Jun
12
LOTRO: Continues to Evolve
Turbine continues to impress me with their approach to how LOTRO is to evolve as a gaming experience. More details of Book 8 are starting to come out and they are doing something that some have refused to do with their games….revamp low-end zones:
Bree-town has always suffered from a bit of an identity crisis. It has wanted to be both a social center where players can gather and share stories, prepare for adventure and generally show off their hard-won items or craft new ones.Ialso a major quest hub, providing new players with a multitude of options to gather quests and leave town only to return several moments later with their haul of hides in tow. Bree has also been a travel hub and a place of commerce and trade. We decided that one of our goals with the Bree-land revamp was to focus on Bree as a town first and foremost.
I think this is a really great idea. Turbine is totally on the right track by revisiting the starting towns and making them hubs for players to visit. Most MMOs, such as WoW and EQ2, have seemed to be resistant to revisit starting towns and usually just opt to create new ones instead of re-imaging the old ones. Qeynos, Freeport, Orgrimmar, Stormwind…all of them have not even seen so much as a new paintjob since being released (…if memory serves…). WAR is even worse in that the player bubble and tier approach leaves starting areas ghost towns once players move on…giving little incentive for them to return. Huge problem and, quite honestly, it’s a huge waste of some great work by designers to leave these starting areas unused. Yayyyy Turbine…. 
There is more coming with Book 8, and plenty seems to be revamps of content before Moria, including a new game element called Bounty Quests:
Bounty quests are a new style of quest that will make their way into each region as we continue forward on our revision to the lands preceding Moria. Each of these quests is repeatable up to three times and has distinct rewards that tie into our new crafting changes. Each will allow players to earn new crafting items and recipes to assist them with their chosen vocations.
They aren’t stopping the revamps just with Book 8, they seem to want to keep going:
We plan to continue onward through the Lone-lands and the North Downs. Our goal is to provide two paths for advancement, allowing players to track through the Lone-lands following the second book of the Epic story or following the trail of Orc bodies into the North Downs to assist the rangers. Either way, the two tracks will encompass all areas of the Lone-lands and the central sections of Kingsfell in the North Downs, and will focus on player levels 22-32. Crafting nodes in these areas will primarily provide tier 3 items and at higher levels introduce tier 4 items. A rework of the Epic story’s Volume I: Book 2 will also incorporate another major quest line that often goes overlooked in the Lone-lands.
This year is shaping up nicely on this front, and so far I’ve only revealed a very small portion of the changes and additions that we are planning on making to the game. Stay tuned for more later this year!
LOTRO continues to get better and really, seems to be a great model for others to follow. By that, I mean that they are showing the perfect timing to do this…right after a major expansion. This solves the problem of keeping player population as even as possible across the world and avoids newer players from seeing tumble weeds in starting areas. For a new player to see high level characters in a starting zone….well…that’s advertising that you can’t get anywhere else. You show the new player what they will look like later in the game. You help with guild recruitment of new players, keeping the community alive and active.
So, looks like we’ve got plenty to look forward to for our Monday night groups
D out.
