Sprite - Tonight is general questions, so any and all are welcome. You may feel free to start sending them to [QT]Preston now. We will be starting momentarily.
* Sprite changes topic to 'Welcome to tonight's House of Commons chat with the developers of The Lord of the Rings Online. Tonight's chat is an open discussion, so all questions are welcome. Send your questions to [QT]Preston, questions sent to myself or the developers will not make the lineup!.'
Sprite - Welcome to another great Stratics house of commons with the developers of The Lord of the Rings Online! Tonight's chat is an open discussion, so all questions are welcome.
Sprite - Please send your questions to [QT]Preston by using /msg [QT]Preston My question here. Questions sent to myself or the developers will NOT be answered so please do not send them to us. You only need to send your question one time and only to one QT. Sending it multiple times will not increase the likelihood of it being answered.
Sprite - We'll begin with a brief introduction from our guests and then proceed with the chat. Now would be a good time to send those questions to [QT]Preston!
RingLeader - Hey all, Jeffrey STeefel here, the Exec Producer of LOTRO
RingLeader - Great to have you all...
RingLeader - Warning, I type like a Troll...
RingLeader - In SUnlight! :)
Annuvin - Greetings all! I'm Annuvin, the Design Director for Lord of the Rings. I don't come out much, as I'm kept in the mines! Is that the daystar?
LOTRO_Patience - I'm Meghan "Patience" Rodberg, the Community Manager for LOTRO. Thanks for coming, everyone. :)
LOTRO_Patience - It's true. Annuvin shrivels in the light.
Sprite - *Galias* Question for the LOTRO Chat - Big surprise here, can you anticipate when you might make an official release date announcement?
LOTRO_Patience - Hi Galias!
LOTRO_Patience - Yes.
LOTRO_Patience - :D
LOTRO_Patience - We still anticipate a Spring '07 release. We're not getting more specific than that right now, but the beta is going very well and everything is on track.
Sprite - *[WSX]Tockwork* Are there mounts?
RingLeader - Well, some of you who may be in Beta have no doubt seen mounted players about...
RingLeader - So....in a word...yes!
Sprite - *jreitsch* Hi team. :) LotRO seeems like a game with a lot of room to expand in the future. Can you give an estimated number and rough dates of expansion packs already planned?
RingLeader - We're extremely jazzed to get to launch and start the real fun, the evolution of our Middle-earth and the community in it
RingLeader - We have lots of exciting plans, but you'll have to wait for details :)
RingLeader - Suffice it to say, we'll be adding content to LOTRO fairly often, in the Turbine tradition...
Sprite - *Morchaint* Is LOTRO going to be a good game for ardent explorers? I loved the way the world was designed in Asheron's Call, with wide open landscapes as far as the eye could see, and where I could spend days at a time in the sprawling mountain ranges climbing around and seeing things I had never seen before. In WoW I remember terrain guidance, mountains used as sheer impassable boundaries, small contained landscapes
Annuvin - LOTRO for launch tries to span the gap between guided gameplay (WoW) and exploration based games (such as AC1). We spent a great deal of time working on our accomplishment/exploration system in order to encourage people to see everything we've worked so hard to build.
Annuvin - It's an interesting tension, as (coming from the AC1 team) I saw a lot of people getting lost in Dereth, more literally than figuratively. Middle-earth is a huge place, and ultimately there will be a great deal of space to explore for ship and beyond.
Annuvin - We do use impassible boundaries, however we try to be very conscientious of them, in order to have them act more like 'guidance' than 'cages'.
Sprite - *Raunien* I was wondering if it would be possible to change the fact of lower levels are not able to hit higher lvls after a certain differance in lvls. During the recent stress test/handing out buddy keys in the human starting area there were spawns of mobs and a lvl 50 that no one was able to hit. There were a good number of low lvls attacking the same mob but wasnt doing any damage what so ever.
LOTRO_Patience - Hi Raunien! Your experience with the level 50 "mob" during a recent stress test was actually you going up against someone from Turbine who was logged in as a monster. :) We were having some fun that night, attacking the various towns across Eriador and having the players defend them.
Sprite - *Jabber* what is the player versus player combat like? will there be a shard that you can just pvp on without having to consent a fight
RingLeader - Jabber, by design, PvP (orPvMP as we call it) is consentual only in LOTRO
RingLeader - We want to make sure there is fun, intense, competitive PvP, but only if you want it...
Sprite - For those of you just joining us, please send your questions to [QT]Preston. Questions sent to myself or the develoeprs will *not* make the lineup.
Sprite - *Matt* How easy will it to be level up in this game and what will the effects be like when leveled up? Am I going to get a parade, light show, and a huge DING when I level up? haha
Annuvin - When you level up in LOTRO, we try to keep the parades down to a minimum (there are licenses to obtain, FYI). As you get achieve more notable things (mostly linked to quests, not level), the people of Middle-earth will respond differently to you.
Annuvin - But still, no parades.
Sprite - *Zack* Do we know anything about system specs?
LOTRO_Patience - Hi Zack!
LOTRO_Patience - Specs are on the way. We're finding out a lot from the beta. We expect that a broad range of PC's will be able to handle the game, and it scales very well to different hardware.
Sprite - *Anon9246* Well we ever get to play the evil side?
Annuvin - Ahh yes, Evil. Suffice to say, Monster play is up and operational, and will be unveiled for all to sample in Beta, and there will be plenty of dark deeds. There is a good deal of Monster player advancement, enough so that you can clearly dominate any would be heroes while your decimating the free people of Middle-earth.
Sprite - *ILoveToSit* As you can probably tell from my nick, I love to sit. Chairs, benches, stools... wherever I can, I like to kick up my feet and plop down my butt. Can you tell me if I will be able to live out this dream in the Middle-earth of LOTRO?
RingLeader - ILTS, I am happy to report you can keep your handle, as sitting on chairs will be in LOTRO :)
Sprite - *Kellen* Whate safeguards are there in the game to, erm, guard against inflation?
Annuvin - Well, economy is a hard issue to tackle. Suffice to say, we have our own tools that we use to monitor the distribution of money in LOTRO. Currently, it actually looks similar to the US' own economy with the hardcore players controlling a disproportionately large amount of the money.
Annuvin - We'll be leaning on content updates, re-pricing items, auction percentages, and other elements to fight it down.
Sprite - *Glorfind* how interactive will crafting be? As in, what effort will it take from the player to craft something?
Annuvin - Crafting has been approached with the same philosophy we tried to use on the entire LOTRO design. We have a "skinny" path, and a "fat" path. Skinny paths are for the more casual gamer, and largely consist of items that are easier to craft.
Annuvin - The "fat" path (mastery) usually requires a lot more skill, as the items you'll need are hard to come by, and even harder to manufacture. Our goal is to ensure that no matter what type of gamer you are, there's a good experience there for you.
Sprite - *Lothaina* Burning Crusade for WoW is coming out in January, and Vanguard is scheduled for Q1 2007. Is there more info available on release besides spring 2007? Month maybe? The issue is with such big names being released before lotro will there be a loss of players to other games because of lack of patience?
RingLeader - Lothaina, of course we pay careful attention to what's happening in the marketplace, like everyone.
RingLeader - There is a huge audience for MMORPG these days and of course there will be multiple offerings for players.
RingLeader - We're confident LOTRO is special enough to draw people to Middle-earth, which is unlike any fantasy world ever imagined.
RingLeader - Also, we've found in our research that there are many players that participate in more than one MMO at a time, and we're pretty sure LOTRO will be on most people's playlist.
Sprite - *Centinel* What do you say in response to critics who claim that LOTRO is merely a clone of World of Warcraft set in Middle-Earth?
Annuvin - Well, I have a few different responses. I'll try to stick to the one that Turbine would approve of.
Annuvin - We want to make LOTRO as approachable as possible. We've been polishing our feature set for quite a while, and the simple fact is, WoW did a lot of things right (ESPECIALLY in regards to UI).
Annuvin - Our goal was to make playing our game painless for the established MMP player, and I feel we succeeded in that.
Annuvin - In terms of the systems within LOTRO, there are some commonalities (swords, for instance), and there are some disparities (Fellowship attacks, and the Accomplishment system). Overall, I'd say the games are quite distinct, for those that actually play them.
Sprite - *Gembone* will we be seeing any new creatures in the near future?
RingLeader - There are many, many creatures in the world that have not yet been seen in-game.
RingLeader - There are many high-level creatures, some extremely familliar, some taken from the darker corners of Tolkien Lore.
RingLeader - There are many "nameless things" Tolkien describes in the depth with some vagueness, that you will encounter in their full glory in LOTRO.
Sprite - *Lothaina* There has been a lot of complaints about the character creation. Will there be additional features there with release?
Annuvin - Chargen has a lot of masters to service. We're currently working on polishing the experience, and making sure that the characters are showcased very well. We're also looking to present the difference between the races more blatantly in chargen.
Annuvin - All of these things will serve to make it a better experience without breaking one of the basic design tenets of chargen: don't make the user regret a choice they made when they were younger. I figure we all get enough of that in real life, why emulate it in Middle-earth? ;)
Sprite - *Galias* Question - I'll be more direct this time... =) Are you going to be putting a special "Collector's Edition" package together for the release that includes goodies that folks who just buy the game don't get?
LOTRO_Patience - Hi Galias (again!). Yes, we will be offering a Collector's Edition, but the details are as yet unannounced. :)
Sprite - *boldlygo* can you tell us alittle of what happens on death. Do you get xp loss temp or permanent, and do you lose items or do the just get damaged
Annuvin - When you are defeated in Middle-earth (note: not dead. You don't come back from the dead in Middle-earth), your character's items wear, and you are plagued with dread. Dread is the negative effect that Sauron's minions cause, and it makes your character more vulnerable to damage, less capable of defending themselves, and makes healing work less well.
Annuvin - If you get a high enough dread rating, you will be paralyzed with fear. Suffice to say, avoid being defeated. You'll be happier in the long run.
Sprite - *Anon630* are there race specific traits?
RingLeader - Yes, there will be race-specific traits in the game, that have various benefits to your abilities and advancement when they are equipped.
Sprite - *Sqyre* With the format of your dynamic quest system and the creative way you have decided to use instances, will there be a sort of "end of the game feel" once you've completed all of your quests?
Annuvin - I certainly hope so! If not, then all these years I've been laboring in the salt mines of Middle-earth will be for nothing!
Annuvin - With that said, once you have finished the main Epic storyline that suffuses our regions and other quests, you will be squarely at the end of the first book.
Annuvin - Interactions you have with NPC's will certainly echo this, and there will be instances available to you that just weren't accessible to you earlier.
Sprite - *Willby* Is there any form of duel implemented in the game?
RingLeader - Duelling has been removed from the game and replaced with "sparring" :)
RingLeader - Seriously, we have implemented dueling in-game and currently it can happen anywhere on landscape.
RingLeader - It is likely that during Beta we will visit things like restricting Dueling to certain areas, and providing "ignore duel request" or things like that.
RingLeader - We'll be looking at this closely to determine the best solution for launch. FOr now, it's useful to allow it anywhere so we can look at performance impact, etc...
Sprite - *[Armageddon]Arkane* Will there be color texted items, like in other games to show how rare or epic something is?
Annuvin - The short answer: Yes.
Annuvin - The long answer: We tossed around implementing an incredibly arcane (yet unique) method of showing item rarity.
Annuvin - Once we were done, we decided that we'd toss it out in an effort to emulate the way every MMO/RPG player expects it to work. ;)
Sprite - *Riley* How is the raid content progressing and how many players are going to be able to raid together? =)
Annuvin - Ah yes, Raid content. Currently, our raid is progressing very well (though we're dumping time into both raids and instances currently, trying to get them right). If anything, the hard part is making sure that we hit the appropriate level of difficulty!
Annuvin - With all that said, I'm pretty happy with where we are, and I think all of you will be too. As for the numbers of people, we decided early on that LOTRO was going to be more about smaller groups of players than larger.
Annuvin - Therefore, we're gearing up to support "multi-fellowship" instances, ranging from 2 fellowship instances (12 characters) to 4 fellowship instances (24 characters). We may go larger, eventually, but first we want to ensure that we entertain 24 people successfully first.
Sprite - *drunkmime* question: Now as you can probably tell from name, I love feet. What I need to know is that hobbits will have hairy and hopefully highly detailed feet that I can zoom in on.
RingLeader - Your fetishes aside, drunkmime, of COURSE our hobbit avatars have hairy feet!
RingLeader - In fact, we are adding a toggle that will allow you to make boots invisible, so you can get the armour protection from footwear without covering those beautiful feet :)
Sprite - *Nightwynde* In reguards to one of the Hunter's abilities ( i.e. Guide to Bree, Thorin's Gate, Rivendell.....) the noticable ommission is involving the Shire. Are there any plans to modify the Hunter's guiding skill to allow a location in the Shire?
Annuvin - That's an interesting question! I'll ask our hunter class designer right now!
Annuvin - (Salt mines are deep today)
Annuvin - He has stated that he wanted to preserve the insular nature of the Shire. He's crafty that way. If we were to add it, we'd probably hide it behind an accomplishment, to really maintain that feel.
LOTRO_Patience - (Annuvin, Ringleader and I are actually sitting in a big room where several of the team members are having a playday. :) We're surrounded by the sounds of combat.)
Sprite - *Riley* How many end-game instances are scheduled for release and how many players are going to be allowed to raid them together?
Annuvin - Currently, we're looking at 3 end game instances, 2 of which are single fellowship, 1 of which is 4 fellowships. I imagine that the Carn Dum instance will be the hardest of the three, and that's the highest level single fellowship instance in the game.
Sprite - *avianxx* are charachters going to get better with each weapon class or are u gonna be able to switch for highest dps
Annuvin - You can expect to look to the racial traits to pave the way for 'xxxtr33m' specialization. Other than that, we are also changing each of the weapons so that they have their own distinct feel.
Sprite - *Toons* Is there any plan to add a real sense of adventure in the game, currently to many people feel the game is too easy and there is no real (relatively speaking) risk
Annuvin - Interesting. Right now, I'm sitting a room watching a bunch of our devs getting destroyed in Garth Agarwen (one of our medium level instances). Suffice to say, I think our game is pretty challenging/adventurous for those that seek it out. On the other hand, it is much easier to simply take the safer route, and master it without having to expose your character to undue risk.
Annuvin - As for the more pervasive "sense of adventure", I think that's more of a state of mind. We're aggressively trying to deliver that through a greater use of instances. Needless to say, it's a challenge.
Sprite - *Centinel* What are Fellowships attacks? What is the accomplishment system?
Annuvin - Fellowship attacks are skills that can only be used while you're in a fellowship. Certain characters possess skills that can force an opponent to lower their guard, thus allowing all of the fellowship members to contribute one of four base skills. Depending on the order of the contribution, stuff happens (where stuff = good things for your group).
Annuvin - As for the accomplishment system, we wanted to do more for Middle-earth than to leave it an "NPC" driven game. There's a lot of history here, and we wanted to showcase it. As a result, there are accomplishments within Middle-earth, that once completed give the character titles and traits. This allows each of our players to have a very different playstyle, and have it actually manifest in their character's options and advancement.
Annuvin - A couple of examples: One accomplishment is to gather the Lore of the lost prince of Cardolan. Another is to get to high level without dying. Needless to say, there's a great deal of individual character expression.
Sprite - That's it for this one folks! Thanks for joining us here on Stratics IRC, the logs will be up on http://www.stratics.com shortly. Feel free to join #middle-earth for open discussion. Be sure to come by next time!
LOTRO_Patience - Thanks for coming, everyone. :)
RingLeader - Thanks for showing up everyone!