Patch Notes/Hotfix Notes linkage

[thalialotr]

Could there please be a link on the Official Announcement Forum message that announces downtime? I thought we used to have this, maybe my memory is failing. I like this kind of easy button.

[Nakiami]

There is one: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...17#post6717517

[Bunghelm]

How about updating the link on the newsfeed to actually go to a real page then?
Currently it returns a 403 "Forbidden" error page.

It would be nice to see the number of these sorts of errors decreasing again.

[Bitza]

How about updating the link on the newsfeed to actually go to a real page then?
Currently it returns a 403 "Forbidden" error page.

It doesn't for me, although on my old computer quite a few pages used to. On this new one, nothing does so far. I think I read somewhere it has something to do with the history or cache or cookies or something?

[djheydt]

In any case, the hours are 7 - 10 AM EDT.

[SilverHug]

What I don't understand is why we have to wait for the downtime for the patchnotes to be released as opposed to releasing them at the time of the announcement? They already know what they are going to fix. I don't see what the harm would be. Can someone please enlighten me! Thanks!

[keikii]

What I don't understand is why we have to wait for the downtime for the patchnotes to be released as opposed to releasing them at the time of the announcement? They already know what they are going to fix. I don't see what the harm would be. Can someone please enlighten me! Thanks!

Probably for the same reasons that they don't warn a week ahead of downtime anymore:
1) people will QQ about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING given enough warning (and even with no warning they will QQ, but at least this cuts down on some of it)
2) They may not know the exact details until relatively close to the time it is happening, since I get the feeling that a lot of this is going pretty fast for them and they are doing a lot of damage control trying to get things working in a timely manner.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

What I don't understand is why we have to wait for the downtime for the patchnotes to be released as opposed to releasing them at the time of the announcement? They already know what they are going to fix. I don't see what the harm would be. Can someone please enlighten me! Thanks!

The biggest problem that I have seen is that people assume that the patch notes describe how the game works at the moment of the release of the patch notes. The concept what the patch notes describe what will happen in the future does not occur to them.

Releasing the patch notes early does not serve a useful function given the amount of confusion they create. It is not like - we get to vote on the changes to determine which ones go live. There may be something in the patch notes that Turbine does not want us to change our playing behavior before the patch goes live.

[Sapience]

Could there please be a link on the Official Announcement Forum message that announces downtime? I thought we used to have this, maybe my memory is failing. I like this kind of easy button.

Simple answer, patch notes are usually posted at 8am on the day of the patch/hotfix. When that happens we go around and update things as quickly as possible. Sometimes that's more quickly than others. One can always find the patch notes in their usual home(since ~2007) here: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Category:LOTRO_Releases

What I don't understand is why we have to wait for the downtime for the patchnotes to be released as opposed to releasing them at the time of the announcement? They already know what they are going to fix. I don't see what the harm would be. Can someone please enlighten me! Thanks!

Also a simple answer. Often times we fix exploits. We don't like to broadcast exploits. So we hold the release notes, always have, until the servers come down. That way players prone to exploiting don't spend an entire day or sometimes a weekend exploiting things we've told them are going away.

There is an argument for posting part of the notes and adding the exploitable changes later, but this basically translates to 'do it twice', which is never really an option.

[gelleg]

the patch notes are hard to find as they are alpha-numerically order so 10 is now at the beginning

[whheydt]

the patch notes are hard to find as they are alpha-numerically order so 10 is now at the beginning

Learn to think like a computer?

Sorry...I've gotten used to a/n sorting over too many years for this to throw me. If the sequence has gone from 9... to 10... and the 10... item is not at the end, then it must be right after 0... If one forgets from one patch to another, then it takes a second or two to recheck and rediscover where the new notes are.

All in all...I consider this to be a non-issue.

[Mem]

How about updating the link on the newsfeed to actually go to a real page then?
Currently it returns a 403 "Forbidden" error page.

It would be nice to see the number of these sorts of errors decreasing again.

I agree.

403 error usually means download of content from a site has been blocked.
This is usually a firewall or some sort of content filtering between your desktop and the site. (proxy)

In my case the problem was caused by content filter on my firewall.
This firewall is a separate device to my computer and similar to those used in businesses, schools and other organizations.
This firewall/content filter blocks downloads of executable files.
Normally if this occurs on websites I am prompted by my web browser with a page from my device asking me if I really want to download such a file.
As mentioned the LOTRO patch program does not have this functionality, so it just fails and sits there.

The solution can vary from disabling and bypassing the filtering to a more mature approach.
Permitting any download of executable files without my consent was not an option.

I decided to disable filtering for files downloaded from Turbine and its sites ONLY.
The following requires basic internet service knowledge.

To help me with this I checked my firewall's filter log:

2013:04:30-00:15:34 fw01 httpproxy[4296]: id="0064" severity="info" sys="SecureWeb" sub="http" name="web request blocked, forbidden file extension detected" action="block" method="GET" srcip="192.168.20.161" dstip="61.9.193.134" user="" statuscode="403" cached="0" profile="REF_DefaultHTTPProfil e (Default Proxy)" filteraction="REF_DefaultHTTPC FFAction (Default content filter action)" size="2570" request="0x8dbc9b8" url="http://download.lotro.akamai.turbine. com/lotro/patch/1304260814/allwin32/lotroclient.exe" exceptions="" error="" country="Australia" category="116" reputation="neutral" categoryname="Games" extension="exe" filename="lotroclient.exe" reason="extension"

Looks like Greek to most people (and English to Greeks).
However the site blocked is : download.lotro.akamai.turbine. com Addresses: 61.9.193.230 and 61.9.193.231 (and 61.9.193.134)
Akamai is a company that hosts files for many organizations. The content is usually trustworthy. The IPs of servers hosting content can vary and I don't have the option of trusting hosts or domain names. Un blocking IPs is my only choice.
So I unblocked (.exe) filtering from a large range of addresses (250 or so) most likely associated with them (61.9.193.0/23)

I hope this helps.