Originally posted by Lonzo
They should just fix the Character models. They look like 1993 and the customization is like from 1986.

You obviously wern't gaming in 1986 .

Heres a link to a video to Dungeon Master a game released in 1987 . You can quite clearly see how primative the graphics were .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho5E05Bi3bU

In 1993 Doom was released I'm sure we are all familiar with that game and it plain to see the character models in Lotro are superior

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJjMOy-Ops

So I think you picked a couple of years out of your head because you thought it made you sound like you knew what your talking about when in actual fact you don't

However I do agree the character animations in Lotro could do with an update .

Originally posted by Gaborik

Originally posted by Mardukk

Originally posted by Ehliya

Turbine now has scrolls you can buy in the cash store to max out your crafting skills?  I had to look twice and read that again slowly.

Cash-shop whoring some of the most devoted fans in the fantasy genre.   Not sure how much worse it can get.

I can't believe they sell scrolls to instant max crafting tiers.  I already hate their FTP restrictions (no quests past newbie) but this  is much worse.  I can't imagine why their 5+ year old game is struggling...oh yeah it's 5+ years old.  It was a nice 6 month diversion for me around Mirkwood but I think they have reached a point of  desperation and going about things in the wrong way.

 

Ok 1st off there is nothing in the store that give you instant max tier. You can buy scrolls that give you an extra 50% boost but not instant max. 2nd Lotro is still a good game and is also very active. My kinship alone has over 20 people on at any giving time and we are a smaller kin. ROR has been there best expansion since Moria, once they release the instances might pass it up. So people can say turbine sucks and has made mistakes but the game is still alive and well. The economy suck people, companies are struggling its no surprise video game companies are feeling the pain.

Yes there is! I couldn't believe it myself either.

I had some TP left and thought to buy those 50% XP boosters to speed up the Master tier of my Metalsmithing.... as I still have two more to go.

Then among the 50% XP boosters I saw the Tier completion scrolls!

As I was working on my Supreme Tier, I was faced with a Supreme Tier completion scroll for 4990 TP ! And a Expert Tier completion scroll for Tailor (as I didn't do much with that one, as Metalsmith is my main craft) for 3k TP or something.

So yes. They DO sell Crafting Tier completion scrolls in the store now! For quite hefty prices.

So people with big wallets can just buy their way to max out their crafting now! Absolutely disgusting!

PS. The store checks your character state and uses that as to what will be shown in the store.

You most likely have maxed out all crafting tiers? That might explain you do not see these Tier completion scrolls.

Originally posted by Cecropia
Looks like F2P conversions are time buyers and not the sweet saviour that many folks had dreamed. Ah well, it will be intriguing to see how everything unfolds.

That is the dumbest thing I have ever read.  No one thinks that F2P was going to make an MMO last forever.  Even a subscriber model can't manage that.  What it has done is add YEARS to the lifespan of an MMO.  Both DDO and possibly LOTRO would be closed by now if they hadn't gone F2P.

Originally posted by asmkm22

Originally posted by Xerith

Originally posted by Elsabolts

I've got a Lifetime sub and quit the game when it went F2P glad to see the Lay-offs.

Because people losing their jobs is cool right?

People lose their jobs because they make poor descisions.

 

The people losing the jobs aren't the ones making the decisions numbnuts.  The execs and marketing teams oversold what RoR and MotU would bring in for sales and WB ordered them to cut back on the workforce as a result.  You can bet none of the ones who lost their jobs yesterday were from the marketing department or were executives.

I still think turbine is to small a company to keep AC, DDO and LOTRO up. They proved numerous times one always get's the shaft,

DDO took a huge hit with Lotro release and Moria. Since the revamp of DDO, Lotro took a hit.
They finally decided to probably skeleton crew one more of their games, making effectively half a crew for those three games, maybe they stopped developing that hidden harry potter mmo, who knows.

As far as i can say, lotro does not seem to be affected at all, and a lost CM which job was putting up banners on external sites and chit chatting isn't a loss to me.

Now if we had GM live events on the other hand, i'd probably mourn a lost leading CM :)

Originally posted by skydiver12
Now if we had GM live events on the other hand, i'd probably mourn a lost leading CM :)

Actually we had that sometimes when we're under Codemasters... But then they dragged our servers over the Atlantic.

Originally posted by GeezerGaz82
the only thing I dislike really is the fact that every server is being hosted in the USA, including the supposed Europe servers. 

this is why our servers are only "supposed Europe servers" now.

I miss Codies... :)

Originally posted by Gaborik
This article never stated the layoffs were from the LOTRO team. And just last week they added 5 experienced developers. So these comments about the layoff prove lotro is failing are misguided. Granted lotro is not the most populated mmo out there or to some not the best. But from what my kinmates and experience day in and day out its still a very good and active game. I would bet the road to Mordor will continue and it will be a fun ride.

Fact:  At least two of the layoffs known at this point are Clover, a long time forum moderator, and Graalx2, a long time developer.

The only unconfirmed speculation here is your saying that the added hires were to the LOTRO team.  It has already been suggested that these hires are probably for their new production in the works.  But then, that's just speculation ;)

Again, at least two well known long term LOTRO employees are confirmed gone.

Originally posted by clumsytoes44
Really crappy new's turbine has made mistake's sure, but imho most of the really bad mistake's came after WB took control. Hopefully all the people who lost their job can find new one's in the near future.

But it all started with the release of SoM a truly craptastic "expansion" that lowered the bar drastically.  No one bought it and they then spent two years converting to F2P.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

No, F2P is not a lie. 

Eh.  Any game that doesn't give you immediate free access to the level cap isn't really F2P in my opinion.  It's more of a limited free trial.

Said thing when anyone gets laid off.

On another note so many clueless posters on this thread.  There is nothing with Lotro, it is still one of the best MMO's out there and a ton a people are playing it.  The character animations are fine, no worse or better than any other MMO.  Graphics are just as good as many of the newer MMO's.  Amazing the engine does that well after all these years.

If you are tired of playing this game, it is understandable, it is easy to burn out on any game, but don't try to come here and make up things that just are not true about the game.

Oh and Frodo there are lots of people in f2p mode at level cap or getting close, so yeah it is f2p.  Like any f2p it just depends how much time you have to spend in game.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

But it all started with the release of SoM a truly craptastic "expansion" that lowered the bar drastically.  No one bought it and they then spent two years converting to F2P.

Khm... /raisehands  I bought it :)

ok, not very proud of it, but I think it wasn't that bad. And true, after Mirkwood many players left the game.

Originally posted by HarryDresden

Originally posted by Cecropia
Looks like F2P conversions are time buyers and not the sweet saviour that many folks had dreamed. Ah well, it will be intriguing to see how everything unfolds.

That is the dumbest thing I have ever read.  You should really get out more ;) No one thinks that F2P was going to make an MMO last forever. No one said it would. Absolutely nothing lasts forever. Even a subscriber model can't manage that.  What it has done is add YEARS to the lifespan of an MMO.  Both DDO and possibly LOTRO would be closed by now if they hadn't gone F2P. With respect to sub numbers, LOTRO was at number three for western mmos very close to the time of the big switcheroo. This wasn't a dying game by any means. Turbine was obviously very excited with the success they had with DDOs F2P tranformation, and decided to roll the dice with LOTRO much to the shock of many. We'll never know how LOTRO would have fared had they continued with a P2P model, we do however now know how things are turning out for the F2P route.  There's a reason we heard very little about the health of the game with the exception of the initial attraction just after (F2P) launch. They rolled the dice, and instead of sustaining or even growing their playerbase for the mid/longterm, it looks as though Turbine just ended up buying themselves some time. They essentially squeezed the sponge dry.

I don't know about you, but that's not how I want to see my favorite titles bow out.

Originally posted by Cecropia

Originally posted by HarryDresden

Originally posted by Cecropia
Looks like F2P conversions are time buyers and not the sweet saviour that many folks had dreamed. Ah well, it will be intriguing to see how everything unfolds.

That is the dumbest thing I have ever read.  You should really get out more ;) No one thinks that F2P was going to make an MMO last forever. No one said it would. Absolutely nothing lasts forever. Even a subscriber model can't manage that.  What it has done is add YEARS to the lifespan of an MMO.  Both DDO and possibly LOTRO would be closed by now if they hadn't gone F2P. With respect to sub numbers, LOTRO was at number three for western mmos very close to the time of the big switcheroo. This wasn't a dying game by any means. Turbine was obviously very excited with the success they had with DDOs F2P tranformation, and decided to roll the dice with LOTRO much to the shock of many. We'll never know how LOTRO would have fared had they continued with a P2P model, we do however now know how things are turning out for the F2P route.  There's a reason we heard very little about the health of the game with the exception of the initial attraction just after (F2P) launch. They rolled the dice, and instead of sustaining or even growing their playerbase for the mid/longterm, it looks as though Turbine just ended up buying themselves some time. They essentially squeezed the sponge dry.

I don't know about you, but that's not how I want to see my favorite titles bow out.

I don't think it's accurate to blame the model for poor development and implementation.  Keeping on the same path they were on with regards to development I think they would be in a simialr situation now.

Going F2P actually hurt them in the longer run, in my opinion, because they weren't doing that poorly with their sub revenue.  If you look back at the PAX East Keynote with Paiz it's clear that they saw a revenue opportunity by moving to the F2P model which disenfranchised a reasonable portion of loyal players.  So couple that with poor development practices (slow content releases, slow and poor bug fixes, lack of design direction and focus - design by committee) and you have a recipe of imminent failure.

All this still doesn't mean the game will shut down though. I expect it will linger with diminishing quality of content updates and game play as time progresses.

Originally posted by JRonnie1976

Originally posted by Gaborik
This article never stated the layoffs were from the LOTRO team. And just last week they added 5 experienced developers. So these comments about the layoff prove lotro is failing are misguided. Granted lotro is not the most populated mmo out there or to some not the best. But from what my kinmates and experience day in and day out its still a very good and active game. I would bet the road to Mordor will continue and it will be a fun ride.

Fact:  At least two of the layoffs known at this point are Clover, a long time forum moderator, and Graalx2, a long time developer.

The only unconfirmed speculation here is your saying that the added hires were to the LOTRO team.  It has already been suggested that these hires are probably for their new production in the works.  But then, that's just speculation ;)

Again, at least two well known long term LOTRO employees are confirmed gone.

They didn't add any new members to the LOTRO team. The recent hirings were for their new focus towards the console platform.