f13.net

Aye, a good read.  Essentially a revamp of Garth Agarwen to a more accessible 3-man instance.  I have only been through GA a couple of times (beat red maid and ivar). The content seemed extremely challenging for level appropriate groups, especially the Ivar fight.  Not impossible, but challenging enough to skip after seeing all the content once over.

My concern is the discussion of optional "hard mode" buillshit.  I hate that.  What group ever does "easy mode"?  They fucked up with Moria instances in this respect.  I have chosen not to do most of the Moria content because of this fact.  Speed-runs and skipping content to achieve ill-thought out "hard" objectives really destroyed the end game of LOTRO for me.  It reminds me off trying to play DDO - where I don't know what the fuck is going on because groups have already been there 10+ times and are blazing through it. (A lot of this could be alleviated by more 60's in Riders of Middle Earth!)

Regardless, still excited to see the revamp and good to see they are improving older content.

My understanding of most Non-"hard modes", you do not see all the content, its not the full instance its a slightly different, and shorter path. I believe.

Well, shit. Some local buddies and I just started to go through this area yesterday trying to clear out a buttload of old quests we had. None of us realized just how much shit there is to this area.

personally, I didn't get a lot out of those posts.  But then again I'm starting to wonder if the game hasn't jumped the shark.

I don't think so, but what do you think are the shark-jump bits?

I can jump in as a former subscriber. You really have to see the ball busting gear grind in action to fully appreciate the 180 the game does. Which isn't to say that I won't play the game again; I intend to. But the story hasn't been as good and holy fuck those overtuned instances, hard modes and a gear grind that puts pre-TBC WoW to shame.

Well, i bet if we look objectively, the "Gear grind" in LOTRO is tiny compared to other titles, and Completely optional.

I also have a thinking that Moria, moving forward is going to be THE place for this kind of content, raids (of witch there are still like, what, 2?) and group dungeon content. Moving out of Moria we will see more overland and SOA like materials.

However his blog is completely about the exact opposite of what you guys are bringing as an issue. He is splitting up the huge instance of GA, something complained about on this forums because of its time commitments. He has already even stated that Carn Dun will be getting a revamp soon, its just hes working in logical order right now. Things like flow, and killing the running around are high on his list with the revamps, and I have to say, the dwarf starter area, and breeland are the better for it. They also said a bit ago, that Lorien lore practically required (Demanded!) a faction feature and light gated content, not sure we will see this much more.

That is my take anyway.

It's REALLY not small compared to other titles. And not even really optional since, once it was introduced, that's what everyone PUGs and is looking for. There's not much besides that gear grind other than the Lorien faction grind. The raids are hard gated by hard mode gear so even if I wanted to do LOTRO raids, even just checking them out to see if I like them, I had to take part in the gear grind; this is a lesson WoW learned three years ago. Then there's the matter of the Radiance gear being head and shoulders above everything else due to the scaling of it. You cannot put % increase to stats on gear without making it more powerful by a large factor.

I agree, though, that they'll probably (hopefully) move away from that. I'd have to think that Rohan will see more of the war and monster play. Monster play is the real gem in this game and they need to focus on that moving forward instead of raids which they don't do as well as EQ2 or WoW.

Wow and here I am stuck at 34 because the game feels like virtual chores.

But, if you really put your mind to it, and ignored all the optional stuff, and just followed the book quests, there isn't a gear grind to it AFAIK. Radiance gear is optional, and for the sub game play of raiding ETC.. it just has the side affect of being rather powerful in PvE too.

I am looking at the generators, resets and other scripting bits that make up the Grimbark fight when I am asked to come to a meeting on Radiance Gear. Being that I wrote a spec on how to deal with the issue, I am being asked for input on the solution. Now, I cannot go into great detail  - because it is still not in implementation and I would rather let Amlug discuss this with all of you; unless of course he asks me to do so. I will say this, the changes are going to be for the better.

The meeting includes Avon, myself, Amlug and Raskolnikov. We banter back and forth, each of us expresses our understanding of the core issues with the system. They have been at it for a while when I come in the room and there is a split on the best course of action to rectify, refit and make an attempt to satisfy the issue. We know that we are dancing on a very thin line. On one hand, we need to do something to rekindle Hope to the casual player base (pun intended) in the other we still need to provide enough bragging rights for acheivers. We continue the discussion until everyone has their say. The solution is on the board with some minor tweaks being added as we draw the meeting to a close and realize that it’s not the elegant solution that we each desire, rather it is an amalgam of what can be done and what we all reason can be accomplish in the time frame we have with the tools and technology at our disposal. The past and the decisions made by those who are not us haunt us ever forward. Still, we have a solution, one that dances on that fine blade and only time, concrete specs, implementation, testing and player feedback will answer if we got the solution right, partly right, mostly right, right enough, nowhere near right or some mix of all of the previous.

If I can convince Amlug to blog about the system or get his leave to explain the solution in the coming weeks I will. For now, know that wheels are in motion and the world is turning, that is the sunlight you feel on your face. We know that this is an issue and are dedicated to doing something about it. Period.