An Introduction to LOTRO Systems

[Jalessa]

As LOTRO has grown, the LOTRO team has gone through periods of growth and transition. Since some of our older developers have moved onto new tasks and newer developers have come on board, the LOTRO Systems team and I would like to take this opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to you. We would also like to announce a new way to broaden our communications with you, through our official LOTRO Systems forum account.


Who We Are
The LOTRO Systems team focuses on design, implementation, and balancing of the core game systems within LOTRO. These game systems are (but are not limited to):

• Classes: advancement, skill adjustment and creation, trait advancement and creation, etc
• Itemization: creating treasure drops and items from landscape to raid, quest rewards, reputation, legendary items, etc
• Crafting: recipe and item creation, advancement (guilds, tiering), components, etc
• Monster AI: creating skills and behaviors that monsters use...from the landscape piggy to mega raid boss uruk
• Monster Play: advancement, skill adjustment and creation, trait advancement and creation, PvMP balancing, reward structures, population balance mechanics, etc

We are also responsible for designing and/or scoping new game systems or features that will fit within LOTRO and implementation (if systems implementation is required) of those designs should they be chosen for book updates or expansions. As an example, in Book 7, we provided a design specification for the advancement tracker UI and quest guide UI. For Mines of Moria, we provided design specifications for legendary items and a significant amount of implementation work (since it involved itemization and classes).

We also spend a good bit of time bug fixing - in between all of that design, balancing, and creation. As you can see, LOTRO Systems covers a lot of stuff. We aren't just "class balance folks", although a good portion of our game and game systems revolves around classes and class advancement.

We are the guardians of overall game balance. It’s not enough to make sure that each individual class and system is balanced within itself. We take a holistic balance approach to the game: between monsters and players; between each of the player classes; between players and monster players.


Who I Am
I'm Jalessa, the Lead Designer for the LOTRO Systems team. I started working for Turbine in December 2007. Prior to working for Turbine, I was a Senior/Lead Designer for Mythic Entertainment (EA Mythic) and had worked on both Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online.

While on LOTRO, I have been working on a number of game systems. I started out by doing bug fixing and then assisted with implementing item rewards for Forochel for Book 13. After that, I worked on Monster Play: continued bug fixing and designed and implemented an advancement path for MP with Orion for Mines of Moria. I also have been working on other tasks: for instance, on Book 7, I assisted Orion with the updates he has done for the New Player Experience by providing new item rewards for the revamped level 1-15 experience.

In my role as Lead Designer of the LOTRO Systems team, I am focused on keeping the team organized and interacting with each other - since our game systems overlap with each other, it is crucial that we make sure that our design decisions are properly measured, informed, and reacted upon by all of us (both internal and external to the team).


The LOTRO Systems Forum Account
As of this point forward, forum threads that merit a LOTRO Systems developer response will be forwarded to the LOTRO Systems team. The team will briefly discuss the thread and one of us will post under the LOTRO Systems forum account, as an official response by the LOTRO systems team.

The purpose of the LOTRO Systems forum account is twofold:

• The forum post will be more clearly understood as an official stance of the LOTRO Systems team. Sometimes when an individual developer posts, the reponse may be that individual's opinion, not necessarily an official stance of the team as a whole. Making that distinction is sometimes very difficult to do and it may be confusing when seeing apparently contradictory posts. Now, however, when you see a response by "LOTROSystems", you will know that the written response is not a joke message, fluff text, or opinion because it is not by an individual developer. It is an official message of importance by the team.
• We hope to cover a broader amount of subjects (and forums) than we were previously by using individual developers in class forums.

(Please note, we're not removing the LOTRO Systems team individual accounts - just trying to help with dev post clutter!)


A Note About IRC/Dev Chats
Because Developer Chats are an informal environment, the LOTRO Systems team will still be using our individual user names when we log into IRC. However, due to the nature of Dev Chats, while we are in them, the statements made by the individuals of the LOTRO Systems team members should be considered official responses of the LOTRO Systems team.


There you have it! I hope this helps give you some insight into the LOTRO Systems team and we look forward to future posts!
/wave from all of us in LOTRO Systems...I'm heading back to our Book 8 bug queue!

[ararax2]

Grats on the promotion Jalessa!

Now about those Fire dot.... :P
J/K

But who is on this team?

[KainXI]

Always interesting to hear exactly who is doing what. Thanks for the info!

[arahun]

First gz to your promotion.

Originally Posted by Jalessa

We are the guardians of overall game balance. It’s not enough to make sure that each individual class and system is balanced within itself. We take a holistic balance approach to the game: between monsters and players; between each of the player classes; between players and monster players.

This seems to lack since Moria, but if this team/ structure is new then you will show some improvement I hope.

Thx for the insight.

[liguorien]

Is LOTROSystems accepting cookies? Because it's gonna be hard to choose the recipient for those tasty oatmeal raisin cookies...

[Galahadur]

Originally Posted by Jalessa

• Classes: advancement, skill adjustment and creation, trait advancement and creation, etc
• Itemization: creating treasure drops and items from landscape to raid, quest rewards, reputation, legendary items, etc
• Crafting: recipe and item creation, advancement (guilds, tiering), components, etc
• Monster AI: creating skills and behaviors that monsters use...from the landscape piggy to mega raid boss uruk
• Monster Play: advancement, skill adjustment and creation, trait advancement and creation, PvMP balancing, reward structures, population balance mechanics, etc

This was seriously lacking. Drops in 16th Hall, Watcher and the new raid DN make no sense (radiance and non-radiance armour worse than the one that you are already required to have just to get in?)

Grats on the promo Jalessa.

[ScrappyTheGreat]

Oh, wow. You guys cover a lot of areas! Any chance we can get a list of pep (or a short list of main pep) so that we better understand who's who during the dev chats and when members of your team post their personal opinions, fluff, etc on the forums?

It's my understanding that any post that's an official post from the LotRO Systems Team is going to be from the "LOTROSystems" account. Is that correct? If so, then can "LOTROSystems" pop into the hunter forums every once in a while? (sry, but I had to give a "shout-out" for hunters Besides, I'm sure Tarrant, Sapience, et al are getting pretty annoyed with us. Perhaps hunters can ramble/rant to you guys now too? We gotta share the love! )

[FutenCake]

I hope this doesn't mean no more witty Zombie banter?

Seriously though, this should be good. Now, who was it who built Burglars in SoA and can we have them back for this expansion? :P

[NuclearTonic]

Jalessa it's nice to have a representative on the forums! It shows turbine cares about it's customers as an entity and not just each individual developer caring. That's seriously a very important step!

Hope we can see some good solid support from the Systems Team!

[Valinerya]

Great idea This will further cement Turbine's stance that no one individual is responsible for an entire class. No one individual is responsible for loot tables. It's a group effort, and as such responses should merit group input.

Looking forward to this moving ahead!

[bprorsum]

Originally Posted by FutenCake

I hope this doesn't mean no more witty Zombie banter?

Seriously though, this should be good. Now, who was it who built Burglars in SoA and can we have them back for this expansion? :P

DANGERDAN!!!

Dear LoTROsystemsteamajbkla;jakl;ak a;,

Please let DangerDan, with no other LTORJOAjsYSTMESTEAMOSefort, fix the Burglar class.

Sincerely,

Zombie's Best Friend for Life!

[ararax2]

Originally Posted by bprorsum

DANGERDAN!!!

Dear LoTROsystemsteamajbkla;jakl;ak a;,

Please let DangerDan, with no other LTORJOAjsYSTMESTEAMOSefort, fix the Burglar class.

Sincerely,

Zombie's Best Friend for Life!

Honestly this is what I think they are trying to avoid. People like Danger Dan and Zombie running wild with 10k crits and total badassness (I know its not a word) While other classes like post Moria Guardians and Pre 12 post 8 champions scraping the floor for the scraps that come off of the table of the flavor of the month team. Devs having pet classes is headed for imbalance.

[bprorsum]

Originally Posted by ararax2

Honestly this is what I think they are trying to avoid. People like Danger Dan and Zombie running wild with 10k crits and total badassness (I know its not a word) While other classes like post Moria Guardians and Pre 12 post 8 champions scraping the floor for the scraps that come off of the table of the flavor of the month team. Devs having pet classes is headed for imbalance.

I'd rather have individual Developers working on a single class than a group of Developers working on all the classes. Why? Fear that we will continue down the path of hybrid classes, Developers "philosophies" becoming reality, and class disparity becoming so blurred, that the game is like Mortal Kombat where they are all equally powerful but the mechanics are different.

[FutenCake]

Originally Posted by ararax2

Devs having pet classes is headed for imbalance.

Hah. What about when you are a dev's exotic pet that he doesn't appear to quite understand, possibly because you are a schizophrenic and likely extra-terrestrial hyperactive furball who will only eat mentos and ritz crackers mashed up into a paste and spread on melba toast?

I wouldn't say burglars are Zombie's pet class, I would say we are more like his dead mother-in-law's pet that he got stuck taking care of and who's wife is making him care for.

Edit: I found a picture of the burglar class:

[bprorsum]

Originally Posted by FutenCake

Hah. What about when you are a dev's exotic pet that he doesn't appear to quite understand, possibly because you are a schizophrenic and likely extra-terrestrial hyperactive furball who will only eat mentos and ritz crackers mashed up into a paste and spread on melba toast?

I wouldn't say burglars are Zombie's pet class, I would say we are more like his dead mother-in-law's pet that he got stuck taking care of and who's wife is making him care for.

LOLWAFFLES.

FutenCake is my 2nd favourite poster.

Draegon is clearly my 1st....