General Discussion

Turbine has posted this great (and interesting) dev journal about designing Forochel from a World Builder's perspective. In MMO production, World Builders are the ones who populate the world withe verything from hills to rivers to buildings to deserts.

After weeks of teasing the Isengard players and later the Live forums, it is now known without a doubt that Forochel is the newest playable region for The Lord of the Rings OnlineTM: Shadows of AngmarTM. With the launch of Book 13: Doom of the Last-king, players will get the opportunity to explore this brand new region (aimed at level 44-50 characters) and earn the trust of the Lossoth - the native folk of the Northern Wastes.

Forochel is a region that many of us on the World and Content teams have been looking forward to for a long time now. It is off the beaten path of the Fellowship, which affords us a lot of flexibility in terms of design. This new landscape also gave us an opportunity to try out some new tools that were just recently developed for our upcoming expansion, Mines of Moria!

Read it all here.

Wow, it looks like I'm not the only one that noticed some of the higher level regions are getting redundant.  The devs seem to be aware of this as well and are attempting to distinguish Forochel from the other snowy regions by adding other creative elements.  This is reassuring. 

I find the article humorous actually... Turbine pats themselves on the back for extensive testing/learning of the ways that players enjoy their zone/mob setups, yet then they introduce this whole new "chilled to the bone" mechanic.

Let me let you onto a little something Turbine: Players do not like having to run to cities/hotspots or make campfires every X minutes because of diminished efficiency due to a completely artificial mechanic. There needs to be a way to negate this effect permanently else i honestly dont see myself going to this zone all that often. It's the dread mechanics conversation all over again: If you want to make your game hard, make the AI more intelligent, the encounters more intense and/or add mechanics that require actual skill. Don't simply add artificial barriers/debuffs that frustrate your players.

this sounds quite exciting!

I love the idea of environment and weather having an effect on charactors  hope some day they get the opertunity to do a desert region  maby south of rohan or mordor.

I HOPE THEY HAVE SLIPPERY ICE!!!!!  nothing has been more fun than being able to slide accross ice or slide down an icy hillside!  this is almost a minigame itself!   city of heroes had some slippery ice, very popular

I hope they do more than just more snow covered terrain like misty mountains,, it should be much colder and glacial      glaciers calving icebergs into turquoise blue pools      Ice so thick  it turns dark blue

not to mention cravases and ice tunnels!

I hope fire and flame weapons can do more damage.

My Hunter's ability to make campfires better be able to fight this cold stuff. Or i'm gonna be piiiiiiiisssed!

A 'fake' fire would be soooo retarded

Originally posted by Phyluxia

I find the article humorous actually... Turbine pats themselves on the back for extensive testing/learning of the ways that players enjoy their zone/mob setups, yet then they introduce this whole new "chilled to the bone" mechanic.

Let me let you onto a little something Turbine: Players do not like having to run to cities/hotspots or make campfires every X minutes because of diminished efficiency due to a completely artificial mechanic. There needs to be a way to negate this effect permanently else i honestly dont see myself going to this zone all that often. It's the dread mechanics conversation all over again: If you want to make your game hard, make the AI more intelligent, the encounters more intense and/or add mechanics that require actual skill. Don't simply add artificial barriers/debuffs that frustrate your players.

Yes, because bitter cold having an effect on a character is so terrible and unrealistic.  But if it makes you feel any better it's already been stated that there would be "warmer" armor that would keep a character warmer for much longer than without.

The concerned hunter also needs not worry, they've already confirmed both hunter and crafted campfires work.

Sounds like a great update to me!  I like the cold-effects idea.

Adds a bit more challenge to the area...

I don't play this game but this sounds wickedly cool.  I think the environment should play a part in the game.  I wish other games would make use of this kinda stuff to slow down and impede a players ability to move.   Maybe they can introduce snowshoes for when snow gets deep and what about blizzard conditions and it is near impossible to see(white out conditions) this could stop a palyer or a group of players in their tracks.   Stuff like this can only enhance the game play factor and make the game a lot more challanging and interesting.

Originally posted by wykkid79

 

Originally posted by Phyluxia

I find the article humorous actually... Turbine pats themselves on the back for extensive testing/learning of the ways that players enjoy their zone/mob setups, yet then they introduce this whole new "chilled to the bone" mechanic.

Let me let you onto a little something Turbine: Players do not like having to run to cities/hotspots or make campfires every X minutes because of diminished efficiency due to a completely artificial mechanic. There needs to be a way to negate this effect permanently else i honestly dont see myself going to this zone all that often. It's the dread mechanics conversation all over again: If you want to make your game hard, make the AI more intelligent, the encounters more intense and/or add mechanics that require actual skill. Don't simply add artificial barriers/debuffs that frustrate your players.

 

Yes, because bitter cold having an effect on a character is so terrible and unrealistic.  But if it makes you feel any better it's already been stated that there would be "warmer" armor that would keep a character warmer for much longer than without.

 

The concerned hunter also needs not worry, they've already confirmed both hunter and crafted campfires work.

no dice chief. I didnt say it wasnt realistic. I said it wasnt fun. You want similar realism... why dont they make you have to go the batrhoom? That way when you have to go, you need to stop what you're doing, dig a hole and squat for 45 seconds, or make a trip to your local town and find an outhouse. And of course, if you dont, you cant fight effectively because your bladder is too full to concentrate. Fun, huh? Same result from this mechanic as the "getting cold" mechanic. It's an artificial waste of time/debuff that Turbine uses to convey an the image of challenge.