by Darkgolem on Jul 11, 2007
There is nothing more exciting than seeing game developers scramble to answer player questions and fortunately they are good natured enough to try. The folks at Stratics recently had another of their well known House of Commons IRC chats and invited Lord of the Rings Online players to attend and ask anything they'd like. Now granted, we all know they just answer the questions they can and have the option of throwing things out but these seemed to be very straight forward responses to genuine concerns.
Some of the queries were not really groundbreaking and had all the excitement of the E! True Ben Affleck story but there were a few insightful statements made which I think bare repeating. In attendance to brave the firing squad was: Community Manager Patience, Forum Moderator Saffron, Lead WorldBuilder Scenario, Content Designer Amlug, and Creative Director Annuvin.
One of the early questions asked was "The champion class got an update in Book 9. Which class will be getting an update in Book 10, and what kind of skills can that class look forward to receiving?" Annuvin replied, "Book 10 is the combo month of the Hunter and the Captain. As a general rule, we're trying to make roles a lot more clear for each class, as well as ensuring they have broader bases. You can expect the Hunter to be gaining more damage capability, in addition to more types of traps, while the Captain is going to gain more options as well."
Should there be such drastic class updates only a few months after launch? I'll admit I'm fairly satisfied with the changes they made to the Champion class but can we expect Loremasters and Burglars to see updates in Book 11 and 12? The expanded traps should make the Hunters happy and what Captain wouldn't want more options to give their class group utility?
Later there was an inquiry about what could be shared regarding the next update, Book 10. Now obviously there will be changes to the Hunter and Captain as mentioned above. There were a few other things such as: "MULTIPLE session play instances, public hunting dungeons, a new bartering system, additions to the epic story, and four new instances."
Now the Multiple Session play instances were covered last week in the Session Play preview they gave us. If you are curious we provided a nice overview and some thoughts on it, here. It'll allow you to play a Chicken, Troll, Ranger, etc.... and view Middle-earth from a different perspective.
Public Hunting Dungeons really sounded interesting. If there was one traditional fantasy MMO aspect Lord of the Rings Online is missing, it's contested dungeons. There need to be non-instanced large scale underground caverns with slime and dirt and buried treasure and pirates and...well you get the drift. This is long overdue and a welcome addition to the game.
The new bartering system really was just left at that. Are players bartering for sheep? Chickens? Cows? Baubles? I'd have loved to see a follow-up to this question but alas we might have to wait until they announce it on the forums.
The epic story is a given, but what about these four new instances? Most speculation puts these with the end game or around level 40+ where considerable content complaints have been made. What I find most encouraging about this is new content has been added the last two updates. They are setting the bar high for themselves, but it should please the players.
There were a few more brief things mentioned worth noting. The first of which was player housing which Turbine seems to be very serious about implementing. They confirmed it will provide players storage, but could not verify whether you'll be able to decorate it similar to SWG/EQ2.
Another fairly significant statement has another race/class being added with an expansion in the future. While of course there was nothing solid, Annuvin did say plans were in the works. Are there any races left? Classes would seem a lot easier of a route to go.
Well there is the bulk of it folks. Are we saying there were only 5 good questions asked? Absolutely not! There were a number of other good points made, but in the grand scheme these were the highlights of the chat. If you'd like to read the entire transcript head over the Stratics and find it here. I'd encourage you to attend the next Stratics House of Commons, and who knows? Maybe your question will get answered.