We just got a new LOTRO instrument. That's partly grand, and very much partly problematic.
Around seven years ago, several new music instruments were added to LOTRO. Three bassoons with different properties. All added to the base game for free, available from in-game bards or as festival rewards. Non-bound instruments, easily shareable with other players. Good stuff for the player music community.
After that, zero additions for musicians for years.
However, a couple of weeks ago, there was a brand-new music instrument available, the Jaunty Hand-Knells. Surely, that's a cause for celebration in the music community?
Maybe not...
High cost
Sadly, neither the instrument nor the skill to play it is available as part of the base game. Instead, it has been paywalled inside the two highest tiers of the Jaunty Patron's Coffers. This means that the only way to get the instrument is to spend at least 3995 LOTRO points for the Enhanced Jaunty Coffer.
Why is this problematic? I can think of a few reasons.
Most importantly, the pricing is insane. If you were to buy 3995 points today, you'd have to spend $59.99 for the 3,750 + 2,550 points pack. That's the cost for a whole new game these days. Even adjusting for the fact that most players have some points already from questing or VIP stipends, this is a shamelessly blatant cash grab.
Of course, you get more fluff and stuff with the Coffers; some pets, titles, dodgy cosmetics and a handful of mithril coins. But they don't really help when all you want from the pack is the instrument.
SSG's reasoning for the pricing, from the official LOTRO Discord
Of course, SSG has offered explanations for the pricing. Apparently, musical instruments are so much work, the hand-knells went into the coffers "... to directly associate the time & costs with creating it to the bundle.... The standalone sales of similar items to a musical instrument wouldn't be able to cover all of that if the instrument was made separately and sold separately. So by putting it with the pack, it helped make it into a reality in the first place".
Er... I don't dispute the fact that creating new instruments may take longer than the average LOTRO development task. But when did it become a principle in LOTRO game development that the cost for additions to a game mechanic should be dumped 100% on those interested in it? At a cost $20 higher than the base edition of the next LOTRO expansion pack? After seven years where the fans of that game mechanic got nothing new? Even after many of them paid for expansions, quest packs, VIP subs, etc. in the meantime, helping cover costs for developing other game systems and keeping the game running?
It doesn't make much sense.
What makes it worse is that I refuse to believe that the Coffer price is in any way representative of the time and effort that went into creating the hand-knells. Even a new playable class like the River-Hobbit, with skills, animations, audio ++, doesn't cost more than 1000 points now, or 1600 points in a bundle upon release. How come a handful of bell notes and new instrument animations come at four times the cost?
Low functionality
Then there are all the other problems, in addition to the pricing. The Coffers are limited-time items, only available for ca 2,5 weeks. This is unfortunate, given that there is no real certainty of when, or even if, they may come back. Tough luck for new players, I suppose. Or those whose next pay check arrive after the Coffers are available. And while I am no huge fan of multi-boxing, this is a pretty hostile move towards players who run alt bands. Sure, you might not need the instrument on more than one player for each song. But if only one of your accounts have the instrument, your flexibility for instrument changes is severely limited.
Lastly, the instrument was not put through beta testing either. When the hand-knells went into the live game, there were several problems with the way they sounded:
- They were so very very loud, far louder than other instruments, drowning out all other audio sources nearby
- They had a couple of dodgy, grating notes
- The notes in the lowest octave sounded far worse than the higher octave ones, due to being pitch corrected samples
- The individual note samples all last 1-1,5 seconds, meaning that you'll soon hit LOTRO's max amount (64) of simultaneous in-game sounds
The two first points above have to some degree been addressed in a recent patch. However, that still doesn't change my main impression of the instrument:
It is a novelty item with limited usefulness, which is sold at a dramatically inflated cost by bundling it with cosmetics that the target audience have little interest in. After seven years of nothing new for the same audience. In a year where LOTRO player have experienced myriads of problems getting a decent game experience, due to tech issues on SSG's side.
Badly done, SSG. Badly done.