f13.net

From reading the forums you can be a warg a spider or a couple of types of Orc.  My main character is still 36 so tried the evil side from the npc in the west of Bree (you need to be level 10).

I picked an Orc archer, looks nice, the ui appears to have an evil skin on it, evil quest npcs are present, they have glowing red eyes above their heads instead of gold rings.  Picked up a few quests and messed around a bit but good aligned players appear to be in short supply as I didn't see any.  The zone is big.

Your evil character has trait slots etc a lot more detail than I expected, basic skills to start with that can be upgraded.  You start at level 50 so I'm expecting this to further cut down the number of good aligned characters, I had intended to hit level 40 and then try monster play on my Guardian but now I believe he won't be that effective without leveling up further and that's a pity.

It was alot of fun but still obviously a work in progress. I got some pvp in, too. Ran across some orcs as a spider while heading toward a good guy tower and we camped the shit out of some poor hobbits.

The run back times are way too long after death and I think there need to be a few more outlets. It also needs to be a little more obvious what you're supposed to be doing; I just sort of ran around randomly until I started smacking people.

There's alot of potential here, certainly alot more than I initially thought when I heard the idea. Just needs some tightening up.

I have access to boost my character to level 50 (some sorta special invite thingy).  I will probably give it a whirl next week; my time over the next few days is booked!  I am pretty excited to check out the high end areas.

Heh, just checked my email and I have one too.

Actually, that's pretty neccessary to get some pvp testing going so good show on that.  With the holidays I havent had a chance to try monster play yet, but if not players are on can you still do stuff to level up your Shelob?

There are quests and whatnot to do.  Since the area is persistant + level 10 players can play as high end monsters I doubt there will be a problem finding people to fight.

It reminds me of daoc, they need a lot of work on the raid ui and taking a keep is very very hard due to the number of mobs.  We had a full raid of 24 level 50 good guys and lost when respawned monster players hit us from behind.

Holidays had me away from gaming almost completely.  I'll have to check this out.  I've wanted this since my UO days. 

This is the feature that will earn LotRO a substantial position in the market. IMO

Capturing a keep was crashing the server, they fixed that during the update last night.  The monster play area appears to be designed for level 50's, I have a level 50 good character from the level up 50 quest but it's not the same as using your own.  Made level 40 on my normal character and entered the monster play area, nothing I can do there, can't get a single quest, mobs and monster players are too high level to hurt.  Not sure why the entry requirement is 40 it's pointless going there.

Having played it for a while this week, it seems pretty good.
 
Short version, you can pick a Wolf, Spider, Orc Archer, Orc Reaver or Orc Leader.  Start with about 5 useable skills, and by completing quests you earn Destiny points which can be used to buy upgrades and unlock other monsters I think.  No crafting or equipment, but a fair number of "evil quests" that are repeatable to do for points.  Example, kill 10 hobbit farmers, 10 hobbit orchard workers, to earn ~125 DP  Get a pair of hobbit legs for some orc to eat, etc.  Some of the quests are clearly intended as raid triggers, and others have caveats like "do X and don't die" (you die onec you fail the quest).  Some of the quests appear to be for triggers for High level npc's to fight with you (if the text can be believed) an required a lot of farming.  Example, a boss spider in the zone wants you to gather 500! eagles feathers before it will assist you.

Did some 1-2 person pvp messing around no real victories or deaths as it seems pretty easy to escape to the safety of npc guards, which is one reason I think I'll stick with spider, for the web root skill (pun intended).  Spiders are a melee with DoT type class with a root, attack speed debuff an ability to "hide underground an regen immune from attack" that I hadn't used yet as their starting 5 skills.  The Urakhai (sp) that I tried was a melee'r with a shout, clear, attack speed group buff, single target heal (called crack the whip :) ) and a rez as it;s 5 starting skills.  Wolves are stealthers.

Going to try to get on tonight to see if can get some larger scale action going.
Now if you;ll excuse me, I have a river I need to go poison.

Man, that sounds fun.  I need to kick my WoW habit for a few nights and check it out.  Tonight sounds good.

That sounds exactly how I'd have liked to have seen this in other games.

Interesting problem though, what happens when everyone is playing a monster?  :-o

Then you do the quests against the enemy NPC's all over the zone.  I've run into that a few time playing early mornings.  I have enough DP to start upgrading my monster, but its tought to decide what to use because there are a LOT of upgrade choices, from new skills, to stat type upgrades, regen boots, power boosts, new appearances, etc etc.  Not to mention the same Destiny Points can be used to buy Perks for your regular PC from the monster controller in Bree.

I also have a fair amount on money (almost 1 gold) but the only thing to spend it on thus far is potions, which i haven't really needed.

Interestingly, some of the evil quest NPC's exist in castles which are contestable.  So if yon orc leader gives me a quest and i do the steps needed, but the good guys take back the keep before i turn it in, I can't get the reward....until we take the castle back.

On the whole I think im enjoying the monster play more than standard PC play b/c it's DIFFERENT, and while their is no more levels to make, there's a whole new advancement tree.

That is exactly why I think this one feature will put the game on the map.  Even if it comes out with bugs and exploits, it will create a buzz in the community and provide something *different*.

Instead of advancement, you're just working on being different from orc#223 and making a mark on your pathetic existence as a monster.  Get enough of you together and you can make an impact on those pesky humans.

Rather than just providing the same advancement engine that the good side has with uglier avatars, go a whole different route like you've described.  It is a good move and worth trying at least.  Hell, I'm always looking for alternative play outside the typical grind once inawhile.  Providing it in the same game, just on the other side is pure genius really.

Outside of this feature, the game I've seen so far is ok.  It is more of the same.  They need to "one up" everyone and this might be their ticket to ride.  I'm impressed they are even just attempting it.  I really do hope they have great success with it.

Ok, I spent about 45 minutes updating last night.  I logged in and then figured out quickly that I didn't know what I was doing for monster play.  I think I read you have to be lvl 40 first.  I'm lvl 8.  Is there a way to bypass this, because I'm not going to play to 40.

Also, is there a guild you guys are running and how do I join?  I've decided that playing solo/guildless as a newbie is entirely possible, but entirely boring as well.

Yes, we have a kinship called Bat Country on both servers, though we're mostly inactive at the moment. Look at the character names sticky to see who is in it and you can always PM me if you see me on the forums and I can invite you if you really want to join.

Which server you?  If it's Arwen send an ingame mail to "Hurn" and I'll send you some gold.

You only need to be level 10 to enter monster play, go to the west side of Bree near the mud gate and look for an npc called "monster controller".

You need to be level 40 to enter as a good guy, level 10 lets you play as an Orc, warg, spider or uruk.

I'm on Brandywine right now.  I suppose that was a mistake, but I thought I'd have less lag going to the newer server.

I'll try to start up on Arwen and get in contact with people.  Doesn't look like there are very many people on Brandywine.

Well don't be jumping servers just for bat country, it's pretty dead, only about 6-7 people in it and as I play strange hours I rarely see anyone.  I left to join another kinship.  I'm not trying to put you off, just saying, if you don't mind leveling up again on Arwen I can send you more gold than you can spend.

Besides once you get into monster play there's generally a raid of people running around looking for members.

Yeah, reading further got me thinking I just need to get to 10 and try it out.  I'll actually just have to be social and find a new group to hang with.  Thanks for the information.

Played a bit as a Warg Leader, healer Uruk leader type.

All monsters start at level 50 but have very few abilities.

You get destiny points for completing quests with these you can buy combat skills, traits and different appearances for your character.

It's a bit grindy on the quests, some are well done like killing the Hobbit Mayor etc, in a few hours I managed to get my character about 20% complete.  You don't get armour or equipment.

The pvp is fun and I think the lack of real mage types actually helps prevent it turning into the standard ranged battle, sometimes it turns out like that but running battles and flanking are quite common.  Defending a keep is a sight to see, currently the free peoples have the advantage 1 on 1 but numbers (and it must be said) tactics appear to be on the side of evil.

In pvp you get infamy points which will eventually raise your rank (very grindy), higher rank allows yet more skill, trait options.  All in all it's quite well done and if they expand it further could be a real attraction for the game.  From reading the posts here you know I have played the heck out of the good side but playing a Human or Dwarf isn't a patch on playing a Uruk and slaughtering hobbits.

Edit to add, these impressions after another week of monster play.

I'm pretty much done with LOTRO, the pve side of the game is frailly good but I'm reluctant to level up to the 40's again just to be wiped again. 

The PVP is also fairly good but it's just not very complicated, think DAoC keep capture with less annoying magic.  My Warleader now has sig status and is rank 1 which means he's pretty much maxed out for advancement apart from pvp ranks.  Sadly the pvp ranks don't make that big a difference so the shortage of freeps during my play hours means rank 2 is a long grind away and I just can't be bothered.

There's going to be a shortage of monster players a few months after release if they don't add monster armour and weapons, can't see anyone sticking with the monster side for more than a couple of months as it is.

I'm not going to buy it but it was a lot better than I expected. 

I agree with that.  LotRO seems like it will be fine a either a brand new players first game, or more likely a "filler" game between WoW expansions or before the "next big thing".

It works, but it's ultimately not different enough from other games in the market to really draw huge interest from existing players.  Some neat things, but just not enough evolutionary let alone revolutionary gameplay changes.

Xilren

Tried monster play a little today.  I found the Fel Scrying Pool in Bree (Mud Gate area, southwest Bree), and that's where you go in.  Have to be level 10 in order to make a monster.

I just ran around a little on a spider and a wolf.  Didn't really do much, besides pick up a bunch of quests and stumble around.  Nobody can get over level 15 right now, so there are no good players out there.

I'm impressed with the idea.  Can't quite figure out why a level 50 player would rather play as their player than as a monster.  Clue me in someone please?

I'd wager phat lewtz?

Phat loot.  Players have the advantage of monsters; monsters make up for it by having more numbers.  It is also something different and another meta game thingy for people to chew at.

I think it's a really neat idea.  I'm looking forward to the battles, once people are up to that level and there's actually pvp going on.

The dynamic seems to be different than most MMOs, as the monster-players ("Creeps") are deliberately somewhat to much weaker than max-level PCs ("Freeps", for "Free Peoples"), so they need numerical and/or tactical advantages.

Of course, this results in a never-ending stream of "creeps are too weak!" on the message boards...

While waiting for full release and appropriate-level PC opponents, you can go around dismembering Hobbits and elves, which can be oddly relaxing.

What the hell am I doing here?

I don't belong here.

On the plus side this will be very easy to balance unlike any other MMO, you can simply keep buffing the monsters to be in line with the good guys.  Since this doesn't affect class balance between guardians/burglars etc there will be far far less whining.  And remember that you can spend thousands of destiny points to buff your monster along with buying items that can track humans and such.

You must be a creep.

There is no popcap right? So how do the monster "make up for it by having more numbers?"  The numbers are determined be who decides to go there. And if the freeps out number and are stronger, that doesn't particularly fun.

You have to be near max level to freep it; like most games that will be a small percentage of active players.  I think it is ingenuous and a wonderful way to allow more casual players to enjoy high end content without taking away from the hardcore achievers.

Played in a group of creeps vs. a group of freeps.  About even numbers and man, did they kick our asses but good.

Fun though.  My little warg has pretty pathetic output against a 50 anything.

Played with my lev. 49 Champs yesterday against the Creeps trying to take back lumber mill for our resource farrming needs.
I must say this thing it's engaging, addictive. Battlelines constantly charging, flanking, rooting. It's more thant it seems at first, it smells of real war.
If they they are giving it some more love as they promised in the next few months then I must say it can become really really interesting.

Not sure why, but looks to me like it's way more fun with your char than with a Creep/monster. Probably because you are more emotionally attached to the Freep than to the Creep and death as a Freep feels much more like a big deal.

Surprisingly fun. The kind f fun I missed in my first trial runs in the Ettenmoor with my Uruk Blackarrow (Luckily there's plenty of Players who feel differently, giving my champ tons of Creeps to slay).

It's only fun on the players side. You just cannot develop a pvp system where a side needs to have more numbers to compensate the strength of the units on the other side. There's a limit to how much you can get killed and keep wanting to come back in pvp when you know you have no chance.

Why not? And by the way, as long as I agree (and agreed) on the fact that it feels much more fun with your char than with the monster, the factor is not the difference is strength. Maybe it's because I am on an overpopulated server, but we are having some huge battles and wars and basically monsters wins the most of it.

It's not an ambitious PvP the LotRO one. It's just plain fun. It probably has short legs, and that's why I am hoping some a smart dev can see the potential and gives it much much love in the immediate future.

I haven't played as a freep, but as a creep, it's disheartening to face smaller numbers of humans and get one's ass repeatedly kicked.

Monsters need to be beefed up some.

I got a monster up to rank 5 in beta. I basically had to grind my way through hours of mindless and worthless fighting to get to that point.
Here are the various issues (major design problems that a 2 year old should have been able to guess before implementing it) i flagged at the point (from a reaver point of view):

1- If balance is made so that 3 monsters = 1 player, what happens when 20 players come in ? You need suddenly 60 monsters. It works well when there arent a lot of characters at 50, but eventually, everyone is 50 and at that point, the balance of power is going to be seriously on player side. Of course a 20 vs 60 is mostly a slideshow.

2- The balance is made so that humans have more avoidance/mitigation, monsters have more HP. The problem here is that humans have more healing than monsters, which basically mean that your healing is even less in terms of total survivability. If the player can heal for 1200 with a tank that has 2400 hp and 75% damage reduction, the monster would need 12000 hp with his 15% damage reduction to survive just as long. The fact that the monster heals for 1000 means you need to cast the spell 12 times to fill back that amount of hp where as the player needs to cast twice. (not actual numbers, but i hope you get the point. the actual numbers are not necessarily better).

3- In theory, a rank 5 monster is equal to a player. It's absolutely bullshit, for starter, but it also has the issue that to get to rank 5, you need to kill players (that are 3 times stronger than you).  So you don't have a choice, but to grind.

4- Monsters AE ability are max 2-3 targets. Human abilities, with traits, are often 6-10. It doesn't scale very well when you start adding more players to the mix because they can hit more of the charging pack at once.

5- Keep taking : monsters have 1 pseudo tank (768 armor, ~10% avoidance) who also happens to be the healer. All you need is 1 hunter in the back assisting the keep lord and your monsters are going to die.

6- Hunter improved trap. 1 fuckin minute root with 25% chance of getting out of it when being hit. Play a reaver or a warg and have fun sitting there looking at your thumb.

7- Loremaster mez/AE snare/AE stun. Lets say you eventually got out of the trap, the loremaster is going to make sure you don't actually have to play your character.

8- Loremaster pet, captain pet. Very easy to send one toward a group of monster and put them all in combat mode. As you can remember, monsters have more hp but take more damage. Add the fact that you're stuck in combat mode all your life and that your few healers have crappy heals compared to your amount of hp. Basically, as a reaver, i was drinking potions every time i could and it was still not enough to keep me alive. I spent my life rooted/stunned/etc at 2000/4400 hp, waiting for the next tick to get 5 more hp

9- Player bragging rights. The rating is calculated based on kills/deaths. Therefore, most players don't want to die. Back in my time, you'd have groups of players on horse running the country for players alone or in duo. They'd CC one, kill the other and teleport back before any danger would appear. The ability to move around was perfect for their guerilla tactics. Since they didn't want to die, they would never fight outside of their keep with all the npcs around. Since you cannot heal as a monster, the npc eventually do most of the job over time and the players just need the killing blow.

10- To gain ranking as a creep, you're better off solo. This leads to crappy communication, warg gank squads and things like this. I played a few nights in a raid, getting 1 infamy pt per kill. The next night, i played as a coward solo and made almost 2 ranks in the process. This doesn't lead to sound tactics when the only way to progress is to play by yourself.

Anyway, there are tons of problems with the pvp.
But the 2 most important ones are:
1- pvp needs to be fair or the player needs to at least think he has a chance to keep on fighting (see most of shadowbane servers for an example of what happens when you have no chance)
2- crowd control, loss of character control has to be very limited. Having diminishing returns would already help, but getting rid of most of it is a better solution for decent pvp. Being rooted for 1 minute or perma stunned is one of the worst pvp mecanic you can get.

I have not made a Monster character since beta 2, however there seems to be a a lot of legitimate complaints from the creeps. Turbine realizes there are some serious issues and one of the Devs started this thread http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=72883 (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=72883) yesterday and it has grown to 11 pages as of the time of this post.

I'm not sure where you're pulling 75% reduction from but my guardian at 47 has about 49%. With the dimishing returns I've noticed as I push closer to 50% I highly doubt anyone running around at 75%, and certainly no other class other than a guardian. Meanwhile the creeps I see running around have way more than double my hp and my build is mostly vitality/morale.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but with your buffs to block/parry, you can have around 40-45% avoidance (block/parry/evade) and around 30-35% mitigation against common. These numbers were from beta, i haven't played a guardian in release, but that was pretty much the max damage reduction you could get back then.

Having double the hp doesn't mean much when you get hit for more than double damage and you don't have double the healing

I think this about covers it:

Creeps are player-controlled foozles... and like regular foozles they exist to be slaughtered by the good guys. Unlike regular foozels these ones are controlled by suckers who pay $15 a month for the priveledge.

This is why I have not bought this game. Unfortunately by the time they fix this, they'll have ruined the game's itemization with raids

:roll:

:eek3:

(Just because I had not seen it before.)

That's a nifty one.

The design has merit,  Turbine just has to swing the balance a bit.  For a level 50 creep,  you just have to roll a regular character and get yourself to a dark scrying pool.  No grinding, outfitting, running quest after quest, or any of that jazz.

You can buy plenty of enhancement using destiny points accumulated while leveling your regular character,  and creeps are fairly effective as raiders/gankers hitting freeps when the freeps are doing something else.

I've heard plenty of complaints from freeps trying to quest/run tasks that keep getting jumped and slaughtered by groups of creeps.  In a standup, on your toes fight,  creeps are just massively inferior.

I'd like to see creeps buffed a bit, but still inferior,  with very little grind to optimize abilities so they're basically set out of the box.

I really think Turbine has an unpolished gem here pvp wise.  MvP, if done right, could be what it takes to boost subs.  Brilliant idea Turbine, now lets see some kick ass improvements.

I'm tempted to get this game (once I'm back in civilization and off the farm dialup comp) just to make a warg stealth ganker.  As always, the beauty of stealth gankage is that no matter how weak you are, another player with 1% health still just has 1% health!

From the last Dev chat:


A step in the right direction?

I'm thinking too little, too late. By the time they actually get the incremental fixes in, most creeps are going to have given up. It's already happened on my server: few creeps, and so also few freeps except for farmers after the resources for crafting.

The good with creeps is that they are 50 already. It's never too late to pick them up again.