Brannoc - Welcome to today's House of Commons chat with thedevelopers of Lord of the Rings Online!
Brannoc- Tosubmit a question type /msg Brannoc My question here! - questions sent to thedevelopers will not be answered! We'll be doing a general chat today so anyquestions on the game are welcome. As a side note I'm afraid we'll only beaccepting questions in English today.
Brannoc- We'llbegin with a brief introduction and some announcements from our guests and thenjump straight into the questions. The full logs will be available athttp://lotro.stratics.com shortly afterward.
Liquilla_cm- Beforeproceedings get underway, the Spring festival ends on the 31st March so don'tforget to take part in the in-game festivities before it's all over for anotheryear!
Liquilla_cm- We'realso tightly under wraps about the first LOTRO Expansion Pack, Mines of Moria,and Book 14 so please save your questions on these for when we have moreinformation to give
Liquilla_cm- Ok,let's get on with the dev chat. With us tonight from Turbine we have thefollowing people:
Scenario- Goodevening all! My name is Matt "Scenario" Elliott, Lead Worldbuilderfor the LOTRO Team. The World Team is responsible for the landscape and dungeondesign of Middle-earth. Be warned - I just learned how to make Deeds today! Mwhahahahaha!
MadeOfLions- Hieverybody! I'm Jeff 'MadeOfLions' Libby, and I'm a quest guy! For awhile now,I've been delving too greedily and too deep! But that's all I'll say aboutthat.
DangerDan- Helloeveryone! This is "DangerDan" Parke, systems designer on LotRO. Iwork on a bunch of things including monster behaviors, class design, andinstances.
Turbilly- Helloeveryone. My name is Billy Lazzaro and I am Turbine's International ProjectManager. I work with the Codemasters team to coordinate LOTRO EU.
Meghan_Turbine- Hieveryone! I'm Meghan "Patience" Rodberg, community manager atTurbine. Thanks for coming tonight, and to Stratics for hosting us.
Liquilla_cm- AndI’m Callum "Liquilla" Rowley, European Community Liaison for LOTRO.
Brannoc-*Sneaker* Good evening, i have one question. is there any planning to releaseor develop the area between shire and thorins hall?I think the district iscalled "Far Downs" and "Tower Hills"?
Scenario- Heythere Sneaker! While we would love to fill out as much as Eriador as we can(and in particular the Tower Hills/ Far Downs), we do not have specific ETA forthat portion of landscape. The future can hold many things - including theTower Hills.
Brannoc-*Iduwyn* Why is it not possible that someone uses the mailbox of my house if Igive him all possible permissions?
DangerDan- Sadly,no matter how much you open your house to someone, copy your keys and let themrifle through your stuff... the post apparently still just wants to send yourmail to your mailbox. Seriously, though, its not a hard and fast rule, butthere are also a lot of things we could do given time. Thanks for asking!
Brannoc- *ceredirond*Can you give us any more information on Fishing? What kind of Leveling willthere be? Are there different fishing poles? Where will the first fishing npcbe (Forochel presumably?)?
DangerDan- Ah,fishing for details, eh?
DangerDan- Yes,there will definitely be different kinds of fishing poles... and differentkinds of bait.
Scenario- As faras NPCs go - before you can fish, you'll need to visit a Hobby-master. They canbe found in each racial capital. At that point, the Hobby-master will provide aquest to visit the nearest Fishing Supplier.
DangerDan- Lotsmore information (such as how you get better) and other juicy details arecoming in a Dev Diary.
Meghan_Turbine- *rubshands together* Fishing.... at lasssst... my precious...
Brannoc-*Hydrosine* Hey, is there any chance that the lorebook will be updated so youcan review your characters out of game. so you can compare armor very easy?
Meghan_Turbine- HiHydrosine, that's definitely something we want to do, though there are undoubtedlyissues to deal with since the US and EU run on separate systems. However, beingable to view character info from outside of the game is something we'reactively interested in doing. No promises (or even estimates) on when
Brannoc- *Ebb*Do you plan to add more audio sliders to change varius sounds in the game? Ifeel the combat system is very load in compare to weather/rain effects,footsteps and other ambient sounds. At the moment, they all share the sameslider.
Meghan_Turbine- Wedon't have any plans at this time, but it's a good idea. There are some soundsespecially that can be overwhelming when you're trying to coordinate over voicechat!
Brannoc-*Future* Questions: Book13 notes mentioned new horse(s). Are these just anotherreskin or a completely new model?
Scenario- Book13 is introducing a new mount variant - much like the variants that can befound in the various Reputation lines.
Brannoc-*Yasemine* Any plans for the future, that we are getting bigger bags for ourinventory? A tailor can make larger bags for example?
Meghan_Turbine- HiYasemine, we're not currently planning on offering more inventory space, but Ibelieve in an upcoming Book the team is looking at ways to help with packspace. We'll have more information on that as the plans are developed further.
Brannoc-*Nyadach* In Book 13 you've mentioned war mammoths, complete with mountedtroops...is this an early test for possible later developments as we progresstowards Rohan and mounted combat?
DangerDan- Nyadach,we're always trying out new things... the War Mammoths are an experiment inmonster behaviors. If folks respond to them positively, we might try to domore, similar things in the future and build on it.
Brannoc-*Luthrin* Could we have more kinship functionalities? It could be: Customtitles, event calendar with signups eg. raids, kinship bank vaults, professionlists, kinship shop etc.
Meghan_Turbine- HiLuthrin! We have a long list of things we'd like to do in a Month of theKinship, many of which are in your list too. However, we don't have a date forwhen those will be done. It's on the radar - we know kinships are a veryimportant part of the game.
Brannoc-*{Ez0}Honvik{GA}* Question: Will we be able to in future play our via SessionPlay the famours char's from the books e.g Gandalf vrs the Balrog etc to feeland experiance what it was like?
MadeOfLions- That'sthe great thing about Session Play -- we can use it to let you experienceexciting moments from the book in ways that don't contradict the written word. We'rebeing very careful to stay within the boundaries of the Lore, but we're notannouncing any specifics yet.
Brannoc-*Dizzi* will we be seeing any big raids like the 40man raids in WoW? if therealready are some (haven't reached endgame yet), will we get more?
Scenario- Asyou've seen in our raids to date - we are not focusing on the massive 40+person raid encounters. While LOTRO does support raids, none of our existingencounters go beyond 24 people. We do not plan on going beyond that number - wefeel 12- and 24-person raids hit the threshold of fun and ease of organizationpretty well.
Scenario- Also -LOTRO is not a raid-centric game. They will have their place but we do notintend them to be the be-all-end-all of our game experience.
Brannoc- *Hteh*will balrogs be raid encounters only? or will they exist outside in a largergame scape?
MadeOfLions- Well,there's Thaurlach in the Rift, but aside from him there's only one otherBalrog, and he's accounted for. I'm not really comfortable with talking aboutlots and lots of these guys in some greater scope than that.
Brannoc-*[HdRO-de]Anrangar* will there be more optical flexibility for the dressmakeror blacksmith in creating individual items...like selfemade patterns and so on?
DangerDan- Sadly,no matter how much you open your house to someone, copy your keys and let themrifle through your stuff... the post apparently still just wants to send yourmail to your mailbox. Seriously, though, its not a hard and fast rule, butthere are also a lot of things we could do given time. Thanks for asking!
Brannoc-*ceredirond* Can you give us any more information on Fishing? What kind ofLeveling will there be? Are there different fishing poles? Where will the firstfishing npc be (Forochel presumably?)?
DangerDan- Ah,fishing for details, eh?
DangerDan- Yes,there will definitely be different kinds of fishing poles... and differentkinds of bait.
Scenario- As faras NPCs go - before you can fish, you'll need to visit a Hobby-master. They canbe found in each racial capital. At that point, the Hobby-master will provide aquest to visit the nearest Fishing Supplier.
DangerDan- Lotsmore information (such as how you get better) and other juicy details arecoming in a Dev Diary.
Meghan_Turbine- *rubshands together* Fishing.... at lasssst... my precious...
Brannoc-*Hydrosine* Hey, is there any chance that the lorebook will be updated so youcan review your characters out of game. so you can compare armor very easy?
Meghan_Turbine- HiHydrosine, that's definitely something we want to do, though there areundoubtedly issues to deal with since the US and EU run on separate systems. However,being able to view character info from outside of the game is something we'reactively interested in doing. No promises (or even estimates) on when
Brannoc- *Ebb*Do you plan to add more audio sliders to change varius sounds in the game? Ifeel the combat system is very load in compare to weather/rain effects,footsteps and other ambient sounds. At the moment, they all share the sameslider.
Meghan_Turbine- Wedon't have any plans at this time, but it's a good idea. There are some soundsespecially that can be overwhelming when you're trying to coordinate over voicechat!
Brannoc-*Future* Questions: Book13 notes mentioned new horse(s). Are these just anotherreskin or a completely new model?
Scenario- Book13 is introducing a new mount variant - much like the variants that can befound in the various Reputation lines.
Brannoc-*Yasemine* Any plans for the future, that we are getting bigger bags for ourinventory? A tailor can make larger bags for example?
Meghan_Turbine- HiYasemine, we're not currently planning on offering more inventory space, but Ibelieve in an upcoming Book the team is looking at ways to help with packspace. We'll have more information on that as the plans are developed further.
Brannoc-*Nyadach* In Book 13 you've mentioned war mammoths, complete with mountedtroops...is this an early test for possible later developments as we progresstowards Rohan and mounted combat?
DangerDan-Nyadach, we're always trying out new things... the War Mammoths are anexperiment in monster behaviors. If folks respond to them positively, we mighttry to do more, similar things in the future and build on it.
Brannoc-*Luthrin* Could we have more kinship functionalities? It could be: Customtitles, event calendar with signups eg. raids, kinship bank vaults, professionlists, kinship shop etc.
Meghan_Turbine- HiLuthrin! We have a long list of things we'd like to do in a Month of theKinship, many of which are in your list too. However, we don't have a date forwhen those will be done. It's on the radar - we know kinships are a veryimportant part of the game.
Brannoc-*{Ez0}Honvik{GA}* Question: Will we be able to in future play our via SessionPlay the famours char's from the books e.g Gandalf vrs the Balrog etc to feeland experiance what it was like?
MadeOfLions- That'sthe great thing about Session Play -- we can use it to let you experienceexciting moments from the book in ways that don't contradict the written word. We'rebeing very careful to stay within the boundaries of the Lore, but we're notannouncing any specifics yet.
Brannoc-*Dizzi* will we be seeing any big raids like the 40man raids in WoW? if therealready are some (haven't reached endgame yet), will we get more?
Scenario- Asyou've seen in our raids to date - we are not focusing on the massive 40+ personraid encounters. While LOTRO does support raids, none of our existingencounters go beyond 24 people. We do not plan on going beyond that number - wefeel 12- and 24-person raids hit the threshold of fun and ease of organizationpretty well.
Scenario- Also -LOTRO is not a raid-centric game. They will have their place but we do notintend them to be the be-all-end-all of our game experience.
Brannoc- *Hteh*will balrogs be raid encounters only? or will they exist outside in a largergame scape?
MadeOfLions- Well,there's Thaurlach in the Rift, but aside from him there's only one otherBalrog, and he's accounted for. I'm not really comfortable with talking aboutlots and lots of these guys in some greater scope than that.
Brannoc-*[HdRO-de]Anrangar* will there be more optical flexibility for the dressmakeror blacksmith in creating individual items...like selfemade patterns and so on?
DangerDan- We'realways looking for ways to let you make your character more unique anddistinctive. You saw a lot of that in our Book 12 updates to customizationthrough the Barber and the Outfit System.
DangerDan- Thereare technical hurdles to overcome with allowing players to design their ownpatterns, but there's no denying that it could be cool to make unique designs,putting them clothing or banners.
DangerDan- I'mhopeful that we'll continue to push this further and further, though I can'ttalk about specific plans at this time.
Brannoc-*Angel* Are there any plans to have "key rings" added since each keytakes up a much needed character bag or bank space
Meghan_Turbine- HiAngel. Keyrings are something that get asked for... a lot... and are activelybeing looked into as part of the Month of the Pack Space. (Okay, it's notreally called that, but...
)
Brannoc-*{Ez0}Honvik{GA}* Question: Will we see more fellowship orintated contentrarther than the mass solo content we have been seeing to give the game lastingappeal?
Scenario- Heythere Honvik. Forochel is intended to be focused towards solo and smallfellowship play. We are also taking a look at our instances (Annuminas inparticular for Book 13) and developing ways to encourage players to run themmultiple times. After Book 13, our focus is swing towards content for small andfull fellowship groups.