Content Flood (10$ game box, Level Cap +, 2 new zones this year, Skirmish Sys )

[Signe]

This is a good deal.  In a fit of f13 fickleness, I had un-subbed a couple of days ago.  I have fun when I'm in the game but never seem to get motivated to actually log in and I thought I'd play CoH for a bit with Righ.  Anyway, this deal made me activate my account again.  Now I just need to find my motivation or I'll feel like an idiot!

[Mrbloodworth]

Just got back from Best Buy, and they are still selling MoM for $50!  As for the future plans I am really excited to see all the new content added and the skirmish system.  I mean come on, $10 for alll this content has to be the best MMO value out there (paid subs).  They can do so much with S. Mirkwood and Dol Guldur it's not funny. 

edit to add spoiler

they sell for 19.99 here, the CE is 50.

[Mrbloodworth]

This is a good deal.  In a fit of f13 fickleness, I had un-subbed a couple of days ago.  I have fun when I'm in the game but never seem to get motivated to actually log in and I thought I'd play CoH for a bit with Righ.  Anyway, this deal made me activate my account again.  Now I just need to find my motivation or I'll feel like an idiot!

Join the kinship. 

[Signe]

uhrr: 

  This face doesn't inspire me!

I will next time I'm in, even though it's not properly named like wot Bat Country is.

[Yegolev]

The fact that it's not Bat Country is why it's still around!

Look, you haven't even seen my dwarf jig yet, or my dwarfy shuffle.  So awesome.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm on now if any one needs an invite.

[tmp]

All I can say is, holy fucking shit, Turbine "The content gods". That's 3 entire zones and about 4 new features just this year (Not including the expansion).

With small caveats being... #1, one of these 3 zones was initially planned as part of previous expansion, i.e. it's at least partially last year's work. And #2, it's not '3 zones this year not including the expansion' (if i read what you're writing right) -- it's more like "one zone from previous expansion plus 2 new zones most likely in the new expansion"... again, with the possibility of similar delay like it happened to Lothlorien not making it into MoM proper.

I'm rather confused about their decision to raise the level cap, while at it -- they've been working for long months now to create new group instances which might make it now in the book update that might make it in June... so to go and raise the level cap half year later in best case and render the whole thing obsolete, that's pretty short mileage out of such pile of work. Unless that raid content has now also been quietly rescheduled as part of the new expansion.

[Redgiant]

I've got a 60 minstrel, and a bunch of 15-35s of various types around, mostly on Landroval.

I wouldn't mind leveling the alts if there were other people doing the same.

What is the relevant Brandywine info?

[Tarami]

I don't think anything of what is mentioned (aside level cap increase) in those statements is supposed to be in the retail expansion, that's just confusion on the interviewers' parts. They're saying expansion simply because it  expands the game. Atleast Sapience over at the official forums seem to suggest so;

I just want to jump in early here and clarify some things. There were some elements of our 2009 plans that seemed to get a little jumbled up in the telling. So let me try and 'un-jumble' things a bit.

Keep in mind this is the 'plan'. And is subject to change

Planned for Book 8

    * Coming in June
    * New party based instances
    * Summer Festival
    * Epic Storyline

Rest of 2009 Plans

    * Expansion
    * Southern Mirkwood and Dol Goldur
    * Introduce Skirmishes
    * Increase the Level Cap
    * Much more (but nothing we’re talking about yet)

For everyone worried about the cap increase is 'too soon', let me restate that this is a 'sometime in 2009' thing. Currently it's slated for the expansion. So you have plenty of time before having to worry about additional levels.

[tmp]

I don't think anything of what is mentioned (aside level cap increase) in those statements is supposed to be in the retail expansion, that's just confusion on the interviewers' parts. They're saying expansion simply because it  expands the game. Atleast Sapience over at the official forums seem to suggest so;

Considering the expansion is listed as first item in that list, it seems to suggest the content listed after is supposed to be part of it. It's just not very realistic to expect release of 2 full game zones *and* full game expansion in 6 remaining months between June and end of the year. For comparison, in whole 2008 they've added two new zones (Forochel, Eregion) and then Moria in the paid expansion. 2009 might turn out very similar in this regard -- with Lothlorien added so far, and then you get combined release of one zone 'for free' and one bigger area (Mirkwood?) as paid expansion. Or both these areas will be done as expansion, to pad it out. On the other hand maybe Dol Guldur + Southern Mirkwood will be reduced in size to single zone overall (similar to Angmar) and as such leave room for something extra, guess we'll see.

For everyone worried about the cap increase is 'too soon', let me restate that this is a 'sometime in 2009' thing. Currently it's slated for the expansion. So you have plenty of time before having to worry about additional levels.

"Sometime in 2009" still means "6 months max from June until new raid content is rendered obsolete and cast aside". Just doesn't make much sense to me given the effort involved; for comparison the Rift instance was released late October 2007, full year before Moria.

[Yegolev]

Are you worried about quality?  Or were you hoping to hit cap in 2009?  Me, I'm don't know why I would give a shit that the cap is raised.

What is the relevant Brandywine info?

Check the sticky thread.  Also the kinship is called Riders of Middle Earth.  If you need further help, just ask here or in-game.

[tmp]

Are you worried about quality?  Or were you hoping to hit cap in 2009?  Me, I'm don't know why I would give a shit that the cap is raised.

Just concerned there's some undisclosed factors there that force them to speed up the development pace beyond what seems reasonable and/or what the playerbase is comfortable with. Also the possibility they'll rush the content at the expense of quality, yeah. There's also the 'imminent expansion' effect that might actually harm the game rather than help it -- it's when people stop playing due to the reasoning that goes "why bother with game now when after the expansion hits all the armour and weapons and other shit on my characters become obsolete overnight" ... and by the time the expansion actually ships number of them can't be arsed to resub.

[HaemishM]

I would say in LOTRO's case, the dev putting out unfinished shit hasn't really been a problem since release. They held Lothlorien out of the paid expansion rather than do the usual MMOG shuffle (i.e. put in half-assed, unitemized zones and buggy as fuck content just because they said they would), then released it as "free." Think back on Everquest - most of their paid expansions had at least half the new zones completely unitemized or half-assedly itemized. This dev team has impressed me, something I never thought I'd say about Turbine after AC2.

[Stormwaltz]

Ah, never mind. Just imagine some weary sarcasm.

[Tarami]

Ah, never mind. Just imagine some weary sarcasm.

Go on.

[Yegolev]

I thought of something that would cause me to give a shit about a bump up in cap: last time this happened, it broke monster play for months until they got around to patching it.  The creeps dwindled to the hardcore minority and the freeps got lazy... for a bit.  They still have legendary items, so ....

Of course, I'm also worried about slipping quality in the face of getting a retail box out, but so far so good.  Eh, except for some of the Spring Festival shit that was uncharacteristically broken.

[HaemishM]

Ah, never mind. Just imagine some weary sarcasm.

SHARE. 

[Hindenburg]

He had linked to an article pointing out that Turbine's Head had changed at some point in 2007.

[HaemishM]

Knowing that he was at Turbine in his previous life, I expected it was some juicy something or other about the trainwreck of AC2's development.

[sigil]

I forget the timeline, but there were some craptastic things going on at turbine around the time Storm left.

Everybody and their brother could find the portal for that Hieromancers halls quest, but nooooooooooo, it took me six damn months to find it. A couple of times I was informed of it, but for whatever reason including some highly comical ones, I just couldn't get it done. Wore that suit for three months straight out of general principle

[Modern Angel]

Has it ever struck the folks worried about sped up releases that someone is *finally* taking advantage of Blizzard's retarded content release pace? That the queues that popped up prior to Ulduar release but before the welcome back weekends were there for a reason?

[Tarami]

Rephrase that Angel, it's not making sense.

[Hindenburg]

I'm still amazed that to this very day a lot of MMO's still do maintenance in the same day as Blizzard.

[Modern Angel]

I've always maintained that the only thing that can put a dent in WoW (barring another Blizzard made MMO) is the fact that they cannot get their shit together as far as content release goes. Their patches are slow, bugs are left to languish rather than be fixed, the content that is released is buggier each and every patch necessitating hot fixes... and quite frankly while Ulduar the zone is pretty good the patch as a whole is completely underwhelming from a content perspective.

Lo and behold, during that six months of perdition from WLK release to Ulduar release the LOTRO queues slowly started up. It was obvious more people were playing LOTRO and it was equally obvious why: the initial WLK content was exhausted for most people and the next patch was nowhere in sight. Folks did exactly what I did which was say "Fuck running Naxx again" and try out some new games.

Now Turbine is talking about potentially releasing four times as much content as Blizzard is in the next six months to a year. They're taking Blizzard head on at the company's weakest point. If you're complaining about content being released too fast, you're missing the two main points. The first, beat Blizzard at content creation and I guarantee you that you will have an uptick in subs so long as the content isn't terrible. The second, there is absolutely *no reason whatsoever* that WoW content should take so long. Blizzard has done such a great job of market domination that their line about good content being inherently slow to release is taken as industry standard when there is no evidence it has to be that way.

Don't worry about the speed or amount. Revel in it.

[Yegolev]

Good point, not playing WoW means I did not think of that.  The only WoW players I associate with are raiding gearwhores on a PVP server.

[Modern Angel]

I'm a raiding gearwhore and I got sick of it. I'm still a raiding gearwhore and I'll get sick of it again. Don't underestimate WoW ennui. It's easy to do but remember that people fled WAR and AoC primarily because they were busted, not automatically because WoW is scratching every itch.

[Yegolev]

I've had Wow ennui since six months after release.

[Mrbloodworth]

I've always maintained that the only thing that can put a dent in WoW (barring another Blizzard made MMO) is the fact that they cannot get their shit together as far as content release goes. Their patches are slow, bugs are left to languish rather than be fixed, the content that is released is buggier each and every patch necessitating hot fixes... and quite frankly while Ulduar the zone is pretty good the patch as a whole is completely underwhelming from a content perspective.

Lo and behold, during that six months of perdition from WLK release to Ulduar release the LOTRO queues slowly started up. It was obvious more people were playing LOTRO and it was equally obvious why: the initial WLK content was exhausted for most people and the next patch was nowhere in sight. Folks did exactly what I did which was say "Fuck running Naxx again" and try out some new games.

Now Turbine is talking about potentially releasing four times as much content as Blizzard is in the next six months to a year. They're taking Blizzard head on at the company's weakest point. If you're complaining about content being released too fast, you're missing the two main points. The first, beat Blizzard at content creation and I guarantee you that you will have an uptick in subs so long as the content isn't terrible. The second, there is absolutely *no reason whatsoever* that WoW content should take so long. Blizzard has done such a great job of market domination that their line about good content being inherently slow to release is taken as industry standard when there is no evidence it has to be that way.

Don't worry about the speed or amount. Revel in it.

There is also the fact that turbine is brilliant in its construction techniques. The entire Town of Bree is modular in its construction, and its parts can be arranged in thousands of ways (i personally think there are about 20-30 pieces in the set). Every house (out in the world) you see, is really about 6 parts, roof, door, "floor", windows, platform, and stairs. add in some texture swapping (Tressilebridge)... and you have brilliance in a box.

To name one.

[Reg]

Towns in Lotro are all very pretty and nice and all but I could do without the "realism" of having to run for 10 minutes between the bank and the auction house. There's just no good reason for that in this day and age beyond wanting to have your customers spend as much time as possible doing things that aren't consuming content.

[rattran]

That's one great perk of 21st Hall in Moria, Vault/High-End Crafting/Auction all in one spot. Everywhere else just has parts of that, and Bree with it spread all over kinda sucks.

[Yegolev]

Bree sucks, go to Thorin's Hall.

[Reg]

But I like Bree. I don't want to hang out with a bunch of smelly dwarves!

[Yegolev]

Maybe they smell like stale beer and are suspiciously female-free, but they know to put the AH near enough to the vault, mailboxes and crafting areas.  Also city_planning++.

[Montague]

Downloading now while at work. Wife is pissed. 

[Tarami]

Brandywine.