NB: This is a VERY long post. Please be aware of this if you generally prefer to avoid long posts. Thanks.
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Summary of Contents:
- Observation that Expert Vendors have no "standard" Westfold Recipes for sale using in-game coin;
- Note that the LotRO Store *does* have *all* standard Recipes for sale, using TPs/real money;
- Note that, whilst these Recipes are also available as world loot drops, this is a *very* slow method;
- Argument that Recipes, being part of "Vendor content", should be available from Vendors, using in-game coin (i.e. free to VIPs);
- Objection to "re-classification" of in-game Vendor/NPC-obtained content (standard Recipes) as "Store-exclusive/loot drop only";
- Opinion that this change to Recipes removes them, unfairly, from VIPs' "free in-game content";
- Argument that if one type of "NPC-obtained in-game content" can be re-classified, this sets an unwelcome precedent for others.
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Please Note: This is a post written by a keen (and pretty disaffected) Crafter, about Tier 7 Recipes, so please don't bother to read this if Crafting is of no interest to you. It's a long post and I don't want to waste anyone's time.
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So, there I was, with all my Crafters (one for each Vocation) waiting next to their Expert Vendors, a Gold piece in hand, looking forward to buying the new Tier 7 Vendor Recipes.
And what do I find?
I was both very surprised and extremely disappointed to discover that all Expert Profession Vendors appear to have
*NO* Tier 7/Westfold Recipes for sale. This was the case throughout Beta: I simply assumed that it would be altered when RoI went Live, but it seems not - and unless it simply isn't being listed in the "Known Issues" post, it isn't a yet-to-be-implemented feature either, but rather a new trend.
Typically, and although it varies slightly between Vocations, the Expert Vendors have always sold about 75% of the "standard", bread-and-butter Recipes for any given Tier, with the remainder being divided between more "special" Recipes gained via world loot drops and Guild Recipes (which are, frequently, the Critical Success versions of the world loot drops and/or Single-Use Recipes, plus "improved" versions of standard Vendor Recipes, and also sometimes a few Recipes unique to the Guild).
When a large batch of new Recipes was added to the game about a year ago (I forget which Update - it was when the new Dyes and Class Consumables appeared), the Expert Vendors were given a good proportion of the new Recipes and the Guilds were given others, to sell for in-game coin, with the (smallest) remainder being reserved as Store-exclusives (and world loot drops).
I was, then, none too happy to see even this small(ish) move towards Store-exclusive Recipes: even though the Store-exclusive/loot drop Scholar Recipes were few, compared with Vendor and Guild Recipes, I speculated then whether this might be heralding an unwelcome new trend towards removing Recipes from Vendors (purchasable with in-game coin) in favour of the Store (purchasable with real money)... and of course I was flamed into the ground and called "Chicken Little" in about 57 different ways. Same old, same old.
And yet... With RoI, we seem to have advanced a
*long* way down the path I wished
NOT to see: from a fairly small assortment of non-essential Recipes being reserved as Store-exclusives/loot drops, to
*all* standard Recipes being thus treated. In fact, apart from a handful of auto-granted Recipes, it seems that the
*ONLY* ways to obtain
*any* of the standard Recipes normally sold by Expert Vendors (i.e.
*not* Reputation-gated, Single-Use, or otherwise always "world-drop-only", such as the Scholar Athelas/Celebrant Recipes) are:
- Wait to acquire the Recipes you need in the form of world loot drops;
- Keep on checking the AH for the Recipes you require, no matter what are often inflated prices, especially for the rarer loot-drop Recipes; or (and here's the rub, not surprisingly)...
- Buy the Recipes you require from the Store - which just happens to have the full complement. For Scholar, it's over 6 pages'-worth at 240 TP each: 25 Recipes at a total cost of 6,000 TP. Not so bad for Cooks: 11 Recipes at 120 TP each - but still a fair outlay (1,320 TP) for something which has *always* been classified as "in-game content" provided by the Expert Vendor NPCs and should, therefore, be purchasable with in-game coin (and also therefore should be *free*, in terms of real money, to Lifetimers/VIPs).
As I say, I was somewhat fed-up (with a concerned sense of "thin end of the wedge") when the last round of new Recipes included some that were/are Store-exclusive/loot drop only, but it
*was* only a relative few. This time round it's
*ALL* of them.
When F2P launched, we Lifetimers were assured by Turbine that they would honour our CodeMasters contractual agreements: that is, that we would need to make "
*NO* further real money payments for
*ANY* future in-game content (except actual Expansions)" - and Lifetime contracts, it's worth recalling, used to cost at the time around the same amount as some 16+ months of gaming time. A sizeable lump-sum investment, made in good faith.
So: In what way are basic, standard Crafting Recipes now
*NOT* to be regarded/treated as in-game NPC-sold content...? What reason is there for the Expert Vendors to have
*NO* Tier 7 Recipes for sale, but the Store to have the full complement? If this isn't in direct breach of the contract between Lifetime/VIP players and Turbine, it's
*certainly* in breach of any concepts of fair play, decent behaviour towards loyal players or generally honourable business practice.
Bizarrely enough, since one would tend to expect the opposite, it looks as if it will now be
*not* the standard Vendor-bought Recipes but the more powerful/unusual/special ones which are being provided as free content: I'm talking about the various Guild and/or Reputation-gated Recipes, which we
*can* obtain for in-game coin, whereas the standard Recipes, which should also be purchasable from Vendors, apparently now no longer count as "Vendor content" and have
*ALL* been removed to the Store (and out into the landscape as world loot drops).
NB: Yes, I am (more than) well aware that it is technically possible to slowly collect the standard Recipes via world loot drops and/or the AH. But this should not be
*necessary*. The Expert Vendors
*should have those Recipes for sale*, for in-game coin, just as is normal for the previous Tiers: I cannot see any justification for, effectively,
*removing* in-game NPC/Vendor content (a "sin of omission", as it were), by simply failing to add content which, according to its nature as
*always* having been "in-game Vendor content", should therefore be obtainable
*from Vendors*, using in-game coin, just as has always been the case.
Still on this theme: may I point out, to those who will no doubt tell me to just wait and collect all the "standard" Westfold Recipes via world loot drops/the AH, that I have been running seven Crafters for
*three years*, during which time I have kept
*literally* every Recipe I've looted or found on the AH which any of them could use, even at future Tiers. (Yes, I'm obsessive: I know.) During that time, only
*one* of those seven Characters - my Cook - has actually managed to collect
*all* loot-drop Recipes at all Tiers - but only because there are so very few loot-drop Cook Recipes to collect. My other Crafters are
*all* missing Recipes from each Tier above Journeyman, despite my (insanely) careful Recipe-collecting. This is, of course, because some Recipes drop very frequently and others almost (or literally) never.
Anyway: the points I'm making are:
- Waiting to complete the Westfold Tier on any of my Crafting Characters by relying on loot drops and/or AH purchases will take a very long time, because some Recipes are so commonplace as to be non-auctionable Vendor trash, whereas others are as rare as hens' teeth;
- As a Lifetime/VIP, I should not be forced to do this in any case: Standard Recipes are, and always have been, classed as "in-game Vendor content", and as such should be provided, via in-game coin, through the Expert Vendors as normal;
- Although the option of buying some or all of the Recipes I need from the Store does exist, it should not be the *only* way to quickly obtain standard Recipes which have always been provided by Expert Vendors.
I don't object to the Store selling Recipes
*as an option* for those who would rather spend real money than in-game coin, or even as a useful source for otherwise difficult-to-obtain "special" Rare/Single-Use (Purple) Recipes: it is the rendering of standard, essential Vendor-type Recipes as
*Store-exclusives* (with the only alternative being the "wait forever" world loot drop option) to which I am objecting - and as a wedded issue, the most unwelcome conclusion that Turbine are, for Westfold Crafting at least, apparently no longer considering standard Recipes as "in-game Vendor content". If basic Recipes are now "not in-game Vendor content" and therefore no longer easily obtainable via in-game coin, what will be next to be similarly "re-defined"?
As a comparative example: Would anyone expect all Combat Skills above Level 65 to be available not via Trainers, but instead to be obtained by world loot drop "Combat Skill Tokens" which you could then apply to your Character - plus, of course, a complete Combat Skills list for sale in the Store? There would be a huge outcry - with good reason. Either a Combat Skills Trainer trains Skills, or they don't, no matter the Skill Level. The fact that a few special Skills (for example: the LMs' "Nature-Friend" Skill) are obtained by other means - just as a few special Recipes are obtained by other means than Vendors - doesn't alter the fact that the Combat Skills Trainers should, and do, have most, if not all, of the new Level 65+ Skills for sale using in-game coin. By any sort of logic, it follows that the Expert Crafting Vendors should have the new Tier 7 standard Recipes for sale via in-game coin, whether or not a few "special" Recipes are acquired, as normal, via world loot drops or other methods.
No doubt I'll be accused (again) of "Chicken Little Syndrome", "raging", or any other pejorative term of choice. No matter: and in any case, it won't alter the fact that it looks to me as if Turbine are re-writing the rules here, setting an unwelcome (certainly to me) precedent, and that this is yet one more way in which our in-game choices are dwindling in favour of the Store - regardless that, as VIPs (I have a paid VIP account as well as three Lifetimes), we are
*already paying* for the very content we can now no longer access in the normal, traditional way.
Some may argue that this further (significant) step down the road towards "pay to play" is welcome and provides "choice": yes, if the Expert Vendors had any Tier 7 Recipes to sell me, that would be true. Since they haven't, it's not. And I don't think it's really viable to state that waiting ridiculously long periods of time in order to obtain all of the Westfold Recipes via loot and/or the AH is much of a "choice" - especially when the items in question should in any case, by all usual previous definitions of "in-game content", be made available fast and easily - from Expert Vendors - especially to VIPs.
Out of interest: When the new Dye Recipes were released, it took me (playing daily) over four months to obtain
*all* of the dozen or so which were Store-exclusive/loot drop only. Yes, they were in the Store from Day One, but I have always thought that voting with one's wallet speaks louder than any Forum post, so I didn't buy them with TPs. That was only a dozen or so Recipes: the Westfold Scholar Tier has 25 similar Recipes to (somehow) obtain. Thought I'd mention this to illustrate just how slow the loot-drop method actually is - even for a Recipe-hoarder like me.
Anyway. Enough already. I'm starting to bore even myself!
Time to go and practise my Westfold Scholar Crafting with the few Recipes I
*have* managed to loot myself (er, one, so far) or to buy from the AH (I found five going for >500 silver each, which - although it's ten times the price a Vendor would charge me, or more - is at least tolerable enough to cause me to fork out the coin).
Best,
Demelza of Lórien
Friend of the Wild and Lady of Streams
PS : Polite request: please could we avoid the typical "You don't
*need* Crafting Recipes"/"Nobody's forcing you to be a Crafter"/"The sky isn't falling"/etc. comments which often pop up in a rather unhelpful fashion every time anyone states that they dislike any particular aspect of the game's mechanics/content. As a paying customer, I choose to make Crafting a large part of my in-game experience, and I cannot see why I should be seriously disadvantaged in comparison with non-Crafters. I personally, for example, do not much care that no Instances ship with RoI, but I would never tell someone who loves Instances that they should just "live with it": it is their right to object to the Instances' absence, because that adversely affects the way in which
*they* choose to play. I do not happen to believe that
*anyone* should just "shut up and live with it" if Turbine introduces (or maintains/removes) game mechanics or content which adversely affect how they choose to play. We all have a right to our opinions, and if nobody ever complains about game aspects they don't like (as well as praising aspects they do like), how will Turbine know what any of us wants...?
So, just to be clear:
Q: Is the sky falling?
A: No.
Q: Is anyone forcing me to play LotRO?
A: No. Although my 3 x Lifetime, plus ongoing VIP, investments do have relevance here. As does the fact that no other MMO owns the IP to produce Tolkien-based games (with the Tolkien-related aspect being the reason why I play LotRO at all).
Q: Is anyone forcing me to engage in Crafting?
A: No. It is a choice I make, and my choices are as valid as anyone else's.
Q: Do the above answers mean that Turbine can do whatever they like and nobody has the right to protest?
A: No.
