<Satine> Good evening everyone and welcome to this month's European Dev chat!
<Satine> Just before we begin with the questions and answers, don't forget that we've got our first free content update coming very
<Satine> soon called "Shores of Evendim". Boasting a huge new land area, over 100 new quests, new monsters and tons of other
<Satine> brand new content, make sure you keep your eyes on the
www.lotro-europe.com news page for details of when that will be released.
<Satine> So without further ado, let's introduce the devs!
<Keth_Turbine> Hey, I'm Keth. I'm Lead Content Designer. That means I don't get to make content any more, I just make sure other people do!
<Denour_Turbine> Guttenabend! Miene name ist Andy "Denour" Gillis. Ich bin eine computer techniker von Die Herr Die Ringe!
<LOTRO_Tens> Hey everyone! This is Ryan "Tens" Bednar, Lead Systems Designer for Turbine. I type slow and hate fishing
<LOTRO_Patience> Hi everyone! I'm Meghan "Patience" Rodberg, community manager for LOTRO at Turbine! I only speak Valley Girl, which is an American dialect found only in California.
<Satine> And I'm Satine, the Senior Community Manager for LOTRO Europe! I speak Shire oo ar.
<LOTRO_Patience> Rhidden is on his way
<Keth_Turbine> (oh and Scenario is hovering around in the background, so he can answer some world questions....)
<Shadowsong> Hi i'm Shadowsong from the OnlineWelten Staff - i'm the punching ball
<Shadowsong> Welcome to the sixth European IRC dev chat!
<Shadowsong> For the next hour you have your chance to get answers to all your questions concerning LotRO directly from the developers. Please send your questions (preferably in English) to our team-members, who are marked with a + in front of their name.
<Shadowsong> We’ll forward your questions to the devs and they will answer as many questions as possible here in the channel.
<Shadowsong> Herzlich Willkommen zum sechsten europäischen IRC Entwicklerchat!
<Shadowsong> Ab sofort habt ihr eine Stunde lang die Gelegenheit, eure Fragen rund um LotRO direkt an die Entwickler zu stellen. Bitte schickt eure Fragen dazu (möglichst auf Englisch!) an unser Team, gekennzeichnet mit einem + vor dem Namen.
<Shadowsong> Wir werden eure Fragen weiterleiten und die Entwickler werden so viele Fragen wie möglich hier im Channel beantworten.
<Shadowsong> Bienvenue à la rencontre européenne avec les Développeurs sur IRC !
<Shadowsong> Durant la prochaine heure, vous aurez la chance d'obtenir de nombreuses réponses à vos questions concernant le SdAO de la part des développeurs. Merci d’envoyer vos questions (de préférence en anglais) aux membres de notre équipe, marqués d'un + devant leur nom.
<Oerjan88> i have something to say about the F7 help menu. it starts playing a trailer which is unneccesary since you have the game and the sound continues if you exit it without pausing the trailer
<LOTRO_Patience> Thanks! Please file a bug report and we'll take a look.
<bufko> Since LotRO is is focusing on roleplay more the most other MMORPGs on the market, are you planning to include some less-gameplay oriented shops, like for example a hairdresser, where a player could buy new haircuts and/or beards?
<Keth_Turbine> We are hoping to focus an upcoming update on more character customization options, such as you mentioned, beards, haircuts, etc.
<Keth_Turbine> We also want to add cosmetic clothing options. These would be clothes that only change your appearance, but do not affect your stats.
<Aerdon> What are the changes to farming going to be? Will they make it more profitable or will we influence in-game economics?
<LOTRO_Patience> Hi Aerdon! The Shores of Evendim update contains a LOT of changes to farming. First off, we're including some new things, like ale-brewing - something that's been asked for quite a bit.
<LOTRO_Patience> This could be a long answer, by the way.
<LOTRO_Patience> Farming is never intended to be a money-making profession, but it should be fun. In the Shores of Evendim many food items have been removed from vendors, so farmers will be able to sell their goods to cooks (players) finally.
<LOTRO_Patience> The price of ingredients like seeds and fertilizer has been reduced, and lots of new recipes have been added.
<LOTRO_Patience> Overall, it should be a lot more enjoyable and less costly. We hope everyone's pleased with the overhaul the system received.
<Merawen> Is there going to be any improvement in the quest system to locate NPC's and such?
<Rhidden_Turbine> We think that our quest direction system that we currently have in place works well. We tried having other systems of locating NPCs and we didn’t find that they worked out well or added anything useful to the game. If you find that the quest directions are poor your best bet is to put in a bug and we will update the directions.
<Zarni> Q: About the customization of the UI. In previous dev chat, you have stated that improvements will be done over time, but no timeline is available. Now, by any estimate, how extensive customization we can expect in future? Will there ever be a comprehensive API to customise the look totally similar to frameXML?
<Denour_Turbine> Some of the improvements to our UI customization will be making their way into the game with our Shores of Evendim update. We will now allow the position and size replacement of the UI. More keywords are being added to the SkinDefinition.xml file allowing you to change the default location and size of many elements.
<Telaran> "What's your conclusion after these weeks of running the game. What suprised you and what happend like you whished?"
<Keth_Turbine> Well, to be honest, I've been in a bubble trying to get our next update done. It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself....
<LOTRO_Tens> I was surprised, and continue to be surprised, by how much you guys want fishing
<Rhidden_Turbine> Everything has been a blast for me... I was a fanboy of LOTRO long before I worked on the team and the whole experience has been a dream come true for me.
<Satine> We were pleasantly surprised with the intial success. We knew it was a great game and do well - we just didn't expect to do so well from day one. That's a NICE suprise to have I was also surprised at how many hours one can actually work when in manic-mode!
<Denour_Turbine> Its been very exciting to log into the game and see the cities in Eriador alive with players going about their bussiness
<Mimogu> Hello Idryal, here is my question to the Devs: Can you tell us a little about housing? Especially about where (instances?) and how it will work in the future? Thank you very much.
<LOTRO_Tens> Good question Mimogu. So, let’s talk about housing!
<LOTRO_Tens> As you may or may not be aware, we are currently trying to get our LOTRO housing system up and running by the fall of this year.
<LOTRO_Tens> Without going into too much detail, our current plans are to implement housing in the form of instanced "Neighborhoods."
<LOTRO_Tens> Gah... ok. So Patience tells me that's all
<LOTRO_Tens> I can really say right now.
<LOTRO_Patience> He didn't mention the part where I started hitting him with a chair.
<LOTRO_Tens> Haha (it's true)
<LOTRO_Tens> But yeah, you can look forward to more details emerging on LOTRO's housing system over the next few months.
<Merawen> Are there gona be any changes in PvM in the upcomeing update?
<Keth_Turbine> Well, in our upcoming update, we just added some more quests and tweaks to the monster play classes for balance.
<Keth_Turbine> After that, we have some rather exciting update in the pipe.
<Keth_Turbine> The Keeps will be receiving some upgrades, although those won't come without some effort from you. So if you really want to hold that Keep, you'll need to work for it!
<Keth_Turbine> More exciting is that we are going to be introducing our first Session play characters. These are characters that have no persistance (meaning you don't keep them after you log out) and cost destiny points to gain access to them
<Keth_Turbine> The characters that we plan on showing up in that update are a Ranger for the Free Peoples and a Troll for the Servants of Angmar.
<Keth_Turbine> Both have unique behaviors not seen in other classes, and should be well worth the purchase price!
<Keth_Turbine> Personally, I think the Troll is pretty awesome. There's nothing like smashing the ground and sending Free Peoples flying.
<Idryal> Why is there no civilian clothing (clothes without armor/stats but a nice look) and are you planning to add them?
<Keth_Turbine> Well, as we mentioned above, we are planning on focusing a part of an Update on character customization and those "social" clothes will hopefully be a part of that update.
<Wilbeard> is there a specific date for the release of Shores of Evendim?
<Satine> We're currently tracking a mid-June release for Shores of Evendim, but history has taught me not to give out dates too far in advance so I will keep that to myself for now As soon as we're sure we'll announce the final date.
<Mimogu> What can you say about the 'Endgame' (45+ chars) for the future? At the moment there is a stop or cap for chars with level 50. What about somjething special for level 50 chars which takes a little longer to achiv?
<Keth_Turbine> In the update following the "Shores of Evendim," we are introducing a Reputation system.
<Keth_Turbine> There will be several new "factions" that you can improve your standing with.
<Keth_Turbine> increased standing will unlock unique rewards, such as access to Reputation "lodges."
<LOTRO_Tens> Additionally, we have some other "long term" plans for level 50+ advancement, but we’re keeping those under-wraps for the time being.
<Keth_Turbine> yeah, that too....
<surfgate> Can you let us know if there are any plans for a European Test server, so we can look at and help test the new content?
<Satine> We don't have any solid plans right now but we are actively investigating the possibility of having one. We're going to review this over the next month or so. I'll keep you updated on the forums!
<MysticoN> Q: I read about the Shores of Evedim update that it would incldude set items. How are they obtained and is it something that we will see alot more of in future updates ?
<LOTRO_Tens> You guys can expect to find item sets in The Shores of Evendim, and in future updates, through all the methods that you can acquire items currently.
<LOTRO_Tens> Quests, loot, and crafting (among others).
<LOTRO_Tens> And yes, we plan on adding many more sets in the future because, well we like them, and they're fun
<Faronlas> Hi Idryal, what can we expect from the first raid instance, helegrod how long will it be, minutes, hours days?
<Keth_Turbine> Well, it can take a few hours to complete, depending on how experienced your group is. (And how many times you wipe. *evil grin*)
<Keth_Turbine> Fortunately, we made some improvements to our Raid Locking system, so it should be easier to finish a wing of Helegrod and pick up the following night.
<Keth_Turbine> There will be more specifics on the changes to the Raid Locking, but rest assured, we want to give you the option to not have to do all of Helegrod in one sitting.
<Atholm> I like the Leisure Activities like Tag and pie eating are there any plans to add more activities e.g. dance content, horse back riding content etc.
<Rhidden_Turbine> Yes! Funny you should say that
<Rhidden_Turbine> in future patches we are planning dance contests, horse back riding contests and a number of other fun new unique mini games for social gaming.
<Rhidden_Turbine> We will be releasing more information about our new mini games on the lotro-europe website.
<Athinu> Hi there many people have reported issues with pets not doing what you want them to do or just plain getting stuck is there any fix for that in the works?
<Denour_Turbine> There are improvements coming for pets with our Shores of Evendim update, including a fix for a bug which causes your pets to fail executing their skills when commanded to.
<grimlo> "is there a way to open the pve zone to a monster pvp invasion, like an event....it seems possible with your code
<Keth_Turbine> Funny you should mention that, as we've talked about doing something like that.
<Keth_Turbine> However, we've decided against it, due to concerns that suddenly introducing PvP to an area that is usually free of it would cause a lot of frustration in players who have no interest in PvP.
<Keth_Turbine> So, for the time being, we are going to confine any PvP content to the Ettenmoors.
<Keth_Turbine> That doesn't mean though that you won't see invasions on the landscape at some point in the future....
<LOTRO_Patience> ...but it might not be what you expect
<Keth_Turbine> yeah, um, non-PvP invasions... let's remove any confusion from that....
<Hartwick> Can't stress that point enough. We get the Shores of Evendim and still can't go fishing there. Can we? ;-)
<LOTRO_Tens> Ah fishing... how I love you.
<LOTRO_Tens> So, I would first like to point out a little bit of lore for you all.
<LOTRO_Tens> As Denour reminded me: In the 2nd Age, Sauron killed all of the fish in Middle-earth in the Battle of Flounderbane.
<LOTRO_Tens> The Dark-lord despises the scalely ones!
<LOTRO_Tens> So, until that all gets resolved, you guys are going to have to wait for fishing...
<Denour_Turbine> >
<LOTRO_Patience> But... but...
<LOTRO_Tens> (sorry, I didn't write the books)
<LOTRO_Patience> Wait! It's lies. All lies. Gollum was eating fish. YOU MADE THAT UP!
<[u]Keba> Hi there, you mentioned a factions and reputation system in the pipeline. Could you provide any more details on that? My only worry would be if it became similar to the tedious "grind" based reputation system in World of Warcraft, which practically forces you to grind for rep for various rewards and progression and doesn't end up being very much fun in itself.
<Rhidden_Turbine> One thing that we don’t want to have our players do is boring grinds. We have tried to infuse our reputation systems with story filled goodness and set the advancement to a pace that won’t drive you crazy while giving you awesome rewards!
<Beriath> Is the just 17 pages long Prima Guide for the CE-owners really the right, or did CM just uploaded the fals guide?
<Satine> That's correct! The Prima Mini Hint Booklet is exactly that - a taster of what you might get in a full-blown hint book or guide. I agree that the page numbering has caused some confusion but I can assure you that that is correct
<masta22> are there raid quests in the shores of everdim or are they planes in the future?
<Keth_Turbine> Yep, when Helegrod is unleashed, you will have a number of new quests available that can only be completed by going into Helegrod. One has a rather unique reward...
<Korize> Class question: Will Captains be able to buff and heal themselfs in S o E?
<LOTRO_Tens> For SoE: Buffs yes. Heals no.
<Tongdilo> What about the update from the music system in shores of evendim, can you tell us some informations about it?
<Denour_Turbine> There are many updates to our music system coming with the Shores of Evendim!
<Denour_Turbine> These included Sustained Notes for wind and brass instruments, three full octaves for all instruments, configurable with new key mappings, option to change server synchronization, a notation player that will allow you to play back music written outside of the game, and new instruments to play with - yay!
<[u]Keba> Hi again. :-) how is the instance designed in the way of trash, bosses, etc, and to what sort of difficulty level is it tuned?
<Keth_Turbine> Well, I'm not going to tell you. So there.
<LOTRO_Patience> I hope the humor translates.
<Keth_Turbine> Heh, actually we want you to discover that, we don't to spoil it.
<Keth_Turbine> but it should be a very difficult encounter, something you can take pride in having defeated.
<nosense> Will the Role playing servers stay how they are or maybe you have some furhther plans for them?
<Satine> LOTRO is a living breathing world and as such, nothing should be left without review and constant striving for improvement.
<Satine> With that in mind we'll always take feedback and look at how things are going, looking for areas that could be better and that applies to the whole game service, not just the RP servers. Remember to keep that feedback coming in as you have the power to change the shape of the game!
<Beriothien> Could someone give an explanation to the use of Aragorn in the reforging of Narsil in the Shores of Evendim storyline (as stated in the splash screen) the elves reforged the sword not the heir of Elendil
<Keth_Turbine> Well, sometimes when our story goes through the "marketing filter," it gets a bit muddied.
<Keth_Turbine> It's hard to explain a story as complex as ours in one or two sentences.
<Keth_Turbine> So, rest assured we kept close to the lore in the forging of Narsil, while introducing the element you (the player) are helping we.
<Keth_Turbine> er, ignore that final "we" above....
<LOTRO_Patience> I have a feeling there's going to be a marketing/development showdown in the parking lot later this evening.
<Keth_Turbine> that should be a "with."
<Keth_Turbine> How exactly, I'm telling... so there.
<Keth_Turbine> nuts, I'm coming down from my Red Bull high.
<LOTRO_Patience> Even caffeine can't help you, my friend.
<Keth_Turbine> alright, I'm calling an end to this answer before it gets any worse.
<warorc> Hi. Will you extend the bankroom? The bank is a little bit small
<LOTRO_Tens> Yes. We agree!
<LOTRO_Tens> We currently hope to have upgradeable bank storage ready to go for the Book 10 update.
<LOTRO_Tens> So you can look forward to it then!
<Nazgul9> Various people are reporting crashes to desktop (especially in Bree) when running the game client with high-res textures in Windows Vista. When will you address this?
<Denour_Turbine> Our Core Engineering department is hard at work on resolving fringe issues with Windows Vista. The problem with High-Res textures and Vista is a known issue. Keep your eyes opened for future updates, and as always, please remember to send in your crash reports!
<Shadowsong> This will be our last question for today. So please don't send us anymore questions for today, thanks!
<Shadowsong> Uns bleiben nur noch fünf Minuten, ehe wir den Entwicklern Gute Nacht sagen müssen. Also bitte sendet uns heute keine weiteren Fragen mehr, Danke!
<Shadowsong> Il reste cinq minutes avant de dire bonne nuit aux développeurs. Il n’est plus utile de nous envoyer de questions pour aujourd’hui, merci !
<Aerdon> With regards to the planned SOE station gold selling idea, how will this be implemented, will servers that allow purchase of gold for real world money be setup, to keep core players who play legitimately appeased?
<LOTRO_Patience> Hi again Aerdon. I wanted to make sure this got answered: There is absolutely no plan to have any kind of transaction-based server or system, or any other method in which items or gold are purchased for real money for LOTRO.
<LOTRO_Patience>
<Satine> Sadly that's all we have time for tonight. Thanks for all the fantastic questions and sorry if yours was not answered on this
<Satine> occasion, Don't forget that the EU dev chats are now on the last Thursday of every month so come again next time and bring
<Satine> your questions!
<Satine> Thanks especially to all the devs from Turbine who have spent their time with us today to give us this great information. We hope you all enjoyed yourselves.
<Satine> One last thing, don't forget to watch me and the COG team on BBC2 at 7pm tomorrow night in "The Money Programme - Virtual Worlds, Real Millions".
<Satine> See you on the forums, goodnight!
<LOTRO_Patience> Night everyone, thanks for coming!!
<Keth_Turbine> Now time for more Red Bull!
<Rhidden_Turbine> Night!
<LOTRO_Tens> Thanks for coming out everyone. Good night all!
<Denour_Turbine> Night Night! Danke Danke!
<Shadowsong> Thank you all for coming - stay tuned for the next DevChat and keep on rockin' LOTRO
<LOTRO_Patience> Night