Q&A Hobbits to Isengard - Gladden
Sorry for the delay. The next few should be more timely.
Please note: I am paraphrasing here. Anything said here is coming through my interpretation of what was said, and is subject to being corrected, so don't take all this as the final word.
If anyone who was present has any additions or corrections, feel free to post.
Q&A Hobbits to Isengard - Gladden
- Why do we have another double XP weekend
The majority of players enjoy these events, it’s great for leveling up alts - When will update 12.3 be released
Monday feb 10th. Much smaller patch than the last two, but it does address some issues. One being the sparring timer, which has been adjusted to 10 minutes for that update thanks to player feedback in the Hobbits to Isengard event. - Some discussion of whether the fastest server would be the one that excludes everyone except a fellowship of 6, to keep lag down. Sapience said the fastest time so far was in a full raid with tons of other people, so that’s not necessarily true. Besides-which, it would be really difficult, if not impossible, to exclude anyone who wanted to participate. Most importantly, excluding all except 6 people runs completely against the spirit of the event.
- HtoI scheduling questions
The schedule to date is posted in the forums, will be updated as more servers are scheduled. He’s purposely left a few gaps in the schedule because he’s going to try to scatter a few other things in here and there. For example the devs recently did a Hobnanigans play test, and he’s thinking if they do another it may be something that the players would like to see, so he may stream that if it happens. - Will there be a HtoI run on Bullroarer
He hadn’t considered one since Bullroarer is just a test server, but he thinks it could be fun, may consider it after U13 goes live - Are there any new 95 class armour sets coming
He put in a request for an update on that and got no answer, so speculates they may be working on it but just not ready to talk about a date yet
- Based on what some of the players were commenting on in chat, Sapience says next end of beta event they will need some sort of streaming cataclysmic Bree event that all players can watch.
- Can we get a hint on what the new region for U13 will be
He will do better than a hint – go read Kate’s producer’s letter. She tells you exactly what they are doing for U13. Most of it, there’s other stuff happening too. - What is the point of the event/stream
The point is to have fun, getting a low level hobbit to Isengard, and the hobbit is of no help. And the informal Q/A is a bonus (mention of the Q/A posts here, thanks!). - Did you choose the server order at random
When it was decided that this event was going to happen, he went to all the servers and created his character before the event was announced, to be sure that he could get the name on each server (with a few noted exceptions, he was able to). Then when he made the schedule he just went down the server list as it appeared in his launcher after logging in everywhere, and that was the order he used. So it was semi random. - Will you be doing this event a second time in the future
The Hobbits to Isengard specifically, he won’t say never, but it won’t likely be any time soon after this even ends. He’s gotten a lot of really great ideas and suggestions for other events to do, such as doing a tour of new regions on Bullroarer, and he’s looking forward to Weatherstock – he’s going to try to stream some of that. - Who is the Gandalf of the dev team
He says HoarseDev has currently got the best beard - When will we see Tyrant Fordakidz
Fordakidz is the reaver he created for the Extra Life gaming marathon (which is October 25 this year). Basically he chooses a server and logs into the moors and lets people kill him for an extended period of time. He doesn’t know when that creature will reach Tyrant status, it depends on how much support he gets from other creeps in the moors. He doesn’t play him outside that event because everyone knows who he is and really only exists for that event. - Do you have a server you play on
He has several accounts on several servers that he plays. Of course he has some servers that he plays on more than others, but he’s not going to say which. - What is your guesstimate of how many people ask you for things when they see you on a server
He actually doesn’t get a lot of request for things. If people know it’s him, generally he gets a lot of “Thank you for coming to my server” “Thanks for doing this event” “Hi, is it really you?” but not a lot of “Can I have a free level?” or “Can I have a million Turbine Points?” or things along those lines. Most people are super polite and just want to chat and, very occasionally, ask a question. - Any plans to update the character models
This one gets asked a lot. No current plans to update the models. - What else can you say about U13? Are there any housing updates coming at U13 or earlier?
No housing changes in or before U13. Other than that, the multiple mail attachments change is happening. Also Kate’s letter gives a good overview of what’s happening for U13. There are also some revamps mentioned in the 20 questions, and Jinjaah gave a bit of info about some of the PvMP changes coming too. - Will Gondor be our next expansion
If you read Kate’s producer’s letter, there will not be an expansion in 2014, and Gondor is on her list of places that we’re going to see this year. - Will we ever see commercially available LotRO merchandise
There used to be some available in the WB shop online, but he thinks they all sold out. - Any plans for non-warband daily quests in Western Rohan
None that he is currently aware of - Does the number of level 10 characters taken to Isengard matter in any way
Not in terms of the event. The only thing that matters is your time. In the event of an exact tie in time, the server that didn’t kill him or get him stuck would win. - Do you think it’s better for captains to lead in order to get run boosts, etc
Gladden got close to Crickhollow’s time, and there wasn’t an inordinate amount of captains there. Although he did follow a captain for that run. Every server has been a bit different. - Question about lag
The thing that a lot of people miss is that the servers are fairly new. They’ve been upgraded 3 times since Moria. But it’s important to remember that the game is a lot more graphically intensive than it was 7 years ago, so it’s unrealistic to expect your machine to perform the same under a heavier load. To minimize lag, start with low settings and adjust your way up until you get the best settings to match the level of performance you are comfortable with. In these HtoI events, lag is to be expected because there’s an unusually large number of players – hundreds of players – in a relatively small area, which isn’t what one would normally see on the live servers. - Why is it “Welcome Back Weekend”
He says the name should be updated/changed. It’s just an effect that they turn on from time to time because the majority of players really like the extra XP gain. It’s one of the more popular things they do. - When is the next festival
The 7th Anniversary Festival is in April, Spring Festival is coming soon too. - Question about the Corsair pirate event
The pirate event happens around the time of Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday, every year on Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is September 19th. - When do you update the calendar
When he has things that are more tentative than they are speculative. He tries to avoid putting in dates that he will have to change later. They try to schedule things around when they are going to have a patch or an update, especially when there’s new content going into a festival. - Have you seen anything you like in the threads that were posted for feedback around Kate’s letter
Yes, they have seen a lot of stuff they like, but they always do see a lot of suggestions that players make that they really like. Basically it comes down to “What do we have the time and resources to do” and, “if they do X, how will it affect Y.” Occasionally they will see something really small and easy to implement, such as the sparring timer update, and they do it. But a lot of time what the players think is easy to change, is often some of the hardest stuff to change. For example, it seems like it should be easy to add multiple attachments to mail, but in fact it involves changing the way the system works. It’s an engineer intensive thing that takes days of work to change at a much deeper system level than people might expect. - Any ETA on level 95 first ages
No ETA on that at this time - Why is XP boost free and XP disable not
Great question with a really simple answer: The point of the game is to advance, and the relatively small by comparison number of people who actually use the XP disabler, to enable that across the server and stop everybody by force is not an option, since most people are trying to level their characters. - Mention of the Orlando Florida meet and greet on April 5th.
All the details are in the forum post, and those who show up can get “The Well Met” title and some swag if he can pull something together. Usually the person who travels the farthest to get to the event gets something extra from him. He’s also tentatively looking to do something around March 28th in the North Carolina area, info on that is in the forums as well.
- More discussion about lag. He says that integrated graphics cards will really hurt your performance. For those on 64 bit systems that have a good size chunk of memory turn your texture cache up to max. It will help you preload things faster when moving between zones. Things you can turn off to help ease the load on your system is 3D portraits, also cloaks, mounts, banners – the more unique elements you have onscreen with the higher the settings, the more lag you will experience.
- Will turning off floaty damage help with lag
Yes, floaty damage, floaty reputation renown, infamy, if you turn that off it will help a bit. Anything you can do to ease the load on your computer having to draw up stuff, the better your performance will be. - What is your favourite horse
The Steed of Night. - What is your favourite area in-game
Forochel - When will there be a war-steed dressing room
He is not aware of any plans to make one, but he will definitely pass the suggestion on - A suggestion that Imladris needs more player events
He agrees, and says, “You should make one.” Most events are player-created. Not all events need to be super complicated or involved. It can be fun to just have a scavenger hunt in Bree or challenge people to go out to the tag fields in North Bree and play a round of tag. If an event starts gaining popularity or gets a good or even moderate turnout you can send him a PM in the forums and let him know what the event is and when, he can usually find some point codes or other prizing to contribute. - Why are there no hobbit LMs
A lot of classes are restricted by race because they try to stick to what makes sense within the lore. However there has been discussion about opening the classes up more to other races. Nothing definite yet but it is being considered. A hobbit storyteller is a lot closer to a minstrel than a lore master. There’s a big difference between someone who tells a story, and someone who uses the old ways to produce weather effects and things of that nature like a lore master does. - A mention of the famed kinship revamp forum thread
This comes up every now and then. Pretty much everyone on the dev team is aware of that thread and has read it, and most agree there are some fantastic ideas. But there is a major difference between saying, “Here’s my blue sky thinking. I don’t have any constraints because I don’t know the limitations of the system, don’t know the limitations of the engine or the limitations of the time constraints and other issues,” and having to say, “This is great blue sky thinking and these are all fantastic ideas, but given the limits and time constraints, here are much more practical and realistic endeavors we can undertake.” Everyone on the team has read the thread at least once if not more, and every time new devs show up he points them to it. - Question about female creep characters
If you want to play a female creep play a warg or a spider, both are female – there are no males. Warg is female. If you doubt it hop on your warg and zoom in from behind. Spiders lore-wise are all female. That was something he was unaware of until Rowan pointed that out to him. - Is LotRO going to give hunters a poison arrow
He doubts it because poison, in the lore, is a tool of the enemy - Do you have a wish list of what you’d like to see in game
A lot of what is coming in U13 are things that he’s been saying for a long time “We really need to figure out how to get this in game.” Starting first and foremost with mail attachments. He suspects the devs have been sick of him talking about the mail attachments, Hobnanigans and a few other things. - What is your favourite thing about LotRO
The community - Discussion about the possibility of doing the run in under an hour. He feels it’s possible, but it’s going to take a well-organized group that can get out of Bree fast, get as many run buffs on him as possible and keep them up, get him across bridges fast, without dropping him or having to slow down too much, and being able to thin crowds at times like that to minimize lag.
- When do you think the last hobbit run will happen
Hard to say. He’s trying to leave room in the schedule for other things such as updates, other little streaming events, etc. - Question about getting devs in the event
RockX, Jinjaah, HoarseDev are all devs he’s for sure planning to get in on one of the streams. In fact he’s thinking of just doing a stream that’s not an event one, just he and the devs answering questions in real time. Sort of like a dev panel, instead of streaming the game. - What are you most looking forward to in LotRO for 2014
Some of the locations Kate mentioned in her producer’s letter. We’re going to take our first steps in Gondor, we’ll see Isengard after the ents have had their way with it. A lot of the things people consider to be iconic LotRO moments. - Will Draigoch ever be raised above level 75
Never say never, but it’s not in the cards anytime soon - Will you ever do a behind the scenes at Turbine video
There are already little snippets here and there, but in terms of a front to back behind the scenes, they tend to focus on “making of” specific expansions, rather than the game in general. Some of those videos are on the Turbine YouTube channel. - Question about responses to bug reports
Bug reports are reports, not questions that require answers, so they don’t respond to them. The most helpful thing you can do in a bug report is give detailed instructions on how to recreate the bug, because if they can’t recreate it then it becomes much more difficult to identify and repair the issue. - When will Turbine be doing Extra Life this year
Technically Turbine lets him do Extra Life. The new Team Turbine page went up Jan 1 along with his own page, and there’s already been some donations. Extra Life runs for the entire year from Jan 1 to Dec 31, but the event is Oct 25 this year. Last time it was too close to Thanksgiving and Halloween. For those who don’t know, Extra Life raises money for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals to help heal sick kids. Last year the LotRO player base raised over $50,000, and everyone at Turbine combined raised just over $60,000, so the LotRO player support is massive. He usually plays for Boston Children’s Hospital. Last year that hospital earned a total of $200,000, of which almost $51,000 came from LotRO players. - Are you going to shave again for charity
It falls under “that’s been done before.” Last time it had been 18 years since he’d shaved. His wife had never seen him clean shaven before, that’s how long it had been. She was stunned when he came home from work that day. This year it’s been suggested that if a goal of $100,000 were hit, he get a tattoo with the date, total and extra life logo. - Does Turbine ever have any use for creative writers, for jobs and stuff
Yes, in the marketing department, and also content designers to work on quests and backgrounds. Turbine actually has published authors on the dev team. - Have devs or anyone on the Turbine team ever contributed to LotROWiki, or plan to in the future
Not to his knowledge - Will cooking in LotRO be revamped
As far as he knows there are no current plans to revamp any of the crafting - Are there constellations in the LotRO night sky
Yes, there are (points out various constellations). It is accurate, but he can’t remember what it’s mapped to.
