Twenty Questions is a new feature we’re trying out. From time to time we’ll put together a list of 20 questions we’ve seen players ask or that we feel give information about the game, the development process, or just general info about LOTRO we think players would like to know and have the team answer them.
Here’s your first 20.
Q1: Is there a separate test team or do the devs beta test and QA themselves?
A1: Developers do test their own content, but those closest to the work tend to miss what fresh eyes can see. So, we do have a separate test team, Quality Assurance, which does the vast majority of testing. - Temerity
Q2: How does the bug process work? (From reported to fixed)
A2: Step 1: Bug Entry
The majority of bugs are found by individual QA testers during the test cycle and are personally entered. Bugs are also reported by players on palantir, bullroarer, and live servers. Each bug is reviewed by the QA team and entered in to the database if it has not already been entered. Each bug, regardless of where it came from will receive a detailed analysis and writeup from the QA team before it reaches the developers. - Temerity
Step 2: Bug Triage
Producers and development leads review each bug to assign them out and prioritize them against all other work being done. This is the step where we decide whether the fix will need to be hotfixed, patched, or go out with the next major update. Fixing bugs in a hotfix or patch carries a higher cost than fixing in the next major update, so a cost/benefit analysis is key here.
Step 3: Bug Resolution
Developers will fix the bugs that are assigned to them.
Step 4: Bug Regression
QA double checks that the bug is fixed and that no new bugs were created in the process.
Step 5: Players Rejoice! – Temerity
Q3: How does the team react to the larger bugs? What is done to see that they get fixed fast and correctly?
A3: Most larger bugs are found on the day of launch. So, on launch days, we run a meeting known as “Mission Control”. We have Developers, Producers, Testers, Customer Service Reps, Community Reps, and many others all in this one room. We monitor bug reports, server logs, CS calls, game data, etc… to find any issues as soon as possible. When issues do arise, we break teams out to troubleshoot them and offer solutions.
But, if things are going good, we actually just play the game like everyone else - Temerity
Q4: Is there an out-sourced translation / localization team?
A4: In house we have a Localization Department of 11 people which includes native French and German speakers. For LOTRO French and German combined, there are 7 people who provide translations and perform localization QA. When we have large projects or very tight deadlines we also outsource some of the work. In addition to translation and localization QA, the department is charged with localization engineering, partner and vendor management as well as project management.
Q5: Have you ever considered or do consider using native speakers in the player community to approve / check / editor quest text / context?
A5: We have and we do. There is a group of German players who actively provide feedback and suggestions regarding translations. They’ve been very helpful. - Sapience
Q6: How far ahead does Turbine plan content and who decides, and how, what content will or will not be included in the game?
A6: We have several layers of plans. Some go out a couple weeks, some a few months, some a year or so and some that go out several years. The decision-making process is interdisciplinary. Producers, Designers and Artists sort out what makes sense to move on to next. Collectively we constantly course-correct all the time. – HoarseDev
Q7: Have Turbine ever wanted to add something to the game, but were prevented from doing so either by Warner Brothers or by the terms of their license, and how restricted/free are Turbine in terms of what content they want to add to LOTRO?
A7: We police ourselves in terms of what we choose to create. We vet things internally. WB doesn’t really breathe down our necks. We have a strong working relationship with Saul Zaentz (the folks that oversee the Tolkien license). They stop in a few times a year to see what we are working on and give feedback. – HoarseDev
Q8: Are there any foreseeable additions or updates to the Hobby system (or just Fishing) within the next year?
A8: Nothing concrete at the moment. - HoarseDev
Q9: Will there be a significant effort to balance PvMP this year?
A9: We are going to need to pivot on the Freep class changes coming later this year. It will be a significant amount of work and it will not be easy. - HoarseDev
Q10: Will there be enhancements for PvMP such as mail, bank, more skills etc.?
A10: Most likely not in the near term. - HoarseDev
Q11: How far ahead do you plan expansions\new content? We know we have Helms Deep to look forward to but do you already have plans for the next expansion after that? Or do you normally wait for release of the latest expansion before planning the next?
A11: The large expansions like Rohan are something we have tentatively scheduled years in advance. For the smaller updates we have a lot more flexibility in what we choose to create. For new region content the actual planning is usually solidified several months in advance to allow the worldbuilders a solid head start on the content design team.
Q12: About how many {quests, NPCs, words of quest text} does lotro contain?
A12: There are roughly 6400 quests, excluding tutorial skips, levelups, and test quests. (4300 if you want to drop Deeds.) This also does not include the new quests coming with Helm’s Deep. It does include Wildermore. – Berephon
Three are around 7,000 NPCs - Budgeford
Q13: When will the new forums be released?
A13: The current target is the end of this month. I’ve seen the rough versions and they’re faster and for those who have been asking, yes they are fluid and should scale to the width of your browser instead of the current fixed width forums. - Sapience
Q14: Where is the Lotro server farm located? Is there really one (hardware) server for each (realm) server?
A14: The LOTRO live and preview servers are located at a high-availability hosting facility in the New England area. In addition, we host a series of servers at our corporate offices to support our development and QA teams. Each LOTRO world or realm has its own set of hardware servers that run the LOTRO game code. Those servers are supported by a pretty significant infrastructure, composed of many different networking and storage devices. A single world, like Brandywine for example, is comprised of several pieces of hardware not just a single machine.
Q15: What other games does the team play?
A15: Tons. We’re all gamers here so we play a lot of different things. Using just this past week as an example? Minecraft (FTB)
Payday: The Heist
DC Universe Online
Star Trek Online
Blood Bowl
Dota 2
LoL
Marvel Heroes
War Thunder
Neverwinter
Don’t Starve
…and more.
Q16: Is there some kind of performance reason that you shrank the mob aggro radius?
A16: The reasoning behind this change was entirely gameplay oriented. We decided that while a sense of risk is one thing, forming enormous trains when you’re just trying to navigate around the landscape wasn’t fun.
Q17: When the devs play LOTRO themselves do they ever come across other players who unwittingly praise/criticise content they have worked on in front of them and if so how do they feel about that?
A17: ALL the time, especially immediately following an update when lots of people are playing new content all at the same time. And it feels like one might expect! Accidentally eavesdropping on praise of our work pretty much validates our existence as designers, and it’s a great feeling. Nothing feels better! On the other hand, hearing when people are hating or struggling with our work tends to make us very sad. The most soul-crushing is probably when a bad bug slips through, and we can see the frustration scrolling by in GLFF. Either way, hearing that feedback given by people who don’t know we’re listening is very helpful for letting us know how our work is being received. We’re generally seeing a pretty honest reaction to our work, and that helps us figure out what works and what doesn’t, and how to improve.- Budgeford
Q18: A common staple of players asking for Feature X is that it will be 'easy' to implement. Can you give us an insight into what is actually involved in making a seemingly minor change to the game?
A18: It is impossible to gauge ease of implementation without having a thorough knowledge of how things work under the hood. Things that are conceptually simple aren’t necessarily easy to implement. Of equal importance is resource management. In order to release big things we have to dedicate staff. Diverting them away, even for things that really are easy has a cost. We are constantly prioritizing things as best we can, but day-to-day we are stuck with a lot of ideas that just don’t fit right now. It is a fluid process.
Now for a practical example…
Change skill X to do behavior Y.
OK, go in and change the skill. Done!
Wait… not done!
Does it need a new animation or effects?
Does it need new audio?
Hmmm… need to translate that text on the skill?
What about the icon?
What about the quest that relied on that skill? Rewrite it? Don’t forget to translate that too!
Is there an external tag for release notes?
Oh dear… we used to mod that old skill with legacies… Make new legacies.
Update any vendors or other ui that used to sell the old legacies with the new ones.
Update the skill trainers with the new skill.
Translate those legacies.
By the way, that new skill breaks PvMP… rebalance please… possibly with new text to translate.
Oh, those legacies were on the store… new store offers… yes, you can translate those too.
Oh dear I hope that skill doesn’t have an advanced version or deeds related to it. If so, change them and translate.
And I hope you are only working in one branch of the build… otherwise, you can return to the top of this process and merge everything over. - HoarseDev
Q19: Of all the systems and mechanics in the game, which was the most complicated/difficult to create?
A19: Mounted Combat.
Q20: What is being done about Multi-boxing/Rank Farming?
A20: We’ve been having a very active discussion with the Players Council about this recently. One of the challenges here is breaking the issue into its component parts.
Multi-boxing in-and-of-itself is not inherently bad or against our TOS. The Launcher allows you to run multiple clients and the bug preventing this was recently fixed.
Rank Farming, which doesn’t require mutli-boxing by the way, is another matter entirely. We’ve run several investigations to figure out how best to address it and so far haven’t been happy with the results. False positives, which could lead to potentially banning Top Tier PvMP players because they accumulate more renown/infamy than most rank farmers over the same period of time, are a major concern.
It’s a much more complicated matter than simply checking a database and banning those who rapidly accumulate infamy and renown. It’s a complex issue and we continue to discuss and investigate reasonable and appropriate ways to address it. - Sapience