A Letter from Executive Producer Aaron Campbell

[Rowan]

Hello all! I’m Aaron “Rowan” Campbell, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online.*

Update 13 (and LOTRO’s 7^th Anniversary) are coming up soon (He said it! Not me!- Sapience). There is a long list of new features with U13, but I want to highlight some of the key items and the great folks that are working on them.

Epic Book: We’re going to Flooded Isengard! MadeofLions has put together an epic experience, where you finally get to experience life as an Ent.

North Downs: This is a vast and classic region. Budgeford is digging in to modernize and improve the space, much like she’s done in the past with Moria.

Fangorn Forest: Quickbeam needs your help! JWBarry has led the charge to build out new quests in Southern Fangorn, including a special friend you might earn.

In addition, mail will now support multiple attachments. VIPs will be able to open mail in the wilderness through your mail alert. Inventory is getting entirely new management options. And we have a new prototype of Hobnangians that we expect to release later this year.

As Kate mentioned, we’re pressing forward to Gondor! We’re digging in deep (but not too deep) to continue the journey through Middle-earth. I look forward to telling you more about our plans for 2014 and into 2015 in the near future.

Rowan

*For those that remember me, I’ve been with LOTRO since 2006. I stepped away over the last year to run Dungeons and Dragons Online. Now I’m back in Middle-earth and thrilled to be working with the LOTRO team again.

[Stephen1981]

i would love to hear more about the inventory system all i'm hearing is inventory revamp and its not giving much of anything else after that would like you all to go more in detail about this

[Bel-Astarte]

VIPs will be able to open mail in the wilderness through your mail alert.

This is a very good thing to add for a perk for VIP. Well done. I do get tired to being treated like a sap when I tell people I subscribe instead of purchase content as I go.

[Iluvatardd]

Anything new about Ettenmoors?

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

Not maintenance mode! Yay! Seeing that the intention is still to press on towards Gondor, despite the recent bad news is excellent, so thanks for letting us know

Southern Fangorn quests - I'm presuming this is part of the slice of new region that we were promised? Along with flooded Isengard? Hopefully these will be dailies - while Hytbold dailies were never the standard of instances or raids, they can certainly bridge the gap, end-game wise

Flooded Isengard - definitely looking forward to seeing that - and hopefully the connection point will be put in at the Fords of Isen which will allow us to cross from Eriador to Rhovanion? I know the areas are clearly distinct, but by chicken (and I'm sure Sapience's hobbitses) also want to make the run to Gondor when it arrives!

North Downs - looking forward to seeing what will be done, though I hope the lack of mentioning them doesn't mean that the Trollshaws and Misty Mountains revamps have been dropped (I'm conscious that you said 'some of the things' in U13)

Mail was more of an irritation than anything important, but glad to see its being sorted.

Ettenmoors rebalancing still planned for U13?

Also, definitely looking forward to the return of Hobnanigans.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome back Rowan

[Nodwick]

I would like to hear about when we can expect to get the correct names on the bounder token statue in MD.

[palantorio]

Welcome Back Aaron..
i hope your return is a sign lotro will be better in the near future. Some of my wishes for 2014 ( and all are possible with the less Money turbine earns this year)
- Please listen to the community ,
- new raid/Instances or more scaleble raids/instances ( PLEAAAAAAAAAAAASE )
- housing revamp ( a REAL revamp)
- kinship revamp ( hey there are many many good ideas you can implement )
- make lotro harder..
- balancing..

oh.. did i mentioning Balancing ?

And if you have enough time and devs look for Balancing..

Oh.. another wish.. get back RockX, he was one of the last devs who understand lotro and his community.

thank you for listening to dissapointed german user who plays since Beta.

[Angadan]

Thanks for the update, Rowan, and congratulations on your return to LOTRO and promotion to Executive Producer! A few questions:

1 - Kate clearly moved on ... able to say where she headed in the Turbine (or WB, or external) world? Wish her well, whatever the case.

2 - North Downs is still getting improved in U13, so Trollshaws and Misty Mtn improvements slid back into a later Update ... am I reading that right?

3 - Will MoL's work on the new Epic Book in flooded Isengard close out Volume 3? Or still more to come on that volume later?

4 - We get into Fangorn, currently, from four directions: from the west, via Isengard/Nan Curunir ... from the east, via East Rohan/Eaves of Fangorn ... from the southeast, via Wildermore ... and from the south, via West Rohan/Broadacres. Any chance the "missing middle" will be added in allow movement all across the forest between those zones?

[Cartman76]

This is a very good thing to add for a perk for VIP. Well done. I do get tired to being treated like a sap when I tell people I subscribe instead of purchase content as I go.

Yup little things like this is really nice.
Not game changer in any way.
But I have really missed my portable mailbox from Warhammer

[rosey21]

VIPs will be able to open mail in the wilderness through your mail alert.

Awhile back Sapience had mentioned there was testing being done for a new feature for VIPs, Is this what he was referring too or something different?

[Sapience]

I'm sure Aaron will chime in at some point along the line with his own comments, but I wanted to pick these two up right off the back.

i would love to hear more about the inventory system all i'm hearing is inventory revamp and its not giving much of anything else after that would like you all to go more in detail about this

How about if we show it to you instead? I'm going to draft the engineer who revamped the system to do a live stream with me as soon as we can. I'll get him to walk us through the changes, how things will work, and hopefully answer some questions along the way.

- Please listen to the community ,

I'll just point out that Aaron was the person who helped me draft the original Players Council concept and then implemented it on DDO as well. He's already asked a number of questions on a variety of topics.

Awhile back Sapience had mentioned there was testing being done for a new feature for VIPs, Is this what he was referring too or something different?

That was it.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

Hello all! I’m Aaron “Rowan” Campbell, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online.*

Update 13 (and LOTRO’s 7^th Anniversary) are coming up soon (He said it! Not me!- Sapience). There is a long list of new features with U13, but I want to highlight some of the key items and the great folks that are working on them.

Epic Book: We’re going to Flooded Isengard! MadeofLions has put together an epic experience, where you finally get to experience life as an Ent.

North Downs: This is a vast and classic region. Budgeford is digging in to modernize and improve the space, much like she’s done in the past with Moria.

Fangorn Forest: Quickbeam needs your help! JWBarry has led the charge to build out new quests in Southern Fangorn, including a special friend you might earn.

In addition, mail will now support multiple attachments. VIPs will be able to open mail in the wilderness through your mail alert. Inventory is getting entirely new management options. And we have a new prototype of Hobnangians that we expect to release later this year.

As Kate mentioned, we’re pressing forward to Gondor! We’re digging in deep (but not too deep) to continue the journey through Middle-earth. I look forward to telling you more about our plans for 2014 and into 2015 in the near future.

Rowan

*For those that remember me, I’ve been with LOTRO since 2006. I stepped away over the last year to run Dungeons and Dragons Online. Now I’m back in Middle-earth and thrilled to be working with the LOTRO team again.

Welcome back! Always good to see those who have been around since the start of the game

That said, keep these updates coming on a quarterly or even a monthly basis so keeping us informed as to what we can expect to see in terms of new and updated content, meet those expectations by delivering that content and you'll soon get the buzz going again like it once had.

[BrekkaSrbenda]

And we have a new prototype of Hobnangians that we expect to release later this year.

Whats Hobnangians?

[SweetDemise]

Please bring back real end-game raids so I can come back home.

[hobbit1968]

Housing this year??

[BlueXiphoid]

This may be a silly question, but what are "Hobnangians"? Google has no answers for me.

[Thornglen]

Hoom, hum, it has taken a while to be an Ent, but that is ok. These things should not be rushed and will be all the better for having been considered properly.



Also, multiple mail attachments! Nice!

This may be a silly question, but what are "Hobnangians"? Google has no answers for me.

If you do a forum search on the word it comes up with a few events/games related to it. I had not seen the one in the past, so am looking forward to checking it out this time around.

[OldMadeOfLions]

3 - Will MoL's work on the new Epic Book in flooded Isengard close out Volume 3? Or still more to come on that volume later?

This Book will indeed be the end of Volume 3, 'Allies of the King.'

MoL

[Sapience]

Whats Hobnangians?

This may be a silly question, but what are "Hobnangians"? Google has no answers for me.

You may have heard some long time players refer to it as "chicken ball". it's pretty much field hockey, except you use a chicken for the ball. It's one of those things that long, long time players who played since beta remember fondly and have long asked to see restored and returned to the game.
Here's a screen shot from a recent dev play test.
https://www.facebook.com/LOTRO/photo...type=1&theater

[Cartman76]

Whats Hobnangians?

No idea but it sounds fun

[Angadan]

Whats Hobnangians?

If you leave Bree Town and head north, to Saeradan the ranger's cabin, then go due east through the woods behind his house, you'll find a soccer field/pitch kind of structure. On that field was played, in days of old (when the game was still very new), a chicken-soccer sort of sport called Hobnanigans. And very few of us have ever seen it actually played, because it was pulled for technical reasons very soon after LOTRO went live. I'm excited at the chance to pay it for the first time.

[Angadan]

This Book will indeed be the end of Volume 3, 'Allies of the King.'

MoL

Awesome, MoL, which inevitably means we get to start bugging you for: What's the Name of Volume IV???!?!?!!?!!?!?!!! zomg, we need to know, need to know now!

lol j/k, thanks for taking us to swimming pool Isengard.

[TheCrossbow]

At first glance, everything listed as features for Update 13 certainly are welcome changes. It may not satisfy the desires of those (like me) who wish to see more group content (though one can hold out hope that Flooded Isengard will have something fun). But, it does look like Update 13 addresses some issues that will make life a bit more pleasant.

Any word on when Update 13 will arrive for testing on Bullroarer? Just a thought that allowing people to see what exactly is in the update might satisfy a lot of natural questions.

[LethalLethality]

Interesting implementations. I don't use mail much so that in itself isn't a big deal to me, but I am interested in the inventory revamp. I'm really hoping to get some info on it soon.

[angelastar]

I am just excited to see what new is coming been here 7 yrs in this game and plan to stay many more years so much more to do yet and explore.