Cari and Layanor talk about raiders, cosmetic pets, and Update 14.

Layanor

• 
  
• Ettenmoors -
  

Cari

• 
  
• Did some crafting so I could make gear for my lowbies
  
• Went to North Downs on My Level 19 Captain and found all the quests start at 24
  
• Leveled up my Champion, and needed gear.
  

Did an Update 14 Walk-through

http://mmoreporter.com/2014/07/02/lotro-reporter-update-14-walkthrough/

• 
  
• Strength of Sauron
  
• 795 TP for Premium and Free Players
  
• Free for VIP
  
• Area is cool
  
• Some of the Epic Story instances can be done solo or in a group
  
• 6-man open world area
  

Raiders make Up a Small percent of Players and No new Group Instance Clusters

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/03/turbine-raiders-make-up-the-smallest-player-group-in-lotro/

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/09/30/from-warhorses-to-hobby-horses-a-ride-through-lotros-rohan/

“Joe noted that Turbine is aiming for a different target experience for endgame content. He emphasized that the people who play hardcore in instances and raids are not the majority of LotRO players. Instead, more players solo or duo as they play, have shorter play session times, and are just generally more casual.â€

https://web.archive.org/web/20070503034359/http://www.lotro.com/article/130

http://www.warcry.com/news/view/66685

Things We Know

Sapience says that PVMP and Raiders make up less than 10% of players

Raiders are a minority of that 10%

Given a 2% margin of error that could be between 3 and 6% of all players.

Those numbers haven’t moved up or down much over the life of the game.

All MMO’s are having issues with getting enough raiders. Look at WOW LFR and cross realm grouping.

Rohan says we aren’t going to get any instance clusters in the foreseeable future.

We are getting group content in update 14

We are getting a six man area like Limlight Gorge and the option to do some of the Epic Battle instances as a group.

We got no instance hub in HD, but we did get group content in HD

3 player groups are the most common

Things we don’t know:

Turbines Definition of a raider

Turbine’s definition of a PVMP player

Actual player numbers

SHIELD Forum Post

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?550043-SHIELD-Dwarf-Runs-through-Moria-Q-amp-A-Notes-on-What-Was-Said

Winfola

• 
  
• Sapience starts off by showing us a teaser of a cosmetic pet that will be available through his Extra Life fundraising campaign. A ghost bear cosmetic pet. If the $55,000 fundraising milestone is reached, anyone who donated over $25 will get that pet. It will only be available through Sapience, you won’t be able to get it through other in-game means. There is another cosmetic pet that will be part of his Extra Life fundraiser this year as an Extra Life exclusive, but he’s not revealing what that will be just yet. He does hint that the Extra Life pet has a pretty cool effect associated with it, though. These are cosmetic pets, not combat pets, that anyone can use.
  

Do you plan on adding other cosmetic outfit creators’ outfits to the mannequins

• 
  
• Sapience – If you are creating cosmetic outfits and you would like to be featured, by all means drop him a note and he will get you set up with DeviledEgg so that she can start taking some of your ideas and designs.
  
• Rowan – They’re always happy to take suggestions.
  

Question about mix of solo quests vs group or more than one person in U14

• 
  
• Rowan – They always try to build a really solid center line of quests that can be soloed for that story experience, and they have 2 or 3 instances through the epic that are optional – can be done solo or with a group – and they have a whole sub-region in the new area in Gondor that has some group challenges, and then there’s some group things mixed in with the repeatables in Dol Amroth. So there should be a few options for people.
  
• Sapience – Points out that they are doing their first press round tomorrow, and the news tends to get turned around pretty quickly so by the July 4th weekend we should be able to read a bit about U14 in the news, see some more details and some screenshots.
  
• Rowan – Yes, there will be commentary from MadeOfLions, Pinion and HoarseDev, and we’ll get a sense of what’s coming.
  
• Sapience – And then next week on July 9th, they will be doing the whole thing all over again, but this time as a preview for us players in a livestream. So we’ll be able to read about it, think about it and formulate some questions and thoughts and then a few days later come in to the stream and ask questions about it during the stream.
  

Anduin

• 
  
• Sapience apologizes for delay and announces to viewers that the cub in the picture on his screen is Snowpuff, the Extra Life exclusive pet that is coming in Update 14. It is the second pet available through his Extra Life fund-raiser. [The first pet is the Ghost Bear at the $55k mark; the Tundra Cub with snow effect is at the $85k mark; donations of $25+ are those that qualify for the pets. -- Mar-Evayave]
  

Tentative Summer Time Schedule

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?551891-Official-Summer-Time-Events-%28Tentative%29

July

• 
  
• 11 – 13 : Lootbox Weekend
  
• 18 – 20 : 25% Mark Acquisition Boost
  
• 22 – August 8 : Summer Festival
  

August

• 
  
• 8-10 : Hobnanigans
  
• 15-17 : LootBox Weekend
  
• 22-24 : Buried Treasure
  
• 27 – September 1 : 100% Bonus XP
  

September

• 
  
• 2 -16 : Farmer’s Faire
  
• 5-7 : Hobnanigans
  
• 16-24 : Bilbo’s Birthday
  
• 19 – 21 : Tale of the Shipwreck mariner
  
• 26-28 : Lootbox Weekend
  

Starting July 12 English Phone Support will No Longer be Available on Weekends

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7197074#post7197074

3-Mans

Monday’s at 9PST 12 EST.

Will be on twitch replay.

Letter from Simon:

Hi Guys,

I’ve just listened to Episode 240 this week and I was concerned with the misinformation being bandied about regarding ‘raids’.  There was a discussion about SHIELD runs and the comments made there about ‘you aren’t going to get raids any time soon, please quit asking us’ and Layanor made a comment about ‘I would assume they would have some instances planned for after December’.

Now I realise you guys are a fan site but you are treated as a reliable source of information and this is a 100% totally false statement/assumption.  Sapience let it slip a little while back that no instances/raids (Turbine considers them the same thing, as outlined again by Sapience) were planned in the next year.  During another SHIELD run this was updated and confirm to ‘not planned in the foreseeable future’.  Given they work 12-18 months out (reasonable definition of ‘foreseeable future’) and given it has been stated repeatedly that raids/clusters take 12-18 months of work, the absolute EARLIEST we would see any real raid/instance content is 24 months time.

With all threads that are even slightly critical of this being locked and deleted on the official forums (including one linking to a Massively article on the subject which was composed of 90% Sapience quoted words!!!) surely the community doesn’t need respected fan sites perpetuating the lie that ‘I betcha he’s [Campbell] got some instances planned’.  He doesn’t.  This has been confirmed.  THIS is why people keep asking in SHIELD runs about it – no-one can believe a AAA MMO would discard grouping.

Turbine have made it clear group content in the true understood MMO sense is not coming.  They aren’t even TRYING to sugar coat it any more.

As someone who has spent a massive amount of time in this game I’m extremely disappointed of course, as are my kin, as are all the many many players leaving – but hey we’re only the ’10%’ so what would we know.  The game is still there, and with any luck we’ll still be able to see the fantastic world building (something Turbine continues to do AMAZINGLY well) all the way to Mordor, but it’s a story/adventure game now filled with solo dailies for cosmetic pets and other trash, not a MMO.   Very disappointing, but WB are a commercial enterprise so money talks and they obviously figure this is the most effective way to bring in money.

Point I’m making is that you guys run a great show and are deservedly trusted, but please be careful of spreading such misinformation and holding out hope.  That ship has sailed.

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:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

www.lotroreporter.com

www.twitch.tv/mmoreporter  

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Our sponsors: