LOTRO: Producer's Letter March 2022
According to Oleg Brodskiy (AKA Raninia) in his latest Producer's Letter for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, there are some major changes coming in April. These are part of the ongoing restructuring of the game’s monetisation. Previously, in the last content update, the Premium Wallet, Gold Currency Cap, and Virtue, Race, and Class trait slots were made free to all players (prior to this, all were chargeable unlocks). In Update 33, which will be coming in April, “all quests, areas, instances, and expansions released between the original launch of LOTRO back in 2007 and up to – and including! - the release of Helm’s Deep will be available for free to everyone”. Furthermore, subscribers will be able to access the standard versions of the Mordor, Minas Morgul, and War of Three Peaks expansions.
According to Oleg Brodskiy (AKA Raninia) in his latest Producer's Letter for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, there are some major changes coming in April. These are part of the ongoing restructuring of the game’s monetisation. Previously, in the last content update, the Premium Wallet, Gold Currency Cap, and Virtue, Race, and Class trait slots were made free to all players (prior to this, all were chargeable unlocks). In Update 33, which will be coming in April, “all quests, areas, instances, and expansions released between the original launch of LOTRO back in 2007 and up to – and including! - the release of Helm’s Deep will be available for free to everyone”. Furthermore, subscribers will be able to access the standard versions of the Mordor, Minas Morgul, and War of Three Peaks expansions.
Another change is that the following classes Rune-keepers, Wardens, Beornings as well as the High Elves race will be free to all players. All were previously tied to the purchase of expansions and as those are now to be accessible free of charge, Standing Stone Games thought it fair to follow suit with these. To put these changes into perspective, from April F2P players will now be able to play through all the games content, at no cost, up to level 95. Players who do not wish to subscribe after level 95 will still have to buy the last three expansions. However, subscribers will be able to play through all of the game’s content, apart from the latest expansion Fate of Gundabad. These changes finally resolve the issue of content gating which has been a major source of complaint from new and returning players for years.
The next update will also see the addition of a new area within The Shire. “The northern region known as the Yondershire, a sparsely populated region of moor, thicket, and fen that has long been home to Hobbit recluses and troublemakers. Since the time of Bullroarer Took, the Yondershire has squabbled with the more comfortable parts of the Shire. The upstart Lotho Sackville-Baggins aims to bully the local Hobbits, but they’re none too keen on his designs. Explore the Yondershire, and experience some more delightful Hobbit adventures, our first expansion of the Shire in years”. April will also see the return of the Anniversary Festival as LOTRO reaches 15 years old. A new instance, A Flurry of Fireworks, will be added to the existing events.
These forthcoming changes have been very well received by the LOTRO community. The streamlining of content access and previous changes regarding removing the cost key quality of life items now means that the game is extremely friendly to new and returning players. Many people play MMOs to be with friends and to play through content together. Hence many games such as The Elder Scrolls Online have level scaling content so players of different levels can still play together equitably. LOTRO at present does not have this facility and due to the previous gating of content behind paid expansions, it would often feel that there was a huge gulf separating players from their friends if they were of differing levels. These changes certainly help address this with the prospect of not having to pay for any content up to level 95. It will be interesting to see if there will be an influx of new and returning players in April.
LOTRO: The Producer’s Letter is Now Quarterly
On the 31st December 2021 (nine days ago), Oleg Brodskiy (AKA Raninia) posted his latest Producer’s Letter for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. As ever, it wasn’t exactly promoted with any enthusiasm, being mentioned just once by the official LOTRO Twitter account. So I only discovered it yesterday when it was referenced by Justin Olivetti in a post over at Massively Overpowered. The letter mentions broadly what is coming to the game in the not too distant future. No one was surprised by what’s on offer as much has already been alluded to or openly discussed over the course of last year. A new raid, housing in Erebor, the new Legendary Item reward track and a new zone in Southern Trollshaw; the Angle of Mitheithel which has level 40 to 45 content. However, one important change is that the Producer’s Letter is now to be a quarterly publication.
On the 31st December 2021 (nine days ago), Oleg Brodskiy (AKA Raninia) posted his latest Producer’s Letter for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. As ever, it wasn’t exactly promoted with any enthusiasm, being mentioned just once by the official LOTRO Twitter account. So I only discovered it yesterday when it was referenced by Justin Olivetti in a post over at Massively Overpowered. The letter mentions broadly what is coming to the game in the not too distant future. No one was surprised by what’s on offer as much has already been alluded to or openly discussed over the course of last year. A new raid, housing in Erebor, the new Legendary Item reward track and a new zone in Southern Trollshaw; the Angle of Mitheithel which has level 40 to 45 content. However, one important change is that the Producer’s Letter is now to be a quarterly publication.
At first glance, publishing a quarterly Producer’s Letter is a great way to address the long term criticism that Standing Stone Games doesn’t handle its communication and community relationships very well. Posting a news missive every three months provides a vehicle for appraising players of forthcoming changes and an opportunity to address their concerns. It is more immediate than the previous yearly approach and highlights the ongoing work that the development team at SSG are doing. No doubt players will welcome this change. However, it can be argued that by following a quarterly press release schedule, longer term “goals” will not be discussed as they have been in previous yearly roadmaps. A more concise form of PR focused on three months periods is a more controlled form of PR. Many of the points that were raised by Raninia last July in the “delayed” yearly Producer’s Letter remain outstanding. Does the new schedule mean that they’ll be conveniently forgotten?
It should be noted that among the various content announcements mentioned in the latest producer’s Letter, there are still a few references to ongoing long term goals. Class rebalancing is one, although I can understand why SSG would wish to defer this for as long as possible because it really is a poison chalice. Class rebalances divide players and are seldom well received. More importantly, the letter specifically mentions lag which continues to plague the game. Currently new zones such as Gundabad suffer a lot of lag due to the numbers of players in the zone. However, lag still exists in both old and new content. Rohan and Minas Tirith are still areas with major stuttering and hitching. Plus missions are subject to lag both while playing and when trying to communicate with the associated NPC, afterwards. If this could be fixed, I’d happily take that as a 15th anniversary gift.
Another year on and I’m still very curious about the future of LOTRO. Comments left on a previous post that I wrote, by an informed source, has made me very sceptical about the likelihood of a console port anytime soon. It sounds to me as if the entire game would need to be re-written. In theory that would mean creating both a new PC and console version running on some contemporary game engine. Such an undertaking would be costly and time consuming. EG7 have indicated that they hope that the media attention generated by Amazon’s forthcoming Middle-earth TV show will translate into interest for LOTRO. As the show is due for release in Q4 2022, they will need to be prompt in delivering a product suitable for the tastes and needs of a modern gaming audience. I suspect that none of this will happen and that LOTRO as we know it, warts and all, will be all that greets potential new players. Looks like 2022 is going to be another year of watching and waiting. Hope can be a finite commodity.