LOTRO: Priorities
The Turbine team continues to hone down a list of major LOTRO issues as deemed important by the playerbase, and in this week’s “Tell The Community Team” survey, they ask everyone to pick their top two priorities from the following list:
- Radiance
- Legendary items
- Housing
- Kinships
- PvMP
- General itemization (loot, rewards)
- New Skirmishes
- New Raids
- Revamping old Raids/instances
- Trait/deed revamp
Now, I’m sure that the results of this poll won’t dictate their exact future course of action, but by the same (skirmish) token, it seems like it’ll be relevant, somehow. What’s interesting to me is that the community won’t be unified behind the same two items, because it’s not so much a question of what systems need more love, but where you’re at in your LOTRO gaming:
- End Gamers: Radiance, Legendary Items, New Raids, New Skirmishes, Revamping old Raids/instances
- Mid-Level Players: New Skirmishes, Revamping old Raids/instances, Trait/deed revamp
- Low-Level Players: Housing, Trait/deed revamp
- PvPers: PvMP
- Kinship-oriented players: Kinships, New Raids, Revamping old Raids/instances
- Everyone: Housing, general itemization
As a mid-level player myself, radiance, raids and LIs aren’t on my radar, and their function — or lack of it — doesn’t affect me at all right now. I’m sure they will, some day (particularly LIs), but I’m far more concerned with the obscene trait/deed grind right now than whatever LI grind lies ahead of me.
What I’d be worried about is the fact that there’s undoubtedly more end game players right now who will drown out this survey with calls for radiance/LI revamps, whereas any of the systems I’m experiencing aren’t going to get as much noise. I’m wondering if Turbine’s going to take into account the various levels and focus of players in the game when they read the results.
- Posted in: Lord of the Rings Online
I wouldn’t worry too much about the end-gamers, most have lots alts at varying levels which means that they’ll be just as interested in some of the mid and low level concerns. Besides, Turbine does a lot of data mining (as evidenced by the recent skirmish changes to allow for duos) so that’ll help guide where they focus efforts as well.
I noticed this when I sumitted my answer earlier… perhaps if I were higher level, my priorities might be different. But it certainly seems like the Radiance/LI/PvMP folks are in the majority so far.
I find it interesting that quests and leveling zones (new or revamped) aren’t on the table. Maybe they’re doing that stuff anyway, but it’s an interesting omission.
I’d vote for LI’s but they’ve stated that gutting and overhauling the system (if it were up to me, you’d be able to keep one named weapon for your entire career, like Tolkein’s and Turbine’s characters do) isn’t on the table. I’d vote for skirmish system attention, but, again, the option on the table (more skirmish, not more reason to run them) isn’t what I’m after.
So, I guess I’d vote for the trait revamp and the general itemization. And I might regret asking for the trait revamp if the upshot is that it suddenly really matters that I haven’t killed the hundred (or maybe thousands) of mobs I’d need to max the virtues I have equipped.
Whaaa? That’s our options?
As a more LORE based player, who’s now entering Mirkwood, i must rather have them streamline and add more ways to experience the
1. Stories / Lore
and of course i’m still waiting for:
a] Rohan
b] Gondor
c] Mordor
But that might just be me
I think they should take a more Guild Warsy outlook to the game: not increase the level cap, but make more and more areas for maximum level players to play. Currently the endgame meta in LOTRO is somewhat ridiculously dull.
The LI are not really important, since you only the best ones for their hype value.
Radiance gating is important, since it restricts even more our choices in the (ridiculously dumb) endgame.
PvMP ought to be seriously revamped, since it’s for quite a few people the magnet area of LOTRO’s endgame. But it will probably never happen, since PvMP is not seen as priority in this came.
As for leveling areas, many of them should be revamped, but the easiest way is just to make leveling simpler. If you are complaining about leveling now, you have no idea what it was like when they launched the game. Most of the quests were for groups, and as a solo player you just had to grind quite a few levels.