Part one of LotRO's "Ask the Dev Team" feature now available

by William Dobson Sep 29th 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Game mechanics

Recently, Turbine collected a batch of questions from the community for the Lord of the Rings Online developers to answer. Due to the amount of quality questions taken in, the devs decided to respond to more of them than they initially anticipated, and the answers will be given out over a number of weeks. We're now able to view the first installment, and we'll sum up a handful of the quicker questions and answers right here:

On whether there are plans to open up the UI to customization and plug-ins: no, but there are more built-in customization options coming with the Siege of Mirkwood expansion.
On the possibility of a shared bank slot for trading between one's own characters: yes! More details coming soon. (note: Turbine announced today that it is part of the LotRO Adventure Pack that can be purchased for $20 and will arrive at the same time as the Siege of Mirkwood expansion.)
On future mail system enhancements, like multiple attachments: no to multiple attachments, but there will soon be an auto-complete for the "to:" field, for characters you have mailed in the past.
On whether there are plans for a new PvMP zone: nope, no plans for it.

These are but a few of the questions that the devs answered. Among the remaining ones, there is a particularly detailed entry regarding radiance gear and some upcoming changes. Check out the "Ask the Dev Team" feature at the official LotRO site for all the details.

Tags: ask-the-dev-team, customization, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, mail, mail-system, pvmp, radiance, radiance-gear, shared-bank-slot, siege-of-mirkwood, turbine, ui, user-interface

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jack said on 8:50PM 9-29-2009

I like that Turbine is still working hard on this game and I like that they offer life time playtime for only $200!

Jason said on 12:49PM 9-30-2009

You can still track resources on horseback. You need to dismount to harvest the resources obviously but you can still zoom all over the place tracking them.

Jason said on 4:24PM 9-30-2009

Meant to reply to wisdomandlore's post. Opps.

Clockwork said on 12:24AM 9-30-2009

Am I the only one who feels a bit underwhelmed by many of these answers?

"Q: Will we be seeing any improvements to the mail system, like multiple attachments?
A: While we do not have plans to add multiple attachments at this time we are adding a new feature to the mail system!

Mail dropdown: When typing into the "To:" field while composing mail, you will now get an auto-complete box..."

Congratulations! You're adding a feature that's been default in most modern MMOs in recent memory! I know it took a while for WoW and likely many other games to add multiple mail slots (though why is beyond me) but at least in the case of WoW, player-made plug-ins were available to fill the gap. Which is why I'm baffled as to why LoTRO is so staunchly against it when it worked so well for WoW.

"Q: Is riding a horse going to become a toggle skill in Siege of Mirkwood? If so, can we use the track resource toggle skills at the same time?
A: The ability to use resource tracking skills while mounted is just one of many changes"

Again, why wasn't it like this from the beginning?

"Q: Why was the decision made to go the route of radiance gating? Were there other options on the table other than gear? Couldn’t it be placed on a trait?
A: The team wanted a means of gating content behind a progressively difficult barrier that could be overcome."

Oh God, LoTRO, why must you gate your content? Bad, LoTRO, bad!

I dunno. LoTRO is a good game, and it makes me VERY happy that they're looking at the sluggishness of the combat system, but at the same time, it kind of bothers me that there are things like the multiple mail slots that should have been in by default and that they're still refusing to put in. I understand not everything will be there at the onset, but if people request it, and it's a reasonable request, why not? I don't get it.

Jason said on 12:27AM 9-30-2009

These Q&A's weren't that great but they just released some dev diaries today with more info on the horse revamp, skirmishes, and shared storage.

Wisdomandlore said on 9:12AM 9-30-2009

Actually, resource tracking while mounted was in the game originally (up to the first update after launch I believe, certainly in beta). They took it out because at the time, 1) Horses were actually expensive to obtain, and most people didn't have them, 2) Resources were actually worth something, and 3) People on horses could zoom around and monopolize the resources on the map since they could track it while mounting.

However, that was 2 and a half years ago. There's no reason why it shouldn't have been reinstated since then.

Wensbane said on 6:50AM 9-30-2009

Radiance gating stays, eh? No LotRO for me, then...

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