Communication

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Originally Posted by Sapience

The plan is to have more, but everyone should keep in mind that the #1 thing the team should be doing is making the game.

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This is so true, and yet... this livestream was very much appreciated. I think it was hugely helpful as well, because people tend to demonize devs who are silent figures making mysterious changes and not making the stuff they in particular like. Livestreams like this humanize the people making the game and provide a big reality check for people. The communication that happened in this one in both directions was awesome.

So thank you to the participants for your time. In my opinion, it was not wasted.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

This was intended to be a lot more focused on showing off the next update and directly interacting with players. So I'm happy to hear we were at least partly successful there.
As Aaron pointed out, it's good for you guys to hear some of the struggles the team has with having to prioritize things to ensure the best results. of course, I personally believe this comes out a bit better when they're actually speaking it instead of just writing it. Going forward you should be hearing a lot more from the team. I mean that quite literally.

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This was part of the overall success, imo. The ability to switch gears on the fly and address the things that are on our minds. Dev Diaries, Press Interviews, Producer's Letters, the videos, are expected to be a pretty much one way street, where we're being given a focused message, with perhaps some back and forth via the forums.

A perfect idea for this, again imo, would be to have everyone there actually in game and questing or running a Skirmish/Instance/Raid/EB or something like PvMP. It's a good way to perhaps feature some system, change, favorite space, etc. while leaving the conversation being mostly driven by the players. Getting to watch you guys play would be kind of awesome I think.

One of the highlights for me on this stream was when they were in Derndingle and one of the Devs commented on the shadows moving saying something to the effect of "that's a nice touch." Not information packed but I thought the same thing when I saw it the first time. It was nice to see what the Dev's find awesome about each others work. Or when they were talking about figuring out how to make names change and JWB not being allowed to write text.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

The plan is to have more, but everyone should keep in mind that the #1 thing the team should be doing is making the game. There is a balance between spending time chatting with players and making content. So while these type of streams will become more common, I wouldn't expect a daily stream or even every other day with this type of involvement. More common will be myself, or maybe a single dev, or maybe myself and a dev, with events like this being the 'big event'. My personal goal is to use steams like this to replace the old Twitter chats. Because again, I think the voice aspect gives a little more depth to the replies than text.

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LOL, we want them twice daily! When I said a regular feature I had something more like once a month or every other month in mind. You're absolutely correct about the voice aspect adding a lot to the replies.

^^^^

Bah I wish the Forums would stop flipping names on me! :mad:

FYI the transcript is now up, you can view it here.

I agree that these types of events make a huge difference to players' perception of the team, and that is a really positive thing. Sometimes I think it's far too easy for people to dehumanize someone who they only see as a role, rather than a person.

I also think that what Sapience said about abusive language toward devs is dead on. That goes in line with what I just said about people mentally dehumanizing those who represent a role rather than a person. Devs are people too, and people respond, universally, to being appreciated and talked to in a mature, respectful manner. Of course it's totally fine for feelings to come out. But "You guys suck" is not a feeling, nor is "you ruined this game" or "X blue-name doesn't care about the players". Feelings are "I am angry about this change." "I don't feel heard." "I am disappointed in the direction this is taking." Notice how the former comes across as scathing and harsh and abusive, and is focussed on the other person, and the latter comes across as more measured, and focuses on the self.

Good rule of thumb before hitting submit is, would you send this exact wording in an email to your boss, or to a respected business colleague? If the answer is no, then editing may be in order.

I really like the two-way communication and the fact that it's voice on your side as well.

It's one thing to read about plans, it's a whole other dimension to hear about it, hear you enjoy telling us about it. You did a good job of conveying more than just words.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Of course. They,we, us... we're human. Let's be very honest here, 'passion' sometimes is expressed in some very inappropriate ways and with a lot of vitriol and less than pleasant commentary. If i'm also being honest you'll find that that is exactly why some members of the team are hesitant to engage. No one likes being called names, being told your work is sub par, or being generally insulted. Since I'm literally the only person actually required as part of my job to engage on a regular basis, you can probably guess that most people, facing some of the comments made here and elsewhere, would simply choose to stay away as there is no requirement they subject themselves to that. Even those who really enjoy engaging with players aren't going to do it often if they feel they're being insulted. Would you? Something to consider the next time you're about to hit the 'submit' button.

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I suppose it takes a good bit of thick skin as a dev to read the forums. I do think part of that is the job description, gamers can be a harsh blunt audience. But insults and namecalling are just really not needed and get us nowhere, just make the insulter/namecaller look really bad.

Here's something people could try and practice: if you're upset or angry, do write a post, let it out, voice it! Just never submit it. I promise you it'll feel like you got it off your chest. Next you can look at what upset you more reasonably and post more reasonably about it if you still wish to. It's a variation of counting to 10 that has the added bonus of voicing your emotions.

Trust me, if I had pressed 'submit' at every post I made, my postcount would be at least 25% higher. Not that I'm that angry:p or secretly insulting the devs:eek:, it's just that I am generally keenly aware of how harshly the written word can be recieved on the other end. Without all the context like tone, gestures, facial expression and other non-verbal communication, it's so easy to unintentionally achieve the exact opposite of what you wish to achieve.

Sooooooo with that said: keep these coming, and don't be shy in the forums too!

Maybe we are not the good community, we always claim to be...

Time for an Annual Developer Appreciation Day!

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Originally Posted by Sapience

This was intended to be a lot more focused on showing off the next update and directly interacting with players. So I'm happy to hear we were at least partly successful there.
As Aaron pointed out, it's good for you guys to hear some of the struggles the team has with having to prioritize things to ensure the best results. of course, I personally believe this comes out a bit better when they're actually speaking it instead of just writing it. Going forward you should be hearing a lot more from the team. I mean that quite literally.




The plan is to have more, but everyone should keep in mind that the #1 thing the team should be doing is making the game. There is a balance between spending time chatting with players and making content. So while these type of streams will become more common, I wouldn't expect a daily stream or even every other day with this type of involvement. More common will be myself, or maybe a single dev, or maybe myself and a dev, with events like this being the 'big event'. My personal goal is to use steams like this to replace the old Twitter chats. Because again, I think the voice aspect gives a little more depth to the replies than text.




Of course. They,we, us... we're human. Let's be very honest here, 'passion' sometimes is expressed in some very inappropriate ways and with a lot of vitriol and less than pleasant commentary. If i'm also being honest you'll find that that is exactly why some members of the team are hesitant to engage. No one likes being called names, being told your work is sub par, or being generally insulted. Since I'm literally the only person actually required as part of my job to engage on a regular basis, you can probably guess that most people, facing some of the comments made here and elsewhere, would simply choose to stay away as there is no requirement they subject themselves to that. Even those who really enjoy engaging with players aren't going to do it often if they feel they're being insulted. Would you? Something to consider the next time you're about to hit the 'submit' button.

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Thanks for making these events happen, Sapience (and Rowan, too--I recognize this is a result of the "changing of the guard", so to speak). Thanks, also, for riding herd, running interference, and generally toting the barges between the forum inhabitants and the development team. We're a restless--and rambunctious!!!--lot at times.

And now for a request--any chance of having a dev (pick one, any one...or whichever one fails to step backward in a lineup of volunteers ;) ) do a streamed walkthrough of what it takes just to make a simple change in the UI? I think the explanation you gave in a recent Hobbit Run stream, along with the team's comments here opened a few eyes as to the work involved in a simple change. To see it in action (without revealing IP/proprietary info) might open a few more. Sort of "A Day in the Life of a LOTRO Dev" type of thing would be really interesting.

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Originally Posted by SouthernBelle0927

And now for a request--any chance of having a dev (pick one, any one...or whichever one fails to step backward in a lineup of volunteers ;) ) do a streamed walkthrough of what it takes just to make a simple change in the UI? I think the explanation you gave in a recent Hobbit Run stream, along with the team's comments here opened a few eyes as to the work involved in a simple change. To see it in action (without revealing IP/proprietary info) might open a few more. Sort of "A Day in the Life of a LOTRO Dev" type of thing would be really interesting.

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I think this is a excellent idea! :)

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Originally Posted by Rainothon

I really like the two-way communication and the fact that it's voice on your side as well.

It's one thing to read about plans, it's a whole other dimension to hear about it, hear you enjoy telling us about it. You did a good job of conveying more than just words.


I suppose it takes a good bit of thick skin as a dev to read the forums. I do think part of that is the job description, gamers can be a harsh blunt audience. But insults and namecalling are just really not needed and get us nowhere, just make the insulter/namecaller look really bad.

Here's something people could try and practice: if you're upset or angry, do write a post, let it out, voice it! Just never submit it. I promise you it'll feel like you got it off your chest. Next you can look at what upset you more reasonably and post more reasonably about it if you still wish to. It's a variation of counting to 10 that has the added bonus of voicing your emotions.

Trust me, if I had pressed 'submit' at every post I made, my postcount would be at least 25% higher. Not that I'm that angry:p or secretly insulting the devs:eek:, it's just that I am generally keenly aware of how harshly the written word can be recieved on the other end. Without all the context like tone, gestures, facial expression and other non-verbal communication, it's so easy to unintentionally achieve the exact opposite of what you wish to achieve.

Sooooooo with that said: keep these coming, and don't be shy in the forums too!

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Ditto, although I think my post count would rival your current one. I start a LOT of posts, get really involved in writing them, and they never get beyond Preview Post. Some don't even make it that far. I consider my self-editing/filtering tendency to be a benefit for Sapience--it reduces his post-lock/delete workload by a significant percentage. *whistles innocently*

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Originally Posted by Sapience

This was intended to be a lot more focused on showing off the next update and directly interacting with players. So I'm happy to hear we were at least partly successful there.
As Aaron pointed out, it's good for you guys to hear some of the struggles the team has with having to prioritize things to ensure the best results. of course, I personally believe this comes out a bit better when they're actually speaking it instead of just writing it. Going forward you should be hearing a lot more from the team. I mean that quite literally.

(snipped) Because again, I think the voice aspect gives a little more depth to the replies than text.

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First, thank you all for not only this stream but also the other efforts at outreach to the community, of which of course you 'blue (and green) names' are a part. I welcome it heartily, as do obviously many others. I would, however, like to respond to the quoted material: voice is excellent for humanizing, and the banter among you even better. However, it is transient and occasionally inaudible, so I urge you to continue using text as well as voice not only as a permanent and accessible record, but also to reach those whose processing style is more visual than auditory. I'm sure you will do so without my suggestion, but I did want to put in a word for it in the midst of the (deserved) approbation for the oral/aural portion.

At least as good as the mixed media is the interactivity: the Q&A format of the hobbit runs and yesterday's live stream. The hobbit runs have been especially good for adding an element of fun--it's helpful for members of a community to have a good time and laugh together! :)

Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by Beaniemooch

Fair enough. But the flip side is we too are human, and while we may try to post suggestions our personal feelings are going to come out. Sometimes my feelings may hurt their feelings. The best way to work things out is usually explain where both sides are coming from, and I do feel that was a one-way street during HD beta and beyond.

I like the communication we're getting now and for me at least it's soothed some of the frustration and irritation I've felt. I still don't always like the message - but the mere fact I'm getting one helps. I still don't like the content at the moment - but I feel like what matters to me is at least being heard now. In the end I think that's all most of us really wanted.

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I couldn't agree with you more. I love LOTRO and invest a lot of years and money into the game. I love the hunter class as it was my first. I realize at time I come off as condescending or abrupt when it comes to that class. As far as I know I have never personally attacked the people behind the scene. I respect the work and the effort it takes to make this game work.

I guess I think of it in light of my own job. We often have "meetings" to best discus the upcoming project. Things often get heated but never personal. In fact I would break bread and drink some dwarf ale with any of my work mates. I think it is easy to misinterpret passion for anger unless you are aware of the distinction.

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Originally Posted by anthonyx

(snipped)
I guess I think of it in light of my own job. We often have "meetings" to best discus the upcoming project. Things often get heated but never personal. In fact I would break bread and drink some dwarf ale with any of my work mates. I think it is easy to misinterpret passion for anger unless you are aware of the distinction.

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Yes, things can get heated but not personal among those who work together, and I've had some rip-roaring arguments with colleagues, bosses, and friends. The difference is that here we can't have the opportunity to repair any breaches or misunderstandings with talk and face-to-face ale, pizza, or other comestibles of choice. That's why it's so important to manage the expression of our passion in a forum like this. Text alone can be so easily misunderstood (and I'm hoping mine won't be).

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Originally Posted by karakedi

Yes, things can get heated but not personal among those who work together, and I've had some rip-roaring arguments with colleagues, bosses, and friends. The difference is that here we can't have the opportunity to repair any breaches or misunderstandings with talk and face-to-face ale, pizza, or other comestibles of choice. That's why it's so important to manage the expression of our passion in a forum like this. Text alone can be so easily misunderstood (and I'm hoping mine won't be).

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Ah, I see your forum title is apt! :) That is a really good point.

But the other part for me, which I recognize maybe other people don't think about, is the recognition that our forum activity constitutes a fair portion of someone's work environment/experience. What we do/say here, in what tone and words and manner, effectively creates either a positive, constructive, encouraging, inspiring workplace for the LotRO team, or else it creates an extremely adversarial, harsh, toxic and stressful workplace. Aside from just having compassion for the human experience of others, I think there's a lot to be said for helping to foster the kind of environment that has a better potential to lead to exciting things for the game.

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Originally Posted by karakedi

Yes, things can get heated but not personal among those who work together, and I've had some rip-roaring arguments with colleagues, bosses, and friends. The difference is that here we can't have the opportunity to repair any breaches or misunderstandings with talk and face-to-face ale, pizza, or other comestibles of choice. That's why it's so important to manage the expression of our passion in a forum like this. Text alone can be so easily misunderstood (and I'm hoping mine won't be).

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Originally Posted by frickinmuck

Ah, I see your forum title is apt! :) That is a really good point.

But the other part for me, which I recognize maybe other people don't think about, is the recognition that our forum activity constitutes a fair portion of someone's work environment/experience. What we do/say here, in what tone and words and manner, effectively creates either a positive, constructive, encouraging, inspiring workplace for the LotRO team, or else it creates an extremely adversarial, harsh, toxic and stressful workplace. Aside from just having compassion for the human experience of others, I think there's a lot to be said for helping to foster the kind of environment that has a better potential to lead to exciting things for the game.

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Agreed, with both of you. I might also add that the silliness that breaks out occasionally, often to the detriment of thread continuity, is not such a bad thing. It gives people a better idea of their forum mates' personalities. Having Turbine folks contribute and interact in those conversations as well as the serious ones is a great way to remind readers that there are actual people behind the blue/green names.

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Originally Posted by MadeOfLions

I had a great time! It's tough not being able to talk about *all* of our plans, but that's part of the deal, I guess.

Would do again! :D

MoL

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Hah, keep the mystery alive MoL.

To answer a few questions here (for simplicity I won't quote the OP)...

During the live stream I was reading the chat as it went by. So yes, the team had direct interaction with the questions.

In case you didn't know, Sapience was sitting on a beach in Florida and not able to see the screen. I admire his ability to moderate the questions and pull things in at the appropriate time, with a 60-second delay, without being able to see what we were doing back in the home office. :)

In terms of demonstrating development... I think UI is the wrong place to show it off. In our process that comes down to either code, or stretching tiny text boxes to be sure that German fits. Not exciting. I do want to show some of the "internals" and I expect we'll do it more with art, building more POIs and world or quests. Some mockups might be interesting but don't work in a video format.

Thanks again for participating!

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Originally Posted by Rowan

To answer a few questions here (for simplicity I won't quote the OP)...

In terms of demonstrating development... I think UI is the wrong place to show it off. In our process that comes down to either code, or stretching tiny text boxes to be sure that German fits. Not exciting. I do want to show some of the "internals" and I expect we'll do it more with art, building more POIs and world or quests. Some mockups might be interesting but don't work in a video format.

Thanks again for participating!

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What do you know--I asked for something relatively innocuous (I was trying to avoid asking for something that couldn't be done!) and got something much better in reply. :) Thanks, Rowan!

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Originally Posted by frickinmuck

(snipped)

But the other part for me, which I recognize maybe other people don't think about, is the recognition that our forum activity constitutes a fair portion of someone's work environment/experience. What we do/say here, in what tone and words and manner, effectively creates either a positive, constructive, encouraging, inspiring workplace for the LotRO team, or else it creates an extremely adversarial, harsh, toxic and stressful workplace. Aside from just having compassion for the human experience of others, I think there's a lot to be said for helping to foster the kind of environment that has a better potential to lead to exciting things for the game.

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Let me take your very accurate observation a bit further. I mentioned in an earlier post that the LotRO staff are part of our community; it's not just the players. To the degree that the staff perceive the forum members (and by generalization, the players) as adversarial, they will tend to dehumanize us. We then enter an Us-Them situation, where to the LotRO staff we are "Them" and thus increasingly dehumanized. They withdraw from us, and that enhances our perception of them as "Them." As you suggest, the more the staff see the players as perceiving them as 'Us,' the more of their energy can go into building the world we love and into communicating with us, and the more fun we have together--including good-natured in-forum kidding as SouthernBelle suggested--the more likely we all are to become "Us."

(Apologies for the maze of pronouns; I hope it's still clear.)

PS Thanks for your response to SouthernBelle's suggestion, Rowan. Sounds terrific, and I look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by Rowan

During the live stream I was reading the chat as it went by. So yes, the team had direct interaction with the questions.
<snip> I expect we'll do it more with art, building more POIs and world or quests. Some mockups might be interesting but don't work in a video format.

Thanks again for participating!

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I hope you can help give this impression more so directly during the stream. Additionally I wonder if this is true for all the streams or just this one because of the time delay.

World building seems like an excellent way of showing off development work. Some of the things I've enjoyed most about the developer dev diaries in video format, were the brief snippets of the actual internal Turbine development tools on screens. Especially in cases where the rest of the video felt more like a written diary read, or a PR speech we'd seen in or read in many other interviews shared with the press.

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Originally Posted by Rowan

In case you didn't know, Sapience was sitting on a beach in Florida and not able to see the screen. I admire his ability to moderate the questions and pull things in at the appropriate time, with a 60-second delay, without being able to see what we were doing back in the home office. :)

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LoL... Sapience can easily confirm this, but way back in the days of design and the Pre-Beta --- He WOULD NOT have been able to be sitting on the Beach and only have a 60 second lag!

The net has come a long, long way since 2007 -- and so has LOTRO.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Because again, I think the voice aspect gives a little more depth to the replies than text.

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Great broadcast, great communication and heartily agree that this format was so much better at introducing us to the team... we meet them as ´people´and I think we all have a little bit more sympathy for people :)

Thanks team look forward to hearing from you all again soon :)

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Originally Posted by SouthernBelle0927

Agreed, with both of you. I might also add that the silliness that breaks out occasionally, often to the detriment of thread continuity, is not such a bad thing. It gives people a better idea of their forum mates' personalities. Having Turbine folks contribute and interact in those conversations as well as the serious ones is a great way to remind readers that there are actual people behind the blue/green names.

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Sillyness...really ...where?

&

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Originally Posted by karakedi

As you suggest, the more the staff see the players as perceiving them as 'Us,' the more of their energy can go into building the world we love and into communicating with us, and the more fun we have together--including good-natured in-forum kidding as SouthernBelle suggested--the more likely we all are to become "Us."

(Apologies for the maze of pronouns; I hope it's still clear.)

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I enjoyed the maze of pronouns... I can see why they call you wize... :)

I can see others are also happy about the personification of the develpment team and the ever improving avenues of communication :)

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Originally Posted by Sapience

Of course. They,we, us... we're human. Let's be very honest here, 'passion' sometimes is expressed in some very inappropriate ways and with a lot of vitriol and less than pleasant commentary. If i'm also being honest you'll find that that is exactly why some members of the team are hesitant to engage. No one likes being called names, being told your work is sub par, or being generally insulted. Since I'm literally the only person actually required as part of my job to engage on a regular basis, you can probably guess that most people, facing some of the comments made here and elsewhere, would simply choose to stay away as there is no requirement they subject themselves to that. Even those who really enjoy engaging with players aren't going to do it often if they feel they're being insulted. Would you? Something to consider the next time you're about to hit the 'submit' button.

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Indeed, though I will say this - the more an organisation communicates with its customers, the less anger and vitriol that there will be. That's what I find in my line of work - many of the reasons I find as to why people get angry is as a result of them feeling that their voice is not being heard. Just looking at this thread will show you how well people can conduct themselves on an open forum. If Turbine abides by the principle that one can never communicate enough then that will really pay dividends.

As for the insults etc, best way to deal with that is to learn to filter out and ignore what is "noise" and only focus on those areas where there really are issues to be resolved. Most of what people say on internet forums they would not dare to say in real life for fear of the consequences :)

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Originally Posted by BangoTwinkletoes

Indeed, though I will say this - the more an organisation communicates with its customers, the less anger and vitriol that there will be. That's what I find in my line of work - many of the reasons I find as to why people get angry is as a result of them feeling that their voice is not being heard. Just looking at this thread will show you how well people can conduct themselves on an open forum. If Turbine abides by the principle that one can never communicate enough then that will really pay dividends.

As for the insults etc, best way to deal with that is to learn to filter out and ignore what is "noise" and only focus on those areas where there really are issues to be resolved. Most of what people say on internet forums they would not dare to say in real life for fear of the consequences :)

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/agree
Well said Bango!

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Originally Posted by Rowan

To answer a few questions here (for simplicity I won't quote the OP)...

During the live stream I was reading the chat as it went by. So yes, the team had direct interaction with the questions.

In case you didn't know, Sapience was sitting on a beach in Florida and not able to see the screen. I admire his ability to moderate the questions and pull things in at the appropriate time, with a 60-second delay, without being able to see what we were doing back in the home office. :)

In terms of demonstrating development... I think UI is the wrong place to show it off. In our process that comes down to either code, or stretching tiny text boxes to be sure that German fits. Not exciting. I do want to show some of the "internals" and I expect we'll do it more with art, building more POIs and world or quests. Some mockups might be interesting but don't work in a video format.

Thanks again for participating!

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I checked in Google Translate and your post 'translates' to German with 5 words more but ... a LOT more characters. I think a demonstration of some of how things come to be in LOTRO could highlight interesting things. Maybe even more interesting than the lengthy nature of German words.;)

And I'll give bonus points if this turns into a demonstration of concept stage art/POI things with an opportunity to provide feedback. Would you dare?