Siege of Mirkwood Release Date

Hayo! We got a launch date for the Siege of Mirkwood digital expansion. And it is *drum roll* December 1st. This is actually a bit later than I predicted. I would have figured on a pre-Thanksgiving release. However, in hindsight the Thanksgiving shopping rush isn't as important to a digital only product as it would be to something in retail outlets. Black Friday is very much a traditional shopping event and digital distribution tends to even the field when it comes to when something is purchased. Indeed, if Christmas were earlier in the year, Turbine might have even passed up that holiday - gifts residing solely in a computer is hard to put under the tree. Really, the supreme guiding force for this was to stay in Fall (Winter beginning Dec 21st) and in 2009. December 1st is a perfect fit.

Now, here's where things get a little chaotic. If you check out Turbine's official press release, you'll find a host of pre-order options. Yay for pre-orders! But what the heck is an Adventure Pack and how is it different from the Siege of Mirkwood expansion? Seriously, could they have made this any more complicated? Don't even bother trying to figure it out from Turbine's release. Check out A Casual Stroll to Mordor's overview of the whole thing; they do an excellent job of cutting through the marketing BS.

And that's what it is. They're selling the Adventure Pack, which is basically the bonus goodies normally included with a pre-order and offering SoM for "Free"... if you buy the AP under certain conditions. Now, the AP is 19.99, the price-point previously stated for SoM. And that little similarity can lead to the question: is the AP the same thing as the expansion? Nope. It's not. And what if you don't want to pre-order (in other words, by the AP) but want to buy the Siege of Mirkwood when it releases? Well, apparently they'll now throw in the AP (minus one of the bonus perks) but tack on another 20 bucks.

So really, the Siege of Mirkwood expansion is 39.99, not 19.99. What this should have looked like is this: Pre-order the Siege of Mirkwood now for a 20 dollar discount and a bonus item. Regular price is 39.99. The whole reason this Adventure Pack thing exists is so they can use the word "Free" in their advertising. We all like free. We jump at free.

Seriously? Selling us the bonus stuff? And "lying" about the price? Cut the crap, Turbine marketing.

And just because I hate ending good news on a bad note, I've got to say "Yay! We have a release date! And pre-order goodies!"

Siege of Mirkwood Summary

Alas, I never got around to summarizing all the news and information about the Siege of Mirkwood expansion. Instead, I'll point you to LOTROLife for that. They've got a nice run-down of all the features revealed so far in SoM.

MMORPG.com SoM Preview

There's nothing really new in this preview. Not even new screenshots. So, it wouldn't even rate mentioning except for a line right near the beginning that's a bit ambiguous:

"This expansion ends the epic story of Moria and the land mass that players will be able to explore is Southern Mirkwood. Dol Guldor, Elves and Olog Hai, oh my! What about Northern? Well yes, if there's Southern Mirkwood, Northern will follow. Soon. Okay, it's not Rohan, but we'll get there eventually."

The question is, does this comment reflect something said to the interviewer or did MMORPG.com just assume that Northern Mirkwood would be soon because Southern Mirkwood is coming soon? I'm inclined to go with the latter myself, because I'm hard pressed to see Turbine deviate so far from the Fellowship's journey. Then again, if we're a year out from the Rohan Expansion (i.e. next fall) then there should be one or two landscape additions from free Book updates between now and then. Where would these landscape additions go? They could be south along the Anduin to prepare for Rohan. Or they could be north farther into Mirkwood, exploring more of the evil there. Or maybe into the fields of Gladden.

It's an interesting question, at any rate, and based off of the MMORPG.com quote, there's very little to point us in the right direction. It actually just confuses the matter even more.

PAX Siege of Mirkwood Preview

The folks over at ignvault were lucky enough to snag a preview of some of the Siege of Mirkwood content, specifically more info on the skirmishes. I'm absolutely thrilled by what I read. I think this could be an excellent activity for those at the cap who aren't big instance runners and raiders (such as me and some of my kinship). We as yet don't know what the rewards will be for gathering skirmish points, but I'd imagine they'd be inline with the barter items from loth rep quests or something similar.

And, as I've said before, scalable content is the wave of the future. Seriously, having content that caters to the group size rather than being forced to either 1) find more or choose between your friends who gets to go or 2) ignore some of the content because it doesn't fit your group size is an better direction. We're always looking for a more living breathing world in MMOs. Usually this means wanting more of the fluff that fills out a world, but I think it can also mean content that caters to you, rather than you to it. We're removing a barrier to entry, a wall that breaks the player from the world and puts him into the game-side of things, and a stumbling block to fun. We need to see more of this - and again, I'd love to see this implemented for all instances/raids.

Pricing and Other SoM Clarifications

Marketroid has a forum post clarifying some points about SoM, including the price-point: $19.99 US. And Volume III will start with the regular Book updates next year.

No Rohan?

I wanted to handle this as a separate post because it brings up larger questions. First, though, why didn't we see Rohan? I think we need to look at the development pattern we saw post Moria. Book 7 released the whole of Lothlorien which was supposed to be included with the Moria expansion itself. Book 8 included quite a lot of work in fixes for Moria content. Neither were devoid of Moria slippage content, but it did indeed affect the release schedule. We've had two Book updates from November to (guessing SoM release) November whereas we saw three in the previous year.

Like I said with the announcement post, this is Turbine keeping their promise for one expansion per year. Will this be something we'll see more often in the future? I don't know. I think it's a tool in their box they can pull out when needed. Perhaps we'll see a retail expansion every 1.5 to 2 years with one of these "digital expansions" in the middle. Honestly, that seems a more reasonable schedule than producing one large expansion on the scale of Moria per year. And even with the year and a half from release to Moria, there was some content that didn't make it to MoM.

The content needed for Rohan also made seeing Rohan only a year after Moria unfeasible. First, there's a lot of landscape needed. Two major centers are critical to Rohan - Edoras and Helm's Deep. These locations are on separate sides of Rohan, which is the size of two to three Eriador type zones. Then there's the landscape needed for the lead up to Rohan: down the Anduin and into Fangorn. We also need to look at the idea of mounted combat. Rohan is the perfect, quintessential place to launch such a combat system - and it would require a lot of work: getting the tech built, reconciling the current skills onto a horse, then adding the animations. None of this even touches on the huge amounts of quests, the at-least six books of new epic story. All the instances and raid(s). It's a huge undertaking when the development team has been working overtime on finishing up the Moria content.

I hope that makes sense, and of course it's just my guesses. A dev would be better able to tell us why. Next dev chat or a blog post?

Siege of Mirkwood

The word expansion doesn't always mean paid retail box expansion. As is the case with the "digital expansion" Siege of Mirkwood coming to LOTRO. You can check out the nice flash animated page for the expansion as well. One last thought before I get to the feature break-down commentary: This is clearly smaller than a retail expansion, but bigger than the free book updates (glorified patches). So, Turbine can keep their quota of one "expansion" per year but stay within a more realized work load. I wonder what the price-point will be on this. Now, onto the features!

Conclusion to Volume II Mines of Moria

Really? The conclusion? This is interesting because it begs a question. It is unlikely that we'll see a retail expansion (Volume III) inside six months after this digital expansion release. And that period is long enough to see one or two Book updates, so what volume will those belong to if they're holding an epic story continuation? 3? Interesting thought, beginning volume three with free patches. Or I could be wrong about seeing a retail expansion not so close to Siege of Mirkwood (hereafter called SoM).

Level cap increase to 65

Sounds good. To be expected. Only five levels for a "smaller" expansion. Really, I'm using the word "smaller" pretty loosely here because I'm only guessing at the scope based on hints in this release. And I don't think any of the devs would appreciate their work diminished to "small".

Answer the Call of War - Skirmishes

Very intriguing concept. There's a lot here too. First, the idea of randomized instances. This has historically been a hard concept to implement because it is hard to replicate hand-crafted quality with randomly generated assets. And LOTRO shines brightly with the quality of it's world and art direction. Will be interesting to see how much a part that will play. Second, we're creating "customizable soldiers". How does that work, exactly? Could be like henchmen/pets (they better have fixed the pathing!). Could be more like a squad you give orders to and level up in games such as Mass Effect. There's so many different possibilities here. I'm excited about this concept for sure.

New instances and raids

A given, just like the level cap. 3-mans, 6-mans, and a 12-man raid. Something for everybody. Now, let's get these spaces debilitating-bug free with launch. We don't need another Moria and Book 8 fiasco. I don't mean to be mean here so I need to say I really am rooting for Turbine in getting this type of content nailed down. They've had a lot of experience correcting mistakes so far.

Other gameplay enhancements

Looks mainly like the Legendary weapon system is getting a bit of an overhaul. New legacies, new runic slot (nice!) The bit about players crafting their own legendary items is a bit ambiguous. Don't we already have that? And do they mean each player can craft his or her own weapon or only weapon smiths? And then there's combat tweaks that will "improve responsiveness". I don't know exactly what that means but I imagine it's responding to some critiques out there about combat feeling a bit clunky compared to some other MMOs. *shrug* I've not had a problem with it, but then, I play a halberd wielding captain so my combat is pretty slow anyway.

Now, onto what other people are saying...

• Lots of forum threads. Lots!
• The LOTRO Reporter (not to be confused with the LOTRO Report) offers some commentary.
• Thallian offers his thoughts, ending a bit wistfully. I hear ya. I get caught up in possibilities too!
• Stroll to Mordor forwards the announcement. Hope to hear them chat about it with their new podcast! So does Darren from Common Sense Gamer. Like StM, I hope it's a discussion topic on Shut Up We're Talking. Nerf the Cat laments that she's only cut and pasted the announcement (hehe!)
  
• MMeOw.net is looking forward to hearing thoughts from the community (got you covered here!) And now they have their own thoughts up and a run down of some dev responses on the forums.
  
• Yeebo Fernbottom's MMO Love-In (what a name huh?) offers some thoughts.
• LOTROVault at IGN has a PAX preview!
• Unwize offers a bit of commentary.
  

So, bloggers, players, let's get chatting. Will this be a paid expansion or free? Is it just a glorified Book patch? What do you think about the features? Are you disappointed there's no Rohan yet? Comment, make your own posts, or join a thread on the forums.

EDIT: Added a couple more round-up links and also want to ask what you all think about the price-point since we now know it'll cost us $19.99 US.

Interview with Patience

The resident community manager over at LOTRO, Patience has to live up to her name on a daily, hourly, moment by moment basis. An unforgiving job and one which I don't think I could ever accomplish with as much enthusiasm as her. ZAM.com has an interview with her from the recent LOGIN Conference in Seattle, WA (Hey, that's home!). Anyhow, some nice talk about all three Turbine games, but I'd like to bring up a couple things said regarding LOTRO:

"We're working on making MyLOTRO, the new social network we created, much more connected to the outside world, so you can hook up your MyLOTRO page with, say, Twitter, and tweet whenever your character levels or you post a new blog entry."

I like the idea of connecting the players to the game outside of the game itself. This blog is a primitive (relatively speaking) means of doing just that and I wholeheartedly encourage innovation on this front. I like the idea of linking it with twitter and I'll be investigating that in regard to this blog. I already have a personal twitter account, but I'd love to make a Middle-Earth Adventurer twitter account to update with the blog as well as activities I complete in-game.

"Definitely, because you could do, for example, Rohan in an expansion - that's a huge area. Or Minas Tirith! That also brings up new mechanics you know, you'd have to ask "are we going to have mounted combat?" Well, when we go to Rohan, it makes sense. No promises, of course."

I didn't post the question, but you can get the gist of it here. The fact that she refers to Rohan as an example, despite the disclaimer at the end, really makes me think Rohan is the next expansion, especially with all the other information we're getting and where the current game is positioned. Mounted combat would be a really neat big mechanic to add - quite a draw for new and returning players.

"Later this year we go into Southern Mirkwood, to the city of Dol Guldur and we'll be increasing the level cap, which is big news for our level 60 players!"

Okay, I posted a little while back about a level cap increase outside of an expansion. Patience didn't say that here, but I actually give it more than a negligible chance of happening. We'll have to see.

All around good interview. The sushi gimmick was amusing.

Level Cap Without Expansion?

So here's a random thought I had. A level cap raise has been talked about, but what if we see it without an expansion. So, perhaps a free book update adds, say, five levels. Maybe the one that adds Dol Guldur puts up another 5 levels to separate it from Moria and Lothlorien.

Do I think this will happen? Not really, but I do think it's an interesting concept that could be done. What would be the effects? Well, for one thing, we won't have a stair step pattern to the content. Here's how the content looks like so far: A relatively even ramp up to 50 with a plateau, then another ramp up to 60 with a plateau. Etc, etc, etc. . Instead we get an even ramp all the way up, with each new content upping the cap by 5.

Of course, there's a good side to having such choices of content at 50 and 60. Alts don't have to do the same content as other alts or mains. I've advocated multiple advancement lines for content below 50, particularly 20 -30.

One of the benefits of adding 5 levels here and there with the free updates is to keep the players on the leveling treadmill. The reward system driving play takes a fundamental change when you reach the level cap. No longer are your stats naturally increasing by whatever content you complete, but rather you have to find specific content that increases your stats (deeds with desired virtues, instances with desired gear, etc). You might not like a deed grind or the instance needed to advance your character however.

Like anything, it's a trade off. Ultimately, whats more beneficial to the game? In my opinion, more options for content progression throughout the levels rather than keeping the player leveling. If adding 5 levels from time to time in free content updates takes away from being able to do this, then I say no. Perhaps there are benefits I have missed.

Potential Delays and New Frontiers

I'm talking about two issues in this topic, simply because I want to conserve space and both of them won't produce a lot of commentary. First up is the idea of potential delays to an expansion and level cap raise this year, presumably in November.

Pearls of Unwisdom has an excellent post about this and makes a very good case for why we shouldn't be surprised if we do see a delay in the expansion. I think too much is read into the Steefel comment quoted but other than that, the post is right on. Seeing the recent slippage in the planned release of some content, I do worry about a big slippage of the next expansion into early 2010. It's a possibility but not one I'm willing to bet on yet. Turbine has done an excellent job so far, barring the recent problems. Like I said in a previous post, I think we're in the tumultuous teens part of LOTRO right now. It'll smooth over.

The second topic is the recent screenshots of a survey that asked about a LOTRO on the XBox360. I ignored this for the most part because I have participated in similar surveys in the past where game concepts were given to me that ultimately led to similar, but not exact fruition. LOTRO is used as a placeholder name for those surveys. It presents the idea of a Turbine MMO on the consoles. Because of the IP associated with LOTRO, it's not the best analog, but it works well enough. My opinion of the matter has not changed.

Negativity?

I posted an evaluation about the Mines of Moria last month, having completed most of the Moria content. I think I ran a bit negative despite overall positive impressions of the expansion. Zubon posts over at Kill Ten Rats a Moria retrospective, being generally negative. So, did Moria really screw up a good game? It might have, it might not. We're in the tumultuous teen years of LOTRO. We learned to crawl, then walk. We were happy. Then came the hormones and things got a little rattled. With the next expansion, let's call it the twenty something. Should be good as Turbine finds its stride. Hopefully it'll see less bugs and better designed content.

I'm an optimistic person. I still think Turbine has an excellent record with this game. The upcoming additions such as scalable content seems to be a positive move. No, I don't think Moria was a bad expansion, and despite general negativity, from myself included, the game is going strong. A lot of us have just hit that burn out point I think, and burn out, like any sort of frustration, is a petri dish for negative thoughts.

What Zones?

Again it's back to the future world speculation post, this time inspired from a post at Kill Ten Rats. In this post Suzina speculates that we'll see 12 new zones by Christmas 2009 based off of what we see on the Rhovanion map. Before I get into what I think of the prediction I have to bring up something that has disturbed me from the first time I saw this map: It's oriented too far south. Take a look at this map of Middle-Earth. Rhovanion, based on the position and orientation of the name, implies that area extends all the way to the Lonely Mountain but not as far south as Mordor. Rohan might or might not be included. It's on the border.

Now, I understand why they chose to picture this farther south - in preparation for moving further with the fellowship, who doesn't go north. However, I'm bothered by the fact we're missing some of the far north areas of this region, which is mentioned in the Lord of the Rings in reference to Bilbo's previous journey. As such, I've always felt this map would be redone at some point to better reflect the region - to be more in line with the books. It certainly wouldn't be the first map that has been redone. Interestingly enough, the Shire map was re-done with the release of Moria and nearly all the other maps save Evendim and Forochel were reprocessed as well.

I don't agree with the argument that new zones can be inferred based on a map not being redone. However, based on the good chance that the new expansion will be Rohan, we can infer from that what we'll see - and it does line up fairly well with what we see on the map. Here's my take on the new zones to be seen in Rohan:

• Fangorn
• The Wold
• West Emnet (West Rohan)
• East Emnet (East Rohan)
• Emyn Muil
• Isengard

You'll notice I differ fairly strongly on a couple - notably the loss of Wilderland and the inclusion of Isengard. Why? Well, I discounted Wilderland because it's too far east. There's no reason to go way out there in the initial expansion. We might see an excursion similar to the one north into Evendim and Forochel back in Eriador but even then I'm wary. I also include Isengard because I'm not buying the argument about map redos. Evendim and Forochel weren't listed on Eriador's map before they became zones. Isengard can just as easily be listed and it would be a major oversight excluding the primary antagonist zone from a Rohan expansion. The only reason they might not include it is they didn't have enough time - like what happened to Lothlorien, and it'll be added to the following book update.

Dagorlad is missing because it figures more importantly in Return of the King material and Frodo and Sam head south after the Emyn Muil, not east. I also combine some of the zones mentioned in the Kill Ten Rats post because I think that my divisions are more in-line with the previous overland zone sizes. Moria zones are actually almost mini-zones within the overlarge zone of Moria. Basically, they're smaller than a normal overland zone and as such the 12 count doesn't need to be replicated in a Rohan expansion. The only advantage is one of marketing - keeping up the zone count is in a sense inflating the numbers to make them look good. I don't think it's necessary though. Not with the great publicity from Moria and Turbine's content record with this game so far.

So, Fangorn will include all the forest - at least the important parts. The Wold will be the link between Lothlorien and the rest of the expansion - like Eregion was for Moria. (I would like Fangorn to be accessible from Lothlorien, but I doubt it because the developers like to have greater control on content progression than I feel is necessary.) East and West Rohan is pretty self explanatory. The east will include the transition to Isengard as well as Helm's Deep and Edoras will be on the border between east and west. West will be the transition back to the Anduin, which is a nice eastern border. Emyn Muil will be a zone to shadow Frodo and Sam's journey. Back to Isengard - this could even be a smaller zone within East Rohan but I think it deserves its own treatment seperate from Rohan.

Even with 6 zones, this is probably more space than the Mines of Moria expansion gave us. I'm a little wary of speculating this much into the expansion but it makes sense from a world continuity and thematic perspective: all the zones are needed to inclued all the material Rohan would concern. And the beauty of all this is that either one of us may be right, or either one of us may be wrong. Time will tell.

Some Book 8 Details

Massively has gotten the scoop on some Book 8 details, and even future updates to the game. Dol Guldur guys - just like I said. I like the sound of the "skirmishes" idea. Having an instance type environment that doesn't require a set number of players or class composition will be a great boon to grouping content.

One of the biggest hurdles to group play is the organization before the actual play. I would love to see this approach done for all instanced group play content. That means that there would be no content that could not be completed. Of course, rewards would have to scale to the difficulty of completing an instance with a duo versus a full group, or a raid with 12 people versus 18 etc. But still, the content and story within that content would be accessible to everybody. It also wouldn't be a mutual exclusive situation between "casual" and "hardcore" players.

I honestly don't see this type of system making its way into all the group content in the near future. If the older group content isn't a ghost town now, wait until all new group content is much more accessible - you'll never see groups trying to take on content that is harder to organize. Path of least resistance ya know? But if Turbine decided to revamp all the previous group content in some future that implemented this dynamic instancing, then we might see something far reaching in its impact - not only for LOTRO but for MMO gaming in general.

The last item I'd like to mention is the level cap increase by year's end. They didn't mention an expansion with that comment, but considering the previously stated goal of one expansion per year, we're on tap to see an expansion and level cap increase by year's end. Not a surprising development, but interesting to see the absence of expansion talk considering its mention.

EDIT: A nice forum topic on the subject can be seen here with some dev responses. Looks like the preview went out to a few press outlets, in this case, 1up.com.

Rohan Next Paid Expansion?

If you've seen my speculation post, I come to the conclusion, simply based on what we've seen so far, where the fellowship is at, and dev comments that Rohan is the most likely next paid expansion. This bit of information dropped on the forums (which I found via Kill Ten Rats) seems to hint that I'm right.