Thread: Story vs Gameplay/Instances/Raids

With all of the discussion about the Rohan expansion (or lack of expansion *chuckle*) I thought I"d bravely post a discussion thread about what truly drives this game forward. Of course I"m posting it with a bias. I'm a player -- yes a raider -- but a player who has read every quest, and deeply enjoyed the story and felt immersed in this portrayal of the Lord of The Rings and battle for Middle Earth.

Obviously it's a given that the game is about the over all story and I think the vast majority of those who play will state that they felt drawn to the game due to the fact that it is Lord of the Rings -- however. What I'm really asking is the following:

Would you have the game turn in to an instance/raid grind as the prime focus of development? Or would you have the developers use every ounce of their creativity to generate a game that engages and immerses us in the story at every turn? Including instances and raids and quests and every other aspect of what we do in Middle Earth.

It's my personal feeling that the number one driving force behind the development of this game is the telling of the story. Both the story of Lord of the Rings and Turbine's side story -- it's the core, heart and soul of the game. Even in the raids every raid has been richly based in the lore and story that is going on at the time of the raid in the game. Excluding perhaps the Rift (which was more of a side story at the time).

If the reverse was true -- a game that focused more on maxing out characters in an instance grind -- think Everquest in it's prime, or older school WoW -- I think we'd actually lose the story. We'd have more instances but less story.

Ok those are my thoughts -- discuss -- what do you all think? I think my personal opinion on the subject is what is keeping me excited for Rohan. No matter how they present end game I'm excited to see the story progress and get immersed in how we visit Western Rohan, what's going on there, who I"m going to meet, what iconic locations I get to see -- even ones i"M not expecting! It's what keeps me playing.

For me, it's the story, the immersion, and the spirit of fellowship. Foundry will get replaced by another instance, ToO by another raid, but it's the people I play with who (hopefully) won't change. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the Argonath.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

If the reverse was true -- a game that focused more on maxing out characters in an instance grind -- think Everquest in it's prime, or older school WoW -- I think we'd actually lose the story. We'd have more instances but less story.

I'm afraid that has already happened. LOTRO is not about Lord of the Rings anymore, and hasn't really been since SoA.
Sure, they keep the names of characters and places, and they keep a rough outline of Tolkien's story.
But other than that, this game has little to do with Middle-earth anymore.

Originally Posted by BirdofHermes

I'm afraid that has already happened. LOTRO is not about Lord of the Rings anymore, and hasn't really been since SoA.
Sure, they keep the names of characters and places, and they keep a rough outline of Tolkien's story.
But other than that, this game has little to do with Middle-earth anymore.

I actually disagree here -- I find that the game is very much about Lord of the Rings -- the attention to detail is there in spades. They've made some accomodations to the Lore just like any interpretation would have to do and any presentation of a story in a different form of media would have to do but over all I totally feel like I'm immersed in a middle earth at war the very way it was described in the Lord of the Rings. SoA may have felt more strongly that way simply because the epic line directly followed the fellowship's route to Rivendell. Since the fellowship has left Lothlorien Turbine has had to be more creative to fill in the blanks and I think they've done a good job. Sure a lore purist could find fault with when we invaded Mirkwood, the sheer number of hobbits outside the Shire, etc. But there does need to be some sort of compromise for the media. Incidentally SoA was one of the bigger deviations from the lore since in no way should there have been an enemy for us to fight in Angmar -- it should have been a barren wasteland devoid of even evil inhabitants.

However -- with all that said -- if Lord of the Rings Online isn't about LOTR anymore than what is it about? I hear things like this stated and I honestly don't know what people mean by them.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

I actually disagree here -- I find that the game is very much about Lord of the Rings -- the attention to detail is there in spades. They've made some accomodations to the Lore just like any interpretation would have to do and any presentation of a story in a different form of media would have to do but over all I totally feel like I'm immersed in a middle earth at war the very way it was described in the Lord of the Rings. SoA may have felt more strongly that way simply because the epic line directly followed the fellowship's route to Rivendell. Since the fellowship has left Lothlorien Turbine has had to be more creative to fill in the blanks and I think they've done a good job. Sure a lore purist could find fault with when we invaded Mirkwood, the sheer number of hobbits outside the Shire, etc. But there does need to be some sort of compromise for the media. Incidentally SoA was one of the bigger deviations from the lore since in no way should there have been an enemy for us to fight in Angmar -- it should have been a barren wasteland devoid of even evil inhabitants.

However -- with all that said -- if Lord of the Rings Online isn't about LOTR anymore than what is it about? I hear things like this stated and I honestly don't know what people mean by them.

It means that LOTRO has become more of a generic MMO with lotr-nametags, rather than Middle-earth.

Thing is, yes, filling in blanks is fine, they did that in SoA. Okay, some of the blank filling were a bit of a stretch (Angmar, Thaurlach and whatnot) but still reasonable with a tiny bit of imagination.
But ever since MoM, Turbine decided to not just fill in blanks, but to go completely *against* Middle-earth lore, making up stories that are in direct conflict with what we know happened.
And not just against lore, a lot of it goes against common sense and logic too. I guess whenever we come across something absolutely stupid, a wizard did it. This may work on some, but I'm not buying it.

Originally Posted by BirdofHermes

It means that LOTRO has become more of a generic MMO with lotr-nametags, rather than Middle-earth.

Thing is, yes, filling in blanks is fine, they did that in SoA. Okay, some of the blank filling were a bit of a stretch (Angmar, Thaurlach and whatnot) but still reasonable with a tiny bit of imagination.
But ever since MoM, Turbine decided to not just fill in blanks, but to go completely *against* Middle-earth lore, making up stories that are in direct conflict with what we know happened.
And not just against lore, a lot of it goes against common sense and logic too. I guess whenever we come across something absolutely stupid, a wizard did it. This may work on some, but I'm not buying it.

Instead of just making accusations, how about some examples? Without having a clue what your talking about your postings in this thread come off like you have a chip on your shoulder and just wanna bash Turbine.

Having a decent and fun storyline is one of the things that got me attached to lotro. Though instances and raids is what keeps busy here the majority of gamers so having an "expansion" with no end-game instance-raid content doesnt sound attractive at all, at least to me. So story vs Instances? I would say both but if i had to pick i would say instances (note that i am not a hardcore raider, i raid from time to time). Why? Because simply the way lotro is there is not a thing like replayability. I am really a one-character player. After 1,5 years of playing only my champ i grew a bit tired and i started a captain alt . When i reached 33 lvl i was allready bored to death by the storyline & quests (maybe its just me, others love alting). On the other hand if we get a fair amount of QUALITY instances (not bugged at least ), lets say around 5-6 6 mans, 3 3mans, and 2 raids (lair and multiple boss) the majority of players will have a busy, fun time until the next expansion. Currently all those that are here for the endgame content apart from ToO t2 wings-saruman they have grinded and 100% completed everything else dozens of times.
Well thats my opinion.

p.s. sorry for incoherent text sometimes, i just woke up.

It is all about the story for me. If they never created another instance or raid, I would be fine.

This debate has been going on since SoA was in testing. *sigh

And, Turbine has adhered to the main story and lore more often than not, with their own imagination and supplementation to make the game a game that works not just mindless adherence to lore, and "canon" (whatever that is since Tolkien himself didn't know in many cases.)

Do I agree with all Turbine has done? No. Do I enjoy the game for what it is? Yes. And, I enjoy it more than the modern shallow games (Rift, Tera, Vanguard, etc.) I've played without the huge underlying world Tolkien created.

/tuneout

Well, for me both options suck.

If you have a raid/instance grinder, there is no atmosphere, no immersion, nothing that brings you the middle earth feeling (see for example the upcoming dota clone guardians of middle earth). It would just be a multiplayer game, that uses middle-earth and tolkien as background, but nothing more.

If you just focus on the story, you can develop a single player game as well. And then, you would have much more opportunities to let the player get involved into the epic story then now.

I want an MMORPG, and that means that many many different players bring this world to life. It's about sharing fascination and passion for middle earth and tolkiens work. It's about interaction beween players in middle-earth, and interaction is not only instances and raids, it's about trading, role play, conversation, doing events, quests and festivals together. And also about having a server-wide community. It's about the kinships, and playing togehther ... it's about an open world where you meet other players and interact with them, and not everybody plays for himself, while trying to ignore anybody else.

Originally Posted by MaxDetroit

It's about interaction beween players in middle-earth, and interaction is not only instances and raids, it's about trading, role play, conversation, doing events, quests and festivals together. And also about having a server-wide community. It's about the kinships, and playing togehther ... it's about an open world where you meet other players and interact with them, and not everybody plays for himself, while trying to ignore anybody else.

This!

Given the choice, I would always set story-immersion > instances/raids.

I am a real casual player, never raided in nearly 5 years, just because I always lag behind concerning level-cap and stuff, no strict playing times and so on, so I never found a raid...

I pity this because I would have liked to see some of the stories around some of the raids - but on the other hand, I already have problems to do a group content instance where I can enjoy the story! Almost every time it's all about rushing through...

So if this game would become too concentrated on the so called end game, I think I would not be much motivated to play it anymore, sadly enough.

Originally Posted by Catisa

Instead of just making accusations, how about some examples? Without having a clue what your talking about your postings in this thread come off like you have a chip on your shoulder and just wanna bash Turbine.

Okay. Here's the 'lore part' of one of my previous reply posts about my complaints with the game, although I updated it for you.


Turbine seems to have stopped caring about Middle-earth. I know Shadows of Angmar had some flaws, but either they were important game mechanics such as not actually dying but 'being defeated and retreating', or having Hobbits running all over the place because people wanted them as a playable race. Other times they were flaws which, with a bit of tweaking and a bit of belief, were somewhat plausible (defeating a severely weakened Nazgul with the help of Elbereth, defeating a severely weakened Balrog with the help of a genuine, bonified First-Age-born Noldor Elf).
What I liked best about Shadows of Angmar is that we, as lowly adventurers, were usually not required to defeat any major iconic antagonists of the story. Because they are far too powerful for the likes of us.
Instead we often got to fight lesser versions of them created by Turbine, some of which were created brilliantly I might add.
We did not fight and defeat the Witch-king, but instead battled his (still quite powerful and scary) wraith steward, Mordirith. To this day possibly the best character Turbine has created, with a great backstory and a proper personality.
We didn't fight any Belryg (except for Thaurlach a few updates later, but that was also well done and interwoven into a plausible story), we fought their lingering servants the Regmyl, weaker spirits of shadow and flame. First we got Udunion in the Barad Gularan instance, that guy had quite the history. Then came Gaergoth, and later a bunch of nameless ones were added in Moria and some in skirmishes.
We also didn't get to fight Nazgûl other than that weakened one in Helegrod. Instead we fought their wraith servants, the Cargûl and the Lithûl. These days we're killing Nazgûl as if they're nothing, while you have to keep in mind they are the most powerful servants of Sauron, sending armies running.
We didn't fight full-fledged dragons. There were no dragons left in Middle-earth during the events of WOTR, as Tolkien wrote. Instead we got drakes, their lesser descendants, and later on we got a revived dragon-wight. I'll admit it was a bit silly to see a dragon zombie in the game, but it was a good way to give us the feel of 'epic' dragon slaying without actually breaking the lore.
My point is, there was never a real need to fight every baddy that's in the books back then. We got their lesser placeholders and it still felt epic taking them down. Now Turbine thinks we have to kill every single Balrog, Dragon, Nazgûl, not to mention Sauron, Saruman and Morgoth before we as players are satisfied. I don't feel that at all, we're just a bunch of adventurers.

So yeah, it started to go downhill in Moria. The main storyline in Moria is about Dwarves wanting to reclaim their ancient home. That not only goes against Tolkien's writings (the Dwarves did not enter and reclaim Moria until after the War of the Ring, and the only other recent attempt was Balin's expedition), it goes against logic. The Longbeards were already having various skirmishes, and they knew a great War was coming very soon. They have had Nazgûl messengers from Mordor, if you recall. So no Dwarf in the right mind would at such a point take a great number of other Dwarves on an expedition like this, let alone that king Dáin would allow them to go at such a critical point.
Suddenly we were riding giant Goats(llama-goats?), something never mentioned in any of Tolkien's works. Horses and ponies were the only mounts ever used, even by the Valar.
For some reason there is also a giant (and I do mean giant) raid-boss turtle sitting in an instanced room in the middle of the Water Works. Nevermind the impossible size of this turtle now. The room is bare save for a bit of rubble. The only entrance and exit is a narrow passageway.
How did it get there? And how does it survive without food? This goes against any sort of logic.
And we got this new class called a Rune-keeper, which is someone who...well, fires Lightning Bolts, Frost and Flames at his enemies.
In Middle-earth.
Lightning bolts, Frost and Flames.
In Middle-earth.
It is a class supposedly inspired by Galadriel, with the ability to turn words (speech and written) to reality. I'm not sure where they got the idea that Galadriel can do this. Or any Elf or Dwarf for that matter. Runes possess no magical abilities in Tolkien's works, nor can any race influence them in such a way.
The only ones who come close to doing that are Eru and the Ainur when they created the world by singing a universe-echoing song.
That's right, omnipotent divine world-creators can alter reality with words, so why not let a bunch of mediocre Middle-earth heroes have a similar ability?
Sounds Good.
Tolkien has always shown that any 'magic' in Middle-earth is very subtle, and only used by Maiar, Valar and a small number of extremely powerful Elves such as Elrond, Celebrimbor and Galadriel.
When I say subtle, I mean; prophecies and oaths have great power, such as Glorfindel's prophecy about the Witch-king destruction, or the dreams of Faramir and Boromir, and the oath which bound the Oathbreakers to Middle-earth. And some items may have magical power if their creators have power enough of their own to put in it. Examples are the Rings, Durin's Door, the Palantiri, the Silmarils, the Istari Staves, etc.
It isn't about shooting lightning from your finger tips. That is not subtle.
In fact, the only overt displays of magical power used; such as Elrond flooding the Bruinen and Gandalf torching a bunch of trees, came with great difficulty and little control over it from these two. Gandalf mentioned he was afraid that the flood would also drown Frodo because he and Elrond had so little control over it.
Oh, and I will also briefly mention the Foundations of Stone, and more specifically Dar Narbugud, where creatues live that have jumped straight out of a sci-fi film. It's not very Tolkienesque, but I suppose it's just developers poking at Lovecaft. I can take that with a little wink, just like the Monty Python bunny cave at Ost Dunhoth.

Then came Mirkwood, and later Enedwaith, and there things got really ugly. There are too many lore breaches to list in one post, so I'll summarize the most obvious ones.
First, we have Dol Guldur. Sauron's third largest fortress in Middle-earth, after Minas Morgul and Barad-dur itself. I was expecting something along the lines of Carn Dum, but bigger. And don't get me wrong, it's big alright, but...it's virtually unguarded. We have a handful of orcs roaming the massive outer walls, and one troll patrol at the main entrance. The other entrance is unguarded. That is not very believable considering the status of this stronghold. Heck, even Carn Dum has an army guarding it, not just a dozen orcs and a troll.
Oh, and oddly enough all the trolls in Mirkwood are Olog-hai but for some reason can speak the Common Tongue. Tolkien was very specific that those trolls, having been recently bred by Sauron, only know one language (Black Speech) and were not allowed to use any other. D'ooooh, silly Turbine.

Anyway, inside Dol Guldur we have 12 people, only 12, going through the entire tower, slaughtering everything inside, and finding a Nazgûl at the top. And this time it isn't a severely weakened Nazgûl, and we do not invoke Elbereth. No, we just walk up to it and defeat it, like that. And its pet dinosaur too.
Again, this is a Nazgûl, a servant of Sauron so powerful entire garrisons at Osgiliath fled before it out of sheer terror. It wields a Ring of Power, and *not* one of the lesser ones, which already have a respectable ammount of Power like we witness when fighting Amarthiel, Mordrambor and Saruman. And yet we defeat this Nazgûl, somehow.
But it gets better. It's the wrong Nazgûl.
Either that or Turbine messed up the timeline pretty badly. The Nazgûl at Dol Guldur is supposed to be the one that travelled north from the Great River after Legolas shot down its birdbatbeast. Yet we find and defeat it at Dol Guldur before Legolas shoots it down at the Great River area (Dol Guldur being a Lv65 area/instance and The Great River being Lv75).
Lastly for Siege of Mirkwood, we have the Galadhrim landing in Mirkwood and actually assaulting the enemy there. We know however they did not leave Lothlorien until after Sauron's fall, when Celeborn and Thranduil led their respective armies against Dol Guldur and Galadriel lay bare its pits. The reason for this is that they were continuously besieged in their own homes, having to repel several attacks from Moria and 3 major assaults from Dol Guldur.

Then we move on to Enedwaith, more specifically the In Their Absense questline.
Now, a lot of it doesn't make sense. For instance, one of the Gaunt Lords decides to go to the Shire to decimate the Hobbit population. While I approve of his action, he does it in the most bizarre way.
He uses....poisoned pies.
<insert dramatic music here>
Somehow I'm finding it difficult to imagine Thadur the Ravager getting up at 4:00AM, putting on a Kiss The Cook apron, and starting his daily baking of pies. It's pretty demeaning to a supposedly badass villain.
Realising his plan has a fairly high chance of failing, we find out he has a plan B; a cauldron filled with the poison, which he plans on dumping into the local water well to kill even more Hobbits. But luckily we foil his evil plan by destroying the platform on which this cauldron rests and...tipping over the...poison cauldron...in the water well.
Wait, what?
How are we helping the Hobbits if we just do exactly what his plan was in the first place?
All in all, it isn't very well thought out by Turbine. Do you see what I mean by common sense and logic?
Oh well, continuing with this questline.
We get to fight an illusion of Durin's Bane, summoned by Gortheron. There are a lot of mistakes here. First off, the area in which we fight him is supposed to be Durin's Tower. It looks nothing of the sort. It is a flat bit of rock like an arena. Durin's Tower is described in Tolkien's works, but in the game there is no tower, no window, and no Endless Stair which would explain how to get up or down from it. I guess both the Balrog and ourselves simply got magicked there by a Rune-keeper.
Oh yes, and Durin's Bane speaks in Black Speech, a language which was invented by Sauron long after that Balrog went into hiding. Where did he learn it? From Orcs that came to visit him out of Mordor? Somehow I don't think a Balrog would be interested in linguistic lessons from Orcs when he can just boss them around in his own tongue.

Moving on to Rise of Isengard.
There's Draigoch, the Dragon That Doesn't Exist. Turbine wants us to fight a Dragon, I can somewhat understand that. It's a fantasy MMORPG, and fantasy apparently means it has to have dragons.
So as mentioned before, in the past we've been fighting Worms, Drakes, Salamanders, all dragon-like creatures. After all, we know from Tolkien's works that the last great Dragon of Middle-earth, Smaug, was killed some 60 years prior to current events in the game. The rest of the Dragons reside in the far Northern Wastes. So it's not possible for us to fight a genuine dragon.
In Shadows of Angmar, Turbine found a neat little way to get around this problem. If Sauron (and his Gaunt-lords) could revive corpses of dead Men, why not that of a dead Dragon? Thus was born Thorog, an undead dragon which we first saw in Volume 1 Book 5, and later became the final raid boss in the Helegrod raid. Turbine had their dragon, and did not breach the lore by any significant extent.
yay.
But now they've thrown even that out of the window. They simply ignore Tolkien's work and put down a dragon in a raid instance in the southern Misty Mountains near Enedwaith. Where did he come from, what is he doing there, and how/why did he conceal himself so long? Why is he there in the first place when all dragons are supposed to have fled Middle-earth? Questions which are not important enough to answer, it seems.

The most recent Lore debacle is of course the Orthanc raid. We know the Rangers and the Rohirrim are completely incompetent and utterly incapable at using a sniff of logic, so for some reason we decide to take matters into our own hands and assault Saruman's stronghold. So Saruman lets us in and- wat?
Oh.
Ok.
Saruman, apparently suffering from dementia now, lets us in, and after killing some of his henchmen we stand atop Orthanc to fight the beardy guy himself. Now if you thought being able to defeat a Nazgûl was over the top, oh boy, are you in for a doozy.
Let us make a comparison;
At this point in time, Saruman is still the White and more powerful than Gandalf the Grey used to be.
In short, Saruman the White > Gandalf the Grey.
Gandalf the Grey single-handedly fought off all 9 Nazgûl at Weathertop.
Gandalf the Grey > 9 Nazgûl.
So we can safely assume Saruman is far more powerful than all 9 Nazgûl combined. He has also crafted himself a pretty Ring to make himself even more powerful.
Saruman the White >>>>> 9 Nazgûl.
Despite this, somehow we manage to give him a very hard time, nearly defeating him before he finally knocks us off the tower.
Seems legit.


There have been numerous protests over these type of things and more, but they fall on deaf ears. From memory, the only major issue Turbine has ever listened to was the call for removal of the Radiance system, but that was 2 years after the complaints. Not exactly an impressive feat of customer service.

Originally Posted by BirdofHermes

...stuff..

Ok your posts make more sense now -- I didn't reduce it to *stuff* btw out of disrespect, just that's a LOT to quote *chuckle*.

However -- with all of your fine tuning to Lore have you completely missed as I said before that Angmar itself should be totally void of inhabitants? Carn Dum shouldn't exist? Waking an undead dragon in Helegrod?? Really? That's a good addition to the Lore?

How about the Rift -- a bunch of giants being over run by orcs and trolls and then after you get passed the giants they are being deceived by some Everseer to free an ancient Balrog the elves have imprisoned? Is that MORE believable than dwarves retaking a Moria -- that incidentally has sooo many lore relevant visuals in it its' astounding.

IMHO you're letting your nostalgic love of SoA cause you to believe it was more lore accurate -- the entire time Turbine has been forced to take liberties. One main difference with SoA is there were far more iconic locations in it that were done very very well out of necessity of location. We haven't encountered a land area -- maybe Lothlorien -- that had iconic locations like Bree, Shire, Rivendell, etc.

Just my thoughts -- thanks for the lengthy replies however. I respond with respect.

Good discussion all -- I"m enjoying reading your posts!

Originally Posted by musicman2000

Ok your posts make more sense now -- I didn't reduce it to *stuff* btw out of disrespect, just that's a LOT to quote *chuckle*.

However -- with all of your fine tuning to Lore have you completely missed as I said before that Angmar itself should be totally void of inhabitants? Carn Dum shouldn't exist? Waking an undead dragon in Helegrod?? Really? That's a good addition to the Lore?

How about the Rift -- a bunch of giants being over run by orcs and trolls and then after you get passed the giants they are being deceived by some Everseer to free an ancient Balrog the elves have imprisoned? Is that MORE believable than dwarves retaking a Moria -- that incidentally has sooo many lore relevant visuals in it its' astounding.

IMHO you're letting your nostalgic love of SoA cause you to believe it was more lore accurate -- the entire time Turbine has been forced to take liberties. One main difference with SoA is there were far more iconic locations in it that were done very very well out of necessity of location. We haven't encountered a land area -- maybe Lothlorien -- that had iconic locations like Bree, Shire, Rivendell, etc.

Just my thoughts -- thanks for the lengthy replies however. I respond with respect.

Good discussion all -- I"m enjoying reading your posts!

I see and understand what you mean, but that is why I like SoA -- most of it is filling in blanks, whereas later expansions is often downright against lore.
The two things that bug me most in SoA are indeed an attempted revival of Angmar and Thaurlach. Thorog is silly, true, but somewhat believable seeing as how Melkor, Sauron and their servants can indeed raise wights and spirits. If they can make corpses of men walk by putting an evil spirit in them, why not the corpse of a dragon by stuffing it with lots of spirits? Not that I'm trying to persuade you to see it my way, everyone is entitled their own views on it, I'm just trying to explain why I don't mind Thorog that much as Thaurlach.

But anyway, Angmar and Thaurlach are a weird ones for me. On one hand, it is true that a revival of Angmar or a second Balrog in WOTR were never mentioned in Tolkien's works. But after thinking about it, I reasoned that it is possible they were never mentioned because they never played a significant role. With some imagination mind you; because we, the players, invaded Angmar and the Rift before they had a chance to properly come out with their armies and do harm. We as players nipped them in the bud. First we cleared out all of Angmar's little schemes around Bree-land, Lone-lands, Misties, North Downs, etc. We went into Angmar, slaughtered about every last orc and troll, and we made sure the friendly Hillmen were in a position to defeat the baddy Hillmen. We went into Imlad Balchorth and killed all the wights, spirits and Ferndur who kept summoning them, we went into Barad Gularan and killed all the sorceresses and Udunion, we went into Urugarth and slaughtered Angmar's main army, we went into Carn Dum, killed every living thing in it and sent Mordirith right back to Minas Morgul. Angmar never even had a chance to deploy an army against Eriador.
The same goes for Thaurlach, he'd only just gotten free from his chains before he was killed by us. He never even made it out of his prison chamber.
On that level it's sort of believable, except ofc that if such a scenario had truly happened, you'd expect that Tolkien had made at least a little footnote about some hero or other being honoured at Rivendell for killing off a Balrog or crushing Angmar under his feet during WOTR. Which obviously did not happen.
Again, I'm not trying to make you change your mind about it, and I know it takes some imagination, but I'm just saying I don't mind those ones as much because they do not go outright against the lore. IMHO they stretch it to just not past breaking point.

Why put these in a versus? Are they supposed to be opposed? Are they mutually exclusive? Can't we have both? Shouldn't we have both? I remember having a lot of both a couple years ago.

Right now? We get a lot less new instances and a lot less new books. You can check this post to see how instance content has been faring. As for the main storyline: it has been over 2 years since Volume 3 began. We got 6 books so far, with the next one coming with RoR. On the other hand, it took slightly longer than 1 year for Volume 2 to be completed with 9 books and 1,5 years for Volume 1 to be completed with 15. I can almost sense someone playing the "quality over quantity" card here, but ask yourself: is what we are getting right now really any better than what we were getting with Shadows of Angmar?

It doesn't feel like either of these things are the driving force behind this game at the moment. Should we try to guess what might be instead?

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

Why put these in a versus? Are they supposed to be opposed? Are they mutually exclusive? Can't we have both? Shouldn't we have both? I remember having a lot of both a couple years ago.

Right now? We get a lot less new instances and a lot less new books. You can check this post to see how instance content has been faring. As for the main storyline: it has been over 2 years since Volume 3 began. We got 6 books so far, with the next one coming with RoR. On the other hand, it took slightly longer than 1 year for Volume 2 to be completed with 9 books and 1,5 years for Volume 1 to be completed with 15. I can almost sense someone playing the "quality over quantity" card here, but ask yourself: is what we are getting right now really any better than what we were getting with Shadows of Angmar?

It doesn't feel like either of these things are the driving force behind this game at the moment. Should we try to guess what might be instead?

In my opinion, yes. The instances I've run felt better overall than many of the SoA ones, and personally I've always thought Volume 1 is vastly overrated. It doesn't even pick up until at least half way through. Volume 3 is IMHO mostly better in terms of story.

You also neglected to mention that one of the Volume 3 Books contained 30 chapters, more than double the usual amount. I'm sure that was just a mistake on your part though...

As for your 2 year figure for V3, isn't a significant part of that down to the preparations for F2P? Doesn't seem fair to take the time at face value.

Originally Posted by BirdofHermes

I see and understand what you mean, but that is why I like SoA -- most of it is filling in blanks, whereas later expansions is often downright against lore.
The two things that bug me most in SoA are indeed an attempted revival of Angmar and Thaurlach. Thorog is silly, true, but somewhat believable seeing as how Melkor, Sauron and their servants can indeed raise wights and spirits. If they can make corpses of men walk by putting an evil spirit in them, why not the corpse of a dragon by stuffing it with lots of spirits? Not that I'm trying to persuade you to see it my way, everyone is entitled their own views on it, I'm just trying to explain why I don't mind Thorog that much as Thaurlach.

But anyway, Angmar and Thaurlach are a weird ones for me. On one hand, it is true that a revival of Angmar or a second Balrog in WOTR were never mentioned in Tolkien's works. But after thinking about it, I reasoned that it is possible they were never mentioned because they never played a significant role. With some imagination mind you; because we, the players, invaded Angmar and the Rift before they had a chance to properly come out with their armies and do harm. We as players nipped them in the bud. First we cleared out all of Angmar's little schemes around Bree-land, Lone-lands, Misties, North Downs, etc. We went into Angmar, slaughtered about every last orc and troll, and we made sure the friendly Hillmen were in a position to defeat the baddy Hillmen. We went into Imlad Balchorth and killed all the wights, spirits and Ferndur who kept summoning them, we went into Barad Gularan and killed all the sorceresses and Udunion, we went into Urugarth and slaughtered Angmar's main army, we went into Carn Dum, killed every living thing in it and sent Mordirith right back to Minas Morgul. Angmar never even had a chance to deploy an army against Eriador.
The same goes for Thaurlach, he'd only just gotten free from his chains before he was killed by us. He never even made it out of his prison chamber.
On that level it's sort of believable, except ofc that if such a scenario had truly happened, you'd expect that Tolkien had made at least a little footnote about some hero or other being honoured at Rivendell for killing off a Balrog or crushing Angmar under his feet during WOTR. Which obviously did not happen.
Again, I'm not trying to make you change your mind about it, and I know it takes some imagination, but I'm just saying I don't mind those ones as much because they do not go outright against the lore. IMHO they stretch it to just not past breaking point.

I see your point and am quite happy to agree to disagree. I find all those things equally as plausible as the rest of the stories Turbine has given us since Shadows of Angmar. I've not enjoyed every twist and turn -- I agree with you about the Nazgul and Saruman fights btw - -I wish those didn't exist, however I loved the fact that we faced the watcher in Moria and I thought it was a neat concept to have dwarves retake Moria at this time -- completely impossible but so is any kind of invasion on a full Angmar so I use my imagination there as well.

The great thing about story is different stories will appeal to different people and different faults will be harder to swallow for different people as well.

Thanks for the discussion.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

Why put these in a versus? Are they supposed to be opposed? Are they mutually exclusive? Can't we have both? Shouldn't we have both? I remember having a lot of both a couple years ago.

Right now? We get a lot less new instances and a lot less new books. You can check this post to see how instance content has been faring. As for the main storyline: it has been over 2 years since Volume 3 began. We got 6 books so far, with the next one coming with RoR. On the other hand, it took slightly longer than 1 year for Volume 2 to be completed with 9 books and 1,5 years for Volume 1 to be completed with 15. I can almost sense someone playing the "quality over quantity" card here, but ask yourself: is what we are getting right now really any better than what we were getting with Shadows of Angmar?

It doesn't feel like either of these things are the driving force behind this game at the moment. Should we try to guess what might be instead?

Some thoughts on this perspective that content has actually been reduced:

Volume 2 was released with 6 books -- in the course of the next year we only got 3 updates to it and one was part of a paid expansion with a token level cap increase. 2009 was probably the biggest drought in content this game has ever seen when story is taken in to consideration. However yes we got a fair number of instances that year -- 2 12 man raids, 3 6 man instance, and 5 3 man instances I believe. (thinking 2.8 instance cluster and Mirkwood's cluster).

2007 was the launch year so of course we got a TON of content that year -- actually in fairness volume 1 was launched at release with 8 books which means in that 1.5 year span you mention we only got 7 book updates -- one was timed with the launch of Moria and volume 2 so realistically in that 1.5 year span we got 6 updates. There was more focus on group play during SoA agreed, but part of the reduction of instances being released has been a refocusing of resources to make the game more solo friendly so lack of instances wasn't necessarily a void in content it was just a focus on different content and reworking of old content so it flowed better for today's MMO player. Don't forget that in 2008 we didn't actually get a single raid like we were used to -- we got a gated lair raid (the watcher). And that was late in to the year -- we had the PvMP revamp in bk 12, Forochel bk 13, etc. I recall folks complaining about lack of true end game all through 2008 and in to 2009. Volume 2.7's release was a big time of doom and gloom in this game due to *lack of content*. Oddly for me 2.7 was the release of Lothlorien -- one of my favorite iconic places.

Bringing up the *glory days* falls on deaf ears for many of us who lived through them and watched the same old complaining that's existed since day one. *not enough content - not enough content -- OMG NOT ENOUGH CONTENT*.

I guess the point of my thread was to determine what has kept so many of us playing despite these complaints. For me it was story over instances -- farming gear, min/maxing toons, running the same content over and over -- that would never keep me in any game. It's every time logging in whether it be my main or my alt and experiencing something in Middle Earth that immerses me in to the story of LOTR. For me the game has successfully done that for nearly 6 years now. If it was simply instances I was after I'd probably be playing WoW and doing the whole competitive min/maxing grind.

Originally Posted by BirdofHermes

The thing I want to quote is basically Rune-keepers. Rest is .. well also important

First some critics against Rune-keepers. They were *supposed* to create ''illusions'' to damage and/or confuse (and mind-blow of course) the mob that it's directed to. Of course, the mechanics were incredibly hard to put that into mind. If you zoom on Rune-keeper play, you see it having two stones, and it's turning around, doing everything with it. This means it will create illusions with it's stone. Might be unrealistic, but as far as my knowledge goes in Rune-keeper classes, this is what was supposed to be planned.

However, it is very hard to make this happen from a 3rd Point of View, where we are looking above the player with a distance of roughly 5 to 10 meters if we would count it out. This might be a wrong distance.

However, on a dwarf (Yes I played a dwarf Rune-keeper), the stone is hardly visible, especially fire stones since they are round. With the round gloves and a round shape of a stone, this is incredibly hard to see what this stone is doing. However, take a close(r) look at it once and you see that it's not ''Magic'' with staffs and even without them, like we know from WoW, AoC (not sure bout this one) and other MMOs/Games. Of course, it was very hard to plan this in the short time between SoA-MoM (I weren't there actively when MoM came out, I admit this) and I believe it was March '07 - May/June '08 when Moria came out. This means they had one year to work out the Rune-keeper and Warden, add everything in Moria as well. Short story now, it was hell of a work. It's not that I'm praising the game, I don't agree with what has been done over the years, but I have to agree with some people that it was a lot of work and has been put some effort in it. And in fact it was rightly placed, but not in an obvious way, just like a Minstrel is actually Drumming.

Further, as far as my off-lore knowledge goes, Mirkwood wasn't right in chronical time line. The story about the Nazgûl is very interesting and you do have a point, but I believe the elves of Lórien started their assault after the War of the Ring. Or at least, they were attacked. I am not sure about when this was, but they didn't take the initiative themselves, unlike shown in our books about it. Of course they were infecting the slopes of Lórien hills but there was no serious attack like we know the epic tales and battles about Middle-Earth. Again, this might be not completely true, don't blame me for that, but keep in mind, lore isn't always followable.

If we would follow lore only, we would be in Mordor right now. Do Movie-watchers, or no background-reading people know about far areas like we see on our beloved map that has sadly been changed, Harad, Forodwaith to name two out-of-regions. Middle-earth was big, but you can't make it incredibly big, it will be unplayable and travelling times will be insane, imagine Evendim, then times 200. Will we wait for this?

I agree with most of your points however, but this is my view on it:
There has been changes. Rift was available for most players without gear, just some teamwork did the job. However after SoA, they made it more ''elite-like''. This means, Watcher (and later DN) were only for the better players, the players with gear and experience. There is nothing wrong with it, it makes some competition within a server (Remember Server-First OD everyone? The race :P) and of course other server-firsts. However... Radiance was the key for this. Later on when the gear contained more Radiance (i.e. BG set contained +30), you could go into BG first boss, get boots or chest (with luck or DKP/SK ladder) and then most people could go into the Watcher. Of course, it was easier.

Then Free to Play hit. I do not remember when it hit us, but it was a big hit. I can understand this decision, there weren't many players in LotRO, but LotRO felt a bit like an Elite game, only friendly mature players, willing to pay some money for a good game back then. More players came, a store was introduced. I completely disagree with this, it is my own view but I know most people don't give a single f... about that . Anyway, with F2P, more players came into the game. Free to make account, only quest packs to buy. You could hit 65 easily without any quest pack, then you might concider Mirkwood for the raiding.. That apart, the game started to become easier. At the same time or before that Volume I became solo. No more grouping, no more ''cohesion'' as the political terms are concerning that. You could just rampage with 10.000 morale every single mob, whereas it was hard finding a group and doing it. Which gave me and many LotRO'ers some challenge. Why remove a challenge that was still in-game? And from this point on, it went worse. Evendim revamp, Update #2? It became from a ''long area, but still some awesome quests within, like Tomb of Elendil'', to a ''Kill, go from A->B area, level 32 to 38-40 withing 2 days''. Fair enough, people hated Evendim, but making it easy removes the challenge in-game. Every area BUT Angmar is easy now. Angmar keeps the minor amount of hard Fellowship/Small fellowship quests, which teaches and taught us to play with the class we chose when we started, or later on. Keep it this way, it's the only challenge in game at the moment.

Then Enedwaith hit the game, I was completely astonished how incredibly sad this area was. I didn't like it, same quests, no diversion, nothing even worth to do them for. It wasn't good experience, I have done about 40 quests in total, spread on my 6 characters. Which is about 7 each, much? No, maybe the starter ones + helping people around.. Okay, later on in March '11, Ost Dunhoth came to us. My personal experience was: epic. Maybe it didn't cope with our beloved lore, which bought us here in the first place, but keep in mind: we need something for "hardcore" players. Casuals play the game for lore, some people prefer to raid. This brings us back to topic: I think it's good that we have a good separation between Story and Raids. The raids are (fairly) challenging, not as it is prefered mostly but not everyone on the server/game can do Orthanc tier 2. Some just need more coordinating into the game. The issue with Orthanc in my opinion is the DPS. We are all hugging low morale, high stat. A good player back in Moria/Mirkwood (Control all the way, watching what happens) will be less good than a player that has 2,5k of one stat and spams his skills. This is a true story and most will know what I'm talking about. The Elite-feeling is gone in LotRO. "Skilled" is only a minor distinction. This reflects in PvP, whereas this game wasn't meant to be PvP-based, but still it reflects the current situation. If you play a stronger class, or other trait line, you can see who is skilled and who is not. I can see myself if one is a good Minstrel or not. But both will be good enough to kill most of the creeps.

This isn't a PvP thread so I won't get back to this anymore (no guarantee ... :P ). Back to Rohan, our future ''hope'' in LotRO. I think the developers are either hiding something, or just completely letting us down now. They are showing a minor feature of the game that will come and will delete bad posts on forums (Who knows this will be deleted as well!). But the situation is, is that they are losing a big playerbase that has been built over the years and is especially known for it's good community (compared to for example World of Warcraft) - however, the communities are slacking a bit, so many new players and the older players which were a good example of how it was and should be, are gone. They know what it was like and how it will be. I might concider myself to that group, I know what it was and what it is now, and I show this in the post. Though, I haven't been here from start so this isn't fully true. I have been here long enough to see the drastic changes. I know the developers try hard but if they would at least give us some more peeks into the game, they would get more buyers. At the moment a LOT of players are even doubting to buy Rohan - will it be a disappointment? Will I even play this game. This doubt wasn't here with Mirkwood - at least not what I've noticed. Not as huge as now.

And again there are apparently no raids scheduled at launch. This means story will be pulled in front of actual MMO-playing. It will be the same as Isengard, instead of SW it will be GW. One letter difference, still following me? The dissapointment will be huge, especially for the 70-dollar buyers, they feel they wasted the money. This is a bit of criticism from my side, but I guess most are thinking ''Darn, that noob is right.'' In fact, and I will close my post with this, the game will.. become.. casual... Raiders will go away, lore-"freaks" will stay. They won't raid, they will read quests (I did as well, at least the ones that actually interested me) and they will keep in-game. LotRO won't die, only it won't be as active as before.

The "lore" is limited to a series of stories written from the experiences of three Hobbits, Bilbo, Frodo and finally Sam. To say that anything that existed outside of these Hobbits personal experience and stories that were told them is "lore breaking" is like saying "nobody I know has seen a tiger in the wild, therefore they don't exist".

Having said that, LOTRO follows many, many things that are found within the text of the above mentioned Hobbits' memories. For instance, "On this side of the river they passed forests of great reeds..."



Or perhaps I should go take a screenshot of the black swans as well.

The story is the game and the game is the story. Instances, raids and story lines that the Hobbit authors didn't experience are nice diversions from the epic tale happening as we all move East and South. Some timelines are wrong, some events are wrong, some story lines a little far fetched but we walk in a land embraced by the standard of time. We can not only witness some of what we have read and loved through the years, we can take a part in writing some of our own history, fears, desires and triumphs along the way.

There is no story vs gameplay/instances/raids, there is only what we take from the game and what we contribute back to the community we have decided to become a part of.

Lotro is not meant to be an immersive game completely... especially with games like Skyrim... now skyrim can be hardcore real, Lotro is a much more cerebral game, personal game but more in line with facebook games not Crysis or skyrim. Tolkien came upon Eregion Enedwaith and Moria and said there was nothing there but scattered remnants... lotro has spent years in those regions and have done ok considering their change in economic system. I see the game on an upswing as the graphics and story has improved in the last couple updates... we are now seeing the cash flow put into use while we encounter more familiar parts of middle earth.

Why does it have to be story OR raids? Why do our expectations have to be so low, when this is a big MMO bringing in good revenue? This IMO is the content that should be delivered in a premium expansion to a premium MMO - If RoR was to stand up to Moria we should be seeing something like this:

• New Rohan region
• New level cap to 85
• New Epic story
• Quests for 75-85, including multiple plot lines weaved around the overarching epic plot.

• Mounted combat! Set in a special zone on the landscape.

• Casual end-game - fishing and village rebuilding.
• Co-operative end-game - traditional instance cluster including multiple 6-mans and a raid for the raiders.
• For both - 2-3 new skirmishes based around mounted combat.

• War horse traiting system.
• New crafting tier, actually complete this time. Less grindy.
• LI revamp to make the system function more like skirmish soldiers and bring it inline with other end-game character progression schemes.

Now that would be an expansion pack I'd drop $40 or even $70 for!

Originally Posted by Aelin-uial

The "lore" is limited to a series of stories written from the experiences of three Hobbits, Bilbo, Frodo and finally Sam. To say that anything that existed outside of these Hobbits personal experience and stories that were told them is "lore breaking" is like saying "nobody I know has seen a tiger in the wild, therefore they don't exist".

Having said that, LOTRO follows many, many things that are found within the text of the above mentioned Hobbits' memories. For instance, "On this side of the river they passed forests of great reeds..."


Or perhaps I should go take a screenshot of the black swans as well.

The story is the game and the game is the story. Instances, raids and story lines that the Hobbit authors didn't experience are nice diversions from the epic tale happening as we all move East and South. Some timelines are wrong, some events are wrong, some story lines a little far fetched but we walk in a land embraced by the standard of time. We can not only witness some of what we have read and loved through the years, we can take a part in writing some of our own history, fears, desires and triumphs along the way.

There is no story vs gameplay/instances/raids, there is only what we take from the game and what we contribute back to the community we have decided to become a part of.

This is Middle-earth during WoTR, and pretty much everything that happened (and what didn't happen) in this period has been very carefully written down by Tolkien, it's not just what the Hobbits saw. Indeed I don't mnd blanks (few though there are) being filled in, but the game often goes outright against what we know happened. Why not have Frodo destroy the ring in Orodruin by being fired out of a big cannon from Rivendell? I mean, we know that didn't happen, but it would be cool right? So let's put it in the game?

Originally Posted by musicman2000

With all of the discussion about the Rohan expansion (or lack of expansion *chuckle*) I thought I"d bravely post a discussion thread about what truly drives this game forward. Of course I"m posting it with a bias. I'm a player -- yes a raider -- but a player who has read every quest, and deeply enjoyed the story and felt immersed in this portrayal of the Lord of The Rings and battle for Middle Earth.

Obviously it's a given that the game is about the over all story and I think the vast majority of those who play will state that they felt drawn to the game due to the fact that it is Lord of the Rings -- however. What I'm really asking is the following:

Would you have the game turn in to an instance/raid grind as the prime focus of development?

Heck no. The story and the Lore are my primary instances in the game.

Or would you have the developers use every ounce of their creativity to generate a game that engages and immerses us in the story at every turn? Including instances and raids and quests and every other aspect of what we do in Middle Earth.

Yes, please.

It's my personal feeling that the number one driving force behind the development of this game is the telling of the story. Both the story of Lord of the Rings and Turbine's side story -- it's the core, heart and soul of the game. Even in the raids every raid has been richly based in the lore and story that is going on at the time of the raid in the game. Excluding perhaps the Rift (which was more of a side story at the time).

Agreed. As to the Rift, I did that once for each of my two mains and NEVER AGAIN.

If the reverse was true -- a game that focused more on maxing out characters in an instance grind -- think Everquest in it's prime, or older school WoW -- I think we'd actually lose the story. We'd have more instances but less story.

And it wouldn't be LotRO, and I wouldn't play it.

I believe you and I are on the same, as it were, page.

Originally Posted by Nyrion

In my opinion, yes. The instances I've run felt better overall than many of the SoA ones, and personally I've always thought Volume 1 is vastly overrated. It doesn't even pick up until at least half way through. Volume 3 is IMHO mostly better in terms of story.

I have stated many times that the instances in SoA were grand when it comes to scale, but fell flat on their faces in terms of boss fights and trash variety. So I agree with you there. However, don't think strictly SoA in terms of instances. My comment was for the epic storyline only. Look at the progression in general for instances.

Regarding Vol 1, it is your opinion and you are entitled to it.

Originally Posted by Nyrion

You also neglected to mention that one of the Volume 3 Books contained 30 chapters, more than double the usual amount. I'm sure that was just a mistake on your part though...

Lets be smart here. Half of the Rise of Isengard book were filler chapters that just said "Help these people as much as you can, then move on" or "Move on and talk to x". This time, I can play the "Quality over Quantity" card, since those quests all lacked substance.

Originally Posted by Nyrion

As for your 2 year figure for V3, isn't a significant part of that down to the preparations for F2P? Doesn't seem fair to take the time at face value.

Why exactly doesn't it seem fair? Weren't things supposed to pick up pace after the game went F2P? Shouldn't content be flowing in now that everything has been settled for at least 1.5 years and F2P was a huge success that supposedly trippled revenue? Actually, don't answer any of those. I'm just being rhetorical.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

Volume 2 was released with 6 books -- in the course of the next year we only got 3 updates to it and one was part of a paid expansion with a token level cap increase. 2009 was probably the biggest drought in content this game has ever seen when story is taken in to consideration. However yes we got a fair number of instances that year -- 2 12 man raids, 3 6 man instance, and 5 3 man instances I believe. (thinking 2.8 instance cluster and Mirkwood's cluster).

How is 2009 the biggest epic storyline drought compared to 2010 when we only got 2 books (and no new instances). Right, preparations for F2P. Because F2P totally paid off in the next years when we got this incredible stream of new content. Eehh...

Originally Posted by musicman2000

2007 was the launch year so of course we got a TON of content that year -- actually in fairness volume 1 was launched at release with 8 books which means in that 1.5 year span you mention we only got 7 book updates -- one was timed with the launch of Moria and volume 2 so realistically in that 1.5 year span we got 6 updates.

I'm looking at total content divided by total time. But even if we go by your method and remove the launch content, it is still more than what we have been getting in the last 2,5 years.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

There was more focus on group play during SoA agreed, but part of the reduction of instances being released has been a refocusing of resources to make the game more solo friendly so lack of instances wasn't necessarily a void in content it was just a focus on different content and reworking of old content so it flowed better for today's MMO player.

No. No no no. Solo content has always been the main focus of this game. It has always gotten the biggest slice of the pie of total content created. What has been happening since Mines of Moria is that the already massive slice has been getting bigger and bigger, leaving us with less and less group content, both on landscape and in instances).

"Making content flow better for today's MMO player" is a very sweet and erroneous way to describe it. Not what I would have picked to describe the complete lack of landscape group quests or the complete segregation of landscape group quests to a sub-zone when they are present.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

Don't forget that in 2008 we didn't actually get a single raid like we were used to -- we got a gated lair raid (the watcher). And that was late in to the year -- we had the PvMP revamp in bk 12, Forochel bk 13, etc. I recall folks complaining about lack of true end game all through 2008 and in to 2009.

Oh, I was there. A 3 minute long lair raid on a weekly lock is not something I remember fondly. However, I also don't forget that Mines of Moria launched with 7 full fellowship instances, something that will almost certainly never happen again.

Look at the big picture instead of specific examples.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

Bringing up the *glory days* falls on deaf ears for many of us who lived through them and watched the same old complaining that's existed since day one. *not enough content - not enough content -- OMG NOT ENOUGH CONTENT*.

I'm not too concerned about the player feedback. It is extremely subjective. I am interested in the amount and attributes of the content itself. Facts.

Also, I hope you are not assuming I joined the game in the summer of 2011. The vast majority of Jun 2011 you see here are European transfers. Most of us have also lived through the "glory days". I speak of experience, at least.

Originally Posted by musicman2000

I guess the point of my thread was to determine what has kept so many of us playing despite these complaints.

If that was your intention, you should have done just that instead of this inane versus. But you are right, you were biased.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

Lets be smart here. Half of the Rise of Isengard book were filler chapters that just said "Help these people as much as you can, then move on" or "Move on and talk to x". This time, I can play the "Quality over Quantity" card, since those quests all lacked substance.

You have a point here but even excluding those chapters there's still more substantial Epic storyline content in volume 3.4 than any volume 1 book. Most volume 1 books were a handful of story line building chapters - mostly errand quests to go talk to X or find Y and report back -- and ending in a fellowship instance. While yes I enjoyed the story myself -- they weren't overflowing in substance and content compared to current books. Maybe it's fellowship instances that made them feel epic for some? They were much harder to finish because of that.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

Why exactly doesn't it seem fair? Weren't things supposed to pick up pace after the game went F2P? Shouldn't content be flowing in now that everything has been settled for at least 1.5 years and F2P was a huge success that supposedly trippled revenue? Actually, don't answer any of those. I'm just being rhetorical.

I completely agree actually -- I expected more from Turbine as well after F2P and increased revenue. This overshadows the rest of our debate actually. Whether or not you believe SoA had substantially more content than now (which I don't) the point is we *should* have substantially more content now than SoA had considering the reports of tripled revenue. I must confess that has left me scratching my head.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

How is 2009 the biggest epic storyline drought compared to 2010 when we only got 2 books (and no new instances). Right, preparations for F2P. Because F2P totally paid off in the next years when we got this incredible stream of new content. Eehh...

2009 vs 2010 -- looking specifically at 2.7 and 2.8 vs 3.1 and 3.2 since 2.9 can't count IMO since you had to pay for that. I still stand by my statement that 2009 was weaker than 2010 since 3.2 alone had far more content in it than 2.7 and 2.8 combined. 2 chapters of 2.8 were part of the instance cluster so required next to no work or creativity and it's ending was pretty lame. For me 2.8 was essentially the instance cluster explained -- I like having the instance clusters enhance the epic story line but not actually BE the epic story line. It was pretty bad filler -- as was 3.1 admittedly. Let's face it both 2009 and 2010 were weak for the epic - -I just picked 2009 to be weaker than 2010. There was definitely a storyline drought for those 2 years and if we're being honest well in to 2011 -- that was a real shame for me. Volume 1 did have faster updates -- which meant we waited less time in between books to see where the story was going. And again I agree that F2P should have paid off a lot more in development.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

I'm looking at total content divided by total time. But even if we go by your method and remove the launch content, it is still more than what we have been getting in the last 2,5 years.

It was more frequent but not necessarily more -- semantics in the end. I just haven't really noticed an increase or decrease in the content they've given us. It's all been pretty much the same as we've gone -- but with increased revenue it seriously should have increased.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

No. No no no. Solo content has always been the main focus of this game. It has always gotten the biggest slice of the pie of total content created. What has been happening since Mines of Moria is that the already massive slice has been getting bigger and bigger, leaving us with less and less group content, both on landscape and in instances).

"Making content flow better for today's MMO player" is a very sweet and erroneous way to describe it. Not what I would have picked to describe the complete lack of landscape group quests or the complete segregation of landscape group quests to a sub-zone when they are present.

Well they've felt they've had to do this in order to increase marketability hence my comment about making content flow better for today's MMO player. It appears that today's players don't want their solo quest lines to end in fellowship quests the way they did back at launch. For me it didn't bother me but that's what I meant by flowing better -- yes group and solo content is completely segregated -- I'm just not sure I agree it's a bad thing. Though the game does feel far more solo focused today than it did at launch -- the game felt much more *fellowshipy* at launch to me anyway. LFF channels in every zone were far more active.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

Oh, I was there. A 3 minute long lair raid on a weekly lock is not something I remember fondly. However, I also don't forget that Mines of Moria launched with 7 full fellowship instances, something that will almost certainly never happen again.

Look at the big picture instead of specific examples.

Well my point was that what comes out at launch doesn't necessarily equal more content over time. Moria was a huge expansion pack -- much more raiding and group focused than any other content -- including launch actually. As for story vs instances that expansion had both very well balanced and had some of the most exciting iconic experiences the game has seen. The main issue with Moria was it was a beginning of a downfall -- a chunk of stuff we were promised at launch (DN was supposed to be at launch) didn't get included and ended up as being content updates and that's when the updates slowed down to a crawl. So while the first 2 or 3 months Moria was out was a pretty lively time, there was the grumbling of no raid since Rift, and then the grumbling of gating raid content etc. I'm not sure the community as a whole was as happy with Moria as you and I were for example.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

I'm not too concerned about the player feedback. It is extremely subjective. I am interested in the amount and attributes of the content itself. Facts.

Also, I hope you are not assuming I joined the game in the summer of 2011. The vast majority of Jun 2011 you see here are European transfers. Most of us have also lived through the "glory days". I speak of experience, at least.

You're reading way too much in to my replies here -- I wasn't assuming anything about when you joined, actually I've read previous posts and was pretty sure you were a vet. My main point was that I don't recall a *glory days* period where the instance crew was fully satisfied or the story line crew. I recall a lot of growing pains for this game and large periods of extensive drought in content with a lot of negativity on the forums. My only point there is a lot of the complaints I'm seeing about RoI, concerns about RoR, and even earlier have always been there -- I saw the same complaints about Mirkwood, Moria even had complaints about lack of content (especially those who could have cared less that it came out with 7 instances), and SoA definitely had tons of complaints about lack of end game all over the web. I wish I knew when this day of a wealth of content truly existed.

Originally Posted by MoonwalkIntoMordor

If that was your intention, you should have done just that instead of this inane versus. But you are right, you were biased.

Face it we're both biased -- that's not a word to imply something bad, it just means we have our own strong opinions.

I disagree that the versus thing is inane (what a choice of wording -- you sound very angry at this point for some odd reason) -- our whole banter actually reinforces to me why I started the thread. There's not a single time in this game's history where I can honestly say I stuck around for the great wealth of instances, the great wealth of PvP, or the great wealth of content in general -- that time has never existed. THis game has ALWAYS been very very light on content releases. However, I'm extremely drawn to the story in general and have thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns and filling in the blanks Turbine has done -- even with very creative license in some cases. This thread is truly a statement that simply based on gameplay/content the game hasn't delivered enough. It's just the logging in and experiencing a middle earth come to life, and a chance to see iconic locations and experience things within the story that have kept me here and will keep me here -- I was curious if others were in that same page.
Hopefully that makes more sense -- sorry I got you so upset though.. wow. Emotions...