Instance finder coming to LotRO in Update 5

@MrsAngelD
In LotRO, your character lives on a single server (you can pay Turbine to transfer it to a different server), so cross-server wouldn't be beneficial.

@Kyzgar I'm aware of that I have played LOTRO since before F2P was even a thought. In wow you have to pay for a server transfer as well, however their dungeon finder is cross server. Meaning when you get into the dungeon your in there with people who could originate from any server they have, and when your done your all back on your own server.

So I'm wondering if LOTRO's instance finder will work the same way. :)

@smartstep It always seemed pretty much like WoW to me..

@smartstep It's about time LotRO stole something back from WoW.

@Lenn Yep, the amount of borrowing from LotRO to WoW is pretty substantial.

@smartstep
I think that kind of behavior isn't invented by or required for an "LFG" tool. Ultimately, it's the player-base that determines the community (or lack thereof) and how certain tools are used - for better or worse.

It's always been a WoW-clone, but with key differences in terms of lore / setting, player-base, and less of a focus on raiding (perhaps a more casual approach).

I do agree, though, that the game has been slowly progressing towards catering to the "lowest common denominator", for lack of a better term. I know they have to make money, but when I started playing at launch, I loved the Tolkien feel of the world. Even though it played like WoW, it FELT like Middle-earth. More and more, though, with dragons and three-wolf-moon cloaks and Muppet references in the Dickens' Christmas Town and punny quest names and lightning-callers, it feels a lot different now - more like those other "clever", pop-culture saturated MMOs. Adding in a brawl with Saruman FTW is yet another step on that path.

I still play and enjoy the game, and it's not completely lost, but I do miss that initial feeling of the bookish take on Tolkien's world I felt at launch. At least the player-base has seemed to keep its maturity and friendliness through the F2P transition (at least on Landroval).

@smartstep

If you want a somewhat fresh approach, look at GW2 events. It's an evolution on the concept of world quests that might get players together in a big way.

Of course, it also won't require players to actually communicate. Anyone will be able to just jump in the fray and get rewards, without having to bother with such details as grouping. If what you want is the old trade chat spamming while forming groups, I'm afraid you are out of luck.

@EndDream

Well it always was preety similar as both are pve heavy themeparks BUT WoW was focused heavily on instance running, raids, dps & score mentality while Lotro not really, and even if then focus on those things was much lower than in WoW.

Nowadays Lotro got extensive barter systems, open world simplification, instance teleporting and finally LFG tools.

Seem also my comment was downvoted for no apparent reason. I was not trolling, I was not cursing, or I was not even impolite.
It seems just that I was stating opinion someone did not agree with and that's a reason for downvote?

It is just me or it is not what comment voting system is supposed to be about?


Anyway.

Lotro is just not a game for me anymore. Not just because of LFG tools, more like because of changes made in game in last years, which just accelerated after F2P.

Just not my cup of tea, got bored with this game of gameplay.

@babywolfman

WoW-clone? Every MMO is a WoW clone because it's . . . an MMO? There is nothing even remotely similar between LOTRO and WoW. Completely different skill system. No factions. No PvP. Completely different UI design. Game hosted voice chat. Elves? Yes, but Lord of the Rings predates WoW lore base by . . . decades. So, no. Dwarves? Same, LOTR existed long before Warcarft. If anything Warcraft stole elements from LOTR for its lore.

Saying a game is a WoW-clone is meant to be disparaging, to indicate that the designers brainless fools and clueless copy cats and that the gameplay is trivial and derivative, none of which is true of LOTRO. In fact, of all the popular MMOs developed in the US, LOTRO is the least like WoW.

@OutThere I cannot help but agree with you here. I played WoW extensively. I played (and still play) LotRO extensively. Never did I get the feeling "this is like WoW" when playing LotRO. Something that did happen when I played Rift.

@OutThere
Settle down, Beavis. I didn't mean that disparagingly. LOTRO is my fave MMO and I've played all of the major ones since I started on Ultima Online back in '97.

What I meant by "WoW-clone" was that it followed the standard MMO conventions as popularized by World of Warcraft: Level structure, skills with cool-downs, WASD movement, questing and quest-givers, tiers of rewards, color-coded enemy levels, zones, instances - heck, most of the keyboard shortcuts carried over. I didn't mean it in terms of lore or themes or elves or any such nonsense. If I didn't know Tolkien was the grandfather of fantasy as we know it, chances are I wouldn't be capable of proper spelling and punctuation. And I fully recognize the many new ideas Turbine added into the game (some present at launch) that WoW has since copied. The differences you mentioned are a part of what makes LOTRO a different game (along with the overall tone, the visual style, the focus on the narrative over the LOOTZORZ, etc) - changes I endorse and appreciate - but mechanically and structurally, they're more similar than different.

Warcraft was created when Blizzard ripped off Warhammer, bringing a "tabletop" style game to the PC. They developed it from there, aped a bunch of stuff from Ultima and Everquest, made a few tweaks and common-sense improvements and birthed World of Warcraft. WoW in and of itself is a clone, so to speak, but almost every MMO since has copied it in some way, as it should - but who are they copying? WoW or the games WoW copied?

@babywolfman

"Level structure, skills with cool-downs, WASD movement, questing and quest-givers, tiers of rewards, color-coded enemy levels, zones, instances"

Holy crap, Dark Age of Camelot is a WoW clone!

@smartstep

Well-said.

@(Unverified)

No it wasn't. Going by their criteria, multiple MMOs that came out before WoW would be "woW-clones."

@Stanimir

You're right, I also miss Shadows.

Actually the Dungeon Finder isn't that surprising, as LotRO has become more and more like WoW ever since Mines of Moria, in the sesne it started to focus more on definitely 'non-Tolkienish' things like grinding Instances for Phat Lewt.

To me, the strength of LotRO was the sense of an open world, more intelligent mobs, and XP-rates being such that if you e.g. stumbled upon a new Deed you could pursue it without dinging a bunch of levels 'outGreying' your current Quests.

In other words, interesting levelling instead of only challenging end-game. Now, the levelling part seems less and less important and 'end-game' the name of the game.

Thing is: if I wanted levelling to be boring so I can rush to end-game and go-a-raiding for meaningless pixel-crap that has nothing to do with Tolkien, I might just as well play WoW with its smooth-as-silk controls.