Turbine bears proof of fan-power in LotRO

"Powered by our fans" is the well-known motto of Turbine, quoted ad infinitum by said fans, both as proof of a company that understands and a company that's fallen out of touch. While gamers debate this, the devs stand by the company's efforts to keep in touch with what their players want and to deliver it to them. In a recent post on the Lord of the Rings Online forums, "TheStormKing" challenged Turbine to provide clear examples of how player suggestions have made an impact on the game.

The answer was a bit shocking and awesome -- Sapience came back with a massive list off the top of his head of changes made to LotRO because of demands and ideas by the playerbase. These included revamping mounts, housing, fishing, shared storage, new travel routes, being able to skip the tutorial, the quest tracker, UI customization, the Rift skirmish and a whole lot more. You can read the whole list here, and see whether it gives credence to Turbine's motto.

And if you ever wondered whether devs played the same game the players do, Sapience sets the record straight on that as well: "Someone asked if I play. Yes I do (and have for a long time, even before I started working for Turbine). My entire family does. Between us we have almost every class to 65."

[Thanks Lotro Weekly!]

Reader Comments (28)

The funny thing about all these complaints about lack of new content - is that if they suddenly jumped on the band wagon and gave you a new mount for $20 - that would A: give you new content and B: flush money into the company so they could hire more developers, you would still cry.

There is no winning with the MMORPG crowd.

I agree it's a constant battle for developers to appease their player-base as a whole. Many players have different priorities in terms of what the developers should focus on. Even the most popular priorities are completely irrelevant to some players.

How does a company show that they are listening to their players when they provide content/fixes that would pretty much go unnoticed to those not interested. One such way would be to regularly list every little change at login phase. I wouldn't be surprised if Turbine already does this.

I know ArenaNet provided a link to recent changes to Mesmer profession at the log in screen.

That's really all they can do to show they are still humming along.

So folks are giving laudatory comments for things discussed in beta, submitted as QDR's, told by the devs it wont happen and many many months later to keep dwindling subs they change their minds? and say hey! look at the new content! we are listening to you!

Seriously?!

Turbine can be given a pat on the back for one thing in LOTR, the graphics and the vistas, very nice, in a tie for first place with with a couple other MMO's in the visuals dept, something that was done correctly from the start, everything else pretty much sucks as the game is not faithful to JRR's lore. Purists will understand this.

If the game was faithful to the books 75% of the game would be describing to us what hobbits eat for breakfast.

I have recently returned to LotRO, and I must say it's a much better game than it was a year or so ago. They have done a lot to take the pain out of travel times and connections, at least. The "solo-fication" of the epic quest line alone has really made a huge difference for me personally. I like it much.

I would sure like them to:

--Move the instanced housing units into or at least nearer the major cities
--Improve the LFF system (I still think it's pretty lame)
--Improve the character models and animations (most NPCs, particularly, are little more than mannequins)
--Improve travel further, adding more swift travel options

That said, LotRO is a beautiful game, and (now that I have an even better system) I can see that even more clearly with the graphics cranked up.

Improvements or not, I really don' think this game is going to age well, especially in light of upcoming games. If they ever get as far as Mordor, what will the game population be by that point, I wonder?

To get to Mordor - they will have to look at the basics of the game like animations and UI improvements. I know for a fact that alot of gamers turn away from LOTRO because of those reasons. OFC there are some that stick trough it... but there are alot more that are now used to seeing better quality in these departments... and expect more from the king of fantasy stories.

Again - if LOTRO was not about the greates fantasy story of all times... then it would not have survifed the first year. Now... its 4 years later. And ppl are still asking for basic fixes on key features of the game.

You know for a fact that people aren't playing LOTRO for those reasons huh? You have inside information from your job at Turbine? Fact and opinion are two very different things. Just because you believe something doesn't make it fact.

This is pretty neat, to get mentioned thus. While I have been a strong and vocal critic of the direction of LotRO recently, I also recognize the amazing input we are able to give the dev team at Turbine. They give me a bitsy of leeway when it comes to my "... and I HATE this game..." threads, too.

Also, I should mention I wasn't trying to "challenge" Sapience, just asking a question. I wasn't expecting an avalanche of awesome out of it. But, you know: you could play that game for a hundred years, and the community team can still surprise us.

See you in game!

Sincerely,

Blackhawk, Leader of Strayhold
TheStormKing on the LotRO boards
kinship.strayhold.com

Turbine bears proof of fan-power in LotRO

Reader Comments (28)

Posted: May 24th 2010 10:09PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 25th 2010 2:34AM cray said

Posted: May 25th 2010 8:19AM Graill440 said

Posted: May 25th 2010 8:41AM Damn Dirty Ape said

Posted: May 25th 2010 10:00AM Tom in VA said

Posted: May 25th 2010 4:31PM Deadalon said

Posted: May 25th 2010 7:26PM JaySpeed said

Posted: May 25th 2010 8:31PM (Unverified) said

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