LOTRO Developer Twitter Chat - Thursday December 20, 3:00PM Eastern

**Crell_1** · Dec 20 2012, 04:09 PM

Saelyth- Here I thought you'd be thrilled to hear your favorite raid is going to scale.

**Galuhad** · Dec 20 2012, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Saelyth.

I feel you, i even asked that in a twitter question

Same.. perhaps I should have used the hash-tag, #whydoibother

**Crell_1** · Dec 20 2012, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by Galuhad

Following the dev chat on twitter, just wondering if any of these questions will actually be pulled from the forum as they all seem to be twitter questions?

Edit: Nevermind, I see the Dev chat just finished so I guess none.. Once again I'm extremely disappointed to see the subject of kinships getting completely dismissed.

Mr Warg's question was culled from the forum.

**Nyrion** · Dec 20 2012, 04:17 PM

Putting the questions and answers here:

Today we have Senior Producer Aaron “Rowan” Campbell, Lead Systems Designer Matt “HoarseDev” Zimmitti,(cntd)

World Designer Matt “Scarycrow” Fahey,Senior Content Designer Lauren “Budgeford” Salk,(cntd)

Senior Content designer Joe “JWBarry” Barry, LOTRO Community Manager Rick “Sapience” Heaton

Q1:WhitewolfUK-How do you feel mounted combat has been received?
A1:MZ -MC has been very well received so far. We’re already incorporating feedback into the system…
A1b:Specifically, we’re looking into ways to make the classes have more of a distinct impact in future updates.

Q2:MRWarg-When will you make new creep appearances available in the store?
A2: MZ-I just stood over the shoulder of someone working on these this morning. We’re hoping for u10 and u11.

Q3: Why did you remove raid locks from BG? Any plans to let us do the raid over multiple nights again?
A3: JWB-Raid locks don't really work well with scaled instances.
A3b: We think BG is doable in a night. OD will be multiple instances.

Q4: Do you have any plans to make a new zone for Dale and Erebor or is it just going to be the Instances?
A4: Just the instances.

Q5:Schinderhannes-Do you have any ideas/plans for Lotro nobody but you knows about and you think this would be great?
A5: LS-Yes, yes I do!

Q6: Level cap increases makes me feel like the endgame is increasingly less attainable. Why not add new content midgame?
A6: LS- We're working on improving mid=level content such as the moria revamp.

Q7:Lathius-Are we going to scale Rift/CD anytime in the near future?
A7: JWB -They're on the list. There's a lot of nostalgia and love for those spaces, so we're taking our time and treading very carefully.

Q8:Great work on Bree/Archet appearance! Any plans for other older game areas?
A8: MF- We've been discussing older game areas and how we can bring them up to Rohan quality.

Q9:Hunter class are they getting anything new in future updates or game play?
A9: MZ- We're doing a comprehensive investigation into ALL classes.

Q10:What advice would you give to someone interested in starting a career in game development?
A10: PLay lots of games. All games. Look for Entry level positions and work HARD.
A10b: Or learn to code and how to work well with others. :P)

Q11: Econn-When will we see some work done for housing?
A11: MZ-Hoo-ee…need to set the stage by getting neighborhoods consolidated with less vacant housing first.
A11:Working out the details of that stuff now.All I can say is that we have a lot of devs interested in doing some serious home improvement.

Q12:In a recent interview with Lotro Reporter you acknoweledged video of a landmass. Can you tell us about region timeable? U10?
A12: LS- The next region is in the update after part II of the instance cluster.

Q13:Is there any way you can delete hunters so we dont have to hear them cry anymore?
A13: RH - HEY! I'm a hunter!
A13b MZ- Well in that case....

Q14: Bohrn_EU-When are you going to fix the forums?
A14: RH - We just revamped http://lotro.com and the forums are currently in the web team's sights. No ETA. (Soon(tm)!)

Q15: @EiledonTruvoice What do you do for fun?
A15: MF - I play lots and lots of games. I have very little time, I live here. Help me.
A15b: LS- I work for fun. Don't help Matt.
A15c: MZ- Brew beer. Make Cheese. Craft beards.
A15d: RH- Matt Z has been holding out on me...

Q16: @BloodSpeaker How far down the chain is a Helegrod scaling?
A16: JWB - DONE! Go play!

Q17:@Kheledlire Can we see something very awesome new feature in 2013?Character updates, better mounted combat or a very new feature?
A17: MZ- YES!

Q18:Sorig09-Will there be mounted combat instances in the future?
A18: JWB-There's a lot of design and work going on internally to figure out how to meld MC and instance gameplay in a satisfying way.

Q19: @arch07js Plans to expand Hytbold type of non-killkillkill questing to additional areas of the game?
A19: JWB - Variety is the spice of life! Yes.

Q20: @scorp_71 Instance Finder was a perfect idea but never adopted by players.Do you plan to review it for Help solo players to group.
A20: JWB- We're looking into it.

Q21: @DaveFortin are there plans to allow mounted combat in future regions?
A21: LS- Yes. We already have MC content in development. It's in the next region.

Q22: @RannaDylin@Floradine_S: What are your plans to protect RPers from forced emotes?
A22: MZ- Plans? We're done with plans.We're testing a solution right now.
A22b MF - In the meantime we're also putting in "serious business' locales, where those emotes won't work.

Q23: @Drewoid13 Are there any plans to revamp questing in the 40s?
A23: LS- Now that Moria is finished, we have our eye on lower levels, but no solid plans.

Q24: @Icekiro_RK Hey, My house is really cold. Anyway to use some dragon fire to heat it up?!?
A24: JWB - Draigoch drops an animated fireplace.

Q25: WhitewolfUK-What were your thoughts on releasing the Rohan cluster into two separate releases.
A25: MZ - This balanced approach allows us to focus more on individual spaces. Speed is often the enemy of quality…
A25b:Cramming them all into one release can seriously bring the overall quality level down.
A25c:It also allows us to work on more long-term improvements that need to simmer at the same time.
A25d: JWB-It was a very hard decision.We'd prefer to release it as a whole.But it's more important to have quality gameplay.

**Sapience** · Dec 20 2012, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by Galuhad

Following the dev chat on twitter, just wondering if any of these questions will actually be pulled from the forum as they all seem to be twitter questions?

There were a number of questions taken from the forums. In fact we opened with two of them.

WhitewolfUK
MrWarg
Schinderhannes
Econn
Bohrn_EU

All had questions answered during the chat. I think we actually answered 2 of Whitewolf's

If you want to read all the Questions and Answers you can go to our twitter page, scroll down, and read them. They're all numbered with their answers. Just read from the bottom up.

http://www.twitter.com/lotro

**Crell_1** · Dec 20 2012, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by Nyrion

Putting the questions and answers here:

I feel it would be helpful if you put their introduction at the top, as it explained the abbreviations for who all was there =)

**Punkinchunkin** · Dec 20 2012, 04:33 PM

Wow, was hoping they would hit on some serious topics. Lots of vague we are looking into it kind of answers. Kind of disappointed. :/

**Saelyth.** · Dec 20 2012, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Crell_1

Saelyth- Here I thought you'd be thrilled to hear your favorite raid is going to scale.

Indeed, that's good news... if i wouldn't hear that 2 weeks ago from another source. i think i told you, didn't I?

Originally Posted by Galuhad

Same.. perhaps I should have used the hash-tag, #whydoibother

Well, at least they could give us the LUA tools to use an in-game Calendar with people that can sign in for raids and all that...

**ChromiteSwiftpaw** · Dec 20 2012, 04:44 PM

Originally Posted by Punkinchunkin

Wow, was hoping they would hit on some serious topics. Lots of vague we are looking into it kind of answers. Kind of disappointed. :/

This is normal for any kind of interview with most game devs. They try to avoid the subjects that matter most and then go for the fluff questions that have already been answered in other interviews/forums posts or just silly stuff as filler.

There's only about 3 questions/answers in there that are actually useful to the community as new info. All the rest have been answered previously or are fluff and have no business taking up a precious few spots in a developer chat.

**Yuffie67** · Dec 20 2012, 04:47 PM

When will you guys return Essay of Fire back to its Awesomes, not asking for 5 seconds of no inductions.(like it use to be) But it lest 2-3 seconds.
Fire Rk's seem to be getting Shaft badly.

**Crell_1** · Dec 20 2012, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by ChromiteSwiftpaw

There's only about 3 questions/answers in there that are actually useful to the community as new info. All the rest have been answered previously or are fluff and have no business taking up a precious few spots in a developer chat.

I'd give them 4.

1. Od scaling (And why raid-locks are a thing of the past.)
2. Housing stuff in progress
3. 'Festival Emote Griefing'
4. New landmass
5. 'MC's and how they can handle unique class stuff better'.

Any one or more of these things may have been things we were aware of going on, but it was good to have official public confirmation.

I am disappointed to hear that the answer to their raid lock tech problem is 'Split OD', especially if that means that's what they're going to have to do when they hit 'The Rift' and 'Carn Dum'

Also, how can you call Moria's revamp done when the instances dont scale?

**Yuffie67** · Dec 20 2012, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by Crell_1

I'd give them 4.

1. Od scaling (And why raid-locks are a thing of the past.)
2. Housing stuff in progress
3. 'Festival Emote Griefing'
4. New landmass
5. 'MC's and how they can handle unique class stuff better'.

Any one or more of these things may have been things we were aware of going on, but it was good to have official public confirmation.

I am disappointed to hear that the answer to their raid lock tech problem is 'Split OD', especially if that means that's what they're going to have to do when they hit 'The Rift' and 'Carn Dum'

Also, how can you call Moria's revamp done when the instances dont scale?

Honestly.. I know they said they were treading carefully with Rift.
But if they Split it up. I'm Gonna be one sad camper..

Thats what made getting to end so awesome, you had to earn it, (or be invited to end of it)

**Sapience** · Dec 20 2012, 05:01 PM

Wow. We give you guys insight into a massive piece of information and not one person comments? Hmmm...

**ChromiteSwiftpaw** · Dec 20 2012, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by Crell_1

I'd give them 4.

1. Od scaling (And why raid-locks are a thing of the past.)
2. Housing stuff in progress
3. 'Festival Emote Griefing'
4. New landmass
5. 'MC's and how they can handle unique class stuff better'.

Any one or more of these things may have been things we were aware of going on, but it was good to have official public confirmation.

Yeah I wouldn't include #3 since that was already talked about by Scarycrow. #4 ...meh. We already knew about an upcoming landmass from the LOTRO Reporter stuff. That's all we needed to know, really. Didn't need to restate it here and take away a good question/answer that hasn't been answered already.

**Fredelas** · Dec 20 2012, 05:05 PM

I have some thoughts just on the format of today's chat on Twitter. (The questions and answers were all interesting enough, even if some of them were just repeats of information already posted elsewhere.)

Perhaps this was intended to reach a different audience than the team usually encounters on the forums. It's hard to gauge whether or not this was a success, since most players probably didn't know about the chat unless they already read about it on the forums first.
Although this event was happening "live", there was no real sense of interactivity to me. As a player, there was no real benefit to me staring at the Twitter page for an hour as opposed to simply reading all the questions and answers in two or three minutes afterwards.
Personality doesn't really come through very well in 140 characters. As members of a community, we like to get to know the Turbine employees and know that you're real human beings. This was about as intimate as sitting on the other end of a telegraph line on the other side of the country.
It's really hard to answer a difficult or complicated question with no time to prepare. Developers usually aren't politicians trained in the art of town hall style debates. This means some of the most interesting questions will go unanswered.

How could this style of developer chat be improved in the future? Here are a few ideas off the top of my head.

Gather up all of the questions in advance. Take them from any source you want: forums, Twitter, Facebook, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, semaphore, etc. This not only gives you an idea of the most frequent questions, but it also gives employees the time to think about the tough ones and come up with real answers.
If you want the responses to be live, do it on video. I'd much rather watch an hour long live stream of employees answering preselected questions than stare at a Twitter page for an hour. This gives us an idea of your personalities and how you interact with one another. It also gives Turbine an opportunity to show off the diversity of the workplace.
If you'd like the community to give greater attention to social media outlets, trust your employees to use their own accounts and encourage them to talk about their work and interact with players that way. Not everyone is comfortable with that level of personal interaction, but I bet you have more than a few twitterbugs among your ranks.

**Lethareth** · Dec 20 2012, 05:07 PM

New region in update 11 is what I got out of the chat. I'm thinking it's probably the Westemnet, and glad to hear that it should have stuff to do while mounted.

**Crell_1** · Dec 20 2012, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by Sapience

Wow. We give you guys insight into a massive piece of information and not one person comments? Hmmm...

You mean that you're scaling OD? I alluded to it multiple times up thread.
If you mean that you're scaling the rest of In their Absense, it's a small leap of logic, but not an assumption I felt comfortable making and attributing.

Chromite-
3. Told us they were done and doing some internal testing, what scarcycrow said in BR as I recall was they were still discussing options. =)

4. It got us a rough release timeframe, so that was good. If U10 is the cluster, U11 is the landmass. It means we dont have to rush out and save til u10.

**Sapience** · Dec 20 2012, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by Crell_1

You mean that you're scaling OD? I alluded to it multiple times up thread.
If you mean that you're scaling the rest of In their Absense, it's a small leap of logic, but not an assumption I felt comfortable making and attributing.

Chromite-
3. Told us they were done and doing some internal testing, what scarcycrow said in BR as I recall was they were still discussing options. =)

4. It got us a rough release timeframe, so that was good. If U10 is the cluster, U11 is the landmass. It means we dont have to rush out and save til u10.

Nope. Right in front of you, even emphasized, and not one person commented.

Guess you'll have to wait until Aaron's producer's letter tomorrow for more insight.

**Lurkerinthemist** · Dec 20 2012, 05:11 PM

I would love to see targeted chats. The few that Turbine has tried go all over the place, from "How do I get a job making video games" to housing, to kin upgrades, to current issues and future content plans. I'd especially love to see a dedicated pvp chat some time.

It would be interesting to see it as a weekly chat. Or bring back the Q&A forum posts that they did a couple years back.

Anyway, nice to see communication from the team. Keep it up please

Would be a great New Years' resolution for you all, just sayin'.

**Yuffie67** · Dec 20 2012, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by Sapience

Wow. We give you guys insight into a massive piece of information and not one person comments? Hmmm...

All I saw was Rift getting redone and cared for nothing else =3
Itlest if it stays as one piece.

(doesn't have twitter and is wait for someone to copy paste the goodies.)

**Crell_1** · Dec 20 2012, 05:15 PM