LOTRO Reporter Podcast
LOTRO Reporter Episode 218 - Bill is Back in Town
Cari is joined by the one the only Bill this week. We talk about more Hobbit Trips to Isenguard, PVMP, and of course Ent Plays.
Listen now:
What We Did in Game
Bill
Trying to sort out story quest / epic battle
Done Helm’s Dike and Deeping Wall
Deeping Wall was confusing as everything – especially the culvert side quest
Cari
Leveling on Ali on Brandywine Level 93
Running around Adelburg. I’m amazed at what a good job they did with the oldness of the city.
News
Patch 12.2 Is live
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?540239-Update-12-2-Release-Notes-Official
Addressing “Macroing†issues
Certain classes were able to cause some skills to ignore their cooldowns, causing a situation where those skills could be used repeatedly and rapidly on their target. This has been resolved.
Class Trait Quickslots Update
We now save/restore the state of your quickslots automatically when you change class trait configuration slots.
Lore-master and Captain trait reset
Lore-masters and Captains have undergone trait changes causing their trait points to be reset with this patch.
after many drills, the forces of the Enemy now use their basic attacks at a faster pace.
The stack size limit for Crafting and Hobby barter items has been removed.
Next 20 Questions
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7084486#post7084486
Submissions are closed
Hobbits to Isengard
Evernight:
Hobnanigans
He reminds the team of the desire to bring it back as often as he can – They are a chicken play event. Thank you Whiteberry :)
http://flamingbard.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/lotro-hobnanigans-and-ode-to-the-past/
Balancing
12.2 does have some balance changes to it, especially to monsters. They are well aware that it’s going to be a need for the next few updates. They recognize things are a bit too easy in most places and will continue to adjust as needed.
Are some zones inherently more laggy
Yes, the more graphically intense an area, the more foliage, etc. and the higher your graphic settings, the more lag there will be.
Where do you get feedback to bring back to the dev team
Everywhere. Forums, comments in the HtoI events and ones like it, twitter, facebook, comments on gaming articles, fansites, kinship sites, even youtube comments.
Turbine contributing prizing for events like Winterstock
A lot of people aren’t aware, but if you send Sapience a PM on the forums and let him know your event and when it is, if he can get any prizing for you he will.
Update 13 when will we hear more
Sooner than you probably think. He’s actually working on stuff right now. There are area revamps planned (yes, plural). Another 20 questions call for questions later this week.
Will we ever be able to mail more than one item (attachment) at a time in-game
Significant technical issues to doing so, but never say never. Mail is a complicated system that requires lots of engineers. As a rule, the more simple and easy a change seems, the reality is often the opposite.
Are there any plugins officially supported by Turbine
They do not QA plugins, they just provide the API and framework for skinning.
Where did the HD music come from
Helm’s Deep music was done in-house, and the soundtrack is available online https://soundcloud.com/turbinegames/…e-rings-online
Are there any Lotro babies
Not aware of any but he’s met some of the married couples and knows of many people who met through the game. He thinks Merric and Goldenstar were together before LotRO so their baby doesn’t count. He doesn’t know of anyone who met, married and had a kid via LotRO.
Does the team ever feel restricted by the lore
The content team wouldn’t likely tolerate going too far off the lore. They are as heavily invested in the lore as the players. They are dedicated to bringing the lore to life, and bringing key moments in the story to life is a big thrill to them. They are their own worst critics on lore and they know their stuff really thoroughly.
Housing updates
Can’t comment on that yet, but Soon™.
Fiddles/Violins
Doesn’t know of any current plans to add more instruments, but it could happen
Visual updates to old regions
Not sure how much of it is visual, but there are revamps to regions happening with update 13, and there will be more info on that as we get closer to that update
Prizes for this event
Nothing apart from bragging rights at this point, although he has made a couple of suggestions, such as turning on a server-wide event that the other servers don’t get, or an XP weekend that the other servers don’t get or something like that, but nothing is set in stone. Someone in Twitch chat made the hilarious suggestion for guardrails in Rivendell for the winning server.
Chrickhollow
Crafting instances and daily quests
There has been some discussion about crafting instances, he doesn’t know about daily quests. He will find out more and try to give a timeline for that.
What characters do you have and what levels
He does have at least one of every class to at least 60 except his warden who is a bit lower
Any changes planned for the Ettenmoors
Jinjaah is putting together balance-related stuff but he doesn’t know much detail on that. Some of it will be coming with update 13 but that’s all he can really say.
PvP new map or expansion
No, there’s not likely to be a new PvP map in the future, and he doesn’t see that answer changing. Adding more maps will only expand the terrain where the limited PvP player base will have to try to find action – spreading it even more thin – and it won’t change or improve the combat, so the value of adding another map is limited.
One thing you could change in the game what would it be
For him it was the ability to move things between alts more easily, and shared storage really addressed that for him
Will there be more hobbies added in the future
No new hobbies planned to the best of his knowledge.
Any thoughts on other types of mounts – we have horses and goats, how about other types of animals
As far as he knows there are no current plans to add new mount species, and if you are about to ask about flying mounts – no. But there may be other types of mounts added in the future. It’s possible.
Trivia on how coffee got into the game
Landroval Coffee Crew made a very convincing pitch to Sapience about adding coffee to the game, he took it to the devs and had a long talk with them, arguing why it should be added and what it should do, the justification within the lore, etc. and they added it pretty much exactly as he suggested. It’s a proud accomplishment of his.
If you have a suggestion that you’d like considered, make a post in the suggestions forum and make a convincing case, and it may end up in the game.
Whose idea was this event, and when did it come up
First livestream he did he just jumped on and started leveling a character, and someone suggested trying to get him to Isengard, and he was killed a couple of times. And people in the chat started saying, “If it was MY server, we wouldn’t let you die†etc. and he thought about it that evening and decided it would be fun to give every server a try at getting him to Isengard. So essentially it was a community-created event.
What are you most excited about in terms of upcoming content
There is something the devs are working on that they promised to do, that he’s been trying to get them to do for awhile. That’s all he can say for now
Favourite player-created/run event in-game
Technically the Hobbits to Isengard event is a community-created event and he’s enjoying it. He also really likes the Fellowship Walk because of what it means and because it helps kids. And you can’t not mention Weatherstock – it’s incredible what Lonely Mountain Band have achieved with that event.
Did You Know
http://layanor.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/lotro-did-you-know-lock-window-resize/
Community
War in Middle Earth has returned this Friday at 6pm Central and will go until the battle has ended. Around 2 – 3 hours.
Hopes for LOTRO 2014?
Mail from Braag of Vilya! (Long-time Listener…)
Hey Guys. Â Hope all is well. Â I saw the tweet come out this week from Lotro asking for 20 Questions for the Devs and the first one that I thought of was, of course, Chris’s Pavlovian response of asking about Ent Play. Â Then it occurred to me (while I daydreamed at work) that if the Devs were clever, they would find a way to shut Chris up without actually going to the bother of creating Session Play with Ents around Isengard (which for my money, they actually will do). Â Â One way would be to show two Small Ent Saplings in a clearing engaged with some Toys while a Rohirrim named Chris stands by watching admiringly.
Then it occurred to me they could actually include an ‘Ent Play’. Like a theatrical production or a broadway play..Perhaps at the Frostbluff theatre!?!?
So, with that in mind, here are a few potential ‘Ent Plays’ for you. Hope you enjoy them.
Proposed Ent-Plays:
- Into the Woods
- Ent-Wives and Dolls
- Stick-Ed
- The Phangorn of the Opera
- “Roots”
- Cedar on the Roof
- Saruman and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- La Cage Aux Feuille
- Little Chop of Horrors
- Les Treesarables
- Pippen
- Beauty and the Bark
- 12 Angry Ents
- Death of a Saru-man
- Wood Side Story
- Oak-Lahoma
- The Stomping of the Shrew
- Singing in the Rain-Forest
- Hello Holly
- The Bark of Mormom
- Rent-Moot
and – Grima Get Your Gun!!
Contact Information:
Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
Twitter: @lotroreporter
Facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.
YouTube: Â http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork
Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac
Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor
Bill @mmobill
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