Thread: Just A Friendly Suggestion, Turbine

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

it's going to be an awful expansion because Turbine won't put much work into it.

Isn't this a given?

I know it's too late and hopeless to try and stop you at this point, but could you wait a little longer between expansions.

List Of Expansions and Dates + Level increases:

•Shadows of Angmar - April 24, 2007 - Level 50 [Launch]

•Mines of Moria - November 18, 2008 - Level 60 [1st Expansion]

•Siege of Mirkwood - December 1, 2009 - Level 65 [2nd Expansion]

•Rise of Isengard - September 27, 2011 - Level 75 [3rd Expansion]

•Riders of Rohan - {Slated For Release} Fall of 2012 - Level 85 [4th Expansion]


Mines of Moria came a year and a bit later after the initial launch of the game, but it brought huge changes to the game and is regarded as the best expansion for LOTRO by many. It brought with it the Legendary Item system, which is used by nearly every player over level 45. It also brought a new Volume to the Epic Quest which extended it by six books. Another major implementation was the two new classes, the Warden and the Runekeeper. They also completely revamped the AI system and made mobs more situationally aware, and implemented dynamic lighting. Along with the richly detailed Moria, we also received Lothlorien. We also got several new instances.

Siege of Mirkwood came only a tiny bit over a year later after Mines of Moria, but it brought very big changes, some good, some horrible. It implemented Radiance, which could have been quite a good feature, but the LOTRO developers implemented it poorly and it was removed. Siege of Mirkwood also gave us Skirmishes, a highly customizable instance which rewarded players with a new type of currency, Skirmish Marks. Over the years this system has become an important part of LOTRO's gameplay. Since there was no huge massive region, like in Mines of Moria, there was only a small level cap increase, which didn't make older raids and instances completely obsolete.

After over a year and a half, we received Rise of Isengard. This expansion was released quite a while later, which I very much enjoyed as I had time to receive the benefits for a while on my gear and items I worked so hard for. We got three more areas, Dunland, the Gap of Rohan, and Isengard. The level cap was increased to level 75, and new items and such were added for the sequential levels from 65 onward. We also received a new crafting tier, removal of the limitations on our primary stats, a 24-man raid, and new virtue ranks. There were also major revamps for classes, which has caused a lot of controversy due to some being "OP" and "facerollers". We also received an extension on the Epic Quest chain.

Now, I honestly have had no big problem with any of the expansions so far. My two favorite have been RoI and MoM. However, RoR is only launching a little over a year from now, when many of us would like a longer time period between expansions. RoR isn't doing us any favours as far as I can tell from Turbine statements. It adds a War Steed, which is effectively another grind for us, which is a drag for casual gamers who can only play a few times a week. Also, mounted combat just wouldn't work for several class, and I honestly don't want to see your attempt to make it work.

> A Burglar rides into a group of Orcs to attack, on a horse.
> Orcs are like "daheck?"

I honestly still want to explore the new regions more fully first. It's increasing the level cap to 85, which is making all the raiding from RoI for rewards useless. Honestly, how are all those people who finally managed to finish ToO T2 for their rewards going to feel if you just raise the level cap and introduce better items months later?

I could be totally wrong, and this could be the best expansion ever with mounted combat being amazing. However, since I know Turbine and I know how shoddy their work has been lately, I'm going to stick with the post up above. I hope you actually read this and post your opinions on the matter, if you disagree, instead of posting "your so fail tolololool", post constructive criticism. If you didn't read it:

tl;dr: RoR is coming too soon and I think it's going to be an awful expansion because Turbine won't put much work into it.

Firstly, the subject - Just a friendly suggestion... followed by -

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

I think it's going to be an awful expansion because Turbine won't put much work into it.

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

...and I honestly don't want to see your attempt to make it work.

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

...since I know Turbine and I know how shoddy their work has been lately...

You say you've loved previous expansions, cite examples of features you like, but then you bag the RoR expansion (and Turbine for that matter) when you know nothing about it? So, not friendly at all. How about you wait and see, or at least stick to your 'not enough time between expansions' argument without criticising features you know absolutely nothing about.

Secondly, after all the work involved to get it, end game raid gear is always made obsolete. If you want to ride the gear hamster wheel however, go right ahead, but that is the downside. It sounds like you prefer the exploration and discovery aspect of game play a lot more anyway, and what ever new expansion does come along, you'll always have that going on.

sorry but many disagree with you and have been having a long discussion about this very topic which you should have posted to. Hopefully this one gets closed.

Originally Posted by Catisa

sorry but many disagree with you and have been having a long discussion about this very topic which you should have posted to. Hopefully this one gets closed.

And there are many that agree. That's why I made this, so we can discuss it. Not just dismiss it and hope it gets closed.

Edit: Sorry, misread your post. Could you please direct me to the post already discussing this? I must have missed it.

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

it's going to be an awful expansion because Turbine won't put much work into it.

Isn't this a given?

I would rather see a better xpack in 2013 (summer maybe) then a xpack this fall full of bugs and incomplete. Plus theres so much i havent done with ROI yet

Yes, Turbine. Please bump the RoR release date forward.
Fix the problems in PvMP (Make creeps actually have a fighting chance, fix Audacity, and lower the Creeps skill/corruption costs)

Fix the glitches in Draigoch and other instances, FIX THE DAMN LAG.

Fix the forums, fix our signatures, the crafting still isn't updating correctly.

THEN release RoR.

Originally Posted by airsoftg36c

Yes, Turbine. Please bump the RoR release date forward.
Fix the problems in PvMP (Make creeps actually have a fighting chance, fix Audacity, and lower the Creeps skill/corruption costs)

Fix the glitches in Draigoch and other instances, FIX THE DAMN LAG.

Fix the forums, fix our signatures, the crafting still isn't updating correctly.

THEN release RoR.

Precisely. I'd much rather they fixed all the current problems than release a new expansion so fast that will more than likely bring more bugs.

Instead of them giving us expansions this often, they should just do weekly or monthly updates that re-balance classes, fix broken things, remedy horrible systems (audacity), and add on to the Epic Quest chain line. This would give us new content and a constant flow of updates which we can tinker with, but we won't have to re-grind everything out again.

This thread is funny. It was not long ago, before release of RoI that the forum was just about how slow Turbine was in releaseing new content. Now it is too fast.

Can not please everyone.

Originally Posted by Killien

You say you've loved previous expansions, cite examples of features you like, but then you bag the RoR expansion (and Turbine for that matter) when you know nothing about it? So, not friendly at all. How about you wait and see, or at least stick to your 'not enough time between expansions' argument without criticising features you know absolutely nothing about.

Secondly, after all the work involved to get it, end game raid gear is always made obsolete. If you want to ride the gear hamster wheel however, go right ahead, but that is the downside. It sounds like you prefer the exploration and discovery aspect of game play a lot more anyway, and what ever new expansion does come along, you'll always have that going on.

I criticize Turbine because they refuse to give customer feedback, and more importantly, fix all the stuff they break and give much-needed updates to classes. With their current reputation in mind, I can only imagine a whole host of problems that RoR will bring.

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

I criticize Turbine because they refuse to give customer feedback, and more importantly, fix all the stuff they break and give much-needed updates to classes. With their current reputation in mind, I can only imagine a whole host of problems that RoR will bring.

Turbine posted directly to the community regarding the feedback they'd received about the Store, they've also responded many times in the past about various things we've brought up so they do respond to feedback.

Minstrel's have had a re-working, Champs and Guards were touched on, and Wardens were completely overhauled.

Are some things broken? Sure. But give credit where credit is due. You'll find you get even more feedback if your criticism is at least accurate, but balanced also helps.

I wouls rather they keep up the steady 1 year pace of expansions if for no other reason than I would like to get to Mordor before I turn into a cranky old man.

Otherwise, we could also risk the current mmo game design becoming obsolete before we reach Mordor as people everywhere are screaming for a 2nd generation mmo that breaks the constraints of current mmos.

How is this any different to every other MMO on the planet???...

You level to the cap, you grind for gear, they release an expansion, you level to cap.... etc etc etc...

People always go on about the grinding in LOTRO and yeh there is a lot of grinding for crafting, LI's etc... Find me an MMO that doesn't have grinding...

Originally Posted by guguzza71

I would like to get to Mordor before I turn into a cranky old man.

It's already too late for some of us.....

Just four comments:

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

....RoR isn't doing us any favours as far as I can tell from Turbine statements. It adds a War Steed, which is effectively another grind for us, which is a drag for casual gamers who can only play a few times a week.

We dont know that. There is zero useable information about the way Mounts proceed yet. People like to compare it to the relics, which is an exceptionally poor comparison. Grinding for 12 great river relics on 4 LIs per character is a chore. Getting 12 Singular or Extraordinary relics is very easy. In terms of impact, the difference is laughable. The price of Empowerment scrolls has been lamented, but the objective fact is that you can get them with less runs now than you could before RoI (granted, between RoI release and Isengard instance release+currency revamp, it was even easier).

Now, grind itself is the essence of MMOs; its the only way to brake peoples progression. But the only excruciating grind in the sense of having to do repetitive or unrewarding actions just for the purpose of reaching a menial goal would be virtues. Then again, your usual toon at 75 will still have the virtues at 7 or above just through questing (i can say that because I fast-levelled two toons). And here, the difference between virtues at 7-9 and virtues at 14 isnt a dealbreaker either. Particularly for a casual, as the whole definition of that playstyle IS not to be performance-oriented.

Well, I dont want to sound apologetically to Turbine; they´ve turned me off a bit of the game for other reasons. But my points are: the importance of grind is often vastly overstated, and unless we at least have a distant glimpse on HOW war steed progression is supposed to work, its a bit premature labelling it simply a "grind" while ignoring the impact on gameplay and game-joy (of whihc we dont know anything about yet either).

Also, mounted combat just wouldn't work for several class, and I honestly don't want to see your attempt to make it work.

Again, wait and see. This will obviously be a major new mechanic. With all its failures, Turbine has been in business for quite some time, which means they do more things right than they do wrong. Bottom line is, it is not feasible that they would work on this major new feature if studies and prototypes had not shown that its workable for all classes - at least in the opinion of the developers.

I honestly still want to explore the new regions more fully first.

And you have several more months to do that, maybe half a year. Plenty of time IMO, not the least because Turbine has very little in the form of sideshows in the new content (e.g. hunting rare elites/crafting instances/landscape fellowship content - compare Nars Peak quests to Limlight Gorge...)

It's increasing the level cap to 85, which is making all the raiding from RoI for rewards useless. Honestly, how are all those people who finally managed to finish ToO T2 for their rewards going to feel if you just raise the level cap and introduce better items months later?

They will greet it with open arms. Why? Because, having mastered the raids and having objectively nothing more to add to your characters is... the closest thing an MMO has to an end. The end of End Game.

A new expansion brings new challenges (including how to avoid bugs), new ways to build characters, new ways to play the game, new shinies. All things that a raiding player thrives on. If that didnt happen, all that is left between raid locks would be parading your gear around in the Prancing Pony.

That being said, I wouldnt object against a mini-expansion like Mirkwood that raises the cap only slightly. People moaned about that back then, but it created the nice situation where people had a bigger breadth of content to do because Moria/Loth instances were not completely obsolete. Well, we´ll have to make do with skirmishes it seems.

+rep to above post.

Sure it's true there will be things that will pose challenges to the game, that's mostly just the nature of it. I am pretty sure the group usually saying development has been too slow outweigh the group saying it's too fast. As mentioned above, and conceding some won't like it, most raiders probably will welcome the level cap increase.

I can see the OPs point, and I agree with what others have said regarding fixing stuff first, but I don't really imagine one has as much to do with the other as we guess, the creative team is sure to be already well under way with the future, and while it's likely someone is working on something new that could be working on a fix for something, I,d bet they have people responsible for all kinds of stuff that is not in development.

2 points for the OP:

Radiance wasn't born with SoM. It came out with Moria and *died* after SoM.

And I don't think mounted combat is going to be what you think it's going to be.

Hmm, not really a matter of opinion here. But I think/know you're quite wrong.

The domain name for Riders Of Rohan has been owned by Turbine for quite a few years now (at least 2) Add to that the fact they've been working on it since before RoI, or was it SoM?

It is quite obviously supposed to be more epic in scale than RoI or SoM, more on the lines with MoM, apparantly containing more terrain than MoM. Therefore it is quite a biggy.

Implementing Mounted combat has taken Turbine quite a few years, meaning they must have been testing it and refining it for quite a while to be able to release it now

Also if you are still in doubt: It's ROHAN! Not Isengard.. or Mirkwood, in the books Rohan was much larger in scale than either of these areas..

-Tails-

Originally Posted by TheOrcsBane

I could be totally wrong, and this could be the best expansion ever with mounted combat being amazing. However, since I know Turbine and I know how shoddy their work has been lately

Do you know Turbine? Really? They've been going for a number of years and have created more than 1 MMORPG. I feel pretty confident that they can do more things right than they can wrong. Every company has flaws, hell even Bioware or Valve have flaws.

I know that this post reflects your opinion but could you please refrain from the silly BS by claiming that a great number of players share your views. RoI wasn't the perfect ex-pac, but it was beautiful and full of charm, well designed landscapes, along with an amazing quest-line through the middle. Compared to a lot of companies I'd hardly call it 'shoddy'

-Tails-

this expansion has been in planning for a long time now its not just between ROI and ROR they have been devuloping it

Oh no, I would rather Turbine stay on the once a year expansion plan. I have no desire to go through another dry spell between Moria and Isengard. That sucked.

And Mirkwood doesn't count. I like Mirkwood but I saw it as a "mini" expansion.

Originally Posted by Massively

Paiz and Mersky vowed that starting this year, players will be seeing LotRO adopt Asheron's Call's monthly update model.

This means that we'll be seeing smaller, frequent content updates between the major rollouts. These smaller updates will be designed to give players something to look forward to and should include bug fixes, store additions, quality of life improvements, festival tweaks, and additional epic storyline content. This will be made possible by restructuring the Turbine team to meet the demands of this "tighter cycle."

Is it just me, or are Turbine including more bugs than ever before in addition to breaking previously working content? Makes me wonder how Asheron's Call have survived for so long.

For me personally, they can release Riders of Rohan whenever they want; I've lost all faith in the company behind this game.

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

a casual, as the whole definition of that playstyle IS not to be performance-oriented.

I would just like to point out to you, as politely as possible, that "casual" is a measure of how frequently one plays, not a measure of one's dedication to stat-oriented play (min/maxing etc). It is an oft-repeated falacy that casuals are, by definition, less serious players than hardcores.

On topic, i'm very excited about mounted combat. The naysayers will always say "nay," nothing new about that.
Turbine still has the very best story-driven MMO on the market, and they will do a good job with this.

Originally Posted by Tailborn

I know that this post reflects your opinion but could you please refrain from the silly BS by claiming that a great number of players share your views. RoI wasn't the perfect ex-pac, but it was beautiful and full of charm, well designed landscapes, along with an amazing quest-line through the middle. Compared to a lot of companies I'd hardly call it 'shoddy'

-Tails-

Call ROI whatever you want - that is just your opinion.
What I can say is that I have read over and over again different players state on these forums that it was shoddy and not of great quality. Some people liked it - some people did not - but he is not the only one to write that it was lacking in quality. Deny it all you want - these statements are still in the forums.

Originally Posted by lutemaster

Is it just me, or are Turbine including more bugs than ever before in addition to breaking previously working content?

It seems just you. You certainly forgot how buggy MoM (the best Lotro expansion! ) was

Originally Posted by Maxal

This thread is funny. It was not long ago, before release of RoI that the forum was just about how slow Turbine was in releaseing new content. Now it is too fast.

Can not please everyone.

There is such thing as a happy medium.

Two years is too long. One year is too short. 18 months is pretty good.

I am very new in LotRO. Even though I started playing 10 months ago, I stopped, and joined back. All that I have to say to the people complaining is to STOP. Turbine is doing a way better job than any of you would have done if u had a gazillion dollars to spend. If you don't like the way LotRO is being ran than go! WoW is way over there to turn a whole bunch of you ungrateful donkeyholes to no-lives. Quit your complaining. Bugs? Avoid them once you find them! Just don't like LotRO? -------> WoW is over there. Just quit your complaining. I can't say that this bugs bother me like when using a stable master but just quit it! You don't see me coming to the forums being all like "Oh, the stable masters aren't working. Fix it or I quit!" and I certainly do not think like that.

I am a fan of The Lord of the Rings, and I must say Turbine is doing better than any other company could have done. Turbine is trying to please you and you always have more problems, probably you are just creating them. And people complaining about the gear and grinding here is my advice:
1. Good luck finding a game that has no grinding!
2. Unless you are in a server full of trolls, I doubt grinding is that bad, just grab friends and grind. And here is an even better idea, grab quests that have to do with the grinding
3. Gear? I betcha that that gear you got you had a blast doing it. If it was by crafting, raiding, questing or just straight up gifted all of those are pretty fun.

If you think about it, Turbine is not off by much. Turbine has done an excellent job. What more could you ask than the ancient city of Annuminas? What more could you ask when they show you where Thorin Oakenshield lived and showed you what happened before the departure of the dwarves? They show you what happened to the last Rider. They show you where the Balrog fell. They show you Carn Dum. They show you the Ettenmoors. And too little time to explore the regions? No! A year may sound like little but it is not. A week takes awhile to pass by doesn't it? Imagine 52 weeks. You guys, just stop your complaining. You will see that before Rohan gets here, a player that begins LotRO today will have the chance to become level 75 and explore every single nook and cranny of Middle Earth available to us. If anyone still finds a loophole through this, this is my only thing to say to you: What is wrong with you? LotRO is the best MMORPG you will find out there. If you find a loophole that means that you must really hate LotRO.

This is all I am willing to say addressing this situation. Enjoy the game.