What do you expect or wish concerning Moria?

[Vulpus]

Originally Posted by futsie

Is that so? Why are there no playable Noldor or fully playable Dunedain, then? Why is evil not playable except in PvMP? It would seem they're not going for mass-market appeal over and above all else;

Do you really think so? We may not have the things you've mentioned but we DO have an utter truck-load of stuff that is very distant from the lore. It's there to bring the game into lines with customer expectations of an MMO. Think about it.

EDIT: Actually, we do have a fully playable Dunedain. Take a trip to the Ettenmoors.

Oh, and since you mentioned learning to debate: talking dismissively about 'lore-geeks' like that was an ad hominem. Naughty naughty

Incorrect, I'm guilty of a generalisation, not a personal attack. Look up the definition of argumentum ad hominem

[covo]

You may call me a lore-geek, but I think Moria is a very sensible part of the story to implement. And I think there can be a proper balance between gameplay and lore in this case.

Moria will have to be implemented after the fellowship has been there, there is no need at all "gameplay-wise" for us to be there at the same time as the Fellowship of even earlier. And doing so we will be breaking lore, so why implementing it that way if there is no need and will be a gratuit lore-breaking?

About the Balrog encounter, well, we are going to have a Balrog coming to the game and it will not be the Moria one, so why add another? I rather see the Barlog of Moria in a film sequence of a book as someone mentioned before.

What I'm more concern though is to make Moria a nest of Elites. I don't understand this addiction of the devs to fill up every big instance in end game with elites (ie Carn Dum and Urugarth). I understand that it gives a feeling of dreadful and difficult place to survive, but it gives me a feeling of a underminded singular hero and lesser epic encounters. In Middle Earth an Orc is a weakling, they make a force in numbers, I rather see a fellowhip fighting and struggling 15 non elites orcs (or signatures) than 5 elites orcs per encounter. It will add to the feeling that orcs will be dradful in numbers, and we all know that Moria is a place full and packed with goblins and orcs, so I think it may work better that way rather than having less numbers and all elites.

EDIT: @ nicbass I hope they don't implement that balrog, it looks more like a horned pig in flames. not impressed at all by it

[nicbass]

Originally Posted by covo

EDIT: @ nicbass I hope they don't implement that balrog, it looks more like a horned pig in flames. not impressed at all by it

It is about four years old - so may have improved...

[Haldirin]

Let's wait and see. I Personally don't expect anything outstanding, since LOTRO is not designed to be too interactive with the environment. I only expect monotonous caves with loads of mobs and some other weird creatures to kill.
Maybe the design difficulty of this game is that it has to follow Frodo's path. And we all know what happens. If the game was set before the finding of the ring of power ...in the times of Bilbo, maybe Turbine could have more freedom to create Moria without having to deal with not wrecking the Lore.

[garun]

it will be hard to implement, but not impossible.

there could be a way of restoring the west gate. our first couple of quests could be focused around that.
i also don't feel like we have to wait until the beginning of the 4th age until we can go in there again. the 4th age is not that far ahead, there needs to be some scouting before it can be rebuilt, right?

i also hope it will be a really dark and really deep place. hopefully there will be parts we can't reach but we can see somewhere below us in the darkness.

balrog - i hope not.

keep out the vendors please, i know it will be a bit of a pain, but more of a pain would be to find a whole adventurer camp inside of moria - please don't!
needs to be really creepy - maybe even one big instance, so you won't run the risk of running into anyone.

[Lcars]

Originally Posted by csxjgf

Well maybe, but I think that's the very least we can expect.

I'm pretty sure that Turbine are more than fully aware that Moria may well make or break the game. If jaws hit the floor, then they'll have a mortal lock on a good part of the player-base, pretty much guaranteeing that they'll stay with LotRO and see what they do with the rest of Middle-Earth. If we are all underwhelmed, then it doesn't bode well for future content does it?

Let's hope Turbine does realise that the fate of the game hangs in the balance, and they pull out all the stops to ensure that Moria is a truly groundbreaking MMO expansion.

They could do that, but I doubt that they will.
It might be as big as Molten Core, I'll be really surprised if it's any bigger.

[futsie]

Originally Posted by Vulpus

Do you really think so? We may not have the things you've mentioned but we DO have an utter truck-load of stuff that is very distant from the lore. It's there to bring the game into lines with customer expectations of an MMO. Think about it.

I had already thought about it, the point is that there are some things they won't do, some lines they won't cross and it can be hard to tell which side of the line something particular may fall. They tend to fill in gaps, and avoid messing with the core story.

EDIT: Actually, we do have a fully playable Dunedain. Take a trip to the Ettenmoors.

Why do you think I said 'fully' playable? It's not a 'real' player-character.

Incorrect, I'm guilty of a generalisation, not a personal attack. Look up the definition of argumentum ad hominem

If the generalization is insultingly dismissive and so phrased that it's plainly directed against people you're debating with, it's ad hominem. And there was no need to be dismissive in the first place.

[twisted hack]

I hope I get the same sense of excitement, anticipation, fear and dread that the lead developer should be getting from reading this thread...