SHIELD Dwarf Runs through Moria Q&A - Notes on What Was Said

[frickinmuck]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Gilrain

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Gilrain

Video available here.

Sapience reminds everyone there’s going to be a livestream Q&A at 3PM Eastern (server time) tomorrow with Rowan, to discuss U14, his producer’s letter and things to come. It’s just a straight-up Q&A on camera with Rowan – no gameplay or demo.

1. Pick a mount – any specific level of lootbox?
   He doesn’t believe so. He knows it’s not a guaranteed drop, it’s a random drop within the lootbox, so it’s not in every one.
2. Is there any way with Beornings we could have a choice between starting at level 1 or level 50?
   Yes, it’s called Gift of the Valar. He knows it kind of comes and goes in the store a lot, but they’ve had conversations about just always making it available so that players always have that choice with any character they create.
   The leader takes Tosmii and the group over a short cliff and Sapience comments on how the broken legs are like a bowl of Rice Krispies – snap, crackle and pop. People in the chat talk about how the group are total lemmings. Sapience says by definition he’s a total lemming in these runs.
3. Did the difficulty of Paths of the Dead get decreased between beta and launch?
   He doesn’t know. It’s possible, but he doesn’t recall any discussions about making it easier.
4. Question about the essences system, and being able to control things a bit more
   Keep in mind that this is the first iteration. The plan is definitely to expand the system, revise and improve it, adjust as needed. So this is the first incarnation and the team is just looking for how players use it, how they engage it with what they’re looking for and what they build. What are people slotting, what are people adding for different classes. Like so many things, including balance and pretty much all systems, it should be considered a work in progress. Endlessly tweakable and adjustable.
5. Why did the game reset all the class traits?
   Because there were major changes to skills for all classes, and adjustments for the new level cap as well.
6. Question about whether essences will ever be available for lower levels
   He thinks they were talking about making it level 50, and that the system is currently live starting from level 50. Someone in the chat confirms that they’ve seen it as low as 49. Sapience says he thinks Eregion is where players will start finding them. Around that level range.
7. Question about whether there is more than one list of mounts for the lootbox pick-a-mount
   Currently there is just one list of mounts. Whether that will be added to in the future is kind of up in the air. He would suspect it would be added to. He just came out of a meeting talking a number of things about mounts – store mounts, older mounts, access to older mounts. So there are a whole lot of interlocking conversations about the pick-a-mount boxes, what’s in them and what if anything will change.
8. Question about imbued LIs
   He thinks it’s too early to start drilling too deeply into that. As they get closer to U15 and the end of the year when these things start being more firmed up, and the Players Council has had a bit more time to discuss them and the team has revised their plans a few times, then we’ll start to see a bit more information come out about them. It’s a little early for that right now. He would also caution that it’s going to be a bit like the essences system, where there will be a first pass, then some refinements and work on it, trying to tweak the system as they go along rather than changing everything wholesale in one huge chunk.
9. Someone asks about Fangorn Armour
   He literally just had this conversation with someone, about a patch for 14.1 that may include changes to Fangorn deeds. Possibly fully removing the cooldowns on the repeatables so there are no longer 18 hour cooldowns.
10. Question about Fangorn leaves and the cost for Entwood items
    He doesn’t know about costs. The primary focus of the discussion was on reducing or eliminating the cooldowns on the repeatables.
11. What happens if Tosmii dies, but the time is still faster than the other servers
    Time is the ultimate arbiter. If someone can somehow get him killed and still get the run and deed completed faster than anyone else, then they’re pretty epic. The deaths thing is more of a tie-breaker. So if two teams did the run in exactly the same time, but one had a death and the other didn’t, then the one that did it without killing him would win. Because in a death the run has to start again from the beginning, the odds of someone having the fastest run after a death are pretty slim.
12. Question about a rumour that players can get the dormouse housing item from a level 10 lootbox
    Not that he is aware of. He doesn’t know the full loot list, so he won’t say definitively, but it’s not available that he’s aware of.
    Someone thanks Sapience for doing these livestreams and he says thanks for the kind words. He’s really pleased with how the players have taken to these streams, and getting the opportunity to talk to us directly is fantastic. He knows a lot of the devs really appreciate it as well. Sometimes they hang out watching the stream themselves. If they can’t get away to be part of it, they’ll watch it and shoot him little notes if they see something they can answer.
13. What happened on Bullroarer during the TTHTI run?
    Raina happened. She unleashed multiple Balrogs on him and the group, and through most of the run he could hear her evil cackles from the other side of the wall. All he remembers is, run a few steps, giant legs, die, run a few steps, giant legs, die, run a few steps, giant legs, die. That was pretty much his view for the whole event.
14. Question about how far that run got
    Sapience says he thinks he got as far as the Forsaken Inn, but others in the chat remind him that they did get a ways into the Trollshaws once or twice.
    Players discuss what types of mobs Raina spawned and there are fond reminisces of Nurzums and multiple Barz across the landscape, Balrogs, etc. Druidsfire posts a link to her awesome personal account of that run, which has a lot of hilarious and terrifying screencaps for those who are interested.
    
15. Would I be correct in thinking you’ve seen a huge jump in $25+ donations to your Extra Life campaign since the reveal of the cosmetic pets?
    He thinks there are about 520 donations so far this year. Last year they ended with just under 1,800. The average donation last year was about $28, and this year it’s $43 for an average. The average is higher by quite a bit. It’s only July and already there has been more money raised than in all of 2012, and we’re far ahead of where we were at this time last year. We’re still about $77k short of him getting a tattoo.
16. Question about changes to big battles for U14
    He knows there were some changes made for U14, but he doesn’t know specifically if there was any change to the quest ending before the side quests are done. Keep in mind the point of big battles is to be a progression through an event. As the event unfolds, we kind of follow through it.
    Sapience comments about how nice it is to get out of Moria after 25 minutes in the darkness. He recalls the first time he ever got out of Moria, how it felt like exhaling after holding one’s breath for a long time, being in the darkness and the gloom. It was such a great relief, but then of course they just went right back in again.
17. What will the tattoo be?
    The tattoo will be the Extra Life logo, which is on his Extra Life page. It’s the controller with wings and a halo.
18. Are there any plans for ceremonial sets of the Erebor and BG armour?
    Not that he’s currently aware of.
    In a previous run someone asked Sapience what the goal would need to be to get him to get his logo tattoo placed on his lower back, and Sapience jokingly said $250k before August 1st. In the chat Hurch says that if he wins the lottery he’s going to donate enough money to ensure that goal gets met. Sapience says that if that goal gets met he will just extend it and make the new goal $500k for him to be able to place it wherever he wants, and he’ll personally donate the rest of the money when he wins the lottery, to make sure that goal gets met. He says there was a really good reason why he didn’t give players the option to choose where it was placed. In fact, a couple of devs have made some pretty interesting suggestions on where he should put it. Forehead being one of them.
19. Does it worry you that so many of your loyal audience want to see you with a tramp stamp?
    It worries him more that in order to prove that he got it, they’d more or less need to see his butt, and he’s worried that’s what they really want. That scares the bejeezus out of him.
20. What was the first character you ever created on LotRO?
    It was a hunter, and he still has it.
21. Question about how to post a new discussion thread in the forums
    The main thing is to pick the correct forum for the topic you want to discuss. Skirmishes, for example, would need to go into the Skirmishes forum.
22. Any plans to update the engine and graphics?
    Probably not in the way you're thinking. A major overhaul that involves redoing everything and making everything look dramatically different – no. But tweaks and adjustments happen all the time. If you go through and look at original regions and some of the newer ones, you’ll see that new tech has been added to increase draw distances, make trees more realistic, shadows and lighting improvements. So little things like that, yes, but an overhaul from the ground up – no.
    Sapience shows everyone the Steed of the Red Dawn, a mount that was originally part of a European edition of Riders of Rohan. It was not available outside of Europe, but he’s making it available as part of his Extra Life campaign this year. That will bring the number of mounts available to four – the Cremello Steed, the Perlino Steed, the Steed of the First Marshal and the Steed of the Red Dawn. He’s not having a lot of luck with the Steam steed that people were asking for.
23. Could you do world announcements when these runs are about to start?
    These are community events that are set to take place in specific areas at specific times. World announcements are a sort of “at the last minute” thing. Plus he thinks it would invite a certain group of individuals to take the opportunity to ruin the run. Those who want to take part in it already know about them, where they are and how to find the info for them.
24. Question about Gilrain being a preferred server
    He’s asked for that a few times, but he doesn’t think it’s happened yet. He will request it again.
    Sapience reminds everyone again that tomorrow, Wed July 16th at 3pm server time, he and Rowan will be doing a Q&A livestream about U14 and his producer’s letter. Server time is set to eastern time. He shows everyone how to check the current server time by mousing over the sun/moon icon at the top left edge of the mini map.

[Sapience]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Gilrain

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Gilrain

Video available here.

Good job. Just a couple of quick notes...

14. Druidsfire is a she.

15. While the average amount donated is up, the largest donors from last year haven't stepped up yet. Usually right around the event, since it's near the end of the year, those who plan to donate large amounts really step up. For example this year we have about a half dozen $500 donations, last year we had several dozen and many even larger.

16. The players council has just been given info about Epic Battle changes we're thinking about for U15. So there is a lot more coming.

17. This is the logo I'll get. I might, if we hit $100k allow donors to choose between a version of the logo with or without the dice. https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5527/...d7dc6fe8_m.jpg



I'll just remind everyone again about the live chat with Aaron today at 3PM. http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream

[frickinmuck]

14. Druidsfire is a she.

SORRY, Druidsfire!! <3

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Re: the lemmings comment, I'm just going to say that there was no prior organisation on Gilrain before the run, the run leader graciously put themselves forward to do it since myself and others would have got us lost (or worse gone to have a chat with the Balrog) and though we didn't do a great time, as a server we had fun doing it. I'm proud of the people who took part and were willing to do it, because from World Chat I could see there were quite a lot who kept away. We are a small population server, this kind of event is a real boost to us.

Thank you to Rick for putting stuff like this on. I am hopping that Gilrain can move forward and do more social style stuff like this.

[Sapience]

...as a server we had fun doing it.

Thank you to Rick for putting stuff like this on. I am hopping that Gilrain can move forward and do more social style stuff like this.

That's the whole idea. Have some fun. Glad you enjoyed it.

[Cwen01]

He shows everyone how to check the current server time by mousing over the sun/moon icon at the top left edge of the mini map.

It actually shows the time you set in your operating system and not server time.

[frickinmuck]

It actually shows the time you set in your operating system and not server time.

Of course - that would show up as Eastern on Sapience's computer. Thanks for pointing that out. I don't use that icon to tell the time so I didn't notice what time it used until you pointed it out the error and I went to check, and it does indeed have my local time (PST).

There is an easy way to find server time and that's just to type /servertime into the chat.

[kickman77]

Or an even simpler way to get the time in your area would be for Turbine to update this (as I have) for the shield runs. This one is set for Thursdays Meneldor run.

Every other game I play uses this tool for their live stream so their customers know when to log on...

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc...40717T17&p1=43

[edit]

Click the link and it will show what time the Live stream is in your time zone for the Meneldor stream (perhaps frik can take 10 secondss to update it prior to each stream and link it on the front page)

[Star-Man_1976]

17. This is the logo I'll get. I might, if we hit $100k allow donors to choose between a version of the logo with or without the dice. https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5527/...d7dc6fe8_m.jpg

I choose with dice, but I love to play tabletop RPGs and boardgames, so I might be biased.

[motumbo]

Only if you view it from this moment forward and ignore all past data. We based it on past data. The percentage of players involved has remained largely constant (and quite small) since launch.



Added it to my list.

So you are using data since the launch of the game?? And second, has there been a shift in the player base ( changes in the norm , amount that raid, ect... that is if I'm looking at this the right way)?

[frickinmuck]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Meneldor

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Meneldor

Video available here.

1. After all the news that’s come out in the last 3 days, can there be any more surprises with U15 and U16?
   There can always be more surprises. Always. That’s all you’re getting out of him.
2. Sapience goes over his computer specs and graphics settings. He makes a few recommendations to help with performance. Texture Cache Size, for those who have a lot of RAM and are running into stuttering/load problems with moving between zones, bumping that up to max will preload some of the textures and make the transition smoother. Player Crowd Quality, if you don’t have a lot of memory or a very powerful machine, turning that down will lower the draw quality of the players around you and help a bit with performance. People having performance issues should also turn off Player Mesh Combining and 3D Object Portraits. Someone in the chat notes that turning off Post-processing is also a good idea, and Sapience agrees, saying if you’re having a lot of stuttering and hiccups, and especially if you’re in a large group, it’s a good idea to turn that off because it will turn off all the effects.
3. What’s up with invisible walls while traveling?
   It generally means one of two things – either you’ve reached the border of an area and the devs have put up the wall there because they don’t want you traveling beyond it, or you have reached a server boundary and for some reason on the server side there may be a bit of an issue transferring between the boundaries – the servers aren’t handing things off properly and when you hit that it will feel like a wall. You’ll also sometimes get that if you bounce back through an area. It’s kind of the same thing.
4. Can we get more chats like the one with Rowan?
   That’s the plan. He’s been working toward getting that chat together for awhile now. The plan is to more frequently get a bunch of devs together in a room as with the previous dev roundtable. But definitely with Rowan doing a producer’s letter with every major update, that’s definitely something they’ll explore. After updates and after he releases his letter he thinks it’s good to come in and talk about it.
5. Have you thought of a better method of getting through Moria that players haven’t tried?
   He hasn’t really thought about it. There was a point in the TTHTI runs where he was wondering why some players weren’t taking a better route that he had in mind, but eventually players started taking the better route and all the shortcuts. But with these runs he hasn’t given it enough thought to it, but he thinks this is a pretty straightforward run that people have had time to work out, and he thinks there are only a few ways to do it in a timely manner.
6. Where are you doing this from?
   He’s doing it from his desk at the Turbine offices. He points out the DDO team behind him, and says the LotRO team sits in front of him, so can’t be seen on camera. He
7. How about putting some mirrors behind you so we can see the LotRO team instead?
   Can we get a disco ball too? That’d be cool.
   Jacob the marketing guy who sits beside him is laughing and Sapience says that’s never a good thing, because it usually means he’s trying to think of ways of getting it done.
   Hurcheon comments in the chat that he’s currently listening to the audiobook of The Lord of the Rings, and how the team has done such an amazing job of bringing the world of Middle Earth to life. Sapience agrees, and says that every update the team seems to surpass themselves.
8. Someone comments on the servertime error from a previous stream
   Yes, he incorrectly said that mousing over the sun/moon icon in the top left corner of the mini-map will give you servertime, but it actually gives you your PC time. To get servertime, type /servertime in the chat window. Server time is based on Eastern Standard Time.
9. Witchypoo makes a comment about donating to Extra Life
   Sapience thanks her for the donation and gives people a bit of background on Extra Life. We are currently at $24,684. To put that into perspective, we raised $18,000 the first year, and the second year he set a goal of $25k and we raised $50k. He set a goal of $100k this year and we’re almost at $25k already. The marathon isn’t even until October. On the home page of Extra Life you can see the total of what’s been raised to date, and we are about 10% of the total of everything that’s been raised for Extra Life for this year. So we’re killing it!
10. Can you promise us that if the game ever stops being developed you’ll leave the game at that point and keep the servers running?
    He doesn’t think they can ever promise anything. A lot can change over the years, so he doesn’t think they can ever promise that. But if you listen to Rowan’s chat from the other day, Rowan was talking about “beyond Mordor” so he doesn’t think we have too much to worry about.
11. Any way of complaining to Twitch to give us back the video quality option again?
    Complain to Twitch. It’s out of his hands.
12. Is there anywhere where we can read a list of what was said in Rowan’s chat?
    Sapience points out the transcript thread in the forums where these things can be read.
13. Have you played the game at 4k resolution?
    No, he has not. He doesn’t have anything at the home or office that is 4K ready.
14. Discussion about Extra Life perks for donating
    Sapience clarifies that the codes for items and titles come at the end of Extra Life, so you don’t get them right away. There are some really great items including mounts, and a couple of cosmetic pets for those donating $25 or more. It can all be seen on his fundraising page.

[frickinmuck]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Maiar

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Maiar

Video available here.

1. Can you spill all the beans now?
   Which beans did you have in mind?
2. What kinds of things will you be doing in your new position?
   Kind of the same things, really. For those who don’t know, August 1st is his last day at Turbine. He will be moving on to Extra Life as their community manager.
3. Now you can tell all the secrets!
   You’re still not going to get any of the deep dark secrets from him. One of the really cool things about the Tuesday 2:30PM runs is that he literally leaves a planning meeting and comes straight over to do the stream, and his head is all full of stuff he can’t tell us.
4. People express sadness that he’s leaving
   He doesn’t look at it as leaving us. He’s going to keep doing the SHIELD runs. He’s going to be shuffling the schedule around to get them done faster, but he’s not leaving just yet. Plus we’ll still get to hear from him and see him. We still have a chance to inflict pain on him if we meet the Extra Life goal this year and force him to get a tattoo. He’s thinking about turning the halo over the controller in the logo into The One Ring in honor of us.
5. Will you still play? Will you stick to certain servers?
   He’s probably going to go back to his original server that he played on exclusively, which members of his kinship are probably thrilled to hear. He may pop into other servers, but he’ll probably be going back to that server and some of the characters that he left behind there. He hasn’t yet decided if he’s going to tell us what server that is.
6. If you get the tattoo are we all invited to come and watch?
   He actually got a really nice PM from a player who owns one of the largest tattoo and piercing shops in Boston, and he has donated his shop to do the work, and the time. So if we hit $100k and he’s OK with it, he’ll see about doing photos and videos or something. He thinks it’s very cool that we have a player who’s actually going to end up doing the tattoo.
7. Can you now or will you later reveal your characters on the servers?
   Later he probably can and will. He knows he’s got a couple of things he’s doing for Extra Life that he’s promised as part of his fundraising – playing creep-side and freep-side – and he may do his freep-side stuff on one of his actual characters. He always has a few characters that he keeps secret, even from guild-mates.
8. Someone suggests a full back tattoo
   He’d be expecting $250K or $500k for something that size. For this one he’s thinking shoulder or upper arm.
9. Will Frelorn be assuming custody of Hadacar and Tosmii?
   Hadacar is on an admin account, so he might. Tosmii is not. Tosmii is coming with him, which is why he’ll be able to finish the runs. Because if he were on an admin account he couldn’t finish, because he would not have access to the account anymore.
10. Who will be taking over for you when you’re gone?
    Frelorn will be taking over as community manager for LotRO. We should start to see more from him in the coming days.
11. Will Frelorn be looking to continue Twitch streams?
    They’ve had a conversation about it so yes, he expects so. But not the SHIELD runs – Sapience will be finishing those.
12. Will we ever get mounts for monster play?
    There are currently no plans for that.
13. Question about the new LI system
    He doesn’t have a lot of new info to share on that right now. Probably as we get closer to U15 they will start talking about them more.
    Druidsfire points out in the chat that Frelorn is a very cool guy. Sapience agrees.
    Sapience reminds everyone that the Summer Festival is going on right now in-game.
14. A lot of crying in the chat
    Sapience says he’s still around until August 1st, and that he’s going to be finishing up all the SHIELD runs. He says we’re also all welcome to come and join him with Extra Life. He’s going to be doing some streams for them, and some streams for himself – his Extra Life marathon, some stuff he’s promised to do in LotRO as part of his Extra Life fundraising that he’s going to be doing, at $30k he’s going to be doing a pre-Extra Life 5 hour stream in August as well. A reminder that his personal Twitch account has changed.
15. Will U14.1 be on Bullroarer?
    No, it will not be. They’re really turning it around fast. He’s got the release notes about halfway done right now and there’s some great stuff in there. He thinks Minstrels will be very happy. He knows Deviled_Egg already told them some of the stuff that’s coming for them. He just spoke with Jinjaah about some changes coming for monster players and other things, and one thing that he’s going to give us right now is, Fangorn incrementals, instead of being an 18 hour cooldown, Quickbeam will now ponder for just a few seconds. So we won’t have to wait 18 hours to do the Fangorn repeatables anymore as of 14.1. The cooldowns will basically be eliminated.
16. Does 14.1 have a date?
    Yes it does, it’s coming at the end of the month. He doesn’t know if the date is finalized yet so doesn’t want to give a date that might move a bit, but it’s probably coming sooner than we think. He will still be here when U14.1 goes out. Let’s put it that way.
17. Does Frelorn have a beard as awesome as the one you have?
    He has a goatee, actually.
18. Is the Beorning in 14.1?
    No, that’s U15. Still a ways off.
19. Which servers have you done this on so far?
    There is a full schedule on the Twitch page. This is the 9th server, so there are 20 more to go. Brandywine is Thursday the 24thand Estel will be on the 29th. The last official run with him as Community Manager is Gwaihir on July 31. The following week they’ll be slightly different because he won’t know as much and won’t have as much info to share. But all the runs will be done and they’ll still be honoring the festival for the winning server.
20. Are you going to miss having all the inside info when you go back to being a regular player?
    He’s thought about that. He started out as a player and he was always excited with the surprises about new things coming to the game. Knowing what was coming sort of took that away for him a bit, so it will be cool going back to being surprised. He will miss having a bit of input into things, but it will be exciting to be out there and hear news.
21. People talk about benefits he’ll be losing on his characters
    In terms of his main characters, they’ve always been on a player account, that’s absolutely no different than ours. So they don’t have any special benefits. It’s not like he can admin himself all over the place. In fact, his play account is a lifetime.
22. Will you participate in any future runs as a player, assuming that they continue past SHIELD?
    Maybe, he doesn’t know. He thinks Frelorn needs to do his own thing. Sapience will have a lot of work on his hands with Extra Life. He definitely plans on making LotRO and Team Turbine part of his efforts over there because the community has been phenomenal for the past two years and he thinks he’s kind of leaving some work unfinished, as we sit at about $27k right now. So there’s work to be done for him.
23. Question about whether he will be reading his PMs up until he leaves
    Yes, he will, so those who still need help with the forums or community can still contact him.
24. Will you continue to lead Team Turbine for the following Extra Life events?
    This one, yes, because he’s already the captain. But in the future he doesn’t know. Someone at Turbine will probably step up. Considering what he’ll be doing in his new role, of course he will participate in some way.

[Sapience]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Maiar

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Maiar

Video available here.

1. Can you spill all the beans now?
   Which beans did you have in mind?
2. What kinds of things will you be doing in your new position?
   Kind of the same things, really. For those who don’t know, August 1st is his last day at Turbine. He will be moving on to Extra Life as their community manager.
3. Now you can tell all the secrets!
   You’re still not going to get any of the deep dark secrets from him. One of the really cool things about the Tuesday 2:30PM runs is that he literally leaves a planning meeting and comes straight over to do the stream, and his head is all full of stuff he can’t tell us.
4. People express sadness that he’s leaving
   He doesn’t look at it as leaving us. He’s going to keep doing the SHIELD runs. He’s going to be shuffling the schedule around to get them done faster, but he’s not leaving just yet. Plus we’ll still get to hear from him and see him. We still have a chance to inflict pain on him if we meet the Extra Life goal this year and force him to get a tattoo. He’s thinking about turning the halo over the controller in the logo into The One Ring in honor of us.
5. Will you still play? Will you stick to certain servers?
   He’s probably going to go back to his original server that he played on exclusively, which members of his kinship are probably thrilled to hear. He may pop into other servers, but he’ll probably be going back to that server and some of the characters that he left behind there. He hasn’t yet decided if he’s going to tell us what server that is.
6. If you get the tattoo are we all invited to come and watch?
   He actually got a really nice PM from a player who owns one of the largest tattoo and piercing shops in Boston, and he has donated his shop to do the work, and the time. So if we hit $100k and he’s OK with it, he’ll see about doing photos and videos or something. He thinks it’s very cool that we have a player who’s actually going to end up doing the tattoo.
7. Can you now or will you later reveal your characters on the servers?
   Later he probably can and will. He knows he’s got a couple of things he’s doing for Extra Life that he’s promised as part of his fundraising – playing creep-side and freep-side – and he may do his freep-side stuff on one of his actual characters. He always has a few characters that he keeps secret, even from guild-mates.
8. Someone suggests a full back tattoo
   He’d be expecting $250K or $500k for something that size. For this one he’s thinking shoulder or upper arm.
9. Will Frelorn be assuming custody of Hadacar and Tosmii?
   Hadacar is on an admin account, so he might. Tosmii is not. Tosmii is coming with him, which is why he’ll be able to finish the runs. Because if he were on an admin account he couldn’t finish, because he would not have access to the account anymore.
10. Who will be taking over for you when you’re gone?
    Frelorn will be taking over as community manager for LotRO. We should start to see more from him in the coming days.
11. Will Frelorn be looking to continue Twitch streams?
    They’ve had a conversation about it so yes, he expects so. But not the SHIELD runs – Sapience will be finishing those.
12. Will we ever get mounts for monster play?
    There are currently no plans for that.
13. Question about the new LI system
    He doesn’t have a lot of new info to share on that right now. Probably as we get closer to U15 they will start talking about them more.
    Druidsfire points out in the chat that Frelorn is a very cool guy. Sapience agrees.
    Sapience reminds everyone that the Summer Festival is going on right now in-game.
14. A lot of crying in the chat
    Sapience says he’s still around until August 1st, and that he’s going to be finishing up all the SHIELD runs. He says we’re also all welcome to come and join him with Extra Life. He’s going to be doing some streams for them, and some streams for himself – his Extra Life marathon, some stuff he’s promised to do in LotRO as part of his Extra Life fundraising that he’s going to be doing, at $30k he’s going to be doing a pre-Extra Life 5 hour stream in August as well. A reminder that his personal Twitch account has changed.
15. Will U14.1 be on Bullroarer?
    No, it will not be. They’re really turning it around fast. He’s got the release notes about halfway done right now and there’s some great stuff in there. He thinks Minstrels will be very happy. He knows Deviled_Egg already told them some of the stuff that’s coming for them. He just spoke with Jinjaah about some changes coming for monster players and other things, and one thing that he’s going to give us right now is, Fangorn incrementals, instead of being an 18 hour cooldown, Quickbeam will now ponder for just a few seconds. So we won’t have to wait 18 hours to do the Fangorn repeatables anymore as of 14.1. The cooldowns will basically be eliminated.
16. Does 14.1 have a date?
    Yes it does, it’s coming at the end of the month. He doesn’t know if the date is finalized yet so doesn’t want to give a date that might move a bit, but it’s probably coming sooner than we think. He will still be here when U14.1 goes out. Let’s put it that way.
17. Does Frelorn have a beard as awesome as the one you have?
    He has a goatee, actually.
18. Is the Beorning in 14.1?
    No, that’s U15. Still a ways off.
19. Which servers have you done this on so far?
    There is a full schedule on the Twitch page. This is the 9th server, so there are 20 more to go. Brandywine is Thursday the 24thand Estel will be on the 29th. The last official run with him as Community Manager is Gwaihir on July 31. The following week they’ll be slightly different because he won’t know as much and won’t have as much info to share. But all the runs will be done and they’ll still be honoring the festival for the winning server.
20. Are you going to miss having all the inside info when you go back to being a regular player?
    He’s thought about that. He started out as a player and he was always excited with the surprises about new things coming to the game. Knowing what was coming sort of took that away for him a bit, so it will be cool going back to being surprised. He will miss having a bit of input into things, but it will be exciting to be out there and hear news.
21. People talk about benefits he’ll be losing on his characters
    In terms of his main characters, they’ve always been on a player account, that’s absolutely no different than ours. So they don’t have any special benefits. It’s not like he can admin himself all over the place. In fact, his play account is a lifetime.
22. Will you participate in any future runs as a player, assuming that they continue past SHIELD?
    Maybe, he doesn’t know. He thinks Frelorn needs to do his own thing. Sapience will have a lot of work on his hands with Extra Life. He definitely plans on making LotRO and Team Turbine part of his efforts over there because the community has been phenomenal for the past two years and he thinks he’s kind of leaving some work unfinished, as we sit at about $27k right now. So there’s work to be done for him.
23. Question about whether he will be reading his PMs up until he leaves
    Yes, he will, so those who still need help with the forums or community can still contact him.
24. Will you continue to lead Team Turbine for the following Extra Life events?
    This one, yes, because he’s already the captain. But in the future he doesn’t know. Someone at Turbine will probably step up. Considering what he’ll be doing in his new role, of course he will participate in some way.

Everything looks good here. One update to Question # 16: Update 14.1 is currently scheduled for Monday July 28.

[Rasdun]

Best wishes Sapience and thanks for all your efforts you've made over the years on behalf Lotro players. I'm sure working for an organization whose goal is helping to heal kids will be very rewarding!

[angosaxen]

You said that raids and end content weren't a priority because of cost and it not being as popular as other content but what about skirmishes? As far as I know skirmishes have gone a long time without any changes but are they still being worked on? Or are they also not cost effective and/or not as popular as other content?

[Thurallor]

Congrats Estel, for not only obliterating the overall fastest time, but establishing new records for six out of eight legs of the race: updated times

[frickinmuck]

SHEILD Dwarf Run Q&A – Brandywine

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.

SHEILD Dwarf Run Q&A – Brandywine

Video available here.

1. Is there any chance the next festival will have a non-tablecloth steed?
   He has passed on the comments about some of the cosmetics that the horses have been wearing. He hasn’t heard anything back about what the next steeds will be. He will make the recommendation again.
2. Will Frelorn be making a guest appearance in any of the SHIELD streams?
   He has no idea. He does know he’s planning on doing a couple of his own streams, in a slightly different format. He was talking about maybe having players help him level up, because his character is behind the level cap. So he would expect to see something like that.
3. Will there be a chance we can dye our weapons?
   Cosmetic weapons are something that’s not really on the table. There have been discussions about it from time to time. It’s not as straightforward or simple as players might think.
4. Do the morale and power bars onscreen belong to fellowship members?
   Yes, they do. You can add up to 24 people in a raid group, so you’ll end up with 12 on each side of the screen.
5. Have there been any thoughts about the cost of war-steed dyes, or making them account bound?
   He has passed the suggestion along a couple of times to his cube-mate, who is in charge of such things, and he is aware of the desire. He doesn’t know whether there’s been any movement on that and he’s out today so he can’t ask him. But he is very much aware of the request.
6. Any chance of seeing an account-wide Stone of the Tortoise?
   Not that he’s really confident in. It’s been discussed a couple of times. File that under Never Say Never. He’s aware of no current plans to do this.
7. Comment in the forums that the regular viewers need to pick a server and start a kinship
   If they do it, he wants to know where it is.
8. Any word on a new festival?
   If by that you mean an entirely new festival that isn’t one of the currently existing ones, nothing in the works at this time. LotRO basically has festivals for every season plus a couple, plus some weekend events that run from time to time. He thinks it’s more likely we’d see some more weekend events get added before we’d see an entirely new festival.
9. When will the next treasure hunt come?
   August 22 – 24th will be the next treasure event.
10. After SHEILD is done and you’re gone, any chance of more livestream events like this?
    We’d have to ask Frelorn, it’s entirely up to him.
11. Will there be new loot for the Shipwrecked Mariner event?
    He doesn’t think there are any plans to add new prizes.
12. Who is standing behind you?
    Tolero from the DDO team. Tolero jokes about getting her name written across her back so people can see who she is.
13. Once you leave, who from Turbine is taking over Extra Life – if anyone?
    Good question. There are several people who play for Team Turbine who aren’t public facing. He doesn’t know. He does know that as an employee of Extra Life he will still be able to fundraise, so he will always be fundraising for Boston Children’s Hospital and he’ll always have his Extra Life fundraiser. If Turbine has a team next year he may join it.
14. Are there any plans for more of this type of server contest?
    He has no idea what Frelorn is planning. He knows what he was planning. He was planning on doing three of these events. These were designed by the players, and he wants to give a shout out to Ransroth because it was him who encouraged him to do the SHIELD runs. Frelorn will have his own ideas.
15. Any chance of Frelorn joining this evening?
    Unfortunately no.
16. What is Dead Hobbits Society?
    During the TTHTI runs, the hobbits who died along the way would port back to the milestone outside the Prancing Pony and lie there, becoming ‘dead hobbits’. So when the run was over he’d port back there and there would be all these hobbit bodies politely arrayed around the milestone. They became known as the Dead Hobbit Society. There was a discussion earlier in this stream about forming a kinship of people who regularly turn up in Twitch chat for these events, and it seems they’ve chosen Dead Hobbit Society for the name and have chosen Landroval as the server to form it on.
17. Any chance of bringing Tolero into the stream?
    This is kind of a LotRO specific thing, but he thinks it’s cool people want to learn about other projects. For those who don’t know, Tolero was community manager for DDO and now she’s working on marketing for them. He thinks it’s a good idea though, and will mention that to Frelorn when he’s looking for ideas, and mention that players would like to have some interaction from other people in the building, not just LotRO folks. Tolero says in the background that she’s willing to do it as long as Frelorn agrees to go to their streams as well. They joke about signing Frelorn up for stuff randomly, and agree they should talk to him about it. Tolero suggests getting the Quartermasters into the stream as well, and Sapience agrees that’s a good idea, so that players get a chance to talk to the people responsible for the store.
18. Any word from HoarseDev on the furniture update/fix?
    Not that he’s aware of. He didn’t see it on the U14.1 patch notes, but he will ask him about it.
19. Are all the servers on the same server time, even the EU ones?
    Yes they are, because they are all physically hosted on the east coast of the US.
    Tosmii comes frighteningly close to being thrown off the east arch of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and Sapience lets out a terrified groan.
20. What kind of livestreams do the DDO team do?
    Cordovan, who is the DDO community manager, does a couple of streams a week on their channel.
21. Anything new you can reveal about the Beorning?
    If you haven’t already heard, it’s starting at level 1. He’s seen some of the concept art for it and it looks really cool, and he does know there were some conversations about creating an intro story for it. Not an intro area, but an intro story and plotline that explains where they’re from, why they’re here and what they’re doing.
22. When will the Beorning art be released, and will it be released like Riders of Rohan, one piece at a time?
    He has no idea. He can guarantee it will be later in the year as they get closer to releasing the Beorning.
23. What race is the Beorning going to be?
    It will be exactly what Tolkien said it was, and that is a man. Tolkien said that Beorn is many things, including a little bit of a magician, but he was most assuredly a man. So we’ll be able to be male and female, but the only race will be man.
24. Comment about wanting to start at level 50
    Get a Gift of the Valar, and you can do that.
25. Sapience mentions that he’s going to revise the schedule to make the events move more quickly – doing two a day on some weeks.

[frickinmuck]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Estel

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Estel

Video available here.

1. Someone comments on the brightness in Moria
   He does have his gamma settings up really high to make it easier for people to see. Some people were complaining about how dark the picture was.
2. Does Extra Life have an ice cream vending machine?
   He’ll actually be working from home. So after Thursday’s run, which his last official run as a Turbine employee, the rest of the streams will be done from his house.
3. Will you continue to stream LotRO from your Sapience Twitch account?
   Yes, he will. He’ll do LotRO, he’ll do some other stuff. He’ll do some Extra Life stuff as well. Because the Extra Life fundraiser has gotten past $30k, he owes us a bonus stream, a pre-marathon stream of about 5 hours. He hasn’t decided what he’ll play for that or when it will be, but it will probably be in the next couple weeks, on a weekend.
4. What do you think of the trailer for the Hobbit Battle of Five Armies?
   He thought it was very cool. He had a tremendous amount of players scream at him “WAR GOATS!!” and he did pass that feedback along. If war goats make it into the game it will be because of all the people who watched that trailer and said, “Rick, Rick, you’ve got to have war goats now!” But personally, he’s looking forward to the movie.
5. Question about the schedule changes
   Yes, he did change the schedule up to have two SHIELD runs a day, an EU server earlier in the day and a NA server later in the day. He also moved them to an hour later than when they were previously. If a significant number of people find that time change problematic he will be more than happy to move them back by an hour again. He doesn’t want to make it hard for people to participate. He just moved it to later because some people were saying that it was too early for them to be able to participate.
6. Will the Erebor regions that were introduced as instances be included in the future as full areas and not just the instances?
   Hard to say, but definitely not at the top of the list at this time.
7. Comment in the chat about being happy the streams are a half hour to 45 minutes now
   That was actually a big complaint that a lot of people had about the TTHTI runs – that they could go to two hours or more, and people had a hard time participating for that long. These being 30 – 60 minutes makes it easier for everyone.
8. Silmarillion games or movies?
   That’s going to take a lot of convincing with Christopher Tolkien. He would be surprised if any of that came to pass.
9. Does Saul Zaentz own all Tolkien rights?
   He doesn’t know the extent of the rights. He does know that it specifically refers to the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, and the entertainment rights to them. So they couldn’t make another book, he doesn’t think. But everything else – Silmarillion and Book of Lost Tales – is retained by the family and not Middle Earth Enterprises. Which is why he said that a Silmarillion game or movie has very long odds.
10. A Silmarillion film has about as good odds as Sapience getting a tattoo of Shelob on his heinie
    The movie probably has a bit better odds (laughs).
    Estel beats the best time to take over first place. Sapience says “Vive le France!” and congratulates them. He says that’s the best French we’ll get out of him for the next 10 years. He gives full credit and high praise to Emerelda for doing such a great job of leading the run. Sapience points out that they kept him out of combat for the entire run, he has no loot in his bags, and that probably contributed to the fast time.
11. Someone asks if Sapience will reveal which server he mostly plays on, as a reward for Estel doing such a great job
    In Thursday’s run, which is his last run as LotRO Community Manager, he will tell us which server his main characters are on, characters he’ll go back to. He won’t tell character names, but just the server name.
12. Someone jokes about Turbine having a secret employee only server called Lobelia
    No, there actually isn’t a secret server that only employees play on.
13. Sapience closes off and says he’s going to complete one of his last acts for the Players Council, which is to sort out the list of which council members will be invited to Boston to meet the team. He’ll be handing off that list to Frelorn so he can get the invited members over.

[Sapience]

SHEILD Dwarf Run Q&A – Brandywine

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.

SHEILD Dwarf Run Q&A – Brandywine

Video available here.

1. Is there any chance the next festival will have a non-tablecloth steed?
   He has passed on the comments about some of the cosmetics that the horses have been wearing. He hasn’t heard anything back about what the next steeds will be. He will make the recommendation again.
2. Will Frelorn be making a guest appearance in any of the SHIELD streams?
   He has no idea. He does know he’s planning on doing a couple of his own streams, in a slightly different format. He was talking about maybe having players help him level up, because his character is behind the level cap. So he would expect to see something like that.
3. Will there be a chance we can dye our weapons?
   Cosmetic weapons are something that’s not really on the table. There have been discussions about it from time to time. It’s not as straightforward or simple as players might think.
4. Do the morale and power bars onscreen belong to fellowship members?
   Yes, they do. You can add up to 24 people in a raid group, so you’ll end up with 12 on each side of the screen.
5. Have there been any thoughts about the cost of war-steed dyes, or making them account bound?
   He has passed the suggestion along a couple of times to his cube-mate, who is in charge of such things, and he is aware of the desire. He doesn’t know whether there’s been any movement on that and he’s out today so he can’t ask him. But he is very much aware of the request.
6. Any chance of seeing an account-wide Stone of the Tortoise?
   Not that he’s really confident in. It’s been discussed a couple of times. File that under Never Say Never. He’s aware of no current plans to do this.
7. Comment in the forums that the regular viewers need to pick a server and start a kinship
   If they do it, he wants to know where it is.
8. Any word on a new festival?
   If by that you mean an entirely new festival that isn’t one of the currently existing ones, nothing in the works at this time. LotRO basically has festivals for every season plus a couple, plus some weekend events that run from time to time. He thinks it’s more likely we’d see some more weekend events get added before we’d see an entirely new festival.
9. When will the next treasure hunt come?
   August 22 – 24th will be the next treasure event.
10. After SHEILD is done and you’re gone, any chance of more livestream events like this?
    We’d have to ask Frelorn, it’s entirely up to him.
11. Will there be new loot for the Shipwrecked Mariner event?
    He doesn’t think there are any plans to add new prizes.
12. Who is standing behind you?
    Tolero from the DDO team. Tolero jokes about getting her name written across her back so people can see who she is.
13. Once you leave, who from Turbine is taking over Extra Life – if anyone?
    Good question. There are several people who play for Team Turbine who aren’t public facing. He doesn’t know. He does know that as an employee of Extra Life he will still be able to fundraise, so he will always be fundraising for Boston Children’s Hospital and he’ll always have his Extra Life fundraiser. If Turbine has a team next year he may join it.
14. Are there any plans for more of this type of server contest?
    He has no idea what Frelorn is planning. He knows what he was planning. He was planning on doing three of these events. These were designed by the players, and he wants to give a shout out to Ransroth because it was him who encouraged him to do the SHIELD runs. Frelorn will have his own ideas.
15. Any chance of Frelorn joining this evening?
    Unfortunately no.
16. What is Dead Hobbits Society?
    During the TTHTI runs, the hobbits who died along the way would port back to the milestone outside the Prancing Pony and lie there, becoming ‘dead hobbits’. So when the run was over he’d port back there and there would be all these hobbit bodies politely arrayed around the milestone. They became known as the Dead Hobbit Society. There was a discussion earlier in this stream about forming a kinship of people who regularly turn up in Twitch chat for these events, and it seems they’ve chosen Dead Hobbit Society for the name and have chosen Landroval as the server to form it on.
17. Any chance of bringing Tolero into the stream?
    This is kind of a LotRO specific thing, but he thinks it’s cool people want to learn about other projects. For those who don’t know, Tolero was community manager for DDO and now she’s working on marketing for them. He thinks it’s a good idea though, and will mention that to Frelorn when he’s looking for ideas, and mention that players would like to have some interaction from other people in the building, not just LotRO folks. Tolero says in the background that she’s willing to do it as long as Frelorn agrees to go to their streams as well. They joke about signing Frelorn up for stuff randomly, and agree they should talk to him about it. Tolero suggests getting the Quartermasters into the stream as well, and Sapience agrees that’s a good idea, so that players get a chance to talk to the people responsible for the store.
18. Any word from HoarseDev on the furniture update/fix?
    Not that he’s aware of. He didn’t see it on the U14.1 patch notes, but he will ask him about it.
19. Are all the servers on the same server time, even the EU ones?
    Yes they are, because they are all physically hosted on the east coast of the US.
    Tosmii comes frighteningly close to being thrown off the east arch of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and Sapience lets out a terrified groan.
20. What kind of livestreams do the DDO team do?
    Cordovan, who is the DDO community manager, does a couple of streams a week on their channel.
21. Anything new you can reveal about the Beorning?
    If you haven’t already heard, it’s starting at level 1. He’s seen some of the concept art for it and it looks really cool, and he does know there were some conversations about creating an intro story for it. Not an intro area, but an intro story and plotline that explains where they’re from, why they’re here and what they’re doing.
22. When will the Beorning art be released, and will it be released like Riders of Rohan, one piece at a time?
    He has no idea. He can guarantee it will be later in the year as they get closer to releasing the Beorning.
23. What race is the Beorning going to be?
    It will be exactly what Tolkien said it was, and that is a man. Tolkien said that Beorn is many things, including a little bit of a musician, but he was most assuredly a man. So we’ll be able to be male and female, but the only race will be man.
24. Comment about wanting to start at level 50
    Get a Gift of the Valar, and you can do that.
25. Sapience mentions that he’s going to revise the schedule to make the events move more quickly – doing two a day on some weeks.

#23. Magician, not musician.
#24. Gift of the Valar should be available now in the LOTRO Store and is not going away. You will always be able to purchase it, whenever you wish.
#25. Schedule is revised and set up on Twitch.tv/lotrostream

[Sapience]

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Estel

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.

SHIELD Dwarf Run Q&A – Estel

Video available here.

1. Someone comments on the brightness in Moria
   He does have his gamma settings up really high to make it easier for people to see. Some people were complaining about how dark the picture was.
2. Does Extra Life have an ice cream vending machine?
   He’ll actually be working from home. So after Thursday’s run, which his last official run as a Turbine employee, the rest of the streams will be done from his house.
3. Will you continue to stream LotRO from your Sapience Twitch account?
   Yes, he will. He’ll do LotRO, he’ll do some other stuff. He’ll do some Extra Life stuff as well. Because the Extra Life fundraiser has gotten past $30k, he owes us a bonus stream, a pre-marathon stream of about 5 hours. He hasn’t decided what he’ll play for that or when it will be, but it will probably be in the next couple weeks, on a weekend.
4. What do you think of the trailer for the Hobbit Battle of Five Armies?
   He thought it was very cool. He had a tremendous amount of players scream at him “WAR GOATS!!” and he did pass that feedback along. If war goats make it into the game it will be because of all the people who watched that trailer and said, “Rick, Rick, you’ve got to have war goats now!” But personally, he’s looking forward to the movie.
5. Question about the schedule changes
   Yes, he did change the schedule up to have two SHIELD runs a day, an EU server earlier in the day and a NA server later in the day. He also moved them to an hour later than when they were previously. If a significant number of people find that time change problematic he will be more than happy to move them back by an hour again. He doesn’t want to make it hard for people to participate. He just moved it to later because some people were saying that it was too early for them to be able to participate.
6. Will the Erebor regions that were introduced as instances be included in the future as full areas and not just the instances?
   Hard to say, but definitely not at the top of the list at this time.
7. Comment in the chat about being happy the streams are a half hour to 45 minutes now
   That was actually a big complaint that a lot of people had about the TTHTI runs – that they could go to two hours or more, and people had a hard time participating for that long. These being 30 – 60 minutes makes it easier for everyone.
8. Silmarillion games or movies?
   That’s going to take a lot of convincing with Christopher Tolkien. He would be surprised if any of that came to pass.
9. Does Saul Zaentz own all Tolkien rights?
   He doesn’t know the extent of the rights. He does know that it specifically refers to the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, and the entertainment rights to them. So they couldn’t make another book, he doesn’t think. But everything else – Silmarillion and Book of Lost Tales – is retained by the family and not Middle Earth Enterprises. Which is why he said that a Silmarillion game or movie has very long odds.
10. A Silmarillion film has about as good odds as Sapience getting a tattoo of Shelob on his heinie
    The movie probably has a bit better odds (laughs).
    Estel beats the best time to take over first place. Sapience says “Vive le France!” and congratulates them. He says that’s the best French we’ll get out of him for the next 10 years. He gives full credit and high praise to Emerelda for doing such a great job of leading the run. Sapience points out that they kept him out of combat for the entire run, he has no loot in his bags, and that probably contributed to the fast time.
11. Someone asks if Sapience will reveal which server he mostly plays on, as a reward for Estel doing such a great job
    In Thursday’s run, which is his last run as LotRO Community Manager, he will tell us which server his main characters are on, characters he’ll go back to. He won’t tell character names, but just the server name.
12. Someone jokes about Turbine having a secret employee only server called Lobelia
    No, there actually isn’t a secret server that only employees play on.
13. Sapience closes off and says he’s going to complete one of his last acts for the Players Council, which is to sort out the list of which council members will be invited to Boston to meet the team. He’ll be handing off that list to Frelorn so he can get the invited members over.

All looks good!

[frickinmuck]

#23. Magician, not musician.

Of all the typos from these runs, that is by far the funniest. And I know that quote well because you guys have used it a lot. Totally hilarious. I guess I will have to play one of my Beorning as a musician now.

[robbie1435]

#23. Magician, not musician.
#24. Gift of the Valar should be available now in the LOTRO Store and is not going away. You will always be able to purchase it, whenever you wish.
#25. Schedule is revised and set up on Twitch.tv/lotrostream

Next run I'm asking about your Dwarrowdelf toons >_<

[Star-Man_1976]

What is Dead Hobbits Society?
During the TTHTI runs, the hobbits who died along the way would port back to the milestone outside the Prancing Pony and lie there, becoming ‘dead hobbits’. So when the run was over he’d port back there and there would be all these hobbit bodies politely arrayed around the milestone. They became known as the Dead Hobbit Society. There was a discussion earlier in this stream about forming a kinship of people who regularly turn up in Twitch chat for these events, and it seems they’ve chosen Dead Hobbit Society for the name and have chosen Landroval as the server to form it on.

The kinship name isn't Dead Hobbit Society. Visit the stream chats to find out the real name.

[Thurallor]

Next run I'm asking about your Dwarrowdelf toons >_<

His Dwarrowdelf alts are Hadacar and Tosmii.

[Mar-Evayave]

All looks good!

I thought the copyright to The Hobbit was dropped by Turbine? Obviously WB still has it, otherwise the movies would never have seen the light of day, but I thought (as relates to LOTRO) we could only work out of the trilogy and the trilogy's appendices.