Sammelthema Fragen und Antworten aus den Frelorn Livestreams

[Thrifkori]

Frelorn Test Stream 14.8.2014

Bitte beachtet: Ich umschreibe hier. Alles hier gesagte ist meine Interpretation dessen, was gesagt wurde und ist ohne Gewähr und kann korrigiert werden, also nehmt all dies nicht als das letzte Wort.

Wenn irgendjemand, der anwesend war, irgendwelche Ergänzungen oder Berichtigungen hat, kann er dies gerne posten.

Frelorn Test Stream 14.8.2014

Video ist hier und hier verfügbar


1. Frelorn erklärt er macht einen spontanen Livestream, um den Sound und das Video zu testen,
damit kommende Livestreams möglichst fehlerfrei ablaufen.

2. Spieler beklagen sie können ihn nur schlecht hören.
Er muss sich wohl ein besseres Headset besorgen.

3. Jemand frägt über die ALS Ice Bucket Challenge bei der Turbine letzte Woche teilgenommen hat (ALS ist auch als Lou-Gehrig-Syndrom bekannt).
Das Wasser war sehr sehr kalt. Sie haben 15 Minuten auf dem Kameramann warten müssen, das Wasser hatte also Zeit richtig kalt zu werden.

4. Jemand fragt nach Frelorns Plänen bezüglich Streams
Er wird sich einen Charakter erstellen und komplett bis zum Ende durchspielen.
Er wir auch das Monsterspiel testen und sobald der Beorninger eingeführt wird den auch.
Dann gibt es noch ein paar Dinge über die er versucht zu streamen, basierend auf Spielervorschlägen aus dem Forum.
Da gibt es richtig gute Dinge, die dann nicht von seinem Arbeitsplatz gestreamt werden.
Sie haben im Gebäude ein Aufnahmestudio und werden es benutzen, damit es cooler und professioneller ausschaut.
Und hoffentlich nehmen auch Rowan und andere Teammember öfter daran teil.

5. Jemand äußert seinen Wunsch, eine Gefährtengruppe aus Entwicklern eine Instanz laufen, zu sehen.
Das liegt sehr wohl im Bereich des Möglichen.

6. Jemand frägt, wer das hinter Frelorn ist
Frelorn frägt Jacob nach seinem Forumnamen. Es ist QuartermasterU, der Verkaufsleiter und Internethandelsmanager.

7. Jemand frägt auf welchem Server QuartermasterU online ist
Er braucht die Information nicht mitteilen. die Mitarbeiter bevorzugen es ihre Anonymität zu wahren,#
wenn sie das Spiel spielen.

8. Frelorn sagt er freut sich schon auf das streamen
Er wird einen Zeitplan aufstellen und gibt allen vorzeitig via Twitter, Facebook, die Foren usw. Bescheid.
Er hat schon eine Dinge gefunden, die Sapience zurückgelassen hat, die man als Mitbringsel verwenden kann.
Spielzeug und Süßigkeiten, Spiele und Beute.
Er hat bereits während seiner Zeit bei Infinite Crisis ein bisschen gestreamt,
also wenn er alle technischen Dinge gelöst hat sollte alles reibungslos laufen.
Er hat schon ein paar gute Ideen und kann sich hoffentlich gut darin einarbeiten.

9. Hat Sapience irgendwelche Süßigkeiten zurückgelassen?
Nein hat er nicht. Glücklicherweise, weil die wäre inzwischen bestimmt schlecht geworden.
Er hat ein bisschen neapolitanisches Astronauten Eis zurückgelassen, von dem ihm gesagt wurde es sei richtig gut.
Aber er traut es sich nicht zu öffen, weil es dann weg ist. Also hebt er es sich für Notfälle auf.
Vielleicht in einem Fluchtbeutel zu Hause.

10. Frelorn gibt uns ein bisschen Hintergrundinformationen über sich selbst.
Er ist nun seit über zehn Jahren bei Turbine.
Angefangen hat er als Kundenbetreuer und sich dann ins Community Management eingearbeitet.
Er hat mit Asheron's Call angefangen, dann Asheron's Call 2. Dann war er eine zeitlang PvMP Community Manager, bis er
Nordamerikanischer Communitymanager für Batman: Arkham City. Er hat an den Gotham City Clowns gearbeitet und hat die ganzen Organisationsarbeiten gemacht.
Die letzten paar Jahre war er bei Infinite Crisis und jetzt ist er wieder bei HdRO.
Er hat viel von seiner Arbeit bei anderen Spielen gelernt und hofft nunt neue Ideen und frischen Wind in HdRO zu bringen.
Sie werden ein paar Wettbewerbe veranstalten, wenn man also nicht auf Facebook oder Twitter ist,
wird man vielleicht nicht glücklich darüber sein, aber er kann es nur empfehlen, da es tolle Preise zu gewinnen gibt.
Er ermutigt auch Spieler selbst zu streamen. Sie werden auch Streamprogramm starten, bei dem Spieler Material zum streamen bekommen.
Vielleicht ein paar T-Shirts oder andere Dinge, die sie aus dem Boden zaubern können.
Da gibt es viel Material, das ihm im Kopf rumschwirrt und er uns antun wird.
Die Spieler haben ihn sehr herzlich empfangen und er denkt HdRO ist ein großartiges Spiel.
Er hat es gemocht, als er hier gearbeitet hat und freut sich nun wieder daran zu arbeiten.
Er arbeitet auch daran HdRo auf Twitch zu vereinigen, da es einen Account für Moria gibt, einen für Helms Klamm und für viele andere Dinge je einen Account.
Er versucht das ganze also zu vereinheitlichen, damit man HdRO einfacher findet.
Eins seiner Ziele ist es, dass er viele Spieler zum Streamen bekommt, da dann viele andere sehen, wie geil dieses Spiel ist und es auch anfangen.
Er errinert Spieler daran, dass er für Vorschläge offen ist.

11. Frage über seinen Bart
Normalerweise hat er einen Bart, aber da gab es einen verrückten Rasierunfall, aber eer wird wiederkommen.

12. Jemand frägt ob Frelorn Sapience dauerhafte Vertretung ist
Ja, das ist er

13. Kannst du uns zeigen, an was QuartermasterU arbeitet?
Nein kann er nicht, sonst sehen wir wie er verprügelt wird und das wäre nicht so gut.

14. Ein Spieler frägt, ob er sich an jemanden im Büro anschleichen kann
Nein das wird er nicht, auf diese Weise werden Leute verletzt.

15. Kommt Infinite Crisis bald?
Ja, tut es. Das Team arbeitet sehr hart daran. Es kommt bald ein großes Update und das wird klasse.
Wenn man also ein DC fan ist dann wird man es spielen wollen.
Es macht Spaß und ist großartig und er liebt jeden dort.

16. Jemand frägt ihn, ob er als Beorninger spielen wird
Sobald er rauskommt, wird er definitv einen spielen.

17. Wann werden wir als nächstes etwas über Beorninger erfahren?
Wenn sie mehr Informationen haben, die sie uns geben können. Es ist nicht einfach eine komplett neue Klasse aus dem Nichts zu erstellen.
Sobald sie mehr Details haben, werden sie, sie mit uns teilen.

18. Auf welchem Server wirst du spielen?
Das hat er noch nicht entschieden, er wird vielleicht eine Münze werfen oder eine Empfehlung seiner Kollegen einholen.
Das hat er noch nicht herausgefunden. Er hat für nächste Woch geplant das Streamingnetzwerk in Angriff zu nehmen.
Am Mittwoch streamen die von Dungeons und Dragons, also vielleicht am Donnerstag, Montag, Freitag oder Dienstag ist noch nicht entschieden.
Darum kümmert er sich mal.

19. Hat dir Sapience das Copyright für Soon gegeben?
Nein nein nein

20. Jemand schlägt Landroval vor
Landroval war sein erster Server, dort hat er auch noch ein paar Charaktere.
Als er mit dem Monsterspiel angefangen hat, war er sogut wie auf jedem Server unterwegs.

21. Frelorn sagt er muss die Youtube seite wiederbeleben und mehr Videos einstellen.
Es ist ihm auch willkommen, wenn wir ihm unsere konstruktive Kritik zu seinen Streams äußern.

22. Jemand erinnert ihn daran die Twitchvideos zu speichern, damit man sie sich später auch noch anschaun kann.
Das wird er machen. Er wird sie auf Youtube archivieren, da die wiedergabefunktion bei Twitch mangelhaft ist.

23. Jemand erwähnt, das seine Stimme nicht sehr laut ist
Das könnte daran liegen, das er eine sehr laute Stimme hat, die man im ganzen Gebäude hört und alle anderen nervt.
(QuartermasterU) nicht zustimmend im Hintergrund.
Er besorgt sich ein neues Headset fürs Streaming, etwas mit einem besseren Mikrofon.
Er wird etwa lauter reden, aber nicht zulaut, weil die Leute um ihm herum versuchen zu arbeiten.

24. Ist das ein Ork hinter dir?
Das ist ein Uruk-Hai namens Lurtz. Er hat auch einen Bogen und Gandalf.
Aber sein bestes Stück ist Peter Jackson als Korsar (PETER JACKSON als KORSAR!! – Frick).
Alles Geschenke eines Freundes, der ein großer HdRO fan ist.

25. Irgendwelche Geschenke mit allesn Aufgabenpacks und Erweiterungen?
Sag niemals nie. Er gibt alles weg, was sie ihn weggeben lassen und da gibt es ein paar Dinge, die er nicht verteilen darf.
Teilweise durch die Streams, Facebook, Twitter. Leute lieben es kostenloses Zeug zu bekommen.
Er geht ein bisschen im Büro umher und zeigt verschiedene Dinge die er bis dahin gefunden hat.
HdROpullis, Reiter von Rohan - T-Shirts, alte Spielanleitungen. Er hält einen Flyer mit Aufschrift "Freies Geschenk" hoch und sagt
er wird mehr darüber herausfinden.

26. hat HdRo einen Google+ Seite?
das wird er nachschauen.

27. Jemand frägt, ob QuartermasterU bestraft wurde, da er keinen Stuhl hat
Er benutzt normalerweise seinen Stehtisch. Er hat sich dafür entschieden im Stehen zu arbeiten. Verrückt.

28. Frelorn zeigt uns seine Spielzeugpistole und meint die Bürokriege mit so etwas sind ziemlich geil

29. Jemand frägt nach mehr T-Shirts
Sie schauen mehr zu bekommen. Sie haben coole Sachen dieses Jahr.

30. Wirst du jemals eine Spielanleitung machen
Das bezweifelt er. Das haben sie nichtmal am Anfang vernünftig hinbekommen und die meisten Leute benutzen Onlineanleitungen.
Es gibt also nicht viel Sinn eine Anleitung in Buchform zu erstellen.

31. Kannst du deinem Boss sagen, dass ich eine Option im HdROshop will bei dem man sich eine Figur aus seinem Charakter machen lassen kann?
Ich will einen männlichen Elbenbarden neben meinem Computerbildschirm.
Da rennst du offene Türen ein. Er kann es weiterleiten, er weiß aber nicht, ob das irgendetwas ändern wird.

32. Jemand frägt, ob Sapience seinen Bart abrasiert hat
Nein hat er nicht. Er ist nicht Sapience sondern Frelorn, der neue Community manager.
Sapience hat HdRO für Extra Life verlassen und ist derzeit in Las Vegas.

33. hast du einen Minikühlschrank auf deinem Tisch?
Ja, das hat er. Den hat er geerbt.

34. Habt ihr wirklich eine Eiscremeautomaten im Büro?
Ja und noch andere Automaten, eine Tischtennisplatte und eine Konsole.
Sie spielen auch viele Videospiele, nebenbei arbeiten sie aber auch noch.

35. Was spielt ihr so auf der Konsole?
Zu viel um alles zu benennen. Viele klassische Spiele.

36. Muss man studiert haben um bei Turbine arbeiten zu können?
Das weiß er nicht, er hat zumindest keinen. Er hat mit einem Hochschulabschluss angefangen und sich dann hochgearbeitet.

37. Ich könnte für Turbine arbeiten, komme aber aus Rumänien
Das wäre dann wohl ein sehr langer Arbeitsweg.

38. Ist es hart hier eine Anstellung zu bekommen?
Ja, es ist so schwer wie mit jedem Job. Solange man unten anfängt braucht man Erfahrung.
Aber er ist kein Personalmanager und seine Einstellung ist bereits zehn Jahre her.

Frelorn schliesst den Stream indem er sagt, dass er vielleicht morgen noch einen spontanen Stream macht,
aber sobald er reingekommen ist stellt er einen Zeitplan auf und bringt ein paar Spezialgäste mit Rowan und
andere Teamkollegen.
Dann machen sie Frage und Antwortenrunden, Spielen ein bisschen und andere Dinge.
Darauf freut er sich schon, aber vorerst wünscht er uns einen schönen Tag und bis zum nächsten Mal

Gefundene Rechtschreibfehler , Übersetzungsfehler usw. bitte an mich weiterleiten

[Thrifkori]

Frelorn Test Stream 21.8.2014

Bitte beachtet: Ich umschreibe hier. Alles hier gesagte ist meine Interpretation dessen, was gesagt wurde und ist ohne Gewähr und kann korrigiert werden, also nehmt all dies nicht als das letzte Wort.

Wenn irgendjemand, der anwesend war, irgendwelche Ergänzungen oder Berichtigungen hat, kann er dies gerne posten.

Frelorn Test Stream 21.8.2014

Video ist hier verfügbar


1. Wie wählst du den Charakter aus, den du für den Stream benutzt?
Er wird im Forum eine Umfrage machen, bei denen die Spieler die Klasse und Rasse auswählen.

2. Wirst du einen Beorninger spielen?
Ja, sobald die Klasse raus kommt, werde ich einen Stream als Beorninger machen.

3. Wirst du einen Stream aus den Etten machen?
Ja, aber dafür muss ich wohl etwas mehr planen. Spieler sind willkommen sich auf ihn zu stürzen und die Server zum
Absturz zu bringen.

4. Was für einen Accounttyp wirst du verwerden?
Er wird ein VIP Konto benutzen, damit er jedes Gebiet besuchen kann.

5. Wie lange spielst du schon HdRO?
Er hat damit angefangen, als das Spiel 2007 gestartet wurde.
Es ist aber ein paar Jahre her seit er das letzte Mal gespielt hat, es ist also eine Wiedereinstiegserfahrung.

6. Wie oft wirst du streamen?
So oft er kann, da er gerne streamt.
Dank den Spielern hat er nun auch Ideen, was noch so gestreamt werden könnte.

7. Würdest du einer Gefährtengruppe mit anderen Spielern beitreten?
Ja, wenn er sich hochlevelt und für die Mehrspielerinstanzen wird er bestimmt um Hilfe fragen.

8. Er erstellt einen Zeitplan nächste Woche, wann er gedenkt zu streamen. 1-2 Tage für das, ein paar Entwicklerstreams,
Updatestreams ein paar PvMPstreams.

9. Welche Klasse ist dein Main?
Sein Main ist ein Wächter, den er hochlevelt wenn er Zeit hat.
Auch wenn es hart ist während man seinen alten Job wieder kennenlernt.
Manchmal nimmt sich manchmal ein bisschen Zeit aus einem Meeting, damit er noch zum Spielen kommt.

10. Wirst du dich an den epischen Schlachten versuchen?
wenn er dahin kommt wird er es definitiv versuchen.
Das kann manchmal lustig, manchmal bedrückend sein, wenn man seine Fähigkeit zu spielen sieht.

11. Frelorn erwähnt, dass seit sie auf Twitter 50k Followers haben sie einen Schwanenumhang verteilen.
Der Code ist bis zum 25. gültig. Code für den Umhang ist SWAN und man kann ihn einmal pro Konto verwenden.

12. Kannst du die Geschenke während eines Streams verteilen?
Ja, er kann beides machen hier und auf Twitter.

13. Ist es uns erlaubt sich lustig zu machen, wenn du im Spiel versagst?
Ja, er wäre enttäuscht, wenn wir es nicht machen würden. Wir haben da freie Hand uns über ihn lustig zu machen.
Er ist Community Manager und hat ein dickes Fell.

14. Können wir uns das Zierwerk und die Rüstung deines Charakters aussuchen?
Ja, wir werden unsere Meinung zu seiner Ausrüstung etc. Wir können ihm alles vorschlagen, solange
wir ihn nicht sterben lassen, dass könnte teuer werden.

15. Mit welchem Programm streamst du?
XSplit Pro, er hat ein bisschen mit OBS herumgespielt, aber mit XSplit kommt er am Besten aus.

16. Er versucht seinen Streamingplan auch auf die Twitchhomepage zu stellen.
Es wird auch für die Spieler Gründe (Geschenke) geben zu streamen. Sie hoffen, dass wenn jemand richtig
gut im streamen ist, dass sie ihn dann von ihrerem HdRO Twitchkanal streamen lassen. Das hat er auch vorher bei Infinite Crisis gemacht.

17. Machst du auch was für europäische Spieler?
Er gibt sein bestes die Streams auch für Europäer attraktiv zu machen, indem er zumindest einen der Streams zu einer für Europäer annehmbaren Zeit macht.
Geschenke wie T-Shirts usw. sind regionsunabhängig.

18. Wenn er spielt dann streamt er meist auch, dass heißt, das neben dem Streamingzeitplan es passieren kann,
dass er spontan einen zusätzlichen Stream macht, weil er gerade eine Stunde frei hat.

19. Ist es möglich qualitativ höherwertige Videos auf Twitch einzustellen?
Das schaut er sich an und versucht die Qualitätseinstellungen für den Channel verfügbar zu machen.

20. Hast du irgendwelche Informationen zur Wahl von Sapience als Community Managers?
Nein hat er nicht. (die Wahl für den Dragon Slayer Award läuft noch. Um dafür oder andere Dinge abzustimmen hier klicken - Eldalleth)

21. Spieler im Chat warnen Frelorn, dass es sich vielen Streams um das Thema Essen drehen könnte
Frelorn meint damit hat er kein Problem. Im Chat geht es gerade um Speck und Frelorn erwähnt,
dass Popcorn mit Speck Geschmack hatte und es nicht so gut war, wie man es sich vielleicht vorstellt.
Jemand aus dem Team bringt Frelorn ein Raumspray mit Speckgeruch. Frelorn sagt, wenn er einen von denen
in seinem Auto hätte würde er es nie verlassen.

22. Was ist die Aufgabe eines Communitymanagers?
Das ist die beste Fangfrage. Ein Communitymanager ist der Verbindungskanal zwischen den Spielern und den Entwicklern.
Man kümmert sich um den Inhalt der Webseite, macht Streams oder Chats und gibt Informationen weiter, kümmert sich um die soziale Netzwerke und hilft mit
Inhalten und Ideen weiter. Zusätzlich kümmern sie sich auch das Rückmeldungen ankommen. Es ist ein sehr offener Job
und man tut alles um auszuhelfen. Jemand im Chat scherzt, dass er auch noch mit einer Spielzeugwaffe bewaffnet ist.

23. Um Streamer zu ermutigen hat er vor die Webseite entsprechend zu gestalten, vielleicht mit Hintergründen oder Musik und Einblendungen
um es Streamern einfacher zu machen.

24. Habt ihr schon an der ALS Ice Bucket Challenge teilgenommen?
Turbine hat es uns und Nether Realms, die von uns herausgefordert wurden haben die Herausforderung angenommen.
Sie haben sich sowohl eiskaltes Wasser über den Kopf gekippt, als auch gespendet. www.ALSA.org
(Turbine's Ice Bucket Challenge kann man hier sehen - Eldalleth)

[Thrifkori]

Falls jemand übersetzen mag (dann lösche ich den Beitrag hinterher):

Bin schon dran.
Hoffe mal ich bin am WE dann fertig

[Gangrell]

Besteht die Möglichkeit das man die Leute da auch mal was nützliches Fragen kann?

[Ayaria1988]

Besteht die Möglichkeit das man die Leute da auch mal was nützliches Fragen kann?

Natürlich - das Wort nennt sich Eigeninitiative - Registriere dich und frage, was du möchtest.

[Gangrell]

Und wofür haben wir den hochgelobten Spielerrat, wenn nicht für sowas?Die könnten doch mal Fragen sammeln und die weiterleiten....

[Ayaria1988]

Und wofür haben wir den hochgelobten Spielerrat, wenn nicht für sowas?Die könnten doch mal Fragen sammeln und die weiterleiten....

Der Spielerrat dient nicht dazu ein Feedback der Community weiterzugeben. Sie können es tun, müssen es aber nicht, sie sind ein erster Feedbackgeber, aber keine Verbundgemeinschaft mit uns.

[Hordvin]

Besteht die Möglichkeit das man die Leute da auch mal was nützliches Fragen kann?

Was denn zB?

Bitte nicht Raids usw, das wurde nämlich schon beim Hobbit Event ausführlich angesprochen.

In den Livestreamfragerunden wird es zwangsläufig immer nur kleine Häppchen geben und manchmal vielleicht auch nur belangsloses - aber das ist ja auch okay so.
Und irgendwelche "großen" Ankündigungen wird es dort eher nicht geben können.

[Thrifkori]

HdRO Update 14.2 Vorschau Tour 11/09/2014

Das Team startet mit einer Vorstellungsrunde.
Anwesend vor dem Computer, arbeitend und Fragen der Spieler annehmend sind Community Manager Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo, Produktionsleiter Aaron "Rowan" Campbell, Senior Inhaltsentwickler Jeff "MadeOfLions" Libby,
leitender Systementwickler Matt "HoarseDev" Zimmitti und Spielsystemsentwickler Leo "Ransroth" Zelevinsky.
Frelorn frägt das Entwicklerteam, was sie als erstes zeigen wollen.

Rowan: Es ist ein kleines Update, aber sie haben es geschafft ein paar Neuerungen hineinzuschmuggeln. Da gibt es zwei Dinge, die sie hervorheben möchten.
Einmal das neue Kollektionssystem, welches die Leute für die Reit- und Zierwerkstiere belohnt, die sie im Spiel gesammelt haben und das andere ist eine Vorschau auf
die Totensümpfe. Er möchte mit der Kollektion anfangen.

Das neue Kollektionssystem

Frelorn zeigt den Sammlungskanal. Er sagt, er hat bisher noch nichts gesammelt.

Der Kanal hatte eine Liste von Taten und einen Fortschrittsbalken für jede Tat. Wenn eine Tat selektiert wird, öffnet sich die entsprechende Tat und zeigt den verfügbaren
Titel und die Gegenstände, die man zur Erfüllung der Tat benötigt. Durch Klicken auf ein bestimmtes Tier bekommt man eine Vorschau davon.

HoarseDev: Da gibt es alle diese großartigen Belohnungen, aber keine Möglichkeit diese anzuzeigen, also wollten sie ein System kreieren, in dem man schauen kann, welche
Tiere man hat und wie man diese bekommt, wenn man sie nicht hat. Sie arbeiten auch an Belohnungen für das vervollständigen mehrerer Sammlungen, aber auch an Erweiterungen
neben Zierwerk- und Reittieren.
Sie sind sehr gespannt auf das neue System und haben bereits viele Rückmeldungen bekommen, von Leuten die das System gerne erweitert haben möchten.
Dieses Release ist der Startschuss für das neue System und sie sehen zu, dass es schon bald erweitert wird.
Rowan: Das Wichtigste aus seiner Sicht ist, dass uns gesagt wird, wo es die Tiere zu finden gibt.

Frelorn wird mitgeteilt, dass die Tonqualität recht schlecht ist, da sie durch den Ingamesound überdeckt wird, es werden Änderungen vorgenommen
und es geht weiter.

HoarseDev: Sie haben das neue System für ältere und neue Spieler entwickelt, da es alle möglichen Arten an Errungenschaften gibt, aber bislang keinen
Ort an dem man sehen konnte, was man verdient hat und zum Höhepunkt werden sie dann auch noch für das Sammeln dieser Gegenstände belohnt.
Sie möchten betonen, dass dies erst der Anfang des Systems ist. Es wird noch tonnenweise mehr von diesen Belohnungen geben, wie z.b. mehrere Festpferde oder
verschiedene Rufpferde.
Das ist ihr Anhaltspunkt für das neue System und dazu haben sie viele positiven Rückmeldungen bekommen. Sie werden definitiv mehr Sammlungen hinzufügen.
Eine der Dinge, die er am meisten mag ist, dass man egal ob man das Tier hat oder nicht, man sich anschauen kann, wie das Tier ausschaut.
HdRO gibt es schon eine ganze Weile und es gibt viele Leute, die sich auf Tiere spezialisiert haben und nun ist es möglich sich alle anzuschauen.
Darüber sind sie sehr gespannt.
Rowan: Wir haben bisher Titel als Belohnungen eingebaut, haben wir noch andere Ideen?
HoarseDev: Wir haben es im Moment recht einfach gehalten, aber wir können alle Arten von Items damit verfügbar machen, wie zusätzliche Reittiere oder
alles andere, was man ihm Spiel finden könnte. Sie haben mit Titeln angefangen, werden das Ganze bald erweitern und Spielern die Möglichkeit geben, alles
Mögliche zu sammeln.
Ransroth: Er ändert das Sammlungenfenster um zu demonstrieren, dass es nach Spielerwünschen angepasst werden kann und frägt sich, ob es möglich wäre,
dass Vorschaufenster zu vergrößern.
HoarseDev: Im Moment nicht, aber die Rückmeldungen gehen auch in diese Richtung und sie werden auch am Layout weiterarbeiten.

Frelorn frägt, ob es noch andere Fragen der Spieler bezüglich des Sammlungensystems gibt.

Warum diese neue System anstatt das Tatensystem herzunehmen?
HoarseDev: Sie haben sich das Tatensystem angeschaut und Gemeinsamkeiten festgestellt, aber kurz gesagt das Ganze dem alten Tatensystem hinzuzufügen
hätte die ganzen Charaktere überladen und es hätte keine Möglichkeit für eine Vorschau geboten. Es überlastet also nicht die Charaktere und
ist technisch gesehen eine performantere Lösung.

Gibt es ein Suchfenster?
HoarseDev: Er weiß nicht, ob es im Moment ein Suchfenster gibt, aber sie haben den Wunsch danach vernommen.
Im Moment gibt es noch recht wenig Sammlungen darin, aber sobald das Ganze größer wird, wird es Leute geben, die in der Lage sein wollen, etwas zu suchen.


Ist es möglich das Tatensystem in ein ähnliches Fenster zu packen? Dieses Fenster ist genial.
HoarseDev: Eines der Dinge, die sie gerne machen ist so etwas vorzuschlagen um dann zu sehen ob es rückwärts kompatibel ist, es wird also ein bisschen herumexperimentiert.
Das Tatensystem ist breit gefasster. Es handelt sich also um Dinge die nicht so einfach aufgebaut sind wie z.b. ein Pferd.
Wie die Wetterspitze zu besuchen, jetzt müssen sie ein Bild der Wetterspitze hinzufügen. Sie schauen sich also Wege das Ganze auszuschlachten und umzufüllen,
aber das alles ist eine andere Frage. Er denkt es ist sehr herausfordernd das System auf das Tatensystem zu übertragen.
Rowan: Da gibt es einen Haufen an Taten (Alle lachen und nicken).
Ransroth: Um die andere Frage zu beantworten. Jemand hat gefragt, ob damit das Tatensystem ersetzt wird.
HoarseDev: Nein.
Rowan: Das wird nicht das Tatensystem ersetzen.

Die Totensümpfe

MadeofLions: die Totensümpfe! Als erstes erzähle ich mal, wie wir zu den Totensümpfen gekommen sind. Es ist fast bei jedem Stream überrascht über welche Gebiete
wir uns unterhalten. Wie z.b. West Gondor. Spiele spielen nie in West Gondor oder die Totensümpfe. Er ist bisher nur in einem anderen Spiel in den Totensümpfen gestanden.
In fast keinem Spiel kommt man dahin und das war auch einer der Gründe warum sie sich während der Entwicklung des überfluteten Isengards Gedanken über die Totensümpfe gemacht haben.
Eine der Schwierigkeiten bei der Entwicklung war, dass es sich bei den Totensümpfen um eine Geheimmission handelt, die geheim bleiben muss, aber sie uns trotzdem die
Möglichkeit geben wollten nach Frodo und Sam zu schauen. Als die Entwickler die Totensümpfe erschaffen haben wurde schnell klar, dass da viel Arbeit hineingesteckt wird
um diesen Ort wirklich cool und unheimlich aussehen zu lassen, damit Spieler diesen Ort mit ihren eigenen Charakteren sehen können.
Es ist richtig cool Frodo und Sam auf ihrem Weg durch die Totensümpfe zu sehen. Also haben sie sich eine kurze Questreihe einfallen lassen, uns einen Grund zu geben die Totensümpfe
zu betreten. Durch die Questreihe wird ein Sitzungsspiel freigeschaltet, welches uns die Möglichkeit gibt das Gebiet näher anzuschauen.

MadeOfLions frägt Ransroth, ob er die Karte zeigen könnte. Sie ist relativ groß.

MadeOfLions: die Totensümpfe in all ihrem Glanz. Größer als ursprünglich angenommen um ehrlich zu sein (alle lachen).
Es war geplant zuerst nur ein Sitzungsspiel zu machen, aber dann haben sie sich aufgrund von Spielerrückmeldungen entschlossen es etwas zu vergrößern und mehr als nur
ein Sitzungspiel daraus zu machen.
Die Totensümpfe an sich sind ein Schlachtfeld aus dem Ende des Krieges der letzten Allianz. Die einzelnen Tümpel sind also mit sehr alten Leichen gefüllt. Orks, Menschen
und Elben und man kann sie immernoch sehen. Schwer zu sagen, ob es sich dabei um Geister aus Mordor handelt oder einfach nur um Sumpfgase, wahrscheinlich etwas von beidem.
Sie versuchen deinen Augen Streich zu spielen. Die Kapitel über die Reise Frodos, Sam und Gollum durch die Totensümpfe gehen etwas ins Detail mit den schaurigen Dingen,
die man dort findet und diese Erfahrung werden wir auch machen, wenn wir die Totensümpfe erkunden.
Es ist ein verwirrender, düsterer Ort, gewollt und er denkt die Atmosphäre ist ziemlich gut.

Frage ob, die Sammlungsoberfläche auch auf Deutsch und Französisch verfügbar ist
HoarseDev: Das hofft er (alle lachen).
Rowan: Das ist ihre Zielsetzung.

Die kleinen Lichter sind cool. Die Leute mögen vielleicht eigene Lichter zum Anzünden bekommen, ob als item oder Zierwerkstier
MadeOfLions: die Spielerseite in ihm sagt, das wäre richtig geil. die Geschichtsseit in ihm sagt, Gollum sagt das wenn Frodo und Sam den Toten beitreten
werden sie selber Lichter. Das ist ein bisschen ominös.
Ransroth: Sie müssten also sterben um so etwas zu können.
MadeOfLions: das ist eine unheimliche Sache. Aus der Spielperspektive wäre es cool soetwas als Verbrauchsgut in der Zukunft zu haben.
Ransroth: Du könntest eine Ork töten uns seine Seele aussaugen und dann in den Totensümpfen freilassen. Das klingt machbar.
HoarseDev: Sie werden ihre Ideen zu coolen Zierwerkstieren und dergleichen erweitern. Es werden also noch weiter Überraschungen kommen.

Frage über die Kosten der Region, da es viel mehr als erwartet ist
Rowan: Das ist kostenlos. Also genießt es.
HoarseDev: Um genau bleiben zu wollen. Es ist größer als ursprünglich geplant, aber es ist keine vollständige Region.
Sie haben das ganze überlegt und haben festgestellt, dass die Totensümpfe eine Schlüsselfigur in der Geschichte spielen, deshalb
wollten sie uns das Gefühl einer Einöde vermitteln und das haben sie dann gebaut.

Warum gibt es ein Orklager in den Totensümpfen? Laut den Büchern ist es karg und leer.
MadeOfLions: Es ist wichtig zu betonen, dass es der 1/2 März 3019 ist, wenn Sam, Frodo und Gollum durch die Totensümpfe wandern.
Wenn wir das Gebiet betreten ist es ein bisschen mehr als eine Woche danach. Er will nicht zu stark auf die Questreihe selbst eingehen,
aber sie arbeiten mit der Idee, dass die Orks erst nach Frodo und Sam ankommen. Sie waren also nicht da, also Frodo und Sam
dass Moor durchquert haben. Die Idee dahinter ist, dass Sauron gespürt haben könnte, dass etwas nicht in dieser Region in Ordnung ist und
er deshalb Orks losgeschickt hat um das Ganze zu untersuchen. Es ist keine Siedlung. Einer der Gründe, warum das kein richtiges Gebiet ist, ist
das es kein Haufen Questgeber gibt, sondern nur einen Questgeber. Sie wollten die Atmosphäre erzeugen, dass man alleine in den Sümpfen ist und
das geht schwer, wenn haufenweise Spieler das Moor stürmen. Es gibt ein Orklager, aber das kam erst nachdem Frodo und Sam dadurch sind.

Ist das der morgenlose Tag und werden wir immer diesen Himmel haben?
MadeOfLions: In den Totensümpfen, ja.
Rowan: Es gibt dort auch einen Tag-Nacht-Rhythmus (während der Vorschau ist es Nacht).

Frelorn und Rowan tauschen Plätze, sodass Rowan näher am Pc sitzen kann

Wie kommen wir zu den Totensümpfen, es gibt ja keine Karte, die die beinhaltet?
MadeOfLions: das ist richtig. Der Einstiegsort ist die Höhle der Avorrim nahe Dol Amroth.

Rowan ändert die Spielinternen Einstellungen um zu zeigen, wie die Totensümpfe tagsüber ausschauen

Rowan: Es wird nicht heller. Das ist Tageslicht.
HoarseDev: ein nettes Feriendomizil um sich zu bräunen. (alle lachen)
Rowan: der Himmel ist ziemlich unheilvoll.
MadeOfLions: Es ist allso nicht allzu nah, aber die Idee dahinter ist die Totensümpfe erscheinen lassen, in dem Moment in dem das gerade alles
stattfindet. Aber seit sie nach West Gondor gekommen sind, weiß er nicht mehr was sie bereits über zukünftige Updates gesagt haben, er wird
also nicht viel ausplaudern.
Rowan: Er würde gerne wissen, wovon MadeOfLions da gerade redet (alle lachen).
MadeOfLions: Ok, der morgenlose Tag wird bald in Gondor ankommen.
Rowan: zeigt die Wolken am Horizont.
MadeOfLions: Es macht Sinn mit dem morgenlosen Tag in den Totensümpfen zu arbeiten, bevor man ihn nach Gondor kommen lässt.
Wenn das ganze in West Gondor startet, heißt das dann es ist nur verfügbar für Leute, die West Gondor besitzen?
MadeOfLions: Er glaubt die Quests gehören nicht zu dem Inhalt von West Gondor. Das heißt man kann auch in die Höhle rein gehen und
mit allen Leuten reden, man weiß halt nur nicht wer die Avorrim sind und wer Dorthaneth ist.


Das Totensümpfe Sitzungspiel

Frelorn startet das Sitzungspiel and wir sehen Sam in den Totensümpfen

Regnet es immer?
MadeOfLions: Nein, das glaubt er nicht.
Rowan: Wie jedes andere Gebiet auch hat es einen Wetterzyklus.
Ransroth: Er mag es, wenn es im Spiel regnet und kalt ist. Er fühlt sich dann kalt und nass, wenn er spielt.
HoarseDev: Er ist vor so einem Wetter weggezogen.
Ransroth: Er ist nach Boston gezogen, um von dem englischem Wetter loszukommen (lacht).

Frelorn wechselt die Kameraperspektive damit alle sehen können, wie der Himmel ausschaut.

MadeOfLions: Sam ist schmutzig, weil er gerade herumreist.
Ransroth: Er sollte sich mal waschen.
Frelorn: Tut er, es regnet ja gerade.
MadeOfLions: Frodo ist unglücklich, weil er durch die Totensümpfe wandern muss und Sam ist unglücklich, weil sie Gollum vertrauen müssen.
Frelorn. Schockierend.
MadeOfLions: Ist sehr froh wieder mit Gollum zu arbeiten. Es ist schon lange her und er denkt Gollum ist großartig, und macht Spaß ihn darzustellen.
HorseDev: Er fühlt sich wie zuhause.
Frelorn: Tut er wirklich.
MadeOfLions: Gollum sagt er wird sie nach Mordor führen. Es gibt Orte an denen Sam im Schlamm stecken bleibt, und arbeiten muss, wieder herauszukommen.
Frelorn bleibt im Schlamm stecken.
Rowan: Du musst Gollum besser folgen.
Frelorn: Er steckt schon wieder fest. Das wird sein Ende sein.
Ransroth: Wir brauchen ein Sitzungsspiel als Gollum für die komplette Geschicht (alle lachen).
MadeOfLions: Gollum Epos.
Frelorn: Das wäre erstaunlich.
HoarseDev: Das wäre großartig.
MadeOfLions: Jedes Kapitel ist das gleiche. Folge dem Ring (alle lachen).
HoarseDev: Nur eine Aufgabe.
MadeOfLions: Sie mussten dem Gedanken widerstehen Vögel einzubauen, weil das zur Story passen muss. Keine Vögel.
Frelorn: Kann sich nicht vorstellen, das sowas hier reinpasst.

Frelorn kommt zum Ende des ersten Teils des Sitzungsspiels, welcher darin besteht, Gollum durch die Sümpfe zu folgen. MadeOfLions entscheidet sich noch ein bisschen
mehr vom Sitzungsspiel zu zeigen.

MadeOfLions erzählt Frelorn, dass er vorsichtig vorgehen muss. Der Boden ist trügerisch. Bleib dicht hinter ihm und folge nicht den Lichtern.
Frelorn: Die Lichter sind schlecht.

Frodo ist verloren gegangen. Sie entscheiden es hier enden zu lassen.

Rowan: Sie erwarten, das Ganze in einer Woche zu veröffentlichen.
Frelorn: Sobald das Datum sicher ist wird er es überall veröffentlichen. Hoffentlich klappt alles bis nächste Woche.

Ist das Level 100? Und danke für das versteckte Wohnupdate!
Rowan: Ja, das ist Level 100.

Frelorn dankt allen fürs anschauen, er hofft, dass wir Update 14.2 geniessen werden und sagt es wird bald veröffentlicht.

Werden die Hafenquestes mit den Schildkröten mit Update 14.2 wieder verfügbar sein?
Rowan: Ja, das Problem haben sie behoben.
Frelorn: Die Versionshinweise sind bereits fertig, sie werden wie üblich am Tag des Updates veröffentlicht.

Wird der Schildrötenbugfix auch die bereits im Inventar vorhandenen Schildkröten betreffen?
HoarseDev: Er weiß nicht ob das Inventar auch davon betroffen ist, aber er denkt daran ein neues Zierwerkstier zu erstellen, um der Situation zu gedenken.
Rowan: Die wütende Schildkröte.
Frelorn: Frägt Ransroth, ob es noch weitere Spielerfragen gibt.
Ransroth: Nein, keine Frage nur ein Haufen Danksagungen (Jeder lächelt)
Frelorn: Sagt den Spielern danke und sagt, er freut sich schon uns im Spiel zu treffen.

Wann wirst du von deinem neuen Charakter streamen?
Frelorn: Er wollte heute eigentlich streamen, aber jetzt machen sie bereits den Vorschaustream. Er weiß es noch nicht vielleicht am Nachmittag.
Er wird uns über die sozialen Netzwerke Bescheid geben, wenn er heute noch spielen sollte.
MadeOfLions: Frägt was Frelorn, denn spielt.
Frelorn: Er spielt einen Hobbitbarden. Das erste Mal, das er einen Barden spielt.
HoarseDev: Exzellente Wahl.
Frelorn: Das ist eine humorreiche Lehrstunde, da Spieler ihm sagen, was er machen soll und sich dann amüsieren, wenn er scheitert.

Frelorn bedankt sich nochmal bei den Zuschauern und beendet den Stream. Jeder im Team verabschiedet sich.

[Thrifkori]

?Frelorn Frage und Antwort Stream 4.9.2014

Bitte beachtet: Ich umschreibe hier. Alles hier gesagte ist meine Interpretation dessen, was gesagt wurde und ist ohne Gewähr und kann korrigiert werden, also nehmt all dies nicht als das letzte Wort.

Wenn irgendjemand, der anwesend war, irgendwelche Ergänzungen oder Berichtigungen hat, kann er dies gerne posten.

Frelorn Frage und Antwort Stream 4.9.2014

Video ist hier verfügbar

Das ist der erste Stream, indem sich Frelorn einen Charakter erstellt und den spielt,
während er mit uns chatet.

1. Auf welchem Server wirst du spielen?
Er hat sich nach einer Umfrage im Chat entschieden einen Charakter auf Gilrain zu erstellen.

2. Welche Klasse wirst du spielen?
Nach einer Beliebtheitsumfrage im Chat hat er sich entschlossen einen Barden zu spielen,
da er die Klasse noch nie gespielt hat.

3. Für welche Rasse hast du dich entschieden?
Frelorn wählt einen Hobbit aus und beginnt die Eigenschaften einzustellen.
Er wählt als Ursprung Haarfussens aus, da die Haut dunkler ist und der Hobbit dann gebräunt ausschaut.

4. Während er sich einen Namen per Namensgenerator erstellen lässt, entdeckt er, dass ein paar
zufällig erstellte Namen schon in Benutzung sind, er meint, dass sollte man mal beheben und macht sich Notizen.
Am Ende heißt sein Charakter Tharlor.

5. Wann werden wir seinen Beorningerstream sehen?
Wir werden heute keine Beorninger sehen, aber wenn die Klasse veröffentlicht wird, wird er definitiv als Beorninger spielen.

6. Jemand im Chat bemerkt, dass er sich scheinbar nicht in den Lowlevelgebieten auskennt.
Frelorn antwortet, er ist definitv mehr mit den höheren Levelgebieten vertraut, da seine anderen Charaktere
Level 72/73 haben.

7. Frage darüber, wie die Büros bei Turbine beschaffen sind.
Frelorn antwortet, es gibt ein großes Gebäude in dem alles untergebracht ist.
Der DDObereich befindet sich hinter ihm und ganz am Ende ist Infinite Crisis.
Auf der Vorderseite seines Schreibtisches ist HdRO und das Marketing und Büros.

8. Frelorn teilt uns mit, dass er definitv öfter streamen wird, jetzt da die SHIELDrennen vorbei sind und
er sich nicht darum sorgen muss, das er zufällig einen Konkurrenzstream abhält.

Gefundene Rechtschreibfehler, Übersetzungsfehler usw. bitte an mich weiterleiten

[Thrifkori]

?Frelorn Frage und Antwort Stream 18.9.2014

Bitte beachtet: Ich umschreibe hier. Alles hier gesagte ist meine Interpretation dessen, was gesagt wurde und ist ohne Gewähr und kann korrigiert werden, also nehmt all dies nicht als das letzte Wort.

Wenn irgendjemand, der anwesend war, irgendwelche Ergänzungen oder Berichtigungen hat, kann er dies gerne posten.

Frelorn Frage und Antwort Stream 18.9.2014

Video ist hier verfügbar

1. Frelorn bemerkt, dass sie noch daran arbeiten, den Qualitätsselektor für die Zuschauer
zu bekommen, damit wir die Qualität anpassen können. Er bemerkt, dass während er sich die Wiederholung
anschaut.

2. Frage über die Probleme mit den Lags und Paketverlusten, die dazu führen, dass
Leute in unsichtbare Wände laufen.
Sie sind daran dran und es schaut so aus als sei das Problem behoben.

3. Jemand meint Frelorn müsse sich einen Charakter erstellen und damit in die Ettenöden gehen.
Frelorn meint, da müssen wir uns keine Sorgen machen, er wird sich definitiv einen Charakter erstellen
und in die Etten gehen. Wenn er das macht lässt er uns wieder über die Klasse entscheiden.

4. Jemand im Chat schlägt vor, dass Frelorn das an dem Tag machen müsse, an dem Sapience für Extra Live streamt
Frelorn heißt die Idee und gut und teilt uns mit das er dafür seinen Adminaccount hernimmt um ja sicherzugehen,
dass er gewinnt.

5. Jemand im Chat behauptet der schnellste Weg zum Level sei es, wenn man alle Aufgaben erledige.
Frelorn scherzt, der schnellste Weg zum Level sei es, etwas in die Kommandozeile einzutippen, aber er wird es wie
wir auch auf normalem Wege machen. Er ist gerade nicht auf seinem Adminaccount, er könnte es machen, aber das wäre
ein Missbrauch seiner Rechte.
Er mag es auf normalem Wege zu Leveln, damit er die ganze Erfahrung macht und die Rückmeldungen an das Team
weiterleiten kann.

6. Frelorn versucht in der nächsten Zeit mehr Zeit für Streams zu gewinnen. Vielleicht 2 Stunden mehr, aber
er hat heute ein Meeting. Er wird schauen, dass er 2 Tage in der Woche für Streams gewinnt vielleicht Dienstag und
Donnerstag.


Gefundene Rechtschreibfehler, Übersetzungsfehler usw. bitte an mich weiterleiten

[Thodorin]

Nur zur Komplettierung (Übersetzung lohnt eher nicht):

FRELORN LIVESTREAM 9/25/2014

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.

Announcements

Frelorn gives a shout out to Monolith Studios they are part of the Warner Bros family, they will be launching Shadow of Mordor the following week. It will be available on PC and Console and they are one big happy family so he wanted to give them a shout out.

Frelorn reminds everyone to watch The Tolkien Professor Special Livestream Wednesday October 1st 1PM EDT (-4 GMT) The Tolkien professor, Corey Olsen (http://www.mythgard.org) will be joining our very own Chris Pierson to discuss Tolkien lore and LOTRO and everything in-between on Wednesday October 1st at 1pm Eastern (-4GMT) on http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream in to see what the professor thinks of LOTRO, his thoughts on the in-game recreation of Tolkien lore and ask your questions. Frickinmuck will be transcribing the chat and it will be added to the Lotro Livestreams thread.

Q&A

1. Frelorn had a new background as the opening for today's stream and music as well. Lots in chat are debating what the background and music are from.
   He mentions that he is going to try and do that more often as a lead in to let others know the stream will be starting soon. The image is from Rohan-Eaves of Fangorn and the music is part of Update 14. He is working on getting screenshots and graphics that can be added to live streams from players.
2. Someone in chat mentions that Shadow of Mordor had an Orc Takeover over their twitter stream and that it was really fun to watch.
   Frelorn adds on that it was really fun to watch and that the orcs were doing movie and product reviews and even trolling some companies like Burger King. You can see that here.
3. Frelorn mentions that he plans to bring back Throwback Thursday and also having a day of the week where he will give prizes for user submitted screenshots, more information to come.
4. Question in chat Why can't my launcher connect to the patch server?
   Have you tried running the launcher in admin, by right clicking on it and run as admin? Also make sure antivirus and everything are good, you can also submit a ticket to support.turbine.com
5. Someone in chat mentions they have considered rolling a character on Gilrain and catching up to him.
   Frelorn answers that would not be difficult at all as he is a very slow leveler he likes to enjoy the story.
6. Frelorn asks if anyone did anything cool or fun in game in celebration of Hobbit Day?
   Couple of people mention kins getting together and doing things, Dwarrowdelf had a celebration in Hall of Fire with Bilbo.
7. Someone in chat mentions that they are having trouble getting twitch followers watching their livestreaming.
   If you are streaming, go ahead and tweet out to the @Lotro account that you are streaming Lotro and he will retweet to the Lotro followers and get you more followers. It is one of the things he is working on.
8. A question is asked about what level he is currently as the stream is not very clear.
   They are still working on reaching out to Twitch about the quality, Twitch has been very busy with them being recently acquisitioned, Turbine is a Twitch partner so it shouldn't be that difficult getting it done for the Lotro stream. If you have ever watched one of the Infinite Crisis streams you have seen the quality selector so it is possible.
9. Someone in chat mentions that Lotro should have chocolate how could you possibly live without chocolate.
   Frelorn says he could live without it as he's not a huge fan of chocolate but will definitely check with the team and see if it fits in the lore, he isn't sure
10. Frelorn mentions that he wants to respond to something he saw on Twitter the other day, someone mentioned that they don't think he reads his forum private messages.
    He says as anyone who runs a kinship or a community can attest to you get a supreme amount of pm's every day. Along with everything else he does he does read them, if it's something that requires his immediate attention he does respond. If it's something that can wait it does get put on his list of things to get done. Also, he doesn't do read receipts and some people do put them on there, they bug him, he does however read all the pm's he gets it just takes a bit playing catch up at times.
11. Has MadeofLions seen the way you skip through reading the quest dialog he works so hard on?
    Nope, otherwise he probably would throw things at him.
12. Do you know if the Paths of the Dead respawn rate is based on the amount of people in the area?
    If he remembers correctly its based on the amount of things getting killed in the area so if a lot of mobs are getting killed in an area it would make sense that they are respawning faster. So yes in a way it does have to do with the amount of people in the area if they are all killing things.
13. When will Update 15 come out?
    He knows but he can't say right now, they will have info on the update in a few more weeks as the information becomes available. He will say Update 15 looks pretty good.
14. Is Update 15 out on Palantir yet?
    He thinks it might be, if not it will be there very soon.
15. It was once talked about making additional character slots available before the release of the Beorning is that still possible?
    He is going to check on that and find out.
16. Frelorn mentions that he isn't sure if he will be able to be around on Thursday the 2nd as he believes he has jury duty, he will let us know for sure.

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 10/9/2014

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.

Announcements
Be sure and check out the new Executive Producers Letter on the forums. Found here As Frelorn mentioned on that thread to answer some questions it is not a complete listing of everything being released in Update 15 or it would need to be renamed Update 15 release notes and they aren't giving us those yet.
Bullroarer will be up and open on Friday please test out Update 15 but keep in mind that it is not the finished product there will be bugs and fine tuning please report bugs.
Frelorn mentions that he was indeed gone for jury duty last week and was sorry he missed the stream. He apologizes that he is not himself today as there were server login issues last night so he was up until 3am.

Q&A
Video stream #1- http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/b/576414740 Video stream #2 http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/b/576417201 Video stream #3 http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/b/576423976

1. Someone in chat asks about the music that was used in the beginning of the stream.
   Frelorn answers that is music from Update 14 he is hoping to make that available to us soon.
2. He does now have the quality adjustor for the twitch stream and mentions to let him know how it looks.
   Some in chat mention that it does need adjusting. Frelorn ends the video stream for a few moments while he adjusts the quality.
3. Frelorn mentions that he is thinking of pausing the leveling up on his minstrel and streaming from Bullroarer for a bit next week.
   [Stream is ended temporarily for another fine tuning of the settings on the stream see Video stream 3 listed above for the majority of the feed. ]-Eldalleth
4. There is conversation in chat about the Executive Producers Letter one of the things that is mentioned is the Legendary Item Update being moved to further out.
   Frelorn mentions that they were disappointed with not being able to get the legendary item changes in for this update. As Rowan states they would rather wait and put in a good system than put it in early and have it not be good. It is one of those things where they are always going to choose quality over speed. He would rather have it be really good and complete and work well and all that stuff than have it be incomplete and unfinished and rush it out the door. Doing something like that can and would come back to bite them.
5. Someone asks are the Beorning coming out in Update 15?
   Yes they are and he is pretty stoked about it.
6. Will you reach level 100 before Beornings come out?
   No, not unless he abandoned everything else he does at his job but thats okay. He will likely run a stream as a Beorning as well though. He does want to get more of these streams going.
7. Someone asks when Bullrorarer will be updated and open for playing tomorrow.
   Frelorn answers that he doesn't have an exact time for the downtime yet but will give that information when he has it available.
8. How are Beornings in the Moors will they have a purpose or be OP?
   That is a good question he doesn't have the answer to right now.
9. In the Moors the Beornings will camouflage themselves as mild mannered bears and then sneak attack creeps?
   While entertaining, no he doesn't believe that will be the case. Once you get your hands on them you will find out their capabilities.
10. Its going to be amusing after people roll Beornings that name their class Pooh Bear, Yogi etc.
    Frelorn says already done those names are his
11. Can we get goat cosmetic pets, they are adorable and I would love to have one to follow me around?
    He agrees and says they are kinda cute and he would totally love that too.
12. Will Beornings have bear mounts?
    That would be a little weird. We heard you like bears so we put a bear on your bear. Um yeah I dont think thats going to happen.
13. Well the Beornings dont have to be in bear form while on a bear.
    He still doesn't see that happening.
14. Do we call you Andy or Frelorn?
    You can call me either one or anything he has been called Frelorn since he started with Turbine in 2004, he doesn't mind either. Within reason he doesn't mind being called anything call him Joe Bob for that matter.
15. Do the developers refer to each other by real names or forum names while in the office?
    Real names they have name tags on their desks.
16. Could Beornings have pet rabbits which hop on their backs?
    I suppose they could that would be amazing but not gonna happen sorry they dont.
17. How much will Central Gondor cost and will the Beorning come with it like the wardens did with Moria?
    He doesn't know the answer to that yet and the person who might is not standing behind him. As with everything he will let us know when he knows.
18. Will Beornings need fishing poles or will they just dive in?
    That would be amazing that would be beyond epic but he doesn't think thats going to happen.
19. Is this stream for beginners as I am seeing a lot of seasoned players in chat?
    It is for anyone that wants to watch . He has been getting some help from some of the more seasoned players in chat since this is a class he doesnt know.
20. Is there any chance you can have Jinjah give me a call I have some champion complaints for him?
    More than likely no.
21. Indistinguishable question regarding asking other players for help.
    Never be afraid to ask for assistance. He has never been afraid to ask others for help in the game and hopefully others feel the same. Everyone has a different experience, his goal and hope is that everyone has a good experience in the game.
22. What is your absolute favorite class?
    Ive had a guardian Ive played forever I like more tanky characters, I did enjoy my captain a little bit too.
23. Will you aim to make leveling more exciting ? I have a hunter that seems to always be doing the same type of things.
    I am not a developer but I would like to say we hopefully try to make things more exciting. If you have suggestions about how to make things better please feel free to post them on the forums they are read.
24. What level should I level a character up to on Gilrain if I wanted to join you for group content?
    He will let everyone decide what would be the best one to join together with him for.
25. What region is your favorite and has the most emotional attachment for you as a Lord of the Rings fan?
    He enjoys Moria, its really well done and he likes the Rift way back in the day he loved doing Rift runs.

[Thodorin]

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Thursday Fun with Frelorn 10/16/2014

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.

Announcements
-A few new things on Bullroarer for Friday (10/17/2014). Level up NPC's will be available but Racial and Class trait npc's will still be unavailable.
-He may take a deviation next week from his usual minstrel leveling and adventure on to Bullroarer as a Beorning if its up and available.
-Quality adjustment on the twitch video should seem higher quality now.

Q&A
Video can be found here.

1. When do recommended servers change?
   Whenever they change them, he is actually not sure on the tech on that, he believes its something they go and refresh how that works. He will check on that for us.
2. Will there be Beorning Houses?
   He does not believe so, don't hold him to that he doesn't know for sure never thought to ask that question directly.
3. Have they removed the ability to use an xbox controller in Lotro as mine is not functioning with it?
   He is not sure, he doesn't think they would intentionally remove it but he doesn't know.
4. Is it still plans to have the new music instruments in Update 15?
   He knows the musical updates are still in Update 15, musical instruments may be in 15.1 he is not sure.
5. Do we know anything new about the update for Housing, the waiting would be easier with some kind of housing contests?
   He doesn't know anything in particular but that doesn't mean much right now, so let him look into that one for us.
6. Will we hear anything about the 2015 road map soon? Or will Rowan wait until the beginning of next year?
   Yes you will hear more about that after Update 15 is out that is his plan, once everyone has had a chance to play. Post Update 15 there will be an update to the plans that are going to happen moving forward.
7. Will the current races have classes open to them dwarf captain etc?
   He knows of nothing like that but it doesn't mean that its not going to happen just have to wait and see.
8. Question in chat regarding the Turbine layoffs on Wednesday the 15th and who specifically from Lotro may be gone.
   He knew this was going to come up, he is only going to address this one time, its the proverbial elephant in the room. There was a layoff on Wednesday, a number of employees were laid off across the board. He will not get into specifics of who was let go and who wasn't that is personal and not up to him to say who was let go. They (Turbine) ask that the players please respect that as far as that goes, its just what it is. As far as Lotro, it doesn't affect the plans moving forward, the road map is set and they are going to forge forward on it. That's all he is going to say on it.
9. Have you ever played DDO?
   Yes he actually played it for a while when it launched.
10. Are there any plans within the pipeline to sort lag issues in the Ettenmoors as it has been a problem for quite a while now?
    Frelorn says they are always looking for ways to improve the server performance, the Ettenmoors is no difference than that. It is definitely in the road map to improve performance, they are constantly balancing everything out. He will reassure us that it is something they are looking into and not just for the Ettenmoors.
11. Are you considering adding a new Creep Race when you do the PvP update?
    You say the PVP update like we are doing a PvP update, they may do some stuff with PvMP, they may not its not for him to say. Thats down the road stuff, if they do something like that he will let our illustrious producer speak to the players about that.
12. You used to do calendar wallpapers and backgrounds but haven't done any in the last 6 months are they not being done anymore?
    Thats a bandwidth thing, they used to have more staff on the community team that has moved on to other projects or what not, so a matter of can it be fit into the schedule. He can look into adding them back in, but he has to look and see where things stand.
13. Frelorn do you still visit Asheron's Call from time to time?
    Yes, Asheron's Call was his first love, his first MMO and he absolutely revisits.
14. Frelorn please make sure the Lottery gets repaired.
    He can ask but, that system did not like them very much. [Note from Eldalleth-the Lottery system suffered a major crash and became unusuable following a large server database issue following a power outage at one of their locations last year. ]
15. Do you employ people from around the world or do you only employ in the America's?
    The office is in Boston, so everyone that works for them that lives in the area, they do have people from around the world that work for them but you have to be able to physically be there in their office.
16. Are there any plans to move away from repatterned robes and "tablecloth" caprisions for mounts?
    He doesn't know but can certainly ask about them, he hasn't seen what some of the rewards look like for Update 15. He knows of rewards but hasn't seen what they look like. He is not a developer, they don't let him near the developer tools. That would be a bad thing. He can pass on our input but beyond that we don't want him designing he has the fashion sense of a very unfashionable person.
17. Will you ever make another raid like the Rift of Nurz Ghashu and Tower of Orthanc?
    Maybe, he doesn't know for sure what the future holds, anything is possible.
18. Indistinguishable question about live events like were done during the Shadows of Angmar days?
    Frelorn answers they are looking into doing more live stuff in the not so distant future should be lots of fun.
19. Have you considered removing class trainers or giving them another function they are pretty useless right now?
    He doesn't know if there are any plans for them. [Note from Eldalleth-class trainers still give the legendary book page quests for class trait points.]
20. Player in chat says, I have a fear of no one watching my streams when I stream.
    Don'thave a fear of no one watching, he has a personal channel he occasionally streams on at home when he is playing non lotro stuff. If they watch they do, if they don't they don't. If you enjoy what your doing and streaming and occasionally commenting you may pick up some followers along the way. You have the option of not putting yourself on camera or even not talking if you choose to. Its good practice for Frelorn since he is a native Massachusetts person it has helped him to get rid of the Boston accent. Now he is working on verbal crutches like um and doubling up on words. It is helping him to be a better speaker and talking in a clear and concise manner.
21. What is your streaming channel name?
    Its just Frelorn search in the twitch channels for the address. He doesn't stream as often on it as he used to he hasn't been on there as much as he should be to be honest. http://www.twitch.tv/frelorn
22. Have you chosen a crafting profession?
    Nope.
23. What streaming software are you using?
    Xsplit, At home he uses OBS and Xsplit depends on which computer he is on.
24. Is there any plans for a character revamp graphically?
    They are always trying to improve things in the game but he doesn't know of that in the plans at the moment that would be a good question for a stream with Rowan.
25. Will the legendary item imbuing start at level 100 even though it has been delayed until post Update 15?
    He doesn't know but he can ask. [Eldalleth note- Rowan has answered this question in the Executive Producers thread here and here ]

[Apologies for the delay in getting the transcript up, had a good reason though husband came home from a military deployment last week so was a bit distracted lol-Eldalleth]

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 10/23/2014

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.

Announcements

• Bullroarer will be up on Friday the 24th of October. Be sure and download Bullroarer on the forums and give feedback they do listen is is valuable and Frelorn is asking them to be more active on there.
  
• A number of people have asked about the streaming stuff previously and he does have that stuff he is waiting on the dust to settle post Update 15, there is a lot of moving parts to go with the streaming stuff that he wants to get done that he just doesn't have the time for right now with Update 15 coming.
  
• They will be going back to some of the Community Update Streams that used to be done with special info type stuff etc. If there is something you want mentioned on any of his streams announcement/event wise please send Frelorn a pm on the forums and he will put it on the list and call it out.

Player Event this weekend over on Landroval WindyAcres Ranch - Mystery contest and charity auction. Saturday October 25 4pm EST/server time
Solve-a-Mystery: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?555104-LANDROVAL-Solve-A-Mystery-Roleplay-Contest-Sat-Oct-25-at-4pm-EST-server
Charity Auction:https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?556626-LANDROVAL-Charity-Auction-Sat-Oct-25-at-4-00pm-EST-server-in-Raglan-Bree
Thanks so much for your support!

Q&A

1. Can you change the details/markings on the Beorning's face?
   Yes it is details option 1 and with Detail Colour you can change the color of the markings.
   Keep in mind that everything you see on this stream is still a Beta Build some things may change between now and live.
2. Why are there no Lotro streamers?
   There are several people that stream Lotro, if you follow him on Twitter you will have seen at least one community member that streams every night that he has been sharing. There are more they just aren't getting as much publicity yet, but when he starts the streaming program, there will be more. He plans for there to be incentives and stuff like that.
3. Has the lore been figured out about how having Beorning's killing other animals fits with the lore it seems very against their nature?
   Thats a good question for Chris Pierson who we will have on stream again and is something that can certainly be brought up. He doesn't have an actual date for a stream like that yet. However, he will be able to ask questions like that a little more freely after next week when they get moved around again and he will be closer in proximity to the other team members.
4. Question about having trouble opening the store while on a Mac OS.
   They are investigating an issue where if you have updated to the newest Mac OS that its not opening, once they have verified or confirmed if there is a workaround for it they will let us know.
5. Do you know when the release date is for Update 15?
   He knows but can't say yet they are getting the last week or so of testing in, hopefully in the near future he will be able to give us a date. Early November is all he can say for now.
6. What determines the color of the bear fur on a Beorning?
   The color of hair you choose for your character.
7. Will there be at least one more update to Bullroarer?
   Yes it will go up on Friday the 24th.
8. Will there be a way to adjust the look of the bear in the future same way as you would a captain pet?
   Possibly, he doesn't know for sure yet in a perfect world sure, but he won't know anymore on that for a while yet.
9. Comments in chat about the Pelagir Epic Battle some had lots of trouble with it some had little to no problems.
   Frelorn mentions with it being beta there will still be changes and feedback helps with that and even once Update 15 is up they welcome continued feedback to make things better.
10. Are Beornings going to be set like elves to be unable to kill the little mini grey forest animals?
    That is a good question he doesn't know but he will definitely ask. *Frelorn*
11. Someone from Anduin Radio in chat mentions having sent Frelorn multiple pm's with no response and asks him to check them.
    If you have sent him pm's in the past earlier on its no secret the forums private messaging had some issues for him since his account was in a dormant state for a while they had to do some things to get it working. It should be working now, send the message again he will get back to you as soon as he can.
12. Has a price been set for the Beorning pack and Gift of Valar?
    He is assuming it has been normally he would turn around and ask QuarterMasterU, but he is off filming some wicked cool stuff. *Frelorn*
13. Players Council will be in the office next week he is going to try and convince them to come on stream and say hi to everyone.

- Nächste Woche wird jemand vom Spielerrat im Büro sein.
- Voraussichtlich Anfang November soll U15 kommen.

[Thodorin]

LoTRO Update 15 Preview Stream 10/30/2014
Frelorn says, Welcome everyone to the Update 15 preview stream, we are here to show everyone what is going in for Update 15 which is going live on November 5.
The team starts out by introducing themselves. Present today are Community Manager Andy “Frelorn” Cataldo, Executive Producer Aaron "Rowan"Campbell, Lead Designer Matt "HoarseDev" Zimmitti, Senior Content Designer Jeff "MadeOfLions" Libby, Systems Designer Trevor "Jinjaah"McEwan, and Senior Content Designer Ben Schneider.
Frelorn will be running the camera and occasionally helping answer questions so he moves off to the side, joking that we will occasionally see a hand.

Frelorn: Why don't we talk about where we are first here.
Rowan: Lets talk about Update 15 in general, Update 15 has a few really large things in it. The first one being a new class, this is Lotro's first new class since Mines of Moria Expansion in 2008. It's an ambitious thing for us we are very excited to bring you a brand new class the Beorning, sort of a race and class combination. We will talk a lot about where Beorning's come from, what their special abilities are and why you want to play one. In addition we are also journeying into Central Gondor, so we will talk a little bit about the Epic Story in Central Gondor . We also have a brand new style of Epic Battle to present that is an offensive battle, Retaking of Pelargir.

Frelorn mentions that people in the chat are commenting on only seeing part of Rowan's arm on the camera.

Frelorn: I do apologize what you guys are seeing is what we showed the press in the last few days and we weren't on camera for those.
Ben: The good news is none of us came to work in our pajamas.
Frelorn: I did think about it this morning.
Ben: It is certainly an option in the building.

Epic Battle Pelargir
Rowan: All that said we have a brand new style of epic battle we will be taking you into Pelargir, it acts as both a capstone to the epic story and also gives you a new style of siege battle where your actually on the offensive. You are setting the pace of the battle and driving it forward and ultimately your going to be helping Aragorn and the army of the dead to retake the city. What we are launching in Update 15 is a solo/duo version with a six person fellowship version to follow shortly after. So with that said I will pass this over to MadeofLions to talk about the Beorning.

Beorning's
MadeofLions: Probably the best place to start is in the beginning when Bilbo was traveling with the Dwarves many years ago he encountered a large gruff man by the name of Beorn who made his house in the Vales of Anduin. Beorn was a skin-changer that doesn't' mean that he skinned animals it means that he could adopt the form of an animal in this case a bear. We know that while Beorn is gone now he had descendants now one of them is Grimbeorn and they inherited his ability to skin change. So with this update we are adding the new player class/race of Beorning which means you are one of Beorn's children or grandchildren we leave the heritage up to you guys. This means that you also have the ability to transform into the shape of the bear. You get a new starting experience in the Vales of Anduin where Grimbeorn and now you live. This is a twenty minute to half an hour experience where you get to meet some other Beorning's, your extended family and you get to learn how to live life as a Beorning and get introduced to your skills and sort of their way of life. So now we transition to their skills.

Beorning Skills
Jinjaah: While we are transitioning to Frelorn's other character his level 50 Beorning we can talk about how the Beorning is different from the other classes. If you haven't made a trip to Bullroarer the biggest thing is that the class does not use power it uses a new energy resource called Wrath. Wrath starts at 0 and builds to 100 so the class is a lot more cooldown oriented than the others. The three specs are called The Hide, The Claw and The Roar. The Hide is kind of the tank spec where the Beorning wants to be in bear form as long as possible they have ways to generate wrath while they are in bear they can aoe spike enemies in front of them. They mainly tank through taking hits and debuffing their enemies. The Claw is the damage line that chooses between damage over time and burst damage basically the human skills apply bleeds and get damage rolling and when you switch into bear form is when you unlock the more powerful heavy hitting skills. The Roar line is the support/healing line and this uses a unique mechanic to the other lines that are more offensive this line is more defensive. The Mark of Grimbeorn on a target maybe when sacrifice or get direct damage to yourself you mitigate a portion of that damage or when you use Harken you refund the wrath dots (damage over time). The Mark of Beorn for example if you use Bee Swarm which is a damage over time attack where you summon a swarm of bees and its awesome.
Frelorn: Here we go with the bees again.
Jinjaah Yeah everyone likes unleashing bees. It's an interesting play style especially with the healer being kind of an in the pocket healer standing next to your tank almost dealing damage and generating wrath and using it to heal your allies. If you want to spec The Claw and grab a few things and switch into a bear and beat people up.

Frelorn: Is there any way you would recommend to spec into this tree?
Jinjaah: One of the cool things about the Beorning's and what we learned from U12 and class development in general is that it seemed liked players really liked transformative traits over passive traits. So one thing we tried to do in this tree was offer some passive traits that you build down the tree but also some transformative traits that alter skills. So for example if you grab five of thrash on the trait on the top left of The Claw you will notice the trait right below it adds a bleed to slash so if Im going to be dpsing then I want to get that since its basically extra damage rolling right off me. If you want to get execute what it does is consume all your wrath and deal massive damage to the target. Slam heal on the top right called Any Advantage is nice if your buddy is tanking and he has aggro then you just stand behind the guy and damage and kinda keep healing and topping yourself off if there is aoe damage going out. Final strike is a nice one the one next to it is actually interesting this is another transformative trait where you have a skill like Biting Edge which is a two strike attack and what this trait does is say I'm going to take away one of these attacks and give you that attack back as a bleed over 12 seconds. A lot of the other trees are like this like maybe you want to be a damage dealer but you still want to kind of help heal or maybe dabble into being a tank to you can kind of build the Beorning that fits your play style. Moment of opportunity is pretty cool to max out because that will give you a chance to proc a free execute that can be used regardless of the target's health threshold and will keep you in bear form longer.

Frelorn: You've left some space in the trait trees as well right?
Jinjaah: Yes one of the things we have been talking about over on Bullroarer is this class is gonna launch with 51 ranks instead of 53 which is what all the other classes have and without two legendary capstones. The reason we did this was we wanted to kind of release the class a little while and let you guys play it and get your feedback what's missing and what you would like to see and then add those additional ranks over time based on how you guys like it. We are leaving room to grow so we don't have to pull anything away.
Frelorn: Im gonna go and find something to try and attack.
Jinjaah: Yeah but you are severely under leveled for the area. (Frelorn was in Ringlo Vale, Central Gondor)
Frelorn: Yeah but I'm immortal so that is fine. Yeah when the bucks are purple, generally a bad sign.

HoarseDev: Can we take a look at the sky out there a second?
Frelorn: Oh yeah we could. Wow look at that what happened, why is it so dark?
MadeofLions: The Dawnless Day has arrived. This is Sauron's ploy to make his armies more comfortable as they march and bestow fear in the hearts of any that still oppose him. This is a cloud of shadow that has belched forth from Mordor.

Frelorn wanders over on his character and starts fighting a bear, jokes are made about bear on bear action.
MadeofLions: I wish you were fighting a different animal don't fight the bear run away.
Frelorn: Oh fine I'll run away from the bear. You don't like to see bear on bear crime?
MadeofLions: I made an entire class quest for the Beorning's which involves a misunderstanding with another bear and it possibly has a happy ending. There is actually an Easter egg in that class quest I'm not sure anyone has discovered yet.
Frelorn: As he's running around looking for something else to fight, comments all that's around here is bears what do you want me to do, (laughter from everyone) oh wait guess I can fight this buck.

Frelorn mentions that people in the Twitch chat should feel free to ask questions as they are glancing back at the stream every so often.

Questions and Answers
Question:Is the bear form only useable in combat?
Jinjaah: Yes that is correct.

Question:Can you speak on some of the Player's Council contributions this year so far?
Rowan: One of the biggest contributions and this was feedback we were getting from the players as well in a very important way was the importance of level caps or importance in this case of delaying a level cap raise. The focus we needed to bring to region content and legendary items going forward like we will be releasing for Update 16. The decision to not to do a level cap increase with U15 I would give a substantial amount of credit and support to the Player's Council for bringing it to our attention and having a very active conversation about it. In addition a lot of changes that came out of the new style of epic battle came directly from conversations with the council and being able to bring that feedback directly to the team and to Ben's desk which we did some more of yesterday. It's a great way for us to bounce some ideas off them and get direct feedback on it.
HoarseDev: Another example specifically coming off of talking about the Beorning's, a lot of the early decisions like I intended them to originally start off at level 50 instead of level 1. The council came back and said if its going to be a really Lotro character it needs to have that starting experience and MadeofLions certainly believed the same. At the end of the day they were right, the transition from being a low level character to a high level character is great. That's the kind of feedback we need a small focus group of people from before we barely even announced the class we had these kinds of discussion early on which paved the road for how we actually developed them. It's the one thing in a beta to fine tune what we have but to have a cohort of folks that can be in there obviously under NDA really early and express those kind of community things was essential.

Question:If you have leftover wrath and you're not in combat can you still turn into a bear?
Jinjaah: Yes as long as you have wrath you can transition into a bear it is not blocked by being out of combat but it does drain out over time. There is a legacy you can have that will help improve if your chain pulling and can't keep your wrath up that will help you move between pulls and still maintain bear form.

Question:How much will this new class cost?
Frelorn: It will be 1000tp as previous classes cost and there will be various packages you can buy on top of that as well.

Epic Battle Introduction to Pelargir
Senior Content Designer Ben Schneider takes over the conversation.
Ben: As Rowan gave it an excellent introduction earlier we can think of this as the first in a line of offensive Epic Battles. For those who have what's coming in the Lord of the Rings books in there mind you know there are some really big things coming up and some battles coming up that we needed to steer the state of big battles to being offensive. The way Pelargir works is the analog between like offensive and defensive skirmishes is awfully similar to the way this new epic battle will work. The retaking of Pelargir is player driven meaning that the Epic Battle will not proceed without you there are places that the defenders stand and wait and you move forward they will follow you. One of the other concepts we have introduced is Epic Foes drawing on the spirit of the cumulated Tolkien lore we've created a series of enemies that step out of the crowd and look for the good hero and those are the people they are going to take on. So while your soldiers are fighting the enemy soldiers you have someone your own size and your own power ranged (indistinguishable word). In Pelargir, we will find the Epic Foes both as stage bosses and as secondary objectives.

Ben: To set up some of the background story starting in Update 14 we've been following Aragorn as he travels across Gondor gathering troops and chasing the corsair fleet. The corsairs are headed north to join the enemies other forces whereas Aragorn is determined to stop them. As we reach Pelargir the corsairs have just taken out the Gondorian fleet which was sort of the last threat to them and the sort of side flank to the enemies forces. Aragorn is hurrying to Pelargir whereas the corsairs have as we have seen in Update 14 kind of tarried and stopped to pillage a bit. Aragorn was fast and picks up an army of undead oathbreakers and a bunch of Gondorian soldiers and when they reach the city of Pelargir the battle is ready to ensue. The role that you the player play is part of a small forward party that helps the city guards and opens the path for Aragorn and the army to march in.

They have an issue getting the Battle to pull up due to it not showing the expansion or Battles on Frelorn's account so they go back to question and answer in the meantime.

Question: How is Turbine handling Beornings killing animals from a lore standpoint?
MadeofLions: If you are a Beorning and you want to kill animals we do not prevent you from doing so, critters yes, animals you are not prevented from. There is a Beorning class quest that I did design that sort of deals with the issue. There is a bear, you are a Beorning do you feel bad about being tasked with eliminating this bear. The existence of this quest is fairly early its the level 15 class quest, is sort of my acknowledgement that maybe its not okay for Beornings to be slaying animals. We aren't actively preventing you from doing that though because there are a number of quests throughout the game that for various reasons have you slaying animals for the good of the people or supplies. We didn't want to eliminate you from participating in that entire content. If you want to choose not to do that, your welcome to, for my Beorning I will probably try not to do most of those quests because that will feel kind of icky. You will for the most part be able to do that.

Question:Will the new Epic Battle have a 6 man fellowship option?
Rowan: The answer to that is yes the Retaking of Pelargir will have a 6 man option available in the first patch following U15, it will not be available at U15 launch though.

Turbine Ransroth manages to get the Battle unlocked for Frelorn in the interim while Frelorn is relogging Ben continues the conversation on the Epic Battle.

Ben: One of the things I can talk about is some modest changes to the Epic Battle rewards system, instead of randomly dropping battle jewelry instead when the rewards bar fills up you get Stars of Merit for barter ability. We did want to still give you the feeling of oh cool I got something we are also dropping Victory Boxes when you complete any Epic Battle associated quest, primary and secondary quests.
HoarseDev: What can they get with Stars of Merit?
Ben: The primary thing is you can get the treasured Battle Jewelry and we have added a couple of other things in there as well.

Retaking Pelargir Epic Battle
Ben: This is the player driven version we have secreted ourselves into the city where the Pelargir Guard Captains have found entry, we are traveling with Elrond's sons Elorhir and Elladan. The first objective is to get to the winch and open the gate. This is player driven in that you stop moving the battle pauses with you, you don't benefit or not benefit. The enemies are corsairs and Haradrim who are the southrons from Umbar and other lands farther out of field. I'm sure there surprised to see a giant bear in the middle of the battle. On the other list of cool new enemies we've got to throw at players are Half-Trolls they've come out to benefit from the Dawnless Day. From lore they are massive and elite shock troop berserkers and are excellent swordsman. As Aaron (Rowan) said this is the solo/duo version we are looking forward to putting out a six man version as well. The goal for this version is you will have challenge you'll still get merit ratings and secondaries and succeed or fail but the real goal is to let players explore the content and putting great challenge in the six man version for players that like to coordinate as a team.

MadeofLions: The laborer is one of my favorite npcs in this update I like to think of them as really sarcastic as he is telling you his progress on the gate.
Ben: We had a couple of goals when we set out to create new Epic Battles, one was obviously we needed to create an offensive one to fit the content that was coming up. One of the other things we needed to do was tilt or tweak the ratio of some things and give the player a bit more agency and give the base platforms of characters a little more control. On the list of small things that have cumulatively been changed to make that work, the damage output of the enemies has changed some so that you actually have time to run in and do some fighting if you choose to do so. There are the Epic Foes that I mentioned earlier that are specifically designed for the players to take on. Another big element is we have shifted the way that merit is awarded now so that you start with empty merit and you are accumulating it because what we found when we looked at the feedback is that it was simply more enjoyable to be awarded merit then to have it taken away from you. You will see this more in epic battles going forward always gaining things not as much losing things. We are still supporting the battle classes that were created in the original big battles so that the initial phase is light and you are basically fighting guys but as you get into the second and third stage you'll have siege equipment and battle equipment and commanders.
Rowan: One thing I like about this type of battle is your always moving from vista point to vista point and always getting a view out over the city and getting a sense of what is going on in a broader scheme.

Ben: Our world builders did an awesome job making Pelargir looking beat up and beautiful and dark and troubled. This is not the only chance you will have to see Pelargir there is an after battle set of region content to help assist surviving citizens and unravel a mystery as to who exactly let the corsairs in. So we look down and see the banners of Gondor and Gondor region banners accompanying Aragorn into the city. We see the Oathbreakers and now we can head to the piers for the next part. This area leads us into the next stage, where we are making our way to meet Aragorn's troops and on the way we are going to rout some pillagers who have spread out throughout the city.
Ben: The Oathbreakers have now dawned all of their particle effects and if you look closely you can see Aragorn raising his hand and going, "Come by Isildur I call you" and the Oathbreakers make their sweep over the enemy forces, now because this is a game they are not just cgi movie of Lord of the Rings we wanted to end the battle with actual combat and not just a pretty picture. As the ghosts sweep over, according to the books their primary effect is to strike fear into the heart of the Corsairs most of which just jump into the water and drown but of course they run in every single direction including your direction and to get away they are not above scaling the walls and running. Of course your waiting there, and now we meet one of the Epic Foes I was talking about earlier, he is statted pretty fiercely, of course some of the Oathbreakers follow in pursuit of the fleeing corsairs. So this is our finale we have one final epic battle wave of guys come at you in a giant rush.
Frelorn: So that was everything we are going to show you today. If you have any questions feel free to ask if not remember Update 15 goes live on November 5th and we are looking forward to you guys all getting in and playing it and giving some great feedback on all the stuff these guys have worked their butts off to get into the game.

Question: Will there be raid gear for Beornings?
HoarseDev: The main focus was to make sure Beornings would have suitable gear we had to go back to a lot of older instances and add gear just for Beorning, there will be a time when crafting gear for Beorning's will probably supersede that in certain spots, you should be able to throughout all levels find some really cool gear that is just for the Beorning.

Question: Are we getting any updated crafting or guild recipes?
HoarseDev: Off the top of my head I know that we specifically have done a lot to support the Beorning as it comes out. I don't think there was really a broad huge push for a bunch of recipes, we mainly wanted to make sure the Beorning was ready to be brought into the game without being naked. We will be adding a lot more soon though.

Question: Can you change the bear's appearance?
Jinjaah: The bear's fur color will actually change with your hair color so you can choose that, for the future its something we have talked about, maybe if you guys really like it we can play it by ear and see its possible to do. Right now its primarily through the hair color changing the hair color of the bear.

Question: Will Beorning's be viable PvP'ers and will they get PvMP gear?
HoarseDev: That's the kind of thing where they are supposed to be viable, but as we all well know until it actually goes live , we will see what we need to tweak, but at the end of the day they definitely will be but you guys tend to find all of the wonderful dilemmas and best parts of our classes much more quickly than we find them either on beta server or ourselves. We will send them off into the wild, they do have room to grow and get more versatility and power but we will let you guys point out very soon whether or not they are viable.

Question: Can you give us details on store prices for Beornings/character slots/gift of the Valar Bundles?
Frelorn: I don't know the exact price for the bundles I do know the Beorning's are 1000tp. [It has been noted by Frelorn on the forums that their will be a Character Slot and Beorning Bundle for 1295tp]

Question: Will there be new music system and instrument updates in Update 15?
Frelorn: The music system changes are in the new instruments did not make it in for this update.

Question: Will we see Lotteries again?
Frelorn: Probably not, sorry guys when we changed the website over it kind of made the lottery system not work so good.
That wraps it up, its been fun thanks for hanging out with us, enjoy it and we look forward to your feedback on the update when it goes live on November 5.

- In der Level 15 Klassenquest der Beorniger ist ein Easter-Egg versteckt.
- Die Farbe des Pelzes beim Gestaltwandel hängt von der Haarfarbe ab.
- Beiträge des Spielerrates sind u.a.:

• - Wichtigkeit von Maximalleveländerungen bzw. deren Verschiebung
• - Feedback und einige Ideen zu der neuen (offensiven) Art der epischen Schlacht
• - Feedback zu frühen Entscheidungen bei der neuen Klasse (u.a. Start auf Level 1 statt 50)

- Die Gruppenvariante der neuen epischen Schlacht soll mit dem ersten Patch nach U15 kommen. Wenn ich es richtig verstehe, soll sie größere Herausforderungen als die Solo/Duo-Variante bieten.
- Die Lotterie wird wahrscheinlich nie zurückkommen.

[Thodorin]

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 11/13/2014

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.

Video can be found here

Announcements

• Frelorn comments on new desk location due to construction this makes his 3rd desk change lol. He is glad to be back streaming they took a break due to Update 15 preview stream and Frelorn being sick.
• Frelorn says the team has been enjoying watching and gauging reactions on the Beornings since U15 and the 15.1 hotfix, how they are being played, its been pretty cool.
• Frelorn apologizes he is still trying to get over the epic flu and as such will be drinking a lot. He mentions its also been crazy busy lately with updates and the move. He knows that there are pm's he is still catching up on, even on emails he has been way behind.

Q&A

1. Question: You mentioned a while ago about possibly making a twitch streaming group for streamers and providing overlays and music things.
   Still in the works he has some of the assets and music together, with everything else that was going on with the update and the move it was put to the side so he could make sure with it being his first time doing Lotro release notes making sure that was ready took a bit longer. He thinks he has the hang of it, so short answer yes it is still something they are going to do he hasn't forgotten about it.
2. Question: Can you overlay the twitch chat into the stream?
   Someone mentioned that recently actually Leo, there are third party programs that can do it, that is on his list of things to do. Joke is made by Greymaster in chat referring to Frelorn kinda being like Santa Claus with a jingle- Greymaster: He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's going to do his best to make the stream lookin' nice...Frelorn-Claus is coming to town...
3. Question: Why are you not playing a Beorning?
   This is the one he started before Beornings went live so he will continue with leveling this character for now.
   Frelorn shares a comment from Bludborn in chat- If any of you have not had a chance to check out my stream, it's simply twitch.tv/bludborn @lotro has been retweeting it quite a bit, Thanks Frelorn! I love having people in the chat. Frelorn adds in that anyone who wants to stream and have theirs retweeted when they are running lotro just tweet @lotro and/or @Frelorn if you have a general schedule he can keep an eye out for even better.
4. Question: Still no word on any raids *pops hope token*?
   He has no new information at this time.
   Frelorn points out the shiny new following buttons that QuartermasterU and a few others put on the twitch page in their spare time and thanks them.
5. Question/Comment: Aratheart mentions Frelorn should do the Old Forest flower deed while he is in there.
   Frelorn says he is on a mission to Bamfurlong but will definitely do that at some point when he has time.
6. Question: Any word on when the music system will be fixed?
   It is not in a place where we are completely happy with it and are exploring our options for making it better, we know that many of our players are unhappy with it and are investigating it further. (Eldalleth note: it is mentioned on the forums that Update 15.1 will reverse the music system changes).
7. Question: Will the Lotro Store have Gift of the Valar be back on sale in the store again?
   Yes it will be at some point he does not have a date as to when but the answer is yes for sure it will be.
8. Question: Any thoughts or ideas about a new creep class?
   He has tons of thoughts and ideas but they don't trust him with developing that kind of stuff.

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 11/20/2014

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.

Announcements

Thoughts go out to those in New York dealing with all of the snow hang in there.
Frelorn mentions he wants to show everyone something a little different, they have set up in their offices a live version of Pac Man because well it was something neat and several of them had come in early and helped to set it up. That space used to be more cubes and is now being used as a social area, its an after hours hang out.

Note that sometime in the next few days they will be turning on the Lotro Crash Handler, it doesn't handle crashes but in turn when it crashes will send them data, so if you notice your having performance issues after a crash, you shouldn't notice it since they have tested it but you may notice after a crash the Lotro Crash Handler showing in your programs. The file size is equivalent of a small notepad size document.

Bullroarer build went up on Friday the 21st for 15.1, they did initial testing of the 6 man Pelargir. They need feedback on it so they can determine if its ready for prime time.

Q&A

Question: Can you speak to the downtimes recently other than to say there has been a rash of downtimes?
It's been kind of a perfect storm, as they released earlier this week (last week) they had to do critical updates for Windows issues, some of those computers probably hadn't seen updates in a long time. These window updates on server machines can do some weird things sometimes, they don't always do the updates because it takes time away from the Developers doing their job and on top of that there is too many variables as to what can effect the stability. The rest of it was perfect storm of bad timing, authentication servers can get funky, just additional stuff happening. There are so many different systems that effect different things and they have been working unbelievably long hours to get it fixed. Even though you see similar messages for each downtime it has been for different reasons.
Question: Are you going to try and solve lag?
Lag is a very general term, there is client lag, server lag, video lag, so just saying lag is a very broad term. When are you lagging? Where are you located? What machine are you running? The lag we see now is isolated to individuals or regions. Moors and the lag is a constant ongoing investigation, stay tuned to the Producers Letter its coming soon and he will hopefully have stuff in there on that.
Question: Can you speak to solo/duo Pelargir not seeming to earn Platinum?
There will be more info on that on the Bullroarer Notes stay tuned. [Eldalleth Note: these notes can be found here -
Question: Will the Beorning be nerfed in 15.1?
As far as he can see looking at the notes there is nothing he would classify as a nerf more just things that needed to be fixed.
Question: Any changes to the Music System?
For now in Update 15.1 they are going to roll back to the previous music system, then they are going to try looking at the system again in a future update what can or can't be done, for now though they don't want to hurt things that the players have already got set up for festivals etc.
Reminder about the thread Your Top 10 bugs, little quality of life fixes. Thread can be found here.
Question: Possibility of Osgiliath Pvp?
Anything is possible.
Question: What is the Beornings defined fellowship role?
He is not the person that can answer that but please ask that on the forums so a developer can chime in. *Frelorn*
Bad bear puns take over in the background courtesy of QuartermasterU and in chat as well.
Question: When will U15.1 happen as there are many events that would like the music system back?
After thanksgiving but before Christmas is all he can say.
Question: Do you get much positive feedback on your streaming on Twitch?
He hasn't had any negative feedback as of yet other than from his friends.
Question: How many people will a server hold logged in at one time?
We will never tell that number, not even going to put a P.R. answer on that one, there are certain things we won't share, it can hold a lot of people that's all he will say.
Question: Will we ever get an appearance overhaul?
Frelorn: I still think with graphics turned up we have one of the most beautiful landscapes, that being said anything is possible.
Question: Any chance of the quest limit cap being removed or increased significantly?
That's a good question to ask he will look into that. *Frelorn*
Question: Any chance of the mouse zoom being fixed?
He did see that mentioned in the Top 10 bugs and it is being looked into.
Question: Any word on Song of Aid for minstrels being worked on?
He will look into that and see if he can find an answer. *Frelorn*

- Der kommende Producer Brief wird hoffentlich Infos zu den Ettenöden und dem Lag dort enthalten. Von kommenden Aussagen zu Raids/Instanzen ist in der Zusammenfassung keine Rede (war von einem anderen Spieler erwähnt worden https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...92#post7271192 ).
- In den nächsten Tagen soll das Lotro Crash Handler-Programm aktiviert werden. Es übermittelt im Falle von Abstürzen Daten an Turbine.

[Thodorin]

Nachtrag 10.12.:

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 12/4/2014
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. Unless otherwise noted all answers to questions posted are Frelorn's answers. If there is a special guest I will note them answering the questions.

Announcements
New build of Bullroarer on 12/5/2014. Update 15.1 will be coming pending a successful launch of Bullroarer, we will announce next week a date for 15.1 for everyone.

Q&A

1. Question: You have gray hairs in your beard is Lotro doing that to you?
   Nope lotro made my hair go away thats why I wear a hat.
2. Question: Can we make Warsteed Cosmetics account wide and reduce warsteed dye costs?
3. That is something he can certainly bring up to the team but he is not the one to make that call.
4. Question: Ive heard speculation that the Beornings will be getting nerfed?
5. The notes I have right now for Bullroarer I do not see anything that is reflective of a nerf, as always things are subject to change and adjustment.
6. Question: As music team is all in house now, what is the music directors plans going forward, do they have any exciting surprises?
7. We have a meeting with our music director next week to talk about that stuff. So more to come, I suspect we won't hear much until after the new year. I know one of the things we do want to focus on as a whole is taking a look at the music system as obviously for Update 15.1 we have to roll back the music system, so planning to see what we can do to make it better.
   Thanks for sharing your bugs and Quality of life fixes on the forums, I have handed off an extensive list to the dev team for them to look at and see what they can tackle, a lot of people did do bug reports which was helpful, and they are going to see what they can tackle and what they cannot.
8. Question: Will there be a 2nd beta build for 15.1?
   Yes as mentioned at the beginning of the stream in case it was missed there will be (was) another beta build.
9. Question: What kind of holiday specials will Turbine be offering this year?
   QuarterMaster U is not behind me so I can not specifically answer for holiday, he is in an important meeting that I'm not allowed to tell you what it is about, normally I would be in that meeting but since I did not stream last week I didn't want to miss another week.
10. Question: When is the Yule Festival?
    I believe it is on December 16th I don't believe anything has changed there. {Eldalleth note: Forums lists it as December 16th.}
11. Question: Is there an ETA on Producers Letter?
    Stay tuned for details, they are being worked out as we speak. So as soon as I have information on the Producers Letter I will definitely share it.
12. Question: Can you tell us where the bat cave is?
    Underneath the streets of Gotham City, laughs.
13. Question: Is there any progress on giving us easy ways to swap builds during Epic Battles? Like adding tabs to our skills or something?
    Nothing that I am aware of, I know they have seen the request but I don't have information on if its something that can or will make it into the game.
14. Question: Do we have an answer for the questions highlighted in the previous transcript?
    He will look at them again.
15. Question: What would be Beornings defined role?
    They don't have a specific defined role, its how you play them, we got away from pigenholing classes into specific roles, when I began playing minstrels were all about healing and now look at me just wiping stuff out. Its whose playing the Beorning, what do you need them to do in a group or what is their play style.
16. Question: Are we getting new instances in 2015? Im not talking about Big Battles.
    I would say anything is possible, I don't have an answer for you but I won't say no.
17. Question: Streaming stuff[Eldalleth Note: Missed full question in chat and it wasn't repeated]
    I have a document on my desktop, we will be inviting some of you guys to become official streamers, I'm just waiting on one thing in particular and that thing has come to be, so as soon as I get that thing in my hands, which is dependent on one person. As most things in my life are. What that official streamers what that is, if any of you follow us on Infinite Crisis even DDO to a lesser extent now. We do official streamers, you all agree to this light fluffy terms and conditions type thing, we will give you access to become part of the official streamers and we would put together this stream page, which would be a separate page Lotro stream team.
    
    For some people who reach certain milestones or whatever the criteria we set up are, we would give them access to stream on the Offical Lotro Stream. We would promote your page and give you goodies for giveaways, turbine points to giveaway things to incentivize people to come and watch. If he can get that stuff back before holiday break we will start it up if not after the 1st of the year. Its just a matter if he can get everything set up the right way in time after he gets the document finished. In the meantime make sure and follow us on twitter, when he is awake at night and sees someone streaming and he is tagged he retweets it. Help them promote the game we all love to play, stop into their chat say hi.
    
    Special Guest Jinjaah enters the Lotro Twitch chat room
18. Question refresh about Beorning roles for Jinjaah as Frelorn believes he is better geared to answer that question.
    Jinjaah: Beorning roles: I think Frelorn in the past has done a good job of explaining the idea that we don't really like to put classes into specific roles anymore. We like the idea that classes can sort of branch out and fulfill multiple roles if they want however if you were to say what roles are the beorning I would say its safe to say red is dps, simple blue is probably best served as an off tank rather than a primary and yellow being a great instance or offhealer.
19. Question: Are there any plans to expand the Beorning intro instance, or return to that area later? I kept expecting to visit that mountain... Or have I just not got to that yet?
    Jinjaah: Thats certainly something we can discuss with Madeoflions in the future, but currently no plan
20. Question: Armour will the agi stuff be made into might for beornings or do we have to barter for them again once available, if at all?
    Jinjaah: In most cases, it is acquiring the new piece.
21. Question: Any idea on when are we getting the producer's letter? If cant answer it its all right. keep the amazing job!
    Jinjaah: I just work the mines, you have to talk to the foreman about that
22. Question: Are there any plans to allow Beornings to be in bear form for roleplay purposes? and to allow them to play instruments or do emotes in bear form?
    Jinjaah: This is something we continue to discuss but I don't really have a good idea on an update at this time.
23. Question: Jinjaah are there any plans to add an interrupt in man form
    Jinjaah: maaaaaybbeeee.. yes
24. Question: Jinjaah any thought on the design of Shelob yet, gotta make her hairy, scary, and MASSIVE I am thinking
    Jinjaah: I can't look at spiders, it's my kryptonite
25. Question:Jinjaah -- are the racial weapons of clubs set for beornings? as stated in many forum post axes would be better and closer to what many see as more true to Lore
    Jinjaah: For now yes they are. We can look at this later, but we also have more clubs in the oven for the future so maybe this won't be that bad down the road?
26. Question: Frelorn is there any possibility of having additional Live Streams? Seeing as we are coming up on significant areas... would be lovely to hear from the lore experts and other people as to what they are tapping into for Osgiliath or Minas Tirith? Maybe hearing from MadeofLions on our part(s) in those stories?
    Frelorn - yes absolutely is the short answer because we know that it is important to you.
27. Question:Jinjaah All the races get an e-mail after the first instance. They get the tokens of commendations with the quest that get's along with the mail. Beornings don't get that (So they miss on some morale potions/pocket item). Is there a chance of getting that quest/mail/thing??
    Jinjaah: Throw a bug in on that.

Many thanks to GreyMaster for assisting with retrieving the questions and answers during Jinjaah's time in chat.

[Bedalin]

Livestream vom 18.12 mit einigen Hinweisen zu dem kommenden Produzentenbrief:

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 12/18/2014
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. Unless otherwise noted all Announcements and answers to questions posted are Frelorn's answers. If there is a special guest I will note them answering the questions.

Announcements
Update 15.1 Hotfix was on Friday a few things that brought it on some crashes were happening for some people. As well as as a hotfix was done due to the boxes in Pelargir 6 man only being able to be opened by lvl 100 players. Fixed the hole in the Ettenmoors that was weird because they hadn't touched anything there.
Turbine Holidays start around Monday or Tuesday.
Note: Mac users we are aware you are having trouble with loading characters we are having issues in house with the issue we will let you know as soon as we come up with a fix.

Executive Producer Letter- due to us nailing down a few more details we are going to postpone the producers letter until the first week of January. There are a couple of things that are in the works that need final details before we put them out we don't want to do any maybes or not have something on there because we don't know. We want to make sure the information is correct and available.
Looking at probably Jan. 6th or 7th but may even be the 4th somewhere in that week though. We did want to put it out sooner but I would rather not give false information or only give parts of it. I will say from the early drafts that I have and I may get in trouble for this, I think we are going to hit a lot of things that have been contested topics of discussion, everyone is going to want to pay attention when it does come out. From those who like the traditional content, to those that like more group based content, and for us to continue to improve the game, including those who enjoy PvMP, should be happy, this should be a great year for the team.

Forums- I have been noticing some testiness recently on the forums and I just wanted to say we are addressing it. I was trying to give everyone a bit of freedom to gauge and test the boundaries of where they could go. Ive seen where its going and I'm going to tighten up a bit I'm not going to be ban hammer of doom. I will be a little tighter on closing threads and giving infractions, if you get enough infractions, that could lead to a ban. If you get an infraction that means my eyes are on you slow your roll. Thanks that all the seriousness. Some people may say well I have free speech, but I know I'm going to get slack when I say this but on the forums free speech law does not apply. You are under the rules of the community.
Note: If he gets his new laptop he may try to do a stream from home during the break, this may or may not be the last stream for this year.

Streaming Stuff: The page is not ready yet he is waiting on artwork and some other things but this is the page that streaming stuff will be on. http://www.twitch.tv/team/lotrostreams now being worked on for streamers. That will start in early January and he will get the official stuff set up.

Q&A

1. Question: Frelorn, can you tell us why maintenance works take a few hours in total? Does the patch take long to apply to the servers, or do you have a team testing if the patch works? What's kind of going behind the scenes there?
   Alright so, there is a whole process we bring the worlds down, all the worlds come down, we then run a backup of all the data thats on the worlds, even though the game already saves it anyway whenever we are making changes to the way things are we always do a backup. Then we apply the patch to all the servers as you know we do have a lot of servers which does take some time its not just push a button, they manually apply and launch them to make sure that data isn't corrupted something bad doesn't happen. Then the patch servers are updated with the data to go out to the clients. Then we bring up the worlds make sure everything looks good, operations side of things that all the data is there nothings crashing. Then the QA (quality assurance)teams and EQA (commerce and store stuff) and make sure everything is doing what its supposed to do. Then they say okay its doing good and we open up to the public. Obviously for a smaller thing like Friday it isn't as much to upload but bigger patches obviously take longer. We do realize that it effects our European customers play times but we are on a regular work day here and even having our people here 12 hr days at times coming in at 4am to try and get stuff done. We can't make everyone happy but we do the best we can.
2. Question: Can you pass on thanks to the art team for the wonderful Yule Festival cosmetics this year and pass on a note about maybe bringing dresses back next year?
   He will certainly pass on the note of thanks and mention the dresses to the team.
3. Question: Frelorn, could you expand on any changes to PvMP?
   No, everything will come in time other than saying good stuff is coming he can't answer today.
4. Question: Frelorn, how often is the Suggestions Board on the forums looked at?
   All the time, forums are my home page I can't speak for everyone but I know most days I have at least 2-3 tabs open.
5. Question: Seeing how the sales increased the activity on lotro subreddit and probably the game itself, do you guys think that those sales being permanent would be healthy for the game?
   That would be something he would access the brand person who is not in.
6. Question: Will there ever be a way to gift stuff that you buy in the LOTRO store to another player/character?
   Never say never he doesn't think there are plans for it right now.
7. Question: Is there a technical reason for having the "too many requests, please slow down" while forging relics?
   Yep your going too fast it can't handle it all, thats the basic answer.
8. Question: Frelorn: What would you say the odds are of the Housing Revamp being looked at again? Slim to none? Average?
   For this year, I haven't seen anything mentioned about housing. That being said it does not mean it is not something that won't be looked at again.
9. Question: Frelorn - has there been any talk about increasing the number of quests that can be displayed on the screen from only 5 to maybe 10? or more?
   Im certain it has been discussed, its just a matter of where something like that might be on the priority list.
10. Question:Out of curiosity, what kind of graphics card do you have in your computer, Frelorn?
    This one I have Dual Nvidia GForce Gtx 760's.
11. Question: do you have any plans help players who stream LOTRO get more exposure to the players? The retweets are great, so keep those up for sure.
    Yes he shared earlier the site that will be used for that. There are lots of plans to help streamers do more.
12. Question: Will the new music system be coming back?
    Maybe, the music team is checking it out and seeing if they can fix what needed to be fixed. We will let folks know when we know more.
13. Question: In terms of player exposure though, the vast majority of players that I've talked to have no idea streaming exists, or they have the opinion of "why on earth would I want to watch someone else play when I can just play instead?"
    That is true of any stream though, you can learn things from others, I do that when I'm sitting in the office sometimes. Exposure is one of those things where if your streaming and you announce it on twitter we can share and people will come and watch. Sometimes you may not be able to play but are somewhere you can watch on phone or tablet. As part of the incentives for streaming we will give you specific turbine codes and prizes to incentivize people to come to your stream.
14. Question: what is your thoughts about the early game (lvl 5-25) having become to easy? I've tried getting my friends into the game, but they have found the early content boring because of how easy it is. I do remember it being a lot harder back in the day.
    I don't know Im at level 18 and you just saw me get lost in the Old Forest. Some people may find it easier than others. I still find it quite fun to play but then I am biased.
15. Question: Does the timer on the Epic Foes start from when the quest starts or when you actually see the Epic Foe and hes attackable?
    Frelorn will check into this * (Aratheart in chat mentions they believe it is from when the quest starts.

[Thodorin]

08.01.2015

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 1/08/2015
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. Unless otherwise noted all Announcements and answers to questions posted are Frelorn's answers. If there is a special guest I will note them answering the questions. Please try to keep this thread to the questions and answers from the stream and start topics concerning questions from this thread in a new thread to make it easier for people to find answers they need. Thanks a lot

Announcements
Producers Letter- It was put out and can be found in the Dev Tracker, as well as the introduction to the new Executive Producer Athena "Vyvyanne" Peters, you can find as well on the Dev Tracker where she has responded a number of times already to questions brought about by the Producers Letter. Producers Letter Article can be found here. Main Discussion of the Producers Letter can be found here - [Eldalleth Note--For those who haven't used the Dev Tracker it is at the top left side of the forums page underneath the Lord of the Rings Online Logo. Dev Tracker can be used to view anytime a Developer, Community Manager, Exec Producer have commented on or posted a thread. ]
Questions- If you want a question answered, I will do my best to answer them, I won't answer them all and I especially won't answer questions that are framed in a rude or condescending manner. Im not calling on anybody in particular, but if you come at me in some way that comes off in less than nice than I will less than nicely not answer your question. Pretty simple.

Q&A

1. Question: Will Athena (Vyvyanne) do a stream or hop on during one of your streams? Face time with Rowan always helped.
   Yes that is one of the things we will do in the not so distant future, we will either have her jump on with me or do something streaming and get that squared away as quickly as we can.
2. Question: What timeline are the server changes working on are we talking before or after Osgiliath?
   I will reiterate what has already been said when we get closer to making the final plan for everything server related done we will make sure to roll out the information to you guys. Let everyone put in their feedback and see what we can do. The goal for us is to make server transfers and ease of moving from one server to another very very easy. We are a little too early in the process yet, so we aren't going to just come on some day and say guess what everybody this is happening. There is no timeline set at this point, its a matter of put things out when they are done and ready not when they meet the timeline.
3. Question: Has there been any discussion among the developers about what happens after Eastern Gondor: specifically, it would seem like Mordor would be next, but that would seem to "end" the game. What then?
   Yes there has been discussions, that's all I can say, you'll have to wait and see what happens, yes I am the King of the Vague Answers.
4. Question: How probable is the new PvMP map, and if it does happen, how much longer after Osgiliath would it be likely to come?
   The information we gave you guys is exactly what we have currently, we do realize its going to take a significant amount of work for the PvMP stuff, this is one of the things I hold near and dear to my heart. When I first started on Lotro, I was the PvMP person, so this is something I gravitated to now that Im back on the team. To clarify: this would be its own separate area there will be no, "Hey pve people you have to go into the pvp area, it will be like the Ettenmoors you don't have to go in that. " Of course we know that PvMP as a whole is not in a happy place right now and needs to get better and we want it to be better to be blunt. Its not just about making a new map its about what we can do to make PvMP better, part of that is the new map, because we know the Ettenmoors is not optimal, there is bad server boundaries, some of the mechanics a lot of players don't like, we know, we hear the feedback and we know what people are saying so this is something we want to explore in the upcoming year. As we get closer we will be soliciting feedback and asking players and seeing what we can do. Its like anything if we put it on the Producers Letter its something we want to do, we are confident we can do it, but nothing is 100%, that is just the bottom line. But I think if there is one thing this team has proven in the last year its that we have delivered on almost everything we said we were going to deliver, and that is the goal for this year as well. As we get closer to that I'll be dragging Jinjaah over kicking and screaming, well not actually, since he actually likes doing this stuff and get him on and solicit feedback and get him on the forums and all the stuff because he's the man.
5. Question: Frelorn: New hardware was mentioned for the EU servers after the move back to the other side of the pond. What about NA servers -- do they get new hardware too? Is this expected to improve game stability, especially in the Moors? Significantly reduced lag and crashes?
   The goal is, what little I can say about this, is to move the hardware over there, we have a data center over in Amsterdam, so we are hoping to move the EU servers over there. So the EU servers can have there servers over there not going to change anything else about the service, it will be your servers will be physically closer to you guys. Same thing with North America we have another data center there that we will hopefully eventually move to, not going to say exact locations now. Server moves are not exactly easy, its all scheduling timing but yes, eventually to get the North American Servers on newer better hardware and better infrastructure as a whole.
   Systems Designer Trevor "Jinjaah" joins the conversation in the chat area any responses by Jinjaah will be noted. Game Systems Engineer Leo "Ransroth" enters the chat area as well.
6. Question: What discussions between players and devs happened before the reputation item change was made?
   There wasn't a ton because we had to move rather quickly on that one, as I said in the release notes for the Hotfix, we will be watching the feedback on the numbers we put up and if something needs to be changed we will go in and change it. This was something that we found a larger than acceptable number of people taking advantage of that system and earning literally thousands of Turbine Points in a very short time. We want people to earn turbine points but when they are making thousands and thousands of them in a few days than thats a problem that needs to be fixed. We will adjust on the fly as we need to.
7. Question: Any word on the streaming team stuff? My faulty memory is telling me it'd come with the producer's letter....
   I didn't say it would come with the Producers Letter I said beginning of the year I have the page up still working on the artwork, and then I will make the calls for you guys to put in your emails. Probably either tomorrow or Monday or Tuesday coming rather quickly actually.
8. Question: Hey Frelorn can you poke the servers or give them a cup of coffee. Servers have been rather laggy during the holidays ):
   It was my understanding that after yesterday's hotfix that performance was better. Its never perfect, but should be better if that is not the case please as always let us know. The reports of lag I was getting on the forums have gone down dramatically since the hotfix. It also depends on where you are, we saw a lot of lag and were not the only ones over the holidays, I can confirm this from friends in other game companies due to pirates and other hacking and bad people on the internet. Not an excuse or blaming specifics.
   Ransroth: A lot of the lag was due to some of the exploits that were happening until the update yesterday. Hopefully things will be less laggy now.
9. Question: Are there any big changes to the classes coming this year?
   I don't know, Im sure there are some class things coming I dont have anything in my road map that says "Hey big huge change is coming", we are always making adjustments, I don't forsee huge overhaul changes, no level cap change.
10. Question: No major class changes planned, but would it be reasonable to expect some class tweaking while investigating new PvMP zone?
    Jinjaah may come over and smack me in the back of the head when I say this but I think we agree and its something Ive talked with the team about, with what Im about to say but PvMP hopefully should never impact PvE. So hopefully if we make changes it will be to the Monster Player side to make sure they are on par with the existing PvE guys. Unless something is busted and not working, we shouldn't nerf and make changes to the PvE guys since they are made specifically for PvE. If something is busted obviously we will fix it but not just for the sake of PvMP. So hopefully we don't go that road because its a slippery slope, Im not a dev there are reasons I don't touch the things in the game like that. I have faith in those that do though, and I think they will do an amazing job when they do go in there and do stuff.
11. Question: If you don't change our classes for PvMP, what about changing creep classes? Some creep classes are currently hugely overpowered.
    Thats kind of what I just said, is if any adjustments are going to be made, thats what I'm saying would be done if anything the monster players or creepside would be where the adjustment would be made. Whether it would be up or down I will leave that to people much smarter about that than me.
12. Question: Frelorn, are you guys doing any booths or parties at PAX East?
    I have no announcement on that yet we haven't gotten that far in planning yet.
13. Question: How about crafting? Any updates for lvl 100?
    I have no idea I will leave that to the devs to answer for you guys, nothing in my books for it but I don't go down to the detail til update, so I can tell them either you guys will love it or oh my god the sky is falling they will hate it.
14. Question: Do you already know who is going to participate in the stream thing? And can/will you share it with us now?
    I will put a call out for emails and make sure your going to be appropriate and can be on there Ill add you in. Those that Ive already watched a lot will be approved.
15. Question: do you think Chris Pierson could livestream/record his talk? [conversation in chat about Mythmoot mentioned Chris Pierson one of the World builders will be speaking at it]
    What we can do is maybe convince Chris when he gets back and has some time from building all of our magical worlds to do a stream and do a little q&a. We also have some cool video stuff for you guys this year and once the rest of the team gets back in the swing of things you'll see some pretty cool stuff coming out from us.
16. Question: Are there any plans to making all festival tokens the same? The Yule festival tokens are simply "Festival Token" whereas the rest are still specific to their festival. Can it be changed so that they all use the same token.
    Not planned currently but that is a good suggestion.
17. Question: If players wanted to help "develop" content for the game, would Turbine be willing to open that door for them? Such as contests to design cosmetics for characters and war-steeds?
    We have done that in the past but it is a very lengthy process because we have to get lots of approvals from lots of different places and the artists have to put in time to actually produce the content. Its not the easiest thing in the world to do and not the best use of time and resources, but that all being said it is possible.
18. Question from Jinjaah: Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?
    100 duck-sized horses gimme a hockey stick Ill take them on, horse sized duck thats scary haven't you ever been chased by a duck. Jinjaah responds- yeah but think about this. You are at the office, and all of a sudden you hear 100 duck sized horses just charging from somewhere. But they are so small, you can't seem them over the desks around you? I spend way too much time thinking of this...I that may be true but I'll still take my chances, one big giant duck would scare the #### out of me.
19. Question: Can you give us any hints on the new episodic content?...
    It is going to be awesome, I have seen a lot of people comparing it to content from other games but I don't believe its really like that, anything episodic is similar in certain thoughts of hey there is a new episode, my understanding is its not what people are thinking but you will have to wait and see.
20. Question:Is there gonna be a new PVMP map?
    Thats what we are investigating its not a matter of yes or no, its can we do it, can we make it better than the existing one, is it going to deliver a fun experience for players, we are looking into it, when the time comes we will of course solicit feedback from you guys.
21. Question: Why are some cosmetic pet names forbidden?? (On a non-RP server btw)
    Because they are in the name filter for whatever reason, some may be inappropriate some may be lore breaking, names of something already in the game.
22. Question: If somehow we don't get a new PvMP map, would we be able to get at least a revamp of the current map?
    Maybe, its not in the plans but plans change, I personally would rather see a new map, than fixing something that many people don't enjoy for various reasons. But remember not up to me, people much smarter than I am are working.
23. Question: The Yule Festival is currently scheduled to end on the 13th. Will we get an extension on that? And if not, what time on the 13th will it actually be shut down? 3 AM EST on the 13th? Or will it actually be the early hours of the 14th?
    I don't know of any plans on extending it, I can't give you the exact time as QuartermasterU isn't next to him to ask.
24. Question: Any chance for scaled Tower of Orthanc and Dar Narbugund raids? And is there a chance to see a new raid later in 2015?
    Im pretty sure we said no new raids this year at least in the content that has been explored in the Producers letter which covers the first half of the year, but anything is possible. The scaled up stuff, things are different with old quests, a lot of systems have changed and its just not as easy because they are tied into a lot of things that aren't as system friendly as what we have now.
25. Question: do you think will LotrO ever get one huge server and merge all others into that one?
    No I don't think that will happen.
26. Question: Shelob think that will be for 2016?
    Its funny because we had just talked about doing a new quest with spiders and I wanted a fluffy bunny instead but they said it wasn't lore appropriate. Whereas I think it would be amazing to have a white bunny quest.

[Thodorin]

15.01.2015

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 1/15/2015
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. Unless otherwise noted, all Announcements and answers to questions posted are Frelorn's answers. If there is a special guest I will note them answering the questions.

Announcements
Update 15.2 on Bullroarer the weekend of the 15th.
Winterstock January 16-19th, Landroval Server at Thorin's Gate. (Apologies notes were not out in time for the event -Eldalleth)

Q&A

1. What music do you use for the stream Introduction?
   It is the Update 14 Paths of the Dead soundtrack, I believe it should be on Soundcloud. I know we put it up somewhere for you. I'll see if I can find the link and get it put up; I know it exists out there somewhere. *Frelorn*
2. What is slated for Update 15.2?
   Nothing is set in stone, a lot of it is tentative - no full notes yet. In Windows version of the game, we will now be giving an option for full screen windowed mode. [Eldalleth Note- Bullroarer Build notes are up on the forums- here and here.] The roving threats that were teased previously should be rolling out with 15.2 depending on testing. Pets should no longer attempt to attack enemies that attacked you when you were mounted and are now way out of range.
3. Frelorn, two questions that were posted in the livestream Q&A and asked to be asked - Dead Marshes (Gilrain) - a friend and I have just done the warbands daily for two months and neither of us have picked up a frog or turtle pet. Could the drop system be broken or do we just keep trying? Most people who got the frog said they got it quite quickly when we asked. Dead Marshes/Central Gondor - what happened with the other frog pets that were meant to be bartered in Central Gondor?
   I would say keep trying and I will also check into it. Very specific questions like that I can't magically get the answer right now. I haven't heard any other reports that its not looking properly, but I will look into it.
4. Can we see/get a wise word from the new Executive Producer Vyvyanne?
   She is currently in a meeting but I have sent her a message and if she makes it out of the meeting before the stream is over she may try to come and join us.
5. Any chances this time of a Bullroarer Mac Client Download?
   We tried and something got busted and it was acting like it didn't exist and so the team is still figuring things out. We don't currently have any Mac specific developers at Lotro right now so it's not as simple as clicking a button. They are looking into it and trying to figure it out.
6. Is there any reason Hobnanigans has to be turned off and be a once-a-month event? Could you not just leave it on so people who have limited time (and aren't always free at the weekends) can just chip away at it - the rewards are low and it's too slow going to get the items you want.
   I will certainly bring it up to the team and see what the thoughts are on that one. I'm not the one that controls that stuff.
7. Is there an ETA on Lotro Streamers?
   The page is up and I’m waiting on artwork and the email. Basically there will be a thread with more information. It will require an application with your information on when you stream and what you stream, and I will come sit in on one of your streams and tell you if there is anything that needs to be improved or just tell you you’re awesome, etc. Once you go through all that process, I’ll let you know you're in and then give you a stream key and will tell you okay your time slot to play is here. [Eldalleth Note- Thread is now up about Lotro Streamers]
8. Where can I buy the LOTRO soundtracks? I would like to buy the soundtracks from 2007 when you started to now. All the soundtracks. I checked on LOTRO.com but they do not have it. And Amazon/iTunes only have Riders of Rohan soundtrack.
   The only one we sold I believe was Riders of Rohan and its still on iTunes. A lot of that should be on Soundcloud or even on YouTube. A lot of that was before I got here so I don't have all of the information on it.
9. If you are in Massachusetts - LOTR Movie Marathon, Feb 28th, 9 a.m. to midnight … Corey Olsen … and I'll be there too!!! And there will be FOOD!! [- Note from Trish Lambert] http://www.mythgard.org/activities/lotr-marathon/
10. Have you seenArathaert's chicken run? Would you consider doing one on stream?
    Yes I did and have considered it as well as us doing some Epic Battles with the Devs on stream as well as some other things like video content, video dev diaries, etc.
11. Are there any talks about streaming with the Player Council to expand on current events with them?
    Yes, actually. We are going to do an end of this year's council run, then we will get into the new council and I will have info about new council and old council stuff soon. There will be some different things with this council... more info about that later.
12. What is your favorite steed? And what's one accomplishment you would like to do but haven't done yet?
    I don't have a favorite steed and I don't know - I've done most things one way or another. I'll have to think about that one.
13. Per the Producer’s Letter and comments, there will be traditional instances in Osgiliath. Will they be multiple 3- and/or 6-mans? Also, will another epic battle be introduced with it?
    I don't know the number, but there will be 3-man and 6-man instance clusters - think of something like the instance clusters of old. That's about all I have on that right now because I don't have the spec on it in front of me.
14. What would you most like to see improved, Frelorn ?
    There are a lot of things this game does very well. Given an unlimited budget and all the time in the world there are a few things, not just one thing I could call out with an unlimited budget.
15. Frelorn, there was something going around that ranked servers in order of population - is that even possible now that that server thing was closed down? (Is it accurate?)
    I hit this up a little bit on Twitter earlier this week. Not on the official one, but on my own personal Twitter here. I looked at some of those things and compared them to what we have internally (and we do have them internally). We don't necessarily rank them by population, but we have a big ol’ population chart that shows totals hour-by-hour and when everyone is logged in, peak currencies and all the important population numbers. The numbers I was seeing on the forums were not in line with what I was seeing, so while they were saying they were pulling the data from the launcher, I have no insight to where they were pulling it from as it wasn't shared.
    
    We have been seeing some really good numbers. Yes, there are some that are definitely lower populations than others, there is no doubt about that, but let's be honest here: we are approaching our 8th anniversary, and to never have had to combine servers or make any of those adjustments (in fact I think we even added servers at one point) is a pretty amazing feat. So the numbers they were putting out were wrong and lower than what they are. Again, show me another MMO that in the 8th year of their life or during their life had to add servers, other than WoW. (You can't ever compare any other game to WoW. It's just not feasible.) So if you take WoW away from the conversation, what we have done with LOTRO is pretty amazing and I'm pretty proud of everybody.
    
    But again, we want the best experience possible for all of our players. If that means bringing more of you together... Sometimes we need to be reminded that MMO means massively multiplayer online, and we see a lot of complaints of “I like being on the low pop server” or “I like being all by myself.” Well, as much as we would like to give everyone the exact experience that they want individually, we have to look at what's best for the whole and not just the individual. We try our best to balance it, but that would be impossible. I challenge you to show me any game that has done that. So if the majority of people want more player base that's what we are going to get them.
16. Will you be able to bring back the leaderboards back soon?
    No. That is in the same area as the lotteries and that area is a combination of web and development and backend ton of work. It’s rather daunting when you see what they would have to do: basically rebuild the system all over again. Time would be better spent on things in the game.

Note from Eldalleth- In trying to make doing the transcripts a little less labor intensive I am trying out a new color, one that is not one that I have to code. Please let me know if this color makes the questions hard to read and I will do my best to find one that works better. Thanks for your patience.

[Thodorin]

29.01.2015 und 05.02.2015

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 1/29/2015
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. Unless otherwise noted, all Announcements and answers to questions posted are Frelorn's answers. If there is a special guest I will note them answering the questions.

Q&A
Special Guest for this stream was Systems Designer Trevor "Jinjaah" McEwan.

1. Question: Have you started work on the potential new PvMP map?
   Jinjaah: I don't want to go into too much information about it but we have had a lot of discussions both with the Players Council and internally. We haven't ramped up the council discussions too much yet because we are still doing some cost estimates as to what it will cost to make and what some of the hurdles we have are. On my side of things, also looking at potential systemic changes to PvMP once we get into a new space. A lot of those I don't want to mention yet because I don't want to make people any promises, but there is a lot of cool potentially exciting stuff we can do.
2. Question: What is the status on Beorning gear? I just completed all of Riders of Rohan and didn't find a single piece of Beorning gear in the entire zone of quests, nor are there any guild patterns that are Beorning-focused. Is it going to get a fix?
   Jinjaah: The medium might gear is taking a lot longer than we would like, there is definitely a bunch of crafting recipes in terms of upper echelon stuff you can find that in the forums. We still need to iron out a couple of missing places, we have been going through and filling in quests, and raids and skirmish kind of drops but hopefully over the next couple of updates and continue to add stuff in and fill in the places we missed before. The good news is all the new stuff we are working on we already have the Beorning specific gear in the hopper so its just simply a revision problem rather than a problem we are going to take forward.
3. Question: Arathaert's very random question: Frelorn, you have a million dollars in cash, thirty clowns who obey your every word implicitly and a bottle of orange soda. Your mission: totally derail the Super Bowl. What would you do?
   Frelorn: I have no idea. Having control of thirty clowns alone is completely horrifying and I don't know if I like that prospect.
   Jinjaah: I would pay as many fans in the stadium as I could to wear a clown costume and sit in complete silence for the whole game.
   Frelorn: Yeah that would be creepy.
4. Question: Any rough schedule for update 16, and what might be in it?
   Frelorn: Nothing for Update 16 yet because we have to get through Update 15.2 first. We have U15.2 coming soon. (This stream was on January 29 - 15.2 has since been launched- Eldalleth Note)
5. Question: I had a look at the release notes and i was wondering if there would be any changes about the PvMP as a whole not just a map?
   Frelorn: Well considering we haven't actually put out any release notes yet, that was the Producers Letter, and there are lots of things we would love to do with PvMP the first step being a new area. We will look into doing more stuff beyond that. First thing we have to do is establish cost etc, can we do that.
6. Question: Arathaert asks, Frelorn, do you plan on setting up a Turbine/LOTRO team for Extra Life this year? Or should we take it upon ourselves to make a LOTRO team (as opposed to individual kin teams)? (I don't mind taking point on it if you like - I've done it before)
   Frelorn: I haven't gotten that far yet. I have been doing so much else I haven't had a chance to talk with Sapience about if he wants to do something in conjunction or not. So stay tuned if we are I will be sure to let everyone know.
7. Question: When are the servers moving to Europe Frelorn?
   Frelorn: We have not announced a date for that yet, as we get more information and more concrete information we will share it. Right now we are sharing as much information as we have as we don't want to jump out ahead of ourselves and give you information that could turn out to be false.
8. Question: When are server merges happening?
   Frelorn: Same thing, as we have more information we will pass it along. I know our great and glorious leader Athena "Vyvyanne" is working hard to get everything organized and done so that we can make this happen in the best way possible. We would rather make sure its done right than rush information out to you and find out its not feasible or possible. So we are going to take our time and make it more gooder.
9. Question: Will Osgiliath include a new level increase? How is the PvMP map looking for it?
   Frelorn: So I can answer the first part, we did already answer the second part but some late people might not have heard it or still coming in. No new level increases with Osgiliath, and PvMP still having discussions and looking at some things. (see more in-depth answer to question on question #1- Eldalleth Note)
10. Question: Are war goats something we could see in the future?
    Jinjaah: War goats would be pretty sweet.
    Frelorn: Yeah I agree.
11. Question: Any updates on the stream team?
    Frelorn: We got an overwhelming amount of applications for that, it was amazing. I’m really excited about how many people applied for it. I am processing them and a lot I still need to watch.
12. Question: Frelorn, is the new instance cluster guaranteed or you guys have to discuss it as well?
    Frelorn: They are firmly in our plans for Update 16 or there abouts. Its not something we have to discuss they are coming. Hooray.
13. Question: For the stream team, will you have streamers signing an agreement? Like for keeping it a certain language level (no offensive language on the official stream, etc.)? Or other stipulations?
    Frelorn: Yes there will be stipulations for those that are on the stream, very minor things, like keeping language clean, don't use any copyrighted music, things of that nature. Nothing too bad you don't have to jump through any hoops or anything like that. Its more of a protect our butts type thing.
14. Question: KoolKKyle: Bludborn and I have tried to get us a Banner for the Helm's Deep Cover art for Twitch. You are using just The Lord of the Rings Online. Is this the one you want us to use instead of Helm’s Deep?
    Frelorn: You can use whatever one you like, I have no preference.
15. Question: When will you be streaming from the Moors again?
    Frelorn: This was fun; I’d like to make it more setup next time. I might do this again in a couple of weeks. Lets get through Update 15.2 and go from there, not everyone likes PvMP but then not everyone likes PvE either.
16. Question: Frelorn U14 Paths of the Dead music is not on soundcloud I checked can ya put it up there please?
    Frelorn: I can look into that for you.
17. Question: Are the World Designers still in the habit of placing "easter eggs" around current and new landscapes? Are there any big "eggs" that still remain undiscovered? And let us in that unreachable door in Halls of Crafting!
    Jinjaah: They keep those kind of things close to the chest so I don't know. And if we told you easter eggs they wouldn't be easter eggs.

Thursday Fun with Frelorn 02/5/2015
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. Unless otherwise noted, all Announcements and answers to questions posted are Frelorn's answers. If there is a special guest I will note them answering the questions.

Q&A
Special Guest appearance Athena "Vyvyanne" Peters Executive Producer.

1. Question: Will the Epic Foes in Pelargir regain normal amounts of health, dps and durability? I just did Pelargir 3 times and the epic foe's have 2.7million morale now. Its now where you don't have any time to kill them or the timers up, any changes for that little "bug"?
   Vyvyanne: Its a bug and we are working on fixing it currently. We will hopefully have a new patch out shortly that will address those issues.
2. Question: Do you prefer Athena or Vyvyanne?
   Vyvyanne: I'm fine either way. Really I don't mind being called by my name just after years of being in the industry, way back when we only went by our handles. But now society is more comfortable with us using our real names, so I've kind of gotten used to both of them. I do answer to both of them. If anyone called out Vyv or Vyvyanne around me I would probably turn around.
3. Question: Why are people laughing behind the scene?
   Vyvyanne: I have no idea since I have this headset on I can't actually hear what's going on around us. We actually do have a number of different teams surrounding us, we have an open cube environment, so it's quite possible a number of conversations are happening, or it is quite possible they are just laughing at me.
4. Question: What is one thing you are most excited for as the new Executive Producer?
   Vyvyanne: For me it's just really being able to dive into the Lord of the Rings Universe, as a whole. It's a beautiful game, the last several games that I've worked on have been very combat heavy and focused. A lot of the games I've worked on in the past have been a lot of PvP, and we have a little bit of that I'm sure there are several of you that do the Monster Play in our game, but there is a lot more of the role play aspect and the exploration aspect which as a gamer I'm more interested in this world. So it's really great to be involved in that and experience a completely new environment for me as an actual worker and not just a player.
5. Question: Did the Greek goddess Athena have any special powers?
   Vyvyanne: Actually the Greek goddess Athena was goddess of strategy, wisdom, and household crafts interestingly enough, which I would like to hope that I have aspects of all three.
6. Question: Do you think a rework of Fellow maneuvers will ever happen???? It is an awesome mechanic but it has kind of fallen behind with the current updates.
   Vyvyanne: I'm not sure, that one is definitely a question for the systems team folks to answer.
7. Question: Could we have the Gondor soundtracks in Soundcloud? The one Frelorn played at the beginning of the stream was very nice.
   Frelorn: I can look into it, they used to be up there I don't know why they aren't anymore. We do have the rights to them so it shouldn't be a problem to re-upload them.
8. Question: Are there any ideas/features from DDO(Dungeons and Dragons Online) which you feel should or could be implemented in LotRO?
   Vyvyanne: I think a lot of the features that work well in both have been implemented in both. I know the teams for both do actually talk a lot. We have a similar base structure, but the two games have split off a lot in terms of development over the years to where we can't just, very easily port things back and forth. I'm trying to think if there was some specific ideas from DDO that we haven't implemented yet, but definitely something we don't dismiss. Nothing is coming to mind at the moment, I was going to say the cosmetic system we just added in DDO but the one in LOTRO is far advanced to that.
9. Question: Did you do anything to performance client side for 15.2? I am getting better frames per second since the patch, but I didn't see anything noted in the patch notes.
   Vyvyanne: We did a major improvement to a memory leak that we had prior to 15.2, we are watching to see how well we fixed that, so far it's looking positive, but we will keep an eye on it. If players notice any issues please be sure to let us know.
10. Question: Will that horse's head be a new cosmetic item?
    Vyvyanne: We will have to think about that, not sure how thrilled our partners would be on that one.
11. Question: Why is it so hard to convert the EU-server data to US servers and vice versa?
    Vyvyanne: This is mainly because when we first launched the service these two environments were on completely different servers run by completely different teams. So the way they set up their server environments and their data storage was completely different from the way the US did and it took a lot of effort to bring those characters back over into our server systems. The problem is that when we try to replicate that data again there is a bunch of mismatches that happen and the more that we do that the worse it gets. Thus the data corruption could be catastrophic for those characters so we would really rather not risk it. We don't want to chance losing anyone's hard played characters for the number of years they may have been playing them. Going forward we don't have that problem, but because we had that problem from the original servers it's really hard to catch up when we have to take those older characters into consideration.
12. Question: In DDO I've heard you can create your own dynamic layers on-the-fly. That would be a cool feature to port over.
    Vyvyanne: There is a bit of difference in the DDO dynamic layers and LOTRO. One thing to understand about DDO is it is highly instanced, so almost everything your going into is your private instance, versus in LOTRO we try to make it a very open world environment. So our technical limitations there are a lot different. There is definitely some different things that you can see in DDO that they are able to do with their layering systems, that is based on the fact that at most they are only going to have 6-8 characters in that instance versus in LOTRO we have to contend with possibly a hundred.
13. Question: Greymaster random question- thoughts on bacon?
    Vyvyanne: Bacon is great. Thoughts on bacon is terrific.
14. Question: Will the cosmetic system ever get cosmetic weapon slots?
    Vyvyanne: We will definitely look into that, I know our art lead is definitely interested in finding ways to make weapons more interesting cosmetically, so that's one of those things we have been chatting about over here. It is just a matter of weighing that system versus the other things we are trying to do at the same time. It is not off the table it is definitely something we want to look into doing.
15. Question: When do you think we will hear more about Server information regarding the US servers?
    Vyvyanne: We definitely want to get that information out to you guys, right now we are looking into things, everything hinges on getting our new hardware set out and up in our new environments. So we are really focusing on that, and that is taking a bit longer than we had planned originally. We are trying to tie up all the loose ends around that, we don't want to push out too much information since a lot of it is based on what our new hardware set up is going to be. Until we are actually more solid on that, but as soon as we do we will get that information out to you guys. In the meantime we are working very hard on the various improvements that we are doing to the server transfer system. Hopefully we will have some articles in the next coming months on those as we get closer and closer to having our new hardware set up.
16. Question: Do you know when we are going to be able to get into Minas Tirith?
    Vyvyanne: Minas Tirith is planned for this year so hopefully before end of 2015 you should be able to go explore Minas Tirith, that is definitely in the plans.
17. Question: When will testing the transfer system start?
    Vyvyanne: Testing of the server transfer system, expect that in the next couple of months, we will definitely have the testing up before we have the new hardware set up.
18. Question: Are there any plans to update the Hobbit presents to level 100? The max is 90 at the moment (Mathom items for example..)
    Vyvyanne: I will look into that, I didn't know it wasn't at max cap currently, but of course I'm still learning all that stuff.
19. Question: Will the new server setup affect DDO in any way?
    Vyvyanne: I believe it will they are also getting moved over to new environments, but that's definitely something to ask Robin and the DDO people over there they have more information on their work. The hope is that all Turbine games in general will be running better very soon.
20. Question: Anything more you can tease us with regarding Episodic Content?
    Vyvyanne: I don't want to ruin any teasers MadeOfLions might have on the forums. I know he has been putting some out there it looks like its fun, it will definitely be another way to experience the story in the world of Tolkien. That's about all I feel able to say without getting in trouble with MadeOfLions.
21. Question: Any more information on stream team applications?
    Vyvyanne: I'll let Frelorn answer that when he gets back I have no insight into the team applications personally.
22. Question: This may have been covered elsewhere, but I'm also curious about medium might socketed amour for level 100. The Beorning has been such a great class, it is a letdown to get to the end and only have agility options.
    Vyvyanne: Thats going to be when we get Jinjaah on the stream, I know we have been working on the itemization for Update 16 but it is still early in development so he might have some more answers later on.
23. Question: Will there ever be a whole graphic update?
    Vyvyanne: I can't ever say never, but we don't have any plans in the short term. The main concern with full graphic updates is you end up taking the people who have older video cards and setups out of the equation. We don't want to update our game so much that our diehard players are all of a sudden forced to upgrade their systems that wouldn't be fair to them. But we are always trying to improve the look and feel of the game I know that our lead artists been doing some work on the female human body structures to streamline them a little bit better. So we will see small things like that but I don't see us doing a huge graphic update all across the board.
24. Question: Any chance for physical CD's merchandise for the soundtracks? (like a complete edition or something from older expansions and unreleased stuff)?
    Vyvyanne: I don't think we will be doing physical cd's, we have kind of moved into the fully digital realm now.
25. Question: Moving forward (not necessarily this year or anytime soon) are there plans to keep adding Roving Threats and Treasure Caches to other older regions, based on player feedback?
    Vyvyanne: I think we do intend to keep adding more roving threats, it is a really fun feature, we like to add it to make the older areas more interesting give you a reason to go back and play around and see what you can find there. I can definitely see us adding more of those in future updates as well.
26. Question: Various crafting questions in chat that Vyvyanne comments on.
    Vyvyanne: I don't have specific timelines as to when we will be looking into crafting again but I know I personally have some ideas on ways to improve that system I want to talk to the developers about, but probably not something we will really be in the space to talk about in the next few months. It is something we want to dig into.
27. Question: I do not mean to be a pest, but how often do you check the stream team applications?
    Frelorn: Some have already been sent out to people we are crafting up the final rules and getting the gift pool together and they will get sent out and then more will be incoming once we make sure everything works. So a word I hate, but very soon.
28. Question: Will existing first age weapons be eligible for the new and improved imbued system? Or will it have to be freshly crafted legendaries after the new system launches?
    Vyvyanne: I don't think you will have to re-craft your legendaries but I will have to look back at the design document on that again. Definitely expect in the next coming month or so you should see a write up from Jinjaah on the new Legendary Item System. In that write up he will be able to answer more detailed questions like that. A whole legendary item stream will be coming up soon.
29. Question: Why isn't there a actual LOTRO store for real life items where I can buy a mug, t-shirt or poster?
    Frelorn: I can partially answer this but not completely, we have been looking into it, we do have the rights to do it, but figuring out resources, time and availability and what we have the rights to for doing it. We did for a while back in the day have stuff like that up on the WB Store.
30. Question: Will there be a final reward for doing all deeds (including the hidden deeds of a zone?) and will the virtue rank become higher than level 19?
    Freloron: I don't know I'm not the one to answer that.
31. Question: Have you guys looked into instance based PvMP?
    Frelorn: I do know they have looked at something like that at one point. I can't tell you what became of it other than investigating.
32. Question: How deep are you in the development process, and which parts? you being community manager?
    Frelorn: It depends on the situation and what is needed. For something like designing an area, developers won't need my feedback on what it looks like, but I will jump in on when we are testing. I can then give feedback on player rewards, difficulty, player reactions stuff like that. I also give my opinions on whether I think players will like something or if it will go over like a ton of bricks. I leave the developing to the developers they are way smarter than I am they know what they are doing, but I do give my input in terms of the experience after the fact and what you guys think about things. Which is why it is really important when we put things out on Bullroarer that as many of you as possible jump in there and give us feedback as that's our main way of knowing if you're going to like something or not.
33. Question: Since the soundtracks are digital now, could you look into re-releasing the older soundtracks before Rohan and possible in lossless (FLAC/ALAC) format?
    Frelorn: I can certainly look into that and see. I don't know since I wasn't here for that what the legal stuff might be on it.
34. Question: Any news when servers become active in Amsterdam?
    Frelorn: Still a lot of work to be done before they become active so no information that can be shared yet.
35. Question: Quick question about the new Treasure Caches: are you *sure* there are indeed 12 of them in Forochel?
    Frelorn: The person I would ask is not at their desk to ask. (Eldalleth Note: - Frelorn mentioned in a thread on the forums there will be a fix in the next update as the 12th treasure cache is unreachable without GM assistance, thread found here.
36. Question: KoolKKyle says Bludborn, and I have worked on trying to get the Art for the Channel Several times, Bludborn mentioned you looked into it. Any new information?
    Frelorn: If you're talking about the art for the game title? That's specific art I can upload. If you're talking about the Twitch art we are working on that.
37. Question: Can we nail down one specific LOTRO game title that we should all stream under. I'm seeing up to 3 or 4 different ones at the same time.
    Frelorn: The specific game title is The Lord of the Rings Online that is the one we are going with, not any of the expansions.
38. Question: Do you feel you have enough streamers for the initial stream group?
    Frelorn: The ones who I have sent invites out to in the initial wave are the ones I had already watched. The technical answer is I don't think we will ever have enough and I do try and take time each day to take a look at new emails that come in. If you haven't gotten an email yet, stay tuned, just keep in mind I have to watch you stream a couple of times before you get approval.
39. Question: Is there any thought into giving everyone on each server a legacy title with their server name, so when the server closures/transfers occur, people can give remembrance; i.e. "Thralor of [server name]"?
    Frelorn: There are tons of thoughts on it. Which is part of why we aren't giving more information yet, we want to make sure things are ready for public sharing. We want to make sure it's good and that the whole process for everyone involved is a smooth and happy one. I know it won't be easy for a lot of people, but we do want people to hopefully be able in the end to walk away going that was a pretty easy process and it was painless.
40. Question: Is it definite that some servers will be closed? Why not just keep the low-population servers running for those who don't want to leave them? Too expensive?
    Frelorn: It's a combination of a lot of things, we will discuss all of these things in more detail once decisions are made. There are a lot of factors many of which are not quick or easy to explain.

[Thodorin]

Entwicklerchat vom 30.04. zu U16:

Update 16 Preview Stream Transcript

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.

Update 16 Preview Stream April 30, 2015

The team starts out by introducing themselves. Present today are Community Manager Andy “Frelorn” Cataldo, Senior Content Designer Jeff "MadeOfLions" Libby (MoL), Systems Designer Trevor "Jinjaah"McEwan, and Senior Content Designer Ben "DrOctothorpe" Schneider (DrO) with Jacob "QuarterMasterU" (QU) running the camera.


We start with talking about the story in U16 with MadeOfLions.

Where are we in the story? We are right after the battle of Pelargir. Aragorn and the army of the dead have successfully reclaimed the city and defeated the corsair threat; the corsairs of Umbar are no more. When this update begins, we need to figure out what to do with the corsair fleet essentially. Aragorn has an idea that he can use the fleet to sail to Minas Tirith and get there in time to save the day. But there is a bit of a wrinkle to this plan: if the word gets out and the enemies know that these aren't corsairs sailing over the river that could cause major problems. One of the first objectives that the players will have when they start this part of the epic will be to make sure no one has heard or word of this victory has not gotten out. You will help out the Grey Company in Pelargir and ready Aragorn for departure before taking your leave of him.

Frelorn: Lets talk about the regions that players are going to be getting into in Update 16, so that will be Jeff and Ben aka "MadeofLions (MoL) and DrOctothorpe (DrO)".

DrO: So the first half of Update 16 we make our way through Eastern Gondor which covers Upper Lebennin and cross through Lossarnach until we get right up against the wall surrounding Pelennor Fields and Minas Tirith. We can start on that journey before we talk about whats to come.

MoL: Since we split Lebennin in two, Lebennin is the land of five streams so we basically covered three of the five rivers last time. So this time we are going to see the Sirith and the Erui, the Erui is interesting because this is where Castamir the Usurper met his end and Eldacar came back from the North and Castamir died at the crossings. There might be plot points involved...

DrO: To give just a little bit of a hint there are river maidens associated with the five rivers in the back mythology of this land and we met some of them and we might meet more of them. We are excited to be able to finish telling that story. One of things that is happening in the lands as you go through them is all of the people that are not soldiers are getting ready to fight against the enemy in Minas Tirith and the land surrounding it have come south to sort of safe areas in both Lossarnarch and Lebennin. We see a couple of small townships and fastnesses, mainly Tuladen and Imloth Melui where the elderly and young have sought harbor.

MoL: This is an interesting place to go because all of these refugees, many of them have fled from Minas Tirith, so as you're talking to these refugees you will be hearing word of what they saw as they were leaving. One of the things you will keep hearing about from them is that they saw Osgilliath on fire, smoke in the air, basically war is right in front of the white city. These are the people that as they fled are bringing word of what they have seen so you're going to need to investigate and find out what you can do to help on your way there.

DrO: Other big ticket items that may be of interest are that we have placed Denethor the Steward of Gondor's two sisters in these regions as sort of the foreshadowing of personalities that tie into things to come. They are named Vanyalos(sp) and Turnlos(sp) and as you meet them you find two very different personalities, we've woven a whole historical love triangle and a set of relationships. Vanyalos is the wife of Forlong the Fat who by the time we get there he has marched off to war. He is the lord of Lossarnach and much loved of his people and one imagines much loving of feasts.

MoL: Its interesting to talking about Denethor's sisters in that its possible that some of the traits that Denethor has that we as readers of the book know, some of these personality traits might appear in one or the other sisters.

Now we can move on to Osgiliath

DrO: Well lets start by crossing the river, so we have been accompanying Angor (sp) the Fearless. He is sort of your assignment from Aragorn as you head off and you come as far as the wall and you've got to cross the river. Timeline-wise he doesn't get that far, so we have to make you stop and send you across the river to help out the Rangers of Ithilien. We should take some pains to point out a few times we are south of the crossroads here and we are meeting rangers that are not the same ones that Frodo and Samwise meet.

MoL: The window on the west is quite a bit to the north. The idea here is that in South Ithilien the rangers almost certainly had other hidden fastnesses, one of which I think we might currently be heading to (in the video). This one is Bar Hurin, which is the ancestral home of the stewards. This is where Denethor and his family hails from many many years ago.

DrO: So you arrive and you find the rangers are as you know them from the books: a small group of fearless men who step in and out of the shadows and attack the enemy from behind. You have to work a bit to earn their trust and they are actually searching for the same thing that you are, which is trying to figure out where Faramir has gotten himself to.

MoL: There are conflicting reports as to where Faramir has gotten himself to. There was a lot of fighting in Osgiliath and people aren't entirely sure.

DrO: We readers of the book have an idea, but the people here in game that were sort of behind him they know that he was in Osgiliath and that things were not going well in Osgiliath, so we have reason for pause and concern. So this leads us to what Frelorn asked us to talk about, which is Osgiliath.

MoL: I suppose its not too much of a spoiler to say that there is an army in Osgiliath [and that] it’s not our army. There are Haradrim and Easterlings and Mumak's (Oliphaunts). There are archers on top of them and those are all things that will try to kill you and likely step on you as well.

First Video Clip ends here due to sound issues-http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/v/4538258 the next video clip for the second half when sound was fixed is found here -http://www.twitch.tv/lotrostream/v/4538789

DrO: We can basically jump into Osgiliath now. As we mentioned, the army of the enemy has just basically taken the entire city back - they have had half the city for a long time.

MoL: This has kind of happened throughout history. Osgiliath has gone back and forth a number of times. This is just the most recent and pretty frightening occasion of this, since people are missing and we don't know where they are.

DrO: The last back-and-forth has just happened, and when we arrive, some of the rangers have just retreated to deep places under the city; there are culverts where they are hiding. When you find them, you are hoping that they know where Faramir is, and the answer is they don't actually know either. So we began our search creeping through the ruins of an occupied city. This is where we decided to stage our three-instance cluster.

Instance Cluster Information by Ben aka DrOctothorpe (DrO)

DrO: We are very pleased to be bringing back to LOTRO a classic instance cluster that is basically following the path of the search for Faramir and what happens in Osgiliath prior to our arrival. It begins down in those culverts. The rangers are just sort of hiding underneath the surface, but you go deeper as you can guess it’s not good things down there. At the end of this instance (Sunken Labyrinth), you catch a glimpse of a mysterious figure who appears to be a ranger and who you suspect might know something about what you're searching for. So we have a quest chain that the instance cluster is wrapped in, and in that you follow this figure and eventually find yourself in the second instance which is The Ruined City where you are pursuing him in and among the enemy troops throughout the ruined streets of the city. You don't quite get a glimpse of him there - he manages to stay ahead of you, although you learn some things and catch up with him at the end. Finally, you ascend out of the sewers into the Dome of Stars for the final six-person instance - the first two mentioned are three-mans. The final one, we bring back some old faces of maybe unfriendly aspect and we had a lot of fun making this one. We are going to show you a distant glimpse of the Dome of Stars itself - the Dome was the ancient capital of Gondor and it’s been in ruins for a long time. It is still partially there and it literally straddles the river. The city of Osgilliath sits on either side of the river.

MoL: The Dome of Stars was smashed by Castamir during the time of the kin strife. It was left in this state pretty much. Some serious stuff will go down up there.

Frelorn: Our wonderful QuartermasterU is steering us along and showing us the sights and sounds of this area. Now its us again.

DrO: So Im sure some of you are wondering about the kind of loot you can win from the instances. I’ll give the quick version for those who don't want spoiling. We have a whole smattering of nice stuff for the Tier 1 including offhander weapons. We have set gear for completing Tier 2 - they come in random drops. For the elite players that complete the challenge, we will let you save up for five-slot essence gear. Which will create some players of truly terrifying power ... terrifying mostly to us. And the armies of Sauron.

Frelorn: We aren't taking questions yet, but I do want to share a question I saw mentioned. What is a rough estimate of time to complete these instances?

DrO: By the time players have learned how the six-man instance works in this case, we are figuring south of 40 minutes, but not by a lot. The small fellowship ones probably 15-20 minutes at least.

Legendary Item Imbuement

Frelorn: So next on our list of things is Legendary Item Imbuement, which I know you guys have been giving great feedback on the forums about and I'm going to turn it over to Trevor aka Jinjaah on the forums.

Jinjaah: A quick summary for those who don't know Imbuement is: an alternate way of advancement for level 100 players. It allows legacies to grow beyond a point of potency than there was and to grow in the future. One of the things we wanted to do with imbuement legendary items was we didn't like the idea of legendary items being a grind to level and then destroy to grind a new one. It didn't feel very legendary. So now we have created a new system now that you have created this imbued legendary item you could take this thing all the way to Mordor if you wanted to. So thats kind of the jist of it. There are various things that go into it as you will see on live. Ages change the amount of unlocks you get to start [with], as well as to where your dps legacy will start; progress from your dps legacy will transfer over. So right now, we are looking at a non-imbued legendary item, a very nice spear of the first age.

So when we wanted to do imbuement, we wanted legacies to be able to extend forever but not all of our legacies carry over into imbuement. The legendary item imbuement panel will show you what legacies will carry over, and you can hover over to cross-compare what is there. There are no points you allocate to specific legacies; it will grow as it gains ixp, [and] the bars across the bottom show how far it has to go to the next tier. On the right side, you can see what your current tier is out of how many tiers there are available. When you hover over it, you can see how many tiers there are to unlock. When you hover over the legacy xp bar, this shows you the current state/tier, what the current tier gives you, what the next tier gives you, and what the max tier gives you. You can use this to judge when you're replacing a legacy to see if there are some legacies that have secondary bonuses and decide if this is what you want to have on your weapon. It’s got some really awesome tooltips.

DrO: To make things as clear as humanly possible: on any one of these legacies, as you play the game you earn up to 25 tiers on these legacies. If you want to go above 25 tiers, you're going to need to do something to unlock those. With U16 you can unlock another 10. There are a number of items you will be able to find in-game or go through mithril coins. It’s 29 mithril coins to increase maximum tier. The idea is that, in future updates, we will extend that upper limit so that this weapon is something that can grow with you to Mordor and beyond.

Jinjaah: Yep there is no more recycling, no more reforging - this is your weapon to carry into the future.

Questions and Answers

Can we get imbued legacy scrolls in-game at the moment?
Jinjaah: The normal way of getting legacy replacement scrolls has been reworked for Imbuement. One scroll that acts as a legacy box: you use it on the item and you have a giant list of legacies you can choose from. I believe we hooked some up to the content, I believe in the epic/questing.

Can you post an updated official legacy change chart when U16 goes live?
That depends on if Jinjaah ever gets it to Frelorn... we've been asking/heckling him for that.

Guardian AOE targets - will they be increased from 5?
Jinjaah: We talked about increasing it to 7. I'm not sure if we did that or just talked about it off the top of my head. I'm not sure if its going into 16 or 16.1, we had a lot of discussions like these for the individual classes, so trying to remember it off the top of my head is hard. I can check and let you know. If we didn't do it in 16, it means that we are currently monitoring it for 16.1, which will be a large batch of imbuement fixes, and that sort of stuff could definitely be one of the bullet points.

Is it time yet to update us on the current status of the Osgiliath PvMP map investigations? If not, when will we next hear an update on this?
Frelorn: Its funny you should mention that. Investigations have definitely... intensified a bit, we will say Wheels are turning, things are being looked at, a meeting … some dedicated meetings on it have happened. As soon as we are ready to give more information on this post-U16 you will be the first to know. Right now the focus is on Update 16.

Since this might be our last LI's, will cosmetic weapons ever happen?
DrO: Its definitely something we want to do. We are investigating the possibility. It is definitely not something that's going to fit in U16.

Do I have to buy an expansion for Osgiliath?
QU: Quest Pack East Gondor will 795 turbine points and it will be in the store day of launch.

Any Mithril Coin sales coming up for U16 release?
QU: Maybe…

Why the loot rule change? It only encourages some people to take advantage of others. It's hard enough to get good players to group, let alone ones who will honor the "old rules". Why go backward with this?
DrO: So there are a couple of answers. One is that we came at the instance cluster from kind of a blast-from-the-past angle. We saw loot rule as a way to get back to the classic Lord of the Rings Online feel. We like that you get to see what everyone is getting; it's a bit of an intangible. It is not the first thing you think of when you get loot, but we believe that you feel better about everything you're doing when you have a better sense of what everyone is getting. It was getting to more of a sense of “I'm in my own little bubble” with the individual loot system. Which in some senses is great, but we hope more people will try out the master loot option when they can and make sure that their fellowship leaders are trusted and trustworthy. We are investigating ways to mitigate potential downsides; we actually believe that there are at least as many upsides in the long run overall.

Episodic content: Is it coming with U16?
MoL: No but it is coming after U16.. but more information later. Stay tuned!

Will the marks/medallions price for Scrolls of Empowerment go down? The current prices will encourage Sambrog farming all over the place.
Jinjaah: Thats something that we are looking at. There will be low and slow changes on those; we don't accidentally want to go too far, but we will be monitoring that over the next couple of dot updates.

Will there be an update about virtue traits? And will there be older mounts and newer available to buy?
Jinjaah: Virtue Trait updates no, but there are some trait updates in that some of the legacies we needed to remove for imbuement. We built the points back into traits, but in terms of mounts and stores and such...
QU: So currently not slated to have any new mounts in the store for U16. However, it is something that has been talked about, and there were some questions in last week’s livestream, where people were talking about dyeable appearances to support their warsteeds. We are talking about it in ongoing conversations.

Any news on server transfer information?
Frelorn: No news yet. Let’s get through Update 16 first.

Can we go see Minas Morgul?
That would be great, but not in this update.

Frelorn - which will come first - episodic content or the PVMP update? And can we confirm officially that there indeed *will be* a PVMP update?
You will have to wait and see.

Server upgrades: what exactly is being upgraded with this hardware upgrade?
Frelorn: Everything! So we will be moving to a new data center, which [as] we have shown with one of our other titles, has improved latency with individuals. We will be moving the European servers back to Europe, and while all that's being done everything is being put on new hardware.

Are you completely done going through the Player's Council applications?
Frelorn: No, I’m still completely buried in them. Update 16 took precedence over this. We had to make sure Dev Diaries and release notes were done. I'm digging through them - there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of them. I’m getting through them as fast as I can. If you don't get an email, assume you didn't get in, because I'm not going to email everybody to just do a thank you for trying. If you get in, hooray, if you didn't, then try again next year.

Now that West, Central, and East Gondor are out, are there plans to make a "Gondor Quest Pack" Bundle in-store?
QU: I don't see why not.
MoL: We could call it the South Kingdom!

Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll: the ways of acquiring them mentioned were all from quests, so I assume one time. Will there be a more consistent way to get more?
Jinjaah: Yes. For U16 we are patching them to quests, but for 16.1 we are talking about attaching them to loot drops as well as potentially putting them on a barter vendor.

Have the drop rates for Star-Lit Crystals and Crystals of Remembrance been increased to compensate for their higher demand?
Jinjaah: They were changed but they weren't changed dramatically. It goes back to what I was saying of there will be more tweaks. We are going to slowly ramp them up until we feel they are in a good spot and that will be over time.

Can we get level 100 crafting recipes please?
We were just talking about this today; stay tuned post-Update 16.

How is the PvMP map coming?
After Update 16.


Is there a lockout on how many times we can do the new instances each day?
Jinjaah: No.