Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard Launch Interview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Lord of the Rings Online expanded earlier this week with the Rise of Isengard expansion. To celebrate the launch, MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton had the opportunity to chat with Turbine's Communications Director Adam Mersky and Live Producer Aaron Campbell. Check out what they have to say about LOTRO: Rise of Isengard!
MMORPG.com: For those out there who may not be following, please give us an overview of what’s been introduced to The Lord of the Rings Online with the Rise of Isengard expansion.
Aaron Campbell: Absolutely! We have three brand new regions in the world. We’re expanding into Dunland, we’re going into the Gap of Rohan, and we’re going to Isengard itself. We’ve raised the level cap to 75. We’ve updated a lot of the classes; we’ve given them some brand new skills. We’ve changed out how (unintelligible) items are built, so we’ve got brand new sets of loot that are coming in. So, within the content that’s already in the game as well as new space, such as a new 24-person raid with Draigoch, who is a dragon, and he is massive, he’s absolutely huge.
Read more of Mike Bitton's Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard Launch Interview.
)
Comments
Weak expansion.
I have very fond memories from Lotro ,but this game is going downwards...
don't agree about the game going downwards but the expansion was a little weak. Killing wolves and pigs and running things from one camp to the other was not what i had in mind when the game was going to launch and revamping every class to work more intelligently is no excuse in my mind for filling the end game with such quests.
Yes its a little slight , but the pace is picking up once again to 4 updates and one expansion per year. Im not a nitpicker myself, so I dont see conspiricy theories. Im glad to have a slower paced more immersive style of game offered and this one fits my bill
What has to be hard is to follow the absolutely grand SOA original release with the same impressive content over time. I think that can be done, but dont see it with these faster paced updates. Its a biz decision and it seems to be a fair compromise with those who want more content now. Already in my kin a member is now level 75 capped! 3 days of release.
Agreed...the lack of good storyline and imaginative quests (like the great giant ones in Everswim) are making me long for the day GW2 is released. I will cancel my sub to LOTRO on that day. The dev team is just rehashing content now and barely gave us enough to get to level cap in this update (5 levels would have been enough Turbine). Basically they are just giving us more time sinks to keep subs and not really creating good content. The SoA days were great, but now they show a complete lack of creative ability. Besides the fact is we should have been in Rohan by now....they are choking this game to death.
It has just felt (to me) that they strayed too far from their original intention of holding to the lore long ago. When it first released, there was no game that could ever have held a candle to the potential story available in LOTRO, but they have dragged it out far too long already. Too much from other fantasy games has infiltrated LOTRO for it to do the story justice now.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -Edmund Burke
Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. -Lois McMaster Bujold
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. -Abraham Lincoln
Didn't realize they were using the time honored sub squeezing tactics that Blizzard has/is using. i mean i played in the beta but I didn't get that far. This is the very thing i hated about World of Warcraft and why i left WoW in the first place because sub only games don't put out new content quickly and generally give you insanely long things to accomplish to keep you busy while you continue your sub and wait. I'm not waiting anylonger if they want to put out things like this that's their business but eventually people like me will leave their game too.
Actually.. I've got to say content is coming at a nice clip right now.... don't really agree with you but I do see where your coming from. One game can only last so long.
All I can say is that people who like LOTRO should try playing other games to see how much better everything is. From amount of content, to the frequency of updates (which no, is not coming at a nice clip now, not compared to when the game launched, it just looks good in comparison because nothing was released for ages).
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
And let me add that while I've played a lot of games with terrible end games, nothing compares to the awfulness that is the Legendary Item grind in LOTRO. It is quite possibly the biggest fun thief ever in the history of gaming. It simply takes out all the joy of the game
Turbine promised to fix it; that fix was apparently for players to spend $100s at the store in order to avoid this horrible grind.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
I've tried many games, and LOTRO is one of my favorites. I like slow combat, art style, legendary weapons, quests&story, roleplaying and community there.
I luv the movies and tried this, but ... i must say......
PLAY RIFT
Congrats you just won the Comedian of the Month Award for the funniest line of the Month "PLAY RIFT"
Oh come on, you obviously do not play this game to make such a ridiculous statement. This is one of the better expansions which is easily seen if you have a high level character in game.
I really get tired of troll comments that show no knowledge of what they are talking about!
Well when you rush through the content that is what you get. What is the point of rushing to level cap when you avoid most of the content? Why even bother to play the game?
So they can brag that they were among the first to hit the new level cap.
Of course, what happens after that is they'll then complain about some combination of there not being enough content, that the devs are clueless, updates aren't fast enough, that it's nothing but a grind, that "when MMO "X" comes out, it'll kill this one's population...", that if the devs don't start catering to end-gamers more that they and their 100,000 friends are gonna quit... and so on... You've been around here long enough.. You know the standard cliche's
.
So long as people continue going into MMORPGs with a "console gamer" mentality of "beat the game as fast as as possible", or thinking everything is a competition to "get there first"... this is what's going to happen.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I do love all these gloom and doom posts. Has the game declined since Angmar? Possibly. Is the expansion weak? Possibly. Are the graphics crap? Possibly.
However, let's look at the competition. Is Warhammer a failure? Yes it is. Has World of Warcraft changed for the better? Definately not. How about Aion, Rift, Star Trek Online, Age of Conan, ...? They any better? Not if we have a look at subscriptions numbers.
LotRO is booming still, whether that's rightfully so I don't know. I also can't help but feel sad when I see certain elements being removed and other being implemented, but at the same time, I'm playing an MMO and it's community has grown, it's content has grown, it visuals improved, ... I like what I'm playing and if I wanted a change I wouldn't know what to change for, because I can't think of anything better.
Oh, and cease the "I'm going to Star Warsi" or the "Guild Wars 2 here I come!" remarks. It's downright silly. You're placing your money on something that's not even live yet, something which hasn't been reviewed. All you saw were some clips pointing out that what the devs want you to see, showing only the good stuff. Making such infantile remarks put a dent into your credibility and make you look like a whiny lil' brat.
One would think people would have learned after the failures that are Aion, Age of Conan (allthough I do like this one), Rift, ...
Weak expansions is what Turbine has excelled at since MOM. Lack of content was what forced the game to go F2P and now with the sucess ( so they say) of this new model, they seem to have be following the same game plan that got them to where they are. I was one who played from release until the announcement of F2P and cant say im at all surprised by the direction the game has gone.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
It is just your opinion and for your knowegendle I play Lotro since for 1,5 year , started when game was still p2p.
I would love you to stop going around and accusing people just because they don't share your opinion about ROI.
I had bought ROI quest pack but I will stop playing it as soon as I end up quests, I don't see nothing exciting. There were class and stats changes , but It just don't 'kick in' for me, don't make me exciting. Store expanded again with ROI thoigh
if you enjoy it play, just realize that people can have diffrent opinions before just accuse someone of trolling.
Spot on! I am presently at 65 and 2/3 and in no great hurry to hit cap. I entered this game in Dec 07 with the understanding that it just might be around for two decades and possibly more as it has a nice immersion quality.
Your right, about the mindset of those who hurry to caps and then complain ad nauseum. But so it is with many players. I have been around long enough to know that every single expansion will not please all of the playerbase no matter how large.
I have never witnessed such entitlement attitudes as I see in MMO forums either.