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Turbine: Raiders make up the smallest player group in LotRO
If you've wondered why Turbine has decided to forgo developing new raids for Lord of the Rings Online (at least for the time being), it all comes down to numbers. According to CM Rick Heaton, raiders make up the smallest portion of the playerbase even if they are quite vocal on the forums: Raiders comprise the smallest, by far, group in our game. PvMP players are far larger and even they are small. in fact together the two groups wouldn't comprise 10% of the total player base and never have (this is important. it's not a new thing, it's a long standing historical fact). Forum posters comprise a slightly larger group than the combined group of PvMP and Raiders. However, Raiders and PvMP players make up the overwhelming majority of forum posters (More than half. Though raiders are the smaller group of the two (PvMP/Raiders)). So you have a tiny group, inside a small group that is grossly disproportionately represented on the forums. [Thanks to Dan for the tip!]
Turbine: 'We plan to support LotRO for many more years to come'
Twenty questions is one of the oldest car trip games known to humanity. Turbine likes to think that it's the best at it, especially when it comes to Lord of the Rings Online. In a new post, the devs answer 20 pressing questions that the community had this month. These questions range from the possibility of live events with developers, how horses are made and animated, the future of PvMP, how Turbine tunes zone difficulty, mailing more than one item at a time, and the proposed PvMP zone that ended up getting scrapped. Turbine also addressed the future of the game and said that its relationship with Middle-earth Enterprises is still strong: "We plan to support LotRO for many more years to come." The community is understandably curious about the seldom-heard player council, but Turbine says that the council is doing its job: "The council has been very helpful. It gives us the opportunity to have very focused conversations. The threads don't go on in to 40-plus pages and the topics are very pertinent to current development. So far it has been a great and responsive sounding board."
The Road to Mordor: Sandbox features that would serve LotRO well
The tug-o-war in the MMO community between the virtues of sandbox vs. themepark designs looks like it's starting to result in a muddy heap in the middle: the sandpark. Personally, I think there are wonderful aspects of both designs (and drawbacks too), and a marriage between the two could offer more player freedom and creativity while keeping it structured and balanced. So I've been thinking about Lord of the Rings Online in regard to this and how it might benefit from a greater number of sandbox features in the future. I mean, on one hand we have one of the most "on rails" PvE games out there, but on the other hand there are seeds of great player freedom. Elements like the music system, the Winter-home theater, Hytbold, and the quite robust crafting system all serve to take us a step beyond the themepark. But what if LotRO took a few more steps toward sandboxy goodness? Seeing as how the original vision for the game was to make it a pure sandbox, I think that's not too farfetched a question. Here are several sandbox features that I think if married to the game would add to its appeal and variety.
The Road to Mordor: Looking at PvMP from the outside in
The other day I was making a mental list of aspects of Lord of the Rings Online that I generally avoid. Raiding was one, mostly because I don't have the time and the acquisition of gear isn't that important to me. Crafting was another because the end results have little personal appeal. But topping the list was LotRO's version of PvP, PvMP. I think I made a monster character three years ago and ventured out into the Ettenmoors once, but that's the extent of my adventures in that area of the game. As a result, PvMP has received very little coverage in this column during my tenure at Massively. For one thing, it's not a good idea to talk about something of which you have little experience in doing. For another, I'm fairly sure that the PvMP community, while dedicated, is a small minority of the game's population. It's always felt like a weird vestigial tail to me, an anomaly that exists within our game that many of us rarely mention or see. So today let's talk about it. I would like to, from the perspective of a player looking from the outside in. Why is PvMP so strange to me? What purpose do I think it has in the game? And how could it become more compelling so that I would actually want to engage in it?
Lord of the Rings Online dev diary discusses 'reincarnation' of PvMP
Today's Lord of the Rings Online dev diary begins by stating that "over the course of LotRO's lifetime, the Ettenmoors has been updated several times." It continues, "this is not one of those times. This is a new beginning; this is a reincarnation." Those are some bold words, so what about this new incarnation of the Ettenmoors is so revolutionary? Well, a number of things, according to the dev diary. The team is not looking for a "mystical silver bullet that magically makes everything better" but instead is looking at three primary areas to revamp. First, the team is taking a look at the many keeps, outposts, and the Delving. The current model rewards players for flipping control points to their faction's control, but there's no incentive to continue to hold them, so the studio aims to "shift the model to instead provide large benefits for having and keeping locations." Secondly, Turbine is analyzing Creep traits and skills for "usefulness, potency, and acquisition costs. Finally, all Creep classes will be receiving new skills and "an overall balance adjustment on... damage and healing" to ensure they are balanced with the Free Peoples. The full dev blog is far too in-depth to post the whole thing here, but if you're interested in the nitty-gritty of all the PvMP changes coming with Riders of Rohan, head on over to the full post.
LotRO's Wargs to be stealthy or beefy fighters
It's a dog-eat-dog world in Middle-earth, and only the most vicious of canines will succeed in the cutthroat world of PvMP. Lord of the Rings Online is preparing for a whole host of monster play renovations with Update 6, and Wargs are on tap for some serious love. A new dev diary on the official LotRO site lists all of the many, many changes coming for Wargs due to this shift in focus. As a stealth class, Wargs were seen by developers as being too vulnerable to imminent death after entering into combat. As such, the devs are beefing up the class' survivability by giving players a choice. With Update 6, Wargs can move between Shadow (stealth) and Flayer (brawler) stances, depending on the player's preference and situation. The Flayer stance will replace the old Shadow Howler one. Turbine previously outlined other changes for PvMP in Update 6, including Weavers, Audacity, and Commendations.
What a tangled web Lord of the Rings Online weaves, especially for Weavers
If your idea of a good time in Lord of the Rings Online is to be a scuttling eight-legged monstrosity in PvMP, you've no doubt spent plenty of time with the Weaver. The developers aren't entirely happy with the Weaver; they feel that as players have grown more powerful, the finesse of a Weaver has less of a place on the battlefield. Rather than reworking the class from the ground up, however, the team is pushing through some big new upgrades for Weavers to keep them as terrifying in a mechanical sense as they are in a physical sense. The two biggest changes are the addition of Venom pips and the Ensnared debuff. Venom pips will increase a Weaver's poison damage and can be consumed via two new skills. Ensnared, on the other hand, stacks on players whom a Weaver has slowed and can be converted into Venom pips and damage. The control elements of the class are also seeing some upgrades and enhancements aimed at keeping spiders dangerous in the battlefield, ensuring that the first reaction of "smash that spider!" is in fact the correct one.
Latest Lord of the Rings Online dev diary is rather audacious
Lord of the Rings Online's PvMP changes just keep rolling in, it seems. Last week, the Turbine team announced that a new currency known as commendations will be replacing the role of destiny in matters of PvMP transactions. Today, we've got a new dev diary that announces the upcoming addition of a new PvMP-only stat called Audacity. What is Audacity, exactly? Well, put simply, it's a PvMP stat that will provide players with benefits such as reducing incoming damage and lowering the duration of crowd control abilities. Higher audacity, obviously, equates to lower incoming damage and shorter crowd control effects. But why introduce this feature in the first place? According to the post, the team believes that having PvMP and PvE gear on the same progression path resulted in underwhelming or overly difficult-to-obtain PvMP gear since the team had to ensure that "the PvMP items did not devalue the PvE offerings." In addition, Turbine feels that, thanks to the damage changes made in Rise of Isengard, PvMP combat was too fast-paced. The addition of audacity is intended to nix both of these problems. Freeps will acquire their first rank of Audacity automatically at level 40, and further ranks will be boosted by PvMP gear that can only be purchased with commendations. Creeps, meanwhile, will gain their first rank of Audacity upon creation, and they'll gain further ranks by purchasing them directly from class trainers (seeing as how Creeps don't wear equipment). For the full details on this new system, just click on through the link below to the official dev diary.
Lord of the Rings Online offering PvMP players some Commendation
Lord of the Rings Online has always had an interesting system of PvP, with players facing off against a specially designated group of players in the guise of monsters. It's also a system that's historically had some problems, ones that the developers are hoping to alleviate the new Commendation system coming with Update 6. While it won't fix everything, the new system outlined in today's developer diary should ensure that players will be able to focus their PvMP efforts toward PvMP rewards, making rewards more straightforward without forcing players into PvE to advance. The diary explains how Destiny, the previously intended PvMP currency, wound up being bloated and failed to serve its proper purpose. Commendations will be hard-capped at 100,000, and spending this currency will allow players to advance Creeps and acquire new equipment. The preliminary numbers are also included with the diary, with the understanding that there will be some tweaking after the system goes live. While players might be a bit miffed at having to use their Destiny quickly before it goes away, the new reward system will hopefully make advancing via PvMP far more viable.
The Road to Mordor: 'Twas the night before Isengard...
I feel it. It's those excited butterflies that appear somewhere in my navel region when I realize that I'm on the verge of something new, fun, and possibly involving an alien xenomorph bursting out of my insides. It's the thrill of anticipation almost realized. For this time next week, we'll be well on our way to Isengard. I've never been around for a Lord of the Rings Online expansion release, which makes this a first for me. Sure, I have my concerns about Rise of Isengard, but on the whole I'm ready to jump into an untamed region and explore the living deeds out of it. I'm not in a rush to get through it all and start raiding or anything, so my Lore-master will be taking his sweet time milking each quest for the calcium-rich story within. Oddly enough, I'm most excited about the prospect of cool new cosmetics because I have a sick obsession with them that's going to require a full-scale intervention. I'm not quite sure how LotRO's third expansion will be taken by the larger community, and I probably won't know until the launch fever dies down and we evaluate how useful, entertaining, and engaging it is over the long term. I'm just glad we're moving forward. In this week's Road to Mordor, I want to look back at the build-up to Isengard's release, what we know so far, and what changes are in store for our characters. Might as well tidy up the place since it's going to get hecka messy soon enough.
New LotRO dev diaries outline Minstrel changes, PvMP
Denizens of Middle-earth, sit yourselves down, light up some pipeweed, and brace yourselves for information overload. The fine folks at Turbine have released a pair of new dev diaries outlining the changes coming to Minstrels and PvMP with Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard. One of the first things that Minstrels will notice when they log in to Rise of Isengard for the first time is that they are no longer clad in the medium armor to which they are accustomed. Instead, the Minstrel's medium armor trait is being replaced with something "equally valuable." The next sweeping change comes in regard to the Minstrel's ballads. Gone are the days when Minstrels had to play ballads in tiers; instead, all ballads have been divided into minor, major, and perfect categories. These categories roughly tie into the three stances that the Minstrel employs, providing either healing, damage, or power reduction. The Major Ballad is of particular note, as its effects will change depending on the stance the Minstrel is in. With no stance selected, the ability will heal allies. In Harmony or War-speech stance, the ability becomes a damage-dealing skill. Minstrels will also be receiving an upgrade to their available stance choices, allowing players greater flexibility in their playstyle. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the changes coming to Minstrels with Rise of Isengard; they will also be receiving changes to their Anthems and will be given a new type of ability called a Coda. Trait lines are being given a few tweaks as well, so any would-be bards should certainly give the full list of changes a look. Meanwhile, in the Ettenmoors, changes are sweeping the Freeps. All Freep quests have been made into dailies, and all quests now reward players with a combination of Destiny, Glory, and cold hard coin. Rangers have received a variety of tweaks as well. Freep PvMP rewards have been upgraded to be uniform with the new stat system, and players who previously purchased the old versions of the armor rewards will be able to swap the old version for the new. New jewelry and offhands are also being made available to help the Free Peoples of Middle-earth take the battle to the Ettenmoors. Once again, the full details, as well as previews of some of the updated items being made available to the heroes of the Ettenmoors.
The Road to Mordor: What to do with Destiny Points?
To say that Lord of the Rings Online has many types of currencies is like saying that Firefly has a couple fans out there. My characters' homes are like those houses you see on Hoarders, except that instead of collecting used newspapers and bobbleheads, I've stuffed every nook and cranny with tokens, barter chips, gold, and the odd Orc head. Yet there's one type of currency that always seems to fly under the radar in my gaming experience: Destiny Points. I'm forever forgetting they're there and I almost never use them. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why they're in the game in the first place. Destiny Points are a shared currency between your characters that seem to be vitally important to PvMPers (monster play) and vastly less pertinent to your average PvE adventurer. Still, as they exist and offer you an opportunity to get an edge -- however slight -- in the game, I figured it was about time to dive into the subject and see if they're worthwhile or just more junk for the closet.
The Road to Mordor: A talk with the crew of The Fellows Hip: Rise of the Gamers
Buzz has been increasing about an intriguing independent film that looks to blend Tolkien love, geek pride, and Lord of the Rings Online fandom into one epic adventure. Called The Fellows Hip: Rise of the Gamers, this movie is about a group of friends who undertake a journey to a convention in order to participate in a LotRO gaming competition (and stick it to some bullies while they're at it). Many blogs, such as LOTRO Reporter and A Casual Stroll to Mordor, have promoted this up-and-coming film, and after seeing the trailer, we too became fascinated with what could be a fun movie that puts MMO gaming front and center. One may not simply walk into Mordor, but with the right connections, one could phone the folks up there. We got on the line with three crew members for The Fellows Hip -- Ron Newcomb (producer, director and writer), Scott Mathais (producer and writer), and Shane McClung (producer) -- to see just what type of lovable insanity would cause a group of people to throw together such a movie.
The Road to Mordor: Digesting E3
Instead of being hit by one huge Lord of the Rings Online bombshell at E3, as some predicted, we were treated to a series of smaller yet gripping reveals that are sure to have a major impact on our gameplay in the future. We assumed that E3 would be all about Rise of Isengard for LotRO, and sure enough, it was. Weeks like this are what we live for as fans. It's crazy to get a glut of information that we're expected to digest all at once, and it's so much fun too. I think Turbine probably has a few more reveals tucked up its sleeve about the expansion -- we still have four months to go, after all -- but this is a good start to the ramping-up period before Isengard releases. So enough dilly-dallying; let's dig into it! What can we make out of all of these revelations? What does the pre-order mean for you? What were the highlights and what were the disappointments? Hit the jump and we'll take you on a legendary ride all the way to the gates of Orthanc itself!
E3 2011: A ride through LotRO's Rise of Isengard
With the news that Lord of the Rings Online's third expansion, Rise of Isengard, was finally given a release date, it became our quest to hunt Turbine down at E3 and make the team give up the One Ring of Info. We spoke with a couple of the devs about the lands and wonders that we'll get to experience come this fall. We began our journey at a village in one of the starting destinations in Dunland. It's there, Turbine told us, that an army had recently pulled out to fight the Rohirrim, leaving so-called "Oathbreakers" behind for you to handle. Players are tasked with figuring out what's going on and how these left-behind invaders will fit in with the local populace. The devs told us that one of the recurring themes of LotRO's latest expansion is the influence of others on the Dunlendings. With the war stirring across the world, suddenly this isolated area has become a major thoroughfare for enemies and good guys alike, and both sides are seeking to woo the Dunlending tribes. If you're thinking "tug o' war," you're not far off.
LotRO PvMP changes proposed
As we reported a couple of weeks back, the fine folks over at Turbine have been working on some tweaks to Lord of the Rings Online's PvMP system. Not content, of course, to let those goody-goody Free Peoples grab all of the attention, Kelsen popped in on the forums today to post the proposed changes to the various Creep classes available to players. DocHoliday's MMO Saloon has an excellent summary of the changes, which include everything from cooldown reductions, damage tweaks, survivability adjustments, and more, all in order to bring the Creeps better into balance with their Freep counterparts. If you're looking for more specific information rather than a brief summary, the original posts are all available on LotRO's Creep forums.
The Road to Mordor: Four more years, four more years!
While four years is not a nice round number -- or even a halfway number like five -- it's a substantial milestone for any MMORPG. Debuting in early 2007, Lord of the Rings Online introduced something we'd never seen before: a fully realized 3-D virtual Middle-earth where we could not only enjoy a deep MMO but explore the lands and meet the people we'd only read about before. It might not be a universal truth that all LotRO players are big Tolkien fans, but I'm sure enough that it's a sizable chunk of the playerbase. There's something special about the IP that gives a weight and richness to the game, especially when a long-time reader of the books is given leave to actually go on adventures through Eriador, Moria and Mirkwood. It's a giant sight-seeing tour of lore, a thrill with every brush one has with the source material. It's heady to consider that four years ago we were but starting on this journey, feeling out the mechanics of combat, crafting and pie-running. Four years later, LotRO has emerged to be one of the most significant MMOs of the past decade, growing strong with no signs of slowing down. Hit the jump as we reminisce about the ups, the downs, and the off-the-beaten-path hikes of our beloved game as it celebrates its fourth anniversary.
New developer making plans for Lord of the Rings Online's PvMP
PvP in Lord of the Rings Online has always been a sticky issue, with players taking the roles of monsters that always felt a bit underrepresented. But if you've always been a fan of smashing player-controlled spiders or playing one yourself, you'll be happy to see that there's a new developer in town taking aim at the PvMP portion of the game. Kelsan's inaugural post included a call for feedback and a broad PvMP manifesto outlining the overall design goals for the play mode. One of the major areas being examined is the matter of rewards -- both factions are fighting for different rewards and different levels of commitment, which creates a disconnect in play. Kelsan and Orion both want to re-evaluate what players receive from zone control and taking part in PvMP, hopefully creating an environment where more players can get into the conflict. As one would expect, revisions are also being focused on a balancing of skills and abilities to help level the playing field. Lord of the Rings Online players should take a look at the full manifesto and offer any and all constructive feedback possible.
The Road to Mordor: Echo... echo... echo...
Last night before I drifted off to sleep, I was idly wondering what it would be like to actually live in Middle-earth. Apart from the extremely high mortality rate due to wandering wolves, bold bandits, and orchestrating orcs, it might be a pretty excellent place to dwell, as long as one didn't mind a lack of Wi-Fi and Starbucks. I think Hobbit pies and Dwarf ale would be an acceptable substitute. Next week our virtual world will grow a bit in girth and depth with the Echoes of the Dead update. When all is patched and done, it'll be a truly big update containing meaty piles of content to devour. I think many of us are still scrutinizing Turbine as we go through this first year after the free-to-play switch, watching to see whether all of this additional revenue will be pumped back into the game or not. Echoes of the Dead marks the second post-F2P update for Lord of the Rings Online, following last November's Journey to Winter-home, and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with just how much is being served up this time around. So in anticipation of the patch, let's walk through the major features of LotRO's latest update and see whether it was worth the wait!
The Road to Mordor: Rating Eriador
Lately I've been playing world traveler with my level 43 Lore-master as he's bouncing all over Middle-earth in what used to be the high-level zones of the game: Trollshaws, Angmar, Forochel, Misty Mountains, and Eregion. Once again, I'm struck by just how cohesive this place feels -- it's not a collection of Sonic the Hedgehog-themed areas (Green Zone 1, Lava Zone 4, etc.) but a world that connects together in a tangible, real way. Even though it's fiction. Until November 2008, Eriador was the only place in Middle-earth that we could explore, and although some criticized Lord of the Rings Online for not shipping with, well, every locale in J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginarium open for business, it was a smart decision. The devs could take this section of the world and focus on building depth and detail instead of spreading it thin, like butter scraped over too much bread. As a result, Eriador remains a wonderful starting point -- not to mention the bulk of any current player's journey -- and many of us have grown attached to these familiar sights and sounds as a result. Today I'd like to take a brief overview of all of Eriador's zones (we'll leave Rhovanion for another day) and rate them from best to worst in terms of zone design, questing, and that slippery cool-factor that's hard to define. Where would I suggest a summer vacation home and where would be an ideal spot for a penal colony? Hit the jump and let's run it down.
