Turbine releases new Siege of Mirkwood screenshots

That's exactly what this mini expansion should have been a chance to live the life of a monster, not as one of the good guys. This mini expansion is under a lot of discussion, I've heard it's terrible so far, and that's a real shame....

LOTRO is approaching a lot more possibilities with the open terrain to mix freep and creep play, instead they offer the pitiful skirmish system, they say there are no PVMP updates in the foreseeable future.

Who the hell got the reins of LOTRO now??? I'm even tempted to go back to AoC for their expansion over this, and that's asking a lot of Mr Angry......

Turbine, stop, just fucking stop. I don't visit your forums because snobbish developers keep telling players how impossible everything is, I don't like your game after Moria at all, and you are hell bent on NOT following the books be cause some egomaniac is shooting to be the next Tolkien by adding his own story to the story we all love, and you know what, people don't give a shit.

I like the way you add new content, I think you short changed players by charging for two book updates and throwing in a system that interns came up with, and is just a separate game. People don't like that, they like to progress and have all experience count in all situations, not equip yourself for mini games that have no bearing on the rest of gameplay.

I remember so liking LOTRO, but the more I hear, the less I like.

Your graphics environment team is super talented, your character modelers are sooo poor, and your music guys, 10/10. Put all that over a directionless, repetitive endgame and it stinks, no matter the polish.

Turbine seem to think that that because this is a casual game, more folks won't get to the end game, so they just don't bother too much.

So in summary, the guy at the top, rein in your staff, get control, and build for the future, stop panicking, Middle Earth is always going to be popular, but don't make our one chance to visit it in a MMO a painful one. Just from the direction of the game, I can tell all is not well with LOTRO, despite having great success with Mines of Moria expansion.

One server??? You think there are only 5,000 people playing LOTRO? You must not play on the U.S servers. I agree PvMP needs some work but it's mostly balance against overpowered tactical damage freep classes. I don't see how they could make a creep start at level 1 and level to 60 in just the Ettenmoors. Unless you think they should add Mordor as the creep starting zone but getting 60 levels out of one zone would take ALOT of quests. I prefer the design of PvMP the way it is. I don't want to PvE or quest as a creep. When I want to level up and quest, I play my freep character. When I want to PvP, I play my creep player. There are other games that offer factional PvP gameplay. Go play WoW. LOTRO is considered the second most active MMO in North America behind WoW. LOTRO is widely renowned by the gaming press. It wins awards every year it's been out. It has an 87% average review score. The game is good even if you don't think it is. And every MMO is a niche game compared to WoW but it's not a fair comparison because WoW appeals to a much broader audience of casual gamers. I actually compare WoW to the Nintendo Wii. Both appeal to a broad range of people and focus on the younger casual demographic.

Mr. Angry, LOTRO was never billed as a PvP game. It can not be an open world PvP game. It doesn't fit the lore at least in this part of Middle Earth. When we get to Gondor you might have an arguement for region PvP but I don't see it happening outside of skirmishes. You call skirmishes bad but have you tried them??? Don't go off hearsay alone. People have different opinions however I can't comment more on that. This is a PvE game first. People don't want to get ganked by a warg pack when trying to quest and level up. There are other games for that. It sounds like you should go back to AoC since it happens there alot. I prefer a game where I can quest without worrying about gank squads and I can go to a closed region if I want to PvP.

Jason, I wouldn't be able to say whether I have actually tried skirmishes or not, just as you can't confirm they are amazing in your own eyes. I guess December the 1st will prove who is right, huh?

And LOTRO was launched with PvMP, I think you've read to much into my response. I never said that monster players should attack the Shire now did I? I don't know how you managed to go all the way to 'full scale PVP and ganking'? Why wasn't there a Mordor PvMP zone, because that would have been great and the freeps would have fitted in a treat, but instead, ignored... You have gone completely the other way and are talking about antisocial behaviour in restriction-less PvP games, LOTRO offers PvMP already, but they are ignoring it now.

They wanted to grow their game significantly, they should have allowed people to play the bad guy once in a while and given more background to that experience, capitalizing on existing players desire to see new content, and players who are put off by the one dimensional PvE nature of the game. It's always going to be a PvE game, but they need more than just the good guys side of the story to compete with other AAA MMO's.

Now we are past Mordor, there is much more scope to allow monster players to play in certain zones, but Turbine have never expanded on the Moors. That's what I'm talking about, rather to where you went by bemonaing camping of PvE quest hubs.

If the poor raid system is what players have to look forward to at endgame, they won't be playing long, at least PVMP offers players something else to do, or it did until Turbine turned away from the whole concept and swapped it out for a poor relation PvE substitute to reduce their work on the PvMP system.

LOTRO is doing pretty poorly after such a promising start, end of...

Mordor is not correct, I meant Moria in my response above, for those who delight in analyzing each and every work :)

LOTRO is still a decent game. If you expect it to be a WoW/Aion-style Faction vs Faction PvP game, you will be disappointed. LOTRO is a PvE game with a PvP minigame that has never and will never get the full support of the rest of the game. Complaining that LOTRO's PvP is lacking is like complaining that Farm Town's combat is lacking.

As for the developers, I've never seen a group of game designers who listen to the community and actually interact with players more than these folks. The Skirmish system in particular is designed to give all types of players (solo, small group, group, and raid) unlimited content. And it's the brainchild of some of LOTRO's most inventive devs (Zombie Columbus and a few others), so it should be good.

Mr. Angry, I enjoy both PvE and PvMP. I have a rank 7 WL that I play several times per week. Actually I play my creep more than my freep lately but that's because I'm waiting for SoM to launch. So what are you proposing for PvMP? A new region for PvMP only? It would be nice to get a new map and who knows what will happen in the future. I'd like to see Gladden Fields opened up as a purely PvMP zone. I don't really need the back story for my creep character. I know in the Ettenmoors, we are soldiers of Saruman and we were sent from Angmar. I'm there to kill freeps. I get my story content from the freep side of PvE. I don't raid at all so my only end game content is PvMP. I actually enjoy it for the most part despite the overpowered nature of the tactical damage freep classes.

Why do you feel sorry for them? They are playing the game for free until the game gets shut down years from now. I wish I was a lifetime member. If they aren't satisfied with the current content, they can check back in 6 months to see what has changed and not worry about paying a sub every month. Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

Meh just the usual round here, someone sucked at the game years ago when it launched so everytime there is an article on said game they chime in with their usual crap.

Same old dame old.

;)