Cari and Layanor talk about the Producer’s Livestream, and Sapience’s news.

Layanor

Level 100

Cari

Quested with the old cgang in the Paths of the Dead

Level 96

Live Chat with the Executive Producer

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?544616-LOTRO-Livestreams-Notes-on-what-was-said&p=7203694#post7203694

Producer’s Letter

First off, there will not be a second level cap raise. Which he thinks is huge. They’re going to take that energy and reinvest it in updating and – daresay – fixing the LI system.

Sapience – Asks Rowan what he means by fixing and updating.

Rowan – What they found when they were looking at the level cap is that a lot of players were saying they’d love a level cap raise, but they don’t want to do it with LI as it is right now. So what they’re going to do instead is focus on fixing that pain point of “I have this item, I put all this time and energy into it, and when I come to the next level cap I want to build the exact same item and I have to destroy my old one, put all the pieces together and build a new one.†Instead they’re going to say that if we love our items so much and we want to lock in its abilities, we can imbue the item, lock it in and then it will just start to earn experience and level up, and each of the attributes, each of the legacies will level up and develop as well. So they’re going to change that system at cap, which is 100 right now.

Sapience – So basically that’s going to become an advancement and progression method in and of itself.

Rowan – It will be an advancement method all in itself, and it will give them opportunities later to do new things with it, like introduce new legacies that are only available to imbued items. Introduce new content or aspects of content where we can go back and use these imbued items and gain new abilities or new effects for them – advance them – by completing content. Really change up the game dramatically in terms of what we can do so that when we’re at cap we’re still advancing, we’re still developing a character but we’re doing it in different directions and in different ways.

Could we decide on making our Beorning level 50 or level 1?

Rowan – Says their answer around Beornings is, they found for a number of reasons – including player feedback on the leveling experience and how much we enjoy the earlier Eriador zones – but also simply watching MadeOfLions trying to find reasons that Gandalf would accept us, that Frodo would want to talk to us, that all of these characters would want to interact with us when we are a level 50 Beorning who’d never talked to any of them before, that was painful. So they decided not to put MadeOfLions through that process of pain, and instead let us start at level one. We still can buy a Gift of the Valar and attach that to our Beorning and jump right to 50 and get going further if we want to, in fact they’ll probably offer a bundle around that to make it easier for us. But this gives us the choice.

Sapience – Actually now that’s kind of true of any class.

Rowan – Sure.

Sapience – If players want they can roll up a warden and start at level 50 right outside Moria, or a hunter – it doesn’t have to be one of the ‘additional’ classes.

Group Content

Why is there no new group content with U14?

Sapience and Rowan – But there is.

Rowan – There is an entirely new area, and all the feedback he’s been getting about that is that the quests are actually challenging, and for the most part require a balanced group. He recommends we gird up our grouping skills and make sure we have a healer and a tank and have a good time.

Sapience – There are lots of questions about group content.

Rowan – Says he’s not going to try to sidestep the base question that comes up, which is, “When are we getting new small group, large group content, when are we getting new raids, etc.?†He just wants to reemphasize that their primary focus is to build and deliver a story. So they’re putting a lot of energy into delivering that story. They do it in many ways (he assures the audience that he’s not sidestepping, and will get there). One of those ways is by delivering epic battles. He knows people have criticisms about epic battles, they have a lot of changes going in for their next epic battle for U15. This is an offensive battle. It’s a battle where we are at Pelargir and we take the role of being Aragorn’s special operations crew. We’re the “Delta Force†that opens the gate and allows Aragorn and the Army of the Dead to get in and take on this Corsair army that’s occupied the city. We’re going to be retaking the city in stages and having those roles of being the center of attention and the center of focus while having this great cinematic experience. Because epic battles are about having a cinematic experience. About being able to have this wide view and see the army of Oathbreakers sweep out over the sea and wash Corsairs into the ocean.

Rowan – And they have another one of those planned before the end of the year. So they’re going to be delivering U15 – Central Gondor, 3 new areas much like we have here, a lot of new quest content, epic book, epic battle at Pelargir, Haradrim, half-trolls, mounted reavers, all kinds of things. And they will continue to support landscape group content, they’re going to build out a 6-man version of this epic battle, and they hear the call for traditional instance spaces. They will continue to keep that in mind. They’re listening to player feedback and he thinks they’re showing that right now.

The Dead Marshes

Question about the update coming between U14 and U15

Rowan – The Dead Marshes are well in progress right now as a space that we can go and explore. It’s not connected to the rest of the world, not contiguous, because it’s a bit off the beaten track and it’s pretty barren and nobody really goes there, except for Frodo and Sam. So they’re putting in some storyline there and they’re looking at it basically as an interlude. A storyline that’s short and sweet. He thinks MadeOfLions is only putting four or five quests in there. But they want to have a surrounding environment to it and make it a way that they can continue to tell the story of the fellowship and give us a view of what’s going on with Frodo and Sam.

Rowan – And a stretch goal they’re working on is – one of their goals of Dead Marshes is to give us a first view of the Dawnless Day. Of a mass of darkness coming out of Mordor and streaming out across Middle Earth. Something that will play out much more heavily in Central Gondor, but they want to give us that first tease and get us excited about it.

Sapience – There was a lot of talk about something that Rowan said in his producer’s letter about something that he said was not going to be in Central Gondor, and that was oliphaunts. Why are we not getting oliphaunts?

Rowan – Because they really don’t fit on the ships. That’s all. That’s the whole reason. They definitely have mounted outriders, but the Haradrim that came up here very specifically did not have their oliphaunts. They’ll deal with those later on. They have to be true to the books and true to the story.

U15

Are Beornings a U15 thing?

Rowan – They are a U15 thing. Yes.

Sapience – So update 15 will have Beornings in it.

When is U15?

Rowan – All he’s going to say is, before the end of the year.

Scaling Older Instances

Question about scaling some of the older instances and raids and making them more accessible to people at cap

Rowan – They would love to do it, not planning on that for U15.

Sapience – Not on the map for this year.

Rowan – No, not for this year. “Let’s start there.â€

Hobnanigans

Question about smoothing out Hobnanigans

Rowan – They’ll keep bug fixing. They had an initial version that launched – he can’t remember if it was 2007 or 2008…

Sapience – It launched at launch.

Rowan – That’s right. And he can remember that version of it. And they have more tools now to make that experience better, which is why they rebuilt it and relaunched it. But they’ll keep smoothing it out. It’s not so much fun when your chicken goes flying way outside of bounds and won’t come back.

Dead Marshes and Monster Play

Question about Dead Marshes and monster players

Rowan – They’ve had a lot of discussions about where to open up the world to monster players, primarily because we’re getting so close to Mordor and there is so much opportunity for expanding that type of play, contextually. The Dawnless Day, endless night, trolls are on the loose. This is a really frightening time in Middle Earth and war is heating up. The place that their conversations about this has almost always centered around is Osgiliath. So they’ll continue talking about that and seeing where it fits.

Beornings

Will Beornings be free or will they be purchasable?

Rowan – Nobody gets them free. It’s a brand new class, so please go out and buy it.

Sapience – So it’s a lot like wardens and rune-keepers.

Rowan – Exactly. If U15 was an expansion pack, Beornings would probably be part of the expansion, because it’s not an expansion pack, they’re going to make it an offer in the store.

Are you allowed to disclose the price of the Beorning?

Rowan – That’s not decided yet. They’ve had ideas of range but they don’t know the number yet.

U15 Epic and Epic Battle

Is the next epic locked behind epic battles?

Rowan – The epic story in U15 is free, the new epic battle in U15 is free, and the epic battle within the epic story will be part of that storyline. They’re focusing on ways to make this a fun experience, something we will want to be playing, something we’re going to enjoy. And they’ve taken a ton of feedback on that from inside the team, because they play too, from the Players Council, and from what they’ve seen in play behaviour and feedback that’s come from the players.

Gift of the Valar lets us level to 50. Have you given any thought to having a Super Gift of the Valar that lets us level to 75, or end game?

Rowan – They’ve thought about it, but people like to play the game too, so they’re balancing that.

Beorning Starter Area

You mentioned starting experience for Beornings – does that mean a whole new area for them to start in, or will there be storyline that takes them into one of the existing starter zones?

Rowan – This means one of the introductory instances that will give us a storyline and give us context as to where we are and why. MadeOfLions is heading this up. They’re hoping to introduce some new cultural dynamics and relevance for us as Beornings so we understand where we come from, but they’re not introducing those parts of the world as an open landscape or anything.

Purchasing LotRO Music

How about the ability to purchase Rohan, Gondor or Edoras music?

Sapience – He knows that the Rohan soundtrack is available on iTunes, he knows there were some conversations around SoundCloud and possibly putting more music up there.

Rowan – They were looking at potentially doing that with some of the Gondor music, actually.

Sapience – So if they get it up on SoundCloud they’ll let us know and we’ll be able to get it there. He’s almost positive the Rohan soundtrack is still available on iTunes, at about $10 for the entire soundtrack.

Will there be any instances related to Paths of the Dead?

Rowan – Paths of the Dead has already been launched. What they tried to do with Paths of the Dead is try to focus on the capstone quests – some of the repeatables there. So he’s pretty sure there are some story experiences in there connected to the epic book, and as well they’re sending us back into that space as a part of the ongoing capstone repeatables.

Question wanting to clarify that the new epic battle is going to be free

Rowan – That is correct, it will be free. As is the epic book.

Sapience – So whether you’re a free player, premium or VIP – free.

Rowan – Yes.

Minas Tirith

It’s a little ways down the road, but what can we expect from Minas Tirith?

Rowan – Says he’ll map out the arc for us. We’re headed right now for Central Gondor and Pelargir. From there Aragorn sweeps away the Corsairs with his army of the living and the dead, takes their ships, and travels upriver, coming to the aid of Eastern Gondor – Minas Tirith and Osgiliath. With the story line, they plan to go to Osgiliath next year, probably around the time of the LotRO anniversary. That’s their hope right now. And by the end of next year move to the siege of Minas Tirith, which would be the army that advances upon the walls of Minas Tirith, and that story would end with the breaking of the gates and Gandalf kind of holding off the armies there. He’s very specific about that because they’d want to follow that with another storyline, which is the battle of Pelennor Fields, which would be much more out on the fields themselves, on the open landscape. And by that point, now that would be 2016 – the end of the following year.

Sapience – Now you’re going way outside the question of 2015, we’re two years down the road.

Rowan – Just wants to be specific about that because Minas Tirith is such a huge story that they’re breaking it into pieces. And then again this is all about the tools they’re using. So he could see an epic battle there, he could see landscape quests there, he could see epic story instances. When he starts thinking about large-scale instances and raids he almost always goes to Shelob’s lair, but they continue find the right tools for the right job.

“Side†Regions

Question about sidetracking into side areas such as Grey Havens and Tower Hills

Rowan – Right now they’re not measuring time even by the day, they’re measuring it by the hour as we ramp up toward these incredibly important events in Middle Earth. So not right now, we’re kind of busy. Grey Havens and places like that are fantastic candidates following the destruction of the ring. There are a lot of places we could go. Aragorn has vast expeditions into neighboring Harad, there’s Minas Morgul and places like that which deal with “after the fact.†Right now, they’ve referenced the Havens with Edhellond, but they’re really focusing on that path into Mordor itself.

Sapience – Says Rowan just answered the next question which was, “What happens after Mordor?â€

Rowan – Scouring of the Shire is an obvious thing.

Epic Battles

Is there a plan for offensive big battles?

Rowan – The next battle is an offensive big battle, in the sense that we are retaking a city. Now what timer mechanism that uses – they might use that for sort of “raiding,†they want to be sure there’s difficulty levels so that iron is a completion, and platinum is “wow, you destroyed that thing – you really rocked it!†But ultimately for the most part we’ll be setting our own pace and taking back the city. And they want us to have the opportunity to take a moment to look down and see Aragorn and the Army of the Dead passing through the gates that we’ve just opened, and kind of giving us a thumbs up and saying, “Way to go.â€

LI Revamp

One the LI revamp is worked out, is there any possibility of extending it below 100, to other levels (level 50)?

Rowan – They’ve talked about other levels and changing where that is available in the system. As always, they’re taking a starting point that they know is achievable and they know they can deliver with quality.

Hairstyles and Cosmetics

Any possibilities for new hairstyles and cosmetic appearances in the future – near or far?

Rowan – He’s not going to say for this year. The art budget right now is really focused on Gondor. But he hears the need. Maybe there’s a Gondorian hairstyle they can pull together.

Difficulty Level in Tarlang’s Crown

What was the purpose of having high spawn rates in Tarlang’s Crown?

Sapience – It’s supposed to be challenging, it’s supposed to be difficult. You’re not supposed to waltz through it.

Rowan – They want to make sure that when they put something out that’s labeled as a group space, that it is challenging and requires a group. He thinks they dialed back too far to the point where people were able to take some spaces that were labeled as group and solo through them, and that’s not really the intention, so they want to make sure that the challenge is there, the fun is there, and also that the reward is there.

PvMP

Why are you killing off PvMP?

Sapience – They’re not. They actually just got done making some changes out in the Ettenmoors because they just changed the level cap. There’s new gear out there, too. He knows he sees Jinjaah slaving away in the corners on secret things. Asks Rowan if there’s any tiny bit of a hint that he might be able to share on what’s to come.

Rowan – He would have to go to Jinjaah to see what kind of evil schemes are lurking deep within his brain right now. But they continue to invest in it. In one of his earlier producer’s letters he introduced the idea of maybe putting catapults in the Moors. They tried that and experimented with it a bit. They didn’t really like the results. They want a better solution. So they are continuing to look at ways to play with this, invest in it. One direction he can see them going in, is giving monster players a place to play around Osgiliath. So they’ll see what happens.

Sapience – There is definitely a very engaged discussion between Jinjaah and Yicky and other members of the Players Council around PvMP and what it could be in the future, and what can be done to improve and enhance it, and he knows Yicky in particular has made some really fantastic suggestions that he thinks, generally speaking, Jinjaah is pretty excited with. If time and opportunity allow he thinks we’ll probably end up seeing some of those.

Rowan – And to give context to that, they’d want to do something that was available but not mandatory. Something that made sense within the context of the space, but if you were questing through and you didn’t want to get involved with that area of content you wouldn’t need to. The city that the orcs have overrun seems to be an appropriate place for it.

More Character Slots

With the new class coming, can we get more character slots?

Rowan – The brief answer is, they want to do more character slots. Yes.

Sapience – Picking a number is apparently the challenge. How many more? There’s technical, engineery stuff in the background that needs to be answered. So the answer is yes, but in terms of a number, not yet.

What about adding new homesteads, just like the currently existing ones, in Rohan or Gondor?

Rowan – They’re focused on building the world, so that’s where they’re going to put the effort first.

Could the essences system be added to jewelry or weapons?

Rowan – He thinks if it works and players enjoy it then they can potentially expand it.

As players yourselves, what’s the one thing that you want in the game?

Rowan – He wants to stand on the top of Mount Doom, and look over it and hear a screaming Sméagol inside.

Sapience – He just wants to be at the gate with Aragorn, and the whole Mouth of Sauron experience, and go through that entire event in the story, he thinks that would be pretty amazing. To be at the Black Gate when the ring is destroyed and chaos ensues.

Community Update

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7206168#post7206168

• 
  
• Sapience leaving LOTRO
  
• New old Community Manager
  
• Going to Extra Life to be their community manager
  

SHIELD Forum Post

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

What kinds of things will you be doing in your new position?

• 
  
• Kind of the same things, really. For those who don’t know, August 1st is his last day at Turbine. He will be moving on to Extra Life as their community manager.
  

Monday’s at 9PST 12 EST.

Will be on twitch replay.

Dargnakh Unleashed

Hall of Night

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-07-18-the-old-republic-earned-usd165-million-last-year-report

http://lotroplayers.mymiddleearth.com/2014/07/16/lotro-music-to-be-performed-by-utah-symphony/

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Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor