What is next for the game?

[Belnavar]

Cordovan please make sure the gold hobbit gifts are re-enabled to give the Midsummer specific gifts from the first year of the event. Otherwise make sure the barters have the first year items added so RNG is no longer part of the festival reward experience.

We 100% need to see these rewards back in the game -- ideally without the RNG.

-Bel

[-CasualGamer-]

The lack of development effort on this game is notable. It's hard to believe there are > 5 programmers. With Ring of Power coming out, SSG/Turbine would be advised to invest in some more. There are a lot more non-programmers: 3D artists, designers, customer support, admin etc.

The code may be in a bit of a mess. Whilst browing the Beorning subforum I was reading about the difficulties a programmer was having making a skill un-grey when it was re-castable. This is basic UI code.

The forums are broken. I posted a partial fix here. It's not surprising that the LOTRO Reddit is just as popular.

Nevertheless, I'd like see an goals list, driven by the community eg 1. Removing the renderer's stupid blur when there's no fog or anything.
2. Redesign Instance Finder so it shows player levels etc.

SSG can then respond as to what seems more doable.

[Dinara]

The lack of development effort on this game is notable. It's hard to believe there are > 5 programmers. With Ring of Power coming out, SSG/Turbine would be advised to invest in some more. There are a lot more non-programmers: 3D artists, designers, customer support, admin etc.

The code may be in a bit of a mess. Whilst browing the Beorning subforum I was reading about the difficulties a programmer was having making a skill un-grey when it was re-castable. This is basic UI code.

The forums are broken. I posted a partial fix here. It's not surprising that the LOTRO Reddit is just as popular.

Nevertheless, I'd like see an goals list, driven by the community eg 1. Removing the renderer's stupid blur when there's no fog or anything.
2. Redesign Instance Finder so it shows player levels etc.

SSG can then respond as to what seems more doable.

This whole situation has gotten me really worried

With the unending lag, inability to create new accounts (did they do this on purpose), no new content for Bullroar, are they entering maintenance mode? Are we getting near the end?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game, I've been here for more than 15 years and am hoping for 15 more! But I am really starting to worry

[Raninia]

This whole situation has gotten me really worried

With the unending lag, inability to create new accounts (did they do this on purpose), no new content for Bullroar, are they entering maintenance mode? Are we getting near the end?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game, I've been here for more than 15 years and am hoping for 15 more! But I am really starting to worry

We're still working on the performance issues. There's more stuff coming to address it, but part of the extended maintenance today is to help address some things we found on the back end.

We didn't shut down new account creation on purpose, but that hardware is quite old and needs a lot of TLC right now.

We'll have new content for players to check out on Bullroarer soon, you'll hear more about that in the Producer's Letter, which will be out before the Bullroarer starts (I hope!)

We're nowhere the end. We've got a lot of irons in the fire that we're excited to talk about, but we're not ready to do so yet!

[Dinara]

We're still working on the performance issues. There's more stuff coming to address it, but part of the extended maintenance today is to help address some things we found on the back end.

We didn't shut down new account creation on purpose, but that hardware is quite old and needs a lot of TLC right now.

We'll have new content for players to check out on Bullroarer soon, you'll hear more about that in the Producer's Letter, which will be out before the Bullroarer starts (I hope!)

We're nowhere the end. We've got a lot of irons in the fire that we're excited to talk about, but we're not ready to do so yet!

Thank you soooo much for your reply!
You have relieved my worries somewhat. I hope that you find a solution to the issues quickly for all our sakes!
Best of luck!

[Pavoff]

What is next for the game?

End of the road

[JH15547]

Thank you soooo much for your reply!
You have relieved my worries somewhat. I hope that you find a solution to the issues quickly for all our sakes!
Best of luck!

The DDO Isle of Dread expansion is supposed to launch on June 23rd, 2022. Hopefully we'll get some of our LOTRO content Devs back by then ...

[Thornglen]

We're still working on the performance issues. There's more stuff coming to address it, but part of the extended maintenance today is to help address some things we found on the back end.

We didn't shut down new account creation on purpose, but that hardware is quite old and needs a lot of TLC right now.

We'll have new content for players to check out on Bullroarer soon, you'll hear more about that in the Producer's Letter, which will be out before the Bullroarer starts (I hope!)

We're nowhere the end. We've got a lot of irons in the fire that we're excited to talk about, but we're not ready to do so yet!

The old hardware and the lag are what have me worrying. I don't doubt you have new content planned and want the game to keep going as much as we do. But if the hardware can no longer handle it, good intentions won't matter as much as we might want them to.

I hope things can be fixed, but as it is now there are days ("normal" days with everything working as best it can) when I can barely play for all the lag. Just this past Sunday it took 5 or 6 tries to bind at a milestone in Mordor.

[Raninia]

The DDO Isle of Dread expansion is supposed to launch on June 23rd, 2022. Hopefully we'll get some of our LOTRO content Devs back by then ...

I think this is a misunderstanding of how folks sometimes get moved around or how some folks are shared. No one from the LOTRO Content team has worked on DDO in a long time, but we have occasionally borrowed a DDO dev, like we did with Fantus for a little while last year. As we've been growing, this should generally happen less, and there's no plan for more folks to moonlight on a different title.

[maartena]

but that hardware is quite old and needs a lot of TLC right now.

As far as I understand it, new hardware investments were done during the server move in 2015. I could be wrong about that, but I remember Vyvyanne (spelling?) telling us at the time that new hardware was deployed in the then new datacenter in New Jersey.

This would make this hardware around 7 years old. I know how that feels, as I still have a Nutanix cluster with 16 nodes running which is from 2014, but we are only running legacy stuff on it now that technically can be retired but is being kept online for customers as a courtesy. All of our primary production servers are located on much newer Nutanix clusters.

But yes: 7 years often means that support from the hardware vendor has ended, or is on a very expensive tier because it is harder to source hardware components, so if you do have hardware that is 7+ years old, it is definitely time to put in a order for new hardware. And that too, is harder these days because of all sorts of component shortages......

Let us know if new hardware investments are in the planning for this year. I know its not a magic pill for lag (there is code, there is network, there is legacy connections to older components, whatever) but I would think a good hardware beast supporting the virtual servers will be needed to keep the game running for years to come.

Good luck!

[TesalionLortus]

I think this is a misunderstanding of how folks sometimes get moved around or how some folks are shared. No one from the LOTRO Content team has worked on DDO in a long time, but we have occasionally borrowed a DDO dev, like we did with Fantus for a little while last year. As we've been growing, this should generally happen less, and there's no plan for more folks to moonlight on a different title.

This reminds me Raninia, is it feasible/legal for LOTRO to barrow some of the assets from DDO? Just wondering. Well, at least what I do know is that I saw some of the LOTRO's vegetation in DDO gameplays. But I mean character models, creatures, animation, that sort of thing. If we ever get to new exciting places like Harad I have every confidence LOTRO's team will try to give it justice and they'll obviously get creative with brand new things crafted specifically for LOTRO - but these are places that could use LOTS and LOTS of diversity and new things, and some of these DDO assets are... pretty neat, so maybe... why not use them/modify them, perhaps, for even more diversity and new things. But yeah, in general I'm just wondering whether that's feasible in theory (so easier than creating new assets), been curious about it for a while.

[Oghran]

As far as I understand it, new hardware investments were done during the server move in 2015. I could be wrong about that, but I remember Vyvyanne (spelling?) telling us at the time that new hardware was deployed in the then new datacenter in New Jersey.

This would make this hardware around 7 years old. I know how that feels, as I still have a Nutanix cluster with 16 nodes running which is from 2014, but we are only running legacy stuff on it now that technically can be retired but is being kept online for customers as a courtesy. All of our primary production servers are located on much newer Nutanix clusters.

But yes: 7 years often means that support from the hardware vendor has ended, or is on a very expensive tier because it is harder to source hardware components, so if you do have hardware that is 7+ years old, it is definitely time to put in a order for new hardware. And that too, is harder these days because of all sorts of component shortages......

Let us know if new hardware investments are in the planning for this year. I know its not a magic pill for lag (there is code, there is network, there is legacy connections to older components, whatever) but I would think a good hardware beast supporting the virtual servers will be needed to keep the game running for years to come.

Good luck!

There was talk of new servers being ordered during the fall of 2021, and hope of going live by the end of that year. We had a few 'regretfully delayed' mentions after, but the last one was quite a while back.

[auximenes]

We're still working on the performance issues. There's more stuff coming to address it, but part of the extended maintenance today is to help address some things we found on the back end. We didn't shut down new account creation on purpose, but that hardware is quite old and needs a lot of TLC right now. We'll have new content for players to check out on Bullroarer soon, you'll hear more about that in the Producer's Letter, which will be out before the Bullroarer starts (I hope!) We're nowhere the end. We've got a lot of irons in the fire that we're excited to talk about, but we're not ready to do so yet!

I think this is a misunderstanding of how folks sometimes get moved around or how some folks are shared. No one from the LOTRO Content team has worked on DDO in a long time, but we have occasionally borrowed a DDO dev, like we did with Fantus for a little while last year. As we've been growing, this should generally happen less, and there's no plan for more folks to moonlight on a different title.

Thanks for the update.

[Gaiandrial]

We're working on getting the next Producer's Letter out soon, and it will have some information about what to expect! The most immediate next thing is the Midsummer Festival, which happens next week. We're also working on our next game update (33.1), which you'll be seeing more about on Bullroarer and such soon.

No Cordovan. The Next Immediate Thing is alleviating Lag, it is the Primary gripe in LOTRO, and you seem to be ignoring it. As for "out soon", yeah, we ain't gonna hold our breathe. SSG has their own definition for Soon. Fix lag, NOT by slowing down the interface, and skip one new content update, spend the time instead catching up on bugs that have plagued us for Years. Show that you care as much about us as you care about meeting deadlines and keeping costs at a bare minimum.

[DoRonRon]

I don't think any of us have issues with the content team, just those undermining them or preventing them addressing stuff we need them to attend to. Along with un-stable game performance that is wasting their time trying to code around the flaky behaviour, to not so much success. But there is little point in filing these bugs as they will only generate a hack at best not the stable environment they deserve and we deserve.

[CaerArianrhod]

I think this is a misunderstanding of how folks sometimes get moved around or how some folks are shared. No one from the LOTRO Content team has worked on DDO in a long time, but we have occasionally borrowed a DDO dev, like we did with Fantus for a little while last year. As we've been growing, this should generally happen less, and there's no plan for more folks to moonlight on a different title.

Does that means, that all the silence in the last weeks (esp. about the removal of the reputation scroll) is fully intended?

[Gaiandrial]

I don't think any of us have issues with the content team, just those undermining them or preventing them addressing stuff we need them to attend to. Along with un-stable game performance that is wasting their time trying to code around the flaky behaviour, to not so much success. But there is little point in filing these bugs as they will only generate a hack at best not the stable environment they deserve and we deserve.

Oh don't get me wrong, the Content itself is Great! The storyline kinda wanders off a bit from time to time but that's fine. Implementation, coding and infrastructure is, umm, somewhat lacking though IMHO. Releasing new updates containing bugs that Anyone who had taken the time to test the code first Themselves would have spotted is not an endearing feature either. Kudos to the Content Team, shame on the "typists".

[Gaiandrial]

We're still working on the performance issues. There's more stuff coming to address it, but part of the extended maintenance today is to help address some things we found on the back end.

We didn't shut down new account creation on purpose, but that hardware is quite old and needs a lot of TLC right now.

We'll have new content for players to check out on Bullroarer soon, you'll hear more about that in the Producer's Letter, which will be out before the Bullroarer starts (I hope!)

We're nowhere the end. We've got a lot of irons in the fire that we're excited to talk about, but we're not ready to do so yet!

"... We're still working on the performance issues ..." - In all fairness, we have been hearing this since Last Year and all that's occurred is that the interface has been slowed down and lag has gotten Worse, crashes are becoming frequent and Latency has increased by 50%. Whatever you are doing, please, Stop. "Reduced Awareness" msgs with only 85 people on the entire Evernight server is ridiculous.

[gildhur]

No Cordovan. The Next Immediate Thing is alleviating Lag, it is the Primary gripe in LOTRO, and you seem to be ignoring it.

No, it isn't. And no, they aren't.

I don't know what y'all are doing, but I almost never experience significant lag while I'm playing. I understand it exists, but to insist that all content development cease until there is no more lag is both delusional and ignorant of how game development actually happens. People who write quests text, paint textures, and code scripts don't generally engineer networks. Would you have them fire all the actual developers so they can hire engineers to fix the lag instead?

[Gaiandrial]

No, it isn't. And no, they aren't.

I don't know what y'all are doing, but I almost never experience significant lag while I'm playing. I understand it exists, but to insist that all content development cease until there is no more lag is both delusional and ignorant of how game development actually happens. People who write quests text, paint textures, and code scripts don't generally engineer networks. Would you have them fire all the actual developers so they can hire engineers to fix the lag instead?

"... but I almost never experience significant lag while I'm playing ..." - This is not all about You bud, and just because You personally don't experience lag doesn't mean others do not, and it is also a poor excuse just to attack and insult a complete stranger.

On the Evernight server lag is severe, at times ALL DAY. Now, I did Not insist that all content development cease and anyone who thinks I did so is delusional. The lag can be alleviated quite easily and without any additional work or coding or stopping of development, they could do it tomorrow. All it takes is dollars. If you knew anything about game development and "scaling" you would know that.

BTW, I was talking about the lag they said were "fixing" when I asked them to stop, not game development, as their "fixes" so far just seemed to be making matters worse.

[Arantha]

also on belegaer, really no fun to play, and it doesn't matter where MT or Yordershire or Ered Luin, everywehere the lags

Lotro generated last year together with DDO about 5 Mio Euro of net profit... I learnt once in buisnes administration studies that every net profit partially has to be reinvested... for sure more in a game of 15 years. The ongoing troubles with registrations, the lags and the word of raninia, that hardware has to be replaced is a sign, that perhaps the net profit has not been reinvested or at the wrong place... and I hope, that what I said is wrong

[Arnenna]

"... We're still working on the performance issues ..." - In all fairness, we have been hearing this since Last Year and all that's occurred is that the interface has been slowed down and lag has gotten Worse, crashes are becoming frequent and Latency has increased by 50%. Whatever you are doing, please, Stop. "Reduced Awareness" msgs with only 85 people on the entire Evernight server is ridiculous.

We've been hearing it for about 4 years. I don't doubt they are trying to fix it, but, it's just getting worse. Sometimes you just got to admit defeat and realise you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. They need better servers.

[Pontin_Finnberry]

Yup lag is there from time to time, but we all know SSG isn't ignoring lag, thats just frustration of players saying that who are tried of lag, and fixing lag/performance isn't a flick of a switch, I'm sure theres whole can of worms as to why it hasn't been solved yet.

[Bryos]

but we all know SSG isn't ignoring lag

"We all" don't know that.

[DoRonRon]

"... but I almost never experience significant lag while I'm playing ..." - This is not all about You bud, and just because You personally don't experience lag doesn't mean others do not, and it is also a poor excuse just to attack and insult a complete stranger.

On the Evernight server lag is severe, at times ALL DAY. Now, I did Not insist that all content development cease and anyone who thinks I did so is delusional. The lag can be alleviated quite easily and without any additional work or coding or stopping of development, they could do it tomorrow. All it takes is dollars. If you knew anything about game development and "scaling" you would know that.

BTW, I was talking about the lag they said were "fixing" when I asked them to stop, not game development, as their "fixes" so far just seemed to be making matters worse.

I guess you should try playing the game amongst other's who lap up the rhetoric and have all your game goals satisfied. You might not flinch about paying a sub and for each Ultimate that comes along. Could "write" yourself into the story with your fan fiction bio, potter about on a wealth of characters, some you can Valar and not even need to learn (or gear) more than the basics especially if a new class getting the usual "new char" over balance to make up for nuance yet, or never, to be learnt. You'd then be on a low pop server and could use selective memory over Angmar lag that you currently see everywhere on Evernight. Live the fantasy! Believe! Just not too many, can't have the Landroval/remaining LS folk getting disillusioned, if that's possible even?