Final wipe, Beta2 set to begin next week

[Cheddar]

Greetings!
 
Thanks so much for your participation in the first phase of The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ Beta Program! We appreciate your interest in the game. Many of the new features, balances, and fixes to the game are a direct result of feedback from our player community. This has been instrumental in the shaping of LOTRO, which is poised for one of the biggest launches in MMO history.
 
We’re very excited to announce the beginning of Beta 2! As we approach the end of the first phase of the Beta Program, we’ll be transitioning all of our systems to their final homes on new hardware on Monday, January 15th. This will require us to do a complete wipe of all player accounts, both in the account system and on the beta forums. This is the last planned character wipe for the closed Beta Program.
 
We will be re-inviting participants from previous phases of the Beta Program during the week of January 15th, as well as inviting new players to join for the first time. Invitations will contain new product keys which can be registered and entered into our account system at http://myaccount.turbine.com beginning January 15th. Please note that your previous product keys will not work in the new account system. Our servers will go dark at 12:00AM on Monday, January 15th, and open again to players during the afternoon of Tuesday, January 16th.
 
We thought we’d have a little fun before the servers are closed, so be prepared for anything to happen in the game between the hours of 8PM and 11PM Eastern on Sunday, January 14th!
 
Thanks again for your participation, and we’ll see you back in Middle-earth soon!

[Arthur_Parker]

Yup, I was just going to post that.  Bit annoyed as I wanted to try monster play with a leveled 50 but ho hum, guess I'll just try the evil side for a while. 

[Modern Angel]

Interesting. Bit of a bummer but understandable. Any inkling as to what they're shifting that requires a resend of invites? That seems odd to me.

[Arthur_Parker]

Release Notes

A lot so I'm not quoting it.

[Cheddar]

Interesting. Bit of a bummer but understandable. Any inkling as to what they're shifting that requires a resend of invites? That seems odd to me.

Probably to test their billing system.  They want this launch to go smoooooth; historically a smooth launch can save a mediocre game in the long run.

[Azazel]

When is this game supposed to hit retail? (and how long is beta 2 set to be?) I really havent been beta-ing much recently due to catassing battlegrounds in WoW, but ironically, when BC comes out I'll be relaxing and taking WoW much more easily.

[Trippy]

When is this game supposed to hit retail? (and how long is beta 2 set to be?) I really havent been beta-ing much recently due to catassing battlegrounds in WoW, but ironically, when BC comes out I'll be relaxing and taking WoW much more easily.

FWIW GameStop has the date as 4/24/2007 which of course is subject to change, void where prohibited.

[Modern Angel]

That's alot of time considering I think it's pretty solid right now. Coincides with a probable Guild Wars expansion release so we'll see where my money goes but that's a different subject. Those patch notes are nice, too. Alot of good tweaks. Now to wait for my second beta invite.

[Engels]

Ironic how Vanguard will be released in 1 month, this one in 3 and a half, yet this game feels ten times more finished and polished than Vanguard.

[CmdrSlack]

# Smoking has been added to the game:

    * When you /smoke, you now pull out a pipe and smoke.
    * When you /smoke1 you cough on your pipe smoke.
    * Pipeweed items now put you into a smoking induction, which ends with you blowing a smoke-ring shape. Placeholders currently used for the shapes; full fx to come later.

I now must find some kind of /hackysack emote.

[Trippy]

Ironic how Vanguard will be released in 1 month, this one in 3 and a half, yet this game feels ten times more finished and polished than Vanguard.

It wasn't always that way though. The game has come a long way since its alpha days. Turbine, however, isn't attempting to throw every possible MMORPG feature including the kitchen sink into the game either.

[CmdrSlack]

I have to say, though, that adding monster play is a really great idea, even if cynics may call it "reskinned RvR."

[Phred]

I have to say, though, that adding monster play is a really great idea, even if cynics may call it "reskinned RvR."

I'd have to say who cares what cynics want to call it. You can play a max level monster with a L10 character. Nice way to avoid the grind for PvP imo. Unfortunately the game strikes me a lot like early DAoC grind wise. Even if they want the game mostly quest based they still should hand out decent experience for killing monsters. I don't know about anyone else but sometimes I'm in a mood to just grind between quests but with this game I'd rather log out and play WoW than grind mobs. I only kill mobs I have to for quests because the experience from killing is so miserly. I especially noticed it around 20, where I'd run out of quests. It was more efficient use of my time to go do light blue and green quests than to kill mobs for a couple of hours to get my level.

[CmdrSlack]

I thought that levelling via quests was so fast...I only really killed mobs in addition to what I did while questing if I was trying to get those last few kills before a new trait or whatever.  Heck, even at level 20, I had a ton of quests to do -- it didn't really occur to me until much later on that I was doing quests way below my level at times...I just like to see the stories.

If I want to just randomly kill mobs, I guess I don't look at the xp bar.  I never noticed the xp gain from 'em was excessively low.

[Dren]

I have to say, though, that adding monster play is a really great idea, even if cynics may call it "reskinned RvR."

I still say that is the one feature that will give this game any street cred at all.  Otherwise, it is just a really well done WoW alternative.  That won't bring in the masses.

Monster play is a must and they seem to have done it fairly well.  It has a ton of potential.  They just have to stay away from letting it migrate to "reskinned RvR."  Don't make me grind levels as a "slime005" just like normal characters.  Keep me as "slime005" but with some shiny as I get further into the role.  Or just let me migrate up to "shiney w/legs009."  The progression needs to be completely different than lvl 1-200 like normal.  Make it make more sense from a "monster" perspective.

[CmdrSlack]

I have to say, though, that adding monster play is a really great idea, even if cynics may call it "reskinned RvR."

I still say that is the one feature that will give this game any street cred at all.  Otherwise, it is just a really well done WoW alternative.  That won't bring in the masses.

Monster play is a must and they seem to have done it fairly well.  It has a ton of potential.  They just have to stay away from letting it migrate to "reskinned RvR."  Don't make me grind levels as a "slime005" just like normal characters.  Keep me as "slime005" but with some shiny as I get further into the role.  Or just let me migrate up to "shiney w/legs009."  The progression needs to be completely different than lvl 1-200 like normal.  Make it make more sense from a "monster" perspective.

Well, from what I can tell, there's not even a level to 20 type NPC right now, so there's not going to be much monster play super-soon.  Well, maybe not.  The dwarf intro/newbie zone levelled my guy to 6 without any extraneous hunting..just questing.  But even if I can hit level 10 to engage in monster play, without the levelling NPCs, there won't be many players to fight.

[Xilren's Twin]

Well, from what I can tell, there's not even a level to 20 type NPC right now, so there's not going to be much monster play super-soon.  Well, maybe not.  The dwarf intro/newbie zone levelled my guy to 6 without any extraneous hunting..just questing.  But even if I can hit level 10 to engage in monster play, without the levelling NPCs, there won't be many players to fight.

I think they changed who got level up status as neither I nor some other people I was chatting with got it this time even though we had it last time, but others did.  No biggie, getting to 10 just doesnt take very long (current at 12.5 after about 4.5 hours).  Just a tip, do NOT grind mobs (extraneous hunting) unless you need skins or are trying to complete a Trait orsomething.  Experience from a single mob kill is paltry; quests are by FAR the bulk of your experience points, plus usable loot.  They seem to have added a few more quests b/c I haven't done anything beyond Archet, Chetwood, and Stadle quests and im almost in the teens.  It's going so smoothly that I'm debating whether I want to stop playing my PC to go Monster.  Only weirdness with my Captain is my pet keeps vanishing on me.   

[CmdrSlack]

Something goofy that I noticed last night -- dwarves don't get a trait for the various mobs they fight in the newbie zone.  Unless I'm utterly mistaken, I was making progress towards traits as a human before Archet burned.  As a dwarf, not so much for goblins or the other newbie monsters.

I basically have always been a fan of only fighting what I am forced to fight on the way to the next quest goal, unless, of course, there's a trait involved.  It'll be interesting to see when I finally get the first trait with my dwarf.  What makes it worse is that since I hate the beta forums, I don't know whether to file a bug report on it.

[WayAbvPar]

Got the whole thing downloaded and installed. Went to run it, and I get an error when it tries to find the server. Uninstalled and started the d/l again last night. This better work...

[Yegolev]

I noticed a distinct lack of advancements when I started an elf in the new area.  I hope they are adding them because the Archet advancement grind was one of my favorite side-things.

I like the quest-based advancement a lot.  Same as with the advancements, needs more but the principle is sound.

I am having a hard time working up the guts to play the beta because I am ready for the retail game.

[CmdrSlack]

Got the whole thing downloaded and installed. Went to run it, and I get an error when it tries to find the server. Uninstalled and started the d/l again last night. This better work...

That was a "known issue" that was stupposedly fixed yesterday....

[CmdrSlack]

I noticed a distinct lack of advancements when I started an elf in the new area.  I hope they are adding them because the Archet advancement grind was one of my favorite side-things.

I like the quest-based advancement a lot.  Same as with the advancements, needs more but the principle is sound.

I am having a hard time working up the guts to play the beta because I am ready for the retail game.

I noticed that achievements didn't kick in for the dwarf area until after the intro quest was over, so that may be part of it.  I could have sworn that in Archet, you could grind those things even before the town burned.

[Yegolev]

Pretty sure you are right about Archet.  I believe Michel Delving has an amount somewhere between [elf town] and Archet.