PAX 2009: Turbine tells us all about Siege of Mirkwood part 2
by Kyle Horner 
Sep 8th 2009 at 9:30AM
Filed under: Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Massively Event Coverage
These all happen in areas that should be familiar to any LotRO player. Places like Bree, Tuckberry and Weathertop -- except that since the War of the Rings is beginning, there's something new going on. A couple examples given to us were scourge of the Shire-like event happening at Tuckburrow, or an attack at Bree where people have been locked in the Prancing Pony with the invaders outside ready to set it on fire. Plus, every Skirmish has nine randomizable alternate objectives. Basically, Turbine is doing everything they can to make these just as fun on the hundredth time as they are on the first.
Loot drops and Skirmish Points will probably help extend the replay value. Those points can be spent on various rewards ranging from ways to improve your soldier buddy to actually getting meaningful rewards typically gained elsewhere in the game. Jeffrey did point out that these rewards are meant to compliment, not supplant, the ones already in place throughout the other activities in LotRO.
There are limitations to how often you can do some of them, because Turbine doesn't want them to become too grindy. They don't want it to become so involving that people stop playing the rest of the game. However, we will point out that the game tracks all of your accomplishments in Skirmishes and puts it all in a big in-game window and publishes it into leaderboards at MyLotRO just so you can show everyone how awesome you are -- we can't imagine that those limitations aren't going to be too restrictive.
Updated mount functionality
The first time you summon your horse after getting Siege of Mirkwood, the game will prompt you to turn it into a skill. No longer will mounts take up inventory space, which tells us that Turbine is planning for mounts to become much more plentiful and central to LotRO in the future.
Even more importantly, mounts are being made more functional. No longer will they simply move players around the game world quickly. With Siege of Mirkwood you can talk to an NPC on your mount, buy stuff from a vendor, cross land block boundaries, enter large spaces on horse without dismounting, emote on your horse -- you can even name your horse. If this isn't Turbine hinting at their next expansion's setting then they've got a pretty cruel sense of humor.
Odds and ends
Shared account storage will allow players to move items between characters of any level on the same server. We were told that there are some limitations to what a player can put into storage in order to avoid a "mulefest" which sounded like a pretty awesome name for a band, to us at least. We were also told that in the future players who've filled up their storage may have an opportunity to earn more space.
Combat has gotten another upgrade as well, and according to Jeffrey one of the largest updates to the system that Turbine has ever done. The changes are being made at a base level, so nothing changed in what a player does in any given battle. Essentially their whole effort was to make combat feel much snappier, and the biggest change is that auto-attack is now completely interruptable by skills. Other adjustments have been made to the timing of animations, but we were assured these changes would only alter the feel of the combat and not the result. If you're still worried or confused on the topic, Jeffrey informed us that a dev diary is coming out about this very topic, so that should clear the air.
As we said in our post, the expansion is coming this Fall for 20 bucks as a digital expansion. For everything we just discussed above, that seems rather like a fair price to us.
Loot drops and Skirmish Points will probably help extend the replay value. Those points can be spent on various rewards ranging from ways to improve your soldier buddy to actually getting meaningful rewards typically gained elsewhere in the game. Jeffrey did point out that these rewards are meant to compliment, not supplant, the ones already in place throughout the other activities in LotRO.
There are limitations to how often you can do some of them, because Turbine doesn't want them to become too grindy. They don't want it to become so involving that people stop playing the rest of the game. However, we will point out that the game tracks all of your accomplishments in Skirmishes and puts it all in a big in-game window and publishes it into leaderboards at MyLotRO just so you can show everyone how awesome you are -- we can't imagine that those limitations aren't going to be too restrictive.
Updated mount functionality
The first time you summon your horse after getting Siege of Mirkwood, the game will prompt you to turn it into a skill. No longer will mounts take up inventory space, which tells us that Turbine is planning for mounts to become much more plentiful and central to LotRO in the future.
"If this isn't Turbine hinting at their next expansion's setting then they've got a pretty cruel sense of humor" |
Odds and ends
Shared account storage will allow players to move items between characters of any level on the same server. We were told that there are some limitations to what a player can put into storage in order to avoid a "mulefest" which sounded like a pretty awesome name for a band, to us at least. We were also told that in the future players who've filled up their storage may have an opportunity to earn more space.
Combat has gotten another upgrade as well, and according to Jeffrey one of the largest updates to the system that Turbine has ever done. The changes are being made at a base level, so nothing changed in what a player does in any given battle. Essentially their whole effort was to make combat feel much snappier, and the biggest change is that auto-attack is now completely interruptable by skills. Other adjustments have been made to the timing of animations, but we were assured these changes would only alter the feel of the combat and not the result. If you're still worried or confused on the topic, Jeffrey informed us that a dev diary is coming out about this very topic, so that should clear the air.
As we said in our post, the expansion is coming this Fall for 20 bucks as a digital expansion. For everything we just discussed above, that seems rather like a fair price to us.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Gerome42 said on 9:47AM 9-08-2009
I'm so glad I just recently came back to this game (the free weekend ensnared me, and now I am a paying subscriber again). This game is so great on many different levels - and I can't help but think of them as I explore moria. I've been around the block, so to say, and have tried just about every major MMO, and this game continues to be a standout for a few reasons:
1. Epic feel. There have been moments where my jaw literally drops at the artwork and design of moria - I've had several times where I've yelled to my wife, "Come here look at this room!". The areas are beautiful, and the graphics engine is excellent.
2. Quests - as most people know, the quests are excellent, as is the story line. I love the voiceovers you get at most instances, as do I love the cut-scenes you get to "unlock" as you do the epic quests. I also love the instances in this game. It's so great when you come across a new instance, especially ones like where you get to play a Dwarf right before the fall of moria, and get to re-live the first encounter with the Balrog that they awoke!
3. Community - most people are just straight up good people that love Tolkien and this game. *standard disclaimer applies here, of course there's always going to be the idiots as well.
There are many more reasons why I'm very happy I came back, but those are the top three.
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Pingles said on 9:59AM 9-08-2009
Ugh, now I am starting to wonder why I quit that MMO. I find myself wanting to explore Bree again!
Deryk said on 10:04AM 9-08-2009
Wow, this sounds terrific! That's great that they're even putting in some skirmishes in the older Eriador areas.
And horses just sound wonderful now. All the things we've been asking for a very long time are coming true concerning horses. And no wonder with the Fellowship getting ever-closer to Rohan.
Cheers Turbine and thanks for the great article Massively!
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Chris said on 10:16AM 9-08-2009
A better horse mechanic. 20$ well spent.
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Jason said on 11:46AM 9-08-2009
Because that's all you get for $20.
/Eyeroll
Jack said on 10:22AM 9-08-2009
"The first time you summon your horse after getting Siege of Mirkwood, the game will prompt you to turn it into a skill. No longer will mounts take up inventory space"
Wow wonder how they got that idea?! So you got to buy the expansion to get this horse upgrade wow I am so happy I play much better mmo! ;)
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me said on 11:22AM 9-08-2009
As with MoM, certain parts of the new expansion will be available to all players. I'm pretty sure that the new tech surrounding horses will be one of these techs (as will the improvements to the combat system). In short, everything related to content will be exclusive to those that buy the expansion, whereas improvements to existing game systems are free of charge.
noizex said on 8:17PM 9-08-2009
You sir, are an idiot. :)
Ever thought that basic system changes are available for everyone through normal patching process and will not require buying an expansion? Same happened with Moria, players who havent bought expansion couldn't enter new area, but all changes in UI and gameplay affected them as well.
RogueJedi86 said on 12:24AM 9-10-2009
Could we get Jack banned already? Every other post he makes, especially in TOR or LotRO topics, is just him trolling about how the game is inferior to WoW. I've seen this very frequently lately, with every post of his being downrated into grey, so I don't think anyone else would mind.
CCon99 said on 10:37AM 9-08-2009
Love this game! Can't wait for this and then eventually Rohan!
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Puckric said on 11:46AM 9-08-2009
I must admit, I was one of the skeptics that were a little annoyed Turbine was going to make us pay for such a small expansion, but the release of these details really changes things.
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Jess said on 11:41AM 9-08-2009
Any word on if our current legendaries will level with us????
Soooooo important!!
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drjones said on 12:32PM 9-08-2009
Well the bullet pointed that they raised the legendary level cap, so why would they not level up with us?
Jason said on 2:25PM 9-08-2009
There will probably be LI's for lvl 65 players so you can get higher DPS. You'll probably have to lvl them to 60. It'll be a pain finding new items that have the legacies I want but I'll get a ton of item exp from breaking down my old 2nd Age items plus I'll do a week of bounty quests to get the new items capped quickly.
Jess said on 2:25PM 9-08-2009
I hope you're right!
scott said on 3:18PM 9-08-2009
those new LI xp bounties are great...
Jay said on 3:54AM 9-09-2009
Your existing 1st ages will be decon material just like the 3rd and 2nds will be. The raised cap comes with the new level 65 weapons. Your existing radiant armour is also going to be 5 levels underpowered.
Gear wipe should be expected when the level cap is raised. There is no way past that.
danarchy said on 12:16PM 9-08-2009
Take half the programmers that work on this game and put them to work on modernizing Asheron Call's graphics. Please and thank you. I miss that game, I just cant play with the lego graphics anymore :(
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Mr Angry said on 1:14PM 9-08-2009
2 books worth of content plus a few extra new features =/= $20, especially when Turbine promises free content updates. It's not been delivering on that promise.
I don't get all these positive posts, surely as consumers, we want value, and the value proposition was that book updates are regular and free? Now folks don't care that the book update frequency and quality has stalled (this is not disputed by many current subscribers), and you have to pay for further updates to the game?
While it's nice they are doing stuff with LoTRO, it did used to be free, I regard issues like shared bank space and horse storage as core features, not something to market an xpac with. I hate to draw comparisons, but
I look forward to some of the new mechanics, but I feel they are changing hte game into a guild wars type mechanic, and I didn't really want to play a 'pet class', I've got real people who can fill that role in my guild.
I just dunno about LoTRO, looks as if it's going a different direction to what I was hoping and whoever has the creative reigns, isn't doing such a great job on the basics of keeping the feel of the MMO homogenized, rather than 'sub-gamey'
So I dispute the last comment (which smacks of a bit of impartiality Massively, yes we know you like Turbine), it might be a fair price, if however they hadn't already promised a steady content when people signed up for things like lifetime subscriptions.
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Jason said on 2:25PM 9-08-2009
Nothing was ever promised. The plan was to have four free content updates and a paid expansion every year. Turbine hit a rough patch this year though with the massive stability issues they had with the servers back in the spring. That caused them to change their schedule. They have still released 9 free updates and 1 paid expansion 2 1/2 years the game has been available.