More info through social media (Facebook, Twitter)

[Zukki]

Hello there, one little improvement could be to start announcing the little events and lotteries on social media websites. Last week for example, I was surprised about the 100% xp weekend (which I saw on Thursday), so I went ahead and lvled up my alt. Another example, now after a random check I see there is a lottery, cool, but I would have missed it if I've checked the web at night, as I usually do, before logging in LOTRO.
Just saying.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Turbine used to do Flash Lotteries via Twitter announcements. After the tweet, you had 15-30 minutes to enter the Lotto. Hopefully Flash Lottos will return in the future.

[Sapience]

Hello there, one little improvement could be to start announcing the little events and lotteries on social media websites. Last week for example, I was surprised about the 100% xp weekend (which I saw on Thursday), so I went ahead and lvled up my alt. Another example, now after a random check I see there is a lottery, cool, but I would have missed it if I've checked the web at night, as I usually do, before logging in LOTRO.
Just saying.

We do announce these thnings (and many others) on Facebook and Twitter. In fact some complain we do it more there than here.

Lotteries are intended to be random, spontaneous at times, and usually unannounced. It pays to keep an eye on things.

Turbine used to do Flash Lotteries via Twitter announcements. After the tweet, you had 15-30 minutes to enter the Lotto. Hopefully Flash Lottos will return in the future.

We had to discontinue the Flash lotteries under the old site because it would cause the entire site to crash out and go immediately into a 'maintenance' page. We did run a flash lottery shortly after the new site was launched to see if we'd have similar issues, but we saw none. We'll probably throw a couple more out to judge things before a decision is made to do them more regularly or not.

[Eartholloth]

We do announce these thnings (and many others) on Facebook and Twitter. In fact some complain we do it more there than here.

Lotteries are intended to be random, spontaneous at times, and usually unannounced. It pays to keep an eye on things.



We had to discontinue the Flash lotteries under the old site because it would cause the entire site to crash out and go immediately into a 'maintenance' page. We did run a flash lottery shortly after the new site was launched to see if we'd have similar issues, but we saw none. We'll probably throw a couple more out to judge things before a decision is made to do them more regularly or not.

I remember the flash lotteries for Turbine points. OMG! I had a heck of a time trying to enter those.

[whheydt]

We do announce these thnings (and many others) on Facebook and Twitter. In fact some complain we do it more there than here.

That is precisely the issue. Social media are all well and good...so long as they don't supercede Turbine's OWN information channels. While not everyone reads the Forums, at least they are Turbine's own information channel, and should be the FIRST place any announcements are made. After that, posting to social media is all well and good...but not everyone pays any attention to those channels, either.

[Sapience]

That is precisely the issue. Social media are all well and good...so long as they don't supercede Turbine's OWN information channels. While not everyone reads the Forums, at least they are Turbine's own information channel, and should be the FIRST place any announcements are made. After that, posting to social media is all well and good...but not everyone pays any attention to those channels, either.

The flaw in this thinking is that our facebook page and twitter pages are also our own channels. And as we have said many, many times we rely on those channels when our directly controlled channels are unavailable or there are other issues.

We use each channel according to its strengths. More people actually use our Twitter and Facebook pages than the forums. Major announcements are put everywhere, including the launcher, and usually in 3 languages.

[Penter-Kar]

We use each channel according to its strengths. More people actually use our Twitter and Facebook pages than the forums. Major announcements are put everywhere, including the launcher, and usually in 3 languages.

And even after all that, there are still those that complain about not being told.
You know the old saying: You can lead a horse to water...

[Zukki]

Well, I believe we are connected more time to Facebook or Twitter (I dont use Twitter, so I miss those flash announcements) than this forum. In Facebook, I can get a notification every time there is something new, like the photo of HD you are discovering, the announcement of updates and events like the current Bounder thing.

Maybe it's ok not to announce lotteries, but those XP weekends always are a good way to get the attention of inactive players.

[whheydt]

The flaw in this thinking is that our facebook page and twitter pages are also our own channels.

Well....Yes and no. You don't OWN them. They are owned by Facebook and Twitter respectively. If those companies were to suddenly decide that they don't want any commercial accounts (unlikely, I know), you'd be cut off from them.

And as we have said many, many times we rely on those channels when our directly controlled channels are unavailable or there are other issues.

This I have no issue with. If the Forums are down (for any reason...intentional or not), then, yes, you need to use other channels. This does, of course, assume that (a) those other channels are still up, and (b) you can still get to them. I agree that those are not going to be common issues, but for some of us, contingency and disaster planning comes naturally. I would point out in this context, that cell towers typically only have backup power for about 6 hours, so if you're relying on cellular coverage to update Twitter or Facebook...better hope you have a *short* disaster.

We use each channel according to its strengths. More people actually use our Twitter and Facebook pages than the forums.

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest. While LotRO probably has an older demographic than most games, a big chunk of the player base is still going to be part of what is to me, "the younger generation"...the under 40s. Personally, I don't use Facebook at all and Twitter only when I am expecting an ongoing feed announced elsewhere (I have no Twitter account at all). The most recent use I made of it was live tweets from court hearing. The time before that was using the LotRO twitter feed during the dev Q&A, and that was more to test an twitter auto-update script (broswer: Midori, OS: Raspbian, hardware: Raspberry Pi, script name: autotwit).

Major announcements are put everywhere, including the launcher, and usually in 3 languages.

And I appreciate that. I actually get a fair amount of my LotRO *news* by first seeing on the launcher.

[djheydt]

Well....Yes and no. You don't OWN them. They are owned by Facebook and Twitter respectively. If those companies were to suddenly decide that they don't want any commercial accounts (unlikely, I know), you'd be cut off from them.

And those companies do not look on you as their customer, oh dear me no. Their customers are the maintainers of databases who pay FB and Twitter big bucks for all the information about *you* that they
can harvest from your account, and use it to send you spam. Their reasoning is that whatever you talk about on those sites, that must be what you're interested in, and you will be interested in all the
advertising on that topic that they can dump on you. You're not the customer; you're the raw material.

[mad_ox1]

The flaw in this thinking is that our facebook page and twitter pages are also our own channels. And as we have said many, many times we rely on those channels when our directly controlled channels are unavailable or there are other issues.

We use each channel according to its strengths. More people actually use our Twitter and Facebook pages than the forums. Major announcements are put everywhere, including the launcher, and usually in 3 languages.

This is all well and good, but most times, especially like the current service lapse, the information needs to be on this site. Certainly if players can post here, Warner Brothers employees can as well. It is a good thing that the information is on twitter and facebook, but this is LOTRO's community site, the information must be here.

[voalkrynn2]

The flaw in this thinking is that our facebook page and twitter pages are also our own channels. And as we have said many, many times we rely on those channels when our directly controlled channels are unavailable or there are other issues.

We use each channel according to its strengths. More people actually use our Twitter and Facebook pages than the forums. Major announcements are put everywhere, including the launcher, and usually in 3 languages.

Feel free to switch at anytime from social media to the LOTRO forums to update re: the current debacle the 3rd party vendor keeps causing........

[whheydt]

Feel free to switch at anytime from social media to the LOTRO forums to update re: the current debacle the 3rd party vendor keeps causing........

This may sound strange coming me, especially in light of some of my prior comments in this thread, but apparently the problem with getting information onto Forums is that Sapience is unable to log into them. So...fallback time. Social media.

[mad_ox1]

This may sound strange coming me, especially in light of some of my prior comments in this thread, but apparently the problem with getting information onto Forums is that Sapience is unable to log into them. So...fallback time. Social media.

So we can log into the forums, but the Warner Brothers Community Team cannot? /mind_boggled

If this is the case, heads should be rolling, lots of them.

[whheydt]

So we can log into the forums, but the Warner Brothers Community Team cannot? /mind_boggled

If this is the case, heads should be rolling, lots of them.

While network access is "critical" to running LotRO (or any other MMO), it's not THAT critical in the larger scheme of things. IS it truly worth the expense to provide redundant, independent, fully capable lines into the data center? Bear in mind that doing so is expensive, and in this case...it wouldn't even help...this being the wrong sort of problem for that solution. Are you suggesting that Turbine find a different provider? Why would that help? The problem is not with their internet provider. The problem is with another provider that Turbines direct provider connects to. Or perhaps you think Turbine should own their own backbone nodes?

As for Turbine staff... Are you saying that Turbine should pay for them to have duplicate broadband lines at home just in case there is a routing problem so that--maybe?--they can get around the problem to log in? How much do you think they should spend for a contingency that has happened once in over 6 years? Bear in mind that there are many other, more plausible, scenarios that would knock even a redundant configuration.

So exactly whose heads should roll in this situation?

And--by the way--even if you do your contingency planning absolutely correctly--you can have problems those plans were specifically designed to prevent. At one point UCBerkeley contracted and paid for two independently routed lines to a node in New York they were connected to. Some farmer in New Jersey using a backhoe took out both lines, because they had actually been routed through the same fiber optic cable. While the University no doubt got some combination of large monetary compensation (they weren't being provided with what they'd paid for) and probably a bunch of free service, at the time, the connection was down hard until that cable go repaired.

[Maxal]

When I was in Boston last fall, there was a fire in a tunnel. Nothing serious the fire was put out in less than an hour, no one was hurt, no homes or businesses were damaged and not even any water damage to speak of.

The only problem was this tunnel evidently had all the landlines that two of the 3 major cell phone carriers used. So if you had a N phone you were fine but an A or V phone you could not talk to anyone. It did not stop there, it also affected all the land lines and internet service for 4 or 5 of the northern 495 cities. There was nothing anyone could do until the lines were replaced. Rerouting sounds simple, but sometimes it just can not happen.

It was a strange couple of work days on the road, but strange things do happen eventually.

[whheydt]

When I was in Boston last fall, there was a fire in a tunnel. Nothing serious the fire was put out in less than an hour, no one was hurt, no homes or businesses were damaged and not even any water damage to speak of.

The only problem was this tunnel evidently had all the landlines that two of the 3 major cell phone carriers used. So if you had a N phone you were fine but an A or V phone you could not talk to anyone. It did not stop there, it also affected all the land lines and internet service for 4 or 5 of the northern 495 cities. There was nothing anyone could do until the lines were replaced. Rerouting sounds simple, but sometimes it just can not happen.

It was a strange couple of work days on the road, but strange things do happen eventually.

Exactly. That's why Engineers don't wonder if the universe has it in for them...they *know* the universe has it in for them.

[mad_ox1]

While network access is "critical" to running LotRO (or any other MMO), it's not THAT critical in the larger scheme of things. IS it truly worth the expense to provide redundant, independent, fully capable lines into the data center? Bear in mind that doing so is expensive, and in this case...it wouldn't even help...this being the wrong sort of problem for that solution. Are you suggesting that Turbine find a different provider? Why would that help? The problem is not with their internet provider. The problem is with another provider that Turbines direct provider connects to. Or perhaps you think Turbine should own their own backbone nodes?

As for Turbine staff... Are you saying that Turbine should pay for them to have duplicate broadband lines at home just in case there is a routing problem so that--maybe?--they can get around the problem to log in? How much do you think they should spend for a contingency that has happened once in over 6 years? Bear in mind that there are many other, more plausible, scenarios that would knock even a redundant configuration.

So exactly whose heads should roll in this situation?

And--by the way--even if you do your contingency planning absolutely correctly--you can have problems those plans were specifically designed to prevent. At one point UCBerkeley contracted and paid for two independently routed lines to a node in New York they were connected to. Some farmer in New Jersey using a backhoe took out both lines, because they had actually been routed through the same fiber optic cable. While the University no doubt got some combination of large monetary compensation (they weren't being provided with what they'd paid for) and probably a bunch of free service, at the time, the connection was down hard until that cable go repaired.

Apparently at this time:

I can log into the forum

So can every other Tom, Dick, and Harry player

Warner Brothers staff is able to post on twitter and facebook

Warner Brothers staff cannot post on this forum



Are you suggesting that greater Boston is unable to connect to the LOTRO community site, but is able to connect to facebook and twitter?

Are you suggesting that every Warner Brothers employee is located in the greater Boston area (apparently the site of some small fire or other freak accident) and unable to connect to the community site, but can connect to the rest of the internet?

[mjk47]

I'll give you a scenario.

1. Turbine staff accounts are only allowed to connect from I addresses on Turbine's internal network. (Precaution to prevent impersonation, perhaps.)

2. This can only be changed by someone with the right privilege who is logged in.

3. See 1.

The above is pure explanation, but based on experience of the many and subtle ways that security can come back and bite you in the bum.

It used to be much easier when a company's servers were on their site and under their physical sontrol. Now things are famred out to data center priders, or worse, into the cloud, things can go wrong in so much more spectacular ways.

We lost our servers for several hours a few days ago because the local power company in Sacramento was performing "emergency grid maintenance".We are in the UK. There was not a thing we could do except sit and wait.

[mad_ox1]

I'll give you a scenario......

security can come back and bite you in the bum.

I think we found the heads that need to be rolling then. Pending scenario accuracy.

[whheydt]

Are you suggesting that every Warner Brothers employee is located in the greater Boston area (apparently the site of some small fire or other freak accident) and unable to connect to the community site, but can connect to the rest of the internet?

No, I am not suggesting that. I would be willing to suggest the likelihood that every *Turbine* employee is located somewhere in or around Boston, though. Particularly every Turbine employee that is likely to be authorized by the company to communicate with players and has any data worth sharing with up.

Note...having gotten up and checked the LotRO Twitter feed, the last post there was some nine hours ago and just says, in essence, "no ETA yet". What more does one actually need to know?

[mjk47]

I think we found the heads that need to be rolling then. Pending scenario accuracy.

Just to be clear, I was suggesting one scenario that would prevent them from posting on the forums. Nothing to do with the underlying problem. That is a problem somewhere in the depths of the Internet, apparently in the systems of one or more network providers who are not Turbine's ISP.

Frankly, the I have always thought that the whole Iternet is in the same category of "things I am amazed ever work at all" as airline baggage systems. The Internet is probably the largest system ever built, and it depends on a huge number of compnents, which are under the control of thousands of different organizations, to work pretty much perfectly all of the time. And that would be remarkable, even before you allow for "bad guys" carrying out cyber attacks, and construction workers running amok with mechanical diggers. The list of vulnerabilities is large, and embraces everything from highly sophisticated malicious activity to sheer brute force carelessness.

As someone who has been in that position, there is only one feeling worse than knowing that you are dependent on third parties to fix their stuff in order to get your web site back online, and that is knowing that it is all up to you. Neither is a nice feeling, and tends to hit you in the pit of the stomach.

[Edrogar]

The flaw in this thinking is that our facebook page and twitter pages are also our own channels. And as we have said many, many times we rely on those channels when our directly controlled channels are unavailable or there are other issues.

No, they are not. They are there for your use, but they are by no means your channels, they are hosted and provided on the facebook server by facebook, you only have rights to use them. If they decide to pull them they can do without a moments notice.

However your forums are hosted on your own servers and you have full control over them. The forums, your website as a whole and the launcher should ALWAYS be the primary means of communication, because they are the only means that you have full and complete control over.

My point being is you should not be relying on FB and Twitter to make announcements.

[mad_ox1]

Note...having gotten up and checked the LotRO Twitter feed, the last post there was some nine hours ago and just says, in essence, "no ETA yet". What more does one actually need to know?

Here is the problem. This is the LOTRO Community Site. All information that pertains to this community needs to be posted here.

Just to be clear, I was suggesting one scenario that would prevent them from posting on the forums. Nothing to do with the underlying problem. That is a problem somewhere in the depths of the Internet, apparently in the systems of one or more network providers who are not Turbine's ISP.

As someone who has been in that position, there is only one feeling worse than knowing that you are dependent on third parties to fix their stuff in order to get your web site back online, and that is knowing that it is all up to you. Neither is a nice feeling, and tends to hit you in the pit of the stomach.

The underlying problem is not the issue, as I see it. I am completely sympathetic to there being problems not of one's own doing that can make the game unplayable for a time. What I have a problem with, is no contact from the LOTRO Team on the LOTRO Community site telling us that there is a problem and that they are working on it. Don't need to know what it is, or when it will be fixed. We just need to hear from them, period.

As I have said before, it is great that they are getting the information out in other avenues, but it must be here.

If there are unable to access the site while the site is still up, for any reason, I'd say that is a royal screw up on the person or persons who thought up, developed, and/or implemented whatever protocols are in place that allow us to be in, but not the Community Team. I'm sure many other people have seen the posts going unchecked with personal attacks, inappropriate language, etc.

[Worldgorger]

The flaw in this thinking is that our facebook page and twitter pages are also our own channels. And as we have said many, many times we rely on those channels when our directly controlled channels are unavailable or there are other issues.We use each channel according to its strengths. More people actually use our Twitter and Facebook pages than the forums. Major announcements are put everywhere, including the launcher, and usually in 3 languages.

Since you have a G+ presence it would be nice if updated there as well. I don't use facebook or twitter.