Thread: Dev Diary Feedback: Yule Festival Theatre

Welcome ladies and gentle-Hobbits, to a very special developer’s diary. What follows this brief introduction is a summation and description of my latest creation, the Festival Theatre. Within these pages one will discover what can be expected by those talented enough to take to the stage this Yule Festival.

Read more in the latest developer diary from Rhidden and post your comments here!

I am very disappointed to hear that the same titles received for acting can be purchased at the vendors. At this rate why go through the acting when you can just buy the title. It takes away from going through the work to earn the title. Titles should be earned NOT purchased. If you don't get picked...oh well. That's just the luck of the draw. This "everyone deserves a trophy. Even the losers." mentallity is sad.

OK, I'm both intrigued and excited!!

Boo to purchasable titles, though.

Cool ideas! good to see creativity and new ideas still being pursued


Oh, and yeah, I dont like the idea of purchaseable titles either

Though I can understand someone being incredibly frustrated at not getting a reward they badly want, after a million attempts, just because luck and the RNG didnt pick them (*cough* skeletal horse *cough*)

What if the titles only became purchaseable, if players had enough "attendance-vouchers" in their inventory or something; showing that they were an audience member maybe 20 or more times, without being chosen as a cast-member; that way youd still have to "work" for the titles.... hehe anyway

Originally Posted by elvyen

What if the titles only became purchaseable, if players had enough "attendance-vouchers" in their inventory or something; showing that they were an audience member maybe 20 or more times, without being chosen as a cast-member; that way youd still have to "work" for the titles.... hehe anyway

I like this option, especially if the voucher could only be earned if you were not /afk in the theater. I do believe it will be unlikely that anyone willing to take the stage will be unable to get the opportunity, but I could be wrong, and this mechanic could provide a backup just in case. It's likely too late for this festival, but perhaps in a future event such a method could be considered.

The screen shots look great - excellent art work!

Meh...it's only a title. And I am sure it probably wont be cheap.

I'd rather have the cosmetic items...which, by the way, do require participation.

Another great Dev Diary!! The Yule Festival Theatre sounds like an exciting new feature being added to the event. Though I don't know yet the full play, The Curious Disappearance of Mad Baggins, it seems like a good choice for a play - I can imagine a Scrooge reference in it. I like the decision to allow players be selected to either act in the play or interact with it in the audience, and also allow some of the rewards being offered by barter.

Bravo! Bravo! Encore! Encore! Well done, I say.

I'm looking forward to the Yule festivities and this sounds like it will be fun. That said I too dislike the idea being able to purchase a title. It devalues the title really.

Originally Posted by elvyen

What if the titles only became purchaseable, if players had enough "attendance-vouchers" in their inventory or something; showing that they were an audience member maybe 20 or more times, without being chosen as a cast-member; that way youd still have to "work" for the titles.... hehe anyway

I REALLY REALLY Like this idea

new stuff, yeah

Explains why someone forgot to put in the right code on the anuminus armour set.....which I would love to know if you plan on fixing it. If not then I wont have time to go to any festival because I will have to grind away and now get the helegrod set.

the title should be earned. consolation of watching X amount of times works as well.

I am sick of the stuff i worked hard to get to now be freely given to those who can buy it. hint store, or npc.

I work hard and spend huge amount of hours getting stuff. so should everyone else or I should get a refund somehow.

well done on the theater event, cant wait to see if the actual event holds up to the great sale pitch.

Very well written diary and the event sounds exciting. I like the idea that people will be able to 'buy' the titles if they so choose; I'm sure it'll take a lot of Frostbluff coins or Yule Fest tokens. I'm curious to see the effects of throwing petal/rotten fruit because I had some hilarious images in my head as I read that part.

Sweet. The idea of a Theater(or is Theatre right? cause my word corrector says its wrong :P) replaying events from when Bilbo's Party was and the events that follows and allowing people to play the different roles sounds like it will be sweet ^^
Looking forward to the Yule Festival even more now Thanks Turbine Developers and all who worked on this ^^

Great idea !!

And i like the way of people beeing able to barter Titles. Dont change that please.

Originally Posted by Uzziahitiya

new stuff, yeah

I am sick of the stuff i worked hard to get to now be freely given to those who can buy it. hint store, or npc.

I work hard and spend huge amount of hours getting stuff. so should everyone else or I should get a refund somehow.

If someone buys something, how is it freely given?

I also work hard and spend a huge amount of hours getting stuff - my money. I'd gladly "work hard" playing this video game to unlock things if I wasn't so busy actually working at actual work.

We both pay for things in game, we just use different currency.

Originally Posted by Brigonos

I also work hard and spend a huge amount of hours getting stuff - my money. I'd gladly "work hard" playing this video game to unlock things if I wasn't so busy actually working at actual work.

We both pay for things in game, we just use different currency.

This argument always makes me so happy to be in pay-2-win environment.

What a player does in the 3-d world bears no interest to people in LotRo. Or do you suppose it's to work in the reverse manner? Perhaps your company will choose to take my deed totals and pay me cash somehow? I think not.

I assume you reap rewards at your 3-d endeavors (however you choose to see that). Those rewards recompense your time spent doing those activities. Why do you suppose that this entitles you somehow to rewards in an environment in which you don't make a similar investment of time?

I, for one, would support the barter of titles, but only from a barter token somehow related to actually participating in the activity. I'm fairly certain that since the matter can, and will, be gamed by some that the title-barter price be something along the same "cost" as that of the festival horse.

What will annoy me is for the barter to allow the purchase of the title for TP, as that makes the title fairly worthless. In fact, just as worthless as the Night Steed as it says nothing about what the person did for this game and the community that plays it.

I liked the Gandalf quote. His reputation as a disturber of the peace among the hobbits lends so much characterization to both hobbits and the wizard. This dev diary made me want to un-retire one of my hobbits. It also gave me an early case of stage fright. I'm not sure I can handle having things thrown at me.

I understand some may be unhappy that a number of theatre rewards can be bartered, but experiences with previous festival events (the horse races come to mind) have shown that if only a limited number of players are able to participate in an event at one time, providing alternative ways of achieving the rewards will prevent a great deal of headaches, unhappy players, and long queues.

The event does have rewards that cannot be bartered for. Attending shows and showing your appreciation for actors by lobbing rotten fruit or flower petals at them will earn you titles as well as consumable and skill-use items that can be used outside of the theatre.

Wait, Scenario's back?!

What I meant was this..... I worked hard getting the anuminus armour set because compared to the helegrod for the cost it was the better deal considering the set bonuses. However they forgot something and now the stats are lower on every single piece so therefor I put up with it or go grind for the other set either way I work hard and am pleased to do so. But if both those sets can now be bought by tp or grinding a shorter easier way after I worked so hard......I would be very upset.

for example: black dye is hard to make because you have a rare chance of the oxides droping. A lot of grinding for that. Now you can buy with tp. It has lost some of it's value because anyone can get it now, easy.

that is what I am talking about, you get a sence of pride working and achieving something and then it becomes trivial because it is now nothing.

How about for us competive people giving a special title for making it to 65 undeated, or most gold. or longest hours played.........something you have to work for and cant barter from a npc, or buy.

Originally Posted by Rhidden

I understand some may be unhappy that a number of theatre rewards can be bartered, but experiences with previous festival events (the horse races come to mind) have shown that if only a limited number of players are able to participate in an event at one time, providing alternative ways of achieving the rewards will prevent a great deal of headaches, unhappy players, and long queues.

The event does have rewards that cannot be bartered for. Attending shows and showing your appreciation for actors by lobbing rotten fruit or flower petals at them will earn you titles as well as consumable and skill-use items that can be used outside of the theatre.

I think that is a reasonable line in the sand to draw. If the number of participants is limited (old horse races), then having an alternative way to achieve the reward is good. If the number of participants is not limited (haunted barrow), then we can try our luck every time our timer is up.

I actually had a very similar idea when I read the last Dev Diary. My idea was to have a stage where npcs and maybe even players could act out parts of lotr history. Because I find the two existing ways to learn about the lotr backstory in lotro to be unsatisfactory.
One way is read tons of quest text (which I tend to skip often) and the second way is to "be there" when the action takes place first person style. I don't really care for that experience because I find it boring watching events unfold when I know I'm not actually there, that I can't influence events because they are in the past and story dependant. That's me and probably a lot of other players but I'm sure not all.
But if you could put the stories in a more proper context like a play and have the plays limited in their availability then that would draw a lot more interest in learning of the events that many lotr online quests depend on/reference. Even more interest if players could be participants. I was thinking along the lines of Beren and Luthien, something a little outside the realm of lotro (but not outside the rights of turbine).

So reading this new Dev Diary was quite a pleasant shock for me!

I understand your reasoning to allowing players to purchase the titles via vendors, but I still do not agree. I think, that the whole purpose of titles is to use them to show that you completed a thing that was most likely challenging; thus, buying a title defeats its purpose. Although, as always with this game (which I enjoy), it is a dual-feature, that is that, a player desiring specific play style can only do the challenge to obtain the title, and a different player desiring a different play style can purchase it, where everyone is happy!

Otherwise, I think this festival looks great! Amazing! I am highly excited to play in it. It appears to be a great, complex, and entertaining idea, and I hope that more content like this is developed in the future!

I read the developer diary about Yule Festival and it souns like a great festival
The only festival i have joined was the fall festival which i didnt like at all and i quit from Bilbos Haunted Burrow, it was so comfusing and not so Lord of the rings
Anyway i want to say that i think Yule festival will be the best festival in lotro so far for me, it seems great and enough Lord of the rings

I can't wait for this to start. I'm ridiculously happy that we're getting more and more unique things to do during the festivals, instead of just more standard quests.

I'm not upset about the titles being available for purchase. I would imagine they'll cost a lot of barter tokens, which means people will have to work to get those. Besides, do we really want to hear all the whining from the people who didn't get picked over and over again?

Originally Posted by Harvain

Sweet. The idea of a Theater(or is Theatre right? cause my word corrector says its wrong :P) replaying events from when Bilbo's Party was and the events that follows and allowing people to play the different roles sounds like it will be sweet

Theatre is entirely correct. We speak the Queen's English here.

I'm not a huge fan of most of the festivals or RP stuff like this, but I must say that Rhidden is an awesome Dev regardless. Cheers!

Originally Posted by Owlish75

I like this option, especially if the voucher could only be earned if you were not /afk in the theater....

I agree with this - it was the first thing I thought of and the main thing that caught my attention while reading the dev diary (ok, the main thing after "choose your own adventure via emotes").

I am more interested in being able to do the acting than in the titles/rewards. I hope that participating as an actor gives a "timer debuff" comparable to being /afk, so that there is no chance of people being chosen twice in a [fill in the blank]-hour period, giving more people a chance to try it.

That aside, I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the dev diary description. This is amazingly cool, and probably unique among mmo's. I can't wait!

Originally Posted by truseattleite

I am very disappointed to hear that the same titles received for acting can be purchased at the vendors. At this rate why go through the acting when you can just buy the title. It takes away from going through the work to earn the title. Titles should be earned NOT purchased. If you don't get picked...oh well. That's just the luck of the draw. This "everyone deserves a trophy. Even the losers." mentallity is sad.

Indeed. Just find the fastest way to get tokens and buy the goodies, no need to actually do the content.

Which kind of undermines the point of making the content in the first place.

The G.L.O.B.E. Theatre was hands-down my favorite part of the festival while testing on Bullroarer. I also love the style in which you presented your developer diary!

I don't want to add any more spoilers here, so I'll just keep my mouth shut about the details.

I hope that the theatre company is popular enough to take its show on the road for future festivals, and perhaps to stage new productions, too!

Cool. An entirely new event. After the success of the haunted cellar I'm looking forward to what the creative minds behind LOTRO have created for us this time.

Originally Posted by Rhidden

An important fact to note is that all of the titles earned via acting can also be purchased at the concession barter vendor. This is to prevent the unfortunate situation where an unlucky player is never chosen as an actor and is unable to earn one of these highly desirable titles.

Originally Posted by truseattleite

I am very disappointed to hear that the same titles received for acting can be purchased at the vendors. At this rate why go through the acting when you can just buy the title. It takes away from going through the work to earn the title. Titles should be earned NOT purchased. If you don't get picked...oh well. That's just the luck of the draw. This "everyone deserves a trophy. Even the losers." mentallity is sad.

I feel exactly the opposite. I gave a mental cheer when I read we'd be able to buy the titles via the vendor. If the only reason someone is participating in the event it to get a title, then that person is missing the entire point of the event. We should be participating in these festivals because they are fun. Granted, having to repeat festal contents ad nauseam for desired rewards tends to turn them into chores instead of fun events. But that's yet another reason to have such items on the vendors. We can have fun with the events for as long as we have fun with them. Then, when they start to get old, we can purchase whatever items we're still missing and move on.

Originally Posted by Rhidden

I understand some may be unhappy that a number of theatre rewards can be bartered, but experiences with previous festival events (the horse races come to mind) have shown that if only a limited number of players are able to participate in an event at one time, providing alternative ways of achieving the rewards will prevent a great deal of headaches, unhappy players, and long queues.

The event does have rewards that cannot be bartered for. Attending shows and showing your appreciation for actors by lobbing rotten fruit or flower petals at them will earn you titles as well as consumable and skill-use items that can be used outside of the theatre.

Then why create another event where players are yet again limited or bound by your programing like the
old horse race. That thing was a nightmare and it has been fixed for good reason. We hear all the time how
LOTRO is growing everyday, and you add an even that only picks three players at a time? How long is it between shows? How long does the show last? If it's like the dancing event, that's a lot of waiting.

Coupled with the fact that you might put items of worth to barter for which could mean bad news for players waiting around to be called. I would hope there is some kind of first come first serve thing programmed in there, I think it would bother me a bit if I'm waiting around for 30 minutes and the guy that just walked in gets called.

LOTRO has vastly improved since day one and I'd just hate to see a new event that is supposed to be fun fall in to the category of events or systems that had to be fixed due to player frustration, lack of foresight or lack of time to produce. I guess we'll see.

Looking forward to trying this out.

"This is to prevent the unfortunate situation where an unlucky player is never chosen as an actor and is unable to earn one of these highly desirable titles."

and I'll add mine to this as well,

"To prevent people from expressing dissatisfaction just like what happened with the Skeleton mount during the Harvest Festival."

You make something harder to get = People Express Dissatisfaction

You make something easier to get = People Express Dissatisfaction

No way to win = 100%

Well, I thank you Turbine.

Cheers!

Wow, this sounds awesome. I can't wait to view and/or participate. This falls in line with an idea I proposed not too long ago, where we players could put together scripted story-telling using text, emotes and a system similar to ABC files.

At any rate, I too have to disagree with the ability to purchase the Titles. Can I throw a rotten piece of fruit at that idea?

Here's an alternative idea to allowing players to purchase the titles for participating in the theater:

If you are not chosen a certain number of times, when there are enough players present, then you are bestowed a DIFFERENT title (or even some other consolation gift). This could also be a unique title that title-collectors would like to get, and in this case you would be hoping for the luck of NOT being selected.

You could even have multiple titles, for not being chosen 5 times in a row, 10 times, or 20 times in a row!

The only pit-fall I can see in this would be in situations where only 3 players are present, and someone seeking whatever the 'not-selected' title is, leaves so they don't become a participant. I suppose this, probably rare, situation could be mitigated by setting some flag so if someone enters the theater and then leaves before the play starts, their 'not-selected' count gets reset.

Once again another thing I am not going to do.

By the way, What is wrong with Bywater Theater that smal outdoor stage across from ByWater? I know it is outdoor but I have never seen it snow in the Shire.

Just because your limited to what you can do.

This sounds so awesome. Every new festival I'm impressed by the creativity and how previous tech and limits are pushed. I'm really looking forward to this. Well done to all who made this possible.

Originally Posted by Ozthorn

Indeed. Just find the fastest way to get tokens and buy the goodies, no need to actually do the content.

Which kind of undermines the point of making the content in the first place.

How so? There are almost always MORE players who will do the content rather than merely purchasing the item. There are very often MORE who just can't afford to spend money like that.

It's all about choice. I'm a lazy old fart, but this is something I'd rather DO than just go buy the rewards. In my mind, I am thinking "what would be the point?" (of just buying the rewards). I'm glad they offer these choices. But just because a few people decide to buy something the easy way doesn't mean NO ONE is going to do the content.

And .... content has different appeal to different people. I would enjoy playing this theatre attraction. Others will have no interest in it. Later, something else will come up and they will have a strong interest in it and prefer to do the content.

This festival sounds awesome!
I love that this would be independent of the traditional quest system. The thing that kept me from doing Harvestmath longer was that it felt like regular quests. And so I had this voice in my head telling me that if I'm taking the time to do these festival quests, I could be doing "real" quests to advance my character. But if the whole feel of this festival is different, I could see participating in it longer.

Oh yeah, the 'choose your own adventure' reference was great. I'm going to go digging for my old yellow invisi-marker.

Originally Posted by WAR_ZONE

Then why create another event where players are yet again limited or bound by your programing like the
old horse race. That thing was a nightmare and it has been fixed for good reason. We hear all the time how
LOTRO is growing everyday, and you add an even that only picks three players at a time? How long is it between shows? How long does the show last? If it's like the dancing event, that's a lot of waiting.

Coupled with the fact that you might put items of worth to barter for which could mean bad news for players waiting around to be called. I would hope there is some kind of first come first serve thing programmed in there, I think it would bother me a bit if I'm waiting around for 30 minutes and the guy that just walked in gets called.

LOTRO has vastly improved since day one and I'd just hate to see a new event that is supposed to be fun fall in to the category of events or systems that had to be fixed due to player frustration, lack of foresight or lack of time to produce. I guess we'll see.

This.

Why in the world would you guys even create an event that only a few players can participate in at one time? I have to say, I don't understand the logic behind this concept at all. If you're concerned about players being left out, why design an event that leaves players out?
And I'm sorry, but the whole point behind a title is to display status and acheivement within the game. There is no pride in purchasing an acheivement, because it is no longer something that you acheived.

I'm becoming increasingly concerned by the way that Turbine seems to be snubbing the act of earning rewards and players who actually work for what they have in the game.

I can see a number of people are already upset over the whole "hey that guy can just buy the reward!" bit. So allow me to shine a bit of perspective on this, at least from my experiences with it in beta - granted, subject to change, etc.

1. As I recall, the titles that are being referred to take a number of tokens to barter, so you'd have to do local quests OR snowball fight runs OR theater performances to get it. So you have to put in the time and effort somewhere anyway.

2. The titles that are referred to can each be earned from one performance. Each performance, you see, only takes three players, each in a given role. Three of the titles are for going through the performance in that role, whether they do well or not. Another two are for how they performed - one for horrible, one for decent. So you could get picked once and come out with, say, the Protagonist and Laughing-stock titles. It's actually generally more work to grind up the coins to buy the title than it is to just perform and get it, but you're trading no risk and long time for high risk and no time.

3. The deeds that can't be bartered require attendance and use of rose petals or rotten fruit. Those deeds are much longer and more rewarding for continued participation.

4. Ultimately, the bartered-for deeds aren't so much the real reward of being in the play. While they ARE nice, I think you'll find that the sheer hilarity of the performance is more memorable that a word you stick over your head.