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Author Topic: Revisiting LOTRO impressions  (Read 38772 times)
Hound
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Reply #105 on: April 27, 2007, 03:23:59 PM



HOWEVER, I have seen some stat on that talks about "crit" during creation. Does that mean that someone can create something of variable quality ala EQ2?



It is not variable quality but a crit item is a lot more effective. You have to gather special components, for a jeweler it will be wight treasure or lynx claws for example. You get a certain percentage to make a crit by using one of the  speacials and if successful the item is much better than the normal. For example a copper ring may give +3 of a stat while a shining copper ring might give +9 of that stat. I preferred EQII's crafting over LoTROs, but I was pretty burned out on EQII and this is a step up from WoW.

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
Modern Angel
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Reply #106 on: April 27, 2007, 03:41:31 PM

Once you hit Mastery level in a given tier of crafting (like levels) you get a base 5% chance to crit when you make something; tacking on a random drop as was said adds 50% to that chance. The base items range from moderately useful for a brief time to assy but the items you create with a crit are pretty damned nice.
CmdrSlack
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Reply #107 on: April 27, 2007, 03:43:50 PM

Quote
because Quest XP is the fastest way to level AND give items

Unfortunately, questing alone cannot get you the dough to advance as fast as you think.  Many people feel that when they ding a new level, they should be able to afford all of their skills -- this works till the mid-teens.  Personally, I think that traits are best gained ASAP, not organically via questing.  Some of the niftier traits (those that add stat points) seem to require work beyond the normal questing chains.  That's fine for me, I like to beat up animals for their vendor trash loot.  Sooner or later, I'll even focus on putting the purple drops (those for crafting) on the AH.  I've just been lazy in that regard because I haven't ever used any kind of AH in any game so far...but I think LoTRO may be my initiation into the world of being a merchant.  Heck, in SWG, I just put up an automated vendor (and later NPCs) in Tian Bay and let that ride.  It's the curse of my RL and my game life...I just need to learn to be more of a self-merchandizer.

ETA -- Also, some crits in crafting just give more of the processed item....extra treated wood or hides or ingots.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Tairnyn
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Reply #108 on: April 27, 2007, 05:01:26 PM

I actually considered purchasing this game for something to keep me amused this weekend but it seems there's no way to purchase a CD Key without buying the box at a retailer. Lack of digital distribution is sooo 5 years ago.
Venkman
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Reply #109 on: April 27, 2007, 05:42:31 PM

Ok so crits in crafting are between WoW's guaranteed sameness and EQ2s variable. Nice. I didn't like EQ2's system enough to play Tetris every time I wanted to grind a crafting skill.

Unfortunately, questing alone cannot get you the dough to advance as fast as you think.  Many people feel that when they ding a new level, they should be able to afford all of their skills -- this works till the mid-teens.
That's why I said earlier perhaps Turbine did this on purpose. The instant-gratification thing is a relatively recent phenom in the genre compared to the early days of EQ1 and AC1. People were either more patient or just put up with more shit, whatever. So this may be Turbine going "old skool" on the genre when in reality, the vast majority of their first players are going to be WoW expatriates by sheer numbers alone. WoW seriously doubled the amount of active accounts in this genre in both major territories in which LoTRO launched, and that means a LOT of new people to the genre who think the rules for a class/template/DIKU game are what WoW were.

Meanwhile, us vets have been playing since every game delivered the WRONG thing, or at least something wrong enough that when a game launched with an incremental improvement, we flocked to it :)
CmdrSlack
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Reply #110 on: April 27, 2007, 08:10:50 PM

Quote
we flocked to it

Who you callin' "we" kemosabe?   :-D

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Glazius
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Reply #111 on: April 28, 2007, 08:18:55 AM

One thing I just learned from that heckalong thread was that there's a supplier in Bree (in the town hall?) that sells wax for 12c instead of 48c.  It's sad that I'm planning to find this guy...but hell, bolts of rough cloth are over 1s in cost....levelling tailoring on anything but medium armor would be insane, IMO.  Some of the materials are just wayyy too costly.
On that note, why on earth can't farmers flax2crush and produce cloth?

--GF
Venkman
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Reply #112 on: April 28, 2007, 08:22:43 AM

Quote
we flocked to it

Who you callin' "we" kemosabe?   :-D
Because you left EQ1 to for greener pastures. Not just the same ones as others :)
CmdrSlack
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Reply #113 on: April 28, 2007, 08:40:13 AM

One thing I just learned from that heckalong thread was that there's a supplier in Bree (in the town hall?) that sells wax for 12c instead of 48c.  It's sad that I'm planning to find this guy...but hell, bolts of rough cloth are over 1s in cost....levelling tailoring on anything but medium armor would be insane, IMO.  Some of the materials are just wayyy too costly.
On that note, why on earth can't farmers flax2crush and produce cloth?

--GF

Good question.  I'm willing to bet that may be one of the "fixes" they have planned for farming.  Or, if it's not, it should be.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Venkman
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Reply #114 on: April 28, 2007, 01:23:12 PM

Inter-dependency as a social lubricant.

LoTRO crafting is not really intended to be a game entirely unto myself in my opinion. The only way it would be is if you could max out your chosen three professions at level 7. But that does not seem to be the case, which is like EQ2 and WoW.

They weren't shooting for multiple-paths-of-domination ala SWG. There's just one thing to do here (besides music) and everything is corollary to that.
Modern Angel
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Reply #115 on: April 28, 2007, 02:56:47 PM

That's not the prolem. The problem is that the mats you need to buy from the vendor to level crafting are OBSCENELY expensive. My friend needs steel. To convery his iron to steel he needs coal. Coal costs two silver a pop. That adds up to more than the average player can handle after a short while.
CmdrSlack
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Reply #116 on: April 28, 2007, 04:03:40 PM

Another example is farming.  It used to be that a "poor" quality plant netted you three seeds.  You need six seeds to grow a plot.  Seeds start at 1s and some copper and go up from there.  PER SEED.  They decided that the "money train" that was high-level pipeweed farming needed a nerf, so they "fixed" the seed output to one per poor plant.  Apparently that was how it was supposed to be....right.  At any rate, before the nerf, I tried to level up to the "money train" level of farming...which is somewhere in the beyond journeyman tiers.  I spent about 100ish silver getting to journeyman.  Basically, once people got to the money level, they'd already taken so much money out of the economy that I don't really see the need for a fix.

Stupposedly, they are doing something to make it so farmers can sell junk to cooks, but since one of the professions that includes cooking also includes farming, I don't really see how that's going to work.

Suffice it to say that the cost for materials needs to come down if they're going to keep the economy tight.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Numtini
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Reply #117 on: April 28, 2007, 04:44:36 PM

Interdependency is being stifled by the highly mediocre AH and the fact that nobody has any spare money.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Venkman
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Reply #118 on: April 29, 2007, 04:48:08 AM

That's not the prolem. The problem is that the mats you need to buy from the vendor to level crafting are OBSCENELY expensive. My friend needs steel. To convery his iron to steel he needs coal. Coal costs two silver a pop. That adds up to more than the average player can handle after a short while.
I dunno man. I gotta believe there's a reason Turbine keeps the costs for mats high, just like the training costs. Are they wanting people to make compromises? Like a crafter isn't going to be as good at combat at any level because they can't afford to BOTH crafting mats AND to keep their combat skills maxxed?

The only alternative is that it's a massive blunder, the sort you don't want to have at launch. If nobody can afford to do crafting until the endgame, then the only things worth making are endgame items. That makes everything ELSE just grind output. What scares me is being able to sell to NPC farmers supports this hypothesis: "no, your current creations have no value, go sell them to the money faucet". It's a death cycle, something that only continues to support the notion that relevant equipment-crafting and quest-based DIKUs don't mix (consumables generally always have a place though, if they can be afforded :P )

And you don't want this to happen at launch because if your fix only comes later when your launch players have leveled up, then the only market left for incremental gear creations is un-twinked alts and newbie players who don't know yet that quests ALWAYS provide.
Hound
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Reply #119 on: April 29, 2007, 06:31:03 AM

I have to wonder about crafting costs also, if it was not for the disparity in the various professions I would chalk it up to them trying to discourage every hobbit and his brother from becoming a crafter. That makes no sense whatsoever after giving it a bit of thought. One would think they would want to encourage crafting rather than discourage it, even though that is what they have managed to do.

 I have managed to make quite a few coin through the jewelry trade however. It does take a willingness to sit there and grind blue and green mobs for the trophy components to make the unique. Even at that I foresee the market becoming flooded due to the fact that crafted items are not bind on equip. Turbine did a fair job on the game overall in my opinion but that fucker in charge of crafting needs to be sent packing. If I were designing it I would make quest rewards and crafted items bind on equip and regular mob drops non bind.

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
Falconeer
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Reply #120 on: April 29, 2007, 07:00:01 AM

Even at that I foresee the market becoming flooded due to the fact that crafted items are not bind on equip.

I noticed that too and I really can't figure what's in their crafting lead's mind.
My best guess is trying to give players a good reason to buy a crafted weapon/armour by thinking that no matter the cost, they'll be able re-sell it after use getting some of the money spent back. I did that for example. At level 20 I shelled out 150 silver for a very good crafted heavy chestpiece knowing that I should be able to get some of that back by reselling when I am done with it.
Still, if this *could* make crafted equipment a better choice for Players, it will screw crafters and crafted economy after a couple of months in the game. Don't want to even think about a year in.

Modern Angel
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Reply #121 on: April 29, 2007, 07:07:25 AM

I think this is a massive blunder. Jewelcrafting is fine because I have to buy precisely nothing from an npc vendor to get it up. The others? Ick.

It doesn't instill me with alot of hope for a raiding endgame when they can't get comparatively easy numbers right. Different teams, I'm sure, but both extremely numbers based. Crafting was slapped on late in beta 2 (as I recall) and it feels rushed.
Hound
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Reply #122 on: April 29, 2007, 10:06:19 AM

I think this is a massive blunder. Jewelcrafting is fine because I have to buy precisely nothing from an npc vendor to get it up. The others? Ick.

It doesn't instill me with alot of hope for a raiding endgame when they can't get comparatively easy numbers right. Different teams, I'm sure, but both extremely numbers based. Crafting was slapped on late in beta 2 (as I recall) and it feels rushed.

Some crafting was in as early as Alpha 2 when I started, it has never been right though and still feels very incomplete to me. An example as far as I know there are no ear ring or bracelet recipes for jewelers. Pisses me off because I really enjoy the game but they have poked the pooch on crafting and some of the other social aspects such as player housing in my opinion. I have pretty much given up hope on crafting ever playing any significant role in the game. My main is a explorer and my alt is a jewel crafter so it works out well for me money wise.

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
CmdrSlack
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Reply #123 on: April 29, 2007, 10:49:49 AM

Now that I know there's a grocer in the Bree Town hall who sells ALL crafting stuff at half price, it's not too bad.  I'm willing to bet that he's "broken" though, so use him while you can.

I have only one character where I feel he's probably irrevocably hosed as a crafter (my yeoman....stupid farming).  The others are an explorer, and armsman and a woodcrafter guy.  Basically mining ore and chopping wood will always be a good scene, as is making boiled leather.  Some of them have side skills that can be useful for making gear to replace quest stuff/outfit friends.  Maybe the mastery level weapons will be super neat, I don't really know yet.


I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Tmon
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Reply #124 on: April 30, 2007, 11:01:54 AM

I've been told that the Devs have acknowledged that half price grocer is bugged and will be fixed in the June push.  BTW not only does he sell at 1/2 price but he also buys and repairs at half.
CmdrSlack
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Reply #125 on: April 30, 2007, 11:09:51 AM

I've been told that the Devs have acknowledged that half price grocer is bugged and will be fixed in the June push.  BTW not only does he sell at 1/2 price but he also buys and repairs at half.

Time to stock up on wax and whatnot, I guess.

I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
Venkman
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Reply #126 on: April 30, 2007, 12:35:22 PM

I've been told that the Devs have acknowledged that half price grocer is bugged and will be fixed in the June push.  BTW not only does he sell at 1/2 price but he also buys and repairs at half.
So we've got a month then. Veteran Reward! :)
Mesozoic
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Reply #127 on: April 30, 2007, 01:06:04 PM

The veteran reward is the money hat you buy after grabbing components on the cheap now and selling on the AH later.

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-Numtini
Phred
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Reply #128 on: April 30, 2007, 08:27:36 PM

Crafting was fine before they nerfed the rest of the money in the economy. Back in late closed my Champion was poorish but had crafted a lot of items and mainly given them away or sold to vendors. Then someone started bitching that the economy had too much money in it and you got the current state of things. I think the rebalance was handled by someone in about 30 min while they waited for code to compile or something from the amount of thought that appears to have been put into it. I don't really think the pre-nerf economy was in that bad a shape to begin with, unless you consider having to think about spending money on a horse ride a healthy state of things. I'd mainly go with the not enough time to really think it through or plan anything theory on what's wrong at the moment.

Tannhauser
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Reply #129 on: April 30, 2007, 09:07:00 PM

Why craft?  First it's a money sink in a game where money is hard to come by.  Don't forget you want to save for your ponie at like 35th level.

Second crafted items are quickly replaced by superior quest items. Whether this holds true past the teen levels I don't know however.

So I AH all my goodies and get cash from the stupid crafters.

Crafting isn't broken, but it's seriously bent.

Plzfixkthxbai  Hello Kitty
Xanthippe
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Reply #130 on: May 05, 2007, 08:13:05 PM

I'm now playing a loremaster, level 23.  Sometimes it seems hard.  Like when I see a hunter come up and pew pew, mob dies.  With me, it's more like sic pet, debuff debuff, pew pew, maybe heal pet, pew pew pew.

I think I can probably handle multiple mobs better on the fly, but I'm not sure about that.

Loremaster is a fun class, but could use .... something.  Maybe I just have to get to the next level.  Or the one after that.
Hound
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Reply #131 on: May 06, 2007, 08:40:09 AM

Why craft?  First it's a money sink in a game where money is hard to come by.  Don't forget you want to save for your ponie at like 35th level.

Second crafted items are quickly replaced by superior quest items. Whether this holds true past the teen levels I don't know however.

So I AH all my goodies and get cash from the stupid crafters.

Crafting isn't broken, but it's seriously bent.

Plzfixkthxbai  Hello Kitty

I have noticed that money is finally starting to roll in pretty good at lvl 25. If I was farming, cooking, or tailoring I am sure I could spend every copper of it though.

Given the number of failures we've seen in MMORPGs, designers need to learn it's hard enough just to make a fun game without getting distracted by unnecessary drivel.
Johny Cee
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Reply #132 on: May 06, 2007, 04:58:15 PM

I'm now playing a loremaster, level 23.  Sometimes it seems hard.  Like when I see a hunter come up and pew pew, mob dies.  With me, it's more like sic pet, debuff debuff, pew pew, maybe heal pet, pew pew pew.

I think I can probably handle multiple mobs better on the fly, but I'm not sure about that.

Loremaster is a fun class, but could use .... something.  Maybe I just have to get to the next level.  Or the one after that.

That was my take with the class in beta.  Just seemed reallly, really passive with a side of slow.  At low levels, at least, you seemed to be able to take multiple mobs better,  or escape from multiple mobs, by efficient use of the pet.  Captain was alot more fun,  but if I could multiples it was usually bad news.

I was soured on hunters because there seemed to be a bunch of tools playing the class.  Never played around with it though.  Might be projecting my inner hate of typical-Legolas-mmo-fanboism.
Morat20
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Reply #133 on: May 06, 2007, 05:42:10 PM

Hey, tangential LoTRO question -- the wife's PC is throwing up trying to run it. It's dying somewhere in character creation -- looks like loading into the world, to be honest. What happens is that the screen goes utterly black, the sound continues.

And here's the weird bit -- the monitor light goes from green (active) to "amber" (inactive). I can't tab to windows, can't bring up the task manager, can't bring up the start menu. Have to manually reboot. (Didn't try forcing a logout or screen pause).

I went ahead an updated her video drivers (more than a bit old), set up my firewall for LoTRO to allow in the proper ports (I wasn't having problems, but I had more opened ports for my PC than hers), had her run Spybot and the like and we're about to try again.

Moving back to my point -- if it craters again, how do I get diagnostic information? I tried the Event Viewer, and the only thing odd there appeared to be a reference to something spamming open too many TCP/IP connections that timed out. (Hence the careful updating of the firewall, the AV scan, etc).

Any ideas? Ways to figure out what was going on when it croaked? (I've followed what's on the LoTRO website, but I was hoping someone here could point me to actual error codes or log events I might be missing).
hal
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Reply #134 on: May 06, 2007, 05:45:06 PM

Go to hardware manager and see if your video adaptor is happy? Certinly sounds like a vid card issue.

I started with nothing, and I still have most of it

I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are still on backorder.
Trippy
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Reply #135 on: May 06, 2007, 05:58:36 PM

Hey, tangential LoTRO question -- the wife's PC is throwing up trying to run it. It's dying somewhere in character creation -- looks like loading into the world, to be honest. What happens is that the screen goes utterly black, the sound continues.
What GPU is it? Is the hard drive thrashing before it craps out?

Morat20
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Reply #136 on: May 06, 2007, 06:45:15 PM

Hey, tangential LoTRO question -- the wife's PC is throwing up trying to run it. It's dying somewhere in character creation -- looks like loading into the world, to be honest. What happens is that the screen goes utterly black, the sound continues.
What GPU is it? Is the hard drive thrashing before it craps out?

ATI Radeon 9800. I don't hear any thrashing, although her case always runs a bit hot. Checked that the fans are both working (Video and MB) and I didn't get any alarms. I heard no hard drive thrashing.

It just black screens, the monitor light goes amber, and the sound starts stuttering. Seemed to happen right when I attempted to login -- but I have the router set right.

Wait, I've seen that -- KOTOR did that to me. Got to check what I did to fix that. Crud, can't find it. Some bug -- IIRC -- with the Dell Creative Labs 5.1 Live! drivers that had a specific patch that I now cannot find.

About the only other possible connection is that she crashes while we're both connected through the router -- she was doing fine until I logged in, but I suspect that was a coincidence.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2007, 07:02:05 PM by Morat20 »
Numtini
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Reply #137 on: May 06, 2007, 07:14:02 PM

Try going into my documents/lotro folder and opening user preferences.ini and changing FullScreen=True to FullScreen=False  That will force it into a window. It sounds like it's trying to put it into some mode that your card/monitor doesn't like.

The KB says it could be that you don't have the latest version of directx or that a firewall is asking permission and I got a firewall permission thing from the Windows XP built in firewall, so that's very possible.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Morat20
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Reply #138 on: May 06, 2007, 07:36:38 PM

Try going into my documents/lotro folder and opening user preferences.ini and changing FullScreen=True to FullScreen=False  That will force it into a window. It sounds like it's trying to put it into some mode that your card/monitor doesn't like.

The KB says it could be that you don't have the latest version of directx or that a firewall is asking permission and I got a firewall permission thing from the Windows XP built in firewall, so that's very possible.
She's running DirectX 9.0c, and I have windows firewall disabled -- I use the router as a firewall, and I configured that following the instructions off their web site.
Morat20
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Reply #139 on: May 06, 2007, 08:31:05 PM

Okay, I think I got it fixed -- it ran long enough for us to make it to Archet, when she decided to log off.

I removed all the ATI drivers and reinstalled them (she didn't have .NET 2.0 installed and I read there were issues when installing ATI's stuff then installing .NET 2.0). I replaced her sound card drivers, cleaned up her desktop and did a few other chores and now it seems to work.

I'm going to have to toy with my graphics settings. I'm a bit spoiled by WoW, and my system isn't exactly cutting edge. I'm running a 3 Ghz machine with 1 gig RAM, Win XP, a Radeon 9800 Pro. Turning on AA in LoTRO seems to cause a sort of hitching without much graphical improvement. I guess I'll do lurk the LoTRO boards for graphics tweaking suggestions.
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