LOTRO Developer Twitter Chat - Thursday Januray 24, 3:00PM Eastern

[Thranthir]

already posted my question but just noticed this when I placed this announcement on our community website..
Sapience, you made a little typo in the title..
LOTRO Developer Twitter Chat - Thursday Januray 24, 3:00PM Eastern

[Manes]

Hi, my questions/suggestions are all related to pvp and from freep perspective, being the main thing i do lately in game.

1) Considering the ettenmoors is a premium area so all freeps and almost all creeps already pay to fight in there, how do you justify the removal of destiny points and the introduction of store exclusive items like in-combat brands or fall injury immunity that alter significantly the game balance? (the more you pay, the more you win)
1a) Do you plan to introduce the buffs once given by destiny points via commendation bartering?
1b) Do you plan to remove the store items i mentioned above or alternatively make them avaible via commendation?

2) Why there's no benefit or incentive to be a very high rank freep? Being soon a r14, i find myself to be just an easy source of infamy and even a r2 or r3 can deal same or more damage and have same or more resistance, what about making the barter brands all usable in combat so the lower cooldown has a meaning or give some damage/resistance/morale buff according to the rank?

3) Why have been given to the creep side only a potion that removes slow and the r15 Mordirith's Brand as drop and usable by all ranks? In this way you created some real monsters who can kill almost everyone and run away safely even fighting solo against 10 freeps, this just makes no sense to me, such items should be removed or given to both sides.

4) I like to have challenging fights, i don't like to have unfair fights, from level 75 to 85 creeps got more morale, more damage dealt and more resistance while freeps (all freeps from what i see and hunters for sure since it's the class i play) have the same morale or a bit more and deal the same damage, so we now have 20k average morale creeps fighting against 8-9k average morale freeps, my 9k morale full audacity hunter can be killed within 4 (four) hits by both black arrows and wargs, i can understand that some servers may lack of high rank creeps but where there's a good population of creeps the fight is greatly unbalanced and to play a freep is a nightmare.

I got more questions about outpost and keep buffs, use of maps, renown/infamy reward for healers and hunters survivability but the four i posted are in my opinion the most pressing to solve to make etten a better place, as i took time to write my opinions to improve the game i hope there will be someone on devs side who will truly take time to read and consider all these posts.

Regards

[MrWarg]

Can we expect another large PvMP update this year, if so any sneak preview?
When are the class updates planned to happen?
Will the class updates include creep classes or just freeps?
Will there be a focus on 6-man spaces instead of 3-man spaces in the future?

Addendum: I would urge the devs to please ignore the 'fluff' questions such as 'What kind of pie do you like?'. I do not mean to seem dour, but these dev chats are few and far between with only a handful of questions being answered and I would prefer to see meaningful information conveyed.

[Herongol]

1) what are your plans to improve server stability and prevent massive lag-spikes as are commonly experienced since Christmas?

2) The recent etten-moors changed put a higher emphasis on raid versus raid fights. However, the servers obviously can not handle 50+ players fighting at one location. Do you have any plans to remedy this situations, either via game mechanic changes, or via server/code upgrades?

[Aelonaith]

I forgot one:
Will we have our faction rep mounts appearance for use at warsteed cosmetics?

[Adatfin]

Will the Kinship system get a much deserved revamp?

Will housing get a much deserved revamp?

Ever considered of letting Kinships buy their own Homestead? !

This is my question too. I like housing, but the systen need a rewamp. Thx

[Brya]

Question 1:
Could we have an update to Housing and/or Kinship systems between now and the next expansion (or ASAP).

It something a lot of people have been asking for, and areas that LOTRO is getting really dated in compared to it's peers.

Question 2:
With the DG & ITA clusters both getting scaled, are you planning to regularly scale more old content in future updates?

Or are we just lucky to be getting not one but two clusters scaled these two latest updates. Emphasis on the regular. Can we expect to see a couple instances get scaled every update (or every other update) from now on?

[MTminas]

Why in 99% of the cases doesn't someone from turbine respond to serious questions or popular proposals on these forums?
Why does turbine tend to respond with "silence" to serious game-breaking issues, instead of at least letting us know your gonna either fix or not fix it(or attempt to fix something)

I do have a feeling this question will be treated like most, but hey worth a shot

Ex

[SC-DUSK]

I'd love some word from the Dev's on Kinship revamp instead of liking chili or playing games. Some serious questions being answered would be great.

[Tumbak7]

Where can i see the answers?

[Thorgrum]

Question for sapience for the Pats super bowl game which way should I go:

Option 1: pizza and beer

Option 2: Crock pot of chilli

Option 3: Chinese take out


Edit: noticed the date of the twiter chat, lol.

[Harmat]

Can we please have some compeations for the community to design cosmetics for our charaters and warsteeds? we design it your art team refines it and modelers create it?

Can we have a client defragment tool again?

Can we have war steed speeds as click able skills? (the insert doesn't work for me but being able to click eg: canterm, trot would be nice.

Is west rohan the next landmass update or an expansion?

Will we get north mirkwood and dale one day?

[Felgo]

This one's for Associate Designer (MTX) Mara "Aubergine" Patton, because I'd like to know:

Q: Rainothon: How feasible would it be to fund (part of) a housing and kinship revamp through Store-bought items and features?

May i invite you to a little discussion/suggestion i opend back in december?
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...aising-content

My question is:

Will it be possible to fund rais content via ingame store? (see link above)

[ShammWoww]

What is the companies vision for the future of mounted combat?

[myfreezr2]

What happened to "convenience not advantage" and "nothing will change for vips?" Store-only pots, scrolls, removal of dp buffs and the ability to get our relics back on decon, etc....

[Felgo]

The instance finder seems pretty quiet, people still search via chat. Are you happy with that outcome compared to your investment?

[Snarf999]

Q1) Are there any plans to introduce proper skill queueing?

The main issue I have is that even "instant" skills have to wait for their animations to act out. Popped skills (like pocket items) can sometimes take an age to go off, or get overwritten by another normal skill due to only having the ability to queue one skill.

Q2) Any plans for other discoverable instances (perhaps protected?) or other high level content in some older areas of LOTRO?

I find it quite sad sometimes going through some of the areas (like North Downs or Evendim) to find them devoid of any players. The ability to automatically join an instance, whilst convenient, means that unless levelling an alt or deed grinding, there's no need to visit these areas. It's part of the game developing end game content, but alot of effort goes into these areas that see little use.

Q3) Any plans to "randomise" any loot stats?

I like the fact that RK stones have random stats on them (although annoying sometimes for something you can put alot of effort into!). We currently have Purple/Teal/Gold levels, however having a little randomness adds that element of surprise and means no character can ever truly be "complete".

[Gorodaa]

Q) Will the Client developed further to use more RAM and less HDD access?

[Kalderic]

Q: Will Galuhad's Kinship proposal ever be considered?

this

or any other sort of improvement for kinships for that matter?

[Maxwise]

I'm with the others on this. I feel in the dark and maybe a little of what to expect from 2013 would be nice.

[brunnhilda]

1) Housing revamp. Atm, we all see it as just 2 more chests....nothing more. We need a x/y/z axis system period for housing. We've asked for a revamp since it was created.

2) Will you ever move past r15 in pvp? I know this seems kinda a minimal % question of players, but some of us (myself included) are pragmatists and see no logical reason to play a creep after r15 if the game no longer tracks infamy. Im 14 and change atm, and am in no hurry to get to r15 since I gain nothing, and then brickwall on rank. Be nice for the limited r15s....to either a) continue to track inf/reknown or b) add r16!! (1.8 mill).

3) Power issues in the moors. Rks sitting at 9000 power are not rare, nor or Minnies. I burn thru power like candy on my Defilier (3000 power). Yes I have flies, but you have to admit a 9k to 3k power issue for a spam healer is QUITE a disparity.

4) Bored, bored bored in PVE land. Give us golf as a hobby so I have something to do...

[Ertik]

this

or any other sort of improvement for kinships for that matter?

yes...this

[Neladhrir]

Instead of another expansion with level-increase, why not an expansion with housing-, kinship-revamp and cosmetic weapons?

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

Associate Designer (MTX) Mara "Aubergine" Patton

1) (this question is only relevant if MTX actually stands for micro-transactions as stated above) Do you feel that the store is moving away from its primary intended purpose of 'convenience not necessity'? (This feels particularly relevant because of the items which can be bought from the store to use in the Ettenmoors (such as tracking items and fall immunity) are quickly becoming necessary if you want to fight on an even level with those who do use the store for such things.)

2) While I hate to ask this question to a dev who works on the store (because I believe that if we have earned them through deeds that we should be granted the warsteed skins in the same way as the normal horses), when are we going to see the reputation mounts available as warsteed skins? And if this is in the pipeline, can you assure us that we will be able to acquire these skins in the same way as we would a normal steed?


Designer (World) Travis "TheAngryKoala" Healy

3) Is it possible to divulge any hints regarding which areas you are currently working on? (long shot, admittedly)

4) If you are unable to give specifics, a few teasers regarding the spring content update (if there is to be one) would be nice...
(This is the dev I want to ask the most questions of, but I guess most of what he's currently working on is shrouded in secrecy...)


Associate designer (Systems) Jon "'Space' Rockx" Steady

5) Can you confirm that the Warg Pens loot system isn't working as intended, due to the cruelly spiked bracelet not dropping for guardians?

6) Can you give us more details upon how you intend to fix the issues that you have acknowledged regarding u9 looting?

7) T9 relics are currently very difficult to get, considering that the only relics we can currently grind for with any success (so still putting in the time) are t5. Are higher level relics going to be made more frequently accessible?


Senior Designer (Content) Jesse Smith

8) I'm not sure how widely the brief of 'content' extends, but this seemed the appropriate place to ask about the housing revamp - when is Scarycrow going to be tasked with this much-desired change (as we can see that the community already trusts him in this area)?

9) Is the lightning in certain locations in Bree going to be fixed for DirectX9 users? (its rather irritating currently)

10) Could you explain further how the class reforms are going to work when they arrive (presumably with the expansion), especially considering that there are so many different opinions on the forums, in addition to a desire to retain balance, and the certainty that however you change a class, someone is going to hate it?


Community Manager Rick "Sapience" Heaton

11) While I understand that there are more pressing matters, mylotro and the forums are very slow and often do not work properly - when are the forums and the mylotro site finally going to come out of beta?

12) Considering the pattern for the last two years has been to release information (or at least the title and a promo vid) on the expansion in the last week of January, will that be the case in the coming days? (or is this dev chat the way of announcing it - though this is doubtful?)

Of these questions, 3/4, 5, 7 and 8 are the most pressing for me personally, but I'd be please if any of these questions were answered

[Laire]

I forgot one:
Will we have our faction rep mounts appearance for use at warsteed cosmetics?

Also my question. I also like the kinship/housing/character customization revamp questions.

Another question:

We're limited to four user-created chat channels and have since 2007. Can this limit be increased, please?

Another:

Will we ever have more dye colors? We've not had a new one for years.