f13.net

I figured since we had a post about the game's faults I'd try to start one about what it did right.

I think the cinematics, if used well, could be cool.
Quests seem to impact the world in some ways once you're out of the starter towns.
Traits, accomplishments, and titles seem cool.

I'm holding out hope there will be AC style updates. For those of you who never played AC the updates brought real change to the world. A town might be leveled. New enemies might invade. Seasons changed. Things like that.

Anything else we can add guys?

It is really damned pretty.
Some of the crafting recipes are actually useful at the level when you will likely be creating them.
It brings to life some of Tolkien's stuff really well (Old Forest especially, imho).
Each patch brings some new stuff that was gives me hope for the end product.
There are tons of quests- so many that it is easy to outlevel some of them before you get around to doing them.
Accomplishments/traits are a cool system.

Brain is foggy...all I can think of atm.

The accomplishments and titles are nifty.

It seems like they are drawing on lessons learned from previous Turbine games.  This is great!  Traits are rad and make a huuuge difference.  Titles for completing different things is a great idea.  Character movement is decent,  and I can get from point A to point B fairly quickly.  I disagree about crafting being decent; it is (currently) a poor reiteration of crap we have seen before.  I would like to see something more innovative, like the crafting in Neocron. 

The crafting system isn't anything special; I was just glad to see that when I made things, I could actually use them (they were an improvement over what I had at that level). Most crafting systems I have used had me cranking out thousands of low level items that were almost completely useless even to the rawest n00b.

I liked the main story line quest series.  This to me would be the selling point of the game.  A nice narrative progression would be something I'd love to see in the MMO space.  More large story lines please.

Lots of quests early on.  Almost too many. 

Some good music in parts.  Sets the mood well.

Ditto on the traits, titles and accomplishments.   Especially the accomplishments, I think these are rather neat. (When I was playing, traits were kind of lame though ><)

I liked the guardian class early on. Fun tank.

A level of polish and technical competency I've never seen from a Turbine project in beta. I'm not sure if that has deteriorated lately, I haven't been paying attention.

The community management is top notch  :-D

That's all for now.

As a total noob, level 7 Guardian is my first Character,  The introduction to the game is very well done for a first time player.

A lot of quests early on are quickly completed and get you familiar with the most basic of basics.


The crafting mechanisms appear to be fairly interesting.

The traits and  accomplishments are a really nice system which I will be able to use one day :)

If you've got a big enough system, this game looks really really nice.

Quests galore, to the point of  overload, as noted previously.

I love that there are a bajillion quests, and that on average 10 quests = a level.  I recommend working traits around 20; every major area can be travelled to and at 20 you can hit up the noob areas for easy kills (read: grind).  +3/+4 is when traits =  :heart:

WHat's also nice about the traits is that, at least for the human starter area, doing most of the quests gets you several of the traits if you just simply hang out and kill some extra crap here and there. 

I'm rather excited to see what kind of traits you get for class acheivements...for the sheer number of skills used per trait, I sure hope they're nice.

I LOVE THE SHIRE!

The game's started to grow on me and I think it's largely due to the Shire. I know it's just Fed Exing pies around but it's just novel and immersive enough that it sucks me in. Dodging NPCs instead of fighting them, shrews and bees being the worst enemies a hobbit can have... it feels like it should.

Beyond that I've not played enough; my burglar is only level 10 right now. I'm enjoying it even though I think stealth is pretty useless and unwieldy right now.

What interests me a lot about LoTRO is that Turbine seems to have referenced a lot of different games. CoH queued combat. WoW/EQ2 interactive dynamic world spawns, as well as combat. Skill/choice-based traits, loosely evocative of EQ2 (to me). Graphics which seem inspired by SWG tech, except they blur out the distance, something I've never seen before in an MMO but which makes all the sense in the world (did AC2 do this?).

The one still big part I feel its missing is the uniqueness. With every RPG since the 70s iterating Tolkien in some way, I guess it's hard to find teh unique.

This was the only 'neat' thing I found out of a profoundly mediocre game experience.

The annoyed bear growls menacingly
The annoyed bear roars on his hind legs
The annoyed bear attacks!

Yay, gradual aggro building with some actual feedback, about damn time.  Also, I think this might be the first game where I wasn't automatically KOS to all bears.

 

Forgot about this.  It is a great addition.  A pioneering noob gatherer type can actually gather and whatnot in higher areas just by eyeing aggro.  Its hot!

The only happens with some creature types. E.g. wolves will always attack you when you get into aggro range and a lot of them have stealth as well.

Yes, but there are higher end areas where once can gather ore (and I assume wood stuff) at any level if you are careful and watch aggro from those types of mobs.

I think the Hobbit starting area has a few quests that make specific use of that feature. That I get from secondhand accounts though, not yet having played my Hobbit.

Server's probably nice and playable tonight, what with WoW 2.0.1 and all :)

I was poisoned by the lag spider and died.  You could smell the server melting tonight.

Meta Tip: Wait until they open new servers and work on net code.  I am not bothering to log in until then.


edit.  Seriously, out of all the IP's this is seeming to be the one that will draw in disenfranchised WoW players.  Since the "stress test" the amount of players is insane.  Good sign for Turbine, bad sign for any community reps.  The official boards are becoming nigh unreadable.  I just do not have the time to delve through the drivel.  And again I ramble, but I do it soooo well.

Might I say again: I wish they'd cancel all the Stress accounts. JUST have them there for Stress test. Invite them BACK for some future one. The disheveled masses banging on an unfinished game can only result in those people openly NDA-breakingly comparing this beta to WoW's two-years of done-ness (plus yesterday's uber-patch, and right before the gigantic expansion next month). This can only do them bad things.

Anyway, WoW is really two cultures in one: the dedicated PvPer and the dedicated PvE/Raider. I see Warhammer Online being a big draw for the former and LoTRO a big draw for the latter.

How big remains to be seen. If both WAR and LoTRO launched at the same time, that would be bad for Blizzard. But they probably won't.

A big draw for WoW's PvE crowd? What exactly is the main indicator?

Serious question. I don't really know what the extent of LotRO's "raid" and uber loot aspirations are, but as far as I can tell, those elements aren't anywhere near the priority that a raider would like. Uber items will be attainable in LotRO no matter how you play. The point of raids in LotRO, in theory, is "just another" dynamic to grouping and storyline. Not a "best path" for achievers. That's a significant difference from World of Warcraft.

Or in other words, it's being designed just for the sake of those who like the raiding experience. Not for the sake of those who like raid items.

Secondly, it seems that your assessment of WoW's playerbase rests on some idea that they are in it for fantasy...And that they're just waiting for an even more "fantastic" experience with a Tolkien world (if that was the case, DDO would be doing better as well).

Take a gander at the WoW boards or Goldshire. You'll find the majority of their players are named things like Neopheus, Shazbot, BloodyBoogers, XxGuidoxX, StealthyMcStealth, and Killzjoo. They do not care about JRR Tolkien.

I think, though, that there's a raider who didn't set out to raid. They bought WoW and enjoyed the pve. Levelled up and, goddamn what's this raiding thing this is what there is to do, huh? So they did raiding not because they set out to but because that's what was there. Those are the people LOTRO can get a few subs from.

Though the raiding makes me nervous. My heart sank a little when I saw the words "Convert Group To Raid" in the party panel. I've done my raiding in WoW. If I leave it's not going to be for raiding in another game. Nobody can explain quite what the fuck they mean by raids, though. Five hour MC runs with 40 people or short UBRS runs with 10? Because even though I intend to probably do 25 mans in BC I will be goddamned if I go 40 man content (or thereabouts) again.

This got long.

Most people in WoW are not raiding. There's a huge difference between hitting 60 and being 60, a hurdle a lot of people realize they can't jump. Basically, you go from playing whenever and however you want advancing along the way to only being to advance at all with 19 to 39 other people efficiently, and most times on a schedule (whether you schedule raids or just know you need to dedicate 2 straight solid and exclusive hours to it). That's a hurdle a lot of gamers don't want to jump. And once you hit that cap, you may want to do the whole thing over again, or not. 100% of the players don't have multiple level 60 alts for this reason.

It is a subset of this group, the group I feel is the majority of players, who I think could be temporarily compelled by LoTRO PvE. It's the same sort of experience, but the details are different enough to be worth checking out. I don't know if they'll stay long though.

It's also why I lament the stress tests, and the inevitable larger beta. I doubt LoTR has enough pull to draw in a zillion new non-MMORPGers to the genre. I feel like most of them are here already, because the whole genre already smacks of LoTR iterations. There's dozens of ways to play Gandalf or Aragorn already. So opening the beta test period to a wider audience just means grabbing more people who will be comparing the game to everything else, and doing so for free. That'll reduce retention, in my opinion, even before the thing launches.

The other challenge is the level cap increase in WoW. Unlike EQ1, this doesn't mean current endgamers grinding to the new cap. It means new quests and new ways to advance whenever and however people want. That's important because also unlike EQ1, and even though most people aren't raiding, there's a huge percentage of folks with characters at the level cap. They may have stopped playing because they can't advance through raiding, but once Burning Crusade hits, they can advance again the same way they did from 1-59.

I don't think that. Sorry if that came across though. Lemme explain: Lore may attract a player, but it's the experience that retains them. Even Community is a subset of the game mechanic, as even the most ardent socialite needs to have fun advancing at some point.

Finally,  most players aren't coming to loTRO for raiding. Raiding is still not the majority of activity. They're coming for the overall experience. If they eventually become a raider, great! But that's not why most people jump to a new diku in my view.

I don't know anyone who was excited about the "world" DDO takes place in..

This is why I worry for this game.  It's not doing anything major that WoW isn't doing better.  Of all the things we pointed out here, most of them are rather minor and in no way really change the core diku systems. 

People in this genre are more connected now, once the NDA drops and it pops up all over the WoW boards that LOTRO is nothing new, the buzz is going to plummet. All it takes is one guy telling his guild not to bother. Even if it garners a bunch of subs early on, I feel it's going to have problems with retention, especially from the WoW crowd.

I'm hoping we begin to see more polish and completeness as the beta goes on.  I'm waiting to see this though when a new server opens up (and I'll be trying the 30+ stuff).

I do hope this game does good though.  Turbine has shown me something I hadn't thought they were capable of.

Even though it seems to be DIKU through and through, I too still hold out hope.

When will someone have the sack to create a good fantasy skill based game ala UO? You could take most of the basic UO skills, add in another 100 or so to specialize further, and away you go! But no, I get to hear Ding! Gratz! until I go to my grave. Grrrrr.

Wish attempted a skill-based game that reminded me why more people don't attempt it either.  Skills are nearly impossible to balance.  What you end up with are a bunch of skills with like 4-5 skill combinations that people have found optimized depending on playstyle.  It actually made me laugh in retrospect.  People clammor for skill sets and then, when given the freedom to create unique characters, still gravitate toward the classic D&D archetypes (mage, cleric, fighter, their) or some dual class version thereof. 

Every player wants to be the most powerful unique snowflake in the game... even if it means that they spec their skills exactly like everyone else.  If someone could generate a skill-based game where all skills are different but equal, I will have found my robot Jesus.

I know it has other flaws, but DDO's skill system is pretty deep. Almost too much so.

Funny that you mention this, since both games are made by Turbine.

I would like to see it work out something like EVE's system- eventually you have access to pretty much all the skills, but can pick and choose how to use them. In EVE it is by what ship you choose to fly (and how you outfit it); in a fantasy game you would have to choose active skills (like Guild Wars) or something. There would always be some universally useful skills, but the broader you make it, the easier you make it for a n00b to specialize down one particular line and be useful in that role relatively early on in their character life.

As for DDO- I like 3E's skill systems; they do a nice job of customizing characters. The underlying archetypes are still there though. I would like to see those done away with- why can't I learn a couple of useful magic spells, but still kick ass with my sword?

Technically, in DDO, you can do that.  Sure there's the multi class penalties like not being able to cast while wearing armor, but you can get around that by taking a few levels of something like bard or ranger instead of doing a fighter/sorceror or fighter/wizard combo. 

I agree, however, that this is a sub-optimal implementation of what you really want, and I would very much like something more like what you seem to envision (assuming that ". . . spells, but still kick ass with my sword" means "while wearing armor" or "while not getting my ass handed to me by monsters.").  Heck, maybe the trick is going a few levels of sorc or wizard with a rogue.  With some kind of +def bracers and a high dex, made higher by items and levelling stat increases, as well as the right feats, it's entirely plausible that you'd have  a pretty sweet character.


 At any rate, it'd be nice to see something that allows for more versatility than "classes with the ability to multi and take feats and enhancements."

ETA -- an ending to that lone sentence above this edit message.

Because if you can do everything why would you ever need other people?  At least, that seems to be the implied tradeoff.

Actually, in DDO (and other d&d based games), the most free form class doesnt even require multiclassing.  Rogue's with high UMD skill can pretty much do everything (fight, heal, damage and utility spells) just by owning a bunch of wands and magic gear.  Add to that their classes natural skills with traps, sneak attacks and such, and they become a do it all tank-mage.  But that's not the way D&D was designed; it was made with the concept your would be playing with at least 4 other people (4 characters plus the DM) and thus specialization was better.

Compare to Obilivion, where you literally can do it all yourself by design.  Most people make hybrid type classes b/c they want to be able to toss spells, wear armor and use a sword, pick locks, make stuff etc.  Look ma, im a swiss army knife!  Course, you have to do the game by yourself anyway so there's no downside.

It gets back to the "meaningful choices" thing; sadly in a Diku style mmorpg, once you pick a class most of your meaningful choices are over...

At any rate, after tooling around as a level 20 Champion this morning, the need for others has become much clearer.  I soak up too much damage to last in a 3 mob fight.

Xilren 

Look at UO. You could probably solo most things by the time you were a GM in a couple of skills, but having an extra caster or sword along always made things easier. Plus it was nice to have the company. I would just like to be able to make a character that reflects the skills I want to use, not some railroaded template that is 95% identical to the next guy at the same level. I am a goddamned snowflake!

The sad part is it wouldn't matter.  Skill based games end up being "heres the top 10 skill template choices" which equates to a class system any way.

The problem is even with skill choices, there are some pretty obvious "best" choices to choose which renders non optimal skills into no one uses.  It would different if different skills actually gave you different play experiences in game, but to date mmorpg are pretty much 90% combat, so that's all that ends up mattering.  You can't be a unique snowflake and be the best snowflake at the same time, and the VAST majority would rather be consider the best, or at least not inferior, to everyone else.  To put it another way, even in a p&p D&D game where you could potentially choose from hundreds of spells, probably only 10% every actually get used...

BTW, im headed in game for lunch in about 15 mins if anyone wants to hook me up.

Xilren

OK, got a chance to tool around for an hour or so today.  New patch is pure love.  First, the good (from a Captains POV, of course!):
-I can now use my MOB death abilities with greyed out mobs.  That is uber hot and perhaps the best change this publish.
-Buying passive skills (aka shield use, halberd use, etc).  Makes it easier to see at what level you can use items.
-Possibly easier to get class traits.  Seems to be going up faster.  They nixed the actual numbers, though, so I may just be seeing things.
-My pet seems smarter.  He is following much better now!
-The quest panel tracker thingamajig got an update.  I read you can do some control stuff from the tracker itself, which is completely gnarly.
-Level 20 and 30 level boost.  Greatest idea ever.  I hope this ends up in live production in some form.
-Lag seems cleaned up.  Even with tons of people fooling around I seem to have no lag.  Something somewhere got tweaked!
-I see people trading recipes.  Perhaps new craft recipes got added?  :heart:

Bad (I know this is a good thing thread, but did not feel like bumping a dead thread):
-Still cannot see what skills my pet had.  Cannot tell if he even uses his little skill thingies. 
-Wish there was a list of traits somewhere (or at least a basic list).  As it stands I have to grind out in the 3 starter areas just to see (lots of wasted time doing that!)  :heartbreak:
-Race stat mods were accidently taken out.  Whoopsy!
-Camping mobs.  This irks me- to be expected since there are sooo many new testers in game.   :heartbreak: :heartbreak: :heartbreak:

Since this is the Good thread; in 15 minutes I scored a purple sword from an elite mob in the Barrow Downs which was double my current weapon's DPS.  That never happens to me, so +1 luv.

This is worth quoting.  I love the drops in this game.  There are tons of "unique" items, some of which are quiet handy, others are just curiosity objects.  2 examples:
-One of the first elites you kill is a warthog; he drops his fang which you can use as a dagger.
-In Chetwood there is a wolf named "Mist," who chills at the wolf caves.  Kill her and you get her head as a trophy object.  Little things like that make my belly feel funny (adds to worldliness).

Can you do anything with the trophy objects? Is there a place to store them? Will we have a house in the future where I can mount that Wolf's head?

BTW, the purple sword thing, are you borrowing WoW terminology or is there some kind of color scheme denoting rareness ?

Before the wipe, I had an item that had purple text somewhere in its description.  I am not sure if that was "special" or not, but it was specifically named (Earring of the mariner or something) as opposed to just being a gold or silver earring.

This isn't meant to be an insult, but pardon me if I take the words of Xilren and Cheddar with a grain of salt. They have a history of Turbine adulation. I mean, I think they're the only people at this site playing DDO and AC1.  :-P

...

I didn't meet the level requirements, so I'll probably start on a new char tonight.

Heh, I still play DDO.  I have a set group that plays once a week.

AC1 is still a great game.  So :P

/foot in mouth

I've always want to be a Turbine fanboy, but certain things prevent me. They have some of the better ideas among mmog developers.....Meshed with ideas that completely push me away.

IMO, this set group is a great way to play DDO.  I can tell you that I'll never see all of the content, but that's fine.  It's really a lot of fun to play with a set group largely because it's closest to that "play PnP games once a week" experience.  When I was trying to play DDO to get my toon to lv 10 (now 12) and all that, well, it was less enjoyable.

Captains need to be nerfed bad. Yesterday, a level 30 captain straight out of the box, and myself, a level 30 Champion straight out of the box, dueled. He beat the ever living pants off of me.

Yes, they need to look closely at dueling and balance the game according to that.

 :-P@Cal

Well duh.  Captains have awesome buffs and a couple decent attacks straight out of the box.  Get yourself some weapons, build up your traits (cannot emphasize traits enough), and you will probably see a different outcome. 

Also, every class plays like crap compared to Captains (not to say they're the bee's knees either though).

It needs to be balanced for that.

Not true.  Captain is the jack of all trade class, I do jack shit as well as other classes.  They fill the gap well, though, and in the hands of a decent player can change roles during combat as needed.

Talking about "feel". Other classes feel more passive and one dimensional (Or maybe I should say the other weapon using classes).

I don't care about power and contribution necessarily. Not at this stage at least.

Man, I just did an uber quest tonight, and wow.  Burglars rock, as do minstrels.  Every group needs one.  Dunno about contribution as far as you describe.  I play the enemy, Captain.  I will say, as I have said before, a captain uses all his abilities in various ways, and needs to switch shit on the fly.  During our questing the minstrel died, and I had to switch from tank to ressing, then jump back into the fray.  One things I hate is spamming anti fear, we should get some timer on preventing those effects!  /rambleoff


edit.  Burglars are the most underated class.  My God, they are fucking awesome in groups.  If I have time I will roll one up tomorrow.

BANNED!! :P

I just found out this morning that Auction houses are in.  Pretty cool stuff; it is amazing the amount of material they are adding!  I ran around working on traits (virtues, whatever) and had no issues with performance whatsoever.


edit.  Heh, just caught this quote from Cal on the official boards:

The framework of this game is really, really good. This last patch greatly improved my performance (high with a few shadows and view distances tweaked a little downward) though I still get some stutter moving into a new hobbit village or whatever. Now, a cynic could say that the framework is just WoW. I mean the auction house is pretty much exactly like WoW's. But I don't mind that. WoW did alot of things right as far as diku. Give me WoW with some extra goodies and you may have a customer. And there's what? Eight months left until release? The game is in really good shape for being in what amounts to an early beta.

And I agree on the burglar. Just a really good dps class. They also seem to have tweaked stealth a bit. Prior to this patch I was unable to sneak up on anything, now I can. I'm enjoying it. And the Shire still rocks!

Copying is the sincerest form of flattery :)

We've all watched the UI and game features evolve over the years. It's like WASD, hotkeys and slash commands. Sure there are other ways to deliver all of that. But none exist with such strong built-in intuition. Heck, UIs developed for MMOs have transcended to other genres and vice versa.

So take WoW's Auction House. Comparable to EQ1's Bazaar user interface. Can't recall how DAoC worked, probably similar. LoTRO isn't copying WoW. It's continuing to evolve a feature UI.

But other stuff it is copying. Because WoW did too. Because EQ1. Babystep evolution :)

Just so I can blather on about stuff I like...

The more I play the more I feel like I'm in Middle Earth. There's really no higher form of flattery than that. Is it a game instead of a world? Right now, yes. BUT it's jst obvious that the dev team knows their stuff. It all just drips with the feel of Tolkien. That's sort of a drawback with the hack and slash style; Tolkien's world wasn't populated with a massive variety of gribblies to slay, a la WoW or EQ. That's why you see so many bears and the like. I am sick of killing bears, though.

If ever a game cried out for a bridge between EQ style kill/loot and UO style crafting/housing, this is it. I want to kill monsters but I also want a house and a farm in this world. I *want it* want it.

Conveyed better then I could.  At first you are beating back wolves and marauders, and as things progress you run into Mordor sent foes.  It gives you an enormous hard on.  I love the fear effects, and think they are a great addition.  I would recommend dropping fear penalty from death.   Its easy to die.

I dunno if you've ventured past the Bree Town area (or shire), but when I ran from Bree to the Lone Lands, I realized just how well-done the world really was.  You head east and go past the Midgewater Marshes, then all of a sudden, the terrain opens up and you're in the foothills of the well, the Weather Hills, but it's still damn impressive.  There's still not a ton of baddies to fight, but you get orcs and goblins as well as the wolves and boars and whatnot.

The only thing I don't like is when the terrain cockblocks me from moving in a specific direction, but that's only once in a while, so it's not too bad.  It's the most noticeable near Weathertop, though.

Prior to the wipe I ran Tibby to Rivendell at level 10 because I wanted to see it. I couldn't go offroading but, yes, the terrain is just lovingly crafted. While my Tolkien beard is shorter than it was in olden times I still find myself getting into a tizzy when I not only see known landmarks from the book but landmarks that look EXACTLY as Tolkien described them.

Dammit, Cal. You have to put housing in this game! Even just EQ2 instanced housing! This is the first game where I've actually given a shit about it. Keep it dikued up, fine, but add a little more world ownership in there. And make crafting fun (but that's another topic).

Definitely has a Tolkien-esque, but also a dare-I-say "Realistic" quality to it. A downside though is the great spreads of land with nothing in them. VERY evocative of every Fantasy novel I've read where protagonists travel by foot :) A challenge for a game though.

In general I like the new changes.  Being able to use reaction abilities on grey mobs is logical and removes one of the major flaws I saw in the game.

The food drops for increasing out of combat power and morale regeneration are wonderful, it speeds combat up a lot by cutting unneeded downtime, great change.  There seems to be more unique armour sets, I obtained a spider slaying axe and a 2-handed Orc slaying hammer, the blue glow when near those types of creatures is a very nice change but the glow effect needs a bit of work.

The Auction house is nice but needs more filters so I don't have to see the crap standard items that some people insist on trying to sell, it also needs the ability to choose not to see the items that are kinship restricted.

Trait progress is now a bar instead of a numbered countdown, that's nice and all but there needs to be some way of ensuring you are actually progressing in a skill, either the bar needs to be much larger so you can detect a difference or there needs to be a visual clue that it's moved.  On the same subject a daily limit on trait skill progress is annoying and not needed, they are traits, you don't limit level progression so why limit trait progression, that's flat out stupid.

Not tried dueling, not my thing, but it's nice to have extra content for those that like it.  I'd add trait skill up progression to dueling just to shut the anti duel idiots up and it actually makes sense to increase your combat skills via sparring as with UO.

I have quite a bit of spare time at the moment and will have for the next couple of months.  But the fact that I have leveled one character to 40, another to 43 and I'm still playing after the 2nd character wipe, just goes to show I'm really enjoying the game.

A lot is going to depend on not doing anything stupid with the current leveling system, such as making it longer or removing more quests (that Dwarf provisioner in North Downs has gone he had a good 6 or so quests).  I still think the monster play will have a dramatic effect on the long term appeal of the game, especially in Europe but there's a reasonable chance in my view of this being a major hit.  The 1 million subscription producer comment that I was laughing at a few months ago doesn't seem that far fetched at present.