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Turbine dev diary outlines LotRO Hunter tweaks
The winds of change are blowing toward Lord of the Rings Online's Hunter class, and Turbine developer Brian "Zombie Columbus" Aloisio has penned a new dev diary detailing the efforts to make Hunters more interesting for high-level players. This is no small feat, as "the Hunter was intentionally designed to avoid complexity," Aloisio says. "The differences between the trait lines are a little shallow." How exactly is Turbine going to achieve the delicate balance between easy-to-play and hard-to-master? Aloisio outlines three primary focus points for the Hunter changes: a reduction of the number of "filler" traits, enhancements for underused skills (as opposed to new skill additions), and general maintenance. The dev diary goes into great detail regarding the bowmaster and huntsman lines, with the former ultimately receiving a reduction in top damage potential but an increase in the overall effective damage and the latter seeing significant changes to Fleet Stance and Strength of the Earth. Find a path to the official LotRO website for the full details.
LotRO's (re)writs of the Rune-keeper
Considering how effective the Rune-keeper class is, the developers at Turbine have made a lot of changes to its skills. This class' strength lies in damage and healing -- a nuker/healer, if you will. This fit the plans for Lord of the Rings Online quite well, but there were some things missing in the flavor of the advanced classes. As Designer Brian Aloisio explains in the November Developer Diary, "The Rune-keeper currently sits at top tier in both damage and healing output. Because of this, the goals we have set for this update did not focus on increasing or decreasing net effectiveness, but on adding variety, customization and more dynamic skill interaction to achieve these results." He adds that the changes are adding more "advanced" to the advanced class. Aloisio also confesses that the Trait Set bonuses were bugged, and instead of fixing bonuses, team has reinvented the Trait Sets. To give you an example, the Words of Grace-traited Rune-keepers were capable of healing in any instance, but they lacked non-healing options. So the advanced class' skills were extremely flat. To spice things up, heal-based RKs will now have a slightly different power rotation and have a couple of non-healing abilities, yet they are still an efficient healing class. Be sure to catch the full Developer Diary to see the specifics about your favorite advanced class changes.
PAX 2010: Counting down to LotRO's relaunch with Turbine
TweetWith the launch of Lord of the Rings Online's biggest patch to date a scant few days away, we touched base with Turbine's Aaron Campbell, Brian Aloisio, and Bob Hess at PAX Prime to see how their nerves are holding up at this point. It is, as Aloisio laughed, akin to launching the game all over again, and LotRO is definitely under close scrutiny because of it. Many players were surprised to hear that LotRO's free-to-play update was going live much sooner than anticipated, and we asked Campbell whether this was due to a preset schedule or better-than-anticipated beta feedback. He said that they weren't going to release it until it was ready, but by the team's reckoning, the beta process went so smoothly that there was no reason to delay any further. Compared to the betas for Shadows of Angmar, Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood, the F2P beta -- according to Campbell -- was the most upbeat Turbine's ever had, with far more positive feedback than negative. Hit the jump to hear more and see the latest screenshots and video from PAX.
The Road to Mordor: Touring the fall's new content with Turbine (part one)
It just may be the dream of every MMO geek to command the attention of his or her favorite dev team, bombard them with questions, and be shown secrets previously kept behind closed doors. Well, my friends, today that dream came true for this geek, as Turbine graciously sat down with Massively for over two hours to conduct an all-access tour to the fall's hot new LotRO content -- including the details behind the controversial and anticipated F2P switch. Aaron Campbell (Producer), Allan Maki (Senior Designer), Elliot Gilman (Senior Designer), Brian Aloisio (Designer), Joseph Barry (Designer) and Jonathan Rudder (Lore Guru) were on hand to fly me through the new content -- and reveal a few big surprises. To say that I had questions is an understatement; I fear that I sounded a bit like a six-year-old who peppers parents with unending "Why?" queries. Expecting to hear "no comment" a lot (after all, this content is in beta), I was surprised when the Turbine team enthusiastically answered all of my questions and then some. This is a team who know this F2P move is bringing some apprehension and concern, and they're trying to assuage that with as much information as possible. So join me as we go through the first part of this tour, looking at an enhanced new-player experience, instance scaling and the addition of Enedwaith to Turbine's Middle-earth.
The Road to Mordor: Rune-keepers under siege
Let's start today's column with a couple presuppositions, shall we? Number one: There is no set standard for being a "true" Tolkien fan. There's always someone out there who knows more than you, thinks that he is more faithful to the source material, and considers himself better than you in this regard. Like any fans, Tolkien-ites (Tolkkies?) are diverse. They may share the same passion, but they come to it from different backgrounds and with different standards. Number two: Turbine is not out to molest the corpse of good ol' J.R.R. by turning Lord of the Rings into a farce. Yes, it's all well and good to say as such when you want to be melodramatic on the forums, but the truth of the matter is that Turbine's done an excellent job sticking to both the lore and the spirit of Middle-earth as much as possible while still fashioning a game within those boundaries. It's not in their best interests to make a mockery of this franchise. These presuppositions converge on one of the most fiercely debated additions to LotRO, the Rune-keeper. Following the launch of the Mines of Moria expansion, fans responded with everything ranging from "Hey, it's a pretty cool class to play" to "IT'S THE END OF THE MIDDLE-EARTH!" hysteria. Seeing how passionate people are on this subject, I thought it would be worth looking into today, to answer the following questions: does the Rune-keeper have a place in LotRO, and does it break the lore and rules that Tolkien established?
