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

[hucklebarry]

Please discuss the disconnect on bugs and fixes to content issues.

Why do bugs in LotRO take longer to fix compared to other games?

Why does the known issues list not reflect a majority of issues? (even ones acknowledged on the forums).

Why is support for ViP accounts not comparable to other games? (longer wait times, auto-closed tickets on occasion, one way communication, etc.)

Any plans to improve the above that we can look forward to? Not in general bug fixes, but in overall policy changes and revamps to make this game healthier in competing with current gen games costing the same money (or even less).

People throw around the "tripled revenue" quote about moving to F2P. Expansions have also gone up in price. Can the fans expect to see anything as a result? I'm tempted to feel that I've paid for everything to date with expansion prices reaching all time highs. What about the extra money being generated from the store? Does that translate to any thing the fans can expect in the future?

Its been a while since we have seen a new skirmish. Any immediate solutions to this?

The instance finder seemed to stop advancing rather abruptly. Its not very useful as it is. Any plans materializing soon?

Thanks for your time!

[DanteIL]

My main question is about the Instance Finder:

Are there any anticipated changes forthcoming for the Instance Finder? Specifically, is there any thought toward modifying the functionality of the IF to become more like a Group Finder rather than an Instance Finder? This is an aspect of LOTRO that seems woefully underutilized.

[hucklebarry]

Any chance for cross server grouping/communication?

[Faltigoth]

I get a sense that the story of LOTRO is heading to Dale/Lonely Mountain, then to Gondor, and finally to Mordor.

My question: Are there plans to take the storyline into the beginning of the 4th Age, where there was still much warfare, especially in the East?

[Atrex]

1. What are Turbine's plans to develop and enhance the kinship system? (perhaps you could use some of galuhads ideas)

2. any plans to include cosmetic appearence slots for weapons and shields ? (=shopppoints = $$)

3. could you please raise the dropchance for the legandary armour recipes an the class bound jewelry?

4. will you finally exlude the annoying 650-5000 EP Runes from the game? or allow use to merge them to one rune...

5. from which movie is this quote?

[The self destruction cancellation button is out of order.]

Dark Helmet: F**k! Even in the future nothing works!

[davidrspiers]

When will see some fixes to the Mac client?

Agreed.

Let's see some work on the Mac client!

[Nindolvoth]

The the parts in bold are meant for twitter.

Questions for devs:
Can we have an ingame Beard Banisher title? Ingame titles are better than forum titles.

If confused ask sapience, the title will make sense to him.

Questions for sapience:

Are the beard shaving and beardless legolas sapience community update videos still in the works?

question for dev or sapience:

Coke or Pepsi?

[Mucica]

As already stated before, Hytbold armour sets are way better than the Moors ones, beside audacity part. Any chance of making it at least equal or any better?

Any thoughts on 1vs1 Arena in the Moors? -Yeah, yeah, breaking lore, but than again, Gandalf vs Balrog, Shelob vs Frodo... And multiboxing that is allowed, above all, doesn't fit in the lore either.

Anything about that multiboxing? Like... Idk... Ban?
If nothing, maybe you should promote this game as Pay-to-win, not Free-to-play.

[AlmericITA]

1_ For Sapience : I've sent you a Forum PM (more than a month ago) about a contest for the italian people, there's any chance for an answer! (yes, i know you are busy). Sorry for usurping some space here
2_ Please tell me anything we don't know about Helm's Deep
3_ Mordirith Brand will have some changes or will be a similar item for freep side?
4_ New PvMP Zone in sight, even far away?
5_ Will be any chance for inter-server activities? Shared PvMP zone, Shared Instance finder
6_ Kinship revamp? Any news about that?
7_ My Kinship don't show up in Mylotro, will be any fixing for us?
8_ Defiler's flies are working as intended? There's an huge power draining, and with multiple flies there's no chance to survive
9_ Why you choose to tell us only few things? I know costumers are hard to manage, but isn't better a negative answer with a reason than the silence?

[Sakuko]

1_ For Sapience :
3_ Mordirith Brand will have some changes or will be a similar item for freep side?

Freeps have Loremaster and "Stunimu(protect)" and the Creeps have... wait i think hmmmmmm yes the have Nothing, only Protect from Stuns and CC is "Mordirith Brand"

[lesmun]

Is there anything going to be done to combat numbers of players giviing up playing

e.g
joining lesser populated together to help make more runs as sometimes severs are dead
maybe letting creeps out of ettens to cause mayhem once a week/month in middle earth
More sorts of loot to help keep interest and people trying to get them
jump on the new film the hobbet and get some tv adds out like wow (should help as everyone knows lotro in better than wow)

i dont know how hard things like this would be to put in the program so might no be possible

[GellthirLaingwador]

Is there going to be a post about the questions that are asked and the awnsers?
If so when is that coming? I'm looking forward to read it.

[AlmericITA]

Freeps have Loremaster and "Stunimu(protect)" and the Creeps have... wait i think hmmmmmm yes the have Nothing, only Protect from Stuns and CC is "Mordirith Brand"

My questions was for Devs, mate
Creep have some features (power leeching, reducing inc healing) that freep don't have, or not good as creep counterpart.
(And you shold know that WL have a cc-removal skill)
I agree with you when you say that the cc-protection for freep is better but that's not my question.
The in-depth question is : That brand is the right way to balance the game? Or is a bit overpowered? There's a chance to balance it managing with CD, with immunities, with duration of immunities, out of combat only activation?

[Morons]

only one thing: you have planned to let people with windows xp 32 bit to play your game or you don't support it anymore?

[Cakellene]

When will we get Inspired Greatness for non-Epic instances?

[tolkien121]

Freeps have Loremaster and "Stunimu(protect)" and the Creeps have... wait i think hmmmmmm yes the have Nothing, only Protect from Stuns and CC is "Mordirith Brand"

Speaking from the LM perspective in the moors, yes I have Si protection I can give to others and myself but don't think for a sec I'm running around in the raid just cycling through unit frames repeatedly giving out SI. I'm not saying I couldn't but I believe that you would be hard pressed to find any LM who wants to do that type of gameplay. With the Brand, its a personal self controlled buff you give yourself that doesn't rely on another player. That is why it is currently unbalanced. The freeps have no item that does the same thing. I got to say too, that as an LM in moors, with audacity and brands out there I feel like my playstyle is being gutted. I would be ok with audacity effects like they are and maybe just brands with a 15 sec SI and a long cooldown. But hey, I doubt there will be a single change to PVMP till the next xpac.

[Disident]

Are there any plans to update the terrible character models and animations? Updating zone graphics is great, but I'm much more tied to my character, and they just look awful.

[Camdidus]

A community which plays together, stays together. What type of changes can we expect to see to the kinship system? Anyone? Bueller? ...Bueller?

[SensBeard]

Come chat with members of the LOTRO Team!

When: Thursday January 24, 2013 at 3:00PM Eastern time.
Where: http://www.twitter.com/lotro

I guess it has to be on twitter since the forums are so messed up and i don’t think i have ever seen a dev read anything on it.

MAIN ISSUE: LAG that’s all i care about if it’s not fixed you can say good bye to a lot of people,

The MMO market is so competitive at the moment with all games going F2P model, I just don’t see why the lag issues are not on top of your lists.

People who I have physically bought the game for (100$ worth of expansions) say they don’t play anymore because of lag. If that’s not an indication of a major problem I don’t know what is.

[Joene]

It's pretty much assured that someone will compile the whole thing into a thread once it's done.

Casual Stroll to Mordor will post a transcript of the Q&A. They did it the last time and Im sure they will do so again

[Sapience]

Is there going to be a post about the questions that are asked and the awnsers?
If so when is that coming? I'm looking forward to read it.

Yes, we'll be posting a transcrpit this time.

[Camdidus]

(Apologies if this is already posted elsewhere - ipod has been temperamental)

A community that plays together, stays together - what kind of changes can we expect to see to kinships?*cough* kinship proposal thread

[Mindorin]

When will freepside moors access be put into the store and how much per class?

Fans will continue their sub to support the game, let tp buyers contribute to balancing pvmp.

[BiteMarks]

1. Will the devs actually make a bigger difference between 'paid for' creeps and 'played for' creeps. I mean a Rank means nothing right now as you can buy any skill from the store and it has completely defeated to object of wanting that next rank for that new skill. Each rank needs to be worth more so that the higher the ranks, the feeling that they have earned the rank will be. Maybe make new skills or add a new corruption (makes it 7), Race (make it 6) and Class (make it 8) box at higher rank?
2. Will we see a new trait line on creeps for weapons? Bow for BA, Claws for wargs etc.... This could be incorperated into my question 1 and this is something that cannot be bought from store ever but has to be earned by rank only. Each 2 ranks brings up a new single box totalling 7 boxes by the time rank 14. This would give each class different options. This would mean that earning a rank means something and that the higher the rank to more worthwihile your time has become.
3. With all the Gold we make in PvP, allow us to trade it for comms or something worthwhile?
4. Will we see a rise in the Commendation cap? 10k right now is simply too small and can easily be reached so either raise it to 20k or make it a nice big figure of 50k?

[djheydt]

Casual Stroll to Mordor will post a transcript of the Q&A. They did it the last time and Im sure they will do so again

And someone will post a link to it here? That will be cool.