Thread: Update 9: Against the Shadow and the Rohan Instance cluster

This week, Update 9 will go live on the Bullroarer test server. In addition to a number of bug fixes and updates, this update will also include the first half of the Rohan instance cluster. The second half of the cluster will be released in 2013.

When we made the decision to delay the release of the Rider’s of Rohan expansion, we also made it clear that we would still honor our commitment to release the instances this year. Because of the delay in shipping Rohan, development time for the year was obviously reduced. This left us two options; either delay the entire instance cluster until 2013, or release those instances we felt could be completed with the highest degree of polish in December and delay the others until they are ready (currently expected to be February). We’ve chosen to honor our commitment as best we can with the limited time remaining in 2012 while still insuring the highest quality possible.

We want to be very clear that if you purchase the Riders of Rohan expansion, the entire instance cluster is free. You will have access to all instances listed below released as Part I in Update 9 and Part II when it releases at no additional charge. As long as you’ve purchased Rohan, you’ll get all of the instances listed.

We also want to share with you the full plan for all seven instances.

Instances shipping with Update 9: Against the Shadow

Riders of Rohan Instances (Part 1):

• Iorbar’s Peak (Misty Mountains / Stone Giants-3-man)
• Webs of the Scuttledells (Mirkwood 3-man)
• Seat of the Great Goblin (Goblintown 3-man)

Shipping in 2013 (Currently Planned for February)
Riders of Rohan Instances (Part 2):

• The Bells of Dale (6-man)
• Flight to the Lonely Mountain (12-man; single boss)
• The Fires of Smaug (12-man; single boss)
• The Battle for Erebor (12-man; single boss)

Many of you have asked if we’ll ever see the Lonely Mountain. Hopefully this gives you the answer you were looking for.

The full release notes for Update 9: Against the Shadow will be available when Bullroarer goes live.

I foresee... vigorous discussion in the immediate future.

At least nobody can say they expected these venues.

Originally Posted by Haradim

At least nobody can say they expected these venues.

Well, certainly not masked as "Riders of Rohan" instances considering... geography :P

With 3-mans coming out first it looks like old progression routine people usually suggested as a grouping tutorial has been made more official - well, mostly because we have no other choice While Galahadur pointed at one bitter pill (100% bigger pieces in 2013), there is one more I can see - bad spot left for 6-mans, with "trio instances" skewing demand for tank & healer ad absurdum. Poor DPS people.

But two bitter pills aside - not bad, finally, etc etc. Polishing or not, on purpose or not - it seems Turbine switched to chopping content into smaller pieces a while ago already, compared to "big release +=> 6-12 months of emptiness" it doesn't look so awful (at least on paper).


Raids though... until I know whether single-boss equals "lair" structure (or lack of structure to be more precise), it's hard to judge. Pessimist could imagine equivalent of Acid, Lightning and Shadow being presented as three raids. Hopefully not the case. I guess we will know tomorrow, but that issue is still worth its own spot: is either of those two parts scalable?

Agreed with Ferthcott, the 3 seperate raids could play into each other storywise and essentially be the equivalent of wings. I guess we can say lets wait for more information, but we have been waiting...for months, and I suppose this vague idea of what's coming is what we're getting as far as info.

*Hands nails to turbine* *points to coffin*

Ugh. The only thing keeping me slogging along with the boring Hytbold dailies was the (repeated) promise of an instance cluster this year.

It's very insulting that Turbine decided not to comply with the spirit of the promise--i.e. releasing what is *technically* a "cluster" of instances, but nothing like what we have been given as an instance cluster in the past.

They "honored their commitment" about as well as Hooters did when they gave that waitress a new Toy Yoda.

This has left quite the bad taste in my mouth. Very shady. 2 months late on the information we were promised, and now I see why. Congrats, Turbine, for sinking to a new communication low.

Originally Posted by Frisco

It's very insulting that Turbine decided not to comply with the spirit of the promise--i.e. releasing what is *technically* a "cluster" of instances, but nothing like what we have been given as an instance cluster in the past.

They "honored their commitment" about as well as Hooters did when they gave that waitress a new Toy Yoda.

This has left quite the bad taste in my mouth. Very shady. 2 months late on the information we were promised, and now I see why. Congrats, Turbine, for sinking to a new communication low.

When Rohan was delayed EVERYONE theorized that the Instances by the end of 2012 would not be achieved at ALL. But instead of totally breaking that commitment they worked hard to get us a hefty chunk of that content out as quickly as they could in the 2 month window they had once Rohan was launched. So no this isn't what we all wanted but its more than many of us expected to see based on the launch delay.

I'm sad. No raids, not even a single 6 man until FEBRUARY!
You know, that content you've been waiting for since Rohan release, it' coming in 3 months! So in the meanwhile you can go on doing BORING dailies and running 3 mans, who cares if you don't get to play what you like, the way you like (being a SUPPORT class) until february?

3x3mans noone cares about?
1x6 man?
No Multibossraid.

Do you guys work at office or just sleep?

Originally Posted by Burio

3x3mans noone cares about?
1x6 man?
No Multibossraid.

Do you guys work at office or just sleep?

No Multibossraid is extremely disappointing.. cant describe it.

Originally Posted by Lapislazzuli

I'm sad. No raids, not even a single 6 man until FEBRUARY!
You know, that content you've been waiting for since Rohan release, it' coming in 3 months! So in the meanwhile you can go on doing BORING dailies and running 3 mans, who cares if you don't get to play what you like, the way you like (being a SUPPORT class) until february?

No one is forcing you to do anything. If you don't want to play the game, don't.

Originally Posted by Rawkan

No one is forcing you to do anything. If you don't want to play the game, don't.

A whispering breeze amongst the gale, you sir win the thread.

I'm really looking forward to this patch. It's friggin awesome!

I only ever did each of the Isengard three man instances once each and I don't expect these to be any different. The remainder of the promised 2012 content better be a SIGNIFICANT change from the norm or Turbine will not see my money in 2013.

I was expecting something like this and it's reasonable.

When RoR was delayed in the name of Polish i was pretty sure the whole instance cluster would be pushed to 2013.Kudos for the effort to at least bring us some new toys to play with.

Just sad they are only 3-mans. Many Raiding kinships are falling apart or twindling thumbs waiting for a new raid or at least a 6-man.

As for Dale. Will it be a new region on update 10? Or are you just releasing the instances and not the zone? I was expecting a big zone akin to Great River and way to monetize on the Hobbit, which you clearly are doing with releasing the 3-mans in Misty Mountains and Mirkwood.

Thanks for keeping the comunication channels open!

None of these sound like they could be Mounted Instances, so seems like a win.

Frankly this is the scenario I was expecting. Delaying the whole cluster would have generated too much negative feedback, and releasing the whole thing in 2012 would no doubt have resulted in excessive bugginess. In my view you made the best decision you could have.

Very excited for the Hobbit themed instances too. It would have been poor business sense to do otherwise and I am VERY looking forward to seeing how Turbine's art team does Erebor.

Woot THREE Draigoch/Turtles!

aaaand the very few serious raiders left are gone.

Originally Posted by nolins12

Woot THREE Draigoch/Turtles!

aaaand the very few serious raiders left are gone.

Could be as hard as the Watcher was back in MoM....

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Could be as hard as the Watcher was back in MoM....

Going to go ahead and hope that this was a joke...

I am fairly happy about the quantity of 12-mans however, only 1 6-man and only 3-mans being released before 2013....
It's kinda frustrating, but a small break from LOTRO never hurt anything....

Ex

So hobbit expansion? Zones or just instances?

Cant see many players being happy about this at all. Started taking money for RoR in July but you wont get all you paid for till at least February.

I guess there will be no new armor sets till the 3 raids are released next year.

is there any info if there will be a split payment of some sort for the instance cluster? :eg: have 3 man cluster in store this week and the rest in february?Or have everything as a bundle starting this week. Obviously, this is a question comin from someone who got rohan q.pack only (with tp's) so no sense in buyng the 4k+ pack wich is in store now since i already got the quests.


thanks

No raid until February? Yikes.

Having been in RoR beta I totally understand then needing more time if they were going to complete the entire instance cluster. I am happy that they decided to focus on getting some of it out for all of us to both enjoy and to fulfill their commitment of a cluster by the end of the year.

In a way I'm a little surprised that the entire cluster is Hobbit themed but at the same time we get to see a LOT of places in the game that normally we would never be able to get to without a major divergence in the epic story. I've never been a serious raider yet I've gone into every raid instance the game has to offer. The most enjoyable of these for me has been the Rift and Draigoch. So I'm both happy to see the 3 raids but I'm a little surprised that every single one of these is a single boss... This doesn't mean that the raid doesn't have add mechanics that we have to work through to get to the boss or during phases of a boss but we'll see how that goes come February. I do wish that there had been 1 more 6 man in there and one less 3 mans as I've never gotten into the 3 manning instances much it always feels like you're missing things in there.

A split push for development perhaps? Western Rohan etc for expansions, and Hobbit-related tie-in content for the "Free" updates and regions?

Since the instances are going over that way, and the ones held until February are specifically the Dale/Erebor related ones, hopefully (wishfully perhaps :P) that means we could be getting some landmass over their for the spring. It's a little earlier than GR and Enedwaith launched in the previous years, but who knows. Also a bit of a stretch to get that far, that fast, but who knows? A cheekily portal boundary (eg, Shire <> Ere Luin) could be on the cards.

I guess we could even cheekily exit mirkwood behind Dol Guldur, and have a region up the eastern border of Mirkwood, but:

1. That's a large North-South stretch of land
2. It present the issue of how to both practically and realistically border mirkwood to prevent (re-entry). One-shotter elves anyone?

Sapience, I know your hands will be tied with what you can say, but to avoid any unjustified negativity, can you specify a bit more about the format of the raids? I assume it's going to be a bit more than three turtle-style facerolls, but are we talking a (hopefully) hard lair boss type thing (like MoM Watcher) or something with a bit of trash preceeding it, like a (again, hopefully less of a faceroll) Helegrod wing?

No regular raid ... this must be a joke ... or WB want to close Lotro soon ...

I wonder , if there will a proper raid incoming now in december or when? or never?.

I don't remember people complaining that much about the Watcher being a single boss raid. So what if one of the three is like the turtle or draig, there are THREE RAIDS- the most raids that have been released simultaneously at any point in the game, and that is a great sign. The fact that we are getting 3 3mans, 1 six man, and 3 raids all in addition to Rohan and everything else that it came with it sounds good to me.

I am not surprised to see Hobbit related instances, and whilst they divert from the main story, I am very excited to see these parts of Middle-earth. My main concern is with raids being released so late, they never take off as well because they are over-shadowed by expansions looming in the not so distant future. I personally hope we do not get an expansion in 2013 and we get some decent end-game content to really work at with more focussed updates instead.

I do not mind single-boss raids, at least there are three of them.. Can be run one after the other for those wanting multi-boss raids. I just hope they prove interesting and not mind numbingly simple like the turtle raid.

With all this Hobbit related content I hope to god that the press department has a good marketing strategy in place to pull in fresh blood.

Thank you for the update.

I suspect that this is one of those announcements that, for many people, will trigger memories of our mothers telling us, "If you don't have anything good to say..."

Anyway, hopefully the lair raids don't bother with trash mobs. Adds with the boss, sure, but don't artificially inflate the time we spend in there by giving us trash that leads to one boss.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the lair raids will be of varying difficulty: one of Turtle-like difficulty, one of Watcher 2.0 (or harder) level, and one in-between.

Given the fact that it's probably impossible to design three lair raids of equal difficulty, for the love of Pete please make sure that each raid has its own rewards and that the rewards match the difficulty. Either give each raid its own armor set, with the best armor coming from the toughest raid, or gate 2/6 pieces behind each raid and make sure that the 5- or 6-set bonuses are far superior to the 2-, 3-, and 4-set bonuses.

Originally Posted by pteranadon

I don't remember people complaining that much about the Watcher being a single boss raid. So what if one of the three is like the turtle or draig, there are THREE RAIDS- the most raids that have been released simultaneously at any point in the game, and that is a great sign. The fact that we are getting 3 3mans, 1 six man, and 3 raids all in addition to Rohan and everything else that it came with it sounds good to me.

People didn't complain about the Watcher because it was a mechanic to get the full armor set needed to begin DN which was a full, proper raid with a new set of armor. Let's also not forget that the Watcher had a boatload of fun and rather clever 6-mans that went with it.

Three single boss lair raids and we're all supposed to be excited about this? Did Turbine forget they STILL haven't been able to get Draigoch working properly and we're supposed to get excited about another 12-man dragon?

Well, at least I saw it coming. Only one 6men instance and no multiboss raids is disappointing, just disappointing. My main problem with Lotro since Mirkwood is the lack of proper Fellowship instances and this doesn't sound good. I already see the rail level coming. But I'll give it a chance.

Is this a joke?

How much will this cost in TP? Thanks so much.

Hobbit tie-in instances. Nice.

I don't see any reason why the "12 man, single boss" raids are *necessarily* lair-style raids like the Watcher, Turtle or Draigoch. A raid with a single boss could still have (interesting, challenging) trash leading up to it.

Three raids, six armor slots...I'm thinking that the three raids are listed separately for two reasons:

1) It makes it look like there's more content than there really is (marketing move, doesn't really bug too much as it's to be expected really).

2) Rather than have one multi-boss, multi-wing raid like Orthanc that's the source of our raid armor sets but gets kind of monotonous after months of grinding despite the clear attempt at differentiating the wings, Turbine opted to split the raid experience into three distinct instances.

Three bosses is less than Orthanc's five, sure, but could still potentially be a lot of fun.

Like someone else above me noted, I do wonder what the "point" of the 3-mans will be. Surely they will have some useful teals, just as the Isengard 3-mans had, but those also supplied valuable sigil fragments, not to mention a good return on medallions and seals that could be used toward the raid armor. Granted, we don't know what the raid armor will be like in terms of cost/reward structure, but currently there's really no good supply of medallions, which are needed for LI advancement. I'm hoping the December 3-mans give decent medallions.

I'm happy where they are taking the raiding idea. Makes it easy for me as a casual to sign up for raid nights when it is something quick and dirty like most lair raids turn into.

Wow, just wow...

I don't know how else to express my disappointment with Turbine atm...

The Good....
Releasing in 2 phases can be taken as ... decent news, it gives the players something to do at least, 3 3-man instances = bleh though, and I'm sure Turbine knows that of all the instances they release, the 3 mans get the least attention from the player base as they allow the least flexibility in class choice (tank, heals, dps required [T2]).


The Bad...
These instances have NOTHING at all to do with RoR and take us in the completely opposite direction with no news of the land mass to accompany them. The area in question takes us from Goblin Town all the way to the Lonely Mountain, an absolutely enormous stretch of land with MANY locations players have been asking for for years. Now, we're getting a few of them, in an obviously rushed money grab in time for the first movie release.

Now, it was expected when the movies were announced that we wouldn't be going south until we had Dale so the Hobbit could be realized in LOTRO, but you went to Rohan instead.

So instead of both of these areas being given the attention they deserve, they are both being slapped in the face.

More Bad...
3 man instances rarely give rewards of any worth, and are generally harder to get groups for then 6 mans due to the way you are restricted... So yes, we may have a way to get some medallions/seals again, but with no gear to achieve, no chance at 2nd agers, you might as well not even have bothered...

More bad...
With the amount of DPS races we've had in the past, the 3 single boss raids don't look like a change for the better. Smaug has been dead for years, no idea how the fires are still burning, let me guess, we fight his offspring or some &&&& like that... Battle for Erebor, I have NO idea how this is going can be single boss...

More bad...
&&& is the Battle for Erebor, please tell me it's not the Battle of Dale... The Battle of Dale (aka Erebor) took place on March 17th, 3019... Our timeline currently has us around April 30th... Although that's barely more then 2 weeks, this is by far the most active time in LOTR! March 2nd is when Theoden is cured by Gandalf, the Battle of the Hornburg is on the 3rd as with the flooding of Isengard by the Ents, Aragorn enters Dunharrow on the 7th, the Dawnless day on the 10th with the Mustering of the Rohirrim, on the 13th the enemy crosses onto the Pelenor fields, and the 15th is the Battle of the Pelenor Fields. Are you telling me we're going to be in Dale for all this?!?!?!?