f13.net forums - Producer's Letter October- 2010

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April 19, 2024, 01:06:37 PM

we're back, baby

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Hello everyone,

It has been more than a month now since we launched Enedwaith and Book 2, and we hope you’ve been enjoying the new content and other changes to the game! It’s been such a pleasure to see how friendly and helpful all of you are to the new players just joining, and how busy many of the towns have been!

As some of you know, I was invited to speak at the Austin Game Developers Conference and present some details on the results of LOTRO’s introduction of the free option and Store. I’d like to share some of that talk with you, now. First off, the results have been great – our revenues have doubled, we’ve had a million new accounts created, and our subscription numbers continue to grow! I made two main points at GDC (other than talking about the results), which are:

Turbine’s philosophy on making great MMOs centers around the following four points:

* Build a great game & consistently deliver polished game updates, so that the core gameplay continues to be strong and fun – two elements needed if players are going to keep coming back.
* Give players ways they can customize how to pay and play the game, with different account levels, payment options, and content types – making sure that we offer something for every player interested in the game.
* Make the buying experience as easy as possible and integrate into gameplay – in game purchase experiences that are awkward and hard to understand do not encourage repeat business.
* Provide responsive and reliable customer service for players, including actively listening to player concerns and responding to feedback with game changes or adjustments.

As a result of the change in our business model, we have grown our view on how to develop new content and features for the game.

* Listen to your players. Players vote by buying or playing content or items they like the best, and by giving direct feedback through the forums, customer service, and chat in game. By staying tuned in on how players are feeling about the game, devs know better what to add, what to fix, and how to ensure that players keep having fun.
* Optimize the Store. Focus on improving the buying experience and catalog offering to make sure player needs are being addressed is vital to having a healthy business.
* Quality storytelling is also really good business! Great content engages players and keeps them having fun. In a business model where players can choose to not pay for the game, players that are in game and having fun are more apt to stay engaged and purchase additional quality content and other items.

We’ve been so pleased with the response of both our new players and our tenured players to the new business model options, and we promise to keep delivering great content and features updates to the game on a regular basis.

On the topic of updates, I wanted to let you know that we have shifted the way we think about our releases. In the past our updates depended on new Books being added to the Epic story. Going forward, updates will not always feature a new installment in the epic story line. By decoupling the Books from Updates we’ll have the flexibility to offer different types of new content and new features in each release. This will also allow us to do more releases each year. Don’t worry, continuing the Epic Story and continuing along the path of the Ring is very important to us! We’ll have more information to share about that and our plans for 2011 in the coming months.

“So what’s next?”, you may ask. Our next update is right around the corner and while I don’t want to spill it all, here’s a quick look at some of what you can expect in the November Update:

* Tasks - a new content type for all players to enjoy in the early game
* A major revision to the Vault
* New skills and updates for the Lore-master and Rune-keeper classes.
* A change to the way we handle the Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood expansion packs.

The Moria and Mirkwood expansion packs will still be purchasable in the LOTRO Store, but all players will be able to enter those areas and play through the epic quests just as you can currently with the Shadows of Angmar areas.

A dev diary on the Vault UI changes is coming this week, and additional dev diaries explaining our new Tasks system as well as other changes will be following in the coming weeks.

In the future, I’ll be talking with you more often in letters like this one, and of course we’ll be doing dev diaries as usual, so that you have a better sense of what content and features are coming and when. I encourage each of you to participate in testing new content when it becomes available on Bullroarer. This is a great way to get your voice heard and help us finalize and polish upcoming changes and new features. Of course we’re always reading feedback and suggestions posted to the forums as we are planning updates and deciding what we should be building next. We’re listening, so please let us know what you want to see in the game, in the store, or in your experience with us in general.

Thanks for being such an important part of LOTRO – we are so pleased with how great our community is, and how you make the game come alive!

See you in game!

Kate “Nereid” Paiz

I'm, apparently, one of the few people that really likes the Vault as it stands now, so hopefully they'll be keeping all the categories/search functionality intact.

I dont mind the vault, not a big deal even with 150 slots of stuff

I want radiance gone, however. Be nice to know the ETA on that. Tasks sound interesting. Anything that keeps peopel playing and grouping regularly is great IMO (while allowing for soloing too).

Quote from: Soln on October 21, 2010, 11:18:19 AM

I want radiance gone, however. Be nice to know the ETA on that.

I'm with you there. I'd personally be happier if they would add more cosmetic stuff and give me more hook points and stuff for my house. Right now I'm grinding faction and collecting horses to keep busy. I'm putting off the deed grind for as long as I can.

I also like the vault implementation. Once I stopped trying to sort things into chests, that is.

I think its the chests are what they are talking about.

I liked the chests and the ability to sort things myself. I hope it goes back to that.

Dev Diary on the new Vault is out.

Looks good to me as I can still run an all-in-one chest with text, search, and filters. Also cool are the buttons to access the other storage types and a right-click option for "Show only this category."

great stuff. Moving the vault to a File Explorer isn't that bad. We'll see how it plays. Only possible gap is maybe adding housing storage, but I bet as they redesign housing to sell more cosmetic items they will get to that as well.

I would love it if housing storage moved to this system, especially if they added a read-only display of it at all Vault Keepers because I can only vaguely remember what's in my housing chests.

Holy craphoolio. Now that's a list UI. You the man, Ransroth.

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Double-clicking on a stackable item in the Vault will now merge it to any existing stacks in your inventory.

Dragging a stackable item from the Vault over a partial stack in the inventory will fill the stack in the inventory and deposit the rest of the item back to the Vault.

Great. Now where's my inventory auto-arrange button?

Quote from: caladein on October 21, 2010, 03:12:24 PM

Now that looks good. I really don't like the vault as it stands right now. Big improvement.

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Feedback: Producer's Letter: October- 2010

I'll try to clear up some of the confusion.

For starters, yes the vault update (and the LM and RK updates) are in the November update. In fact, Ransroth's dev diary listing all the vault changes just went live about 20 minutes ago and Graal's LM diary should be ready by the end of next week. I'll just say I've read it and my level 65 LM is going to be one happy camper.

With the November update Moria and Mirkwood will function a lot like SOA areas do. If you are a free player you will be able to move through them freely, fight monsters and level up to the full level 65 cap. Free players will have access to the entire Epic Story line. Free players will have to buy content packs to experience the content within these areas as well as the Rune-keeper and Warden classes just as they do now.

If you currently own Moria and Mirkwood, nothing changes for you. If you drop to Premium the day after the November update nothing changes for you. You'll still have access to all the content.

No, the November update doesn't have a new instance cluster, the removal of radiance (and yes it is being removed in a future update), or the LI changes we're working on. Those are coming later and are pieces of what Kate mentioned when she said she'd have more details on the 'what and when' in the coming months.

I'm not spilling anything about the Tasks system because Orion is writing up a Dev Diary about them. What I will say is it will be free for everyone.

Hope that cleared up some of the confusion.

Sapience - Community Specialist

A great game just gets better. Like the 'old' vault, love the new vault! Also glad radiance is going. Really wish they would hurry with the LI changes, I don't like the current incarnation.