Tobold's Blog
Thursday, October 25, 2007
 
LotRO housing patch today

Today Lord of the Rings Online adds the content patch officially known as Book 11: Defenders of Eriador. Inofficially it's known as the patch adding player housing to the game. Which is definitely a step up from the last content patch, known as the "chicken play" patch. :) LotROLife has a LotRO housing guide up, that explains how it all works.

I haven't played LotRO since July, since before my holidays. But I guess this weekend I'm going to download the patch and have a look at housing, if I can find enough money on my characters to buy at least the smallest kind of house. 1 gold, I think I have that. I did like the free placeable housing in UO and SWG, but was less enthusiastic of housing in AO, FFXI, and EQ2 with their fully instanced housing. Apparently LotRO will be somewhere in the middle between those concepts, having individually placed houses, but in instanced housing zones. That is probably the best way to do it, I wouldn't want to see housing spring up in the Lonelands or other spots which by lore shouldn't be heavily populated.

The only bad news is the lack of rentable NPC vendors, the ability to turn your house into a shop. I've never been big on decorating, that is not the main feature of player housing for me. LotRO houses have storage functionality, which is good, but they don't have the possibility to sell goods from your house, which is not so good. But apparently Turbine is planning to expand housing functionality in later patches, so all is not lost.

I'm still happy that I took that lifetime subscription. While Lord of the Rings Online was a bit thin on content when it was launched, the speed in which Turbine is adding new content is quite nice. And the lifetime subscription enables me to take hassle-free "holidays" from the game and come back whenever I want.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:15 AM Permanent Link
Comments:
I can't wait installing the patch at the weekend. I really love all the things around housing. You can't use the house as a vendor shop, but who knows, they might introduce this at a later stage. Currently, housing hase some perks:

- Additional storage (needed as you can only create 5 alts and mailbox is expensive)
- Discount on vendor / repairs in your homestead
- Porting option to the homestead (set the milestone in a distant place, then port back to the homestead)
- Fun :)

I love it. Can't wait. Oh, what to buy...
# posted by Blogger TEM : 25/10/07 10:31
 
I don't know if you spotted the bit about having to log in at least once every six weeks to pay rent Tobold. Its not a major imposition but it means you can't leave the game for six months and expect to find your house when you come back.

I find it interesting that houses are quite cheap in LOTRO. The entry level house is only on quarter the price of a mount so even low level players will be able to afford one.
# posted by Blogger mbp : 25/10/07 10:57
 
It seems, from the descriptions, that all game world objects cannot be used as decorations, ala SWG. Is that true?
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 25/10/07 13:44
 
"all game world objects cannot be used as decorations..."

Alas not, but who knows what the future holds? The system currently uses a number of pre-defined slots (or "hooks") in homes for the placement of items which is incredibly restrictive and seemingly allows no room for flexibility.

Alas the lack of customisation - combined with the fact the houses are insanely - yes, insanely - cheap - means it's come as a bit of damp squib to me when it had been something I was really looking forward to.

Ahh well, as mentioned, Turbine's update rate has been very good, so fingers crossed for the future...
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 25/10/07 14:15
 
Just so it's not a rude surprise, you can't actually place your house within the zone: it's placed already. The only things you can place are the decorations etc.

I looked at the Dwarf, Elf, and Hobbit styles last night: I was most impressed by the Elf themes and least happy with the Dwarf. This is unfortunate since I have a dwarf character. However, you can use whatever style you like, regardless of your character's race.
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 25/10/07 15:25
 
Also of note, is that, although neighborhoods is an innovative concept, your home is an instance within an instance. Like most interiors in LoTRO, you open the door, walk through the zone line, get through a loading screen and appear inside your house.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 25/10/07 15:38
 
I logged in after patch last night...had not been in for two months now (got a trial key, as I am not a lifer...)
All of my kinship was disbanded (35 people gone), my friends list was filled with 15 people who had not logged in for a month or more...
And the lag spikes were horrible...

Truly a disappointment...

Finally decided to uninstall, as there are to many other games that work well, and have a feeling of content already...that I just cannot see myself back in LOTRO before the next wave of MMO's hit...

Cheers!
# posted by Blogger Elementalistly : 25/10/07 16:43
 
@openedge1

People come and go in every MMORPG. With LOTRO taking a more casual approach, it's not uncommon for people to take long breaks or switch to an alt and leave their main. How realistic is it of you to disappear for 2 months and expect to find both your kinship and friends still around upon your return?

Anyway, you said you deinstalled because there are plenty of other games that work well. Which I take it was a reference to the lag spikes. Two observations here. I've been playing LOTRO for 5 months on Europeans servers. I'm based in Hong Kong these days, so I hardly get the best performance in terms of latency. Yet I rarely encounter lag spikes and I play on the busiest LOTRO server in Europe. US servers are all one notch up from European servers and ran better by Turbine directly than Codemasters ever can, so if you are in the US it should be even better.

But beyond that. Logging in on one of the biggest patch days in LOTRO and expecting flawless performance is totally unrealistic. I didn't encounter any trouble myself yesterday, but I wouldn't have been surprised to run into some given the sheer volume of new content and folks checking it out.

Cheers - Sveral
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 26/10/07 01:50
 
@openedge

lol stop lying , how can you log in your main account with a trial key ?

i know you been posting doom gloom post in lotro forum everyday
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 26/10/07 03:24
 
Ahh - there's nowt quite so bitter as a burned-out gamer. :D

It's always amused me how hard it is for some people to just leave these games quietly - hence the endless oh-so-tedious "I'm off - here's why you should quit too" posts.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 26/10/07 13:52
 
You can pay your upkeep in advance, so it's safe to leave. And if you leave I think you have 2 months to settle up before you lose the house.

I have not decorated mine yet, but this is is my house (the little one). I went for the country cottage look.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 29/10/07 18:43
 
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