Brian "Zombie Columbus" Aloisio wrapped up his massive Skirmish System dev diary series today by publishing the seventh and final entry. The post provides a shortened summary of the system and answers some frequenty asked questions, as well as gives shout-outs to other members of the Lord of the Rings Online team.

Here's Aloisio's shortest summary of the Skirmish System from the FAQ: "1- Go to the Skrimish Camp and find some stuff you want to get. 2- Play Skirmishes until you have enough marks to get that stuff. 3- Goto 1." That's as simple as it gets.

You can read Aloisio's final Skirmish entry after the jump while you wait for the system to be implemented with the launch of Siege of Mirkwood on Dec. 1.

Brian “Zombie Columbus” wraps up his series of developer diaries about the new Skirmish system coming in The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ with Part 7: The End. If you’ve missed previous installments you can catch up with Part 1: Overview, Part 2: Story Instances,  Part 3: Randomization and Scaling,  Part 4: Skirmish Soldiers, Part 5: Rewards, and Part 6: Accessibility!

 

 

The End.

 

I hope you've enjoyed these developer diaries and gained some insight into the Skirmish system over the past few weeks.  The large collection of diaries on the subject of Skirmishes (this is the seventh in the series!) might be more information than some are looking for, so to help with that, I present the short, short version of Skirmishes!

Skirmishes are short, repeatable instances that can be joined from most places in the world.  They have a number of randomized elements in them to keep gameplay fresh, as well as the ability to scale to different levels and group sizes.  Skirmishes are military fights against the enemy, allowing you to bring a custom trained Soldier to assist you.

 Playing Skirmishes nets you Skirmish Marks, which can be redeemed for the rewards of your choice from options including; arms and armour, legendary items, crafting, reputation and Skirmish traits.  With the scalability, ease of entry and personalized rewards, Skirmishes fit nicely into the rest of LOTRO and can compliment any gameplay style.

This is what we envisioned Skirmishes to be, and what we hope you experience as we've tried to bring that vision to life.  We are all very excited to see how players participate in the system, what parts of it they like and don't like, and what kind of feedback we get.  There were many grand ideas at the beginning of the project which were refined over time into the system launching in Siege of Mirkwood™.  We've already begun musing about what we can add next to streamline the experience and add more content and rewards.

Of the Project:
My previous large project at Turbine was the Rune-keeper, and was a largely solo effort. The Skirmishes system has been my first real collaborative project; tt started as a  little idea, and grew and grew until it became larger than one person could manage.  The transition was slightly rocky as it became obvious that Skirmishes were going to be a key component of the expansion, and an important part of LOTRO in the future.  I think it is only fitting that the many people who worked together to make Skirmishes happen all get a shout-out!

Shout-outs!

 

JWbarry - Our content guy to say the very least.  He was a driving force in the design of the project. He extended our tools to add in scaling, created the control point system and encounter system, and designed and implemented all of the Skirmishes.

 

SomeEngineer - Our primary engineer, Some implemented many of the back-end systems that make Skirmishes tick.  Working with him was a treat, as he understood what we were trying to do with Skirmishes and gave us the support and insight we needed.

 

Fantus - Fantus has a very... special reputation at Turbine.  Part of that reputation is to do consistently good world-building work, and he delivered.

 

Gamma - Gamma is the engineer who built Skirmish-join nearly from scratch and polished it right up.  His focus on that massive system freed SomeEngineer to hit the rest of the workload.  Gamma moved on to other projects afterward, but was always on call, helping us with any problems we had.

 

Sleepy - Our QA liaison, Sleepy ended up being a tremendous resource, who contributed to a lot of design decisions that made it into the final version of Skirmishes.

 

Tim "Raskolnikov" Lang - Raskolnikov brought his monster skills on to implement and enhance Lieutenants and bosses, as well as help with many bugs and polish tasks.

 

Zyrca - While Zyrca joined our team later in the project, she engineered a number of necessary systems and spent a lot of time adding a strong level of polish in many areas.

 

Samera - I don’t think we could have asked for a better manager.

 

Rhidden - My roommate, who sparked a lot of the original design discussions with me.

 

Turbine - NOTHING gets done without a whole lot of support from outside your immediate team, but there are too many to name.  Read the Credits when Siege of Mirkwood launches and you'll know who we are thanking!

 

Isengard/Bullroar - To all our beta testers for the help.

 

And to you, the LOTRO fans!

Yeah, that last one was a bit on the hokey side.  But knowing people are playing and enjoying a game that we made is a big part of what keeps us all going.
 
ZC, and the Skirmish Team.

Just the FAQ:

Q: I heard that XYZ was different/better/worse in the beta, why was it needlessly nerfed/buffed?
A: Beta is a very special time in a project, where we make large changes because we need to see the reactions and effects.

As an example, the cosmetic traits and items used to be nearly free, because we wanted players to earn them quickly and generate feedback.  Once we achieved that goal we changed the prices to the more reasonable amount you will see in game.  Is this a "nerf" compared to beta?  I suppose, but it's missing the point of beta.  Does this mean we should revert the changes and make a significant portion of the Skirmish rewards essentially free?  No way!

Q: How are rewards distributed in Skirmishes?
A: Almost all Skirmish rewards are group drops.  This means that if the treasure system generates a reward, a copy of that reward will be made and reserved for each fellowship member.  The basic Skirmish currency (SM's) is generated on a player-by-player basis, taking into account each player’s individual level.  The only rewards that are not group drops are some of the less valuable tokens that can drop from the bosses.  These can be distributed around the fellowship any way you wish.

Q: How does Skirmish-join work with Fellowships?
A: Very nicely!  If you join a fellowship that is already in a skirmish, you will be immediately extended an invitation to join the Skirmish.  If you leave a fellowship, you will no longer be able to be in that fellowship’s Skirmish.

Q: You talk a lot and I get confused.  Can you explain Skirmishes very simply to me?
A: 1- Go to the Skrimish Camp and find some stuff you want to get
2- Play Skirmishes until you have enough marks to get that stuff
3- Goto 1

Q: How many Skirmishes can I play?  What's with the daily quests?
A: Skirmish daily quests do not block you from playing any Skirmish; they simply give a bonus if it's a Skirmish you haven't played recently.  That said, Skirmishes are instances, so you are limited to entering no more than 5 of them an hour.  Chances are you will not be able to complete that many Skirmishes in an hour anyway, so it shouldn't be much of a concern.

Q: Why can't I control my soldier more?
A: We want to keep non-pet classes from becoming pet classes and pet classes from needing to manage two pets.  Soldiers are only moderately trained conscripts, and are not capable of following many complex orders.  However, we have given them fairly decent AI to allow them to be helpful in combat without the need of constant attention.

Q: How many soldiers can I have?
A: Each player can only bring one soldier into a Skirmish.  You will be able to collect as many Soldier Skirmish traits as you would like however, and swap Soldier customizations much as you would swap your own traits.
So there you have it! I hope you enjoy Skirmishes and The Lord of the Rings Online:™ Siege of Mirkwood™!