GA Redesign in coming?

[Mangala]

Day 1 - A Tale of a Design:  http://my.lotro.com/orion/2009/07/23/day-1-a-tale-of-a-design/
Posted On: July 23rd, 2009
Posted By: Orion
Posted in: Book 9

Today I started the revision to Garth Agarwen. Honestly, the pre-production work that goes on in my head is very hard to quantify because I have been thinking about these changes for a very long time. Now, that is not to say that I have been thinking about in any concrete manner, because until you lay a design onto paper there is little chance that it will see the light of day. Once it is on paper, then chance that it will make it to implementation is a little higher - maybe 25 %, and the chance that it arrives in the state it was originally proposed is nil.

Still, we go through this process with nearly every quest, instance, or design that we put into the game. Why? Because we need to make certain that people are kept abreast of what we are working upon. We need to inform the different departments tied to the game so that they can make the appropriate preparations on their end and we need to ensure that we are providing visibility into our work for review and sanity checking.

Today was an interesting one as I also put forward a small tweak to a piece of tech that we recently received to really give the tech some more oomph and allow the content team to really start using the tech efficiently and prolifically. Aside from the initial draft of that document and getting through about one half of the Garth Agarwen revision document it was a full day. I am winding down now and getting ready to head home and set about writing the blog, as promised, to give you all a little insight into what goes into a design.

Garth Agarwen was the very first instance in The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar that is a little known piece of trivia. It was designed, initially, by yours truly, DangerDan and one of world builders, who has since moved on, Ken Brown. The space was originally part of a pseudo contest that was run amongst the original designers of The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar to determine what style of instance would prove the most beneficial to the overall game. In early reviews the stepped nature of the instance was a big success. By the time that I ceased working on the design, I was already beginning to see a lot of the cracks in the foundation of this system.

First, Garth Agarwen is huge! It covers over 230 thousand square meters and contains nearly as many creatures as the whole of the southern bog of the Lone-lands. This makes this prototype one sizable beast.

Now, let’s look at the design decisions we had surrounding this behemoth at its inception. Create three to distinct wings with four capstone fights fitting within a three to five level spread. Ambitious and built around a flawed thought. That thought? Players will play through this instance the few times it would take to reach level 35 and face down the Red Maid. On paper, this looked like a good idea, in execution we found otherwise.

It can be argued that the loot was not good enough to inspire people to visit the space or that the very nature of Agamaur being a full fellowship hunting area hurt the space or any number of other issues that arose as we began to see things play out on live servers. Ultimately, I must look at this, my initial design, and say that it was/is flawed but not ruined or unsalvageable. Before launch some of the more egregious issued were worked on and smoothed over by Amlug while I forged ahead with other instances before moving to Monster Island.

Now the wheel turns 360 and I am back where it all began - Garth Agarwen.

Since I began the process of revamping the content of the world I have been looking forward to a few opportunities, fixing Garth Agarwen is one such opportunity. I start by sorting out my thoughts over a nice cup of coffee - we’re big fans of Keurig here - mmm Our Blend K-cup you make my day happy. I stare at the template for our specs and begin writing. First the intent of the document ‘ Provide details on Garth Agarwen changes.’ Next, the Overview; ‘Bring Garth Agarwen into line with our instance structure and introduce new concepts that will soon make their way into general use throughout instance spaces.’  Suddenly, I am away and rolling.

I now have the following headers in my document: Garth Agarwen - Outer Sanctum, Garth Agarwen - Arboretum, Garth Agarwen - Barrows, Garth Agarwen - Fortress laid out before me and I am ready to really dig into the meat of this revision.

Starting with the outer sanctum I focus on the first section of the instance which will now become a public lobby geared toward players in three-man fellowships. Quests that point into Garth Agarwen will still be completed in this space, though obviously not all. I describe the new npcs that will make their way to the mustering horn at the previous entrance to Garth Agarwen and realize that I worked on the document through lunch. After a short break where I share a completely unhealthy but oh so tasty burrito with a friend, I am back at it.

I describe the new quests that will be set upon the NPCs in the new camp and the old ones that will be moved to the new location and then I get set to work on Garth Agarwen - Arboretum when I am sidetracked by the document that I opened my day with appearing in my inbox with some comments. After addressing the comments and making some significant edits to the spec I return to Garth Agarwen.

The Arboretum is detailed to provide information to our QA department so they know what monsters to expect within the space, including the look, level and skills that the monsters should possess. I enter the space and begin to look through it to find out the important locales that I can use in new quests within the space and then I work my way to the fight against Grimbark. I reason that there are some serious tweaks that need to be made to the fight to make it a solid 3-man encounter for our players.

The result is as follows:

Garth Agarwen - Arboretum

Level: 32

Fellowship Size: 3

Encounters(Fancy name for boss fights): 1

Quests: 5

Grimbark will now have a Challenge objective in the fight. The challenge? Kill Grimbark without killing any of the beehives that fall at the outset of the fight. Of course, his skills will need to be reworked to ensure that the quest can be completed by a fellowship of three and the reward for completing the Challenge objective? More on that later, likely tomorrow - Monday at the latest.

I identify 4 new skills that I need to make for grimbark - fortunately none will require new art or animations. I do find the need to create a dialogue set for Grimbark as he will need to announce that he is using some of these skills. I also discover some small tweaks that I can make to existing skills to ease the workload I am taking on. I go about naming the quests and look up and realize that it is time to write the blog and then go home for the evening.

It may not sound like much, but that is Day 1.

Day 2 starts in about 14-15 hours.

Sounds okish, changes for 3mans are more a symptom of the playerbase avoiding such places than something Turbine would really like to do, so I aint as bitter as I would be.  Although as a 6man its fucking epic as it stands now.

[Caradir]

its a lovely area but no one goes in during their race to 60 so making these 3 mans will mean that those who do wish to see everything find it easier to get a group, and heck usually even a decent captain can heal in 3 mans

[Warcold]

Why not make 2 options, as the code is already there for the 6 mans, just add the 3 mans, in stead of substitute...

[Dlarah]

Have the changes to this place happened yet?
I am currently around lvl 31 on my hunter and trying to do some of the fellowship quests in the area outside. Might see if i can get a fellowship for this place, but it seems to be hard to get one unless you are on just at the right time from looking at LFF.
Is it just me or are Lone lands and North Downs extremely quiet? Except from that ranger town in North downs ofc. Theres always lots of people there.

[Caradir]

Have the changes to this place happened yet?
I am currently around lvl 31 on my hunter and trying to do some of the fellowship quests in the area outside. Might see if i can get a fellowship for this place, but it seems to be hard to get one unless you are on just at the right time from looking at LFF.
Is it just me or are Lone lands and North Downs extremely quiet? Except from that ranger town in North downs ofc. Theres always lots of people there.

nope its a soon thing, possibly next big patch.

[Jarkko]

I'll try (again) to get my burglar transfered today, just need to grab along stuff for my alts from my alts   Once I've made the transfer (hopefully it works this time, third time the charm and all that), I'd be very willing to visit GA

Btw, checked AH's on both servers. Seems prices on Laurelin are much higher than on Snowbourne. I did put all saved up skins to the AH yesterday, I can then buy twice the amount on Snowbourne for the money *and* still have some change for other stuff.  Should see a nice boost to my efforts with tailors guild

[Jarkko]

Once again, not looking good with my character transfer. It still says "pending". The Codemasters page says "up to three business days", but according to users on the LOTRO forums it usually takes less than an hour after the credit card has been charged. My credit card has been charged yesterday at 15 GMT, but the toon just doesn't get transfered.

Odd and annoying   This is the third time I am trying to transfer, and it never goes through. First time the credit card was never billed and the transfer was cancelled by Codemasters,  second time the credit card was charged after a week had gone, but I got a refund and the transfer got cancelled (after I had contacted customer service). I wonder wtf is wrong 

[Mangala]

Once again, not looking good with my character transfer. It still says "pending". The Codemasters page says "up to three business days", but according to users on the LOTRO forums it usually takes less than an hour after the credit card has been charged. My credit card has been charged yesterday at 15 GMT, but the toon just doesn't get transfered.

Odd and annoying   This is the third time I am trying to transfer, and it never goes through. First time the credit card was never billed and the transfer was cancelled by Codemasters,  second time the credit card was charged after a week had gone, but I got a refund and the transfer got cancelled (after I had contacted customer service). I wonder wtf is wrong 

I'd be kicking Codies door in about now :S

[Jarkko]

Incidently, does anybody want to give my burglar give a guided tour to GA one of these days? Never been there, so would be nice to see the place befoer it gets nerfed

[Mangala]

Incidently, does anybody want to give my burglar give a guided tour to GA one of these days? Never been there, so would be nice to see the place befoer it gets nerfed

I could bring Beo to tank - and we can root a few more folks - later this week (Friday is probably best for me)?

[Caradir]

i could bring one of mine to help out i actually think some of mine in their 50s havent done the qs in there.

[Warcold]

I resubbed yesterday, so could bring my lvl 24 guard, if that is going to be of any use

[Jarkko]

I'm playing an MP session of EU:Rome on Friday night, so can't make it then. Other evenigs this week should be ok, except I have the earl shift at work, so have to get to bed by 20 GMT latest... In the weekend I'll have lots of time though (or so I believe still, have discussed with the mrs about next weekend yet :p).