This week there was not a lot of news as Update 14 is only a week away but we did have a lot of fun covering the news we had despite severe technical difficulties for the live viewers.
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Game News
Update 14 Scheduled For July 14th
Game Press Gets Update 14 Guided Tour
Store Sales
Free Sample Of The Week July 4th – 10th
+100% Mark Acquisition (90 min) x1 Use Coupon Code MARX3 1/Account
20% Off
- Milestone Skills
- Hurried & Returning Traveller
- Riding Traits
- Simple Rally Horn
LOTRO Players News
LOTRO Video Highlights: Shadows of Angmar Launch Event
Lilikate’s Creatures – Poutine The Shrew
LOTRO Players Adventures Episode 21: Into The Dungeon
Fun Places, Fun Loot: Wildermore
Under The Mountain Dark And Tall
Poll: Would You Pay For A New Hobby?
News Beyond LOTRO
Real Life LOTRO: Hobbiton, November 2010
Beautiful Gondor Trailer – Minecraft
Donations
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Feedback
Reviews
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Featured Comments
Fredelas left a comment on the “On Par with Radiance?” article:
“I think it’s a mistake of Turbine not to consider LOTRO as a connected ecosystem of players. While it may seem cost-effective to focus only on activities the largest segments of the community participate in, alienating the smaller segments will eventually affect us all.
For example, I believe the lack of attention to group content and PvMP led directly to the low quality of the class trait and skill changes introduced with Helm’s Deep. Without considering situations where using these skills really matters, the resulting implementation was hasty and not nearly as good as it should have been.
This may not have had much practical effect on players just leveling up, or even participating in Epic Battles, where the precise choice and balance of class traits and skills has less of an impact. But players of all types still noticed the decline in quality.
Group combat in PvE and PvP are also considered by many as hallmarks of a “real” MMORPG, regardless of how many players actually participate in them. When Turbine ignores these types of game play, I get the sense that potential future players and even the media regard LOTRO as nothing more than a novelty. It’s no longer worthy of serious consideration, except perhaps by a few die-hard Tolkien fans.
I’m not implying that raiders and PvMPers behave like sharks, but if you removed all of the apex predators from the ocean, the entire ecosystem would gradually collapse.”
Thraorin also left a comment on the article:
I’m just wondering how Epic Battles fit into this. Does this mean those will be only solo/duo from now on?
So far I guess they haven’t been received that well … is it worth for Turbine to put further development work into those or are they just as doomed as everything else instance-wise?
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Final Thoughts
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Fredelas’ great comment deserved further discussion me thinks :
OH it did just a bit later :)…Oops.
I am with Fredelas that we gotta kep some of the Elite in the game…we need to aspire to great things…even if we never succeed!
‘Ork on Fork apron’: awesome stuff Andang 🙂
The “ecosystem” argument is the best one I’ve heard so far about why traditional raid content shouldn’t be abandoned. I suspect that Turbine would counter that the “new” end-game content (raid-size) epic battles will be filling that gap, though I guess I’m a little unsure as to why the complexity of those is so much more manageable than a traditional raid. If anything, with a completely new skill tree and the attempts to balance all of the EB skill tree/class skill tree combinations with EB difficulty would be even more complex than a traditional raid, I would think.
I wonder what the percentage is of players who regularly participate in multi-player Epic Battles.
I think there are two main reasons for this:
1. The Epic Battles have a ‘one size fits all’ difficulty setting. There are no tiers or Challenge setting beyond just performing the side objectives.
2. It mainly comes down to the number of variables. Before the trait tree changes, we had ~40 skills to use. With the revamp, that is down to ~20, and really only 5-7 that are the most useful in any particular trait line.
Beyond that, however, the skills within the Epic Battle system are far more useful than our class skills. I often take my weapons off at concerts and other settings, and I often forget to put them back on when going into battle. In a skirmish or normal instance, I discover this at the first sign of combat.
As a Burglar, I have neither ranged nor AoE attacks really. With the number of foes faced in the battles, and how quickly they fall anyway, I am far better off tossing ladders over or setting up siege equipment. There are only 3 traps, one of which is far more useful than the others, and the other lines are just as straightforward, for the most part.
It is the rule for me, rather than the exception, that I do not realize I am not wearing my weapons until midway through the second of the two side objectives for most of the battles 🙂 Obviously, other classes can have far more impact through their class skills, but the battle skills are far more important, even for them.
Fall of Mordor???
Never!!! Hordes of the P.O.S. are pouring out of the Ettenmoors to lay waste to the Free Peoples
Argh ughk granush!
New to lotro 5 new hobbies for you to enjoy! Master the art of basket weaving. Hone your skills at whittling. Hobbit extreme scrapbooking! Elven blog posting and last but least and for a nominal tp fee you can unlock beading! Daily quests will be available for all. For example over the course of 5 months you can whittle a tiny pony!
I like this idea! The tiny pony sold it!