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It has been confirmed by Sapiance (lead Designer) and by people that have played the game at GameCon That the new expansion will have no new instances. I had a feeling that this was the case vut i thought that they would add old instances and make them scalable to 75. But the only ones scalabe to 75 are BD ,school and lib, Hele, Annuminas. So the same ones we have been playing to death, lol.
I am more than disappointed. This is a total slap in the face to the play base. So we have to pay $30 for 10 levels and a 1 boss 24 man raid...... wow this is disgraceful.
Sapiance did say that they expect to add instances before the end of the year. So it will take 2 to 4 weeks to level to 75. Then we can raid once a week and that is about it til december some time.... I love Lotro but this is shocking
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More importantly, it's only got 300 quests, which is only half of Moria's amount.
So basically, it's pretty much a mini-expansion, like Mirkwood. Except that added a new type of instance (Skirmish) and came with a bunch of them. This doesn't have any skirmishes, either, apparently
So just what they expect us to do for 10 levels is beyond me...
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Yeah, I have to admit, that's a bit disappointing. Oh well, I guess I'll work on alts and just bide my time until SWTOR gets here.
There is only 1 new zone too...
After discovering this along with whats been posted ^above^ I lost interest. Its a joke, what little content they're giving us for that price...
Yeah.
No new instances. 1 new zone instead of promised 3 zones. No promised new PvPM map. (but hey creeps will have item shop lol )
Besides that Sapience could not confirm that people who bought Isengard will have those new instaces when they will be released for free. Remember that already last two instances in Lotro were paid separately even if you had respective quest packs.
So imagine you spent 30$ for paid expansion in f2p game , then in 2 months instances come but you have to spent money again on them
Yep Turbine is pulling another Mirkwood on people, making people pay for a content patch.
They keep saying how well they are doing after going F2P, but they keep showing that they are incapable of delivering an actual expansion.
Very disappointing from a company that I used to call the most reliable in the Industry.
Mirkwood was so bad it was not funny. Only 5 levels to be had and only took 3 days to complete. Now you get 10 levels and only 300 quests. How are you even going to level 10 levels with that few quests. All I got to say is Turbine has lost their way. I gave up after it went free to play and no xpac in site. Now this another Mirkwood headed your way.
No new instances they got to be crazy, especially now with the instance join pannel.
Oh well Turbine just shows how incompetent they are, and how they don't understand their player base.
Then we can all request for a FULL refund and they are obligated to do so! As it would be CLEAR FALSE advertisement!
The advertisement (which still shows during login) they CLEARLY mentioned 3 new zones! NOT 1 !
So if they suddenly launch with just 1 zone instead of the promissed 3, we can all claim our money back!
Because if this is really the case, I sertainly gonna request a refund ASAP. Which is two times $50 .
They ripped us off with Mirkwood. But hearing and reading this, we now get even LESS!!
http://isengard.lotro.com/index.php
They still mention 3 new zones!
So where did you get the information from that there would be only one new zone?
What the hell happend?
Did Turbine run out of time or something?
Did they figure out how to milk their customers more by serving up a smaller peice of Isengard and the tossing you the rest in the CS?
I don't understand it I read about this expansion last year and it sounded wonderful, Now im reading about it as if its some glorified content patch...
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Looks like they have three zones, new cap and a new boss raid.
Thats not much of an expansion but we've seen other expansions not release all dungeon & raid content right away.
Its usually trickled out over then next 3-8 months after release in content patches.
Maybe the OP is just blowing this out of proportion?
Edit: Im sorry that wasnt the OP, thats another poster thats known for being overlly negative about anything Lotro, sorry.
The OP is discussing the dungeons, which is correct there wont be dungeons released right away but the end of the year isnt far away and im sure if u buy the xpac u get those for free.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Well I went over to the official lotro forums under rise of isengard area. There is a thread asking for refunds. A thread talking about the no new instances, a thread talking about how it is one zone and looks like they are getting another mirkwood. Makes me happy I did not pre-order.
There are a lot of upset folks in the forums in the isengard subsection, and a lot of them are very very upset and angry because they feel they been lied to.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?414688-Rise-of-Isengard-....-No-new-3-man-6-man-or-12-man-gamescom-confirmation
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?415270-Pre-Order-Refund
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?413671-Will-ROI-end-LOTRO
So with that I can say there are some very legitimate concerns with the xpac.
With "F2P" titles you typically get what you paid for.
Yeah, I know they were charging for this expansion, but it seems the F2P model can't really support development of a quality MMO title.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Was there an official announcement stating that there would only be one zone?
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
It depends how you count zone.
http://www.betacake.net/2011/08/lotro-rise-of-isengard-maps.html
Here you go.
Jinxter of betacake wrote:
"That's it. There are no other maps. The Gap of Rohan consists of Wulf's Cleft, Isendale and the Heahtfells on the first map. Dunland is the area above GoR, WC and Isendale. And Isengard is Isengard. All three new regions are on the one map. Its about the size of the North Downs, probably smaller."
Lenetta on betacake wrote:
"There is one big map with Dunland, Gap and Isengard in it, but also one with only Dunland and only Isengard, so surely also one with only the Gap."
So it seems like it is ONE region with three areas/ sub-regions in it.
So its three areas still?
I guess Turbine found a way to dupe people because thats still three areas to play in.
They never said each zone would be as big as X.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
No they have not yet. There's been a lot of conjecture on the forums, and that has been one of the complaints. That the folks at turbine have been very quite and not saying much of anything. Instead they keep letting the misinformation flow, so folks are upset about the lack of communication, however that is par for course for Turbine. One thing is for sure no new instances, possible some later 3-6 months down the road. Sad to see them making the same mistake they made with mirkwood. I got to say this is the first time I ever seen folks ask for a refund from turbine, spin this how you will, turbine got a lot of folks mad about the xpac.
Decide for yourself if that's one zone or 3 zones. You have the map , you can judge for yourself.
As for beign "sure" that expansion will give you next released instances for free, even Turbine representative confirmed that he could not comment on that. So that's hardly beign sure. Seems like it have not been decided yet.
Lowj at Lotro forum wrote"
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?415027-A-friendly-chat-with-Sapience-(-Gamescom-2011)
"I then asked him whether the instance cluster would be considered part of the original RoI purchase or whether it would have to be purchased separately, and he said that he simply couldn't comment on that yet"
This is still a consequence of the lifetime system. The playerbase is mostly consisted of free players and lifetimers (i.e. free players) that occassionally may pay for one month, or a few Turbine Points. Paid content packs (for 49.99$) is the only way for Turbine to actually make money out of a game that has fairly active 300k free-to-play playerbase.
REALITY CHECK
Well that was their decison to offer life-time and to change into F2P model. I sure understand their from business point of view that Isengard is one of best opportunities to earn nice revenue of hard cash so they try to spin advertisement to make it look better than it might be in reality judging on the leaks.
BUT well I am consumer not turbine owner , so I don't really care if life-time/f2p offers backfired on them.
I blame the advertizing department for the whole "3 new zones" thing. I mean the way they are representing it you could say that Bree is really 6 zones (Bree, Bree Town, Archet, Barrow Downs, Midge Water Marsh, and the Old Forest).
This is blatantly deceptive and the worst part is that the only difference between a F2P who does not buy the expansion and a subscriber who does is 300 text based quests and a 24 man raid that was supposed to be a free update for the anniversary, that's it. Glad I got to pay 10 cents each for a bunch of kill ten rat's quests.
"Onward to adventure".
Definitely disappointing.
I just get the sense this expansion is being rushed. Glad I didn't preorder it.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
They were not FREE. If you were ViP then you paid for beign VIP so you paid for those instances.
Remember one of VIP perks that Turbine clearly stated is that you get all updates that are not expansion packs for free.
So they did not get VIP's notthing for free , they just fullfilled contract they signed with player when he decided to buy VIP.
If they don't want to provide VIP players with free updates apaprt of xpac's then they should just change their advertisement and do it.
I do think that some people might drop VIP subscription then.
I agree about housing , guilds and other mechanic/ systems part though.
This is from a player topic on the official forums and what Sapience said:
I thanked Sapience for taking all this time to talk to me (I really think that more than half an hour is extraordinary, since I'm just a fan, not a journalist) and he said that I'd forgotten to ask one question... THE MAPS! Hehe... Well in case you hadn't heard yet, or seen the (pictures taken of) screenies: the landmass being released in RoI is indeed 3 separate maps, not one. It's Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Isengard. And truly... it is quite big! Oh and I'd personally like to add that while I was initially taken aback somewhat by the leaked screenie of Orthanc, I now have to say that I will probably need to wear a diaper the first time I take my own character(s) there. It is BIG and scary as hell!
Sapience mentioned that the whole outrage about there being only one map (etc. etc.) shows once more why there is a need for a NDA; Beta is continually updated and what seems like a finished product on any given day can be completely different the next. So I guess the most sensible advice (as many have shared) would be: don't judge it until you see the finished product.
------------
So we just have to wait till the NDA is lifted and real info starts leaking out. And if there are really three large maps: Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Isengard.
So I am not gonna judge yet.
Well, Turbine can twist it all they want, but in truth its still only one map, cause the town and the area around Isengard are all part of the same Dunland map. The Town of Galtrev will work just like the Town of Bree does in Breeland, where it just cuts to a map of the town to make it easier to navigate, but you're still in the zone of Breeland.
And really if they think that tiny area around Isengard which will probably only be compromised of the final lvl 74-75 experience, thats just sad. However, should they ever add an undergroud map to the forges around Isengard, that would be nice, but something like that should have been in this expansion already...{if you can call it that}
Also, the reuse of all the old instances, with a few new bosses and scaling to 75 is extremely cheap. Seriously ever since Warner Brothers bought Turbine they've been going down hill severely. This so-called-Isengard expansion should have been entirely free, as when they added the zone of Forochel. Well more like Freemium based considering LOTRO is F2P now, and at most cost $8 to unlock the quests...
Read again. On that blog post he only shows the Dunland map and the Isengard map. The Gap of Rohan map is missing!
According to Sapience the Gap of Rohan is a fully fledged zone, just like the Dunland map.
Isengard is suppose to be a huge zone as well.
Galtrev map showing in that blog post is just a zoom out map, just like with the City of Bree. It's not a zone.
So I think that Gap of Rohan was just locked out during Gamescon and thus not accessible yet.
But we just have to wait and see when the Beta NDA is lifted, which shouldn't be long now.