LOTRO Players News Episode 70: Precious LOTROfication

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Reviews

Darklighter1976 left a 5-star review on iTunes:

“Best LOTRO podcast out there!

More like hanging out with good friends than listening to a podcast, this show has increasingly become my “go to” source for all LOTRO news, analysis, and enjoyable banter amongst the truly excellent assortment of hosts. Verrrrrrry well, indeed, as Pineleaf himself would say!”

Featured Comments

Goblinsbane left a comment on the Beorning Price and Systems Delay article:

“I am really sad that Turbine has now so few people that they can’t add even one new full (ie for fellowships too) epic battle after one year from introduction of epic battles and that they had to resigned from many things planned for that update. Lotro is very good game, with magnificent lore (and not destroyed by devs too much, at least they treat Tolkien much better then Peter Jackson), great landscapes, nice HD graphics if your computer is strong, but it seems to me that WB fails in marketing that game. Now, when there are Hobbit movies released, we should be flooded by people playing that game. Devs should be flooded with money, but most probably most people liking Hobbit movies has no idea about the game, cause WB do not care about it. I have seen in my country TV commercials of many games among them MMO like WoW and WoT. But I have never seen commercial of Lotro (even in the internet). I found the game a few years ago only because I was looking at lists of best MMO RPG looking for something new to play and decided to try cause I like Tolkiens world. Having such marketing handicap like those movies and failing to attract people – thats fail of the decade in the game industry if you ask me.

I would love to play that game for many more years (with breaks ofc), but I am afraid it will die soon cause if they cant attract people now, so what will be when interest with the Hobbit movies will end??”

Tsuhelm left a comment on the Is Update 15 Releasing Too Soon article:

“Yet again TURBINE has a great ideas but WB pushing them into a botch job which makes no-one happy at all. Mounted combat, Epic Battle and Beornings could all be HUGE selling points for LOTRO…but shining a light on something that is not working properly can only lead to an adverse reaction… I hope TURBINE can fix everything quickly so the DAMAGE done is not too severe…

A band aid is needed to fix LOTRO at the moment in my opinion, sending in a rabid bear to apply it may not be the smartest idea.

My fingers are crossed that it all works on the day…”

Barnabras left a comment on the Rejected LOTRO Movie Posters article:

“Middle Earth’s laziest elf stars in “The Big Elrondski”

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World staring Rook

“The good the bad and The Man” staring Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn

“Saving Sahra Oakheart” It’s a really slow movie

“The Mirror” staring Galadriel”

Braag left a comment on the Skirmisher of Middle-earth article:

“Pineleaf, Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I believe there is a small, but realistic chance that you are certifiably insane…Congratulations!

– Braag of Vilya”

Zyngor also left a comment on the same article:

“I’m not totally sure it was responsible to skirmish enough to earn this title on 13 characters, but well done! Congrats!”

Zyngor left a review of the LOTRO Players RPG:

“I give it an eleventy-one/10. A hard-hitting interactive biopic on the lives and tribulations that podcasters face while attempting to discover themselves in this chaotic landscape we call our own.

Plus, there’s pie.”

Emails

Morty also sent in an email:

“I made a post on LotRO forums about this and was curious what you guys thought about it.

The basic point of the forum post is that I would love to see the level cap for quest raised from +5 to +10 because right now there is very little challenge in doing quests that are only 5 levels above you.

You will understand more by reading my post … and also reading the replies (which I think are GREAT)

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?557667-Level-Restrictions-for-Quests-Raised&p=7254027#post7254027

I’m very lucky to have a group that meets once a week and we are finding that we just tear through quests and content that is only +5 levels above us and it would be nice if Turbine could change this. I don’t see any draw backs, but maybe I am missing something.

I am not a proponent for more xp and think that xp should cap at +5.

I hope that all makes sense … Thanks for any input you guys might have, I am sure you guys will have some input that makes sense … you guys know your LotRO.

~Morty”

Barnabras sent in an email:

“Hullo Lotro Players,

During multiple episodes of your podcast you have mentioned the poor state of the moors and that they needed to be “fixed”. However I don’t think I have heard a discussion on what you believe the problems to be. I am very interested in your opinion on the matter. Since January I have been in the moors about 90% of my playing time. Four months ago I moved my creeping to Landy because my home server Pvmp population completely stopped. The biggest issue I have noticed post update 13, is the population imbalance. This has been magnified by the recent Beta of the Beorns. There has been anywhere from a 2:1 to a 4:1 creep to freep ratio, which makes for a boring experience. And when there are no Freeps the OCC chat gets real nasty. So I have thought of an idea, that I don’t think would take a lot of development time.

1) Allow the spar mechanic to work on a group/raid level. In this way if the creep population is high, they could break into two sparing teams. This could be done on landscape and if you didn’t want to participate you need not. This would give the added bonus of fracturing the creeps, so the freeps could actually make some headway. Plus you could have 4 different group factions in the moors, creep team A, creep team B, non-participating creeps, and freeps. It would add some new dynamics. You could give the sparing teams a way to earn Infamy, nerfed per kill or an infamy quest reward to the surviving team.

2) Second idea was similar to the first but make it a creep instance. You could use the delving map and have team Sauron, vs team Saruman. This could get some tribe rivalry going or you could have two team captains and pick from participating creeps to fill your teams.

Keep up the excellent work,

Barnabras”

Barnabras also sent in an origin story:

“Ok now it’s a thing.

Barnabras

You know Barkalamule, Turmuz and Fogan

Hematophageous, Buai, and Pinevenom

But do you recall, the most infamous defiler of all

Andang the Pvmper didn’t like to heal his bros

And if you grouped with him, he would just want killing blows

All of the other creeps, used to yell and shout his name

They never let poor Andang play any fight club games

Then one stormy Ettenmoor eve Ugmog came to say

Andang with your stave griped tight, won’t you lead my craid tonight

Then all the monsters loved him, and they made this decree

Andang the Pvmper you gain lots of infamy.”

Contact Us

Email us!

podcast@lotroplayers.com

The Players Alliance @PlayersAlly

LOTRO Players @LOTROPlayers

Andang @PvMP_Andang

Braxwolf @Braxwolf

Cithryth @Cithryth

Draculetta @Draculetta_72

Ethelros @Ethelros

Lilikate @LilikateBuggins

Mysteri @Mysterixox

Pineleaf @PineleafNeedles

Final Thoughts

The Players Alliance LIVE Shows

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Join us for our live shows at lotroplayers.com/live

You can also join us on Landroval for LOTRO Players Adventures each Saturday at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Thanks for listening!

6 comments

Adhrug / November 3, 2014

Remember Remember
the Fifth of November 🙂

- Andang / November 3, 2014
  
  😀
  
Fredelas / November 3, 2014

I can excuse a poorly executed livestream. Everyone has bad days sometimes. These were the survivors of recent layoffs and even more recent illnesses. They were being asked to talk about their own work that they may not be as proud of as previous work, given its partially complete state.

What’s harder to excuse (in my opinion) is the absolutely brotastic sausage-fest these livestreams have turned into. If it’s just a community manager chatting with one developer, that’s understandable. But when they bring six employees into a room and they’re all men, somebody didn’t try hard enough. I know Turbine still employs some incredibly talented women, so I hope they find a way to make the topics of the stream relevant to their contributions.

Rabbitses / November 3, 2014

Grats on 70 episodes!

Also, I just found the last of the 18 Gondorian Treasure Caches without cheating!

DJPimpDaddy (@djpimpdaddy) / November 6, 2014

So after listening to this show in the car for the parts I missed live I was caught with this bug of “Why wouldn’t WB cross promote the films and the game”? After tumbling down a long rabbit hole of web searches and official press release statements I have come to 3 sound conclusions:

1. The state of the feature film industry is in decline while the cost to make and even show the films is increasing. I have heard this from my wife who is a manager of Cincinnati’s largest theater. She tells me this repeatedly that ticket sales are slumping, but I never searched for the statistics. Their theater chain alone has cut 25% of their staff world wide. Film studios are fishing more and more for those mega-hit films, but after over a decade of film making it is more about statistics, like baseball. Somewhere someone knows exactly how much advertising vs return profit they make on everything, so they are maximizing their profit for the 3rd Hobbit film (or as I call it: “Shadows of the Lonely Mountain DLC Season Pass 3”).

2. While Warner Bros Entertainment is the parent company of everybody, Warner Bros Studios is completely separated from Warner Bros Home Entertainment, of which Warner Bros Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is a child of. Soooo many nested levels of divisions within a global corporation. Anyone who has worked a major company with segregated divisions as such clearly understand that they just don’t talk or get along. They all have a vested interest in making their own pile of cash for the stock holders, and cross division projects are just not worth the effort. For example, my wife’s theater is owned by National Amusements Inc, which if you follow all the way up the chain leads to Sumner Redstone. Ultimately he also owns a “super voting share” of CBS and Viacom(which owns Paramount Pictures). While their theater does show more Paramount Picture films, they still charge Paramount the same fees for promotions, just as they do for Sony, Columbia, Fox Films, etc and other stuff. Indie art-house level films are not given discount rates, even with the Viacom brand, can’t afford to advertise within the larger space.

3. Lastly one can clearly find all sorts of articles about how the film industry is threatened by the surge of video game profitability in the past few decades. I can see why a 100 year old film established studio would snub their nose at an annoying young cousin. Even if that cousin is coming close to making more money now!! Warner Bros Studios, heck even the directors themselves like Jackson, see the spin off industry as an enemy. The only way I could see them advertising during the movie previews is if Turbine paid for those spots. The advertising spots before movies half go to the theater chain, half to the studio that is showing the film. 95% of the ticket cost go to the film, so they concentrate mostly on that number, whereas the theater itself concentrates on advertising and concessions. And yes before you ask, I do in fact know the actual cost of popcorn: $0.08 to make, then sold at $5.75 <–(sneak in food!!! to the Hobbit)

- Braxwolf / November 7, 2014
  
  #3 makes very little sense to me. The movie industry seeing video games using the same IP as competition is like 20th Century Fox seeing the Kenner Star Wars toys as competition. The people who are fans of these movies are not going to choose between watching the movie and playing the game – they’re going to do both! In fact, kids who are too young to see the movies may pick up the game (considering it’s F2P) and then be introduced to the rest of the world (including the movies) via that avenue.
  
  I’m not a marketing specialist, but it seems to me like cross-promotion is a fairly elementary marketing strategy that’s been proven to work.

LOTRO Players News Episode 70: Precious LOTROfication

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