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Any word yet on next major expansion?
burdock2
Member UncommonPosts: 420
Just wondering if I have missed anything relating to the next major paid expansion (the last one being Helms Deep). Any info would be much appreciated, thankyou!
Comments
They announced we wouldn't get one this year, instead a lot of little updates and a new class, and a level bump to 100 (which already happened).
Presumably the next expansion will be announced sometime next year...
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
What jeremy wrote. Turbine stated after HD that in 2014 there won't be a big expansion, there will be 2 smaller ones instead, alongside with smaller updates and fixes (and also they killed Kenny the housing revamp, those bastards
).
The first of those two (U14) went live the summer, with West Gondor, level cap raise to 100 and with the essence system. There were several smaller updates before and after that, latest one is U14.2.
The other bigger one, U15 will go live probably at the end of the year, with a cap raise to 105 (*) and the new class. Also with upgrades to the music system, according to a recent post of PM.
(*)edit: that plan was revoked, too many folks requested that the cap should stay at 100 for a while, due to gearing and grind issues.
This is correct except they changed it so there will be no raise to 105 in U15.
My bad, it was a long night before and I totally forgot Rowan's letter...
As Xerenix said, no additional level cap raise this year.
Haven't kept too close an eye on LOTRO, but it seems to be in maintenance mode now? What are the bulk of Turbine devs working on? Do we know? Or has WB striped the entire team down to bare bones?
Ask not as a hater or anything like that. I've just been really enjoying my time in Minecraft lately.
They're still regularly adding stuff, just not as much content as people would like. Update 14 went live a couple of months ago, and 15 will be out before Christmas.
Apparently it makes a ton of money, but it looks like hardly anything gets put back into the game.
LOTRO has a welcome back promo happening at the moment. I fired up the game over the weekend (after nearly a year away), and I forgot how really good this game is. And massive. So huge.
I think the LI grind pissed me off last time. I've left that high level character and am bringing up a new one. We'll see how that LI system shakes out this time.
I've been getting back into it recently too. Because of the very dated engine it's easy to forget how good the game is really. I just wish they'd work on stuff for new players, I'm sure many are put off by the very basic character models and animations, etc.
There's an absolute ton of content for sure. I've bought the experience disabler so I can play a bit more of it without levelling too quickly.
A very unfortunate timing for the post... the +25% welcome back boost is switched on for September, so it will be gone today
But of course LotRO is cool even without the welcome back bonus.
LI grind hasn't changed during your 1year leave, it's still huge sadly, and now there's also the essence grind on top of that...
Strange... they messed it up
instead of switching off the 25% welcome back boost, they switched on Hobnanigans - a day earlier than announced (Friday to Sunday).
So there's a chance the xp boost will stay during the weekend... usually they don't mess around with config during events.
People still play this? Yep. (http://postimg.org/image/a38228usf/ from yesterday evening, for example)
...why would anyone waste their time? Because it's fun, mayhaps?
We need a much better LOTR game. Agree on that, a few more LotR rpg's would be great to have. I don't think it will happen in the near future however, not while WB is wasting their money and resources on craps like Assassin's Creedor...
I wish Bioware would have made LOTR instead of The Old Republic. Nope. Maybe a singleplayer one, but not an mmo.
SoM is awesome, that is all.
And you should be thankful they're releasing LOTR games and movies and the IP is very relevant. That's about the only way LOTRO is getting any new players.
I would be thankful... but there's two small, tiny details...
Creedor is not an rpg. Heck, it's not even a (much lowlier category) action-rpg, it's just a console action game.
It's not a LotR game, it was only WB's marketing plan. If you switch every "Mordor" in game to "Orc land", Gondor to "Man home" and Celebrimbor to "Spooky ghost" (great South Park episode btw
), you wouldn't even notice it has anything to do with LotR.
Anyhow, back to the thread's title, about expansion/updates. Rowan's letter was posted today: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?557012-A-Letter-From-Executive-Producer-Aaron-Campbell-October-2014
Beornings arriving on Bullroarer tomorrow
edit: about fitting the lore, yep, beornings will most likely take the lore-breaker title from rune-keepers, hence the smiley above
but the new areas will be fun hopefully, and I'm curious about the new book quests too.
It's a LOTR game, it says so right on the box. Just because you decided that you don't like the game before you even played it or knew what it was about doesn't mean it's not a LOTR game. You missed a lot of parts in there too, as it has Sauron, who I'm guessing would be "Big Daddy Moonshine" and Gollum, aka "Super slim catchy guy". Smacking condescending names on ancillary characters and thinking it proves anything just makes you look immature to be honest, and shows a lack of respect for a lot of talented peoples work.
I don't rightly care if you call it an RPG or not. Its clear you're operating under a strict self imposed hipster nerd code and I don't want so sway you from that, it's actually pretty funny in a sad way.
SoM will do more for the IP than LOTRO would ever hope to, as far as reaching a wider audience and strengthening the brand. As a fan I'm all for that, apparently you just want LOTR to fill your tiny vision of what it is while remaining oblivious to the numerous genres that are quickly surpassing your own interests by. That's quite common in fanboy-dom, unfortunately objectivity is not, which is why nobody but you will take your skewed opinion seriously.
Ouch, that must hurt a lot.
There, there... it's ok, don't hold in, let it all out nicely.
Back to the topic, the mechanics of the beorning seems pretty interesting so far, and also fun. I believe it has potential. Of course that's the least it should offer, considering Turbine will charge 1000 TP for it, which is more than warden or rune-keeper, and the creep classes...
I'm not in a lot of pain right now, except for the lingering effects of a hangover. Sorry to disappoint you.
You should go watch some south park or something, it'll make you feel better. Or better yet play SoM, it's such an improvement on Tolkien's work.
Do you know the total cost of the xpac? Or will you be able to pick and choose ala carte the bits you want from U15? If the latter, that'd be great since I don't see myself playing the Beorning, but the other parts of the xpac look promising.
Nothing is set in stone yet, all is tentative, etc. etc. So the following is just an opinion, obviously, don't take my words granted
If you're a Vip, you get everything for the subscription, except the new class - that's a need-to-purchase for everyone.
If you're Premium or F2p, you need to buy both the beorning, and Central Gondor too. You can do that separately of course, a'la carte as you wrote. Dunno the price, probably like the other "bigger" quest packs, 7-800TP. For the beorning there will be a bundle too with a +1 character slot included, for those who have all the slots filled.
Basically non-Vip folks only get the general updates for free (like the music system upgrades, essences, class updates), plus the Epic questline in Central Gondor (Volume IV Book 2), and once it was mentioned that the new epic battle will be free as well, but that would be strange imo. Maybe for those who have Helm's Deep already? Without HD a single epic battle sounds odd. But who knows, maybe they will do it for marketing / promotional reasons, to boost HD sales.
Well, it went live, almost two hours before maintenance deadline, very unusual from Turbine
Notes: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?558300-Update-15-Release-Notes
Download is pretty slow, I think everyone's updating at the same time... for me it took almost an hour, apparently others were much faster since the starter areas are already filled with beornings. By the time I got in, the highest I saw was lvl13 - not counting those of course, who've bought the Valar gift and were above lvl50.
Prices, pretty much what I've guessed above. Beorning is 1000 TP (for Vips too), or with the character slot bundle 1300. Ok, 1295. (character slot is 595 normally, so it's a bit better.)
Central Gondor is free for Vips, 795 TP for the others.
Pelargir (the new epic battle), it was slapped into the Helm's Deep expansion technically, so free for anyone who owns HD, and not accessible to those who don't have HD - regardless of Vip or f2p status.