scaled-instances
Latest
The Road to Mordor: You've beaten Sauron. New game? Y/N
Huh... what is there to talk about these days? Really? Such a slow news cycle for LotRO... hm. I guess there's that whole "getting rid of pesky radiance" thing that's going to save me from having to write a column on that convoluted system, so thanks Turbine! Other than that, life in Middle-earth is as quiet as... As... as a... GEEKQUAKE! RUN FOR COVER! EMPLOY EXCESSIVE CAPS LOCK STATEMENTS! LOTRO AHOY! OK, so I might have been a bit facetious there. Shocking all of us, Turbine brought up the servers with the new patch an evening early, granting access to the head start of F2P on Tuesday night. I sort of suspected the devs were up to something when they kept rubbing their hands and cackling maniacally at PAX last weekend, although they claimed it was just a nervous disorder. So it's here -- the biggest non-expansion update to the game yet and a literal game-changer to boot. F2P, wardrobe, scaled instances, Enedwaith, the LotRO store, and lots and lots of new (and returning) players have existing players giddy and twitchy. So how'd the first couple days go so far? Is LotRO F2P really all that and a bag of Shire Sweet-leaf? Read on, my short and stout brethren!
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.
LotRO dev diary dishes on scaled instance rewards
Do you have a lot of questions about the upcoming scaled instances in Lord of the Rings Online? Good, because Turbine has a whole truckload of answers for you! In the second of a hefty five developer diaries devoted to the subject, LotRO's Joe "jwbarry" Barry tempts players with sweet, sweet candy. Metaphorical candy, that is, taking the form of instance rewards. The greatest problem that they had with rewards, Barry shares, is that itemizing a dungeon across a huge level range became a massive headache, requiring them to make "a prohibitive" amount of items. Instead, the LotRO dev team is taking a cue from its successful skirmish system, and reprogramming the scaled-instance mobs to drop tokens instead of loot. Players can then use these tokens to purchase armor sets, cosmetic items and even legendaries. Barry spends the rest of the article discussing the stat-tracking feature (again, similar to stat-tracking functions with skirmishes) and how the team went back through the dungeons to raise the quality of the entire experience where needed. You can read the full dev diary over at Lord of the Rings Online's site.
