Producer's Letter

[SingularityNow]

They've pretty much told us what they have been working on since last year.

Links? I would like to see it, I've missed it. They should've added it to the letter, I think.

[Arnenna]

It's a matter of who screamed the loudest.

Dozens, if not hundreds of people were demanding free transfers off of Anor because the server was empty, and that the server should be closed because there is nothing "legendary" about it anymore, certainly not post level 115 or so..... They were all upset they had to PAY for transfers from what was called a "dead server".

The people that wanted Anor kept "as is", not closed, and kept alive seemed to have been in the vast minority - purely based on my experience with what I have seen pass by on these forums.

So, I guess what the majority of players wanted, is what is going to come to pass now.

I was one of those people, and we very much didn't get what we wanted. That was back in May 2021, more than a year ago. What's happening now is the natural progression of the Anor server. It's been dead a long time, and I guess even SSG can see it's not paying off anymore.

[Kirchenmaus]

Well, class/race changes is nothing but another way to make money. F*** lore ...

No new epos, no new areas for endlevel, no new content for endgamers - except for more boring missions. Missions suck! Day in day out the same stupid quests is not fun and the reward is also meh ...

And the promise of the rewards for festivals ... been there done that. The rewards from several festivals within the last 12 months are just a sad shadow of what we used to have. Sorry ... I haven't had fun at any festival for a year now and midsummer and it's rewards is just a bad joke too.

My dissapointment is once again huge. Yondershire can't make up for 12 months of one bad decision after another. Sorry. I'm out ...

I expect more ...

[WeirdJedi]

Links? I would like to see it, I've missed it. They should've added it to the letter, I think.

I'll just leave this up in case other people are interested.

Cordovan has reset his priorities. The last Cord of the Rings was March 18th. This was something that wasn't officially part of his job. He had technical issues trying to cross-stream over many platforms and tried to improve the bitrate people were expereincing by having the Anniversary Event stream Twitch-only. The beacon - as well as the Chronicler for the other game he works on - has been put on hold. He wants to work on developing the Release Notes for the website and adding more official festival guides. He is trying to compose a new way, with perhaps another person, to help with the streams. Much of what he says is in this thread here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...he-Rings-today. About 7minutes in Anniversary Event: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1463704929

They are somewhat looking on improving Ill Omens Event. He briefly says it about 25 minutes in with the Anniversary Event. But Raninia also expressed his opinion on the skirmish system in general here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXmaQwsk7eU&t=2280s. It doesn't sound like they will be improving the skirmish system, but there seems to be some curiosity in how to handle the actual Skirmish Event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cBy2sNwYr8&t=1020s

They have been trying their best to work on the World Transfer system. There is a long history of it we've sort of went down in this thread here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...rver-databases. I guess it is way more complicated than they expected.

Then again, they have moved engineers over to work on performance for the lag. Much of it has been stated over time. For example, Cordovan very briefly said that they were working on how the game communicates with quests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cBy2sNwYr8&t=17m. Raninia talks about the progress in a few things like sharing assets. This change has caused some things to appear out-of-place as pointed out here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ndscape-errors. They will continue to fix them as they come to them. One change also made the Spring Festival auto-bestow quest to fail, which they had then to temporarily remove and add in later.

That said, Scenario is working on a housing project that involves new assets, even looking at stairs: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ng-Decorations. He might include some assets from this thread here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...on-Suggestions

They are working on new forums. Much about the new website and forum details, as well as what Cordovan will be doing for them, is in the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAzcf80X3o. I did mention a few things in another thread recently like XenForo (2min), Light & Dark Mode (11min), Custom Titles (18min), and better Mobile Version (39min). More information can be found in the 1/21 Stream here regarding a few other suggestions or limitations of the forum between 35-45min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHGwWJMILQA&=35m

I'd like to think that we all know that they still want to try to do something more regarding the currencies. The announcement was here back in January - https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...89#post8118189. Discussion was here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...Ember-Figments. And Raninia also added more in the interview here around 30 to 45m: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN393T2PQSY&t=30m.

They have been looking in adding new features to the game that are not supported by every player. This started with ending Windows XP support May 2021 - https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ows-XP-Opinion. But this also includes MacOS Client Deprecation: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...nt-Deprecation and 32-bit - https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/l...lease-notes-en The actual statement is: "We will begin the process of ending support for the 32-bit versions of the game client for The Lord of the Rings Online on May 18th, 2022. The 32-bit clients will continue to be supported until January 1st, 2023. In the meantime, some features may not work fully on the 32-bit clients. We recommend all players change their settings in the game launch to switch to the 64-bit game client. This is done by pressing the down arrow button at the top of the launcher, then selecting Options." The discussion for ending 32-bit is in this thread: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ig-kick-32-bit

[Arnenna]

Amor vincit omnia

Yes it does Feet were made for walking though. Elven burglars! Elves, that burgle! Garlic bread anyone

[auximenes]

But maybe it's just something in Lonelands that I can't quite place, any ideas?

Looks like a new area to me. Not sure if it helps, but, you can see the sun's reflection on the water and I think the lighting indicates morning (10:00am-ish?) rather than afternoon, so that would put the camera pointing roughly south, with the characters looking north-east. I don't know of any rivers running east-west like that in the existing Lone-lands. My guess is this is land west of The Angle.

[Arnenna]

I'm a bit gutted that Anor is closing in ten weeks and not three weeks ago before my sub ran out actually. Typical bad timing. Decisions decisions. Take what's in the vault as is and potentially miss out on what's in mule inventories, or pay the minimum possible to clean up first. Time to consider my best interests in this one I think.

[DoRonRon]

Anor

Will Anor's populous really get to choose EU for a target destination? Or is this to just hang in the air 'til the day before transfers to US only servers open up?
I had the impression that the tech to do this only came in with Bombadil's creation where there was the specific intention to move characters off it on it's closing.

EDIT: Checking the Ithil transfer article the option was there but who can say it was tested.

And is there any intent to address the naming conflict issue so as to be resolved in the next few weeks if not already?


Hobbit LM

Can you get a refund on a Race Change token when your pet size turns out to scale to the general stature of your character? Some seem intent on a blinkered approach to Lotro gaming and might feel let down without an enormous bear's rear in their face or bird flapping around their head obscuring their view.


Predation

Continues... to the cost of the title.



P.S. A Ring of Power facsimile for a wedding ring, really? That's asking for trouble.

[SingularityNow]

Heh. You caught me off-guard, but I can try to compile a list from all the Cord of the Rings notes I have. I guess I can always edit this post later with the information.

Cordovan has reset his priorities. The last Cord of the Rings was March 18th. This was something that wasn't officially part of his job. He had technical issues trying to cross-stream over many platforms and tried to improve the bitrate people were expereincing by having the Anniversary Event stream Twitch-only. The beacon - as well as the Chronicler for the other game he works on - has been put on hold. He wants to work on developing the Release Notes for the website and adding more official festival guides. He is trying to compose a new way, with perhaps another person, to help with the streams. Much of what he says is in this thread here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...he-Rings-today. About 7minutes in Anniversary Event: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1463704929

They are somewhat looking on improving Ill Omens Event. He briefly says it about 25 minutes in with the Anniversary Event. But Raninia also expressed his opinion on the skirmish system in general here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXmaQwsk7eU&t=2280s. It doesn't sound like they will be improving the skirmish system in general, but there seems to be some curiosity in how to handle the actual Skirmish Event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cBy2sNwYr8&t=1020s

They have been trying their best to work on the World Transfer system. There is a long history of it we've sort of went down in this thread here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...rver-databases. I guess it is way more complicated than they expected.

Then again, they have moved people over to trying to fix the lag. Much of it has been stated over time. For example, Cordovan very briefly said that they were working on how the game communicates with quests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cBy2sNwYr8&t=17m. Raninia talks about the progress in a few things like sharing assets. This change has caused some things to appear out-of-place as pointed out here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ndscape-errors. They will continue to fix them as they come to them. One change also made the Spring Festival auto-bestow quest to fail, which they had then to temporarily remove and add in later.

That said, Scenario is working on a project that involves new assets, even looking at stairs, with some maybe from this thread here: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...orations/page2

They are working on new forums. Much about the new website and forum details, as well as what Cordovan will be doing for them, is in the full thread here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAzcf80X3o. I did mention a few things in another thread recently like XenForo (2min), Light & Dark Mode (11min), Custom Titles (18min), and better Mobile Version (39min). More information can be found in the 1/21 Stream here regarding a few other suggestions or limitations of the forum between 35-45min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHGwWJMILQA&=35m

They have been looking in adding new features to the game that are not supported by every player. This started with ending Windows XP support May 2021 - https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ows-XP-Opinion. But this also includes MacOS Client Deprecation: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...nt-Deprecation and 32-bit - https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/l...lease-notes-en The actual statement is: "We will begin the process of ending support for the 32-bit versions of the game client for The Lord of the Rings Online on May 18th, 2022. The 32-bit clients will continue to be supported until January 1st, 2023. In the meantime, some features may not work fully on the 32-bit clients. We recommend all players change their settings in the game launch to switch to the 64-bit game client. This is done by pressing the down arrow button at the top of the launcher, then selecting Options." The discussion for ending 32-bit is in this thread: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...ig-kick-32-bit

Not one thing of that has anything to do with " this same producers letter + just a little bit of information of where our endgame characters will go with U34 and beyond: " which is what I referenced for the context of my post that you replied to.

[Kakistos]

really? i have criticized the game policy of ssg in a very constructive way and my comment is deleted without comment? That says it all and makes me very sad. that's how you deal with open and honest criticism without it being insulting... that says it all and that's it for me. I'm 46 years old and if I would react like that in the real world .... well, it doesn't matter

[Arnenna]

Anor

Will Anor's populous really get to choose EU for a target destination? Or is this to just hang in the air 'til the day before transfers to US only servers open up?
I had the impression that the tech to do this only came in with Bombadil's creation where there was the specific intention to move characters off it on it's closing.

And is there any intent to address the naming conflict issue so as to be resolved in the next few weeks if not already?


Hobbit LM

Can you get a refund on a Race Change token when your pet size turns out to scale to the general stature of your character? Some seem intent on a blinkered approach to Lotro gaming and might feel let down without an enormous bear's rear in their face or bird flapping around their head obscuring their view.


Predation

Continues... to the cost of the title.



P.S. A Ring of Power facsimile for a wedding ring, really? That's asking for trouble.

I transferred a character off Ithil to EN when it closed, so the EU servers work just fine.

[ShireDweller]

muchisimas gracias lotro despues de tantos años tengo mi lm soy el jugador mas feliz del mundo al fin en el juego que tanto año en la tierra de Frodo y Sam tengo mi lm muchisimas gracias siempre estare eternamente agradecido hare todas las raid volvere a etten a subir a mi lm y sere feliz por fin se hizo justicia y se completo mi cuento precioso como dice un amigo de mi pais al que quiero
de verdad muchisimas gracias a todos tambien tendre champion jaja

I thought of you immediately when I read this Producer's Letter and hoped you were still playing to see something you asked for over so many years come true for you.

[DoRonRon]

I transferred a character off Ithil to EN when it closed, so the EU servers work just fine.

Quote before edit

[Arnenna]

Quote before edit

Ahh, I see your edit now. Well, hopefully now I can put that one out of people's minds. The transfer to EN worked off Ithil.

[maartena]

Can you get a refund on a Race Change token when your pet size turns out to scale to the general stature of your character? Some seem intent on a blinkered approach to Lotro gaming and might feel let down without an enormous bear's rear in their face or bird flapping around their head obscuring their view.

I can almost 100% guarantee you NO refund. I mean, you would have to spend 2995 for the race change token, then get a refund..... and then spend that refunded 2995 again to change your race back. So if you are not happy with a hobbit LM, you'd need to spend 2995 x 2 = 5990 LP to change TO hobbit, and change BACK to elf, or whatever you were before.

That's just never going to happen. If you want to be sure, just wait till someone you know becomes a hobbit LM, and have him/her summon a bunch of pets and make screenshots. I'm sure someone will make screenshots on day 1.....

[Arnenna]

I can almost 100% guarantee you NO refund. I mean, you would have to spend 2995 for the race change token, then get a refund..... and then spend that refunded 2995 again to change your race back. So if you are not happy with a hobbit LM, you'd need to spend 2995 x 2 = 5990 LP to change TO hobbit, and change BACK to elf, or whatever you were before.

That's just never going to happen. If you want to be sure, just wait till someone you know becomes a hobbit LM, and have him/her summon a bunch of pets and make screenshots. I'm sure someone will make screenshots on day 1.....

Well I won't have any problem with that. I want a hobbit LM about as much as I want a headache.

Hobbit champion though, I'll roll with that, just for the sound effects. I have a few char slots sitting idle.

[maartena]

And is there any intent to address the naming conflict issue so as to be resolved in the next few weeks if not already?

On this I can also almost 100% guarantee you a NO answer. The current naming rules stay in effect I believe, so if a character has not logged on for more than a year you will bump the name. I actually did this successfully with one PAID transfer from Anor to Arkenstone, and it bumped another character that probably has not logged on in years and I retained the name. I have however also heard reports of this NOT working, despite it being an aged out character.

I think when Anor closes, we have to deal with the transfer system "as is" and see how it works out.

Personally, I believe they should move all characters that have not logged on for 5 years into a "cold storage" server, and if the person ever comes back to the game they can place them on any server they want from that point. This will free up a LOT of names from people who played from 2007-2010 or so, and maybe stopped around the Mirkwood release and never came back.

[Curuer_Bauglir]

On this I can also almost 100% guarantee you a NO answer. The current naming rules stay in effect I believe, so if a character has not logged on for more than a year you will bump the name. I actually did this successfully with one PAID transfer from Anor to Arkenstone, and it bumped another character that probably has not logged on in years and I retained the name. I have however also heard reports of this NOT working, despite it being an aged out character.

I think when Anor closes, we have to deal with the transfer system "as is" and see how it works out.

Personally, I believe they should move all characters that have not logged on for 5 years into a "cold storage" server, and if the person ever comes back to the game they can place them on any server they want from that point. This will free up a LOT of names from people who played from 2007-2010 or so, and maybe stopped around the Mirkwood release and never came back.

Out of curiousity, what type of names do people try and use that are already taken? I have always named my characters using Tolkien's languages and am always surprised I have never run into a single conflict on 15 characters. I would think that those names would be some of the hardest to come by, but apparently not. Are they just generic names like OrcKiller or something?

[JH15547]

So I know it was decided that going forward we'd receive quarterly updates, but in my opinion that does not mean that you cannot at least give a tiny tidbit of information of what's to come next. Surely I won't be the only player who works a bit like this:

- this producers letter = not really anything to do in the next few months = spending my time (and money) elsewhere, will log in now and then (perhaps checking out the new missions, if there's some sort of good reward for finishing them once), and wait for the new letter in september.
- this same producers letter + just a little bit of information of where our endgame characters will go with U34 and beyond: much more incentive to invest some more in the coming months, due to a. preparation of our characters for what's to come (cleaning up loose quests, collecting virtue xp all over middle-earth, working on our legendary items et cetera) and b. the feeling that it's still worth investing in the game.

I think that it will be the first time in Lotro history that we're not getting any form of endgame landmass / quests (not counting the Elrohiradan missions) from november to (at least) september.

Couldn't have said it better.

[rodin12]

Arnenna don't worry I have years of custom in aion with the pet bigger than my spiritmaster nothing happens and if there is a photo from the day of the beta

[BlitzKr1eg]

This is it? No real content? SSG have a golden opertuninty to see some massive growth after the launch of the Amazon show...But the games technical performance is probably the worst of all active MMO's, good luck

[Frisco]

I'm a bit gutted that Anor is closing in ten weeks and not three weeks ago before my sub ran out actually. Typical bad timing. Decisions decisions. Take what's in the vault as is and potentially miss out on what's in mule inventories, or pay the minimum possible to clean up first. Time to consider my best interests in this one I think.

You don't need to be VIP to transfer off of Anor. You can transfer all of your shared storage/vaults/wallet currencies and characters, mules and all, to live servers for free from the launcher starting August 31. Suppose if you're running into character slot issues it might require a month sub to clean up.

[DoRonRon]

I can almost 100% guarantee you NO refund. I mean, you would have to spend 2995 for the race change token, then get a refund..... and then spend that refunded 2995 again to change your race back. So if you are not happy with a hobbit LM, you'd need to spend 2995 x 2 = 5990 LP to change TO hobbit, and change BACK to elf, or whatever you were before.

That's just never going to happen. If you want to be sure, just wait till someone you know becomes a hobbit LM, and have him/her summon a bunch of pets and make screenshots. I'm sure someone will make screenshots on day 1.....

It was more a tangential comment on those who are carried along with the hype due to people inferring something that ain't going to happen. I have no intention of playing a Hobbit LM. But people pre-order even before a first beta, sub for a "classic" LS and will buy a token to be ready on patch day, whatever the implementation turn out like.

It has been a couple of weeks since I reviewed the transfer knowledgebase and the block of red text was still there saying the naming conflict was still of issue.

[SniperCT]

I'm a bit gutted that Anor is closing in ten weeks and not three weeks ago before my sub ran out actually. Typical bad timing. Decisions decisions. Take what's in the vault as is and potentially miss out on what's in mule inventories, or pay the minimum possible to clean up first. Time to consider my best interests in this one I think.

Wonder what'll happen if you just transfer everything kit and kaboodle.

Out of curiousity, what type of names do people try and use that are already taken? I have always named my characters using Tolkien's languages and am always surprised I have never run into a single conflict on 15 characters. I would think that those names would be some of the hardest to come by, but apparently not. Are they just generic names like OrcKiller or something?

Could be everything from a common name "Robert" (perfect for a bree-lander or hobbit, for example), to a carefully constructed elvish or old english name for an elf or rohirrim.

Only so many 'elvishnoun+wen' combos, after all.

Luckily in my case Landrovel was my 'old' server (since open beta, in fact) so I have all but one or two of my names saved, and the other two are likely to get bumped when I t/f. If not I have a few alternatives.

When Ithil closed I used that to reclaim a few names I'd lost, in anticipating of one day moving to Landroval. Looks like that effort paid off.

(and yes I intend on deleting some 'older' landroval characters because I have more effort/investment in their anor versions. I made the mistake of using some free valars on a couple of them and lost my connection to them.)

[ToBeKnown]

Well, that was pretty thin. I won't deny that it's a bit disappointing, but realistically one of these things was going to be this. LotRO has ran on a 2 major updates per calendar year schedule for a very very long time now, and last year's change to 3 major updates was already a big improvement. I won't deny that I had hopes that the quarterly producer's letter would indicate another bump to 4 for this year, but realistically that wasn't a reasonable expectation. So yeah, disappointing, but I think expecting at least one of these being a bit underwhelming each year is probably a good expectation.

I'm really puzzled at the objections to some of the new C/R combos, though, in particular Hobbit Champion. I mean, what else would Bullroarer be? His whole thing is that the took a really big club and hit a goblin so hard he invented golf. That's Champion stuff. Guardian damage is more bleed focused, and Captains are about as far away from "hitting hard" as any physical class in the game. Honestly, I think Champion fits them better than Warden, the fighting style of which I don't recall having any precedence in the books. So yeah, I'm in favour of Hobbit Champions, it fits better than some extant R/Cs in the game.