A couple of week and a half again we acquired an up to date roadmap from SSG that coated their LOTRO plans for Q3 and This fall of 2025 in addition to a peek into Q1 of 2026.
LOTRO Q3 2025 Roadmap replace
Not lots there, actually. I imply, sure, it has been fleshed out a bit with some particulars relative to the April roadmap replace we acquired.
Model 2 of the LOTRO 2025 Roadmap
And, in fact, if we’re going to match issues, we’d as effectively return to the unique 2025 roadmap they put out in December of 2024. I do know that precision comes with proximity, however that continues to be a reasonably sparse image… and never for lack of issues to placed on it.
LOTRO Plans for 2025
I nonetheless marvel at the truth that the entire 64-bit server transfers occasion and the eventual closure of ALL 32-bit servers was by some means not essential sufficient to be granted a spot on the roadmap. I discussed that on the time and stay flummoxed by their determination making course of.
The truth is, I’d argue that mentioning one thing as nearly an afterthought within the producer’s updates and never placing it on the roadmap one thing that might not solely influence actually nearly each participant within the sport however would go so awry at factors and infrequently really feel like the one factor the group and the neighborhood had been targeted on, was a bit greater than a mere burying of the lede. That’s one thing extra within the vary of marking and communications malpractice.
And SSG continues to be at it. The latest roadmap was delivered almost a month AFTER SSG introduced that all 32-bit servers could be shut down and that anyone who did not switch to one of many new 64-bit worlds would discover their characters locked and inaccessible on a “darkish world” with transfers changing into accessible at some future date, after which all information could be wiped, as occurred with the earlier set of darkish worlds.
I’m certain the replace to birding was deemed extra essential that possibly placing in all capital daring purple letters, “Switch now or remorse your decisions!” on the roadmap.
I famous in my earlier put up about legendary gadgets that SSG clearly doesn’t care about lapsed gamers returning, and in case you thought I used to be simply being sarcastic, I used to be not. They reveal this repeatedly.
Anyway, that’s my pet peeve. SSG isn’t going to vary at this level. They’re simply going to make uninteresting wanting roadmaps that omit important gadgets.
Briefly, I do wish to take a look at how they’ve accomplished on the moderately minimal set of issues they promised for 2025. Not that an enlargement is a small factor… but additionally, we all know they’re now on the This fall enlargement observe with EverQuest and EverQuest II, so neither is it a lot of a shock.
For full misses I think that the up to date deed log is the prime suspect. I imply, they did ship the brand new deed log, and it did have some good options… although it want some enhancements. The principle downside was that complete “in case you open the deed log your sport consumer would crash within the subsequent couple of minutes” factor that acquired SSG put pull it out to take care of at some unspecified future date.
There are a pair gadgets on the listing which can be imprecise sufficient that I can not inform in the event that they occurred. Bug fixes? High quality of life replace? I’m certain one thing occurred that certified.
The replace to the birding passion was moved out by 1 / 4. These items occur. However in any other case, they appear to have hit the mark.
Did we get the 2 raids promised again in December? I can’t bear in mind and am too lazy to look, preferring simply to recollect again in 2014 when Turbine stated that raiders and monster play collectively added as much as lower than 10% of the participant inhabitants, with raiders being the smaller of the 2, in order that the corporate wasn’t going to be spending as a lot time on that content material.
Flash ahead to 2025 and it’s raids and monster play on the roadmap. And sophistication updates. At all times class updates.
Rolling as much as the Q3 panel on the roadmaps, yesterday noticed the massive Q3 replace that included reworks of the starvation and burglar lessons.
I can not actually communicate to burglars, not having performed one within the final decade, however I did simply run a recent hunter from creation to stage 110, which suggests I might need some opinions.
Properly, possibly. As an informal so long as I can press just a few buttons and make mobs useless in overland content material I’m fairly blissful. And, since SSG has gone again on the raids and cases prepare, the place you could really put some effort into being good, the baseline for many lessons out within the open world is sufficient to get by.
Nonetheless, I did discover some amusing gadgets of their, just like the elimination of stances. Their remark, with which I absolutely agree, is that gamers tended to select a stance (often Precision or Energy) after which by no means modified. I completely went with Energy and by no means modified after about stage 20.
The response to this was not “effectively, possibly we have to make stances a extra attention-grabbing alternative,” it was “okay, let’s simply do away with stances!” And, frankly, I’m on board with that moderately than having some dev who performs another class taking second hand data to try to make stances a extra important alternative. Simplicity wins.
I should see what my hunter appears to be like like with the replace. The purple line hunter, the Bowmaster, doesn’t appear to have quite a lot of objections within the boards, to this point that I’ve seen… however the thread can be many pages deep and I don’t have the persistence.
The blue line, the Huntsmans, had monster play folks labored up for some time as a few of the preliminary modifications because it appeared to sacrificing them with the intention to appease raiders. Unsure if that was adjusted… the discussion board put up was replace again in June and there’s not earlier than/after… however I’m certain folks shall be offended it doesn’t matter what.
In the meantime, the replace appears to have had some points. Downtime was initially scheduled to run from 6:00 EDT to 10:00 EDT, then was prolonged to 14:00 EDT, then once more to “no sooner than” 18:00 EDT, and finally went reside simply shy of twenty-two:00 EDT, about 12 hours late. However nonetheless delivered.
In some unspecified time in the future I’ll return and see if my hunter can nonetheless survive… although I would wait a bit as there’ll little doubt be the inevitable adjustment interval as the issues with the replace get labored out.
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