Important changes coming to the LOTRO Forums and MyLOTRO

[superbre]

I'm really concerned about the news that the data.lotro.com API will be discontinued.
I use it for my app "LOTRO Elendir" for Android that has been downloaded by more than 500,000 android users.

The end of this API kills any app that would like to improve LOTRO user experience and that makes this incredible game to be even better.

I really would like to know if there is any plan to reconsider this shutdown.

data.lotro.com is a very useful API and I think there is still a lot of space of improvement.

[SabrielofLorien]

I'm really concerned about the news that the data.lotro.com API will be discontinued.
I use it for my app "LOTRO Elendir" for Android that has been downloaded by more than 500,000 android users.

The end of this API kills any app that would like to improve LOTRO user experience and that makes this incredible game to be even better.

I really would like to know if there is any plan to reconsider this shutdown.

data.lotro.com is a very useful API and I think there is still a lot of space of improvement.

All the info I've seen thus far has said NO.

The data detail behind the api is broken, the method of obtaining the data is broken, the code is broken. There is no way to recreate it because the old system is being retired. No vestige will be left.

You might want to team up with others with the same problem to figure out how to get the data in an approved manner using external means: eg re-typing the info on the game screen or maybe with OCR screen readers. You will have to navigate the EULA carefully.

[MarkoftheRealm]

From what I recall, the last word on the new forum and my.lotro changes was that it would take place after July 4th instead of end of June. July 4th is just about upon us. Has there been an update that I couldn't find? I guess the changes could take place as early as Friday, but given the holiday I'd assume next week would be the earliest, but who knows.

[Shriya]

From what I recall, the last word on the new forum and my.lotro changes was that it would take place after July 4th instead of end of June. July 4th is just about upon us. Has there been an update that I couldn't find? I guess the changes could take place as early as Friday, but given the holiday I'd assume next week would be the earliest, but who knows.

Like you say yourself: AFTER July 4th. And with today being July 4th and thus a holiday and the weekend coming up, I suspect the earliest we'll get the update is Monday.

Then again, Turbine being Turbine, it might be tomorrow

[Rainith]

From what I recall, the last word on the new forum and my.lotro changes was that it would take place after July 4th instead of end of June. July 4th is just about upon us. Has there been an update that I couldn't find? I guess the changes could take place as early as Friday, but given the holiday I'd assume next week would be the earliest, but who knows.

I thought the actual wording of it was "after the July 4th weekend" but I could be wrong (and honestly, I'm just too lazy to try to dig up the actual quote to check). So my guess would be that next week would be the earliest we'd see it.

[MarkoftheRealm]

I thought the actual wording of it was "after the July 4th weekend" but I could be wrong (and honestly, I'm just too lazy to try to dig up the actual quote to check). So my guess would be that next week would be the earliest we'd see it.

You may be right about the exact wording. I doubt they'd want to release it on a Friday anyway since they likely wouldn't want to have to be around the next two days in the case where the update to the forums causes massive problems. Guess it'll just be a 'nice' surprise when we log on and everything's different.

edit: here is the quote, so early July....

One small update to the forums update question. I was just told the update will be delayed until after the July 4th Holiday. So look for it in early July now and not the end of June.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...39#post6826339

[Mar-Evayave]

Lorebook
The LOTRO Lorebook will be discontinued. Official Guides will be relocated to LOTRO.Com website. If you have created a guide and wish to save it, please copy it from the lorebook in the next few days. We will be creating a new “Player Created Guides” forum for you to post your guides in.

What if our guides aren't on the Lorebook? Since there will now be an official Player Created Guides forum, would it be possible to have guides such as Fredelas' Hytbold guide and my own Wildermore guide, etc., moved to this new forum as well? Both are currently in the Adventuring in Middle Earth forum.

And will other various guides scattered over the forums be relocated there, since as the numerous stickied crafting guides, etc?

[Macroscian]

I know changes are due at some point after July 4, I just want to make absolutely certain this bit is checked eleventy times on as many different browsers so it does not carry over into the new:

There is nothing in this game and its environs that irritates me more than randomly getting logged out when replying to a forum thread.

(and randomly getting logged out when opening Settings in a separate tab and randomly getting logged out when opening Home in a separate window or randomly getting logged out when clicking New Posts etc)

Perhaps it's an Auto Save problem (nothing is ever saved anyway), perhaps something times out when making a long post, perhaps perhaps perhaps - it makes this place hard to browse for new posts since the system suddenly supposes you read everything last time you were logged in. It makes it hard to post because...well it's hard to post when unable to post every few tries.

(Before posting this, I will copy all of the text and try to remember what I used for topic title - just to be sure I don't lose another post of the hundreds lost.)

Today I 'lost' another ten pages of easily accessible New Posts by getting logged out. Browsing for what's new in other ways is very awkward!

[Sapience]

I know changes are due at some point after July 4, I just want to make absolutely certain this bit is checked eleventy times on as many different browsers so it does not carry over into the new:

There is nothing in this game and its environs that irritates me more than randomly getting logged out when replying to a forum thread.

(and randomly getting logged out when opening Settings in a separate tab and randomly getting logged out when opening Home in a separate window or randomly getting logged out when clicking New Posts etc)

Perhaps it's an Auto Save problem (nothing is ever saved anyway), perhaps something times out when making a long post, perhaps perhaps perhaps - it makes this place hard to browse for new posts since the system suddenly supposes you read everything last time you were logged in. It makes it hard to post because...well it's hard to post when unable to post every few tries.

(Before posting this, I will copy all of the text and try to remember what I used for topic title - just to be sure I don't lose another post of the hundreds lost.)

Today I 'lost' another ten pages of easily accessible New Posts by getting logged out. Browsing for what's new in other ways is very awkward!

One of the many things I expect to change later this month.

Quick update.

Today's dev discussion informed me that we're now looking towards the end of July for putting up the new forums and lottery. A good part of this delay is, I admit, my fault. Mostly because I keep holding them to the requirement I made that lotteries are available on day one of the new forums. This has meant a bit more work, and a bit more refinement than expected. Mostly because, since we're making so many changes in the system, I'm trying to get some things improved for you guys.

There are also some migration issues we want to make sure are worked out before switching over. it would be no fun for anyone if we ended up with a large number of forum users who didn't migrate and we had to start wading through them by hand.

So things I know that are changing with the lottery (Or at least are as of today and I hope to keep pressing for).

Past winnings
If you won a lottery you should now be able to see a list of your previous lottery wins and winnings. Currently you only see that you won a lottery, not what was in it.

All Lotteries
I don't know if this will be in the final build, but I've asked that you always see ALL lotteries running, even if you aren't eligible for them. You should see "No eligible characters" for lotteries you can't enter. If there are no lotteries, you should see "there are no lotteries currently available." Hopefully this solves some of the confusion when you see the current error message which doesn't change even when there are no lotteries running.

No more widget
As things stand now it's a page of its own. No more widgets.

The downside of all of this. There will very likely be a forum downtime required. it will be measured in days not hours. Before this depresses you too much, it was originally discussed in terms of a week or more. So we've pared that down considerably. We're going to try and make it as short as possible, but you should definitely plan for forums in read only for some period of time at the end of this month.

[Gaming_Gal]

Thank you, Sapience, for the update. It's nice to know both what's going on as well as when it might possibly be happening.

[Bel-Astarte]

I have done more than a few in my life (and am in the middle of one at work now), so I appreciate the need for delay.

Also, FWIW, I endorse your stand on the lotteries. That is a community feature that is much appreciated, and going live without it-well, I would predict hue and cry, but that will happen anyway.

I expect it would be a much higher peak decible level if no lotteries though.

[SilverHug]

Thank you Sapience for the update. It is always good to be 'in the know' regarding changes to all aspects of this game and world of which I have become quite attached.

I don't mind the downtime with the promise of everything working when it is completed. I am always of the belief that you do things right the first time! So yes please, make sure the Devs take their time and double, if not, triple check their work to make sure it works.

Crack that whip! j/k

[Mar-Evayave]

Sapience - Not sure if you missed my question, but I'd really like to know. If we've created guides previously, do we have to repost the entire thing in the new Player Created Guides and FAQs forum, or is a staff member able to move them for us?

[Rawlor]

That's pretty awesome to be honest. As far as these things go if you don't do something at launch it very likely won't happen any time soon, so good on you for sticking to your guns.

[PoisonRedApple]

The update is very much appreciated Sapience. I'm most excited about the changes to the lottery system.

[Sapience]

Sapience - Not sure if you missed my question, but I'd really like to know. If we've created guides previously, do we have to repost the entire thing in the new Player Created Guides and FAQs forum, or is a staff member able to move them for us?

You need to move it yourself. If we did it we would own the post and you wouldn't be able to edit or update it.

[Mar-Evayave]

You need to move it yourself. If we did it we would own the post and you wouldn't be able to edit or update it.

Thank-you very much. I have reposted my Survivors of Wildermore guide over there. ^_^

[Darlgon]

Thank-you very much. I have reposted my Survivors of Wildermore guide over there. ^_^

Um... thought that was a preview of the setup of the forums, not a part of the new site. Soooo. you need to put it in a text document and post it on the new website when it comes out.

[Schinderhannes]

Quick update

Thanks for giving us a chance to understand the delay.

[Sapience]

Um... thought that was a preview of the setup of the forums, not a part of the new site. Soooo. you need to put it in a text document and post it on the new website when it comes out.

No. It will be exported and placed into the new site along with all the posts currently here. The Lorebook is going away so anything you have created that you do not salvage out of it will be lost.

The new guides area of the forums was created specifically for this reason.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

While it will be nice to not be logged out about 1/4 of the times I try to post something on the forums, I know that I, and the rest of the PvMP community are not looking forward to these changes - for many of us, the leaderboards (through the spectrum of blackappendage's dailystats) are what keep us coming back, despite the fact that most others in the game seem to be on their summer break (my evidence for which is that our global server on Evernight had around 500 earlier in the year, and now we are down to around 100, even at peak EU playing times (evening/night)). For me, being able to see my progress clearly, and the exact amounts I gained during the day, who I passed by and who I'm catching up with, in addition to being able to see who ranked etc. has become an essential part of the game for me - I'm not going to go so far as to say that I'll quit the game if and when these changes go ahead as some have done to stress their point, however the removal of the leaderboards with the upcoming MyLOTRO changes is going to be greeted with some sadness by the PvMP community. If only Sapience had the same love of PvMP as he does of the lotteries, but alas, there does not seem to be anyone left to fight for PvMP.

[Fredelas]

I hope that the web development team will make security testing a focus of its redesign efforts.

Despite personal assurances from a community team member months ago, the default form for logging in to the community sites has been dangerously (and rather obviously) insecure since early last fall, and has remained so ever since.

Most customers have been submitting their account names and passwords insecurely for almost a year now, and this really has to stop.

[auximenes]

Despite personal assurances from a community team member months ago, the default form for logging in to the community sites has been dangerously (and rather obviously) insecure since early last fall, and has remained so ever since.

Before I updated my account password a couple months back, when logging in to the forums it gave me a nice 'green' rating on my password choice. Unfortunately, the account password function has different parameters now and I was unable to create a similary-crafted new password and I get a 'yellow' rating now on the forums log-in. Way to go guys, not only does the log-in process still foolishly and insecurely use the same password for both game and forum account, but I can't even use my desired password scheme.

[Khafar]

...we're now looking towards the end of July for putting up the new forums and lottery. A good part of this delay is, I admit, my fault. Mostly because I keep holding them to the requirement I made that lotteries are available on day one of the new forums...

OK, I have to ask: why? These forums have some truly hideous problems with performance (intermittent), spontaneous log outs (seemingly random), and unencrypted authentication (always). Fixing those seems vastly more urgent/important than getting Lotteries on "day one".

If we could have new reliable, secure, and performant forums today, I'd quite gladly give up Lotteries for another 6 or 8 weeks. I seriously doubt I'm alone, and it seems unlikely that delivering the core capabilities after "only" three schedule slips makes it lots more difficult to finish adding a Lottery feature in the next pass...

Khafar

[auximenes]

I agree; I'd rather have functional forums before lotteries.