Lord of the Rings Online is one of the better MMO’s I’ve played in a long time. However as my character grows I’m starting to notice a few annoying things that would be super simple to remedy.
- Uniform “taxi-horse” pricing. Either 5 silver or free, across the board. Those 15 Silver rides are damn expensive and often hinge upon questions like “If I buy this 15 silver ride, will I be able to afford my next training session?” Not good…
- Low-Level Mounts. For example, DAoC offered a FREE simple mount at level 10 (via quest reward), just to help alleviate the running all over the realm problem. (heck they even reduced their already trivial 5 silver “taxi horse” – equiv to 5 copper in LotRO currency – to FREE)
- More mid-high level quests. Once you get into your early to mid-twenties, the quest pool that had previously been somewhat over saturated seems to significantly dry up. I suspect this might be illusory since the quests are just much more spread out (?), so having an early mount or cheaper, more long-distance taxi mounts might help to dispel this possible illusion. OR if it’s not an illusion and there really aren’t as many quests, by all means add more.
- Re-spawn timers are strange. I’ve noticed that some quest objectives take an inordinately LONG time to re-spawn (burying the bodies around Archet, Dwarf Banners in Lone Lands, etc.), and at other times MOB re-spaws seem way too quick, esp. if you’re trying to solo your way through an area (Spider burrow near Archet, Brigand stronghold near the Lumber Camp in Bree-Land, heck that whole forest area East of Combe is just a pain in the butt sometimes – Lone Lands seems to have a much better MOB density model than Bree-Land).
Not really any huge gripes here, basically they’re all about time. Maximizing more in-game “fun-time” while minimizing the “annoying time” travelling around, waiting for quest objectives to re-spawn, or killing the umpteenth MOB that keeps re-spawing on your ass ‘cuz you’re being careful (slow) as you solo your way through an area.
I’m still in the newbie phase of the game, so hopefully those horse rides that seem extraordinarily expensive now won’t seem so painful later on. And maybe the MOB density will even out somewhat, as I indicated, Lone Lands seems about right… It still would be nice to have some kind of basic mount available and for quest objectives to be on fast re-spawn timers – esp. if they’re just static objects like packs, banners, dead bodies, chests, etc.
Your at exactly the point where we started feeling like the fun/unfun ratio started tipping favorably. Getting the group together east or north or even west started to be a real pain.
The mail tax and static bank effectively prevented us from using a bank alt to stay at a regional auction house and sell our loot too. If we mailed stuff back for auction, it almost cost as much as a horse ride (either out or back). So in order to make money, you needed to auction your loot which meant you really had to travel which of course caused you to spend your time AND your money to do so.
Very frustrating when its such a beautiful game. Now I’ve got my X-Mas founder horse, I may hop back in and see how things might be changed by have exactly the travel option your talking about.
oop. No edit button 😉 Lets make that “you’re” and “unfavorably” in the first line and maybe I wont sound like a complete idiot.
At the next town east of the Forsaken Inn, Ost Guruth, I’ve been able to make quite a bit of money farming humanoids, so the horse rides don’t seem quite so painful, but they still are taking their toll, along with the mail-tax. I’m thinking I need to check out the area/map North of Bree as well. But I think routine taxi rides from Ost Guruth to Trestlebridge and vice-versa would quickly break the bank.
BTW, I tried to figure out where I might add an “edit” option for comments, but couldn’t find one, is there a way to enable user comment edits? Possibly a limitation of my WordPress Template? I’m still a blog/WordPress-newbie, hehe.
No edit button I know of. I think we just have to learn to live with our mistakes. 😉
TB area has good questing if you get burned on LL/OG and leads into Kingsfell/Esteldin. But, if you find yourself using Esteldin as a hub which you may because of trainers, etc. you are faced with two rides from Bree by slow horse (24 silver 12×2 B->TB->E) or 100s for swift travel from Bree to Esteldin. (this may be old pricing, I heard a rumor they might be tweaking).
24s is not horrible, but the time it takes (and you have to change horses so to speak) can be a complete pain. It gets worse when you have to wait for a guildie or groupie too.
I like “meaningful” travel in a game, but its a very delicate balance to create the impression of an expansive world and still keep it easy to group and “get to the fun”.