Filed under: Lord of the Rings Online

TweetWith the launch of Lord of the Rings Online's biggest patch to date a scant few days away, we touched base with Turbine's Aaron Campbell, Brian Aloisio, and Bob Hess at PAX Prime to see how their nerves are holding up at this point. It is, as Aloisio laughed, akin to launching the game all over again, and LotRO is definitely under close scrutiny because of it.

Many players were surprised to hear that LotRO's free-to-play update was going live much sooner than anticipated, and we asked Campbell whether this was due to a preset schedule or better-than-anticipated beta feedback. He said that they weren't going to release it until it was ready, but by the team's reckoning, the beta process went so smoothly that there was no reason to delay any further.

Compared to the betas for Shadows of Angmar, Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood, the F2P beta -- according to Campbell -- was the most upbeat Turbine's ever had, with far more positive feedback than negative. Hit the jump to hear more and see the latest screenshots and video from PAX.

The upcoming free-to-play conversion isn't the only big change coming to Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online over the next little while. In a new dev diary released yesterday on the European community website, Games System Engineer Narrel provided a glimpse into what began as the "pet project" of three developers and has now morphed into a full-fledged extreme makeover of the game's user interface capabilities.

Using the venerable and lightweight Lua scripting language, Narrel, Agiclaw, and ForsakenArcher are closing in on their stated goal of bringing extensive customization possibilities to LotRO's UI.

"The future of Lua in LOTRO is a bright one," Narrel writes. "While the current functionality is certainly limited, we fully intend to continue the development of this system so that both existing and new game systems will expose functionality to the user, allowing for a much more personalized user interface."

Recently in our kinship chat, I asked my mates what they were most looking forward to in next week's patch. Scaled instances and the wardrobe were popular, but probably the most-cited change was simply the influx of new players. It's not that we were worried Lord of the Rings Online was dying, but that we love this game so much that we genuinely want others to experience it as well.

Plus, new players bring a rush of excitement for everyone involved. It's always a treat to look at an old game through a fresh set of eyes, and I hope that everyone logging in to LotRO for the first time will enjoy the sights of the Eriador, the quirkiness of the world, and the rich lore behind it.

In the spirit of welcoming these fledgling adventurers to Middle-earth, I wanted to hand out a few pieces of advice today that I would give to myself if I were just starting out (and I guess there'd be some sort of weird time travel paradox event going on there, but hopefully you catch my gist). What should you do in your first week in LotRO? Speak "friend" and enter.

When the work or school week has you in its monotonous grip, you can always turn to the fantasy lands of Lord of the Rings Online to cheer you up. There are tons of beautiful locales to wander around in, perfect for escaping all the day-to-day mundanity of the real world. Today we thought we'd share a lovely, relaxing locale we haven't seen as yet, which was sent in to us by Massively reader HexDSL, who plays on the EU servers. He writes in to tell us more about it: "This is a shot I took of my character 'Lairdan Hex' looking out over Lothlorien. When combined with the trees moving in the DirectX 10 breeze and the shadows flickering, it really is more tranquil and immersive than this screen shot can possibly show."

Want to show off your favorite MMO? It's easy! Just email your screenshot to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit.

One of our favorite things that Lord of the Rings Online offers us is the chance to walk through -- even if only virtually -- the amazing locales so richly described in Tolkien's Middle-earth. From warm, cozy towns to coldly gilded locales like the one featured in today's One Shots, there's tons to explore! Today, we have a great note from Ian "Gilithernil" D., who gives us both a lore and player's perspective on today's location:

"Here's a picture of one of Lord of the Rings Online's older instances, Ost Elendil. This was once the throne room for the Kingdom of Arnor, once ruled by Elendil of Westernesse. The royal capital of Annuminas has since fallen into decaying ruins. Amarthiel, in league with the Black Numenoreans, has entered the city and palace to claim it for her own."

"This particular instance was originally designed to be a level 50, 6-person area. Despite being over-leveled for the place, my kinship and I think it's still a fun and enjoyable place to visit. The mechanics of the instance are unique, and I encourage everyone to play through it once before the changes coming with LotRO's move to F2P. Not to mention, it's one of the most beautiful indoor areas of Middle-earth."

Would you like to share your MMO travels? Just email a screenshot in to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. It could wind up as the next one we feature!

As we barrel toward the September 10th release date of LotRO's Volume III Book 2 update and F2P craziness, Turbine's devs are rushing to cover as many of the changes as possible in their detailed dev diaries.

The first diary covers the changes to the metal-clad captain class, which is receiving an overhaul thanks to player feedback and extensive fine-tuning. Ken Burd explained the rearrangement of two traits lines, Leader of Men and Lead the Charge, which have been reworked into tank and DPS specialties, respectively. Burd also discussed the changes to heralds, standards and armaments.

For everyone else who isn't a captain (and, OK, captains too), games systems engineer Ransroth gushes over the improved vault system. In an attempt to make the vault easier to peruse, Turbine is changing the bank UI to resemble the shared storage UI, which results in an easier-to-read interface. When beta testers responded negatively to the new vault interface, the devs worked to find a solution to mimic the old structure of multiple chests. Vaults 2.0 also come with a number of spiffy tools, such as dynamic filtering, sorting, automatic stack merges, and searches.

Both the captain revamp and the vault improvements are scheduled to hit the servers in a little over two weeks.

With all of the hubbub surrounding next month's implementation of a free-to-play model in Lord of the Rings Online, it would be easy to overlook all of the other additions coming in the patch, such as the instance scaling and revamped beginning areas. One of the most highly anticipated features -- and most-praised by beta testers -- is the new wardrobe system, which will allow players to organize and store cosmetic outfits for every occasion.

However, LotRO's wardrobe has raised a bit of confusion over what it is and how it functions, which is why Turbine's Elliot Gilman penned a new developer diary to explain the wardrobe in detail. Gilman starts by pointing out that while the wardrobe may seem similar in appearance to your inventory or bank vault, it doesn't actually store the items, but instead makes a copy to use for cosmetic outfits in the future. This "doppelganger" item, as he puts it, carries over the look and color, but not the stats, associated with it. Another cool function of the wardrobe is that you can equip each cloned item with multiple dyes, allowing you the choice of color when you get dressed in the morning.

Players start with a decent 20-slot wardrobe, but the fashion-conscious can pay with Turbine points to upgrade it all the way to a mammoth 50-slot walk-in closet. Like shared storage, the wardrobe is available to all your characters on a particular server, although if a character couldn't wear the original item due to restrictions, she won't be able to don the doppelganger either. You can read the full dev diary over at LotRO's site.

If you've been playing MMORPGs for any length of time, or you keep up with the latest happenings around the industry, you're probably familiar with Lord of the Rings Online's Landroval server. In addition to being the "unofficial" roleplay server for Turbine's Tolkien-based MMORPG, Landroval is consistently mentioned as one of the finest communities in online gaming. Whether it be in forum discussions on various gaming websites, chats with gaming buddies, or even internal discussions here at Massively, Landroval is almost always referenced when someone asks about a friendly server that offers a dense and mature population.

For this week's issue of Community Detective, we decided to put Landroval to the test. While the community lived up to its billing, we did encounter some curious inconsistencies with regard to Turbine's customer service. Head past the cut for our findings and impressions.

Last week I received a note from a LotRO player named Shawn who was concerned about one of the controversies revolving around the LotRO store and was wondering if I was going to touch on it. Now, it's no personal surprise that the store was going to have controversial aspects to it -- I can't even imagine a scenario in which it wouldn't -- but I assured him I'd tackle the subject and more after downing a few strong drinks and subjecting myself to 414 straight pages of forum rants.

My reluctance to talk about this is due to a combination of (a) not feeling that strongly to the point of frothing at the mouth about a lot of these items for sale, and (b) the fact that no matter what position I'd take, I'd lose with at least some readers. Hard place, me, rock. So what the hey, why not take the reputation horse by the reigns and see how I can muddle through this and come out with a majority of my skin unflayed!

I'm only going to do this with one provision, however -- that next week I get to talk about what I actually like about the store. There may be hugs and ballads involved. To controversy and beyond, tallyho!

The Turbine crew has been preparing for The Lord of the Rings Online to go free-to-play since the announcement in June, and players have been very interested in a launch date.

"This fall" has been the only answer for a while, as developers said they wanted to make sure the game was completely ready before committing to a date. They seem to be pretty certain now, as the announcement of a September 10th launch date came from Turbine early this morning.

Executive Producer Kate Paiz gives plenty of credit to the beta testers: "Our LOTRO beta program has been a huge success and we want to thank all of our players who worked with us to get the game ready for launch."

[Update: Current and former subscribers can access the game two days early, on September 8th.]

Every so often we hear from our friend Harperella, who loves to show off some of the great roleplay events that go on in Lord of the Rings Online. This time Harperella decided to send in an image of a group performing a dance that looks almost like it brought on a sprinkle of rain to keep the dancers cool. She writes in to explain:

"Here's a picture from Ales and Tales on the Landroval server. At these events, we actually put the in-game dances to the test, performing group dances to live music. Pictured is an elven circle dance with the lovely Rohanwood in the center, doing a hobbit dance."

Have you caught an image of a roleplaying event in your favorite game? One Shots is always on the hunt for something new and interesting going on in various MMOs out there, and we can use your help! Just email your screenshot to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. We'll post it out here for everyone to enjoy, and give you the credit for sharing it. It's that easy!

With the not-so-recent NDA lift on the beta, LotRO players are fast at work discussing, analyzing, dissecting and pouring over all of the information coming from testers. Like a double Shire rainbow, the main question on everyone's lips is, "What does it mean?" We want to know how this is going to impact us, our future, and our gameplay, and the massive scope of this change is both unsettling and heady.

Last week we sifted through the LotRO forums for testimonies about several aspects of the beta, which was treated with a stony silence from the lot of you. Oh, I kid! Nothing gets the tongues wagging around here like a good mouthful of free-to-play, although I've been informed by the leaders of the Global Conspiracy Against Gamers Having Fun that this topic has three days left on the clock until it's locked away in a vault forever.

So even though I tried to touch on the relevant points of the beta last week, there's simply so much of it out there that I had to leave some behind. It's easy to forget that this fall's update contains more than the LotRO store, like a whole barrel of additions and fixes to the game -- including class tweaks. Grab my hobbity hand, and we will venture into the land of the unknown... the land of class changes.

If there's one thing I learned from last week's Ask Massively, it's that our opinions are all wrong! Except Jef's. Even so, we're back this week to answer two more burning questions from the minds of our readers. Ironically enough, they both have to do with free-to-play, clarifying the switchover for Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II Extended.

Follow along below for our answers to these questions, and if you'd like your inquiries resolved on a future installment of Ask Massively, send it along to ask@massively.com or leave it as a comment to this post.

There's one thing to be said for having a huge number of MMO choices out on the market these days: if you aren't having fun in the game you're in, there's always somewhere else to roam. Sometimes a game that didn't thrill you at first may be just the thing once some time has passed, as today's contributor Dustin D. recently found upon his return to Lord of the Rings Online. He writes in to explain:

"Here's my lore-master, Whirlspell, in a quaint town called Little Staddlemere in Bree-Land. I'm only level 10, as I've just dived into Lord of the Rings Online for the first time since my two months with it at launch. I'm preparing for the move to free-to-play! I'm so glad I came back to Middle-earth -- I had forgotten how breathtakingly beautiful it is. This screen doesn't do it justice, but I was relaxing on a little pier by this pond when the storm broke loose and the rain began to fall. I felt it only appropriate that I do a little rain-dance in honor of the talented people at Turbine."

Found something to do a happydance over in your favorite game? Want to share that happy moment? Snap a screenshot of your character doing a happydance and send it in to us here at oneshots@massively.com. Be sure to include your name, the name of the game, and a note telling us what it is that makes you happy about your favorite MMO. We'll post it out here and give you the credit for sending it in!

In case you were wondering, I'm part of the crowd that doesn't really believe in non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Oh, if I agree to one I'll stick to it and keep my word, don't get me wrong. What I mean is that I don't believe in the usefulness of NDAs, particularly in a day and age when all the information is available anyway -- this is, after all, the omniscient internet. Not to mention that by trying to keep a lid on testers and prevent them from sharing their experiences, companies tend to suppress the positive accolades (those are the people who want to keep playing, after all) while letting the badmouthers escape to tell their tale (they don't care if they break the NDA, because they're not going to play anyway).

But my personal feelings aside, the brief NDA lockdown on the upcoming LotRO F2P edition (hey Turbine, can we get a name for this yet? LotRO Unlimited? Free-Range LotRO?) has lifted and testers have swarmed out from under its veil to share their stories and thoughts. I'd be remiss if we didn't spend some time this week looking at what people have to say about all of the changes, additions and updates to the game -- not to mention the looming specter of the LotRO store.

Let us see what is to be seen as we scout the forums and blogosphere: LotRO exposed, uncovered, dissected and digested for the good of all. I've pulled salient quotes to help give you an idea how the beta is progressing thus far -- and remember, it is still in beta. Everything here is quite subject to change by the time LotRO II: Hobbit Boogaloo launches.