75 replies to this topic

[Dalthalion]

Gibbets and crows: Rise of Isengard and the state of LotRO

[Freedom_of_Speech]

Dalthalion, on 24 October 2011 - 19:15, said:

Gibbets and crows: Rise of Isengard and the state of LotRO

This needs posting in turbines general forums lol

[Spheric]

Dalthalion, on 24 October 2011 - 19:15, said:

Gibbets and crows: Rise of Isengard and the state of LotRO

No punches pulled. And unfortunately, a pretty accurate assessment. In my opinion, it's just a sad reflection of the corporate agenda to suck every penny that can be had this quarter (and quarter by quarter) and the future be damned. So sad.

[frodofraggins]

Turbine really botched this game up big time.  My guess now is that their next expansion will be the last one.

[Jackalope]

Wow, he really laid it all out didn't he. Good job. Who wants to risk the ban by posting the link on the official site?

[Freedom_of_Speech]

Jackalope, on 24 October 2011 - 20:41, said:

Wow, he really laid it all out didn't he. Good job. Who wants to risk the ban by posting the link on the official site?

If free accounts can post in the general forum it might be a idea to go through a proxy server to hide your ip create a new account and post the link with a quote of the entire review.

[The_One_Pie]

Freedom_of_Speech, on 24 October 2011 - 20:44, said:

If free accounts can post in the general forum it might be a idea to go through a proxy server to hide your ip create a new account and post the link with a quote of the entire review.

Unfortunately, last time I checked, Free accounts have a waiting period befor they can post on the main forums.
It seems to be something like a couple of weeks or more iirc. I would use one of my test accounts but if they search
the ip logs, they can probably put 2 and 2 together. I wouldn't want to risk my main accounts being put under the
watchful EYE-of-Ricky.

[Jackalope]

I could just walk down to the local McDonalds with the laptop and use their freebie wireless to create an account and post with that. Heck, I remember when it was suggested that I create an account just for forum use, even if it IS limited in scope (just the free area, not the general area).  If I had listened to that, I would likely be banned now for having two forum accounts. Probably why they suggested that, hoping I'd walk into their trap.

[cossieuk]

Someone posted it

http://forums.lotro....-state-of-LotRO

Wonder how long it will last

[Raedwulf]

frodofraggins, on 24 October 2011 - 20:21, said:

Turbine really botched this game up big time.  My guess now is that their next expansion will be the last one.

Their last expansion was. Who is going to pay cash for anything after RoI?

As I've said before, T's only hope is that GW2 is very late & doesn't match the press releases. They might get the the former; I think the latter will hammer them regardless.

[Jackalope]

cossieuk, on 24 October 2011 - 22:58, said:

Someone posted it

http://forums.lotro....-state-of-LotRO

Wonder how long it will last

I tried to follow that link, it lead right back to these forums.

/See what I did wrong, I clicked the link in the quote, not the original one. Strange how that worked out.

[cossieuk]

Link is working for me, but it is on the first page in general discussion

[Spheric]

Jackalope, on 24 October 2011 - 23:09, said:

I tried to follow that link, it lead right back to these forums.

/See what I did wrong, I clicked the link in the quote, not the original one. Strange how that worked out.

That's a problem with the LOTRO forum. I usually have to click links a second time to get to the page I want.

[frodofraggins]

Raedwulf, on 24 October 2011 - 23:03, said:

Their last expansion was. Who is going to pay cash for anything after RoI?

As I've said before, T's only hope is that GW2 is very late & doesn't match the press releases. They might get the the former; I think the latter will hammer them regardless.

I think they have a fair start at Rohan and can make a profit on it if it's sized like ROI, but doing so will likely kill the game.

[Silverangel]

The Skirmish Trait Max Rank store-only is yet another ridiculous thing, but this post is only good in that it sums up every wrong argument that people can make about ROI.  The blogger's notion that Moria set any kind of standard or expectation about future expansions made me eyeroll.  I think it should have always been clear that LotRO would be very lucky to ever see anything of that scope again, especially given the slim result from it in terms of profit (no net profit at all from box sales, iirc someone said.)

He should ditch this angle of attack for being a little bit childish, as if in the holidays of 2008 his parents gave him 10 gifts, so only five gifts this year?  WTF I THOUGHT WE HAD A STANDARD OF EXPECTATIONS HERE?  I also don't agree with his points to dollars ratio of $50.  He had a choice of how to pay, and it was clearly explained.  He didn't read, comprehend, or do his research.  He can't fault Turbine for that.

[AgamemnonV1]

Silverangel, on 25 October 2011 - 00:19, said:

The Skirmish Trait Max Rank store-only is yet another ridiculous thing, but this post is only good in that it sums up every wrong argument that people can make about ROI.  The blogger's notion that Moria set any kind of standard or expectation about future expansions made me eyeroll.  I think it should have always been clear that LotRO would be very lucky to ever see anything of that scope again, especially given the slim result from it in terms of profit (no net profit at all from box sales, iirc someone said.)

And yet that has not stopped Turbine from hailing F2P as a "complete success" and it also does not stop them from taking the opportunity to tote it around on the forums as a means of saying, "Yes, content will come more steadily now."

Quote

He should ditch this angle of attack for being a little bit childish, as if in the holidays of 2008 his parents gave him 10 gifts, so only five gifts this year?  WTF I THOUGHT WE HAD A STANDARD OF EXPECTATIONS HERE?

Metaphors are generally the worst forms of argument, as is observed here. Turbine hasn't "gifted" me anything other than the assurance that they'll keep charging me for less.

Quote

I also don't agree with his points to dollars ratio of $50.  He had a choice of how to pay, and it was clearly explained.  He didn't read, comprehend, or do his research.  He can't fault Turbine for that.

I can and I do. I chose not to go for the pre-order because I had purposely saved all of my points since the F2P switch just for this purpose. I'm really sick and tired of people saying it's other people's "faults" when a company does not line up payment details in clear ink. I do not browse forums in which I'm permanently banned at. And forums are certainly no "clear way" for Turbine to use what ever shred of professionalism they have left to reveal their business plans. Again and again I fault this company for doing zero press releases, zero interviews with media outlets, and offering zero exclusive bits of information that would actually make any MMO news site care.

My last known bit of information was when I was linked to a thread with Sapience saying, "Yes, the expansion will be on the store day one." That's what I went with. And you're telling me it's my fault because I didn't happen to catch another thread where he changes his mind and says, "Oops, what I really meant to say is yes, it will be on the store day one, but not the actual equivalent that you would get if you had pre-ordered." It's a good thing he released that information in such a timely fashion--one week before RoI pre-orders were done with. Three weeks after which I don't even learn about until I made an inquiry on GLFF.

Tell me again how it's the customer's fault for being blindsided by the company.

Also, wow. I didn't even know there was an unofficial community. Dalthalion, I imagine you incurred the wrath of Sapience as well when you called him up on his Hellgate gestapo tactics? That was about the same time he perma'd me as well. Although I probably shouldn't have told him that I wrote for Flagshipped. Oops!

[Blaize]

Silverangel, on 25 October 2011 - 00:19, said:

I also don't agree with his points to dollars ratio of $50.  He had a choice of how to pay, and it was clearly explained.  He didn't read, comprehend, or do his research.  He can't fault Turbine for that.

It wasn't clearly explained at all, do you not recall the giant thread of complaints that followed Turbine's (finally) pricing the expansion in TPs?

[The MMO Troll]

I really enjoyed that article. Good work, Agamemnon

[Laurinaohtar]

AgamemnonV1, on 25 October 2011 - 07:23, said:

I'm really sick and tired of people saying it's other people's "faults" when a company does not line up payment details in clear ink.

This, its a very recent thing, but the amount of times we see "well its your fault for not doing your research". What a crock of sh@! I need to do a ton of research now before I buy a product just in case the company is trying to pull a fast one? The company should market their products responsibly, the marketing of RoI was misleading at best.

[Wayshuba]

This was an excellent (and for once truthful) review of the state of RoI and things at Turbine.

Another point I'd like to add where I feel Turbine is also screwing up (among the many screw ups lately).

RoI marks the second reset and the third time players are doing the same grind over again since Moria. So in three years all Turbine has been able to do is force a reset and have you grind the same crap over again.

The problem, however, is this. When you are reseting so much of what a character has done, you open it up for players to now have the choice between starting a character on another MMO or going through the same grind again. Regardless of the pathetic excuse for an exapansion that RoI is, when you open it up for players to have this decision (that being three months doing the same grind I've done repeatedly for three years or starting a new character in a new game and reaching level cap in the same period), you are opening it up for players to leave. I've heard this from many players in the last few months as they learned more about what RoI was.

Not that this was my main reason for leaving LOTRO earlier this year, but I did consider this at the time also.

Just some other food for thought.