New Lord of the Rings MMO

Chris said:

The problem with Lord of the Rings is how you have healers or any spell DPS given that only three people in the lore have magic and hardly use it. Gandalf has lightning powers he uses about once, Radagast can do... something... with animals and Saruman I guess is good at spawning and arming abominations.

They would have to have health bars not be the primary mechanic but some sort of morale/stamina.

There's also surprisingly little lore for specific bosses you can fight in a raid. Most named characters are good guys, long dead bad guys or dealt with by lore characters.

The big missed opportunity for a MMO is the D&D setting on The Sword Coast from the Baldur's Gate games.

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This is exactly what LOTRO does. Characters don't have health, they have "morale," and it's raised by the music that minstrels play.

McCheese said:

This is exactly what LOTRO does. Characters don't have health, they have "morale," and it's raised by the music that minstrels play.

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Haha that's where I got the idea from then

Aaron said:

I agree with the missed opportunity. They tried that with Dungeons and Dragons Online, but the problem here is the thought that if it takes place in the D&D universe it must use pen-and-paper D&D rules (as DDO does), and that just does not make for good computer RPG game play. Sure, you'll have some hardcore fans who like the system, but they're rare, and that's why hardly anyone has heard of DDO. If they could use the D&D lore, but create good computerised versions of the classes and other systems, then that would be amazing. But pen-and-paper rules in an MMO... it's a shit sandwich.

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Can you actually name 5 things that suck about DDO that have to do with it being based on a pen and paper system ?


D&D 3.5 is excellent and is represented in ddo, pathfinder kingmaker 2019, nwn2 and 3.0 nwn. Incredible customization unseen in most MMOs, what it isnt is easy to pick up and easy and for the masses like WoW.. DDO has alot of elements that many on this board have wanted for a long time. The dungeons are some of the best in any MMO and they even have dungeon "master" narration which is awesome frankly

I thought of an IP even better than D&D for an MMO.

Magic The Gathering. It's impossible to run out of expansion content and all the concept art and lore is free. No expectations from players on how combat will work unlike D&D.

Lord of the Rings just isn't suitable for a MMO in my opinion, not enough bosses.

There is an MTG MMO in the works, but it's by the Neverwinter folks so it'll be uninspired microtransactions-riddled mediocrity

Damn that sucks. Thought it would drop 2021 around the time of the show.

Blitz said:

Good to see some news though, aiming for a 4 year development cycle is decently impressive if the game is supposed to be as big as they say.

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Let's not confuse "aiming" with "succeeding." How many times do we have to be burned getting hyped up by imaginary mmo timelines?

The publishing partner for this got bought by Tencent

Tencent probably owns the missile silos already

I'm sure the term 'MMO' will be used loosely here, hope i'm wrong though.

I don't really get why 4 yr development is crazy, its about what WoW took, is the talent gap just that big now these people need 8 years and far better tools to do what people 15 years ago,could do in 4?

Yes. Only idiots, crusaders, and fanboys try to get into the video game industry at this point.

Kuro said:

Yes. Only idiots, crusaders, and fanboys try to get into the video game industry at this point.

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I don't personally blame them. The easiest way for me to describe what I see from a viewpoint outside of the industry is that it's a thankless job.

"Thank you for pouring your heart, soul and countless hours (cutting into your family life, personal time etc.) into this project in order for it to be successful at 60k a year (in a high cost of living area) for us to continue to sell it over and over and go on to make billions of dollars (Skyrim)."

When even I, with no experience in the field, look at it that way.. why would your average person ever want to go into that? This isnt the only industry that works that way, and those same industries suffer a consistent loss in skilled workers as well.