LOTRO in 2012. Riders of Rohan

[Siltoneus]

Massively overview here.

As we all expected, content is the new byword for LOTRO this year. After all, they can't really compete with SWOTR/Rifts/GuildWars 2 in any other way, so they are pushing the expansions.

Quick tales:
1) New Region: The Great River
2) New Expansion: Riders of Rohan.
2) Mounted Combat in some areas of Rohan.
3) Level increase to 85
4) 2nd version of the Instance Finder, which fully replaces the existing World Join and the Reflecting Pools. You will be able to join as a group, and select the instance you want to run.
5) Revamped Anniversary festival.
6) Monthly updates, instead of multi-month updates.

They asked Turbine why they were pushing expansions, when the rest of the industry has dropped them. Turbine told them that they like tackling "a huge piece of content" all at once, and besides with LOTRO being such a region-based game, it makes more sense to deliver it all at once. Truthfully, I think it's more likely that they like the big chunk of $$ that people put down on the expansion. A way for them to still get money from the Lifers and VIP's that they wouldn't get otherwise. Call me jaded, but that's what I think.

Enjoy.

Silt

[Baradain]

I was so hoping that they wouldn't do another level raise for some time. Hopefully this will not come out until late 2012. I have been busy reoutfitting my toons with level 75 stuff and if the jump from 75 to 85 is anything like the jump from 65 to 75, all of my current gear will be useless. I actually liked the old days when you could wear some special lower level gear pieces that were better than most of the new stuff. With the Isengard update, that all went away. Your most prized possessions were simply trash on the ground or a few sp in the bank. The longer they wait on this push the better it will be for me.

[Xarangil]

I'm really excited about the 2012 roadmap. I'm never one that is able to get all my toons maxed anyway, so I like always having something new to discover. And I always love new landscape to explore!

Xar

[Siltoneus]

I don't have anything near 75, but I wondered about the longevity of gear at the high levels. We all understand that lower-level gear churns more than upper, but I didn't know the upper levels were impacted as much.

Re: 2012: Yea, they are really pushing the content with all their properties. DDO is seeing a similar jump in major content, so it's something that is being pushed company wide. I'm intrigued by the behind-the-scenes changes that Turbine is going through. Apparently (from what I've seen on some of the DDO forums) there are some major architectural changes going on in the development teams, including a completely new production system. Since it's been about a year since the Warner-Brothers buyout, I wonder if they aren't the ones pushing the changes.

[Baradain]

Gear off mobs and quests was pretty good up through about the mid 30's. I think I used the Dol Dinen gear around then. That lasted up to about the low tomid 40's when I picked up the gear from the SE corner of the Trollshawls. I think the camp is named Candelaith or something along those lines. Now you can get a decen set of lower 40ish gear in Aughair in Angmar. It is the Fem armor/jewelry. That was decent enough to get you into Moria where you would start working on your Moria gear at level 54 in Grand Stairs. The Moria gear is what I pretty much wore along with a 2 piece set from Mirkwood until Isengard was released. The gear grind isn't so bad for me though as the legendary item grind. It took me quite some time to get some decent third age items, and then even longer to get 2nd age and a few 1st age level 60's. Then they up'd the legendary items to 65 and even then, some 1st age level 60 class items were better than the level 65 items. I eventually got some decent level 65 2nd agers and deconned my level 60 stuff. They made recent changes to relics where you can't put specific relics on lower level legendaries, which added to a grind to get better legendaries to be able to use the better relics. I am still using my level 65 relics on my level 75 legendaries and do not see a point yet to upgrade them any. Another part of it is that the leveling from 50 to 60 was much slower. It didn't take long to go from 60 to 65 when Mirkwood came out, and it took I think less time to go from 65 to 75 when Isengard came out. I just finished reading another post by Ziboo that somewhat goes into the way things used to be and the way things are going now. Like she says in her post, the MMO games seem to be pandering more to a group of people that would rather race to the end game then to those of us that would like to slowly move through a game and enjoy it. I also think it is more of a money grab from the designers. They push out stuff that you can fly through so they can release another expansion for you to purchase. I guess we will have to wait and see. Until then, I guess I will stop purchasing any gear or gear upgrades and will just concentrate on making what I have the best possible since I will be throwing it all away in less than a year.