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LOTRO Producer's Letter Looks at 2020
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Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
LOTRO Producer's Letter Looks at 2020
A Lord of the Rings Online Producer's Letter looks forward to the rest of 2020.
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Selling packs is the best way to ensure the packs that players like are the kinds of packs they keep making.
I am all for defending them selling quest packs, but your post is sheer lunacy. Of course it's better for the player to NOT have quest packs being sold. They also don't use that data, "to determine what players want". You literally have to buy quest packs to hit the cap, and it's not like you get to choose A, B, or C in many scenarios, you have one choice for a level set. Again, I usually defend them being able to sell these quest packs, but this post is just foolish. Let's not forget you get all the quest packs for $15.00 a month, and the game is definitely still worth a subscription fee.
Actually, it's one massive pile of trash. Even as it's completely F2P right now, it's simply not worth it.
I tried to really get into LOTRO being free and all. I even watched the first movie just to get super hyped to play the next morning. Played for like 4-5 days, racked up about 60 hours in, only reached level 30, because I was trying to take in everything the world of Middle Earth has to offer – explore every area, look under every nook and cranny, that type of thing…
And holy cow, this game is one huge pile of garbage:
1. all servers are in NA, even the ones that say are for EU players, so lag is unbearable – I had encounters with mobs where we stand at each other in battle poses looking at each other for like 10 seconds before either of us takes a swing… and I have a pretty neat internet connection so this was never a problem for me before – it’s only the games with bad netcode that I have problem with
2. the game engine is so outdated and buggy – even on an SSD, when it loads new areas, the game hiccups for a second and FPS drops to 0, inspecting a player causes the FPS to drop to 0 for a moment until the inspect window loads all the information… the x64 bit client barely improves this situation, Alt-Tab back into the game causes the whole area to re-render on the spot, forcing me to play in Borderless Window
3. quests feel like the same mundane crap I do in WoW – go there, kill 10 spiders, collect 8 spider poison sacks, escort this idiot who got captured in that orc camp, collect 5 swamp fly wings… yeah, real adventure in Middle Earth… if only they had boosted the XP rate so one can do only the main quest and not bother with the stupid side-quest crap, it would’ve sucked less as a game
4. every step of the way… EVERY.. STEP .. OF … THE … WAY … the game treats you like a fucking hobo – buy this, purchase that, expand your inventory, expand your gold cap, you’re a freeloader, you’re a loser, you should be worshiping the ground we walk on, because we designed this piss poor WoW clone and decied to make it free, because everyone keeps calling us (SSG) greedy and predatory
5. combat feels like WoW, but worse – there is this delay/queueing thing where you can queue up to 2 or 3 abilities, but instead of making things faster, or easier on you, it just ends up being confusing and annoying, to make matters worse, there is a huge delay between when an ability is being execute and when you get visual and auditory feedback for that, making the game feel even laggier even though it runs at 200 FPS maxed out and about 400 FPS when all settings are on lowest… even when the servers restart for maintenance and you log in right after, before the majority of people do, it’s still laggy as hell
I’ve even had NPCs disappear and pop out of thin air making me look through Wikia articles where exactly they are and making me think I’m at the wrong place, despite the quest markers clearly pointing the place where I’m at.
I sincerely hope Amazon’s upcoming Middle Earth MMORPG to completely steal the playerbase from LOTRO and cause it to shut down, because this pathetic WoW clone isn’t even worth it when it’s free.
The game has never had a pvp focus so them being more interested in pvp (I'll have to go back and find that as I missed it) is more of a breath of fresh air for players who do want pvp and who haven't had much in years.
Essentially, It's about time.
I hope, and know I'll be disappointed, that their Legendary item rework focuses less on collecting thousands of bits, and is more lore friendly like their first incarnation. But it won't be.
I think them adding a Legendary server with more dynamic content is a step in the right direction but I just don't want to go over some of the old content any more. Been there and done that for years.
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
The game is an old game in the style of "world of warcraft clones" so of course that's what it is.
You could make the same complaint about most mmorpg's as far as the quests go.
I think the people who get most out of this game are the people who treat it as a playground and less like "I have to get to top level."
I think the frame rate drops are more you. I've never had severe drops like that. That sounds unusual.
Or, as usual, there is something different about your setup. So many people have so many different ways of setting up their computer that it's bound to happen.
This isn't a defense of their game technology. The only way I can make it work is by playing it through steam because I get errors with their launcher.
Your freeloader combat seems more about you. Just ignore 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
So it's a player market to buy what they like. I mean, sure some people buy everything just to have everything, but, like for example, I was not a fan of the Madness chain in DDO, so I never bothered to buy the packs.
At the same time, I loved the hell out of Dreaming Dark, and bought everything they had on that, and anything related to it.
So in DDO, the Quest Packs were their best idea ever, that keeps the game growing and expanding and provides a near endless supply of content that the players can buy at their leisure, or pay the sub for full access.
Kinda sad how the same company could take the same idea for two games, shoot one out of the park and grounder fudge the other.
In a DDO pack you have a very narrow level range; like Tangleroot Gouge. The quest range is from lvl 3 to lvl 7. Now you're not going to go UP that many levels when you play, you just have to BE that level to play those quests.
LotRO on the other hand gives you alot more content in the pack, so when they say a region pack covers from level 20 to 30, it means you'll end up going up that many levels minimum and generally more since almost all out level a region before they're done.
You also have to accept they're two totally different games; DDO is all about dungeon crawls so have numerous dungeons makes total sense. LotRO is all about crossing a Map so of course you'll have less choices.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Dude, I would never waste this amount of time and energy writing a novel on a "massive pile of trash"....not reading this garbage (irony). You have to know I really don't give a shit why you are calling a game I love trash. If you want people to give your opinion the time of day maybe not start out calling something they enjoy a pile of trash. You wasted your time, I am not reading your stupid post. Good on you, now go and enjoy a game I probably think is garbage.
But, in DDO, the Adventure packs fit the theme of the game it is, and the game it is based off, like the old time D&D modules, where players would buy them and run them.
As for splitting the player base, over the many years I played DDO, as it turns out, players liked the idea of free areas and paid areas.
It worked because they viewed buying packs, just like buying the old PnP modules packs, as supporting the game maker, and having more game to play. It was a fair line drawn for many of them.
And if you didn't have the pack, you were often told you didn't have the pack by the game itself, in fact their default setting was not show you any LFM's for packs you didn't own. DDO has always had "Tired of your shit" culture, long before they went F2P anyway, and after going F2P if you joined a group in a pack you didn't own that kick button was hit faster then crosswalk button in a new York intersection, but as long as you kept to what you could do, there was literally no issues at all. You could toss up an LFM, or join another, for pretty much any content you had access to, and for the good/popular packs, there was never a shortage of people willing to Pug.
With that said, DDO was a Heavy Loot Focused game with lots of Raids, like a shit ton of them, and since most of the Raids were in the packs as last I looked there was still only 1 free raid in DDO, so, yah.. what packs you had not only directly affected how geared you would be for Raids, it directly affected what Raids you could do.
With all that said, DDO has almost zero PvP, and no focus on it, the game is balanced to PvE, because that is what the game is about, there is also a huge population of veteran players, these are the people that can solo content that can destroy groups of new players, so, when you join an LFM, if they put a bunch of acronyms you don't know up.. don't go join their group and be a nuisance.
In a sense of Irony, that pack you used, Tangleroot Gorge is a huge level split for most DDO packs, and works in a series, where you need to A then B, then C.. and yet have other packs like the Necropolis Tombs, that can be done in any order, and are much more friendly to PUG.
Then, you also have packs like Twilight Vale, or 3 Barrel Cove, that has a full explorer Zone linked to it, where players can spend many levels there.
So in DDO it's a full spread of what you could get, with lots of choices for the players.
I am still bitter about their flipping the bird to my Evocation Wizard, and nerfing Raid Loot... truth be told.. if they opt to dig their own grave with another stupid choice along that line.. I have ZERO pity.
Still think selling of modules/adventure packs was a brilliant idea, but.. that does not mean it wasn't deep fried in a crispy coating of a lot of stupid other ideas.
I've thought about jumping back in, but get held up in various other games instead.
But i definitely got my moneys worth.
A lot of people tend to play this at a slower pace and enjoy reading the quest text and seeing the variois landmarks of Middle Earth.
That's one thing i loved about the community compared to WoWs rushing to end-game to raid.
However, when it comes to PvP, I wish they had followed through with what was envisioned when it was going by Middle-Earth: Online.
PvMP always felt dull to me.