Slashdot Mirror
Ask Turbine's Jeff Anderson About LOTRO
Last month, Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar went live in what was arguably the most well-received launch for a Massively Multiplayer game since World of Warcraft. The game soared to the top of the retail charts, and has been a breath of fresh air for gamers looking to get a taste of something just a little bit different and a little bit hobbity. Today, you have the chance to ask Turbine's CEO Jeff Anderson questions about the process of creating the game, the Tolkien license, and new content we'll see in Middle Earth in the coming weeks and months. One question per comment, please. We'll take the best of the lot and put them to Mr. Anderson in a phone interview later this week. We'll post his responses as soon as we can, so make sure to get your question in today if you want it to show up in his response.
Can you talk a little bit about the challenges involved in setting up a virtual economy? Did you employ any professional economists to help design in the design or was it all off-the-cuff?
Direct X 10 client in the future? I haven't gone to Vista yet, but that might drive me if it made an already great looking game even better.
Behavioral addiction in general, and gaming addiction specifically, are increasingly on society's radar. Now, being addicted to an online game is obviously different from being addicted to heroin- but it can still be extremely serious and destructive for geeks with addictive personalities. Do you think being attentive to gaming addiction is a responsibility of MMORPG developers? What steps has Turbine taken or considered?
Do you have a plan to deal with the destruction of the one ring, as in does the game end then? Any consideration of opening up the entire game map at that point for a massive PvP war?
What kind of influence did the overwhelming success of World of Warcraft have on the development of LOTRO?
Do you think that all game makers will ultimately start requiring purchase of both the online software and then a (IMHO ridiculous) monthly fee to play an online game?
Do you have any plans to deal with Gold Farming?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Many RPG's and MMORPG's to some degree encourage farming (playing the game in a way that isn't entertaining but to increase your virtual wealth). This monotonous activity leads to bots and other forms of automating the game.
Have you done anything to decrease (or possibly eliminate) the need to farm, and if not what is your stance towards automated play?
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
So, when is the Linux port coming out? (Yes, I've read the FAQ)
What is your vision for MMO games in the future, 10 or 20 years down the road?
Tolkien was, to say the least, picky about his work. He specifically expressed it should never be dramatized and also made it clear that no one should dare edit the writings besides his son, Christopher.
As an avid fan who knows this, how can you justify, to me, putting the professor's world into a game genre. Why should I play it knowing Tolkien would most likely disapprove?
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I've been playing LOTRO since closed beta, and I'm thoroughly hooked. It's obvious to me that the developers gave a lot of love, fun, and attention to the game: rainbows in the Shire, facial expressions that reflect your mood, the ever-annoying nosey/hungry hobbits, that lame man in Combe(!), emotes (picking a wedgie?), NPCs who remember your name and whether you've completed a quest for them as you walk by. It all works together so well to make you feel truly a part of the world. Were those delightful touches included in the master design, or did they just develop on their own as the game was built?
Any thoughts on possible player housing and expanding the crafting line ?
Some people just really like to spend their time crafting rather then chasing boars.
As a fan and former Vanguard member on AC2, I noticed Turbine's greatest strength was a rather fast and sane response to player feedback (despite many claims to the contrary). I recall many AC and AC2 fans and 3rd party developers ended up on your dev teams. I witnessed all of this first-hand when you were developing the hero-class endgame mechanics. And despite the system's friendliness, balance, and incorporation of player feedback, most players were unhappy (they thought the system was too simplistic, a la WoW, or had other esoteric gripes).
Do you have any plans to try and continute to leverage your community, or do you find vocal MMOG players just too darn irrational and hard to please? Blizzard seems to regularly ignore players, and does quite well from what I hear.
And thanks for making games that don't suck. Asheron's Call was, to me, the finest example of storytelling with thousands of players done yet. Logging in to find my Monarch was Bael'zharon ranks as the coolest moment of my 20-odd years of gaming.
In light of the eventual closure of Asheron's Call 2, what were the biggest lessons you and the rest of Turbine have learned?
What happens in the game when a user finishes the very large amount of quests in the game? I know about the player-vs-monster-player area, and it is rather fun. Is there any other end-game content other then the monster player area?
Meet new people, and kill them.
Your team no doubt learned from all of the succeses and failures within World of Warcraft and did their best to retain what aspects had player appeal and shy away from those that illicited public outcry. Stepping away from those choices, what would you say was the most daring leap of faith the team made in the game mechanics, balance, graphics, or any other facet that jumps out at you? Is there anything in the game that really made you say, "Dang, we're hanging our butts out there on this one, but we believe in this feature/mechanic and are gonna run with it."
Will users be able to create content? If so what free tools (http://www.blender.org/ or http://www.artofillusion.org/ ?) and formats will be supported? Will we be able to export animations or create normal mapped items?
LetterRip
A rational follow on to the previous post is whether LOTR is going to encourage the independently developed add-on/plug-ins that WoW has done.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Where World of Warcraft has largely failed in my mind is in the end-game. Here the content is, aside from reputation quests, entirely Raid driven and controlled by harsh unforgiving bosses and large time sinks. Blizzard's PVP system isn't really anything to get excited about as it is totally un-interesting outside of arenas.
Essentially, there is no other story line in World of Warcraft other than to kill Illidan and spend a lot of time farming farming farming for reputation. I so miss the innovations that Ultima Online had with housing or seafaring ten years ago.
What does LOTR bring to the table in the end-game that makes it different from other MMOs?
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
As a former subscriber to Asheron's Call 2, I was disappointed to see that game go for a particular social aspect that goes unrecognized and unimplemented in other MMOGs - the music system. As a beta tester, you can imagine my delight at finding out that Turbine had added a similar system to LoTRO. I am now a paying subscriber based upon this one feature that I feel adds depth to the world and serves as a great community building tool. Could you expound upon the music system and its implementation as well as future plans for the system?
I'm one of 30 people I know shelling money out to Blizzard for WoW. I went to beta LOTROL and found no OS X client. I could boot into Vista on one of my machines.....but I'll just keep playing WoW.
Personally I love the lifetime option, and it was a major selling point for me (it is much easier for me to justify a one-time splurge of $200 instead of adding another monthly outlay). What convinced the business-side that that was a good idea?
What is the scope of the current licensing, as in which books are covered by the current agreement?
n ts that allow for first age content, perhaps co-terminus with the Children of Hurin book just out? Or any other era? The flight of the Noldor from the west would also make a good high-power story arc.
Do you envision being able to add future expansions/sequels/engine-using-content-environme
Most games have an escalation of power as they get older, but with the LOTR mythos, the power diminishes over time. However, adding elements as alluded to above would fit the increased power design pattern, plus fit into the overall mythos with more elegance.
I used to play AC back from its closed beta, played it for > 5 years. You guys burned me badly when you broke your word to never ban automation, and worse when your community managers were overly happy about nerfs. "We're not afraid to swing the nerf bat!!!1" - sound familiar?
Why should I play your newest game? What have you changed that deserves my trust?
Dear MMORPG industry,
When will you stop making games designed to waste huge gobs of time?
I don't put up with random 10 minute periods of doing nothing in other games, why should I with yours? Any game that makes me sit/travel/do nothing for 10 minutes running I immediately uninstall. I'd like a modern adventure game, but for some reason they refuse to jump to the next level on this issue.
-Z
During the beta test of LOTRO, it was revealed that at least one, or more, Turbine employees were a part of the dominant guild, Extra Crispy (EC). They censored dissent and criticism towards the game, and demonstrated strong favouratism for some players.
Is Turbine going to enforce rules for Turbine employee participation to avoid issues like censorship and favouratism, and to avoid other potential scandals?
I would like to know why the word "Bible" is censored from public, private, trade, ooc, and all other chats. (it's replaced with '#!&#@') and other Religious books are not. Like Quran, Qur'an, Koran, Torah et al. I would like to follow up with: Who decided that people would be offended by the use of the word "Bible"? FYI, I discovered this while telling my son (who also plays), where I keep the passwords and pin codes. I was dissapointed so tried all the other chats and words and to my astonishment, "Bible" is censored (along with a bunch of 4 letter word).