Hobbits to Isengard - Q/A with Sapience notes on what was said

[Galadhloth]

I can't actually be present for most of the runs (job) but if the videos are available after the event ends, I'll be glad to pitch in and transcribe one or two. Happy to do my part.

[Silmelin]

I can't actually be present for most of the runs (job) but if the videos are available after the event ends, I'll be glad to pitch in and transcribe one or two. Happy to do my part.

Make sure to not wait too long because many of the videos have been gone in just a few days.


It would be nice if all future runs could be set as "save forever" and then deleted after a month or so to make room if needed. As it is now, I have missed several streams since I haven't had time to watch them before they got deleted. The last one I missed I went looking for 5 days after the stream and it was already gone
Five days is a very short time. A month would be better, so please consider giving busy and/or working people more time to find time to watch the streams

[TearMaker]

Five days is a very short time. A month would be better, so please consider giving busy and/or working people more time to find time to watch the streams

I have to agree. I would like these to have been saved also. Could they be uploaded to the Lotro youtube channel and saved there?

[frickinmuck]

Q&A Hobbits to Isengard - Belegar

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 - Belegar
Video available here.

Guests for this run - HoarseDev and Rowan.

1. Sapience mentions that they are going to try to class up the Twitch video a bit with pretty banners and borders, coming soon.
2. Reminder that he promised he’d have Hobnanigans news for this run
   Yes, Hobnanigans will be coming back on the weekend of June 6th. The bugfixes won’t be coming until U14, but we can still play the game and have some fun with it.
3. What did you name the Dwarves for the Moria runs
   Tosmii.
4. Any word on when the new class will be coming
   Not in U14 – later in the year.
   Lead Systems Designer Matt “HoarseDev” Zimitti joins the chat.
   HoarseDev introduces himself. Presently he is working on the Beorning and some slotted gear that he hopes to discuss in the chat, and some updates to the classes for U14.
   EP Aaron “Rowan” Campbell joins the chat.
   Sapience has audio issues, so Rowan and HoarseDev drive the chat this time.
   Rowan – He introduces himself, says that he’s working on disrupting the things HoarseDev is working on, and adding new things (laughs). Says right now it’s all about U14 and getting the new spaces put together. Working on some limited but cool group content – small fellowship content that can go onto the landscape, and new attention and thought around U14 toward the end of the year.
5. Questions in the chat about slotted gear
   HoarseDev – It’s been done before in other games, and for LotRO it’s a pretty big step in terms of letting players customize their own armour. It’s not going to be nearly as crazy or involved or grindy as legendary items, but it will allow us to choose, on certain pieces of armour, exactly which stats we want. So for example if we wanted more crit rating but we didn’t really care about vitality (he thinks that’s probably a bad example), we could just choose to slot what they’re calling essences – which are just the pure stats into the gear as we want to. There will be some tie-in to crafting, though not completely – there will be certain things that we can craft with the system, across all the professions, but they’ll also be dropping all sorts of nuggets of this system into skirmishes, into end game content, into big battles, even into festivals – little one-off things. We might be able to find something in the Treasure hunt, even just landscape kills.
6. Is there a fix planned for the LI system
   HoarseDev – Planned, probably not, but talked about a bit. What they want to do is get this simpler level of customization into the game and see how it flies, see if people like it, see if the itemization economy holds up with this new stuff, and then they’ll discuss other things.
7. Can you tell us if the 3 new regions with U14 will have their own maps, or will they be a joined map like Great River
   Rowan – The goal is that they will have their own individual maps. They’re working on those. Not 100% there yet, that’s about timing and getting them all in. But that’s the plan – 3 new maps.
8. Is the new class a druid
   HoarseDev – The new class is a Beorning, which is somewhat druid-like. They can turn into bears, they have a close affinity with nature. It’s not precisely a druid, but it should tickle the druid fancy a bit.
9. HoarseDev mentioned a way to swap between trait promotion presets – any update on that
   HoarseDev – He doesn’t remember if they actually did that. He may have to scurry around and ask a few questions to check on the status of that. He doesn’t know if that is in yet, but he knows they were working on it. He knows it made its way into production but he’s not sure if it was cleared and tested yet.
10. Question about how many updates we are getting this year
    Rowan – In terms of major new regions, they have U14 and U15. Both of those are in Gondor. And they’re also going to do an interlude between the two that is going to take us into the Dead Marshes.
11. HoarseDev says he just got pinged by Leo and he says that the swapping of promotion presets isn’t in quite yet. It’s still on the radar but not presently in the build.
12. Does the new class come along with a new damage type
    HoarseDev – No, not really. It will have its own mechanics that are pretty fresh and new for LotRO. They don’t use power. Rather than having a full tank and spending it, they start out calm and build up wrath and spend it that way.
13. Can the new class be usable by all races
    HoarseDev – It is a race of man class, playable by men and women only. For a variety of reasons, in terms of lore. They’re going to get this class out the door and see how it plays and then they’ll start thinking about other future classes that might apply to different races.
14. Question about whether people will be able to make multiple Beornings
    Rowan – Believes you can make as many Beornings as you have character slots for.
    HoarseDev – Says that’s right, and they’re also investigating if they can pop open a few character slots as part of a bundle deal with picking up the new class.
15. Question about Dead Marshes
    Rowan – Current status for the Dead Marshes is that it’s going to be an epic book, mostly session play. If there is any region play in there, it’s very small, because there’s not a lot to do in the Dead Marshes. It’s about as close to a barren area as they’ve got.
16. If Beornings start at level 50, will they get their own version of the starter gift boxes
    HoarseDev – It may not be exactly the same. We won’t be starting with shorts and a t-shirt with no equipment. They’ll get us on the road properly. It may not function exactly like the gift boxes do for lower levels, but they’re definitely going to send us off into the world with enough stuff to get us going.
    Rowan comments on the cackling coming from QA, says it usually signifies Sapience getting killed off in-game, but they’re a rowdy bunch.
17. Will the Beorning be a store offer
    HoarseDev – He’s nearly certain it will be. They’re not tying it, as far as he knows, to any other big bundle or purchase type thing, but as far as he knows, it will be a store offer.
18. Any more cosmetic pets in the works
    HoarseDev – Yeah, they want to see how they function on live and get their fair share of bugs worked out, but they are absolutely working on more of them. He knows for Sapience specifically they are probably going to cook him up a couple special ones for his dark purposes, so they’re working on those next. They seem like a lot of fun, people have been having a hoot, so he sees no reason not to make more cosmetic pets.
19. Question about /cpet rename command
    Rowan – This is a system they are developing out and building on, so they want to introduce additional features in the future, like collections of pets, groups of pets that you can pick up and when you have all the pets together then you get an additional reward or pet. Similarly, commands for the pets and other things, as they get them out there and see how we like them and what we’re doing with them, they’ll make changes and updates.
20. Are you planning on any development with PvMP for the remainder of the year
    HoarseDev – They do have plans. They’re going to continue to put time into overall balancing. They had a couple of things they wanted to try to sneak in there but they didn’t quite fit and they didn’t quite work. They’ve noodled around with adding some small siege gear into the Moors and seeing how that flies. They’re going to keep spending time on it, but as of right this minute they are not doing anything crazy, they’re mostly just addressing bugs and balance tweaks and stuff like that. But they will be putting time into it for the remainder of the year.
21. Questions about U14 and Dev Diaries
    Rowan – He’s expecting that we’re going to see U14 on Bullroarer in the next few weeks, and then we’ll see Dev Diaries and things like that follow in a pretty normal schedule. They test out the content, then start getting more information out to us, then announce a launch date.
22. Question about Entwood barter prices
    HoarseDev – They’ll take a look at them. They’ve been messing around with real rarity and things being very very hard to get just to see how that plays out, but they do continually look back and make adjustments here and there. They’ve got a lot of plans this year for short term events that pop up this weekend or that weekend (cut off by Sapience as he returns from his audio problems).
23. What is the primary stat for the Beorning
    HoarseDev – They’re still messing around with that. It’s a light armour class, so it is going to be somewhat agility-based, but it is also somewhat caster-like in some regards, it’s definitely got some control mechanics there, and it also turns into a bear. So it may be a very interesting mix. They’re presently playing around with the proper mix of stats.
    Sapience cuts in and says, “Hey, I do great until you guys show up!” Rowan says they're going to format Sapience's hard drive after this to try to get everything working right again.
24. Question about skirmish chests and loot
    Rowan – He thinks he mentioned before that he wants to put time and effort into the epic battles, and building up that system. And a lot of that for him also means looking at epic battles, classic instances, and skirmishes, and how these interact. So ultimately how those game pieces fit together will be one part of the question, and the loot itself will be firmly on HoarseDev’s side of the table, to decide what they’re going to be doing and where they’re going to put it.
25. Question about epic battles and whether they will stay scale-locked at 95
    Rowan – He doesn’t have an answer for that yet. They have talked about it, but he hasn’t seen a final conclusion on that one.
    HoarseDev – Still working on it. Still sorting out the details.
26. HoarseDev asks Rowan if he wants to talk about Osgiliath
    Rowan – Says it’s totally speculative, and Jinjaah isn’t next to HoarseDev to slap him.
    HoarseDev – Says they’re good at speculation.
    Rowan – (Laughs)
    HoarseDev – They definitely want to go to Osgiliath. He’s seen some posts here and there and they’ve teased that they may try to do something PvMP-related with it, but one thing that he’d like to make pretty darn clear because it immediately gets to some people – it’s a pretty important place for them to go. If, purely speculatively speaking, they did something PvMP there, that would not be the only thing there. They would handle it with instancing or other layers so that it would give a PvE experience, which would be much more conducive to the storytelling they like to do, but if they did get out in front and try to do something PvMP, that IN THEORY would be a fun place to do it.
    Rowan – Thinks part of the balance there is about quest flow and crossing over and so on. We know that when we go up the Anduin, basically we are going to have Minas Tirith staring us in the face, so a big part of prototyping is making sure that part of the experience is very cool and looks great, and then getting the feeling of it right. The armies of the orcs, things are kind of overrun. There’s a lot of danger out there.
27. Any changes regarding loot, changing the setting in raids and skirmish raids to not use the RNG
    HoarseDev – They are messing around with how loot drops. They’ve implemented a new system that will help mitigate getting repeats of the same items. They can’t do it globally across the board because they would have to track every single item we’ve ever got, but in some instances coming very soon – they’re going to roll it out in 15 (he doesn’t have the exact list of where this is being done) – they’re trying out a bit of new technology to try to smooth things out in terms of the gear that drops for people. So if you’re a might-based class you’re not going to get 3 of the same will-based item. There will still be randomization in there but they are looking at ways to sort of smooth it out a bit.
28. Sapience pops in to address a question about whether people will have to pay to unlock the Beorning class
    Sapience – Traditionally new classes, extra classes, tend to have a cost associated with them.
    Rowan – That is correct.
29. Question about favourite places to quest
    Rowan – He really likes the new Moria. He thinks they did a great job of rebuilding that and smoothing some of that curve while keeping a lot of the feel of it together. So that’s one of his favourite places. His guardian is actually in Rohan right now.
    HoarseDev – Agrees that they have done a lot with Moria. He’s looking forward to seeing Sapience running around in there and falling off ledges.
30. Question about what’s being done to big battles
    HoarseDev – They’re continuing to make refinements and crush bugs with it. It was such a big big leap for them, and lots of stuff comes out of the woodwork. They’ve done a lot with big battles but there is still stuff to be done. He sees bug queues flying by at a blistering pace, so they continue to squash bugs and will keep doing so.
31. At the end of the year we tend to get end-game raids and epic battles – will there be anything like that this year
    HoarseDev – They’re going to a different model in terms of content this year. They’re trying to spread things out. Rather than having one big shebang at the end of the year they’re trying to give people more throughout the year. So in terms of telling the story, in terms of places to go and things to do, they’re not doing as big an end-of-year huzzah. More so they’re taking all that and spreading it out across the course of the year.
    Rowan – It actually came up in conversation in the Players Council recently, when basically he said, “Well, we just added some space to cap out Helm’s Deep of course, we’re going into West Gondor, coming basically this summer with U14, and then we’re going to East Gondor and filling out that southern area of Gondor coming towards the end of the year.” And it struck somebody there that these are landmasses in sequential updates, which LotRO really hasn’t done. Even in the “good old days” in the 2007, 2008 they’d do an update with landmass, an update without. Instead now they’re pushing toward more consistent content, opening up the world, building out the world and being true to the world growing. That’s very important to them. In terms of an epic battle at the end of the year, he really wants to do one but he’s not going to commit the team to doing one until he’s sure they can do it and do it well. And he has some pretty clear ideas about what “well” is. He wants to see the system improved overall and he thinks they can do it.
32. What do you think of Hobnanigans, bugs aside
    HoarseDev – Hobnanigans has been in and out of development for a long time. It’s an interesting internal thing that started out as a pet project, got a bit of love, went back to being a pet project and so on. Personally he thinks it’s a hoot, it’s a cool short term festivally thing to do where you can meet up with a couple friends and have some fun. When they work on one thing, some other stuff kind of comes along for the ride, and getting Hobnanigans to where it had a lot of cool rewards meant solving for pets. Everyone is familiar with the little huorns, but the pet thing came out of conversations about what would be cool rewards for Hobnanigans. So, for him he thinks it’s great. Obviously still some tweaking to do but he thinks it’s a fun little ride.
33. Can we expect to buy a house anywhere in Middle Earth, not just provided in the homesteads
    Rowan – *big sigh* He would deeply love to say yes to that, but he cannot. It’s going back to the whole housing discussion – they’re putting things on the plate one at a time, and that one’s just not come up to the top of the plate. They had to push it out.
34. Question about kinship housing deeds
    HoarseDev – They’ve got a design floating around that’s probably going to plug into some of the slotted gear rewards, that hopefully at some point it will make sense for us to go into our kin and do some bigger deeds as a group. But that’s still on paper and under discussion. He’d love to see it come through, but at the phase it is at he has nothing tangible that he can push forward with now.
35. Can we expect any big improvements to the summer festival
    HoarseDev – He wishes he could turn to his left and talk to Egg about that, but she’s out of the office. He can’t answer that one right now, he doesn’t know the status of the summer festival. He knows there are some new rewards coming for it, but no promises, as he doesn’t have the dev at his beck and call.
36. Questions about maintenance and server downtimes
    Rowan – The last couple weeks were not typical for them, and they’re working hard to reduce those maintenance downtimes.
37. Does the new item system include changes to the LI system
    HoarseDev – He would love to see the LI system get a bit simpler. A little less grindy. Part of what they’re doing with this new system is experimenting with something that has player progression in it and has customizability, but takes a different approach. He likes to try one thing out and then if it works out, potentially apply it to something else. They do discuss LI very very regularly. They’re going to see how this new system does, how it performs and what people think about it and, very truthfully, in comparison to LI. And then they’ll see what conversations come up after that. They’re making some arguments as to what an item system can be with this new thing, and they’ll see if they hold any water.
38. Will we be getting ferrets
    Rowan – Unfortunately ferrets wouldn’t survive at home very long with his dogs.
39. Will there be any armour recipes from level 50 up that will be tailored to buff the Beorning class
    HoarseDev – Yeah, little by little they are going to squeak in things tailored to the Beorning. Even things like quest rewards that are split off based on class. They have a lot of backfilling to do. But their first line of attack is really nailing what the Beorning is, which they are in right now and it will take a bit longer for them to find the heart and soul of how this class plays. But they have a lot of work ahead of them in terms of crafting, quest rewards, in terms of how the new class fits into the world. They have to be a bit careful. If you look at the warden – he loves the warden – but just adding stuff like class shields incurs a crazy extra cost because now you have to build those out all over the world where they previously weren’t. Thankfully the Beorning are simple folk, but they’re definitely going to have a lot of gear to make for this class, and they look forward to it.
    Rowan – There you have it, warden vs guardian right here on this stream (they laugh).
40. Are you firm on never having cosmetic people or basic animal pets like LMs have
    HoarseDev – They are most likely never going to have crossover between LM and captain and cosmetic pets. In terms of themes, they’d like to keep them separate. It’s a big part of those classes, and frankly there’s a lot of animals out there to be had and a lot of little fun things that they can use for cosmetic pets. But wherever possible they want to keep those things separate, because it’s part of being a lore-master, or being a captain is having your own pets.
41. Has Turbine ever thought of server merging to cut down on the amount of servers
    HoarseDev – They monitor this kind of stuff pretty regularly, and it’s something they consider. But as a dev, he more thinks about how much might someone has, or how much morale someone has. That goes up to a much higher level in terms of people making decisions in terms of servers and stuff like that. He’s very thankful because he prefers thinking about things like morale and might.
    Rowan – From his perspective as EP. They launched the game in 2007, and technology has come a heck of a long way. They did a major technology upgrade around 2012 when they went to F2P, and powered up a lot of their server infrastructure, but things keep increasing, and increasing dramatically. So he thinks something like that could potentially leverage change for them, potentially help make that an even better experience, and help get more people playing together.
    HoarseDev – Thinks of course Rowan will order a lot more hardware for their personal computers at home, right?
    Rowan – (Laughs), Absolutely. HoarseDev needs to be able to test things first!
    HoarseDev – (Laughs) Thankfully his computer at home is pretty sweet.
42. How about letting pets do flips when we do and such
    HoarseDev – They are working on hopefully getting some pet tricks in and such. It may not flip when we flip, but if it knows how to flip it will be able to flip. One of the most fun things is being able to have a funny little sidekick that can do humorous stuff, so it’s presently being worked on. He doesn’t think it’s for U14, but it might slide in. He doesn’t have the actual schedule in front of him, but people are working on it.
43. F2P gets us to level 30 before we begin to notice paywalls – since cap is going to be over 100 by year’s end, any chance of making the Trollshaws and North Downs F2P areas, and moving the paywalls to around 40 instead
    HoarseDev – They do think about stuff like this, and they do offer a tremendously large amount of play for free, which they are very happy to do, and one of the things he looks back on a lot is just how many Turbine points they give away for free over the course of play for visiting this place and completing this deed, for killing x amount of this or that baddie. He can’t speak directly to whether they would consider moving that “paywall” to level 40. It’s a pretty soft wall.
44. Sapience points out that a lot of people play to 95 without spending a dollar in the game.
    HoarseDev – Yes, there are a lot of people who play to 95 and haven’t had to spend a dime. They go around, they complete their deeds, and they have a blast doing it.
45. Question about getting bonuses in combat via cosmetic pets
    HoarseDev – Cosmetic pets are most likely going to remain purely cosmetic. If they do anything like procs or bonuses, it will be the kind of thing that will be for flavour, and not really game mechanics. Stresses the same point as before about LMs and captains, and he finds it funny that people don’t consider rocks as pets – RKs have pets too, but they want to keep those really unique to those classes. If they do anything it will probably be humorous rather than have any game effects.
46. Comment that HoarseDev could use a hazmat suit
    HoarseDev – (Laughs) Agrees. He doesn’t know what it is. Food poisoning, broken rib and then the flu. It’s been an interesting few months.
47. Question about whether the new item system will end up adding a lot of inventory fodder
    HoarseDev – Yes, the new essences and things will probably end up being inventory fodder, but that is both a good and a bad thing. One they will take up space, but two, while they’re inventory items we can auction them, we can trade them about easily. Once something goes into a wallet it is very hard to get out. He is planning on both the gear and the essences be bind on equip not bind on acquire, so we’ll probably see a happy little economy build up around these things. They don’t want this to be a huge grind. If we go out and find an essence with a certain stat and a kin member wants it, and they have one with a stat we want, he doesn’t see any reason why they wouldn’t want people to just be able to trade these, auction them, mail them to each other. At first glance having them be inventory items it’s like “Ugh, it’s going to take up space.” But it does allow us to move these things around. So right now, probably going to be inventory items. They have ways that they can sort of get around that a little bit down the road, but he’d like to see sort of free trade happen and people have fun with them. So right now inventory items, but that gets us trading. So that’s the cost.
48. Mention from someone that they hope he stayed out of the office when he was sick
    HoarseDev – Yes, he did stay out of the office, he did not share.
49. Request that wardens get some love
    HoarseDev – He will make sure the wardens get some love. He can’t go into any further detail than that.
50. Question about ability to merge IXP runes to help them take up less inventory space
    HoarseDev – He’ll see about that. There may be a way to make quick recipes to allow us to merge a bunch together, but it’s a bit more complicated than it sounds. He’ll write it on his whiteboard.
    Rowan – One thing that he’s seen completed and approved are the concepts for the new armour coming in Dol Amroth as part of the quest collections and the options that we can do in service to the city of Dol Amroth, and basically working with the Swan Knights. The heavy especially is very shiny. Very shiny and very bird-themed. So it’s a pretty cool piece there. But all of them really evoke a sense of Gondor and a sense of place.
51. Does the game need more money sinks
    HoarseDev – Yeah, it sure does. It sure does. He would also argue that they need to sink some marks. They are looking at ways to do that that actually make a lot of sense (points out the terrible pun). It’s something they have to be very delicate with. They do know how much money everyone has, and there are some people rolling around with a ton, and some rolling around with not too much, so they are looking at some additional sinks, but probably U15 for that as opposed to U14. For the time being, he spends a lot of time thinking about the game economy and they’re hoping to breathe a little bit of life into crafting with the new item type, and that in and of itself naturally sinks money with things being auctioned and moved around. But they might be looking at a few more concrete things for 15.
52. Could we get more space please, if socket gear is going to take up more inventory space
    HoarseDev – That’s part of the updates that they did to the inventory system that they did – to sort of ease their ability to add more space as it makes sense. More space on each character does mean something for the server, so as they have the green light to do that, they add more space. He’s pretty sure there’s more planned for this year so they’ll see how that goes.
    Rowan thanks HoarseDev for hosting that Q&A. HoarseDev says it takes him back to his broadcasting days. Sapience says it’s kind of scary how many people in the building have broadcasting backgrounds, but it works for things like these.
    Sapience thanks Rowan and HoarseDev. They leave the chat.
53. Sapience logs Hadacar out and logs into a Dwarf character. Last run there were some questions about how the Gift of the Valar works, and he promised to show people how it works today.The item is on sale in the store right now for 25% off. Moria is 20% off.
    Sapience walks everyone through how it works. You have to be out of the intro because you need your novice trait to use it. When you buy it you get a package that can be mailed to someone else or used on your own character. When you open the package, you get a bunch of packages that contain various upgrades, items and buffs. The first item is the actual level up. When you use that item you are automagically leveled to 50 and your character is ported to Echad Dunnan to begin the LI and Moria quests. The other packages contain weapons, armour, jewelry and virtues (all virtues upgraded to level 4). The last package includes a Dusky Nimblefoot goat for Moria (62% run speed, 60 morale), 5 tomes of extraordinary XP, some rejuvenation potions and dale-men’s crams, the riding skill and a map to Rivendell. There is also a rune included that will advance your first LI to level 10 so you can go through the intro stuff for LIs.
54. Do you get tomes of might and other stats
    No, you don’t. You basically get where you need to be to get yourself to the next level. None of the stuff is really amazing – by the time you get to level 55 you will probably be looking for better stuff – but it gets you started on your way.
55. When is your Lego collection livestream starting for charity
    Thinks that’s a great idea for an Extra Life event. He has a ton of Lego Lord of the Rings sets that he hasn’t built, that would probably take up a good chunk of time.
    Sapience reminds everyone that the Dwarf runs will be starting in a couple of weeks. All servers will be doing the runs, just like with the Hobbits to Isengard runs. He will set up a post and let people know the schedule. All the Dwarves are called Tosmii.
    Sapience enjoys some music and dancing at the Bree stage, as a band plays Year of the Cat, a song he really loves. A few dozen people are dancing and enjoying the show.
56. Question about creep mail
    It’s not as easy as we think, for a whole host of reasons. A lot of it having to do with the way creeps are built, and don’t exist in a real sense.
57. Any advice for leveling to 50 without the Gift of the Valar
    Use every possible XP boost you can get your hands on. If you are VIP you get the daily XP boost, so login and use that every day. If you can swing some TP for 100% XP tomes, get a bunch of those. They work on all XP, including quest turn-ins. Wear pocket items that offer boosts if you have them. MMO Reporter posts a link to a great power-leveling guide.
58. Does the horseshoe help with speed-leveling
    No, it does not.
59. Suggestion that skirmishes will also help immensely with leveling
    Sapience agrees with that.
    Sapience gives a shout out to Galuhad, who has joined Team Turbine and is going to try to go from 1 to level 95 in 100 hours (not consecutive hours). Sapience thinks that’s a great idea and a great way to raise money to help kids.

[mithelenthor]

HoarseDev – Says that’s right, and they’re also investigating if they can pop open a few character slots as part of a bundle deal with picking up the new class.

Will the Beorning be a store offer
HoarseDev – He’s nearly certain it will be. They’re not tying it, as far as he knows, to any other big bundle or purchase type thing, but as far as he knows, it will be a store offer.

Will the new class be included for subscribers as the Warden and Lore breaker were? And if so, will subscribers get a new slot along with it to be able to play it?

[Galuhad]

Will the new class be included for subscribers as the Warden and Lore breaker were? And if so, will subscribers get a new slot along with it to be able to play it?

Warden and Rune-keeper are not included for subscribers. You only get them if you a) Purchase the Mines of Moria expansion, or b) Purchase these two classes from the store. So I would expect the Beorning to be a purchased class also.
I would hope that we'd be able to get an extra slot as well though, it would be a shame if people can't buy the class because of a lack of space.

[Caileen]

What is the primary stat for the Beorning
HoarseDev – They’re still messing around with that. It’s a light armour class, so it is going to be somewhat agility-based, but it is also somewhat caster-like in some regards, it’s definitely got some control mechanics there, and it also turns into a bear. So it may be a very interesting mix. They’re presently playing around with the proper mix of stats.

Strange to put light armour and agility in the same sentence. Light - Will, Medium - Agility, Heavy - Might. Will they rethink the whole stat thing again? I thought they made this three distinct types to make the itemization easier.

[frickinmuck]

Will the new class be included for subscribers as the Warden and Lore breaker were? And if so, will subscribers get a new slot along with it to be able to play it?

The slot question was answered in the run - they are looking into it and hoping to be able to bundle some slots with the purchase if possible. As for the class being free, there has never been a free class in LotRO. Both the RK and Warden were "pay to unlock" for everyone, including VIP. The only exception was when it was bundled with Moria. Since they aren't doing any expansions this year, I don't expect to see it bundled with any content releases.

[Mar-Evayave]

Strange to put light armour and agility in the same sentence. Light - Will, Medium - Agility, Heavy - Might. Will they rethink the whole stat thing again? I thought they made this three distinct types to make the itemization easier.

Good catch! I totally missed that.

[TKH]

Strange to put light armour and agility in the same sentence. Light - Will, Medium - Agility, Heavy - Might. Will they rethink the whole stat thing again? I thought they made this three distinct types to make the itemization easier.

I think he might be confused about armor type of LOTRO and other MMORPGs. LOTRO's light and medium armors are equal to robe and light armors respectively in many other MMORPGs.

About Medium armor being Will-based, we used to have Minstrel being able to wear such things. So instead of streaming down these armors after Minstrel gone to light-armor only, the developers may decide to make use of them again

[frickinmuck]

Q&A Hobbits to Isengard - Nimrodel

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 - Nimrodel

Video available here.

1. Sapience is wearing a woollen dwarf hat/beard, and turns the camera to show Jacob the “marketing weenie” who sits next to him, and who is wearing a dwarf hat and beard as well, in solidarity.
   Sapience says they’ve decided on a prize for first place. The winner will get to pick a festival to have turned on for a week. He will post a poll in the winning server’s forums and they will be able to vote on which one they’d like to have.
   At the end of this run, the top 5 finishers will go into a hat, and he will draw them out one by one, and the order he draws them out will be the order of the first 5 servers to do the Moria dwarf runs. He’s doing this so that people will have some time to prepare before the runs start in a week or two.
2. Question about what the next event will be
   He’s going to recreate the concept of “Take the Hobbit to Isengard” with a “Take the Dwarf Through Moria” theme. It will start just inside the gates of Moria and finish at the gates to Caras Galadhon. Fastest time “wins.”
3. What is the name of the dwarf
   Tosmii.
4. Question about the content of the festival for the winning server
   When the festival is turned on, it will have the same prizes, the same steeds, the same content as it did when it was last run.
   Sapience reminds everyone that Weatherstock is coming up. It’s a large annual music festival organized by the Lonely Mountain Band kinship, featuring tons of in-game bands. The concert is held at the summit of Weathertop in the Lone Lands. There is a concert series that leads up to the festival as well, and happens mainly on the weekends. More info here. Full calendar of events here.
5. Question about PvMP
   Anything PvMP-related is going to have to wait until Jinjaah returns. He’s been on vacation all week. He took a well-deserved week off.
6. Question about whether there will be any fixes or changes when Hobnanigans runs next week
   There have been no updates or patches to the game since it last ran, so there won’t be any changes.
7. How is Beorning development coming along
   Great.
8. Question about the beard/hat he is wearing
   The beard was donated by ThinkGeek last year for Extra Life. He had a part of his event last year where if he got to a certain donation level he promised to have his picture taken wearing a Dwarf beard and they were kind enough to donate it to him in support of Extra Life.
9. Comment about a Bullroarer Dwarves Through Moria run
   Sapience thinks that’s terrifying. Raina brutalized us in the open last time, he’d hate to think what she would be capable of in a confined space.
10. Question about gifting TP or expansions to friends via the LotRO store
    You can do that through the Turbine web store. There are a variety of reasons why that can’t be done using Turbine points in the in-game LotRO store.
11. What are your PC specs
    A PC made by Origin PC, with an Asus mother board, a pair of 240GB SSDs, 16GB RAM, Intel Core i7 4770k processor, and and Nvidia GTX650 with 2GB RAM.
12. Are you talking about landscape group content in Belfalas
    Yes, although he’s not going to go into any detail on that until they get closer to release on that content.
13. Any plans to do more 20 questions threads
    These livestreams have kind of replaced that. If they’re going to sit devs down and take time out of their workday to answer questions, he thinks it’s better if they sit them down in front of a camera in a roundtable setting and let them answer questions that way. The more he’s thought about it, players get a lot more information out of these livestreams than they did with the 20 questions. They used to do the 20 questions once a month. With these runs people are getting 20-60 questions twice a week. In the span of a 5 months they’ve answered thousands of questions vs maybe 100 in the old scheme.
14. Question about moving the ‘paywall’ to a higher level
    They’ve thought about that and talked about it a bit, but in line with HoarseDev’s point in the last stream, the so-called paywall is quasi-mythical. They have a lot of players who get to level 95 without having to pay anything at all. And they don’t just get to 95, they go and grind out TP and basically the game at that point is paying you to play, and you can grind out enough points to buy stuff in the store without ever spending any real money. So there is a point at which it’s just “I don’t want to go about it that way, just give me more stuff for free” when really you can get it for free, and a lot of people have.
15. Will there be any special events for the release of the Beorning, like a bear screenshot contest or something like that
    It’s actually something he was thinking about the other day. Maybe when it gets up on Bullroarer he’ll have people post a shot of their Beorning in their favourite location or something like that.
16. Question about posting a suggestion for bear polo
    You can put forth the suggestion, but he would not expect to ever see it happen.
17. Will the LotRO staff form a band and compete in next year’s Weatherstock
    Probably not, although it would be kind of cool.
18. Someone who Sapience met at a meet and greet says hi
    “Hi Cassie, it was nice meeting you too!” He talks about the recent meet and greets and reminds everyone that there is a meet and greet coming up in Niagara Falls on the Canadian side, at Boston Pizza on Friday June 20th.
19. Any discussion about fixing the Hytbold housing items
    He’s going to assume that it’s already been /bugged, so if it’s been /bugged they are probably looking at it.
20. What movie are you most looking forward to this summer?
    There’s a list. He’s been looking forward to Xmen, Maleficent looks great, Guardians of the Galaxy is a guilty pleasure too.
21. Don’t forget to watch Canadian Bacon as research into the culture
    He’s already seen it several times, and he still has his Bob and Doug McKenzie album on vinyl.
22. Are you looking forward to Game of Thrones season 4 episode 8
    Yes, not having an episode last week really messed up his whole weekend plan.
23. Any plans of posting the players who did the top runs
    No plans of doing that, it would just lead potentially to arguments about who did what “right” or “wrong.”
24. Do you have secret characters that you play with that nobody knows about, and have you played with players that don’t know
    Yes. All of the above. He’s played with some players that do know, too.
25. Will there be any community updates soon
    Probably Tuesday of next week.
26. What is your favourite Game of Thrones character
    Probably everyone answers the same way – Tyrion. But he’s read all the books and he’s a really big Jamie fan. If you’ve read all the books you might know why.
27. What is your favourite movie of all time
    It’s going to come out of left field, but he’s a really big Captain Blood fan.
28. Does everyone that works on LotRO get the same PC as you
    He thinks they’re rolling them out for people right now.
29. Will creeps ever get trait trees
    Questions that ask about “ever” are unanswerable because it’s impossible to say what might happen years from now. But as for now, it’s probably not high on the list.
30. Will the Rift ever be scaled
    No. If they did scale it, it would no longer be the raid you love and you’d just be mad.
31. Question about instruments
    No new instruments or changes to the music system are planned at this point.
32. What is your favourite pie
    Pumpkin.
33. When is U14 going live on Bullroarer
    Not telling. You don’t have too too long to wait.
34. Question about Beorning bear pelt colours
    Feel free to make any suggestions like that in the suggestions forum.
35. Question about new starter zone for Beornings
    They will be starting at level 50, so no new starter zone.
36. Will we ever get new hobbies
    Currently no plans.
37. Would you consider opening the world on Bullroarer for monster players
    Probably not.
38. Would you ever do a photo contest instead of a screenshot contest
    They’ve done them in the past and they don’t get much of a response. Maybe a few handfuls of people. Whereas pretty much everybody feels like they can enter a screenshot contest.
39. What do players send Turbine besides food
    Mugs. Lots of food. Really cool art that people make (shows a poster Druidsfire made for him). But mostly stuff along those lines.
40. What is the most interesting thing to have happened in the LotRO office
    Not anything that you’d think in terms of being out of the ordinary. Halloweens they have kids come through trick or treating, and they do costume contests for the adults as well. They’ve had some awesome costumes.
41. Do you ever worry that the things you’re sent are drugged
    Sure there’s a certain consideration. But the overwhelming majority of what is sent is packaged food that has never been opened. It wasn’t so long ago that someone brought in for the team a huge case full of Costco sized chips, power bars, goldfish crackers, Coke, etc. Someone once sent him HP sauce from the UK, which he thought was good.
42. Any plans on coming to Vegas
    He’s been invited many times, but he’s only ever been there once. His wife wants to go back so that’s a giant step in the right direction. But there’s no immediate plans.
43. Do you play other games than LotRO
    He’s played MMOs for probably about 16 years. Everquest was his first MMO. When he was 10 he bought an Atari 2600 with paper route money he saved, and he’s been gaming ever since. He has owned every console except Vectrex.
44. What is your favourite LotRO pet
    His LMs cosmetic turtle.
45. Sapience mentions that he promised to tweet out a picture of LotRO running on the projector that he sometimes games with, which projects at about 300 inches. He says he’ll try and do that tomorrow.
46. Sapience draws the order of the first 5 servers that will be starting the Dwarves Through Moria runs, and reminds everyone that the Gift of the Valar is on sale this week in the LotRO store for 25% off, and Moria is on sale for 20% off.
    
47. Reminds everyone about the meet and greet happening in Niagara Falls on June 20th at Boston Pizza on the Canadian side.
48. Reminder to those on Eldar that he will be making a poll post in the forums to give them a chance to vote for the festival they want turned on.
49. Sapience wonders if Holly AKA VeryBeary has ever made it all the way to Isengard in these runs. [ She is a steadfast member of the Dead Hobbits Society – Frick ]
50. Sapience gives a shout out to Galuhad for his Extra Life efforts. He’s leveling from 1 to 95 in 100 (non-consecutive) hours to raise money for Extra Life.
51. Sapience also reminds everyone about his own Extra Life efforts. This year if his big goal is met he will be getting the Extra Life logo tattooed. He was convinced to do so at an “unfortunate dinner” at PAX, with Jeremy Adams, the founder of Extra Life, some people from Boston Children’s Hospital, Mike from Extra Life and some other community managers. A challenge was issued and it had been a long day. There may or may not have been rum involved, but he swore that if we raised over $100,000 he would get the Extra Life logo tattooed.
52. For everyone who has been waiting for the Cremello steed keys that some people were missing. He will be getting those out sometime next week. He’s going to be re-sending all the Cremello steed keys, so those who already got a working key will be getting another one. He also has more than enough for this year so this shouldn’t happen again.
53. He explains how his Extra Life incentives work. Basically if you donate at least $5 you will get most things, which include the Perlino steed, the Cremello steed, the title “The Sociable,” the title “The Celebratory,” the title “Hero of the Small Folk.” There are also draws for Turbine point codes. There are some other things as well on his fundraising page.
54. Reminds everyone that he always has the codes for the title “The Well Met,” (which is given to players who meet someone from the Turbine staff) with him, so if you ever run into him be sure to ask him for one. There are some guys at his local Lowes who play LotRO, some guys at his local BestBuy who play, there’s a guy at his local supermarket who plays as well. So if you ever run into him say hi and he will give you a code for the title.
55. Are you planning in the future to make monster-side levels more like a faction
    No, monster play is its own thing that works in its own way, so that will probably not happen.
56. Is it possible for people who met Turbine staff before the “Well Met” title existed to get a code
    Send him a PM on the forums and tell him who you met, where you met and when, and if he can verify it he will send a code.
57. What is your favourite title in-game
    “Hero of the Small Folk” because the only way to get that title is to donate to Extra Life, and he thinks that says something special about the person who has the title. When you unlock the title on your account you can also use it in the forums.
58. Sapience needs to come to the west coast
    He’s been to Seattle, he’s been to LA a few times, he’s been to Oakland.
    Says he has a livestream planned for middle or end of the week next week.
    He didn’t do his hobbit gifts on the final run!! SCANDAL!!

[frickinmuck]

Well, the final transcript is up, and thus ends the Hobbits to Isengard Q&A. It's been awesome guys. But it's not over - there will be more to come with the Dwarves Through Moria runs starting in the next week or two.

Just a reminder that for the Dwarf runs, thanks to some kind players, I will not be doing the transcripts single-handedly. Me and other volunteers will be sharing the task. If you would like to volunteer to help out, let me know. Once the schedule for the Dwarf runs is finalized I will be posting the full schedule and people will have the opportunity to say which run(s) they would like to do transcripts for. I will then post those players names next to the run in the schedule so it will be easy to keep track of whose turn it is. Players are welcome to sign up to do just one, or to do more transcripts if they wish.

I just want to thank everyone for making this such a worthwhile task, and for all your kind words along the way. It's truly been a great experience!

Special thanks to Sapience and Turbine for hosting these events, which I think have enriched the LotRO community immeasurably over the past several months.

Fun Facts

28 servers*
82,914 words**
1,463 questions

Most questions: Morthond - 76
Fewest questions: Elendilmir - 13
Chattiest run: Bullroarer - 6,734 words
Quietest run: Elendilmir - 646 words
Most difficult run: Riddermark

*I didn't start this until the third, and Bullroarer was added to the list
**Not including the non-hobbit run livestream transcripts

Once again, congrats to Eldar for their winning run!!

[Othniel]

Strange to put light armour and agility in the same sentence. Light - Will, Medium - Agility, Heavy - Might. Will they rethink the whole stat thing again? I thought they made this three distinct types to make the itemization easier.

This may or may not be related, but I noticed in-game while crafting for my LM that Turbine rebalanced much of the crafted armor stats at lower levels, and for the light armor stuff, there are pieces that offer a fair amount of agility. I wonder if this was done in preparation for the Beorning class.

What is your favourite movie of all time
It’s going to come out of left field, but he’s a really big Captain Blood fan.

I wonder if he means this Captain Blood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain...281935_film%29 (which is a great Errol Flynn movie).

[cdq1958]

This may or may not be related, but I noticed in-game while crafting for my LM that Turbine rebalanced much of the crafted armor stats at lower levels, and for the light armor stuff, there are pieces that offer a fair amount of agility. I wonder if this was done in preparation for the Beorning class.



I wonder if he means this Captain Blood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain...281935_film%29 (which is a great Errol Flynn movie).

About the lower level armours, I think it is a mix of old SoA through RoI stuff plus things added, particularly newer recipes, that use the current rules. Thus, you'll see light armour with agility and might on it. Minstrels were able to wear medium armour back in those days, so you'll see medium pieces with will on it.

[Othniel]

About the lower level armours, I think it is a mix of old SoA through RoI stuff plus things added, particularly newer recipes, that use the current rules. Thus, you'll see light armour with agility and might on it. Minstrels were able to wear medium armour back in those days, so you'll see medium pieces with will on it.

I remember my minstrel wearing medium armour (I still miss that :P), but I've kept pretty close tabs on tailoring recipes over the years since my main is a tailor, and I end up making a lot of armour for kin-members. There is definitely some newer stuff in there that is somewhat heavy on the agility. Either way, I'd rather keep to the "Light = Will, Medium = Agility, Heavy = Might" formula. The reason Wardens were switched from Might to Agility was to better fit itemization patterns and such (and conveniently, we currently have 3 classes for each main stat), and it would be a shame to mess up all that work by tossing in something completely different.

[cdq1958]

I remember my minstrel wearing medium armour (I still miss that :P), but I've kept pretty close tabs on tailoring recipes over the years since my main is a tailor, and I end up making a lot of armour for kin-members. There is definitely some newer stuff in there that is somewhat heavy on the agility. Either way, I'd rather keep to the "Light = Will, Medium = Agility, Heavy = Might" formula. The reason Wardens were switched from Might to Agility was to better fit itemization patterns and such (and conveniently, we currently have 3 classes for each main stat), and it would be a shame to mess up all that work by tossing in something completely different.

I heartily agree with that.

[CarrieG]

Well, the final transcript is up, and thus ends the Hobbits to Isengard Q&A. It's been awesome guys. But it's not over - there will be more to come with the Dwarves Through Moria runs starting in the next week or two.

Just a reminder that for the Dwarf runs, thanks to some kind players, I will not be doing the transcripts single-handedly. Me and other volunteers will be sharing the task. If you would like to volunteer to help out, let me know. Once the schedule for the Dwarf runs is finalized I will be posting the full schedule and people will have the opportunity to say which run(s) they would like to do transcripts for. I will then post those players names next to the run in the schedule so it will be easy to keep track of whose turn it is. Players are welcome to sign up to do just one, or to do more transcripts if they wish.

I just want to thank everyone for making this such a worthwhile task, and for all your kind words along the way. It's truly been a great experience!

Special thanks to Sapience and Turbine for hosting these events, which I think have enriched the LotRO community immeasurably over the past several months.

Fun Facts

28 servers*
82,914 words**
1,463 questions

Most questions: Morthond - 76
Fewest questions: Elendilmir - 13
Chattiest run: Bullroarer - 6,734 words
Quietest run: Elendilmir - 646 words
Most difficult run: Riddermark

*I didn't start this until the third, and Bullroarer was added to the list
**Not including the non-hobbit run livestream transcripts

Once again, congrats to Eldar for their winning run!!

Thanks for doing the transcripts. We would't have had nearly the information for our podcast without these. You are my hero.

[TKH]

I remember my minstrel wearing medium armour (I still miss that :P), but I've kept pretty close tabs on tailoring recipes over the years since my main is a tailor, and I end up making a lot of armour for kin-members. There is definitely some newer stuff in there that is somewhat heavy on the agility. Either way, I'd rather keep to the "Light = Will, Medium = Agility, Heavy = Might" formula. The reason Wardens were switched from Might to Agility was to better fit itemization patterns and such (and conveniently, we currently have 3 classes for each main stat), and it would be a shame to mess up all that work by tossing in something completely different.

Beorning can be treated as an odd case, so there would be really nothing being tossed away. No Warden, Hunter and Burglar will want to equip Beorning's armor, if Beorning uses medium one, so do Minstrel, Lore-master and Rune-keeper if Beorning wears light armor.

As a new class with odd stat building, Beorning can be attractive to players who are tired of the formula :Light = Will, Medium = Agility, Heavy = Might"

[cdq1958]

Beorning can be treated as an odd case, so there would be really nothing being tossed away. No Warden, Hunter and Burglar will want to equip Beorning's armor, if Beorning uses medium one, so do Minstrel, Lore-master and Rune-keeper if Beorning wears light armor.

As a new class with odd stat building, Beorning can be attractive to players who are tired of the formula :Light = Will, Medium = Agility, Heavy = Might"

That's an excellent point. For a Beorning specifically, one could see having Will as a Man and either Agility or Might as the bear.

[mithelenthor]

The slot question was answered in the run - they are looking into it and hoping to be able to bundle some slots with the purchase if possible. As for the class being free, there has never been a free class in LotRO. Both the RK and Warden were "pay to unlock" for everyone, including VIP. The only exception was when it was bundled with Moria. Since they aren't doing any expansions this year, I don't expect to see it bundled with any content releases.

Ooops sorry. I forgot that it was bundled with Moria. Some peeps have excellent memories.
So, i wonder how many boars i'm going to have to kill to buy this class lol.....

what do you think? 250 tp for class and 250 tp for extra slot? 500 tp as a bundle?
Im just basing that on the fact that an expansion normally costs around 4000 tp when newly shipped and that has a whole multitude of other things attached such as land mass, content, quest packs, instance clusters or big battles or skirmiishes and usually a class update or 3 along with changes to itemization and such......

So, im guessing a slot and a class is kind of perfectly priced at 1/8 th of an expansion. 500tp. I'd be ok with that as a bundle.

what does anybody else think?

[frickinmuck]

Ooops sorry. I forgot that it was bundled with Moria. Some peeps have excellent memories.
So, i wonder how many boars i'm going to have to kill to buy this class lol.....

what do you think? 250 tp for class and 250 tp for extra slot? 500 tp as a bundle?
Im just basing that on the fact that an expansion normally costs around 4000 tp when newly shipped and that has a whole multitude of other things attached such as land mass, content, quest packs, instance clusters or big battles or skirmiishes and usually a class update or 3 along with changes to itemization and such......

So, im guessing a slot and a class is kind of perfectly priced at 1/8 th of an expansion. 500tp. I'd be ok with that as a bundle.

what does anybody else think?

Well, the RK and the Warden are currently selling for 795TP I think, but I'd imagine the Beorning would cost more than that. You've got to think that a steed costs upwards of 2,000TP, and it's not all that exciting a proposition. A new class, something we haven't had in years, is surely going to be priced at least comparably with a new mount. I would hope so, anyway. If it costs more to get a mount than it does to get an entire new class, there's something really wrong...

I may be way off base, though. At this point anything anyone says is just going to be a guess, because there's really been no discussion around price yet. The best we can say is, it will be at least as much as the RK and Warden are - 795/ea.

[Danchir]

Well, the RK and the Warden are currently selling for 795TP I think, but I'd imagine the Beorning would cost more than that. You've got to think that a steed costs upwards of 2,000TP, and it's not all that exciting a proposition. A new class, something we haven't had in years, is surely going to be priced at least comparably with a new mount. I would hope so, anyway. If it costs more to get a mount than it does to get an entire new class, there's something really wrong...

Too much 'real life logic'. The fluff in games costs absurdity and beyond and that's fine, but the useful (or at least 'useful') things should be treated differently - they are not for showing off, they are integral to gameplay.

Offering the new class for RK/Warden-price would be somehow... anti-Turbine, imo. This would contradict to how they tend to evaluate their work in recent times (the term for which is 'unrealistically').
Offering it for 2k TP would be too much in-the-face showing of bad taste. Again, imo. Not that I can't imagine it happening, or even tagging higher price than that. 'New' means 'expensive', didn't I know that...
Finding the golden middle spot perhaps would be a good choice; whether it will happen or not remains to be seen. History suggests that they have problems with finding the golden middle spots. Prices, balance, loot system - you name it.

[Silmelin]

Thank you so much for all your hard work, frickinmuck! It's very much appreciated!

Q&A Hobbits to Isengard - Belegar

• Rowan – This is a system they are developing out and building on, so they want to introduce additional features in the future, like collections of pets, groups of pets that you can pick up and when you have all the pets together then you get an additional reward or pet.

The whole thing about collections and rewards sounds awesome but as it is now it worries me. I'm a completionist so I'd want to finish collections, and if there's a great reward like a pet or something else that most people really really really want, and it's locked behind gathering pets where some of the pets are so rare that most people will have to buy them on the AH. Well, that's fine too, but the Large Shrew is sold for around 5000 gold on some servers and there's no way many of us will ever get that kind of money :/

So please don't let pets that are that expensive count for completing collections to unlock rewards

[frickinmuck]

Too much 'real life logic'. The fluff in games costs absurdity and beyond and that's fine, but the useful (or at least 'useful') things should be treated differently - they are not for showing off, they are integral to gameplay.

Offering the new class for RK/Warden-price would be somehow... anti-Turbine, imo. This would contradict to how they tend to evaluate their work in recent times (the term for which is 'unrealistically').
Offering it for 2k TP would be too much in-the-face showing of bad taste. Again, imo. Not that I can't imagine it happening, or even tagging higher price than that. 'New' means 'expensive', didn't I know that...
Finding the golden middle spot perhaps would be a good choice; whether it will happen or not remains to be seen. History suggests that they have problems with finding the golden middle spots. Prices, balance, loot system - you name it.

I disagree with this assessment of things. I can't get behind the idea that we should pay more for fluff than we do for actual substance. To me, something like a steed is of little value to my gameplay. I have bought one or two just to get the warsteed gear on certain characters, but for the most part they don't really interest me at all. Something that is of as big a value to gameplay as an entire new class that I can re-experience the game through, I would gladly pay that much for it if it was a class I was excited about. It's the price of a movie ticket or a book or a bottle of wine. Or only 4 months of VIP allowance. In my world, the cost/value is clear.

As for 'golden middle spots' that is a very subjective concept. One person's 'golden middle spot' is another person's outrageous joke. A more accurate statement would be "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

[Warmutkan]

I disagree with this assessment of things. I can't get behind the idea that we should pay more for fluff than we do for actual substance. To me, something like a steed is of little value to my gameplay. I have bought one or two just to get the warsteed gear on certain characters, but for the most part they don't really interest me at all. Something that is of as big a value to gameplay as an entire new class that I can re-experience the game through, I would gladly pay that much for it if it was a class I was excited about. It's the price of a movie ticket or a book or a bottle of wine. Or only 4 months of VIP allowance. In my world, the cost/value is clear.

As for 'golden middle spots' that is a very subjective concept. One person's 'golden middle spot' is another person's outrageous joke. A more accurate statement would be "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

I'll agree with you on principle: items that meaningfully effect gameplay should cost more than fluff. With that said, I wouldn't immediately agree that because some fluff has been priced at 2,000 TPs, that therefore Beornings have to cost at least that much. It assumes that the pricing on fluff is a good barometer for what a TP is worth. As you've already pointed out, cosmetics are very subjective: it's not a reliable metric of comparison.

Instead, I'd rather Beornings were priced against similar products. RKs and Wardens are the obvious baseline - if Beornings cost anything less than 795 TPs I would be shocked. The other comparable item is the Gift of the Valar, at 4,995 TP. It allows other classes to zoom up to level 50, and we know that Beornings will start at level 50 as well. Conceivably (and perhaps unwisely), Beornings could end up costing as much as A new class + 50 'free' levels; 5790 TP. To me, that's the range of the conversation. They should cost at least 795, and shouldn't cost any more than 5,790. Where Turbine lands inside that massive range depends on a few variables:

• What new content, if any, comes with the Beornings (pseudo-starter regions, class quests, etc)
• What items, if any, Beornings start out with (see GoTV starter items for possible comparisons)
• What perspective Turbine takes on the level 50 start - is it "starting at 50 makes sense for lore/gameplay, and isn't a cost factor" or is it "we're giving you a huge leg-up and you should pay handsomely for it"?
• How much importance is placed on the "new car smell" of our first new class in years
• How expensive Beornings can get before it becomes a price most players won't/can't pay