General Feedback Wanted: Community Events Support

[Cordovan]

Sometime in the next few weeks we have a plan to get together inside of the office to talk about what we might be able to do big and small, short term, long term, and in a fantasy reality where we can do anything we want, and see what comes out of it. So, this isn't us pledging work on anything or specifically planning to do anything, but we'd love to hear from people who organize and run events in-game, whether it be kinship nights or large concert events, what things small to large we could do to better support your event.

[RubenRybnick]

I'd say : adding new community (exclusive) rewards (Housing Items, Titles, Cosmetics, Pets, etc).

~Yao
D&Co du Milieu

[Hobbitry]

Sometime in the next few weeks we have a plan to get together inside of the office to talk about what we might be able to do big and small, short term, long term, and in a fantasy reality where we can do anything we want, and see what comes out of it. So, this isn't us pledging work on anything or specifically planning to do anything, but we'd love to hear from people who organize and run events in-game, whether it be kinship nights or large concert events, what things small to large we could do to better support your event.

I agree with the above! I had something similar in the list I’ve been putting together. Off the top of my head:

- By providing more in-game spaces with event runners in mind. For example, having a door in existing spaces that leads to an NPC-free (or NPC light) room in NPC-dominated spaces like the new inns in Yondershire. These spaces with the NPCs are beautiful and should stick around, but they don’t really lend themselves to events with the NPC spam and lack of seating for players, things like that.
- Some gazebos that are NPC-free in a few areas so we can use them to perform on!
- A fix for the housing bug so we can reliably hold events in the homesteads without fear of needed housing decorations not turning up for the event.
- Prizes and rewards specific for community event purposes.
- Perhaps something like the event schedule but for player events, though there’s sites like this already existing and it might be a lot of work.

[elvenes]

I got 2 suggestions

1) bring back the fashion Maven. People have been asking for it for years
2) resume doing the Bree havoc where you drop random bosses in town, it always was fun to watch

and resume doing contests! like the design a cloak contests you used to do years ago. that is a useful way to get the community involved, and screenshot contests. ok it's 4

[The_Wise_Owl]

I've been VERY excited about the kinship update mentioned in the 2019 Producer's Letter. Has there been any progress on this?

We are looking into more ways for Kinships to advance, and new rewards for Kins to earn as a group. We like the idea of small and large Kins advancing, earning cosmetic rewards for their housing, and allowing Kin leaders to occasionally activate buffs that benefit the entire Kinship. Activating these buffs would cost less for smaller guilds without compromising the value of maintaining large guilds if that is what players prefer.

As for larger community events... I'd like to see the Town Criers play a bigger role in the community again. I don't think they've had anything new to say since Lalia's Market opened! I remember they used to always announce the latest expansions and content updates. It was a neat way to keep informed.

It might also be nice to be able to "post" an event with the Town Crier that other players on the server would be able to see... You could talk to the Town Crier to see what's going on. Perhaps the Town Crier could even announce these player events when people walk by!

Others have mentioned bringing back the Fashion Maven or bosses in Bree. If the Town Crier announced the dates/times these things would happen, it would encourage players to gather/dress up/etc.

[maartena]

Sometime in the next few weeks we have a plan to get together inside of the office to talk about what we might be able to do big and small, short term, long term, and in a fantasy reality where we can do anything we want, and see what comes out of it. So, this isn't us pledging work on anything or specifically planning to do anything, but we'd love to hear from people who organize and run events in-game, whether it be kinship nights or large concert events, what things small to large we could do to better support your event.

I know there is a community loot list.... some events organized contain prizes, e.g. people vote on best performance of the night, or whomever wins a certain race/event, etc, etc.... It would be nice if organizers for events - but only organizers - can request a few things (codes, I presume) from the community loot list that they then can award as prizes without too much involvement of SSG staff.

Many events take place in weekends or evenings outside of working hours, or in different timezones, so a SSG staff member simply can't be present all the time, but if there was a way for organizers to do something, or request something via a ticket.... that would be cool.

Another thing that would be extremely handy is an in-game schedule of events. Maybe a board in most major hubs (or just Bree) where someone who has applied to be a "community organizer" can post events. Not everyone should be allowed to post of course or it would become a troll mess..... but maybe those who applied (via a game ticket maybe) to be an organizer.

[Cordovan]

I know there is a community loot list.... some events organized contain prizes, e.g. people vote on best performance of the night, or whomever wins a certain race/event, etc, etc.... It would be nice if organizers for events - but only organizers - can request a few things (codes, I presume) from the community loot list that they then can award as prizes without too much involvement of SSG staff.

Many events take place in weekends or evenings outside of working hours, or in different timezones, so a SSG staff member simply can't be present all the time, but if there was a way for organizers to do something, or request something via a ticket.... that would be cool.

Another thing that would be extremely handy is an in-game schedule of events. Maybe a board in most major hubs (or just Bree) where someone who has applied to be a "community organizer" can post events. Not everyone should be allowed to post of course or it would become a troll mess..... but maybe those who applied (via a game ticket maybe) to be an organizer.

I just wanted to say that this is already possible: If you are organizing an event in game and want to get some things for prizes like the titles from the community loot list, you need to PM me on the forums here or get in touch with me however else. I typically don't give out codes for bigger items, but some smaller points codes and titles I can definitely do. My main criteria is that it needs to be an event others can join and be publicly announced; I am not interested in helping fund your kinship recruitment or Friday night hangout with friends. But for sure I can do this!

[Loox]

I would love to see a character "temp" transfer to attend events or play content with friends. Maybe a 12-hour pass to another server that only includes what you have in your pack and wallet, so travel prepared. If you want to leave before then just click on your return to home/house icon or visit the temp transfer NPC.

[Ethuilir]

More emotes, please. I personally would like more stance/pose emotes in general. For RP purposes and whatnot.

[Hoppa_Joel]

Sometime in the next few weeks we have a plan to get together inside of the office to talk about what we might be able to do big and small, short term, long term, and in a fantasy reality where we can do anything we want, and see what comes out of it. So, this isn't us pledging work on anything or specifically planning to do anything, but we'd love to hear from people who organize and run events in-game, whether it be kinship nights or large concert events, what things small to large we could do to better support your event.

Costmetics, pets those are always awesome. I always liked being able to gift something to someone ( not always the case with bind on aquire )

One thing, I would love to see in lotro is "sandbox" elements.
I know years ago I mentioned this, but I will again. What I'd like to see, is a purchasable "area" for kinships that can be allowed a 'door' that we can hook on a house, or kin house etc, that could take us to a blank neighbourhood type set, that we could sandbox create into whatever we wanted. with ambient skies it feels we become another step closer to achieving this so I am hopeful.

This could be like premium housing, we could buy set themes, seasons, and so on to use as a freeform decoration to create or re-create places, for roleplay hooks in the game. These sandbox neighbourhoods could be accessed by anyone going through the door.

( for example : since the first year of housing my kinship has done Tricks and Treats, in the neighbourhood, decorating, and going door to door for events, we also do a Yule thing too, I'd love to have a 'saved set' that I could upload in a kin owned area, and allow people to explore as they saw fit to do. )
If this idea I have, coudl work as a labeled transition door ( which outward appearance coudl be alteretd to be gates, doors, cave entrances, a passage between trees etc ) if these could be hooked, then communities could create a 'hub' type area with one, which had doors leading to other locations.

Could be areas of enormous, huge, large, medium, and small sized and set to either indoors or outdoors.

Yep this is a massively large project idea, but I would absolutely love it.
Since this is a question of what I'd love to see ( fully knowing it probably will not happen so please, nay sayers dont 'correct me, because I know it is a lot to undertake as a developer )
But yeah,
more cosmetics, pets, more design options for houses and neighbourhoods. more sandboxy things.

Oh, we also do "Bounder patrols" walking roleplay days and so on.
What I'd like to see is the ability to set a position of where a pet or player 'follows from' like from a grid. ( imagine a 9 square grid, where you can put fown a 'dot' for cosmetic pet, active pet, and player-follower(s) and a dot for yourself. This coudl create less clipping collisions of pet/player/followers.

Additionally, I'd like a cosmetic 'steed' option. based on this a bit, where a player being followed could select cart mode giving their follower the ability to sit in a cart behind them and be dragged along. hehe. ( just thoughts I'd have loved to have )

Additionally, when I have in past done some of the Bounder patrols, I've also dual logged for roleplay a hobbit or two, with my best attempt at making a 'goblin' for story.
So, I would love to see more cosmetic-skins like we have with Gollum, Gandalf, etc.. but I'd love several varieties of goblin, boggart, and orc to be possible as cosmetic skins. It woudl be great for roleplay.

Oh yes, also, items like the recipes for spawnable foodstuff tables, that were not one shot I'd love to see more of that for social gatherings.
just my thoughts.

Sorry for the big wish list.

[Pontin_Finnberry]

As for larger community events... I'd like to see the Town Criers play a bigger role in the community again. I don't think they've had anything new to say since Lalia's Market opened! I remember they used to always announce the latest expansions and content updates. It was a neat way to keep informed.

It might also be nice to be able to "post" an event with the Town Crier that other players on the server would be able to see... You could talk to the Town Crier to see what's going on. Perhaps the Town Crier could even announce these player events when people walk by!

Others have mentioned bringing back the Fashion Maven or bosses in Bree. If the Town Crier announced the dates/times these things would happen, it would encourage players to gather/dress up/etc.

I like the suggestions here for the Town Crier, would be nice to be able post an event others are doing and see it listed in game, and if it is possible an announcement by the crier would also be great.

[soddyhouse]

I would love to have a chance to do some pvmp outside the Ettenmoors and Osgiliath. Take a area and ward it from the creeps from leaving the zone and just have a general brawl. A warning will be placed for players not looking to pvmp before entering the region. I would also add that this is a timed event no more than 4 hours. I don't know how possible that is, but I hope to have a unique combat community event.

For reference: the Mirkwood[RU] hosted an event that allowed pvmp in Forochel in 2009.

[Aedon]

I am sure most folks know that on any given night you can find a concert happening in Pony Square. And while I find sudden monster drops to be funny on occasion, I can say for sure that this action would drive the concerts out of the square. Most of us there are in game for the music and community, and having played in MMO's for over 25 years now I can tell you that Giant Mob Spawn is not what a lot of us are looking for. Perhaps make sure that the spawn is in one of the other squares so that those that would like to can run to defend Bree. That said, I will also say that in the past we have enjoyed seeing Weatherstock broke up by the sudden appearance of a Balrog. Nothing says time to go home clearer than a little shadow and flame.

Titles are always good, and I have had ideas for many that will not only be fun for the music community, but the player base at large. Who would not love the title Dances With Eagles? Also, fashion maven sounds like a fun one to pass out. What about Best in show for dog shows, and Winners Circle for Horse Races?

We all know that at this time lag is a big issue. I, and many others are hoping that once 64bit is in full use, this will lessen.

I have a lot of other ideas but in truth, I am old and in need of a nap.

[elvenes]

on any given night... on Landroval, maybe, but Landroval is not the only server of the game and most people won't know, simply because they don't play on Landroval. And a single server sohuldn't be a stopper to organize developer events for EVERY server

[Aedon]

on any given night... on Landroval, maybe, but Landroval is not the only server of the game and most people won't know, simply because they don't play on Landroval. And a single server sohuldn't be a stopper to organize developer events for EVERY server

I fully agree with this. I would love to see many different events on every server. I think it is one of the easiest ways to make the game a lot more fun for all the servers. We have even held events in the Ettenmoors with our creep friends. One of the things I did on Landy to increase awareness of all upcoming events was to start a FB page where any who wish to can post upcoming events of interest. Now granted, I am mostly on the music community side, but I have also listed upcoming horse races and other events not musical because I believe supporting the entire community uplifts us all..

[Aedon]

I like the suggestions here for the Town Crier, would be nice to be able post an event others are doing and see it listed in game, and if it is possible an announcement by the crier would also be great.

This has been done in other games with much success.

[Echoweaver]

Another vote for the Town Crier announcing player-run events. This would be really immersive and much better for getting the word out than the newsletter. I presume this would involve an application and some manual approval by Cord, but it sounds like that's already involved when events request items from the loot list and so forth.

It'd be nice to see the loot list get an update.

[Brinswith]

While we've missed the boat on the current legendary servers. Would it be possible to revisit the GM controlled Amarthiel event it at any such time a new legendary server is introduced. It would be nice if those of us playing could experience it again. I'd also echo in favour of a retrun of the Fashion Maven. It has been far too long gone.

[shoreless]

This is less a specific event, but I think *so* much more can be done with the current housing neighborhoods. I started working on a proposal/brainstorm recently. It's not finished but I am linking it here in case it's something the team is interested in doing. I, genuinely, would write the quests for you gratis if you decide to do it. I think it would add a much-desired cozy "life simulator" mechanic to the game that people desperately crave. For every raider I believe we have 10 players who wish this game was something like "Animal Crossing with Hobbits" and my proposal points us in that direction. I hope you genuinely consider it.

LOTRO Dynamic Housing Doc

Remember, it's super rough but you'll get the idea.

[Kirchenmaus]

I would like to see the following additions to the game:
- An event calendar where you can create your own events for your kinship, friends or even for the public (server-wide). Raids, for example, for which people are still being sought, or even a concert or something similar. It would also be nice if all festivals were automatically entered in this calendar by you producers.
- A kinship bank, which is accessible via the same NPC as the usual bank or perhaps through a new NPC in the kinship house (similar to the chest), but for which you can configure the access for storage and removal.
- New cosmetics in Lalia's market would also be great. There hasn't been an update there in ages. How would it be if the selection of cosmetics there would always change according to the season? In winter, for example, you could get warm, cuddly cosmetics, in spring colorful ones, in summer light ones, and so on.
- Likewise, I would like to see seasons implemented in general. There are skirmishes in which Bree is snowed in. Can't this be planned in principle for part of the cities and landscapes (only in Eriador maybe)? Instead of the occasional rain stormy weather where leaves fly around with the rain. Or simply snow in winter? In a snowy city like Bree you could have snowball fights or build a snowman here and there that stands for a certain time (maybe 1 hour).
And if you can't do that in the cities, can't you at least implement it in the housing regions? Especially there I miss a seasonal landscape change very much, because we have our housing items for the decoration there. But a snowman in the middle of a green meadow looks stupid. And please, if it is possible, implement it also for the classic housing! This has been criminally neglected in recent years.

That's my 2 cents.

[Ethuilir]

I'd like a built-in Alliance feature in the game, similar to the Kinship feature but you can join several alliances. The user channels feature can only do so much and you can only join 4, I think. Maybe also incorporate a Rivalry feature so that players that belong in a 'rival alliance' cannot join both alliances.

An Alliance feature would help lift the barrier between kinships and 'independent' players in-game. Maybe just allow players to join two or more kinships, then add a second kinship panel and chat.

[VincentAC]

I've been playing Lotro since beta, but recently it is becoming unplayable. I keep having problems with my character freezing in place, and unable to move or respond to attacks. This sometimes passes and I can resume playing, but most of the time I end up losing the connection to the server and have to restart my client. Sometimes I'll only be logged on for a few minutes before this happens and it can happen soon again after reconnecting. This makes the game unplayable, especially in combat where NPCs can attack me but I can't defend myself and end up dying multiple times.

This problem ONLY occurs on Lotro and not on other MMOs that I play like GW2, ESO, SW:TOR, New World, etc. so it has to be a server issue and not a networking problem on my end.

As far as enhancements to the game, I have developed half a dozen plugins and would love to see an update to the Lua API so more things could be done in plugins. In particular, I'd like to see API access to player reputations and attributes.

[Rinlul]

One thing I thought Star Wars Galaxies did really well was making it pretty easy for people to curate their own events through special event vendors. You could really go all-out and have various structures, events, friendly and non-friendly NPCs, etc that could do various things at various points in the event. An AT-AT could even show up! Granted, SWG was much more of a sandbox MMO than LOTRO ever will be, but I think there are certain parts of the game engine that could be taken advantage of to do these sorts of things without breaking the server.

[Gaiandrial]

Sometime in the next few weeks we have a plan to get together inside of the office to talk about what we might be able to do big and small, short term, long term, and in a fantasy reality where we can do anything we want, and see what comes out of it. So, this isn't us pledging work on anything or specifically planning to do anything, but we'd love to hear from people who organize and run events in-game, whether it be kinship nights or large concert events, what things small to large we could do to better support your event.

IMHO two things need to be addressed for Community Events to work at all, especially on Evernight. The First is, yeah, you guessed it, LAG, and the Second is Chat Moderation. Since we can no longer file a chat violation other than filing a lengthy form, then wait 2-3 weeks for a response, the kiddies have taken over, they can do what they want without fear because they Know nobody, especially not a GM, is going to stop them. I have a band that I USED to play regularly but the past few months it's been pointless, Lag and/or Hecklers closes it down almost every time. I have screenshots of Layers and Reduced Awareness with only 85 ppl online, and I was at my Home, not a central area. The service we get isn't just Bad, it's Insulting. The rest of the net laughs at us, Lag Of The Rings Offline, on one site I frequent I had to remove the LOTRO link from my profile due to the comments I was getting.

So yeah, fix the Lag first Cord, Then we can talk about Trying to have Fun in the Game again with Events. Stop Talking about reducing the lag for months and months on end and Just Do It.

[Asfodel]

I need a new Carry All box for cosmetic costumes - the wardrobe is no longer big enough. I accept that I couldn't store different dyed items, so I would still need the wardrobe for items that I've dyed, but I'd like to keep other stuff in reserve.

Also, it would be SO useful to be able to rename CarryAlls to identify the content (yes, I'm a hoarder)