What's the Problem?

 What's the Problem?

Premise: People are upset about a lot of things. You can hear about it on every platform: Facebook, X (formally known as Twitter), Twitch, Reddit, Discord, Youtube, the forums, and World Chat. They expect a lot of things to happen. But are they asking too much? Are they perhaps too impatient? To understand what is going on with Lord of the Rings Online, we have to look through where their focus is way back to the release of Fate of Gundabad and how it differed from other expansions.

Eye on Fate of Gundabad

Release: Gundabad had a lot going on when it hit the expansion page. You were able to play the Brawler class October 13th, 2021 upon pre-order beginning September 27th, 2021. A level boost to 130 was available in the Collector's Edition and a universal toolkit with a bonus for barter tokens. Amusingly, there was an error with upgrading the content that the company allowed those who bought the Ultimate Edition to have two level boosts. The expansion released as scheduled on November 10th, 2021 but "in the event of delay... no later than December 10th, 2021."  The important part is the following line: "the instances and raid will follow in patches after launch." The expansion and class would be available for lotro points May 2022 (May 4th to be precise).

Launch: The expansion wasn't perfect and had numerous issues. The featured page listed "missions for level 20+ characters" but the stable route wasn't available without paying a mithril coin. They didn't contribute to the mission weekly and the tool-tip on the Allegiance tokens accidentally showed twice the amount. There was a bug that caused a black screen on Chapter 9.2 of the Epic and a dwarf at the Witch-gate kept falling into the ground. Upon reaching level 150, you were provided a list of dailies, Featured Instances, Allegiance set, and a full crafted set from non-bound recipes that could be made after obtaining all the rare chests in the expansion. 

Instances: Before the expansion released, they came out with a notice informing us the patches in which the instances will release but not the date. Instead of providing us a Reward Track on release, they instead allowed us to gather heritage runes for every quest we complete in the expansion. Roughly one week later after the expansion's release on November 18th, 2021, almost all of the gear was replaceable with the new two 3-man instances. On December 2nd, 2021, Tiers 4 and 5 were made available. The ability to reforge to 470 (at level 136) was made available with release of the 6-man on December 15th, 2021 which was a little less than a month after the previous two instances. The raid released on February 16th, 2022. 

Corsairs of Umbar

Release: While the information on the expansion page of Corsairs of Umbar looked similar to the release of Fate of Gundabad, there were a few differences. The mariner class was available the day after the expansion was made available for pre-order. The somewhat higher tier of Ultimate Edition for the level 140 boost made some people think the company was being desperate even though the scaling item with a bonus to legendary experience was now in the lower tier of the Collector's Edition (compared to the Gundabad version). Although the intent was to release November 1st, 2023, the expansion came a week later on November 8th, 2023 which was within the confines of no later than December 1st, 2023. The offer for lotro points is still marked for May 2024. 

Launch: The expansion released with "over 350 new quests featuring 85 new deeds." However, there was a new problem. The Epic in Fate of Gundabad was free for all but didn't initially allow people to start Chapter 5 until later. This time, the Epic was only available to those who bought the expansion, subscribed, or owned Gondor Renewed but many felt the company was scamming them by forcing them to buy the quest pack when there was no on-ramp for Chapter 2. What a ridiculous notion. Did they forget that buying Mordor or Minas Morgul expansions provided the whole chain? Task items were now tied to a level 150 quest which meant only those who are level 145 or above can turn them in. There were a list of dailies but they weren't... enough for people? There were also the level 150 crafting recipes from the reputation barterer and the new rewards from the Featured Instances.

Instances: So not a single day goes by from when the expansion released before the complaints started to compile. Famous streamers like Louey and Ghyn were causing quite a stir not even a week into the expansion. Despite having a dedicated Instance Cluster of Return to Carn Dum on March 22nd 2023, these people were ready for the newest thing. Unfortunately, they didn't read the fine print: "...and the instance content no later than March 2024." People did not like being told to expect them in January. Some players were telling everyone to expect them in December! Did they forget Mordor released two instances a couple months after release? Though, I guess everyone was expecting to challenge yourself with two new three-player instances, one six-player instance, and a thrilling new raid!

Patches

Update 38.0.1 - Reports were coming in two days after the expansion released. Cordovan made a list of things on the stream that were coming in the next patch. There were quite a bit of problems that needed to be fixed. These included:

Update 38.1 - Without the instances, people started to panic. Despite what was said in the streams, they wanted an update. They wanted delving gear now! So, Cordovan posted a plan. He even shared it on the stream. Ironically, people were upset about that when everything wasn't made available. These included:

  • 10 new missions that were never mentioned as part of the expansion. Delvings were attached to 9 of them (one didn't have combat) and 2 more had to be removed due to the lack of maneuverability. These missions offer additional Allegiance tokens and the maximum level was raised from 10 to 20. Amusingly, these missions did not require you to own the expansion for a short time. The travel skill didn't make it in.
  • Umbar Crafting Stations now support superior status.
  • The complaints about delvings were so great that they now offer a very rare chance of obtaining only the basic set of gear in delvings.
  • Various things such as invisible mobs, increase in droprate for crab legs, and open-tapping for salamanders were fixed.

Cosmetic changes - There were a series of changes that offered new cosmetic options:

  • There were new rewards from the seasonal barterer. While the harmony sets reached Rowan Raspberry, there were three decorations and a cosmetic pet that were made exclusive inside the lootboxes. It took the previous items roughly a year later to be released for Figments of Splendour. 
  • Sublime Patrons Coffers made an appearance. Though, word of mouth is that people are pretty tired of dwarf content. 
  • There were three new decorations for the Yule Festival, a sheep, cosmetic outfit, and steed. The hobbit gifts return with their new exclusive pets and decorations (also shown on Twitter). The virtue experience given from hobbit gifts has nearly doubled. Dwarf candles were removed from hobbit gifts and added to the festival barterers. An "assortment of dwarf-candles" only cost 20 Yule tokens and provides 3 each of the 7 candles.

Crafting changes - This patch was supposed to be this huge crafting update people were clamoring to see all year long but Orion was unable to get everything done in time. He was burned out, according to his statements in Discord, and there were rumors that he was assigned to do other tasks left behind from the developers that left for another company. If you dig through his posts on the forums, you'll see that most of this work is still being done. 

  • The Forester Event had to be done and redone multiple times as one exploit over another were being used to cheat the system. The original design of having someone win receive over a hundred tokens over someone who lost was cut to only ten and the random effects of the race allowed someone that might be far beyond win over those who were ahead.
  • Multi-Tracking
  • Umbar tier is not being separated
  • Umbar crafting guild is actually incredibly messy as it requires you to visit a particular place and obtain random recipes on a weekly basis.