Don’t let the title fool you, we had ever so much trouble getting this podcast out to you. Baby Hobbit was very sweet that she pretty much forced herself to stay awake because she “wants to podcast, too!” but unfortunately couldn’t make it and half way through the Town Crier had to have someone take her upstairs to bed. Don’t worry we cut most of all that out of the podcast. Then at the end of the show we realize the podcast recorder quit recording sometime during the show.. good grief. Luckily we were able to salvage a copy from Twitch.tv which saves the episode so the show may sound a little different as it wasn’t our direct recording. *gulps for air* After all that, please enjoy the show!
This week we discuss LOTRO’s maintenance downtime, update 9.1.1 and upcoming update 10 news, developer chats, My Little Ponies and more!
Town Crier
Official News
- LOTRO Servers Are Up!
- LOTRO Store and Myaccount services are unavailable at this time
- From Celestrata on the forums: The work that we have been performing is a very large-scale upgrade to our back-end systems, including our billing tools and customer service tools. Obviously, this is a large maintenance that affects everything that our games rely on, and that’s why this has taken so long. [source]
- LOTRO Downtime Compensation
- From Sapience: A quick reminder that the 250 turbine points and extended VIP time will not be added until we are confident all issues are resolved and the service is stable. We’ll let you know when it happens, but we ask for your patience in this matter. [source]
- Update 9.1.1 Release Notes
- Bullroarer- Update 10 Release Notes 3
- Seeking- Guides and Valuable info from the Lorebook
- Update 10 Previews:
- LOTRO Developer Twitter Chat- February 21, 2013
Store News
- Not posted yet. (Store was down at time of recording)
CSTM News
Weekly Poll
Riddles in the Dark
Riddles in the Dark is a bi-weekly podcast series by Dr. Corey Olsen (The Tolkien Professor), David Kale and Trish Lambert. Discussion will focus on the themes, characters, and events of Middle-earth and lay the groundwork for intelligent speculation about how the book may be translated to film. Each episode will culminate in the hosts making a specific prediction about the upcoming films, to be proven or dis-proven when the films are finally released.
More information on RITD can be found at http://www.mythgard.org/exclusives/riddles-in-the-dark/
How will the Elves’ relationship with the encroaching evil in Mirkwood be depicted?
A. The forest is uniformly dark with no “light/dark” boundary but Elves are living at peace (book answer).
B. The forest is uniformly dark with no boundary and Elves are living in crisis.
C. There is a clear and unchallenged evil/Elf realm demarcation and the Elves are living in peace (the Doriath answer).
D. There is an actively defended boundary between the encroaching evil and the Elf realm (i.e., Elves are in crisis).
Raise Your Glass
Letters
Niniba of Laurelin
Hi Gold/Meric,
Great site and podcast. Appreciate the great work you put in. I get a lot out of it. Especially those round tables hint hint!
Question i have is what recommendations do you have for kids playing lotro. My daughter is 7 and loves to play. It’s a question that has come up in the kin also. Now i turned off incoming tells and blood splatter and left the profanity filter turned on. She started with a guardian but didn’t really get into it. Loves the hunter and RK now. I have also not put her in the kin but she is in the tribe. Loves that warg. One day she even participated in a full raid! She doesnt know the password for her account and make sure she is well supervised either in game or out.
Any advice greatly appreciated. It seems so many of us playing lotro, such as yourselves as well, are in the same boat. So a segment on your show would probably help a lot of people.
Regards
Niniba from “The Children of Iluvatar ” on Laurilen
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Recorded February 16, 2013
February 18, 2013 at 2:47 am
Best podcast ever!!!11!
In reference to the Riddles in the Dark question I think it will be option A and/or C turning into option D because of the Dwarves, thus ratcheting up the conflict between the Elves and the Dwarves.
February 18, 2013 at 6:39 am
rainbowpuke!
February 18, 2013 at 10:31 am
Medallions of the Northmen you can spend at that cap in S. Central Enedwaith on top of the hill, I forget the name. If you have anyone 65ish, they have some nice armor sets, and the +stat legacy replacement scrolls. I’m sure there’s other stuff there, but that comes to mind.
But, yeah, I have about 900 seals myself, and find myself wondering if I should spend them or not.
February 18, 2013 at 11:04 am
Regarding the parental control portion of the podcast, it might be useful to use the /anon command as well.
February 18, 2013 at 2:38 pm
Good idea!
February 18, 2013 at 12:38 pm
Two casually related questions:
What feed reader do you use to keep up on your blog reading?
What platform do you play Lego LOTR on?
Dumi
February 18, 2013 at 2:37 pm
We both use Google Reader as our reader but I think he does a lot of his reading through an app. He’s changed apps a couple times so I’m not sure which he’s using. I primarily just use Google’s reader on a browser.
We have LEGO LOTR on XBox. I’m very impressed how well Baby Hobbit can use the controls for it.
February 18, 2013 at 6:46 pm
I’m a kin leader whose kinship occasionally allows kids to join (nearly always kids of those who are already members). When someone asked to let their kids join, the officers and I came up with some rules and decided to allow it as a sort of experiment. It’s worked out well so far.
Here is something I didn’t hear mentioned: voice chat. One of our rules is that we expressly forbid anyone under 18 from using our Ventrilo server just because we cannot monitor it all the time. In-game voice chat is off by default, but it is something else to check. Didn’t sound like it was relevant to Niniba’s situation, but there ya go anyway.
February 19, 2013 at 2:49 pm
I think its a very valid rule. Not only to remove kids from invading your space but to allow others to not feel censored when they don’t know who’s logged in. To me ventrilo is great to chat to my friends and raid but it is not something I would allow Baby Hobbit to access on her own.
February 19, 2013 at 10:59 am
Hi folks! Just discovered your site, by a roundabout way. Was trying to figure out how to refund skirmish points, did a google and your site was at the top! Housing. Housing housing housing! If Turbine adopted the EQ2 model it would be perfect. I hate housing zones, they start great but always end up deserted and depressing. Best bet is to use existing npc houses in the game world, you purchase the deed and gain access to your own private interior home. You wont have an outside to decorate, but at least you can live in the actual world.
Again, hi and love the site!
February 19, 2013 at 1:28 pm
Did you find your answer on the skirmish refunding? I’m sure I can find info if you need it.
February 20, 2013 at 7:16 pm
Thanks for the segment it was a great help to confirm we are going in the right direction and also quite a few tips i missed.
I haven’t given her access to out of game chat but she does use the in game when in fellowship with kin. Everyone knows her age and are very happy to accommodate that. Her rules are though no talking though as she is so excited generally that she gives a running commentary that most people are not going to want to hear!
In between emailing Goldenstar and the episode coming out a few kinnies got together and decided she should join. So now she is in the kin. She has her uniform and looks forward to the next RP ride through bree next week.