Massively confirmed in a recent article that Turbine is testing a system that would allow players to auto-level to 50. Testing was confirmed through an unnamed Turbine rep.
These changes were initially rumored by Contains Moderate Peril earlier this year.
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Dislike.
What does that mean – an instant level up to 50? If so, I absolutely hate it especially as the best part of Lotro by far is level 1 – 40, plus maybe Mora.
err, Moria
I can see the appeal in this. For a lot of players, the early game(SoA in general) can get rather droll after running through it so many times on so many characters. Being able to skip that part on a new character and jumping straight into Moria and onward is a very tempting offer.
That said, I don’t particularly like the idea of buying progression. Buffs and boosts are one thing, at least then you’re still putting in some effort to attain the rewards. This is a different beast, and I’m not so sure it’s wise to let it out of its cage.
The level itself is one thing. But what about all the deeds you would do on the way, the virtues earned, the class traits learned. Let alone the gold you would have earned.
For sure, someone who buys this would definitely be disadvantaged in a number of ways. And with the expected hefty price tag, I’d imagine this wouldn’t get too many sales if it were released. That said I do believe for some people the disadvantages you describe would be bearable if it means getting to level cap quicker.
If they MUST introduce this option, (and I can understand why it might be appealing to SOME), in my opinion they can make it a LOT better if they required those purchasing it to have at least one level cap character already.
As someone who has traditionally been against any form of power leveling, this would be about as bad as it gets. How can one be expected to learn a class when you are skipping vast amounts of content in which to learn? And what happened to the adage that it’s in the journey and not the destination?
Gandalf: “So Frodo, it is time to embark on a perilous adventure”.
Frodo: “Yeah, about that! How about we take just a little peril and skip to the part where you’re wearing white ok?”
Even if something like this was reserved for people who already have an 85 character, you still end up with someone who, class experience wise, is level 50 with level 1 knowledge. Not exactly the kind of person I would want to be running content with.
I really hope they take a second look at this if it is indeed something they are looking into.
Very true!
I can see both sides of this issues.
As it stands now, you can merely become a Yeoperson once out into the world, buy not even 1 gold piece worth of seed and water, and Farm and Cook yourself to 35 trainings or so in just a couple hours, I would guess.
Also, with the large reduction of skills, adventuring at the lower levels would become very tedious, I would think, since you have even fewer skills.
But on the other hand…
From the time of Radiance, these lands have become much more trivial overall, in large part due to this very thing.
When I finally began to understand how to perform my role as a Scout to the betterment of my fellowships, I also began to be able to appreciate the incredible weaving of Moria that the Overlords had spun. Each instance taught lessons, and when they were all mastered, one was truly ready to take on the Watcher in the Water and see it downed. That was why the need for Radiance, earned at each step along the way, was a masterful idea, I think.
But so many railed against it, even though it only took about 6-7 hours to earn all the pieces, if you had a fellowship able to complete all the Challenges in those instances.
There were a lot of people. A *lot* of people who cheered when Radiance was undone, because they believed they could now best the Watcher right away and earn their shinies… and most all of them went away empty-handed, having only learned a lesson.
It was from that time onward that things have become easier and easier, and this is another step forward in that trend.
I honestly never got the argument about not know how to play a class if you auto level.
If someone is interested in learning his class he will put aside time to do so even if starting at max level.
If someone isn’t willing to learn even 500 class levels will not make him do it, if the going gets rough he will either quit or try to get dragged through by others.
My opinion anyways 😛
A few things with my opinion. The first being that unless they push this in your face, most new players will not even know this item exists until level 20 or later. That is mainly to the design of the store. It is really hard to find anything in the store. I still don’t know where the riding skill is in the store, I just know the right key word. When I was a low level, I didn’t even enter the store until I needed to buy the Lone-lands.
Second being that players can already level to cap in a weeks time, or maybe even less if they know what they are doing.
Also I know a large number of people who want to see LOTRO but don’t have the time or can’t get past the combat. They don’t want to fight any enemies, they just want to view and explore the world. This item would be great for that player base which is actually rather large from what I have seen.
With all that said, I am completely against this item. Some servers have a hard enough time already with a changing community environment that is becoming more and more hostile to fellow players. I feel these changes could expedite the fall of the friendly LOTRO community on some servers.
All of that being said, if the item costs an exorbitant amount of money, I would not mind this item as much. I am talking around the $50 to $100 range. That would be similar to the price of the content of those levels anyway, so I think it would be a fair trade.
I think there should be a button in the LOTRO store called “Drop the Ring in Orodruin Now” – it gives you the final cut scene, God powers, and an Eagle mount.
That is assuming they don’t go beyond Mordor, which Turbine has stated several times that as long as people keep playing, they will continue to create.
If this is the item talked about on the forums, i think it was 50$.
My guess the level 50 auto level(and thereby putting you at Moria/Eregion) has to do with the hobbit movie, and the dwarf focus.
Goes hand in hand with having people at level 10 at helms deep, i think it’s a bid at getting more people to stick to lotro from the movie hype than did last year, and well money of course.
I personally would never use anything that would auto level me up to level 50. It is hard for me to understand why anyone would want to do that on their first toon because the journey and experience of discovering Middle-Earth in LOTRO is so great. However I do see that many people have a need for almost instant gratification. Those who do would likely pay a high amount for the ability to at least partially satisfy that need. So I understand from a business standpoint why Turbine would want to offer it. It is nothing that I would recommend or use myself though.
I really hope they decide to ask us before thet put it in. Like in the next update. Because if they just put it in at Helm’s Deeep you will have the ones who have played this game for a few years and the hardcore players whining about how this is now a cheaters game and many might potentialy quit all together. Then you have the casual players buying this auto-levels because they don’t care about learning there class and just want to get to level cap and potential this unbalanced system of casual and hardcore players will most likly cause the game to shut down in a few years sense most casual players are FTP.
I don’t think this change will result in the end of LOTRO by any means.
You never really know. I have seen many a good mmo nearly fall because they decided to put something similar into their game. They only didn’t when they took it out of the game for good.
It is possible but I don’t think it is likely; especially with it only to level 50.
I wish it was included for free for everyone at character creation. Why not? Turbine wants to funnel everyone to the new content anyway. And it’s not like you’d have to use the option. I’d personally find it very useful for my alts on other servers.
If they’re going to charge $50 for it, it might as well not exist at all, so why waste our time?
I think that is the problem though. Lots of players want to rush off to the end and skip really good content. This item encourages that behavior. I think this item should, at minimum, be at a reduced cost to VIP players. Also it would be good to have a reduced cost for every character any player has at level 50 or higher to a point where it becomes free after several characters.
I doubt we will see any kind of a system like that but if we ask for it enough, it might happen.
Also I think that for a completely new player, the cost to 50 should be the same as any other player who levels in a more typical way. Have the cost of this item be what an average player spends from 1-50 in TP for both what the player spends and the currency players can buy the item. That way Turbine still gets the same amount of money and a player really wanting to rush a character to cap is also happy.
Idea: Why not make all quests scale to your level, like they have already done with the festival quests and skirmishes? Yes, this would require more work of the Devs on the back-end, and it lacks the “give Turbine $50” sales pitch, but it has several benefits. If you really like a certain zone (The Shire, Evendim, etc), you could quest there and not feel like you’re “wasting your time”. It would add a tiny bit of replayability to the older zones without a total revamp.
I agree but I think that would require an immense amount of work. This is the simple solution, but by no means the best.