This week we talk about The Riders of Rohan announcements, information and pre-order information.
This week’s episode starts off with guest Locney Esgal from the Lonely Mountain Band giving us some tips to help make next week’s Weatherstock performance the most enjoyable. For written tips see this forum post!
Goldenstar’s Dum group went to Fil Gashan this week and crushed it. Dum members believe either Fil Gashan has been nerfed or the Dums are like super awesome. I think we are just awesome. She’s given up on getting a Jester’s steed for the Spring festival.
Merric has been playing with his Warden in Moria.
Town Crier
Riders of Rohan
- Riders of Rohan Launching September 5, 2012
- Pre-order Options Announced
- Turbine Store Pricing
- Rohan Instance Cluster Not Releasing at Launch
- We will be releasing an instance cluster after the update comes out. However, we have not discussed the pricing of the cluster at this time. The mention of the cluster being free to players who have purchased Rohan was incorrect, and that’s what we have removed. There is no instance cluster coming out simultaneously with the expansion. We will be discussing the pricing of the instance cluster at a later time. source
- Q&A with Aaron Campbell
- RoR Screenshots, Concept Art and Videos
- RoR in the Media
Other News
- LOTRO now on Steam
- Steam places all of your purchased product keys under the game’s right click menu. Go into your game library, right click on “The Lord of the Rings Online” and then click “View CD Keys” source
- You don’t have you reinstall the game in order to get Steam Overlay to work. You can add LOTRO to Steam as a non-steam game by visiting the “Games” menu at the top of Steam and selecting, “Add a non-steam game to my library.” When the next box comes up, choose to add Lord of the Rings Online. Once you do that, you can play LOTRO through Steam and have access to Steam Overlay and Steam Voice Chat. The only difference is that your Steam Communicator will say “In non-Steam game” instead of “The Lord of the Rings Online.” source
- Final Weekend of Spring Festival
Store News
CSTM News
Community News
- Weatherstock – June 16th
- LEGO LOTR Announced
Raise Your Glass
Elleby Silverthorn
Dear Goldenstar, Meric, and Baby Hobbit,
Like many people I am really looking forward to attending WeatherStock on June 16th, it should be loads of fun (and loads of lag) just like last year.
I was wondering if you could help me get the word out on an organization I founded. It is called ‘Visitor From Another Server’, and its a kinship made for people who visit Landroval for events but do not normally play there. It was created back in October during the Fellowship Walk to Rivendell (a.k.a. – The Fellowship Walk to the Gates of Moria)
The goal of the group is to help visitors (like myself) to find other guests and to help each other navigate the strange new world of Landroval. I also plan on having a small selection of outfits on hand for our members who prefer to attend WeatherStock wearing something other than their starter rags.
If anybody attending WeatherStock is interested in joining they can simply send a tell to ‘Visitor’ the day of WeatherStock and our recruiter will invite you in. For those who prefer to join up in person, you can also visit our new Recruitment Office on the second floor of the Bree Town Hall; which will be open starting at 1pm /servertime the day of Weatherstock.
Thank you once again for any help you can provide in promoting our group; and hopefully I will see you guys at WeatherStock.
Sincerely,
Elleby Silverthorn
Founder
Visitor from Another Server
Bal
Hail friends and well met!
I am sending you this email to congratulate you on how well you answered all of the FAQ of the riders of rohan expansion pre-order I had been listening to your podcasts since iv started playing lotro properly again as I was a beta tester for the shadows of angmar the original LOTRO I am just wondering if you have any members on the en-rp server laurelin as I would love to talk to you guys in game! My name is balvirine bratton leader of the riders of glory! This isnt my highest level character but its my main RP character and he leads my kinship for the moment! I would love for a reply to this! Until next time CSTM!
-Bal
Matheteis (Riddermark)
Hello Merric and Goldenstar,
Thanks for putting together such a great podcast. I have been listening for awhile now and always find your show informative and entertaining. I really appreciate all the insights, opinions, and information you provide about LOTRO. It helps me a lot for my own LOTRO gaming experience.
Just wanted to shoot you a quick
e-mail to say thank you for all you do. Keep up the great work!
Matheteis (Riddermark)
Player Achievements for the Week
Contact Us
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Recorded June 9, 2012
June 11, 2012 at 12:35 am
The Riders of Rohan Theatrical Trailer:
Middle-Earth gets SHATNERED!
June 11, 2012 at 3:36 pm
LOL, nicely put.
June 11, 2012 at 5:39 am
What is that horse in the picture?
June 11, 2012 at 5:50 am
Never mind. It’s the steam horse.
June 11, 2012 at 6:11 am
I was really confused until I realised that you and LOTRO Reporter happened to choose exactly the same title for your respective podcasts this week!
June 11, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Yeah, I chose the title. It seems that we are of similar opinions with LOTRO Reporter, eh?
June 12, 2012 at 1:18 am
Great minds think alike!
June 11, 2012 at 7:16 am
Totally agree with Turbine needing to be a lot clearer on what you get with the pre-order, what you can buy from the store after release (and how much it costs) and make very clear which content is ONLY available through the pre-order (unavailable through store or in-game after released).
There is a good chance I won’t be pre-ordering this time (that would be the first time, before I always ordered the most expensive version). I have a lifetime account and will have enough TP by the time the expansion is released to buy the quests and the 6th inventory bag. So maybe I won’t spend a penny this time and go with buying the expansion quests and 6th bag through the store.
June 11, 2012 at 3:39 pm
The thing is, Turbine has created a culture in the game that centers around the store. That’s fine and all, but you can’t announce an expansion into that culture and not be specific about what is and what is not included in the expansion. Plus, when you start getting weird about it by including quest packs in one; level 75 cloaks and a bag in another; and then cut out expected features in all of them… Well you’re going to get harsh feedback.
June 11, 2012 at 9:45 am
LOL Goldenstar. I busted out laughing when you said ” It’s a ridicoulous piece of poop!”
June 11, 2012 at 12:42 pm
RoR is 3 times bigger than moria? Is that Landmass or Quests/ect… too many unanswered questions for me to pre-order.
June 11, 2012 at 3:39 pm
I believe that they said both, but don’t hold me to it at this point. There’s just too much in flux at the moment to be sure.
June 11, 2012 at 4:13 pm
They specifically say “Explore Largest Landscape Yet!
Nearly three times as large as Moria!” And yes I know that more landscape doesn’t mean more content but for crying out loud is should. If they have a big plot of underutilized landscape, then for shame. I choose to believe their landscape will have use. Only one of the 3 regions is Warsteed specific.
June 11, 2012 at 8:58 pm
I sure hope so, cuse i would be very upset to see miles and miles of rolling hills… its just something that pop’d into my head while i was listening to the podcast, I have HIGH hopes… but Im still not convinced enough to pre-order… i really, really hope this all works out, cuse i love this game, all other MMOs i get sick of after a few years, but lotro still draws me in, and Ill still play in one form or another until we get to Mordor…
June 12, 2012 at 4:44 am
It makes sense to have a large landscape if you have some fast horses. From what I’ve understood the mounted combat horses will be a lot faster than the current ones. That would mean the landscape might feel tiny if they didn’t enlarge it because you would be able to cross it quickly on your fast new horse.
Looking forward to see the landscapes in Riders of Rohan. Landscape exploring always it the number one thing I like in this game and some parts in Great River were very well done (the way how the forest close to Lothlorien changes in the fields close to Stangard is awesome for example).
June 11, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Think I’ve kind of grouped myself in with the ranters so have decided to try and back off to the point of calling RoR either and “expansion” or the RoR questpack. Quotes on expansion as until they actually state why it’s not just a questpack then thats all it is.
GW2 beta weekend was very well timed for me as the whole thing has left me less inclined to log in to any character on lotro.
One thing I’d noticed with the steam install is that due to the way the launcher for lotro sits after you exit steam thinks you’re still playing until you close that as well. Not hugely vital unless you’re fussy about game stats and it will also prevent steam from downloading purchases due to the pause while playing that it does.
June 11, 2012 at 4:12 pm
I’m very surprised and impressed with your position on the RoR pre-order debacle. I started listening to the episode certain to hear some Turbine apologist dialogue. After all you have both meet Turbine developers in person and have to maintain a non-hostile line of communication with them. With that in mind I was shocked and proud with the strong objections you had about all this. Once again CSTM thank you for the service you provide to the COMMUNITY.
June 12, 2012 at 4:59 am
Tehehehehehe thanks for the mention and empathy over those damn flowers.. I really hope you got the horse if you continued there GS. If you didn’t you have my condolences. What was really nice is that my main (Eardun) NEVER got any other 68% mounts in any other events with them (envelopes or the Treasure hunt) but my alts have like 4 each.. so when I got the Jester one on my 2nd to last turn in of flowers I literally jumped for joy and declared ENOUGH FLOWERS.. LOL I very much agree with you and share the OCDness of using all 1 hour of the timer.. I mean.. it’s there right? I have to do an hour.. so even when I even contemplated leaving early (though I did change zones every now and then) I kept thinking “what if I left. I’d miss out on flowers to get the horse”. I do this all the time with all of those types of quests and I really hope they don’t institute a quest of that nature in the upcoming festivals. Forced to do just one thing for an hour was surprisingly painful.. Thanks again and maybe I’ll run into you in game! Eardun/Landroval
P.S. Thanks so much for going through what is the current information on the ROR Preorder debacle. I raise my glass to your effort!
June 12, 2012 at 9:51 pm
As a long time listener and onetime guest on the show I cannot have said any of this better myself.
Thanks for giving a voice to those of us out here who just don’t have the same clout as you do. We can only talk with our pocket book and I know that’s what I’ll be doing this time. I’ll be waiting out RoR and seeing exactly what the deal is before I decide on any editions and the chances are even good I’ll just get it with TP.
June 13, 2012 at 2:03 am
Has anyone been able to find the phrase in any FAQ that was supposedly copy-pasted as a mistake? I can’t. There wasn’t even a clear indication that there would be instances available at launch of RoI and it was clarified later. I think that was an outright lie, but i’m willing to be proven wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time they altered a FAQ after-the-fact. It just seems like we rolled over on that one. Even if they claim it was a mistake, they have to either provide a refund or grant them to those that bought it at the time. It would be a legal imperative.
June 13, 2012 at 11:23 pm
Loved the podcast, bought the $15 steam pack, still have to figure out the steps to get the necessary code for my account. Here’s another RoR comparison that was interesting:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CF0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flotrostrategery.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F06%2F08%2Fcomparing-riders-of-rohan-to-past-pre-orders%2F&ei=jVXZT4uoHuX26gHOlrHNAg&usg=AFQjCNFNnJG-tD5s8mvWTm4J_7hokMQEKQ&sig2=YjEjqWL9mf1–KUEwQIQvw
June 14, 2012 at 7:06 am
The expansion versions with/without quest packs and their pricing actually do make sense if you try to look at who the target audience may be.
You said it yourself in the podcast, Goldenstar: the added quest packs actually have NO value to those of us who are VIPs/lifetimers and already own the Moria expansion. On the other hand, a lot of the longtime playing VIPs (who also bought the legendary Isengard expansion despite already having access to all the questpacks included) have several characters at endgame and at least occasionally raiding. To those players, the crystal does have a value, and one that multiplies the 995 TP you are supposedly asked to pay for a crystal multiplied by the number of characters they have in endgame.
Looking around among the people I play with, all of them have at least two raid-ready characters, most of them more (up to 5 or 6 even). Those that have preordered the legendary RoR edition are thrilled about the crystal and its use on their legendary items. They don’t care about quest packs as part of the expansion, since they have them all anyway (often doubly so since their accounts have the original Moria expansion as well as the legendary Isengard pack).
Personally, I will most likely go for the basic version of this expansion (haven’t decided whether I will preorder or not yet), since I already have the Moria expansion and Evendim quest pack on my account and don’t care about min-maxing my LIs, thus am not really tempted by the crystals and can very well get the 6th bag from the TP I have saved up.
For any account that doesn’t already have the Moria expansion/quest pack, the heroic edition seems like a solid choice (although I’d probably get the legendary Isengeard pack instead unless for some weird reason I already had Isengard and Mirkwood). This one is obviously aimed at newer players.
The legendary edition is obviously aimed at longtime players heavily invested in endgame raiding and/or min-maxing their characters. Compared to the other versions I actually think the price is ok since they are effectively selling convenience (additional LI legacies without the need to farm for tons of stuff in game to come up with a comparable LI). I don’t need that kind of stuff, but I can see where their pricing is coming from.
June 14, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Hello Guys and kind greetings from Poland!
Thank you very much for this episode, very informative and I think it was one of the voices, Turbine took into account to revise their initial proposal on the pre-purchase.
I got to say though – especially after reading the linked post where they threaten one of the customer with ban – A LOT of bad taste and bad atmosphere will be left after this. It created the situation where fans and Turbine are on the oposite sides, very bad for image.
PS. During listening to podcast, at the point where you mention their responses to the article by massively, I was laughing for 10 min at 3:00AM my time
Huge hugs to you!
((Sorry for the quality of my English))