Not exactly the smoothest book update.

All 4 new instances are bugged.

Large amount of lag and connection issues.

Several reports of players logging into other players characters.

Someone even had screenshots from in game with a popup asking 'Do you want to destroy the Auction House"

The forums went down at 9am CST along with the Lorebook and a few other areas of the main www.lotro.com site.

Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

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Originally posted by Khrymson
Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

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I think just the opposite. MoM was a smooth launch and the game has continued to grow and improve. LOTRO is still one of the best mmo's out there.

I know there are some issues with book 8, but I was able to do two of the new instances without issues. People in our kin were complaining about some bugs though. I think they did release this one a bit early, but I heard some of the big issues would resolved by tomorrow.

Patch day in any mmo is never perfect.

Forums are back up.  I was a little afraid that this would be a blackout like happened in Horizons.  :(

Originally posted by Khrymson

Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

Downhill?  Game seems way better to me now than it was in the earlier days.  It does appear though they should have delayed this Book a tad longer though to iron things out because it is rather buggy.  Not the worst update/patch I've ever seen (that award would go to Funcom about a hundred times over) but I would have expected better from Turbine.

On a bright note, it does seem least to some extent the exploit issue causing mobs to bug out to where you have to try and do the mamba to get them to attack properly has been fixed in the zones itself.  On a bad note, there are issues with all of the new instances.  Although hopefully over the next few days they iron this out.

Like anoter poster said though not like issues showing up on patch day is anything new with mmos.  I did think it would go a little better though.

Of the mentioned issues I've experienced pretty much all of them.  Did a 3-man instance and the boss bugged... Had to disband group.  Logged out and then couldn't log in again for another hour.  Seems to be server-wide 1 second lag freezes.  This is the worst patch launch I've ever seen in this game.  Hopefully Thursday teh buggy instances will be fixed.

Literally all I did last night was log onto each of my toons, reorganize their banks, and trade in their crit items for the new ones.  Freed up a ton of bank space, and the organization of my crit items is a lot more logical now.   But man, that was ceratinly not my idea of excitement. 

Oh yeah, and I cut some gems, smelted some ore,  and tanned some hides.  Wheeee!

Looking forward to actually doing some adventuring tonight.

Originally posted by Yeebo

Literally all I did last night was log onto each of my toons, reorganize their banks, and trade in their crit items for the new ones.  Freed up a ton of bank space, and the organization of my crit items is a lot more logical now.   But man, that was ceratinly not my idea of excitement. 

I wish i could have that much excitement.

Us poor schlobs in the EU, haven't even got the patch yet.

It's been delayed until codemasters  "can go live with the fixes to these issues"

But more worrying this statement  "Please note that further issues discovered on the US service may preclude us from releasing Book 8 until further hotfixes are received".
 

Still, i love this game so much that i'll forgive Turbine this time. Just get it fixed ASAP guys....PLEASE

I too play on the EU servers, and I have to actually applaud Codemasters for wanting to hold off the application of Book 8 to our servers and that they will hold off as long as it takes for Turbine to get the fixes through.  Especially seeing the issues that had developed over on the US side.

I do personally hope next time Turbine will look back and not release until known bugs are squashed instead of release on time then hotfix.  I know other companies have done worse but stil... ;)

Originally posted by Arkronis

I too play on the EU servers, and I have to actually applaud Codemasters for wanting to hold off the application of Book 8 to our servers and that they will hold off as long as it takes for Turbine to get the fixes through.  Especially seeing the issues that had developed over on the US side.

I do personally hope next time Turbine will look back and not release until known bugs are squashed instead of release on time then hotfix.  I know other companies have done worse but stil... ;)

 

 

Yeah, I really don't understand why they felt they had to push this Book out before it was obviously ready to go live.  Rather foolish on their part.

Either that or maybe some prior Funcom devs and managers were hired by Turbine recently.

Originally posted by Khrymson

Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

I agree with this claim. I still play since beta paying for every month, but since MoM I rather feel they are making really bad decisions and the gameplay is actually going down.

I blame lifetime subscr. system for that. Old customers are no longer important - they no longer pay and their opinion (when they chosed the game at first place) is no longer valid. Their strategy will always be to change the game's focus and vision to lure new players instead of keeping old ones.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Khrymson

Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

 

I agree with this claim. I still play since beta paying for every month, but since MoM I rather feel they are making really bad decisions and the gameplay is actually going down.

I blame lifetime subscr. system for that. Old customers are no longer important - they no longer pay and their opinion (when they chosed the game at first place) is no longer valid. Their strategy will always be to change the game's focus and vision to lure new players instead of keeping old ones.

I hope this is not the case. You would think that companies would have learned something from the SOE SWG CU/NGE disaster.

I like LOTRO and have only noticed 1 bug and a few instances of severe lag. I have no doubt that there are more.

Turbine does need to be more careful about releasing new content before it is thoroughly tested.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Khrymson

Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

 

I agree with this claim. I still play since beta paying for every month, but since MoM I rather feel they are making really bad decisions and the gameplay is actually going down.

I blame lifetime subscr. system for that. Old customers are no longer important - they no longer pay and their opinion (when they chosed the game at first place) is no longer valid. Their strategy will always be to change the game's focus and vision to lure new players instead of keeping old ones.

Eh...I feel quite the opposite and I played this game when it first went live.  To me it's a hell of a lot better now then it was then.  I like the direction they're taking myself for the most part.

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Originally posted by Khrymson
Good thing I decided not to return, for pretty much ever!  LOTRO has gone downhill severely since MoM!

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I agree with this as well. Played LotRO for over 2 years since private beta and am a lifetimer. Ever since MoM, I've lost interest. I leveled my guard to 54 and got bored. So I leveled a captain to 50. Had a blast until I reached Moria, and once again lost interest.

It feels like Turbine is pushing the game into a more gear-oriented game than it used to be. It's turning into a gated, grind-fest, imo. Some people enjoy that kind of play. I don't, so I'm putting LotRO aside for a while.

I personally am not concerned about the bugs at new books if they are fixed hastly, i'm more concerned about the lack of vision fromd devs. SoA was quite casual, there was very high item customization -- you had a lot of different armour equally strong from various contents (raiding, soloing, small groups, crafting etc..)

Now you have radiance, which is far more superior -- each class has one radiance. Hence everyone has the same bonuses. On the top of it you need this radiance to get into the new raid. It's ridiculous.

And I rather won't mention the legendaries...
 

Most of the people that were lifetimes are gone now, because they don't like the changes. But Turbine got a new wave of customers, which might like these new things. And this will probably go on -- blame lifetime system.

Originally posted by Thillian

I personally am not concerned about the bugs at new books if they are fixed hastly, i'm more concerned about the lack of vision fromd devs. SoA was quite casual, there was very high item customization -- you had a lot of different armour equally strong from various contents (raiding, soloing, small groups, crafting etc..)

Now you have radiance, which is far more superior -- each class has one radiance. Hence everyone has the same bonuses. On the top of it you need this radiance to get into the new raid. It's ridiculous.

And I rather won't mention the legendaries...
 

Most of the people that were lifetimes are gone now, because they don't like the changes. But Turbine got a new wave of customers, which might like these new things. And this will probably go on -- blame lifetime system.

 

Yeah, I'm a lifetimer and decided to take a break. They went from having four different routes to getting good gear, raiding, crafting, random world drops, pvp. Those were all about on par with each other. Now you either have radiance gear and are pimped out or you don't have radiance gear and are gimped out.

They completely borked high end crafting into being pointless. I could actually go on about how they totally took this game in an opposite direction that any one was expecting and I am sure, like others have stated, plenty of us lifetimers are taking off at least for a bit. Oh, well I got my money's worth out of it.

Originally posted by seabass2003

Originally posted by Thillian

I personally am not concerned about the bugs at new books if they are fixed hastly, i'm more concerned about the lack of vision fromd devs. SoA was quite casual, there was very high item customization -- you had a lot of different armour equally strong from various contents (raiding, soloing, small groups, crafting etc..)

Now you have radiance, which is far more superior -- each class has one radiance. Hence everyone has the same bonuses. On the top of it you need this radiance to get into the new raid. It's ridiculous.

And I rather won't mention the legendaries...
 

Most of the people that were lifetimes are gone now, because they don't like the changes. But Turbine got a new wave of customers, which might like these new things. And this will probably go on -- blame lifetime system.

 

Yeah, I'm a lifetimer and decided to take a break. They went from having four different routes to getting good gear, raiding, crafting, random world drops, pvp. Those were all about on par with each other. Now you either have radiance gear and are pimped out or you don't have radiance gear and are gimped out.

They completely borked high end crafting into being pointless. I could actually go on about how they totally took this game in an opposite direction that any one was expecting and I am sure, like others have stated, plenty of us lifetimers are taking off at least for a bit. Oh, well I got my money's worth out of it.

I'm a original lifetimer (#0145) myself , and a dedicated crafter in all disipline... oh boy,  what a bummer MOM was.

I stayed until now in hope of improvement, but no.. just more raid or die attude, so time for a very long break.

This is exactly what happens when the company offers lifetime subscribtion.

In other words it means they will not care about the vision that lured the market segment that went for lifetime, and rather change the vision sooner or later to lure new kind of players -- new market segment. That will partially again go for the lifetime, and so they change the vision again, over and over and over again.

Most of the fe atures that made the game good at first place are no longer present.

Game is patched, and book 8 is amazing.

Originally posted by solareus

Game is patched, and book 8 is amazing.

Ditto. It was well worth the wait. All the changes Turbine have made have really helped streamline the lower levels.

The quest updates to the Breeland area are simply brilliant. New quests and hubs, a completely revamped Barrow Downs and better use of what was barren areas of north Bree. I've just leveled a Man Minstrel to level 23 and i have to say, this is some of the best fun i've had in a while. I always felt a sense of purpose and direction.

Apart from the slight release delay, this has been a textbook example of how to update a game - no nerfing.  Just tweak the good to make it great - Well done Turbine, now on to book 9.....