New Series: Ask Turbine

Want to know about Lord of the Rings Online? Every week, the developers of that game are going to answer five community questions exclusively on Lord of the Rings Online WarCry.

Today, we open the doors for these questions. Post your questions for Turbine in the comment thread linked below and we'll get started!

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Post your questions here!

Question: With the promise of open beta just around the corner, can you tell us a bit about the Collectors Edition yet?

Question:Is there an official release date for the open beta or final game? or even an inofficial one?

Why did you make crafting so complicated? Vocations, professions, all that stuff? Why not make it more streamlined, or even more open where anyone can do anything with enough time and patience? (I'm thinking AC2 Craft 2.0 here....)

What special features are you planning to make for Kinships? It's likely we have a guildchat and so on, but do you also have some unique things in mind?

What features do you have to make buying and selling easier for 'unsupported crafting professions'?

will there ever be any point to PvP thru monster play, other than to PvP? Will it ever actually serve a point other than to PvP?

As it is right now, the weapons textures and armour textures in game are all bland/similar

will new textures be added, using level 50 swords that look like level 10 swords is rather sad.

If I preorder and become a "Founding Member" and choose the "$199 Lifetime Subscription", does this include a continued subscription for any expansions you release in the future? In other words, would I have to start paying a subscription if I bought an expansion for your game in the future, or would I just have to buy the expansion, as the subscription is still free for life?

Ooo! Try this one on for size: If I become a founding member and pay $199 to become a lifetime member, and the game does so horrible at launch that it is forced to become another "free monthly play" games, will I get any of my $199 back? Or will I have to eat that lifetime membership fee like candy and wonder how the hell a LOTR game didn't succeed? And if the answer is "No refund" will there be any sort of compensation for the loss(ingame loot, money, privledges, etc...)?

Note: I have NO reason to believe the game will do bad. Still waiting to get into the Beta, but in reading forums and reviews there were a few negative comments (and a bunch of great comments) including one guy who feels LOTR online is comming out too late stating "Expect this game to tank....should have come out after third movie...." I myself hope this game lives up to it's name, and am about 85% sure I'm going to buy it.

Will there be any player housing?
Are there any features that make finding a group easier, especially for endgame quests?

zagesterama:
If I preorder and become a "Founding Member" and choose the "$199 Lifetime Subscription", does this include a continued subscription for any expansions you release in the future? In other words, would I have to start paying a subscription if I bought an expansion for your game in the future, or would I just have to buy the expansion, as the subscription is still free for life?

In the Pre-Order faq's this is actually answered. Yes the fee your subscription will be still free, but if there is a software package or new box that is to be purchased you will need to do that.

More info here: http://lotro.turbine.com/preorder/

zagesterama:
Ooo! Try this one on for size: If I become a founding member and pay $199 to become a lifetime member, and the game does so horrible at launch that it is forced to become another "free monthly play" games, will I get any of my $199 back? Or will I have to eat that lifetime membership fee like candy and wonder how the hell a LOTR game didn't succeed? And if the answer is "No refund" will there be any sort of compensation for the loss(ingame loot, money, privledges, etc...)?

Note: I have NO reason to believe the game will do bad. Still waiting to get into the Beta, but in reading forums and reviews there were a few negative comments (and a bunch of great comments) including one guy who feels LOTR online is comming out too late stating "Expect this game to tank....should have come out after third movie...." I myself hope this game lives up to it's name, and am about 85% sure I'm going to buy it.

Most of this is also answered in the preorder faq. Short answer is there is no refund, but we can pass on the question about other compensation.

More info here: http://lotro.turbine.com/preorder/

Will there be pre-paid game cards? I dont have a credit card?

RadioactiveWabbit:
Will there be any player housing?
Are there any features that make finding a group easier, especially for endgame quests?

This one came up in the first interview, but Jaff Anderson wanted a little more info on exactly what problems you're having here. If you can expand, we'll address it in the second edition of this series.

Is Turbine going to add a feature like a Turbine Suite Pass? Something to discount monthly subscriptions for owning all 3 titles? Similar to the Sony Station Pass.

NOTE: We're taking questions for Ask Turbine #2 now.

Why is the world of Lotro so small? 50m sq Meters? You could walk across that in a few hours!

A lot of people like to play mages, shoot fireballs and what not. It doesn't look like there's an equivalent to that in LoTRo. Was there a design decision behind that?

A lot of the classes seem to have a fairly unique bent, such as the Captain being a light tank that appears to be focused more on buffing/inspiring a fellowship to greater heights, or the crowd-control pet class combination of the loremaster. How did these ideas come about? Are there unique challenges in balancing the blended roles?

Have there been any sacrifices to the core fiction to make the game more fun? For example, the mail system, or "death" system?

Female dwarves aren't really seen in the books, but more alluded to. Will we ever see female dwarf characters, or is there anything in place to allow the roleplaying of one?

Through most of the novels, the majority of the world seems largely ignorant of the movements of the ring or that it has even been rediscovered in some cases. While the thread of Angmar comes relatively early, is there a defining moment in which the players become aware of the ring? Is there any direct influence on the game?

Where will the best loot in the game come from? Crafters or Raids? Also is there any chance of getting that epic loot without raiding?

I havent seen any stats on any of the races. Does it make a difference what race you play? How can you tell which race is best for which class?

How do you plan on fighting inflation? This is a problem for all MMOs, and the worst ones have their economy practically non existent. Any plans on fighting this?

Ask Turbine #2 conducted... here on out is for #3 (not counting mattllow, those three posts are in #3).

Best Buy has already received the pre-order boxes at many of their stores. When will Gamestop / EM Games be getting their copies?

With all the water in the land, when do we get the Fisherman profession? I could see it being Fishing/Cook/Woodworking.

Even better. Chef vocation: Farming, Fishing, Cooking.

I know that there will be regular content updates more on the schedule of DDO than AC if I remember correctly. Will these be surrounded by story and lore (similar to the AC style)? Also will they be accompanied with Live Events?

1.) Are you looking at hiring a full time Crafting Community Rep?

/em slides over my resume. ;-)

2.) What is your intent for balancing crafted items verses loot drop and quest rewards?

3.) Will you FINALLY release the Collector's Edition information?

Can you spell out for us exactly how the preorder process works and open beta? There seems to be a lot of confusion. For example, the character roll over, the access to open beta, etc.

I remember in Asheron's Call the towns were all attacked at the end of beta by hordes of monsters and such. Can we expect similar events to be planned for the end of Closed Beta? Open Beta?