LOTRO - New race, updated character models and summer expansion Mordor

Filbur · January 2017

All three were confirmed during an interview with MassivelyOP:

http://massivelyop.com/2017/01/20/massively-op-interview-standing-stone-on-lotro-ddo-and-daybreak/

You mentioned possible character avatar upgrades for LOTRO. Could you elaborate on that project?

Ben Schneider: Avatar upgrades are looking great. New animations are being added, faces are being redone, hair is being looked at, and the whole is to us a vast improvement. Our current goal is that players who prefer our classic look will have a UI option to allow for that.

You've stated that you're working on expansions for both DDO and LOTRO. Are there any new features or classes planned for them on top of more quests and regions?

Rob Ciccolini: Yes. For [LOTRO's] Mordor expansion, we are looking at the High Elf as a new playable race, and we are adding a system that allows players to pledge their sword to Men, Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits in their battle against Mordor.

Po_gg · January 2017

Wow, that was out of the blue... high elves I mean. They did an interview a couple days ago on LotRO reporter where they've said mostly the same stuff, but in there they only said the Dragonborn for DDO as new race...
(shameless plug, my post about it

http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/comment/7107299/#Comment_7107299 )
So either they forgot to mention the high elves, or... nah, probably just forgot it.

Avatar changes, "...faces are being redone" thank Eru there will be a toggle for the classic look as well, when they changed the hobbit NPC faces, it was like walking into Pleasantville...

Personally my favourite part of this interview:

Are there any plans to change or revamp LOTRO's housing system? The eternal question.

Ben Schneider: We have some exciting things coming to Bullroarer tomorrow that will allow players to adjust the placement of their interior hookpoints

I knew it was a dumb move to delete my Bullroarer... now I have to reinstall it :waving:

edit: BR update notes 19.3
Adjustable interior housing hooks:
You can now adjust the precise location of interior housing decorations once they are placed in a hook. The decoration hook UI now includes 4 scroll bars that allow decorations to be rotated as before, but also to be moved east/west, north/south, and up/down. Exterior housing decorations continue to only allow rotation.

Interior housing decorations be moved +/- 10 meters along the x, y, or z axis once they are placed.
Clicking the decoration icon to the left of each rotation and translation scrollbar will rotate or move the decoration back to the default position in that axis.
Large Wall housing decorations can now be rotated around their vertical axis.
In decoration mode, hook outlines are now color coded by type.

ste2000 · January 2017

Yes that's great news indeed, I kinda liked LOTRO but for some reasons I never really played it for too long.
In retrospective I knew I didn't like my characters too much, if I don't care for my characters generally I don't care for the game either.
I know it sounds a bit shallow, but immersion is a big part of the reason I play Fantasy MMORPGs, and in LOTRO sometimes characters seemed out of place compared with the beautiful scenarios.
So I am glad they are updating characters and animations, that gives me the chance to give LOTRO a second chance.

Azaron_Nightblade · January 2017

ste2000 said:

Yes that's great news indeed, I kinda liked LOTRO but for some reasons I never really played it for too long.
In retrospective I knew I didn't like my characters too much, if I don't care for my characters generally I don't care for the game either.
I know it sounds a bit shallow, but immersion is a big part of the reason I play Fantasy MMORPGs, and in LOTRO sometimes characters seemed out of place compared with the beautiful scenarios.
So I am glad they are updating characters and animations, that gives me the chance to give LOTRO a second chance.

I'm with you there. I've had the same thing with ESO. Hell, I generally loathe the Elder Scrolls art style as a whole, but at least the single player games you can mod up the wazoo. xD

lahnmir · January 2017

Wtf? Of all things I NEVER expected this. LOTRO is one of my favourite mmorpgs and it seems that exactly the things that bothered me are being looked at. If this is true and properly being inested in I will reinstall in a heartbeat. Only game I regretted not getting a lifetime sub for. I am excited!

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Warlyx · January 2017

what about animations , skills and spells?

delete5230 · January 2017

ste2000 said:

Yes that's great news indeed, I kinda liked LOTRO but for some reasons I never really played it for too long.
In retrospective I knew I didn't like my characters too much, if I don't care for my characters generally I don't care for the game either.
I know it sounds a bit shallow, but immersion is a big part of the reason I play Fantasy MMORPGs, and in LOTRO sometimes characters seemed out of place compared with the beautiful scenarios.
So I am glad they are updating characters and animations, that gives me the chance to give LOTRO a second chance.

I agree with a lot of this, yes it's great news,

And for some reason I can't play it for too long also....BUT I will be back from time to time.

Classes all seem boring until I played the Ruin-Keeper, I think it would be good public relations to give this class ( and maybe others ) for free.

The game would be much better if the population was larger, maybe combine servers again.

delete5230 · January 2017

LOTRO in the past suffers from updates and expansion's are wired for back end content.

In other words, you have to play the game all the way in, or at least deeply before the players notices differences.

Crusadecrusher · January 2017

Bring Lotro to the consoles!!! I know with the amount of abilities this wouldn't work...but still would be awesome if they did

Po_gg · January 2017

Gorwe said:

GREAT news. I'm a bit worried about the High Elves part. What do they mean when they say "High Elves"? If they're refering to Calaquendi, it makes next to no sense. Why would they just casually hop over to ME from Valinor?

Yep, this is (partly) why I said it's out of the blue (other part was the absence of it in the previous interview).
There are high elves in Middle-earth, but only a few - not that it was a problem for Turbine with the beornings

Timing is also odd, we're at Mordor and the remained high elves will sail to west after the War of the Ring. (not to mention how OP they are compared to the other races)
I think it is mainly a marketing / sale move, riding the flow without any consideration of the lore and even the game.
High elf gameplay, when correctly done, should be like: starting at the cap, walking around sadly in the woods, singing songs, waving goodbye to the world and friends who stay, then hop on a ship and set sail to Valinor. Fade-out cutscene, and the character is removed from the character list.

But as we saw with the beornings, everyone will jump on it since it's the new shiny, the world will be filled with high elves, even moreso if they will be more powerful as well than regular races.
It was stretching the lore limits with beornings too (sure, maybe something got into the honey and there was a baby-boom in the Vale

), but for high elves it will be straight-out stupid.

If they really want to add a new race for sale reasons, they can come up with a few. If they want a new class, that even more easier (true, not needed, we have every role and task covered in a group). Dropping in high elves... very odd pick. What's next, istari?

edit: unless it will be literally high elves :awesome: as in regular elves with the same racial traits, just a feet taller. So basically tall elves, but since that sounds lame, high elves instead

Athisar · January 2017

I'm excited by it. LOTRO is back to my main game at the moment.

A lot of people seem to be returning to it and people asking about it. I think the SSG change and the Mordor expansion (and related news) has given it a big boost.

ste2000 · January 2017

MisterZebub said:

Man I'm kicking myself for uninstalling LOTRO off my machine last month.

I think it is going to take more than a couple of months to see any update, so you have plenty of time to download it again.

My problem is that I have so much shit on my HDs that will be difficult to find room for it.
It doesn't help that 2 regular MMO I am playing (ESO + BDO) have the biggest data size of any MMO out there, but I also have Skyrim, Fallout, Darkfall and a shit ton of other single player games.

winghaven1 · January 2017

I will make a new character when this launches and begin again

Reizla · January 2017

All the changes that are coming can't bring me back to the game anymore at all. After Mines of Moria and Free2Play, the game went downhill fast for me. That even while having HAD a lifetime account (yeah sold it off after not having played for at least 2 years). Good thing though that FINALLY Mordor is reached, though it also might mean the end of the game as well (anyone still remembers Tabula Rasa and returning to Earth..?)

Theocritus · January 2017

Im not a big enough Lord of the Rings nerd to know the difference between an Elf and a High Elf, unless a High Elf is just an Elf that is high.....

Sovrath · January 2017

Since I always considered my character to be a high Elf (in my own private play) it's fun to know that they are actually going to add these (if plans stay the same).

Glad to see they are actually going to upgrade the avatars and and animations (which I believe someone on this site said they wouldn't do ...

April-Rain · January 2017

I'm going back, I am liking the news coming out of standing stone games right now, after the last year of the game feeling like it was neglected by the developers I am pretty excited.

Volgore · January 2017

I guess you can never say "too little, too late.." when it comes to character and animation upgrades -but isn't this really a bit late?

But even though i quit the game ages ago, in an era of fastfood, throwaway mmos and "expansions" full of rehashed assets this is awesome news to me.

winghaven1 · January 2017

Reizla said:

All the changes that are coming can't bring me back to the game anymore at all. After Mines of Moria and Free2Play, the game went downhill fast for me. That even while having HAD a lifetime account (yeah sold it off after not having played for at least 2 years). Good thing though that FINALLY Mordor is reached, though it also might mean the end of the game as well (anyone still remembers Tabula Rasa and returning to Earth..?)

When you sell off a lifetime account there isn't really much that can ever draw you back. That's too much you have 'let go' from the game and the idea of you going back and paying a sub when alternatively you wouldn't have to pay a dime.

Damn. Yeah you're a goner imo from lotro lol.

Loke666 · January 2017

Great news. I kinda feel that the avatar upgrades is a long time due. Still, it is great that changing owners seems to put new focus on the game.

Crusadecrusher · January 2017

Gorwe said:

Po_gg said:

Gorwe said:

GREAT news. I'm a bit worried about the High Elves part. What do they mean when they say "High Elves"? If they're refering to Calaquendi, it makes next to no sense. Why would they just casually hop over to ME from Valinor?

Yep, this is (partly) why I said it's out of the blue (other part was the absence of it in the previous interview).
There are high elves in Middle-earth, but only a few - not that it was a problem for Turbine with the beornings Timing is also odd, we're at Mordor and the remained high elves will sail to west after the War of the Ring. (not to mention how OP they are compared to the other races)
I think it is mainly a marketing / sale move, riding the flow without any consideration of the lore and even the game.
High elf gameplay, when correctly done, should be like: starting at the cap, walking around sadly in the woods, singing songs, waving goodbye to the world and friends who stay, then hop on a ship and set sail to Valinor. Fade-out cutscene, and the character is removed from the character list.
But as we saw with the beornings, everyone will jump on it since it's the new shiny, the world will be filled with high elves, even moreso if they will be more powerful as well than regular races.
It was stretching the lore limits with beornings too (sure, maybe something got into the honey and there was a baby-boom in the Vale ), but for high elves it will be straight-out stupid.

If they really want to add a new race for sale reasons, they can come up with a few. If they want a new class, that even more easier (true, not needed, we have every role and task covered in a group). Dropping in high elves... very odd pick. What's next, istari?

edit: unless it will be literally high elves :awesome: as in regular elves with the same racial traits, just a feet taller. So basically tall elves, but since that sounds lame, high elves instead

I am not even certain who the High ElveS who reside in Middle Earth are. I know of one and it is Galadriel. Everyone else is either of Sindar origin, of Nandor or some such origin or a refugee from Gondolin or some such. I really don't like them making HEs a playable race. Beornings...are a stretch. It works as a class(Beorn taught his lore...surely he did-think of them as Amber Wizards in Warhammer), but not as a race(what...did Beorn concoct a new race?). HEs...lol no. Istari? Actually, this has potential, but not in LoTR. If we were talking about Winds of Magic, yeah, but not Istari in LoTR!

And yes, what an odd move to include HEs now when it's five to twelve(time almost run out). eh...right. Lore massacre, let the festivities commence!

edit: Be as it may, I hope that this goes smoothly(quite unlike some server move I remember) and that LoTR:O(and DD:O, ofc) become a part of DBG All-Access. Now, that'd be beyond awesome!

Maybe you should learn about the lore before you complain about it.

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Category:High_Elves

Po_gg · January 2017

Stepping over the tall / high elves onto the more important change (at least for me

), the housing:
Andang posted a quick review, and it looks awesome. Sure, still the hook system, but you can move the items so far away from the original place that it makes the system quasi-hookless (if that's a valid phrase

). In a smaller house - Andang tried it in a premium house - you can move the items around every room. It is really great, not as flexible as Rift for example, but still great. Can't wait to rearrange my houses on live

Almost forgot the video https://youtu.be/98US8yYzUJs

malikhigh78 · January 2017

Honestly, what needs to happen is they just need to keep it open long enough for a newer revised version, one with perhaps the UR4 engine, and make it more PvP based.

delete5230 · January 2017

malikhigh78 said:

Honestly, what needs to happen is they just need to keep it open long enough for a newer revised version, one with perhaps the UR4 engine, and make it more PvP based.

I hate cash shops and I'll admit as long as you VIP or buy the necessities it's not too bad as long as you study before purchase.

BUT......As long as LOTRO has a cash shop it has no chance of being popular again, it's just the nature of the beast.

cheyane · January 2017

Nice work Daybreak . Well that puts to rest rumours of LotŔO's demise. Yes am happy they're revamping the hook placement one of the most regrettable housing ideas I've come across.

Crusadecrusher · January 2017

delete5230 said:

malikhigh78 said:

Honestly, what needs to happen is they just need to keep it open long enough for a newer revised version, one with perhaps the UR4 engine, and make it more PvP based.

I hate cash shops and I'll admit as long as you VIP or buy the necessities it's not too bad as long as you study before purchase.

BUT......As long as LOTRO has a cash shop it has no chance of being popular again, it's just the nature of the beast.

Umm almost every single mmo has a cash shop these days including the most popular mmos what are you babbling about?

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LOTRO - New race, updated character models and summer expansion Mordor

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