This past Tuesday, Merric was able to have a nice chat with Aaron Campbell, Producer for LOTRO, and Adam Mersky, Director of Digital Communications, from Warner Bros. Games/Turbine.
This interview primarily is about Update 5: Armies of Isengard. Adam mentioned having a date soon but it has not been released quite yet. We will keep you updated as to when we know Update 5 will be coming!
Topics include:
- Mark Consolidation
- Instance Finder Tool
- The New Instances
- Mitigation Caps & Gear Balancing
- LUA Updates
- PVMP
- Westfold Crafting
- … and more!
Thank you very much to both Adam and Aaron for their time and taking our questions!
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December 8, 2011 at 8:59 am
I’m wondering…will Barrow Downs:Survival be part of the instance finder in the first update? I know we should be able to turn it off in Update 6, but I have no desire to run it…ever.
December 8, 2011 at 9:05 am
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be included. It’s a skirmish so you could uncheck skirmishes if you want to avoid it that way.
Also I think the likelihood is probably pretty low since Survival Barrow Downs is a pay for skirmish. You’re more likely to be tossed into a Tuckburrow or Gondamon as they’re free for all.
December 8, 2011 at 9:14 am
They did exclude it during some of the testing, but I don’t think they said whether or not it was excluded come Update 5. It seems that they can change what is and isn’t included in the Instance Finder on-the-fly without any downtime.
But I agree with Goldenstar, I don’t see why they wouldn’t include although I myself am not so hot on trying it either.
December 8, 2011 at 10:08 am
I feel that Survival won’t be on the Instance finder in this release. This is the only skirmish that still had daily rewards on Bullroarer and it operates completely differently from any other skirmish. It also doesn’t fit in well with the 10-minute debuff you receive before using the Instancd Finder again.
December 8, 2011 at 10:20 am
I’d listen to Pineleaf over me on this
December 8, 2011 at 11:30 am
Ransroth has confirmed that Survival will be excluded by the Instance Finder.
December 8, 2011 at 9:22 am
Consumable rep items? Do want! (I guess my biggest problem with the current state is that you need 10 of something to hand it in and there are always some leftovers)
December 8, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Yes, this is one areas of the update that has gotten very little notice. UIn 5 all of the items are pro-rated and consumables. Where you used to need 10 per 300 rep, now each one will grant +30 rep. In addition, on B2 there was an item on the skirmish curiosities NPC very similar to the item available in the store. I believe it was an increase in rep for the next 1000 rep gained or something very similar.
December 8, 2011 at 9:52 am
Yay, bonus CSTM to keep my ears busy in work.
December 8, 2011 at 10:24 am
Hope you enjoy it!
December 8, 2011 at 10:46 am
Merric, any chance that interview could be typed in the important stuff for players that we are not native english and it’s hard to us to understand voice?
December 8, 2011 at 10:55 am
I’m sorry you don’t understand it well. I know it’s not your fault and if I had an easy way to make a transcript for our podcasts, I would. We don’t so they’d have to be manually typed out. Right now though we simply do not have to time available to type out a transcript for our audio podcasts. I’m very sorry.
I don’t know if it would help but the app I use to listen to podcasts has a feature that allows you to slow down the audio (1/2 as fast). If perhaps us talking too fast is an issue this could help. The app we use is called Downcast although I’m sure there are others that do the same.
December 8, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Great interview! I’m glad to hear they’re considering more bulk recipes (thanks for asking my question!). Seriously, sometimes after farming up a batch of crops, I go afk and read a book while converting them at the workbench.
December 8, 2011 at 12:29 pm
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but this ends at about 9 minutes in (around the instance finder tutorial question)… I might have to retry it at home.
December 8, 2011 at 12:30 pm
It’s odd they didn’t know about the lack of rare spawns in Dunland. Maybe that means they programmed them, but forgot to turn them on.
December 8, 2011 at 2:20 pm
I’m hoping you’re right because that’d be great. I love running into a rare spawn, even if it winds up wasting me. It adds some danger and surprise to the game.
December 8, 2011 at 5:23 pm
I jumped when I saw the ones in Angmar, where the trash mobs are hard to kill (at my level). I scurried away from it as fast as my Summerfest horse could ride (after a /mountrearup, of course)
December 8, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Thanks for doing this – it was a very interesting interview. One thing that did strike me was the comment that the overall response to the single-stat build has been very positive. Really? I’m not saying this is incorrect. But as a warden, I loathe and despise the single-stat build. The guards in my kin hate it. It’s pretty good for my mini, but it means she is having trouble getting enough morale not to be one-shotted by an angry look from an orc. My perception is that it severely limits build flexibility, but I would be interested to hear other people’s reactions. Would this be an appropriate topic for a weekly poll, or is it more likely to create flames?
December 8, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Great interview!
Thanks for asking, in this and the other interview, if in future content we will be following the fellowship down the Anduin.
It was interesting to hear that next year we will be getting new content monthly, and more new content overall than we got this year.
December 8, 2011 at 3:14 pm
You’re welcome!
December 8, 2011 at 5:53 pm
The audio wasnt the best, wish you had a transcript of the whole thing.
December 8, 2011 at 7:35 pm
If you want to transcript it, feel free. It was quite understandable, and very well done.
Thank you for taking the time to sit down and pose these questions and for your continued efforts running this podcast.
December 8, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Sorry
Well yeah the podcast was awesome, and there is not much to do about the audio on the dev side. I could hear what was being said but its always nice to be able to read through it afterwards.
Posted a link to the podcast on my kins website.
December 8, 2011 at 8:58 pm
The audio is pretty much the result of a speakerphone going over the Internet. If I had some other equipment it might have been better, but the fact that it costs around $500 for something we’d maybe use every 3 months or so… Skype wins out pretty easily.
As far as transcripts go, they take a huge amount of time and effort. I know of one fan who has transcribed an interview and that was back in 2010 when we had the PvMP interview at the first PAX East. Several others (including ourselves) have attempted to transcribe other interviews and it just takes too much time. If there was a cheap and reasonable way to do it; we’d do it hands down. But honestly, if we set out to transcribe the interview; well you’d be playing Update 5 before it would get done.
December 8, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Heh my interview with Aaron at Pax was all handwritten (call me old-fashioned) and I could barely do shorthand notes then. Can’t imagine the time it’d take to transcribe it all.