Le siège de la Forêt noire

[Nekao]

En plus, une visite organisée par un nain et un elfe me semble quelque peu bizarre ...
Ont-ils vu la même chose ?

 ;D

[Aestiliath]

Comme je le fait remarquer dans un post sur JOL, c'est quand même très court comme test, débarquement sur mirkwood, et hop, Dol Guldur 2 images plus loin ... ...
(...)
Honnêtement, on en apprend pas beaucoup plus que ce qu'on sait déjà, "Dol Guldur, ça va piquer, faudra x en radiance mais on s'en rappelle plus la ..." mouarf ...  

Ils te montrent le point d'entrée et un niveau de DG car ce qu'il y a entre ne peut l'être (Entre le petit port improvisé et la première image de DG, ce n'est pas un petit chemin forestier propice à la cueillette des champignons, n'en déplaise aux hobbits).

La radiance nécessaire à la dernière zone n'est pas fixée car ils se penchent aussi sur les bonus temporaires de radiance que tu peux acheter/récupérer (le total "idéal" reste à définir)

En outre, tout n'a pas été dévoilé par les Devs et certaines modifs sortent au fil de l'eau (le cc du pvp notamment)...
Sans compter que les tests exotiques continuent (l'introduction de monstres dans des zones pve, il y a eu Forochel récemment mais avant il y avait eu la 21ème salle) et pourraient aussi amener quelques nouveautés.

[Gortack]

L'extension est effectivement encore sous NDA.

Mes anciens collègues de JOL (pour info, j'ai démissionné, je rejoins donc notre ami Xymox) se faisaient TP directement par les devs à certains endroits, qu'on pourrait qualifier de remarquables...

Tout montré n'est pas forcément très interessant non plus, je fais partie de ceux qui apprécie de découvrir par soi même (ou en compagnie d'autres éveillés ou anciens éveillés  hein Aesti ^^ faut que je t'offre combien de cafés à la cafet pour que tu reviennes gnii !!) les nouvelles zones.

Pour info, l'interview n'a duré qu'une heure, c'est déjà pas mal je trouve d'arriver à pondre cette "preview" avec si peu de temps de test.

Après, ne vous attendez pas à d'autres grosses nouveautés lors de cette MAJ, Mr RRrrrr est à mon avis largement trop enthousiaste (et devrait faire preuve de plus de neutralité eu égard à ses activités rédactionnelles sur JOL avec son tag).

[GorothTur]

L'extension est effectivement encore sous NDA.

Mes anciens collègues de JOL (pour info, j'ai démissionné, je rejoins donc notre ami Xymox) se faisaient TP directement par les devs à certains endroits, qu'on pourrait qualifier de remarquables...

Tout montré n'est pas forcément très interessant non plus, je fais partie de ceux qui apprécie de découvrir par soi même

Oui, bien sur, je sais bien que NDA, confidentialité, tout ça, il faut aller à l'essentiel.

(ou en compagnie d'autres éveillés ou anciens éveillés  hein Aesti ^^ faut que je t'offre combien de cafés à la cafet pour que tu reviennes gnii !!)

Rahh, tu dois pas assez insister  ;D t'a proposé les croissants avec? les muffins? un calva?  ;D

[Gortack]

Le revamp du système de réputations by Orion

English inside

Faction/Reputation
Posted On: October 16th, 2009
Posted By: Orion
Posted in: Design Discussion

Faction/Reputation, whichever moniker you choose the result is the same: a standing with a group of people with which you have or have no previous interactions. We have several of these in the game right now and all indications point to their inclusion in the future. We added this system a little later than usual and as a result it suffered from a little less love than it possibly could have received.

As many of you know, I have been working on revisions to the game for the better part of a year now. The latest effort, the Lone-lands (full pass including the Epic Story and Garth Agarwen brings the area to level 22-32 and I threw in a dash of level 55+ for good measure), showed me that there was something missing in the game and through the assistance of beta testers I was able to cobble together the early stages of another undertaking - growing the Reputation system.

I have been spending some cycles working out ways that we can make our Reputation/Faction system a little more robust and also finding ways to make the goal of kindred more appealing. To that end there are some minor additions coming to the Lone-lands’ new faction The Eglain, when the Siege of Mirkwood drop happens. Rather than holding this back, I figured I would get this out there now and get some feedback, figure out if this direction scratches an itch and explain how I arrived at this destination. Like all issues that come up for designers this one was laden with some red herrings and murky waters.

The Issue…

There is no incentive to grind through reputation. - paraphrased statement from LotRO players.

Okay, we get that, the perception clearly is that the reputation system is light. The reality is…the reputation system is light. It started out rather fluffy and kind and grew into a system that is now used heavily in new areas and as a result, the inconsistencies and shortcomings are more apparent. We are aware of that fact. We dislike that fact and it is now a personal crusade to alleviate that issue and address concerns by providing something more with the reputation system.

Now, to accomplish this goal I needed to establish a benchmark. Something that would serve as the new template upon which all future reputation will be built or revised. That began with The Eglain in the Lone-lands.

The average player moving through the Lone-lands and following the quests there will find that they achieve acquaintance level with the Eglain quickly - the same is also true of any player who previously completed all quests in the Lone-lands. This design was important as the Eglain rep, story-wise, is now a gate for Book 2. (Don’t freak out! Really, it is easy to get to Acquaintance.) At each stage thereafter, I wanted to properly incentivize folks to stick with the reputation and continue growing. At acquaintance, players can see that there are rewards just out of reach, rewards that are relevant to their level and will have an impact moving forward. I also wanted to provide players with a different way of handling the advancement other than specialized recipes only used by the rep faction and so I developed a quest for every production crafting skill. These quests are available at acquaintance level and though they are not the simplest way to get to Kindred, they should help alleviate the issues of that grind and have an avenue that does not involve hunting, instances, etc…

Average players completing the remainder of the quests tied to the Eglain will reach friend - or thereabouts, those who previously completed the Lone-lands will be very close to friend when they log in on the update day. This puts folks at the first reward tier. An initial piece of a jewelry set. This is a specialized set to one of three stances - tactical, defensive and offensive melee. They are somewhat costly - but likely worth the expenditure.

At Kindred, players can purchase a tailored pocket item. I say tailored because it is built specifically for your class and usable only by your class. All items are rare and usable at 28, 30 and 32 (subject to change). The set bonus is a pretty nice and focuses on morale and class functionality over more stats. Those are reserved for the items.

Placing this up on the test realm for the Beta received some interesting feedback; immediately a level 60 stated that they could only reach ally through questing and I responded with the following:

“At level 60, is there really a reason to grind for this faction? There is no way to rocket players into the ally tier without also increasing the faction for players going through this area fresh. At the moment, I like the progression. I just need to make the items in there go from friend to kindred.” - Orion <- That’s me.

Now, I admit, the timbre of that statement makes me sound like I was being dimwitted or narrow-minded; but, my intention was not to provide a level 60 with a reputation that they could use. My intent was to create the template for future reputation implementation. A few more posts transpired and player’s dug in and then I dug in getting so adamant and uncommunicative as to say:

“Lastly, an area meant for levels 22-32 is not going to have a reward schema implemented to support level 60-65 players.” - Orion

Wow, really? Did I say that? You bet I did, I had my underlying goal of building that template and was hyper-focused on that and that alone; then something cool happened. A follow-up post came in:

“I wasn’t expecting to see rep items available that would be of any use to level-capped players. I guess what I meant was something - a title, a cosmetic, something “fluff” like that - that would stay with the player past level 32. I know it’s not realistic to expect something like this for book 9, just a thought for down the road as to how the lower level faction grinds can provide something that stays with the character.” - Beta player who knows who they are but needs to remain nameless for the moment because of NDA.

Suddenly, there was an epiphany - not really a huge one mind you, but an epiphany nonetheless. From that, I cobbled together a new document highlighting all the changes that I wanted to make to the reputation system in an effort to make it fully realized and complimentary to the game. By the end of that day I had the new doc hammered out with a list of things that I could do in the short-term. When I came home that night I wrote up a bundle of ideas for the long-term.

This is a snapshot of the process. We started this a long time ago and there have been some clear posts on what people wanted to see the reputation system be - but, honestly, many posts are filled with requests that, in the interest of balance, are just not feasible. We overlook some of the gems sometimes, we sometimes sweep the complaints into a pile and say that we will look at them later. Sometimes later never happens. In this case, it did.

The Solution…

From this conversation, where we cut out telephone, we were able to discern a legitimate gripe that was easily handled, something that should go a long way in realizing the potential of the reputation system. Like all things in LotRO development, this will happen in tiers and begins in only one area with only one Rep Faction - The Eglain. Though it will only happen here for Book 9, the hope is to carry this through as the new template of the future:

   1. At Acquaintance players will earn a title indicative of their standing with the group and gain access to items to improve standing or relevant level rewards.
   2. At Friend players will earn a title indicative of their standing with the group, gain access to further rewards and receive a 10% discount on all stable-masters associated with the rep faction (Ost-guruth has one stable-master), this bonus will stack with the travel reward given out earlier this year to “elder” players.
   3. At Ally players will earn a title indicative of their standing with the group, gain access to further rewards and receive a 5% discount on all vendors associated with the group. This bonus should extend to repair costs as well.
   4. At Kindred players will earn the last title for the group, gain access to further rewards and receive a travel skill - sharing a cool down with all racial-based travel in the game that will take the player to the group’s chosen home. This travel skill will require the use of a travel ration. We are aware that this will likely cause crossover into player skills, but the time investiture into these reputations is significant and we feel that this is a legitimate reward to offer.

Again all these are implemented for The Eglain faction and The Eglain reputation faction only. As time allows and as I move forward with revisions, other reputations will see inclusion and the same enhancements. These were the low-hanging fruit bits.

Now for something that we rarely do - a glimpse of the future. The earliest that any of this will be seen is in 2010, likely later spring or early summer and could get pushed out further than that timetable. My primary reason for offering these up is for feedback and to inform you of where my head is at this time.

    * Deeds for completing multiple reputations - with titles and possibly specialized rewards.
    * Kindred cosmetic rewards to display individual factions as cloaks.
    * Kindred mount rewards (yes, we have some of these already - this would be revisiting those that do not)
    * Ally and Kindred recipes for production crafting skills that are unique and have broader appeal: These might include; cosmetic items, food recipes serving multiple people at once, bind on acquire gear, class specific gear (rep clothes for your banner-bearers, unique looks for your summoned pets, special instruments, etc…), housing items (functional and non-functional) - all recipes would be and produce level appropriate on all accounts where the item would have gameplay impact.
    * Swift travel routes to areas of importance to the group or relevant relation.

There are other ideas percolating, but they require more explanation than I can give at the moment, so I must cut myself short here.

Ultimately, reputation is another crusade being undertaken and one that I believe will be improved significantly.

Closing this blog out, I want to invite people to ask questions here. If I can answer them, I will. After all, we are in this together.

O

[Jaaloor]

interessant ça

[Gortack]

quelques nouvelles copies d'écran de l'extension


...



ah ba non, ça sera pour demain 15h naaa ! (ouaip, j'suis trop rapide ^^)

[Walm]

quelques nouvelles copies d'écran de l'extension


...



ah ba non, ça sera pour demain 15h naaa ! (ouaip, j'suis trop rapide ^^)

Erreur 404! Tip top le screen! 

[Gortack]

désolé, c'est ça d'etre à fond dans la veille médiatique, j'anticipe trop ^^  ;D

Bref, ça sera pour demain

[Jaaloor]

ben moi j'ai eu le temps de les voir :P nananananere !