Update 17 - What is it?

[Amenhir 120]

I only care when it's the only thing being ran, as no one else wants to waste time on the other instances and you can't get groups going for them.

That's when it becomes an issue, and that's what's earned it so much scorn.  You can only zerg GB stuff so much until you get sick of it, and plenty are just burned out on that cluster, so didn't mind it getting whacked.

As I had mentioned earlier, having a random set of instances that can't be modified is the better solution, especially if the bonus for running that is like 10x that of any one instance, with another bonus that's even greater but only available once daily per char.  That approach solves the issue cleanly as it lets people still farm Sambrog, prevents burnout on any one instance, and gives people their currency in a way that's forcing everyone to actually use all the instances.  That may not be possible with the F2P cluster instance cluster that is LotRO endgame, but it works wonders in FFXIV.

My solution was not to run those.  I recall a lot of groups I joined doing a random thing through the instance finder when there was a currency bonus which Turbine felt needed to be removed.  

[Familiar 4]

Obviously people were completing Turbine's limited content too quickly.

[Thrabath 19]

At least you can't acces the pelennor from Osgiliath, since it's posted 2 times in the known issues

• Pelennor - Debris blocks passage from Osgiliath into the Pelennor; instead, the Pelennor can be entered through a hole in the Rammas Echor at Harlond
•  

[Papi 87]

this update went live before it was ready, proof is in the "known issues":

• Graphics Settings - Teleporting between Minas Tirith interiors/exteriors/Epic Battles can cause out of memory crashes when playing on High/Very High/Ultra High graphics settings for some users.
• Minas Tirith - When entering taverns (specifically the 'Wheel and Cask' and 'Mumak and Keep') the floor occasionally won't load properly causing you to fall through it; relogging fixes it.

[warspeech 292]

this update went live before it was ready, proof is in the "known issues":

• Graphics Settings - Teleporting between Minas Tirith interiors/exteriors/Epic Battles can cause out of memory crashes when playing on High/Very High/Ultra High graphics settings for some users.
• Minas Tirith - When entering taverns (specifically the 'Wheel and Cask' and 'Mumak and Keep') the floor occasionally won't load properly causing you to fall through it; relogging fixes it.

Sure looks that way. /slowclap

[nosam9 211]

So they must have been desperate to push this out before it was ready so they can work on the servers. They decided this immediately after the "stress" test, so something must have gone wrong. 

It seems like they think they are in trouble with the new servers for some reason, and are scrambling to fix this so they can still finish the transfers before the end of the year. It doesn't look good to me.

My guess is either:
1) The hardware is powerful enough, but the staff doing this don't really know what they are doing (not experienced enough), OR
2) They discovered that better hardware/servers do not fix some problems, and now realize that they game won't play very well with everyone stuck on a few servers.

Thoughts?

Edited October 27, 2015 by nosam9

[Almagnus1 83]

Then there's always the issue that when you jam a couple thousand people into a glorified IRC client, you suddenly realize that IRC becomes unusable....

[Doro 793]

Should I reach for the tinfoil and say that this is all a ruse to hide that they'll be shutting down the game soon and using the new hardware for something else? 'Oh, we're sorry we had so many problems with the hardware, but we think it's best to just not try anymore!'

[nosam9 211]

I would definitely say putting out buggy, minimal content and the servers not working both make it more likely they will shut down the game sooner.

I don't think there is anything else they can use the servers for. I think Turbine is in full "develop mobile games" mode now.

Edited October 27, 2015 by nosam9

[Almagnus1 83]

I think they're in a damned if the do, damned if they don't position.

Turbine really needs to pull a Squenix and fix their crap (Heavensward released June 23rd, and they've spent the last few months fixing 3.0, with 3.1 scheduled to be out soon).  However, unlike FFXIV, LotRO simply doesn't have the content drops in the updates to buy Turbine the time to fix stuff.

Unlike FFXIV, however, the core mechanics of LotRO are so FUBAR'd that they can't do a ARR and make it work, as ARR was basically a redevelopment of the entire game around the core classes of FFXIV.

[Spiteful 94]

Is there any Phasing in U17 because it isn't a surprise that these go hand in hand:

• Minas Tirith - When entering taverns (specifically the 'Wheel and Cask' and 'Mumak and Keep') the floor occasionally won't load properly causing you to fall through it; relogging fixes it.
•  

• Moria - Travel route from Shadowed Refuge to Second Hall causes the goat to get stuck against a wall partway through

 

 

[warspeech 292]

Is there any Phasing in U17 because it isn't a surprise that these go hand in hand:

• Minas Tirith - When entering taverns (specifically the 'Wheel and Cask' and 'Mumak and Keep') the floor occasionally won't load properly causing you to fall through it; relogging fixes it.
•  

• Moria - Travel route from Shadowed Refuge to Second Hall causes the goat to get stuck against a wall partway through

 

 

Yeah, there's a version of Minas Tirith called "besieged MT", similar to the way they did Helm's Deep.

I've been logged in to get my crafting supplies stacked to 500 to free up space, and I'm getting a lot of lag.  This is on a closing server with no one in the immediate area.  

Weapon animations got screwed up again too.  In some cases, I've got weapons showing as both on my back and in my hands, and in others I've got weapons on my back and the LI glow effect displayed as if I'm carrying them.  Just the glow, not the weapon.  Cute.

Looks like trouble in Turbine-land to me.

[Danchir 35]

 

Weapon animations got screwed up again too.  In some cases, I've got weapons showing as both on my back and in my hands, and in others I've got weapons on my back and the LI glow effect displayed as if I'm carrying them.  Just the glow, not the weapon.  Cute.

Perhaps a side effect from the newly implemented cosmetic weapons system? The one that was impossible but then suddenly turned possible. Maybe not so possible, after all...

[warspeech 292]

Perhaps a side effect from the newly implemented cosmetic weapons system? The one that was impossible but then suddenly turned possible. Maybe not so possible, after all...

To be fair, now that I've been on longer today, the weapons weirdness only happened the first time I logged in to each of my characters.  After that, they looked fine.  So, not as annoying as it could be if it was happening all the time.

[Papi 87]

oh boy...what to say?  first impression was the very bad (as in, rushed and done dirt cheap) Siege of Minas Tirith loading screen...that for some reason says "coming soon"

the city took awhile to load, i even turned down my graphics a bit (which, is never a good sign when the exec producer tells you its probably best to do so), there were floating objects that should not be floating around the city.  and the stupid quests...right off the bat, they had me playing babysitter to a hobbit and feeding horses.  fucking feeding horses.

i didn't stay logged in long.

[Wrath of Winter 127]

Now I no longer need a tinfoil to think Lotro will be taken offline not due to WB cuts but simply due to Turbine breaking their own product beyond their skill level to repair by doing stuff like this.

A couple scenic screenshots of how Middle Earth looks like in u17: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?580929-Not-listed-known-issues-U17&p=7470592#post7470592 

Does anyone know how to post images in this new forum formatting? ('insert media' at the bottom times out and never loads) I'd have posted a pic of that new puerile splash screen. It's not even an intern-level job, it's a 5th grader messing around with Paint in computer lab. If their artist hasn't been laid off, someone clearly stayed up late last night to have this ready by 8am.

 

[Dakilven 57]

 

A couple scenic screenshots of how Middle Earth looks like in u17: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?580929-Not-listed-known-issues-U17&p=7470592#post7470592 

 

you sure that's not your graphics card doing that?

[Wrath of Winter 127]

you sure that's not your graphics card doing that?

Forgot to clarify, I wasn't the author of the linked post with the screenies. Might ride by those places to see if it looks the same to me. 

[Familiar 4]

Now I no longer need a tinfoil to think Lotro will be taken offline not due to WB cuts but simply due to Turbine breaking their own product beyond their skill level to repair by doing stuff like this.

A couple scenic screenshots of how Middle Earth looks like in u17: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?580929-Not-listed-known-issues-U17&p=7470592#post7470592 

Does anyone know how to post images in this new forum formatting? ('insert media' at the bottom times out and never loads) I'd have posted a pic of that new puerile splash screen. It's not even an intern-level job, it's a 5th grader messing around with Paint in computer lab. If their artist hasn't been laid off, someone clearly stayed up late last night to have this ready by 8am.

 

On an unrelated note I discovered on this thread, a few posts up, someone who copied a signature style I made for several people upon request. I'm a mixture between shocked and flattered.

[Thrabath 19]

They should have stopped making new systems a long time ago and just add new regions/ instances/ skirmishes/ big battles. The chance to break something is so much smaller that way

[FundinStrongarm 76]

They should have stopped making new systems a long time ago and just add new regions/ instances/ skirmishes/ big battles. The chance to break something is so much smaller that way

Fixed that for you. 

[Thrabath 19]

I agree they aren't very fun to do, esp. the big battles are worth playing 3/4 times at most, but I can understand (okay, i can't for BB's...) that there are people who like to play them and it's relative easy to build for them I think

[Brodrick 5]

I start Big Battles, go play Rift, come back 30 minutes later, and reap the harvest of stars of merit......;)
No effort, good reward.....

[Thequinn 185]

My solution was not to run those.  I recall a lot of groups I joined doing a random thing through the instance finder when there was a currency bonus which Turbine felt needed to be removed.  

Here's what happened with the instance finder. 

1.  When people went to use it the cue times were along the lines of 4 to 5 hours.  This was due to lack of people using it or it just did not work.  It works 100% better when your server has a large population or it is cross server where the pool of players is much larger (WOW, Rift, other games).  When it first started I tried to cue for a tank with all the instances check marked.  The wait time got to 4 hours on a Saturday when I finally gave up.  I did this as a test as I would never run a dungeon with randoms. 

2.  Since players were convinced it was broken they stopped using it. 

3.  Then someone got an idea.  Why not just form your own group in kin or GLFF (just like we have been doing since the dawn of MMO's)  and enter the instance via the finder for the currency bonus?  You can do this in other MMO's

SO they took away the bonus currency Why? 

[Almagnus1 83]

Here's what happened with the instance finder. 

1.  When people went to use it the cue times were along the lines of 4 to 5 hours.  This was due to lack of people using it or it just did not work.  It works 100% better when your server has a large population or it is cross server where the pool of players is much larger (WOW, Rift, other games).  When it first started I tried to cue for a tank with all the instances check marked.  The wait time got to 4 hours on a Saturday when I finally gave up.  I did this as a test as I would never run a dungeon with randoms. 

2.  Since players were convinced it was broken they stopped using it. 

3.  Then someone got an idea.  Why not just form your own group in kin or GLFF (just like we have been doing since the dawn of MMO's)  and enter the instance via the finder for the currency bonus?  You can do this in other MMO's

SO they took away the bonus currency Why? 

Players were making the grind less.

This is not allowed.