Will Character Info be replaced at some point?

[maartena]

I always used the my.lotro.com information to get information on my toons.... sometimes I am not in the game or not able to log on to the game (iPad, on the road, whatever) but I want to check on some things like what to craft next, where to get the mats, etc.... and it was always handy to see what I was wearing, so I used my.lotro.com - which for anything under level 75 was still pretty useful, only the newer stuff never got updated. I also used it to check on my stats, (e.g. how much will does my mini have?) so I could find the right gear to up the will number, among other things.

Most modern MMO's offer webaccess to your toons like my.lotro.com used to have, and I am wondering if something new will be in the works to replace it?

Another thing I found handy: When finding a kinship for my toon (no longer needed as I am now a kin founder/leader) I used to be able to go on my.lotro.com, search for the kinship name, and get roster information. This would give me a pretty good idea on how large the kin was, what the levels are (e.g many/few 85s), etc. This never worked for newer kins anyways as it was never updated, but I found that information very valuable.

Are any additions planned to the new community website that would bring back some of these features? Personally I think people looking for a kinship should be able to browse through all kinships available, and leaders should be able to checkmark whether they want the info to be public or not.

[Sapience]

There are currently no plans to reintroduce these features.

[F_Tobor]

I miss this feature also... Having access to all your characters history is a usefull feature.

It has existed in the past, so it's not impossible to do, am I right ?

[Garan]

If Turbine fixes the client crash issue with the Lua :GetEquipment() method and a tiny bit more info in the ItemInfo object (like the examination ItemID and item stats) then it would be possible with some security and hosting challenges for a third party to pick up much of this functionality (Deed, Quest and Kinship info is not exposed to Lua at this time). Unfortunately, the Lua support is done in the spare time of some of the developers since it is not seen as a source of income and is thus a very low priority. To be honest, it's not a source of income, either for Turbine or the Lua plugin developers who all work for free but it IS a source of free UI development for Turbine and should be valued for that. The best we (Lua plugin developers and players) can do at this time is keep our fingers crossed. Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath, the easily reproduced client crash in the :SetBackground() method has been reported many, many times since Lua was first introduced for LotRO and still has not been fixed nearly three years later so it is highly unlikely that something which is intermittent like the :GetEquipment() crash will ever get fixed.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I miss this feature also... Having access to all your characters history is a usefull feature.

It has existed in the past, so it's not impossible to do, am I right ?

From what I understand from Sapience's posts it is possible. It is not going to happen.

My personal opinion as always. 2012 was a very bad year for Turbine. Expenses were too high for the amount of dollars collected (revenue). The cost cutters and optimizers moved in to increase revenues. Plus get rid of activities and features that were lightly used by the customer base.

This situation resulted in the termination of number of employees in October, 2012.

The web site features such as the character sheets were identified as a feature that was lightly used. Plus there were a number of edge cases and other defects that lead to missing or bad data on the web site. The defects were generating a constant background noise of incompetence by Turbine. Additional funds given the money issues to fix defects was not going to happen. The decision was made to remove all these features. The removal has nice benefits:

1) All the bugs are fixed because the features have been removed.
2) All the costs for operating the web data services are ended.
3) No money needs to be spent maintaining, fixing or upgrading the web data services.

Final Thought - It was an idea that Turbine decided was good. Turbine soon found out it was too costly for the amount of benefit. A better implementation would have increased benefit because more people would have used it. Getting over that mountain to "used enough to be sustained" was too high.

[Elexicon]

There are currently no plans to reintroduce these features.

Our kin used these features to make gear for each other and just gift it through the mail, allowing our casual kin to have a distinction across timezones and continents. How often can you get stuff from people you've never see online?

Now, that model has failed us.

Thanks Turbine... we have no way to help those who are on at hours that don't overlap with the rest of us. This new isolation created has cost us members.


I think that (other, non-Turbine MMO) allows for our model.

[Elexicon]

The web site features such as the character sheets were identified as a feature that was lightly used..

Oh, the irony. Those features were why several of my kin (including me) created so many toons, had multiple paid memberships and were buying expansions (for each paid membership).

Also ironic - Turbine cannot accurately measure how many people used the data from those interfaces, as I tended to the data after a 3rd party pulled it from the LOTRO servers. Lies, 'Darn' Lies, and Statistics...


At this point, most of my kinnies (and I) no longer have VIP or have gone from near-daily to every few months of playing. Most of us certainly aren't spending money on HD. (I won't pay for Epic quests after the promise that they'd always be free (never pay someone after they lie about the price of a thing). Likewise I'm not VP'ing if the features that got me into 9 toons and a year-and-a-half of VIP (3 accounts), Rohan (3 accounts, Elite!) and purchasing TP (yadda yadda yadda)... can suddenly be removed without regard for how many of us use the downstream data.

I suppose can play minecraft with the kids...

Buh-bye

[Tood_Duggins]

I was hoping at the very least some "character audit" feature could be implemented that simply lists the characters you have for each server. Nothing more than that. Of course, one can systematically log in to each server, write down the characters and then quit (rinse, wash, repeat). Still I'm wondering if a simple audit script can be used to simply tally and report names, class and level to a txt file or some such output.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I was hoping at the very least some "character audit" feature could be implemented that simply lists the characters you have for each server. Nothing more than that. Of course, one can systematically log in to each server, write down the characters and then quit (rinse, wash, repeat). Still I'm wondering if a simple audit script can be used to simply tally and report names, class and level to a txt file or some such output.

They only thing we have is the ability to see eligible or entered characters when a lottery is active.

The problems with this mechanism:

1) Turbine rarely puts up a lottery. The vast majority of the time there is nothing to look at.

2) The character export to web server has defects:
a) Deleted characters are still in the list
b) Existing characters are not in the list
c) Characters in the list are the wrong level (too low).

No idea how common these issues are.

Note: You can always review the past winners list find any of your characters that have won a lottery.

A better solution would be to do what Swtor does. On the server select screen, the game displays how many characters you have next to the name of each server.