Character Wipe

[Arthur_Parker]

http://beta.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=67652#post67652

Greetings!

Thanks again to all of you for participating in the LOTRO Beta Program. You’ve probably noticed that we’ve been updating the game every two weeks, and this coming Thursday, October 26 is no exception. This update requires us to do the first character wipe since the Beta Program began.

Something that many people have been looking forward to will be going live in this next update – the Ered Luin starter experiences for elves and dwarves will be available! We’re really excited about this, and hope you like them.

The team thought it would be fun to have a “farewell” party for everyone before the wipe, so meet us at the Party Tree at 8PM eastern on Wednesday, October 25th for some fun! Admins will be on hand to give away items and perhaps wreak a little havoc in the Shire.  Hope to see you there!

-Meghan

Ho Hum :(

[WayAbvPar]

I am secretly glad. I decided that I hate my dwarf and will now be forced to reroll. May try a new class too...maybe Captain or Guardian.

[Strazos]

I guess I'll reroll my Captain, and actually name him Strazos this time.

At least from what I played, I did not like burglers in this game. Which is a shame, because I usually like rogues.

[Rasix]

I'll probably make a dwarf minstrel named "Spoony".  Hunters, loremasters and burglars seem too gimpy to even bother with.  From what little I played of a burglar, it was painfully boring.

[WayAbvPar]

Rogue classes are traditionally the last to get love in these games it seems. Although the Loremaster was in dire need of some attention last time I played one as well...

[Strazos]

I kind of liked the idea of the channled dots that Loremasters have...they were just very weak, and most of their other lowbie spells were fairly useless.

[WayAbvPar]

The problem with the channeled DOTs is that they were your primary attack for the most part, and you couldn't use any other powers while using it. It needs to be an instant, or A LOT more powerful/damaging.

[Signe]

Damn.  I was going to make a dwarf named Spoony, too!    And one named Forky.  And Spatula!

[Arthur_Parker]

I'm hoping they add race traits this build, class traits make a big difference to your more powerful skills later on.  There's a slight UO feel to getting class traits based on your skill usage which I hope they expand on.  Think I'm going to create another Guardian, not keen on being nerfed again and it's probably the safest.

[Yegolev]

Damn.  I was going to make a dwarf named Spoony, too!    And one named Forky.  And Spatula!

Did you get the joke and are just being Signe?  I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm really curious.  I might even explain it to you.

I like the idea of handing out items prior to a character wipe.  Kinda sums up the whole of MMORPG history in one nice GM event that I probably will miss.

[Cheddar]

Entire thing feels like Asherons Call 2.  And just like AC2, I WANT to be there, I want to enjoy it. I WANT to ignore my kids for it; but something is missing.

Maybe its grammar snake.

[Signe]

Damn.  I was going to make a dwarf named Spoony, too!    And one named Forky.  And Spatula!

Did you get the joke and are just being Signe?  I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm really curious.  I might even explain it to you.

I like the idea of handing out items prior to a character wipe.  Kinda sums up the whole of MMORPG history in one nice GM event that I probably will miss.

I do and I am. 

[Xanthippe]

I don't and I'm not.

[NiX]

I can't and I wish I was.

[Xanthippe]

I want to try something that doesn't fill me with frustration.  I.e, the fotm class.

Which is that one, now?

[Trippy]

I want to try something that doesn't fill me with frustration.  I.e, the fotm class.

Which is that one, now?

At the moment I would say Guardian or Minstrel. They might be making a number of balance changes with this upcoming patch, though, so that could change.

[Yegolev]

Even post-nerf, my guardian is pretty impenetrable.  Even with vendor equipment.

[NiX]

How are captains?

[Johny Cee]

Captain seems pretty solid.  I was killing same level elites,  mobs a couple levels higher, or multiple mobs on mine.  Only leveled to 15 though.

The lore-master has uninteresting combat.  Debuff pull, cast dot, sic pet, cast dot, maybe staff mob once.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I have no experience with the rest of the classes.

[Lt.Dan]

Did Captains get a boost?  They were second most boring next to Loremasters when I tried one out (only to level 10 though).

Looking forward to new starting zones though.

I hope they don't wipe when they go live - that would be a fair reward for testing

[Arthur_Parker]

I reached the current level cap of 40 on Saturday and have been messing about a bit.

Some random thoughts.

As a Level 40 Guardian I can solo a level 42 and a level 43 at the same time, couldn't handle a third mob even blowing all my timers.

Nice items that drop and are level 41 restricted are really annoying.  They need a lot more loot and they need it for each level not just in 2-3 level steps.

Soloing grey elites takes way way too long as you can't use your special abilities, items wear out too fast.  Visting grey instances such as the one in north downs are very good for jewelry items from the chests, I expect them to be farmed quite a bit.  Named Elites in instances seem to drop a predictable range of items like WoW, I hate that and would prefer it to be random, otherwise there becomes a set "best" item for each slot at each level for each class and a defined way of obtaining it.  In a game that suffers from a lack of customised character options I don't see the logic in encouraging players to obtain the same items.

It's very nice that mobs drop items based on what you would expect them to drop, animals drop hide etc, if you want armour and weapons then expect to hunt humans, orcs, goblins or undead.  That's logical and I approve, but as the crafting system kinda blows at the minute getting aggro from animals at level 40 is a pain in the arse as they won't drop anything useful.  I expect the real cap of level 50 to suffer the same, so crafting is going to have to make extensive use of animal drops or all the non-animal spawns will be camped.  I really like the fact that there's a mob of a detached undead arm and the only things lootable from them are rings.

Conjunctions seem a bit flakey, spent quite a while in a couple of groups and either players take ages to pick a colour for a conjunction or the system still needs a bit of work.  Successful conjunctions seem to reduce the need for parties to be made up of specific classes, so that's nice but starting conjunctions appears random, I'd prefer some player choice/skill to be involved.

I found a hole in the zone in the Misty mountains, was able to walk around the outside of zones really far up in the sky.  They seem to have built an awful lot of land area that won't be used, far to the north east of Ered Luin you can see river beds, it's all without textures but the land mass of middle earth is well defined.  Angmar has had some nice work done on zone music and the colour of the sky changes to black smoke with volcanic traces, it also seems to have an area that restricts visibility, I couldn't see much on the ground.

I made it over to Ered Luin, there's a massive Dwarf statue in Thorgin's gate, I couldn't reach the ground so again it was hard to see much detail.

At the minute LOTRO looks like it will suffer from the same problems as WoW, the leveling up process with faster exp is quite enjoyable but at max level it's going to turn into raids for better items.  Crafting is a bare bones system that needs a lot of improvement and no idea what pvp is going to be like, especially as so many classes have aggro handling skills as part of their limited skill set, so pvp combat might be even simplier than pve.

[Viin]

There's a character wipe in 2 days? Crap! My level 8 Champion was getting on a roll!

I don't understand this need to stretch out the leveling experience - why does it have to take 6 months to a year to max out? What's wrong with reaching max level in a month or two?

I say the leveling experience should be there to teach you how to play your class. Once you hit max level you should be into the main course of the game. And! If you do that, you can develop 90% of your content to that max level and max level groups (raids, areas, quests, whatever).

Anyways - I'm having fun, but it really is WoW with a slightly different setting and graphics style. But I haven't played all that much, so maybe there's something amazing out there that's just so much better than WoW but I haven't seen it yet. (Even crafting is the same! It's almost the same exact interface!)

[Engels]

For me, its as good as WoW, but without the moronic insulting infantile cartoon graphics, so I like it better. Plus, there seems to be a bit more skill involved with fighting, and the different combat combos I can do as a Hunter in LoTR are more interesting than anything I could do in WoW.

That said, the graphic animations need work, lots of work.

[Yegolev]

As much as I liked WoW's improvements to MOG quests, I like LOTRO's improvements to WoW's quests.  I'm not under any sort of illusion as to what sort of game this is, and taken as a formulaic offering I find it rather nice.  I hope that the jackass ratio stays low after retail, because I like that a lot.  I'd like it to stay PvE, but peer pressure is a bitch.

I actually find it more similar to EQ2 than WoW, but using the best bits from both can only be good.  I have also had a couple "Ah, neat" moments and I haven't even gotten past level ten, so there is definite potential.  I never once said "Ah, neat" when testing Asheron's Call.

I believe that they are going to have a new crafting system in place after the wipe... did I read that in the notes?

Also: the constellations are in accordance with the lore.

[Engels]

Constellations? Splain plz.

[Yegolev]

In the olden days, people would pass the time by imagining shapes in the patterns of stars in the heavens.  These are called constellations, and are given common names since apparently lots of people could see a big question mark in the sky.  The fake sky in the simulated Middle-Earth closely resembles the real sky in Middle Earth.

[Engels]

Oh, heh heh. Thought you meant some obstrues game mechanic.

[Yegolev]

Any chance to be a jerk, I'll take it.

[Johny Cee]

On quests:

Some really interesting stuff here.  I only just hit the Shire for the first time,  and there appear to be lots of quests in the non-combat vein.  The "collect eggs and avoid the rooster" one,  "deliver mail and avoid nosey hobbits", and "deliver pie and dodge hungry hobbits" ones....  as well as the "deliver water to spring and avoid mobs in a time limit" one near Combe (I think).

I liked most of the "run over there and collect roses/athelas/Preparation H" quests. 

I'd like to see more of this kind of quest,  less "kill X number of mob Y" unless it makes sense.  Killing some wolves to get pelts for a fur trapper is fine,  randomly killing 10 wild hogs for the Constable feels out-of-place.

Nice touchs on the dynamic quest items.  Make them more available through other means (stealth in to get Brigands Secret Diary after luring off the stealth-detecting guard, or some such).

On combat:

As a two-handed Captain, it was alright.  Your toon feels fairly tough for his level,  not like some games where you see an even con coming and you need to back off. The basics feel pretty solid. 

As Engels said,  needs more color/snazz.  More animations, flashier moves or effects.  If I hit a mob with a Captain shout/Minst song,  make him cover his ears for a second.  I use the captain's haste-thingy,  blur me a bit.

Give the impression that the abilities are doing what they claim.

[Xilren's Twin]

Hopefully, this phase will include yet another round of beta invites....
I mean got a new dual core box to test on and everything, but noooo, more Oblivian for me.
Not that Im bitter.

Xilren

[Strazos]

Well, seems I will not be playing this at all for the time being.

I got through the tutorial fine with my new toon, but once I got into Archet, the game started to crash...violently. First it locks up, then I lose the video feed, then I get a hit-pitch whine out of my speakers. Only resetting the system from my tower itself fixes the problem. I've tried twice to play, with the same exact result both times.

Oh well.

[Trippy]

Well, seems I will not be playing this at all for the time being.

I got through the tutorial fine with my new toon, but once I got into Archet, the game started to crash...violently. First it locks up, then I lose the video feed, then I get a hit-pitch whine out of my speakers. Only resetting the system from my tower itself fixes the problem. I've tried twice to play, with the same exact result both times.

Oh well.

If you can get to the options screen try turning down all the graphics settings.

[Engels]

Could also be an audio setting. Set it to whatever option isn't currently selected. My game was using the Nvidia audio drivers, and when I switched it to Hardware instead, it sounded a thousand times better.

[Xanthippe]

Made Xanthippe the female man, today hate how she smirks.  She's becoming an elf today I think.

[Viin]

Careful with the elf thing - folks are stuck in the tutorial mission.