question including VIP subscriptions, build advice, tons of chatter about the new race/class and tons of the ZAM starter pack links being posted by veteran members for the new players who didn't know about the Starter Pack, thus saving them some TP's along with some simple bonuses.
Almost forgot I also see a fun game with a fun community that's fun to be part of !!
I recently went back to the game and do not see anyone screaming for new dungeons, and certainly not raids. I'll trust Sapience that only 10% wanted raids who likely has quantifiable data, unlike biased player observation. Raid content eats up a lot of dev resources for only a small percentage of the population. I'd much rather the devs focus on content that a large majority enjoys.
Totally feel the same way, this game is just sad now. It was my first MMO, and my favorite that I've played so far. No other game had the kind of class dynamics, skill system, customization with traits and LIs that this game had. Not every character was the same, many ppl had different builds and different skill rotations. This is how all MMOs should have been. Nowdays it's all simplified, games like FFXIV have simplified skill systems with long GCDs, and just force you into one spec without much room for customizing. Tanking and healing didn't consist of just pressing one button every few seconds or so. You had to work hard to hold aggro. You had keep up your buffs and your anthems. Captains had to buff. Loremasters had to CC/Debuff/support, etc. Games don't have these concepts anymore. I loved the story too, I'm a LOTR fan, but I can't play a game just for a story with no content. Here's to hoping that someday there will be a game that takes the idea of how LOTRO used to be and turns it into an A+ MMO. Turbine has ignored the pleas of the so-called hardcore players. I don't believe wanting endgame content makes a player hardcore, I think it's a basic requirement of all MMORPGs, and Turbine refuses to comply because of some nonsense stats that say their playerbase doesn't care about raids. It's just pathetic.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
Actually the stream was pretty hectic (or even twitchy
).
If you want a BB explanation, there was the dev video a year ago on an another site I dunno I can mention here because of the competition
It was before Helm's Deep launch, and in it the Turbine folks summarised quite well both the design aspects of HD, and the mechanics too. http://youtu.be/9JjENxMYkLg
(and for the ending questions, BBs are instanced, and there's a daily cooldown on the rewards)
No. Gladden is busy because it's been the default/recommended server for new players all year.
+1. Turbine keep switching recommended servers, and since it was Gladden's turn, it seem to become a very vivid one. I don't play there, but it is the main home of a kinnie on Laurelin, according to him it has sometimes more folks than the Rp servers during festival times
which is a lot, I guess.
During last year, and especially before HD launch (with the many returning players) Brandy was the most populated, that was even stated on the forums. But it was a year ago... and it's not "how the mighty have fallen." simply there are new players testing the waters all the time (hey, it's f2p
), and they usually pick the recommended server, which was Gladden lately.
Yup, Gladden has lots of new players understandably. Lots of questions like 'how can I get a mount?' in world chat. There's regularly 50+ people in Bree. Existing players are still there too - there's usually someone in Bree crafting hall playing something, and the annoying new player who sits in there with his loremaster bear roaring at everyone.
There are a few very quiet servers for sure, but Gladden, Brandywine and Landroval seem the busiest. Lots of others - Snowbourn, Laurelin, Withywindle, Crickhollow, have decent populations as well.
As for new content, a new race, a new starting area, a new epic battle, music system updates - this isn't bad considering the last update was in the summer. It's not a new expansion and doesn't claim to be.
I'm glad they decided to leave Beornings at lvl 1. It's been forever since I did the low level content, since before they went and revamped a bunch of it. I'll get to revisit it with an all new class.
I do hope the epic battle is better than the other ones. I felt like I had pretty much 0 effect on the outcome for those, and they ran about 10 minutes too long. At least we'll finally be able to choose our rewards. Random BoA jewelry? Seriously? I hope whoever thought of that was one of the layoffs...
I have similar experience on the servers I play regarding /world, and especially the ZAM part. For those who missed it, there was a giveaway 2 months ago (http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/420570/Riding-skill.html) and it seems ZAM got an another batch of keys, a fellow player of mine just grabbed one yesterday.
Maybe it worths a bump, now that the new class and U15 is almost here. Account-wide riding skill for free
(and also a nice breastplate, looks cool on heavies).
Nice, Po_gg! Thanks for posting that! I just got a key and entered it. Looks like it's still good!