Hello everyone, and welcome to the first Wayback Wednesday recap of the new year. Maybe I should follow Bill's lead and call this season two? With the holiday season in full swing over the course of the past two weeks most developers were everywhere but their studios so I went it alone on the show. To close out the last year and to herald in the new I spent some time playing my new guilty pleasure, Lord of the Rings Online.
The team over at LotRO did have a few parting gifts for the community before they scattered in the winds. They held their first ever Twitter Q&A, Senior Producer Aaron "Rowan" Campbell provided a Letter from the Producer, and they extended, for a few days anyway, the winter festival.
In the twitter Q&A, the team consisting of Aaron Campbell, Lead Systems Designer Matt Zimmitti, World Designer Matt Fahey, Senior Content Designer Lauren Salk, Senior Content Designer Joe Barry, and Sapience (aka Community Manager Rick Heaton) fielded 25 questions that were submitted to them by users containing the hashtags #LOTRO #DEVCHAT. One of the most pressing questions was the first one received from fans. “How do you feel mounted combat has been received?”
Matt Zimmitti had this to say, "has been very well received so far. We're already incorporating feedback into the system.... Specifically, we're looking into ways to make the classes have more of a distinct impact in future updates." I have never been a fan of homogenized classes so I'm happy to hear they are working on ways to make class roles feel different in mounted combat, especially since it is currently such a large part of end game. For those of you that are interested in monster play there was some exciting news in the Q&A for you too. Matt Z also said he's hoping players could see new creep appearances in update 10 and 11.
In Aaron's Letter from the Producer he highlighted what he believe was LotRO's major successes in 2012:
- LOTRO’s 5th Anniversary Celebration
- The Great River region
- Open Tapping and Remote Looting (Which I love)!
- Revised Moria quest lines and story
- Scaled Fornost and Dol Guldur instances
- Audacity and Ettenmoors keep capture update.
I'm currently leveling a guardian through Moria for the first time and it doesn't feel that grindy, which I know was a point of contention in the past with players. I also really appreciate the open tapping and remote looting. I have stopped a number of times and helped players kill signature mobs that may have got the jump on them, or they just bit off more than they can chew, and vice verse. I'm not sure that this help is something that would have happened prior to these additions. Aaron also briefly mentioned what the players will find in the next instance cluster update. These will be focused on the raider. There will be one 6 person instance but there will be 3 new 12 person raids. We can also expect in the future to see more scaled instances as well as more Epic Story.
For tonight's edition of Wayback Wednesday we will once again join up with the team from Mythic and battle it out in Dark Age of Camelot. This time we will take the fight to the Thidranki battle ground representing the Realm of Albion. I decided this time to play a Reaver and it is the most fun you can have with a whip outside of the bedroom. The action will start live at 9:30 EST on our MMORPG.com stream channel. Also you have up until show time tonight to submit your answer to last month's question "If DAoC went free to play how would you monetize it?' in an attempt to win a 30 day game time card. Just lick through to last month's article to leave your response. If you have another other questions or comments about LotRO or DAoC please leave them in the comment space below. Don't forget you can also find me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. We have also started a MMORPG.com community on G+ which you can find here. As always, thanks for watching!
