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Posted by: boggo2300
« on: April 07, 2014, 04:59:19 PM »

I've found it a bit more crashy than beta (but since I didnt have any crashes in Beta thats not hard) I've had 2 crashes, and I fell through the world once (that was fun!)

It's been very crowded especially since Early Access finished, though the respawn on open world bosses seems to have been quickened up a lot,  twice I've gotten somewhere just as the boss has been killed, and within a few minutes theyve respawned,  in beta a few times I got bored and wandered off after 10 minutes of waiting.  

Standing around in the wilderness minding your own business when an anchor drops nearby is definately an experience!  I love the beginning of the chant the cultists use to begin the summons of the Anchor.

When they added the ability to solo Epic quests in LotRo that were formerly fellow or small fellow the boost they give the character makes them all pretty much a faceroll, it's much more fun to do them the old way,  with a group of the right size, but if you don't have people on tap for it, it can be very difficult to get a PUG for the epics nowdays.

Can't say I've looked at the launch trailers,  very impressed with the main story quests though,  the level 10 one to rescue Lyranis from coldharbour rocks!
Posted by: Erik L
« on: April 07, 2014, 04:50:45 PM »

I played early last week, and then got sucked into Rift because my regular Wed night Sith group played that instead of SWTOR.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: April 07, 2014, 02:09:49 AM »

So hows the water?

Just by coincidence Neverwinter was offering between the 4.4.14 and 7.4.14 free stuff if you logged in.   Purely coincidence that was the launch of ESO dates...  I can also confirm that LotRO didn't have anything special.  We advanced our small fellowships a step down the line of lvl 50 epic quests (and they aren't too bad) with all of us using the stone of the tortise.  My burgler is convincing the Elgain that they should open up some...I'm astounded how lethal you are in that class.  Magic stealth as opposed to semi realistic stealth makes a huge difference.  Plus I have +5 levels of stealth in my solo whatever...still I did the battle on top of Weathertop, something our small fellowship struggled with and it was over and I was going "huh...what...who killed all those guys...?"  "Oh MY God...its a Troll"  "Oh..the troll is dead...wow...err how did that happen?"  Our small fellowship had to try that fight at least 4 times....but then we kept trying to use the entry to channel them...we finally succeed when we actually went into the open space.   But I think solo you get substantial boosts to your characteristics (I had 4300 morale when usually I have 970 morale).

The cinematic trailers for ESO though have been pretty impressive.  My question is that an Altmer or Bosmer mage?  I'm guessing Altmer but if so the skin seems a tad more pale then I'd expect.  There is a bosmer mage you meet in game that sorta looks like her though (you get the choice between using her or the old mage to stop a ghost).
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: March 31, 2014, 03:45:01 PM »

If anyone is interested, Early/Headstart/last beta started this weekend. I made a guild. Just me so far. If anyone is interested, my player ID is @icehawke

I'll add you when I get home from work  @boggo or possibly @boggo2300 It was a LONG time ago that I made the account and can't remember if it forced the extra length on the name or not :)

Early access started a bit earlier than it was due to, so I managed to get on early and create characters to reserve the names I wanted (I missed out on 2 that I wanted in Beta, but have them in live!!)

Matt
Posted by: Erik L
« on: March 31, 2014, 02:15:28 PM »

If anyone is interested, Early/Headstart/last beta started this weekend. I made a guild. Just me so far. If anyone is interested, my player ID is @icehawke
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: March 20, 2014, 03:59:36 PM »

well the answer is the same as "why" applied to any of the Epic story in LotRo,  Damn incompetant, lazy, useless Rangers, (except for one Ranger who is none of these).

Matt
Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 20, 2014, 03:39:29 AM »

Well I only joined LotRO when they went free to play (the month before which was exceptional luck on my part as it got my main character a lot of bonuses) so I'm a "Newb" in that sense.  Given that the game is now up to lvl 95 though the "nerf" was maybe necessary as I've read some of their designer statements and they were commenting that they were running into a very unwieldy system.  It was why they redid the character class.  I'm not all that fond of loosing a lot of my flexibility on my captain but I have to admit the effect of the changes has been dramatic.  I can now tank properly the hunter and loremaster no longer pull the creatures off of me so fast, I have a taunt to pull them to me when they do run away, I am a lot more survivable, my combination of herald and banner plus mark work together very well.  Solo I go full on damage and can lay down an astounding (to me anyway) amount of single target damage.  I could not get over Starslayer complaining I was pulling stuff off the traps during the setting process...I had difficulty wrapping my mind around the fact "I could pull something?"  My burglar is, well, at lvl 19 I can kill 2 lvl 23 goblins fairly easily...riddle takes one out of the fight, and my initial stealth attack takes away 25-33% of the others morale.  I just have to wait for a critical to trigger my chain and then the fight is in the bag.  Its almost rudely overpowered.  The nightblade in ESO is sometimes worse and sometimes better than that...when things work well in ESO it was 1 hit from stealth and target down, or 2 (the second ability in the siphon chain followed by the assination strike could do most things in).  But when I could not get in behind them...then I had big issues.  With the magic stealth in LotRO getting behind them is nice but not required.

But I'd rather have a lot of things back the way they were in LotRO.  More fog, no more red dots on the mini map, exploration, a creepier forest etc.  I don't really like the barrow downs...as I can't figure out why my characters would be there doing that.

We have all bought stones of the tortise since the game throws XP at you left and right.  I can't fathom why designers don't just do it like in CoV and let you turn off XP gain.  If I want to level slower let me damnit.   SWTOR would get my money for three tiny changes:  pants for sith assasins, allowing sith assasin abilities to work with any weapon we are allowed to use, and a way to disable rested XP gain or XP gain in general.  But apparently the ability to do raids dressed in slave girl outfits is more important.

If you don't have a quest pack for an area...it is pretty boring to be there.  So far I've been sent to evendim a few times on other quests but I haven't got enough TPs to be buying stuff I'll outlevel that quickly.  I have: north downs, angmar, trollshaws, misty mountains and moria so far.  I have to wait to see if otherstuff comes on sale as I need a sale to maximize my TP expenses since EVERYTHING has to be unlocked with TPs.

Erik I know about the three passes to Angmar...now.  At that point I was actually exploring the hill man camp solo and was a bit taken aback to be notified I was in Angmar.  I was also creeped out and sweating buckets as there was lvl 50 characters wandering about and I was 25 or something.  I mean nothing beats TSW for creepy wierd stuff...the black house, the first mission for your faction, talking to Old Joe, the filth in general is just vile...and the person who you read about who was making people drink it...*shudder*

I have been selling most things I have been finding in ESO that are of no use to me.  But I treat my characters as independent individuals so they don't pool resources and this makes the prinicple they use in ESO where the bank is per account and you get the bank items when you open up to craft for me vastly annoying.  Much like in SWTOR where they had family legacies...uhm yeah great...but what if I don't do that what do I get?

Well as far as ESO goes with subs they say they want it due to producing content.  I'm going to assume that the content will also dry up to.  SWTOR was the same way...big plans that vanished, to be replaced by slave girl outfits you can wear on raids. 
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: March 19, 2014, 10:02:54 PM »

Well I have to admit I find the old forest scary...it is just creepy.  The Barrow downs were more dangerous?  I'm confused what do you mean did the nerf the skeletons and what not or something?  Usually there was a small fellowship of us there, but my burglar did it solo only the idiot hobbit quest was really hard since she forced me to fight in a way that is bad for a burglar.

Hmmm, never visited Dunland yet, and since I play for free didn't spend much time in Evendim...I think the next step of the epic quest will take us there though.  I'm not sure about a grid pattern though they usually have people posted in a ring around a bandit or orc camp or so.  Wolves, bears and other wildlife is more "regular" but again given how much you have to kill to get your various slayer deeds and or enough hides to tailor that isn't so objectionable.  Actually around Estaldin in the direction of either the hill man camp or else the orc battle camp is a fairly grid like collection of things.  Scary I have to admit was taking the one path to Angmar that started in that camp...I was sweating the entire time I was sneaking my way through the path.  I think I was 10 or so levels too low and then there were the statues that gave you horror and so on...it was creepy and unnerving.  Angmar is pretty creepy and unnerving I have to admit.

In ESO at least now I know where the wolves are, so next time I need to upgrade my armour I know where I have to go for an hour and just slaughter the wolves in a circle.  I will agree that the quests have been really well done, much better than what is in skyrim.  I'm pretty sure I've yet to have gotten a single kill x of Y quests...or possibly I have but somehow they don't really stand out since most of the time it is "do this" and in the act of doing so you end up killing 20 gobins or what have you.  That to me is a well done quest design.  What I don't like about LotRO is the built in grind...and as a free player you sorta have to pick up as many deeds as possible since they nickle and dime you for everything.  That is the one thing that ESO with a sub seems to be avoiding.  

The real issue that I am seeing is space, as crafting is going to eat up a huge amount of bag space, I really think they need to do a Neverwinter and split your bag up into crafting and other stuff.  Cause you can have hundreds of crafting things easily by the time you are 30-th level or so.  Base 10 for the gems to add traits, then 2 per crafting skll per level of crafting in clothing, woodworking and iron working, 1 for your racial metal, 2 foods per recipe (with some doubling up), 1 water per potion level, plus a dozen for reagents, then 2-3 for the potency runes, a dozen for the aspect runes, and a further 10 or so for the last rune.  That is simply a huge amount of bag space.

I'm still afraid I don't see them having a retention rate of better than 10-15% after the initial month is gone on the box.
The old forest used to be so much more creepy,  there was limited visibility, NO map, and the paths through the forest would randomly block and unblock, and Huorns would one hit kill you if you got too close!  And the Barrow Downs heh, thats so heavily nerfed from what it was originally it's almost unrecognizable,   it used to be covered in the fog effect, half the wights in the South downs were level 40 (and 50 was the cap then), the fog effects effectively hid the critters until you'd already aggroed them (no enemy indicators on the mini-map back then) or quest guide focus, you had to find your own way to things like the barrow entrances! there was no way you could have survived the Downs solo back then,  hell you wouldnt venture into any of the actual barrows with just a small fellowship!  Lalia was SO hard that I still squirm when doing it now, even though its a genuine faceroll now, since she can't even die anymore!  Now that they've added boats to Everswim now, so you don't have to swim the length of the stupid lake over and over and over again! it's actually quite nice there  ;D

LotRo really was significantly harder on landscape than it is now,  Turbine in their wisdom(HAH) have nerfed stuff so much in their desire to get as many people to level cap so they spend money buying stuff for LI's to use raiding.  I actually really miss the old Old Forest and Barrow Downs,  it seriously made you make sure you had your smeg together before venturing in there (though the whole getting lost in the old forest did tend to wear a little thin after awhile!)
And like Erik mentioned theres a path from ND to Angmar thats completely free from beasties,  and takes you to a camp full of nice friendly Jorthkin.

LotRo is way more grindy now than ever before and moving more and more that way,  presumably since it makes more sense for them to nickel & dime you with deed accelerators etc if they make it grindy, hell I'm a lifetimer in LotRo and I'm still grinding the hell out of everything, for nothing more than a title most of the time, simply because thats what they seem to be moving the game towards being.

I'm with Erik though that TESO will need to move a lot of it's special quest areas into instances, otherwise you're just going to have too many annoyed and bored people.  I've not run into to much of a storage issue in TESO though, but I suspect thats because of my sell everything I don't have a use for mindset that LotRo trained me into, and the fact I'm specialising my crafting among toons (something else I've been trained into),  I still only give TESO 3 months before F2P, I honsestly don't think any new MMO can survive as subs only any more.

Matt
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: March 19, 2014, 09:41:13 PM »

I want to say phasing came in earlier. It was in Bree Town before Isengard hit I think. And Lotro always had the instances. Fourteen people rush for the orc cave in northern Bree fields, and all end up in their own cave. TESO needs more of that, especially for the story stuff. Incidental quests not so much.

All the old school MMORPG's had that issue with groups ahead of you. EQ had it, AC had it, UO had it. It wasn't until the next generation, WoW, EQ2, etc where that started to disappear in favor of instances.

Phasing was the big techincal advancement from RoI it was an absolute nightmare during beta for it!  the number of times you'd have missing quest npc's was truly astounding,  at one stage it feld like every player had to have their own dedicated GM to get anything done!

LotRo did indeed have instancing right from the very begining, hell the very first thing you do the first time you play LotRo is an instance ;)  I'm just saying I wish it didn't but I can't think of any way of making an MMO work without quest instancing (because I did play UO, and I've experienced an MMO with everything uninstanced in the game world, and hopefully never will again!)

Matt
Posted by: Erik L
« on: March 19, 2014, 05:47:32 PM »

You do know there are two other routes into Angmar from North Downs? The one with the camp is the hardest of the three. That is the one on the east. The center one is the easiest, and the western one is filled with drakes.
Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 19, 2014, 04:31:21 PM »

Well I have to admit I find the old forest scary...it is just creepy.  The Barrow downs were more dangerous?  I'm confused what do you mean did the nerf the skeletons and what not or something?  Usually there was a small fellowship of us there, but my burglar did it solo only the idiot hobbit quest was really hard since she forced me to fight in a way that is bad for a burglar.

Hmmm, never visited Dunland yet, and since I play for free didn't spend much time in Evendim...I think the next step of the epic quest will take us there though.  I'm not sure about a grid pattern though they usually have people posted in a ring around a bandit or orc camp or so.  Wolves, bears and other wildlife is more "regular" but again given how much you have to kill to get your various slayer deeds and or enough hides to tailor that isn't so objectionable.  Actually around Estaldin in the direction of either the hill man camp or else the orc battle camp is a fairly grid like collection of things.  Scary I have to admit was taking the one path to Angmar that started in that camp...I was sweating the entire time I was sneaking my way through the path.  I think I was 10 or so levels too low and then there were the statues that gave you horror and so on...it was creepy and unnerving.  Angmar is pretty creepy and unnerving I have to admit.

In ESO at least now I know where the wolves are, so next time I need to upgrade my armour I know where I have to go for an hour and just slaughter the wolves in a circle.  I will agree that the quests have been really well done, much better than what is in skyrim.  I'm pretty sure I've yet to have gotten a single kill x of Y quests...or possibly I have but somehow they don't really stand out since most of the time it is "do this" and in the act of doing so you end up killing 20 gobins or what have you.  That to me is a well done quest design.  What I don't like about LotRO is the built in grind...and as a free player you sorta have to pick up as many deeds as possible since they nickle and dime you for everything.  That is the one thing that ESO with a sub seems to be avoiding.  

The real issue that I am seeing is space, as crafting is going to eat up a huge amount of bag space, I really think they need to do a Neverwinter and split your bag up into crafting and other stuff.  Cause you can have hundreds of crafting things easily by the time you are 30-th level or so.  Base 10 for the gems to add traits, then 2 per crafting skll per level of crafting in clothing, woodworking and iron working, 1 for your racial metal, 2 foods per recipe (with some doubling up), 1 water per potion level, plus a dozen for reagents, then 2-3 for the potency runes, a dozen for the aspect runes, and a further 10 or so for the last rune.  That is simply a huge amount of bag space.

I'm still afraid I don't see them having a retention rate of better than 10-15% after the initial month is gone on the box.
Posted by: Erik L
« on: March 19, 2014, 04:17:32 PM »

Yup SOA is Shadows of Angmar, usually used to refer to the pre-expansion LotRo,  commonly known as the good old days, when the old forest was scary, and the barrow downs were actually dangerous!!

In the beginning LotRo was very strict with character naming,  not only did your character name have to be non-copyright infringing, it had to be lore appropriate,  though they relaxed that sometime after lake Everswim was added to the game, and pretty much dropped it entirely about the time of Moria dropping,  it's pretty much only enforced now on reports (they actually used to check on their own at first, but I think that sort of died out once sub numbers got higher)

Yeah, I didn't quite phrase that how I meant it,  I was more thinking of places like Northern Bree fields where you can run through an open field and there are orcs neatly standing around in a grid pattern (parts of Dunland seem to be the worst for that),  and thats one of my favorite things in TESO,  that there isnt a critter every 3.7m in a neat grid pattern!

Ultima Online at the beginning (I don't know whats happened to it since about 2000) didn't actually have instances,  even the Dungeons were open world,  so if there was a party in front of you bad luck!  but UO had so many much more major issues (almost all caused by players being well, sociopathic) that it wasnt a show stopper.

Phasing is a really cool thing (I believe LotRo was the first to use it, starting with Isengard) though they've really only started using it properly from Rohan.  pretty much the best thing about TESO for me though has been that the quests arent all "Go here, and kill X of Y"  theres actually some variety in the quests,  refreshing!

Matt

I want to say phasing came in earlier. It was in Bree Town before Isengard hit I think. And Lotro always had the instances. Fourteen people rush for the orc cave in northern Bree fields, and all end up in their own cave. TESO needs more of that, especially for the story stuff. Incidental quests not so much.

All the old school MMORPG's had that issue with groups ahead of you. EQ had it, AC had it, UO had it. It wasn't until the next generation, WoW, EQ2, etc where that started to disappear in favor of instances.
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: March 19, 2014, 03:50:42 PM »

Yup SOA is Shadows of Angmar, usually used to refer to the pre-expansion LotRo,  commonly known as the good old days, when the old forest was scary, and the barrow downs were actually dangerous!!

In the beginning LotRo was very strict with character naming,  not only did your character name have to be non-copyright infringing, it had to be lore appropriate,  though they relaxed that sometime after lake Everswim was added to the game, and pretty much dropped it entirely about the time of Moria dropping,  it's pretty much only enforced now on reports (they actually used to check on their own at first, but I think that sort of died out once sub numbers got higher)

Yeah, I didn't quite phrase that how I meant it,  I was more thinking of places like Northern Bree fields where you can run through an open field and there are orcs neatly standing around in a grid pattern (parts of Dunland seem to be the worst for that),  and thats one of my favorite things in TESO,  that there isnt a critter every 3.7m in a neat grid pattern!

Ultima Online at the beginning (I don't know whats happened to it since about 2000) didn't actually have instances,  even the Dungeons were open world,  so if there was a party in front of you bad luck!  but UO had so many much more major issues (almost all caused by players being well, sociopathic) that it wasnt a show stopper.

Phasing is a really cool thing (I believe LotRo was the first to use it, starting with Isengard) though they've really only started using it properly from Rohan.  pretty much the best thing about TESO for me though has been that the quests arent all "Go here, and kill X of Y"  theres actually some variety in the quests,  refreshing!

Matt
Posted by: Paul M
« on: March 18, 2014, 04:11:08 PM »

I play on a RP server in LotRO and I seem to recall something about names when I first created a character...and I don't see outrageous stuff normally.  Certainly nothing like what I see routinely in Neverwinter.

What is SoA?  Shadows of Angmar?  We just finished that part of the epic quest.

Well ESO has stuff, but not rare things waiting around...though at least on Auridon (the Altmer main island whatever the name is) the problem was actually finding leather bearing things to kill for the leather you need for your medium armour.   I don't recall seeing things just there waiting... you can explore long distances without encountering a creature (outside of foxes or mud crabs or deer).  It feels far more natural that way, the creatures are where it makes sense for them to be.  So there are lots of Maomer invaders at their invasion site, lots of ancestral spirits at the haunted ruins, etc.

The placement in LotRO doesn't seem artifical so much as it seems "crowded" but well I guess that is better than people complaining there isn't enough boars or whatever.  My first MMO was AoC, but I've heard stories about the first ones...   I don't see how you can avoid instances really...and the story would be so much better with more instancing given its single player nature.  The interesting thing is how the world changes....once you complete a quest then to you it is completed, and you don't see people fixing the same problem that you just fixed.  So when you go back to the village you just saved from a fire you see people rebuilding it, even though I'm assuming there may be other players about who see burning houses and NPCs to fight.  I'm not sure how they do it but it is a really nice touch.  Also NPCs comment on your actions...which is another realy nice touch.
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: March 18, 2014, 03:41:31 PM »

LotRo dropped its naming rules years ago unfortunately,  way back in the day it was quite nice there,  even silly plays on names would get changed,  but that pretty much ended when SoA did :(  only place theres any enforcement now is on the RP servers, and then only when it's petitioned (so I'm lead to believe)

Personally I don't like instanced stuff, however I don't seen any option in an MMO to make it work, and allow people to actually complete stuff! (I played UO in the bad old days, and I've seen what players turn into when they're given free reign)

TESO has a major advantage over most other MMOs that it doesnt have huge mobs of supposedly rare things just standing around the landscape just waiting to be adventurer fodder, though how much of that was down to the beta crowding remains to be seen (when for instance you're on the leading edge of player movement into a new expansion in LotRo for instance the critter placement doesnt feel as artificial as it does a few weeks after the crowd goes through)

Matt