LOTRO - State of the game

[Blackjack]

MyLotro is in beta, and they seem to have a heckuva lot of login problems there too (I can't login there either with my "old" login or my current).

And yeah it's rather befuddling when you get asked for a login and they either don't specify or don't explain to you that your forum login is setup differently than your main login (different username and password). To me, it just should be more clearly explained - and I've run into that on COH and other MMOs as well so that's just a little general MMO observation of mine.

[Scraper]

Got the complete edition at Gamestop today for 30 bucks, so I'll be starting fresh tonight! What server would you guys suggest? Are most of you on Landroval or elsewhere?

Elendilmir is the server of choice. My toon on there is Hanton.

[BrianE]

I created a Captain on Landroval named Briadir and got him to level 8 tonight (in just under 3 hours), I can always roll another on a different server. First time trying Capt. and it's pretty cool so far.

I've got 3 buddy keys available


(edited for spelling)

[Lockdown]

Arkon and I are on Landroval, Brian.  I'll keep an eye out for ya'.

[coopasonic]

Turbine is testing a new "social networking site" for LOTRO, called My LOTRO:
http://my.lotro.com/

Kupriel reached level 42 on 5/29/2007 - that's sad.

Hit 43 yesterday... so 1 year 6 months and 2 weeks to level from 42 to 43, leveling curve is kinda slow!

[Blackjack]

Patch going up on Monday:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=236563

Mostly bug fixes, but they are making the revamped 21st Hall easier to understand in terms of the relocated vendors/merchants:

Added mail boxes to Crafting Hall, Auction Hall and Vault in the 21st Hall.
Doors will now have mouse over text in the 21st Hall
Mini map will now indicate where Auctioneer, Banker, and Crafting vendors are in the 21st Hall

More importantly for mounts:

Horses no longer appear to have dislocated their backsides. The animation is now more natural.

[BrianE]

Correction: My Captain's name is Briadir.

If anyone wants a buddy key just post here and I'll email one to you. Got 3

[EngineNo9]

I also have a couple characters on Landroval, but I haven't been playing much lately (again). 

[TiLT]

Patch going up on Monday:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=236563

Mostly bug fixes, but they are making the revamped 21st Hall easier to understand in terms of the relocated vendors/merchants:

Added mail boxes to Crafting Hall, Auction Hall and Vault in the 21st Hall.
Doors will now have mouse over text in the 21st Hall
Mini map will now indicate where Auctioneer, Banker, and Crafting vendors are in the 21st Hall

More importantly for mounts:

Horses no longer appear to have dislocated their backsides. The animation is now more natural.

I'm still missing a fix for the bug where only the fellowship leader can see the fellowship members on the map. This one was introduced in MoM and is really annoying.

[coopasonic]

Turbine is testing a new "social networking site" for LOTRO, called My LOTRO:
http://my.lotro.com/

Kupriel reached level 42 on 5/29/2007 - that's sad.

Hit 43 yesterday... so 1 year 6 months and 2 weeks to level from 42 to 43, leveling curve is kinda slow!

OK, last time I quote myself, quoting myself... oy.

Hit 44, 45 and 46 this weekend, ran through the opening Moria quests with a friend and got my legendary bow. I just want to say thanks to Blackjack for reminding what a great game this is. Everyone I've run into in the game has been very friendly and helpful.

[Blackjack]

Thanks.  I find the best marketing for a game is not some ad man shoveling over-hype at people (like when you see a movie ad touting something as "Best Movie Ever" and it's quoting some nobody in a city you never heard of), it's when you detect genuine enthusiasm from players, or you share said enthusiasm without trying to "hard sell" it. But if they hired me to handle marketing, I'd probably just fall into that same trap. 

My hunter's to 58 now. Distracting Arrow at 58 gives you a 10-second mezzing arrow. While it's handy, people tend to still think only Lore-Master's can mezz, so they tend to just keep attacking things I shoot. The cooldown's pretty long, and high end bosses seem resistant to it (presumably unless your bow has a legacy reducing target resistance to distracting arrow).

I need to see if there's a way I can attach a local "text macro" to a skill. This is something I did in City of Heroes often (they had a flexible, fairly easy to use text macro/binding system) to remind teammates I had stunned, or was "holding" someone in place, or was about to let loose with a high end "nuke" power.

[TiLT]

Europe finally got the first patch last week, and I managed to play around with it a little this weekend. The new legendary weapon special effects are cool. My weapon has a goblin-bane title (or something like that), and now it glows blue while near goblins and orcs, just like a certain famous sword owned by a hobbit nobody has heard about. 

[Lockdown]

Wait... it glows blue only when you're near goblins or orcs?  Seriously?  That's pretty dang cool!

[LoneStarSpur]

Has the 1-50 trip been made any quicker? It's bound to be pretty deserted down there.

Thinking about giving it a whirl again from the start.

-Randy

[coopasonic]

1-50 was never very long to begin with. Did I mention the part where I went from 42-46 in the past 4 days almost completely solo and with a few pickup groups?

Also with the new classes being released in the expansion there are a decent number of lower leveled folks out there. I started a warden last night and there were a few other folks running around the newbie areas... not a lot certainly, but a few. The epic quests might be a challenge to find people for unless you can find some folks to play with you regularly.

I'd love to find an evening to dedicate to such a thing but I just don't see it happening.

[Scraper]

Has the 1-50 trip been made any quicker? It's bound to be pretty deserted down there.

Thinking about giving it a whirl again from the start.

-Randy

I started a newbie three weeks ago and I have never had a problem finding a group when I need it. In fact most groups fill up and if someone drops out it is usually pretty easy to find a replacement. Of course this may vary by server. But on Eledilmir it;s pretty easy.

[Blackjack]

Hmmm, I'd be game if we wanted to start an informal GT evening group, even if it's just once a week. I know some people who do that once a week and reserve one character for that purpose so that they all stay within roughly the same level.

From my experience (my Hunter is often pathfinding back to Esteldin, Bree, Rivendell etc.), some of the maybe 20-30 type areas seem a little barren at times. To some extent, there's a little more early areas activity than you might expect, just because a lot of people are trying out Wardens and Rune Keepers from scratch.

Yesterday, for the first time since Moria released, I managed to recruit an entire pickup group from scratch to tackle one of the more epic chapters (I want to say it's Volume II, Book 5, Ch7). It makes interesting use of barriers in the environment (wheels you turn to remove obstacles, lets put it that way). I think we had a hunter (me), a champion, 2 guardians, a lore-master and a minstrel. Worked out pretty well. I think to some extent it's easier to get a PUG going for a chapter that everyone has to do at some point (or wants to do) rater than some quests that people may be bypassing or not even know about.

One Chat Tip: One tip I try to remember to give new players is you can right click on player names (or spammers, but the game has been blessedly free of those sorts for the most part) in the chat window to get a pop up menu for adding them to friends list, inviting them to a fellowship, reporting as a spammer, etc. I find this helpful for example if I've enjoyed a fellowship but it disbanded quickly at the end of a quest - you can scroll back through your chat window to add them. Unless everyone did voice chat, then you're screwed. 

[LoneStarSpur]

I'm at 105% in patching so I should be logging back into Landroval in a while. 

Unless I'm actually uninstalling now or something. 

I'm at 227% now! Looks like I'm about 1/7th of the way through the patch. Don't think I'll be playing until Friday.

Finally got patched up last night. No idea how long it too because I went to bed.

So is it Landroval? I might get time to play for a bit this week before Friday. (Darts Tues. and Thurs. and I have to work late Wed.)

-Randy

[BrianE]

If the majority of you guys are on Eledilmir I might consider re-rolling there, especially if there's an established Kinship that's open to new (and casual) members. Hopefully you guys on Landroval would be wiling to do the same (Lockdown?) if it meant getting all the GTers together. My Captain just hit 10, took maybe 4 hours, so I wouldn't mind going through it again. I still want to try some other classes anyway. Captain is certainly fun (except for all the yelling!) but I was never very good with Pet classes.

3 buddy keys still available 

[TiLT]

If the majority of you guys are on Eledilmir I might consider re-rolling there, especially if there's an established Kinship that's open to new (and casual) members. Hopefully you guys on Landroval would be wiling to do the same (Lockdown?) if it meant getting all the GTers together. My Captain just hit 10, took maybe 4 hours, so I wouldn't mind going through it again. I still want to try some other classes anyway. Captain is certainly fun (except for all the yelling!) but I was never very good with Pet classes.

3 buddy keys still available 

The Captain doesn't have to be a pet class, and for most high-level Captains, it isn't. I probably haven't used any of my heralds in a year or so. You get access to battle standards as an alternative, and they work very well.

[LoneStarSpur]

Got fully patched last night. Logged in for a minute before work this morning to see how things looked on my new rig. Had to turn off DX10 dynamic shadows(?) because they were flickering horribly. 

Is Landroval the server? I'm probably going to roll a Hobbit Hunter...maybe a Burglar.

-Randy

[Jaddison]

I have a loremaster, low level (12 I think, if this one night a week thing gains traction,  I can easily make another alt on another server if that becomes the central location.

I have most of my alts on Silverlode only because it was least crowded when i started

[coopasonic]

I think there is a pretty even split between Landroval and Elendilmir. I am in a guild on Elendilmir that I've been a member of for 7 years now (pre-lotro obviously), so I don't see myself jumping. Unfortunately it's not an open guild. I think the guild Blackjack runs with sounds like it is more likely to be accepting new members more freely.

[Farscry]

No game has tempted me to upgrade to Vista for DX10 like LotRO has. But upgrading would be expensive and time-consuming, so I've resisted thus far.

[Scraper]

I would be willing to roll a new toon too if we decide on a server, Landrovel or Elendil are good for me.

[Blackjack]

I think there is a pretty even split between Landroval and Elendilmir. I am in a guild on Elendilmir that I've been a member of for 7 years now (pre-lotro obviously), so I don't see myself jumping. Unfortunately it's not an open guild. I think the guild Blackjack runs with sounds like it is more likely to be accepting new members more freely.

I'd like to think that's the case, but it took so long for me to get the founder to agree (not for any reason other than I just couldn't get him to remember ) to add Hanton that he had already joined a different one.

So, I'm not really sure. I am to some extent an "outsider" in the kin in that most are from Australia, aside from maybe two or three folks on this side of the pond. I just knew some of them a bit from the board that I used to spend most of my time before fleeing here. Aside from me the Geezer (43!) most of them seem to be in their late 20s, fwiw. It's a good group but other than the founder, me, and one or two others, most play "Australia time" and we only get large groups going on weekend evenings.

I just throw that in cause a lot of times folks join a guild in a game, are immediately apalled at how rarely they ever see anyone else online, and then leave in dismay. So if I got anyone into my kin (Shadows Bane), I'd just want people to know up front that you won't run into the Aussie folks much except on weekends. I'd love to see our kin add a few more U.S. members to alleviate that a bit, I just don't know how much say I have. 

But if we started newbies just for a GT night once or twice a week, any server's OK by me.

I, just once, got on a huge Kin's scheduled weekend raid in Angmar some months ago. It was this huge, heavily scheduled kinship (they had regular nights periodically during the week), where the Kin leader was treated like some sort of All Knowing God-like Leader (I'm not knocking it, just he was treated very "reverentially" I'd say), and they seemed to have plenty of players in each character class. I kind of envy that, but OTOH, I don't know how "scheduled" I like to be in a guild/kinship. Some of their Web sites will say, "You must commit to playing X hours a week, participating in Y events, etc. etc." It can start to sound like work. 

[Blackjack]

Turbine announced layoffs (apparently QA and "account management") at its main Boston offices and its new California operations (which includes folks from Flagship Studios, who are probably getting nervous):
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/redundancies-hit-turbine-following-latest-launch

As someone who works in trade media and is now drowning in writing about layoffs, consolidations, and has to wade through corporate baloney about "transformations" and "realignment of assets" -- finding a way to write about this stuff in English is a challenge -- I gotta admire Turbine's Corporate Speak...

"Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead," said a spokesperson for the company.

"As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward."

Oh brother.  If you ever hear your bosses start using those underlined terms? Start working on your resume. 

2009 is gonna be Butt Ugly in the gaming industry (Midway announced big layoffs the other day), and I feel bad for anyone working in it. But, I guess it's a pretty bad time for any industry at all.  Companies start fretting about what their year-end balance sheets are going to look like, and well, there ya go.

Turbine of course says no impact on their games, but given how many lingering bugs they're still stamping out on Moria, dumping QA over the side doesn't sound good. It is, though, the usual, "Hey, our expansion's out now, time to dump those employees we don't need going forward" philosophy/reasoning, but it's sad still.

[LoneStarSpur]

Turbine announced layoffs (apparently QA and "account management") at its main Boston offices and its new California operations (which includes folks from Flagship Studios, who are probably getting nervous):
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/redundancies-hit-turbine-following-latest-launch

As someone who works in trade media and is now drowning in writing about layoffs, consolidations, and has to wade through corporate baloney about "transformations" and "realignment of assets" -- finding a way to write about this stuff in English is a challenge -- I gotta admire Turbine's Corporate Speak...

"Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead," said a spokesperson for the company.

"As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward."

Oh brother.  If you ever hear your bosses start using those underlined terms? Start working on your resume. 

2009 is gonna be Butt Ugly in the gaming industry (Midway announced big layoffs the other day), and I feel bad for anyone working in it. But, I guess it's a pretty bad time for any industry at all.  Companies start fretting about what their year-end balance sheets are going to look like, and well, there ya go.

Turbine of course says no impact on their games, but given how many lingering bugs they're still stamping out on Moria, dumping QA over the side doesn't sound good. It is, though, the usual, "Hey, our expansion's out now, time to dump those employees we don't need going forward" philosophy/reasoning, but it's sad still.

Gotta love corp-speak...undoubtedly written by some dweeby accountant or HR VP.

I guess this means I may never get to log back on to their forums. 

I kinda feel bad for Turbine (I still have my Asheron's Call beta 0 CD), but they've never been big enough. I still remember them saying they had hardware ready to go for new servers when LOTRO launched. I wonder what happened to that stuff?

Started a Hobbit Hunter last night, but I don't think I can make myself go through the low-level content again. Might start playing my Hobbit Guardian again.

-Randy

[BrianE]

Hey Randy,

What server are you on? My Captain on Landroval is 11 (Briadir), and I just rolled a Minstrel on Elendilmir that's a 5 (Exilar). Any time you (or anyone else, of course) need a hand with some low level content feel free to hit me up.

[LoneStarSpur]

Hey Randy,

What server are you on? My Captain on Landroval is 11 (Briadir), and I just rolled a Minstrel on Elendilmir that's a 5 (Exilar). Any time you (or anyone else, of course) need a hand with some low level content feel free to hit me up.

I'm on Landroval...and thanks for the offer! I'm sure I'll take you up on it, but I won't get any time to play until maybe Friday evening. I'll try to post my character names tonight since I can never remember what they are. LOL

-Randy

[Hotfreak]

Picked this up again for first time since beta:

On Landroval:
Hammertoe -- 20 Warden
McButterpants -- 8 Burg
Egregias -- 8 LM
Sveringen -- 8 RK

Having a lot more fun with it than I did back in Beta.  But, then, like many others, I was still deeply involved in WoW, and had difficulty with its pace.

[Blackjack]

McButterpants

Hmmm, wasn't he Aragorn's cousin? 

[Hotfreak]

McButterpants

Hmmm, wasn't he Aragorn's cousin? 

Hobbit, actually, from the rohirric holbytla.   Grew up with Fatty Bolger.  He was the fatter of the two.

 

[Arclight]

McButterpants

Hmmm, wasn't he Aragorn's cousin? 

Hobbit, actually, from the rohirric holbytla.   Grew up with Fatty Bolger.  He was the fatter of the two.

 

So he's from the "Scottish" Butterpants lineage?

[Hotfreak]

McButterpants

Hmmm, wasn't he Aragorn's cousin? 

Hobbit, actually, from the rohirric holbytla.   Grew up with Fatty Bolger.  He was the fatter of the two.

 

So he's from the "Scottish" Butterpants lineage?

Butterpants is a small community of hobbits who live north of the north farthing in a land known for it's dreary weather, bitter wet cold and deep lakes.

He's from there.

[Jaddison]

I thought the Butterpants clan were the Boogie Nights crew of Middle Earth

[Blackjack]

I would never be caught dead with McButterpants without my McJelly. 

[LoneStarSpur]

Man, I'd been trying to figure out where I'd heard 'butterpants' before and I just remembered...

some doofus on some usenet group (strategy games or something?) years ago used that handle. Strangest dude ever...top 10 at least. That you hotfreak? 

Sorry for the hijack.

-Randy

[Hotfreak]

Man, I'd been trying to figure out where I'd heard 'butterpants' before and I just remembered...

some doofus on some usenet group (strategy games or something?) years ago used that handle. Strangest dude ever...top 10 at least. That you hotfreak? 

Sorry for the hijack.

-Randy

Actually, I was watching some annoying ESPN show one day and the announcer referred to Phil Mickelson as "Fatty McButterpants".

[Blackjack]

I finally got to do a Rift Raid last night with my kinship and a few helpful pick-up group folks.

It's fun but probably not worth the trouble by your late 50s - you get Zero legendary item experience for that stuff (it's pre-Moria content and too low level) and the stuff you can barter for after completion is generally not worth using/equipping if you're 58-60.

Also, if our kin leader hadn't done it so many times and basically memorized every square inch of the Rift, I don't really see how a less informed raid team would get through it. It's very specific about how you approach situations (there's little room for Improvisation) and near the end which we couldn't complete, there were so many things a raid team had to execute perfectly it seemed well nigh impossible.

Some screenz...

This was during one situation where out whole group (except a Guardian) had to keep running back up this stairway for protection at regular intervals.


I was reminded to "shoot the drake!" but I'm not used to them flying! 


Sorting the raid group (two full fellowships, not all pictured)


In battle.