Listen now:

What We Did in Game

Layanor-

• 27% into my next rank
• Help my friend get her deeds done
• Random turtle runs
• have not gone back to finish the new deeds in the new area but plan too

 Cari -

• Warg Pens – Completed Challenge Mode on level.
• Tried Sword Halls – a DPS Mini, Guardian, and Burg can’t handle the ads fast enough.
• Defense of the Prancing Pony – on Level we won but the wargs liked the taste of elf a lot that run
• Hytbold – 6 more days.
• Samuth Gul – Helped the Kin finish up the bosses there.
• Cyn to level 57
• I don’t like the new rested XP mechanic.
• Timed out twice last night again. Went and played with space ships.

Chris -

• Finished the Scylfig quest hub, and working my way through Forlaw.
• Totally ignoring Hytbold as I work through the new area

News

Hotfix May 16th
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?512071-Update-11.0.1-Release-Notes-Official

• Addressed a specific performance issue with the QT launcher
• Resolved an issue with a specific creature skill effect that would cause severe performance issues.
• Scylfig: A Celebration Feast is now available to players.
• The Rescue in Cuthbald’s Farm is once again available to players. You should be able to complete the quest normally.
• Addressed an issue that was causing unexpected behavior with Disturbance at the Gate, Funeral in Forlaw and Thrymm’s Farm.
• Defence of Scylfig

Addressed an issue that allowed fellowships to enter the instance causing various errors. This is a solo instance.

The Spring Festival is Here
May 21 – June 4, 2013
New Cosmetics: http://cosmeticlotro.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/spring-festival-cosmetics-2013/New Steed: http://cosmeticlotro.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/spring-festival-mount-2013/Festival uses Spring Leaves not the Festival Tokens
http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2012/05/lotro-spring-festival-guide-2012/Yay more flower picking /sigh

Eldar Server Had to Be Restarted
Instances were borked.

Did You Know

In the past, we needed to go into the my documents folder and change the settings in the userpreference.ini file to be able to use two or more clients of LOTRO at the same time.

In update 10 we got the ability to just run the client without changing it.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?511574-Multiclient-Multiboxing-since-new-patch&p=6785875#post6785875

Update 11 they have changed it once again. This time to a new location. In your my documents folder, there is a second userpreference.ini file. This file does not have very many options, but you can change the top option. It is caled “allowmultipleinstances=false”. Change the False to True and that will allow you to open as as many games as you want from one client.

Also a second did you know is for the many skin users out there. In the old userpreferences.ini file, you can look for the option “AllowWindowResizing=True” and set that to False.

If you’re using a skin, and playing in windows mode, all your bars and get all messed up if you resize your window. They will not fix until you close the client. With this option turned off, it stops you from randomly resizing your window.

Community

Locations of the Warbands
https://starandshadow.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/wildermore-warbands-locations/

Syp Likes Lore Masters
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/18/the-road-to-mordor-six-reasons-lotros-lore-masters-rock/

New song: Evening Twilight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPXr_V66pW4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Doc Holiday Talks about the Ups and Downs of Update 11
http://docholidaymmo.com/2013/05/18/the-ups-and-downs-of-lotros-update-11/
I found out that you can individually scale the size of the alerts panel in your UI settings.  Without making it really small like I have, I think the cartoonish nature of the button would really bug me, but since it is now super tiny (yet still findable to click) it is one of those “out of sight, out of mind” updates.

Weatherstock Postponed.
Due to the music bug Weatherstock has been postponed to July 20.
On Landroval Staddle seems to be the only place that the system isn’t broken.

Should PvE players get the same gear as Raiders?
Discuss

Contact Information:

Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
Twitter: @lotroreporter
Facebook: LOTRO Reporter
Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.
YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetworkwww.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac
Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Chis is back, Cari and Layanor join him in discussing Update 11 and Ents.

Listen now:

What We Did in Game

Layanor- Finished Update 11.

• Have a few deeds to do.
• 22% into rank 12. Need 292k Renown.

Cari -

• Hytbold Dailies 10 more Days Baby
• Cyn to Level 56
• Opened a Hobbit Present and got a Skirt.
• Re did my LI and War-steed traits.

Chris -

• I played the “take 61 kids on a 5 day band tour” game. I lost my sanity somewhere, has anyone seen it?
• Finished the first couple of quests for Wildermore. Ooooo, snow.

News

MMO Reporter Update 11 Preview

http://mmoreporter.com/2013/05/12/lotro-update-11-preview/

Update 11 Dropped like its hot

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?511377-Update-11-Treachery-of-the-White-Hand-Release-Notes-Official

• New Launcher

• http://support.turbine.com/ics/support/kbanswer.asp?deptID=24001&task=knowledge&questionID=3914

• New Region
• New crafting recipes for every guild and new rep recipes.
• Epic Story Continues
• Mounted Combat Update
• Lailia’s Market
• Hobbit Presents
• The new Alerts Panel is intended to allow you to see all of your alerts at one time.
• Housing Upkeep now allows for paying further in advance and adds the option to pay with Mithril Coins.
• Reputation acceleration, Deed acceleration, Armour and Weapon repair services, task resets, and task limit increases can now be purchased with Mithril.
• Amongst their standard rewards, Warband Reward boxes should now also provide players with a chance to obtain new warsteed cosmetics and Warband Barter Tokens, which will be used to purchase the legendary pocket upgrades. Whereas the cosmetics will be a very rare drop from each reward box, the barter tokens will drop at a rate relative to the difficulty of the warband.
• Quests and Deeds that require the defeat of Players or Monster Players will now advance for all contributors, not just the player who dealt the final blow.
• When you are on a quest which is advanced by emoting, the quest tracker will now contain a quick-slot to trigger the emote.
• LI Points Refunded
• You should no longer get a “A failure has occurred in submitting your support request” error message on login. It has been replaced with a more meaningful error message, which will hopefully help us figure out what’s going on.

Mounted Combat 2.0

http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/mounted-combat-20-tale-problems-solutions

• Remove all movement based traits (Max Speed, Acceleration, Turn Rate) from the trees and build them into the base functionality of the War-Steed
• Replace the removed movement branch with a new branch that is class specific. Ensure this new branch
• Heavy-Steeds lost 0.5 meter per second off their max speed but gained increased Armour and Endurance to help reinforce their role as a tank. The light steed was given boosts to their max power and power regeneration to help them support our support classes more efficiently. In turn, the medium steed was tuned to provide a good balance of both.
• we took a long look at DPS and power usage to ensure things were balanced across the board. reinforces the identity of each class through skills and traits.

Known Issues Update 11:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?511371-Update-11-Treachery-of-the-White-Hand-Known-Issues

• The Play button in the launcher will sometimes not work, preventing you from accessing the game. Changing your language setting and then changing it back will allow you to log in properly.

• Infinite Cowbell! Using a cowbell while in mounted combat will cause the audio to infinitely loop until logout. You did want more cowbell, right?

Broken quest. Hot fix incoming. Until then devs can no longer help.

https://twitter.com/ehefkae/status/334384123735064576

“The Rescue in Cuthbald’s Farm” has been disabled.

 LOTRO Store Update

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?511406-LOTRO-%E2%80%93-Store-offer-update-11-5-13-2013

New Items:

• Quest Pack: Wildermore – 150+ quests & deeds for level 85 Characters. (free to VIPs)
• +5 Hope Tokens (90min) x1/x5
• 100% Craft Crit – 995 TP
• Random Relic Pack – Contains 1 random relic from tier 2-8
• Relic Bundle – Contains 10 random relics from tier 4-6
• Premium Relic Pack – Contains 5 random relics from tier 7-9

Item updates:

• 100% XP boosts now include War-Steed XP

Price changes:

• To match their new mithril pricing, the following 2 items have had their prices changed.
• Reputation Acceleration – raised store price to 250 TP for base
• Slayer & Skill Deed Acceleration – raised store price to 150 TP for base
• 100% Mark Boosts: x5/x10 = 450/875
• 100% Infamy & Renown x5/x10 = 675/1300
• 100% Craft XP x5/x10 = 675/1300

Ways Feedback is Looked at in LOTRO:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?510937-If-not-via-Forum-Consensus-how-do-we-effect-change-in-game&p=6779855#post6779855

From Sapience:

No method is considered over another, they’re combined. Kind of a ‘feedback stew’. They certainly inform one another (ie, Forums say X, Survey Says Y, Bug reports show Z, etc, combined they say W).

In very broad strokes and in no way a definitive list or in any particular order…

• Forums
• Outside comments (we read articles posted on news sites, look at small group of fansites that usually have good feedback, facebook, twitter, etc).
• Surveys (you’ve probably seen people post asking if a survey they got was legit.We do these from time to time).
• Customer service keeps track of issues and severity and the feedback players give them based on those exchanges.
• In game comments (yes we do actually spend time with the game up and the chat tabs blown up to full screen).
• Data pulled directly from the servers (we track a huge number of data points)
• We have a couple of third party moderators and some other groups who pull look at international feedback.
• Focus groups.
• And now the players council.

Community

Tsuhelm Lists their TP Grind Plans

http://tsuhelm.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/tp-grind-table-version-2/

Lists the Amount of TP you can get in the various areas.

LOTRO Update 11 Wildermore Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYArAeWn9cQ

Video by PvMPAndang

He got Tyler MIchael Jonsson the “American Gollum” to do the voice over.

http://network.mymiddleearth.com/2013/03/05/smeagol-and-gollum-sing-the-confrontation-from-les-miserables/

 Weatherstock in Danger of Being Canceled?

http://the-strongfoots.net/blog/weatherstock-v-in-danger-due-to-lotro-music-system-bug-introduced-in-update-11/

• There is a bug introduced with Update 11 that makes Weatherstock almost impossible to put on.

LOTRO Gambling! So it begins.

https://twitter.com/rwfrk/status/334453350206668802

@rwfrk [glff] <redacted>: ‘i gambled 1000 mith coins got NOTHING good’so it begins…

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?511346-Hobbit-Presents-Know-the-odds.

Mail:

Roselinda: A few notes that strike me:  there is a 100% auto-crit scroll called 100% Craft Crit.

This scroll contains long-forgotten crafting lore from the First Age. Upon using this scroll, the next time you craft an item, it will automatically be a critical. The bonus gained from this scroll lasts for 5 minutes, however it will only make the next item you craft automatically crit. The effect will be removed after the crit is successful. This scroll only affects production professions: Cook, Jeweller, Metalsmith, Scholar, Tailor, Weaponsmith, and Woodworker. 1 use.

price!  GULP *995 tp*
I’d consider them for things like the super rare golden horse lords items or the erebor necklaces, but not for 10 bucks.
On another note are the new “random relic bags” The “relic bundle” A great value for your dollar.
Price! *1000 tp*
The Relic Bundle contains 10 relics randomly chosen from tiers 4 to 7.
seriously?  great value for your dollar?

Contact Information:

Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
Twitter: @lotroreporterFacebook: LOTRO ReporterVoicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.
YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetworkwww.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac
Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Harry and Layanor join PR Guru Leo Tan and Producer Hannah Foell talk about Update 11. They introduce the the new Epic Book, talk about the mounted combat updates, and sneak a peak at mounting fishing!

We had problems with the client and recording the video., but we did salvage the audio! If you would like some visuals of update 11, you can check out PvMPAndang’s preview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYArAeWn9cQ

Big thanks too Leo and Hannah for taking the time to demo the new content for our listeners!

Listen now:

Layanor and Cari are on their own this week. Shenanigans are incoming. We talk about Update 11, Winged Horses, and things people want to see changed.

Listen now:

What We Did in Game

Layanor-

• More Moors. I am 12% into my next rank. It is movin right along.
• Took Roselinda to the moors for her first rank.
• Looked at Bullroarer briefly

 Cari -

• Dawning Eclipse 6th Anniversary Party with Goldenstar
• Hytbold Dalies
• Envelope Quests
• LOTRO Hated me on Monday and wouldn’t let me log in

News

Video Dev Diary Update 11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2VJiDC7HYw&sns=em

Update 11 Drops May 13, 2013

http://www.lotro.com/en/u11

The epic story continues as you are called to the remote region of Wildermore! This Eastern Rohan area has been hard hit by an unnatural and deadly winter. A Stone Giant named Núrzum, under the control of Saruman, is rumored as the source of this icy tragedy. Throughout Wildermore, villages have suffered ravage and townsfolk have become refugees. Follow in the chilly footsteps of evil as you attempt to restore this once thriving region.

New class-specific traits now enhance your mounted combat skills, while bonuses to mobility have been removed from traits and added to your base steed.

NEW! Hobbit Presents

NEW! VIP Benefits

• Custom character portrait frame
• Bonus experience: +100% xp for 30% of a level (daily upon login)
• Free weekly Gold Hobbit Present with increased chance of rare rewards

New for Mithril Coins

• Item repair in the field
• Personal Housing Upkeep
• Kinship Housing Upkeep
• Daily Task Limit Increase
• Task Reset
• Reputation Acceleration
• Deed Acceleration

Lalia’s Market new in Update 11

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?510167-Focus-Lalia-s-Market&p=6769792#post6769792

Market Exclusive Items

Not available in the LOTRO Store

Mitrhil Coins

Housing Changes Coming with Update 11

http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/update-11-developer-notes-housing-foreclosure-and-escrow-changes

Here’s the skinny:

With Update 11, if you own a home that has been locked for more than 180 days you will be issued a final foreclosure warning. At that point you’ll have 60 days to get your finances in order and pay down the upkeep or your home will be foreclosed and put back on the market. All your items that were stored in the house will be put into escrow. These items in escrow will stay there indefinitely but you will need to clear out your escrow before you are allowed to buy a new home.

Later this year we will likely shorten the grace period but seeing as this foreclosure business is new to a lot of players we figured we’d give some extra time when the feature goes live.

The hope here is that by putting all of the long-dormant homes back on the market current players will find it easier to build close-knit communities with their friends. We’ll have more info on future improvements to the housing system down the road a bit!

Obsidian Warsteed

http://www.danania.net/2013/05/obsidian-steed.html?m=1

Looks like wings to me.

Forums are being Streamlined

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?510761-Forums-Consolidation-and-Streamlining

• The German and French Forums will also take on this new format and layout of forums.
• No posts will be deleted, they will be rolled into the existing or replacement forums.
• Server forums will be condensed to just the server forum and its PvMP forum. The Trade and Kinship sub forums will be going away and all of those posts rolled into the general server forum.
• Store announcements will now be included in the Announcements forum with all other announcements.
• Crafting will now have a single forum instead of a forum for every craft.
• UI Skinning and Lua Scripting will now share the “UI Skinning and Lua Scripting” forum.
• Player Events (in and out of game) will share a single forum.

Player council was instrumental in getting these changes set up.

LOTRO Support is Now on Twitter

@LOTROSupport – Lord of the Rings Online Support inquiries

@DDOSupport – Dungeons and Dragons Online Support inquiries

@AsheronsCallCS – Asheron’s Call Support inquiries

As always, players can submit tickets at support.turbine.com and call with Account-related issues at 1-855-WBGAMES.

 PvMP Deed Change?

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?510219-Revert-the-PvMP-Deed-Change

Quests and Deeds that require the defeat of Players or Monster Players will now advance for all contributors, not just the player who dealt the final blow.

• The twitters don’t like it.

Community

Road to Mordor: Could the Lord of the Rings Online End in 2014

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/04/the-road-to-mordor-could-lord-of-the-rings-online-end-in-2014/

Weatherstock Band Registration is Open

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?510652-Weatherstock-V-Band-Registration-is-open!

Danania Supergirl of Lorien: 11 Things I would change When I Rule Middle Earth

http://www.danania.net/2013/05/top-11-things-i-would-change-when-i.html?m=1

1. Runekeepers need an In-combat rez.
2. More Housing hook flexibility and Evictions
3. Shared Coin
4. More Dances
5. Longer friend list, notes section
6. Permanently Unlocked Battle instances
7. Shorter and uncoupled Festival Consumable timer
8. No Moors multi-boxing
9. Fix Broken festivals
10. Include older festival horses and random luck horses in the lotro store
11. Weapon slot and Class item slot cosmetics

What would we add?

Contact Information:

Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com

Twitter: @lotroreporter

Facebook: LOTRO Reporter

Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.

Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

www.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

This week Cari, Chris and Layanor are joined by Bill himself (that will teach him to join the chat room) as we talk about Helm’s Deep, the Council of the Players, cloaks, and the forum changes.

Listen now:

What We Did in Game

 Layanor-

• Ranked to level 11.
• Starting the next rank. At 10k a day I should be rank 12 in two and a half months.
• I average 3 – 8k a day so it will be awhile
• I did the beer bash game for awhile to get the new teal horse.

Cari -

• Cyn to 55. I can now equip some of my new LI’s to level.
• Hytbold dailies a couple of days.

Chris -

• Dailies for Hytbold
• PvMP with Layanor. I didn’t die….
• Working on Reputations in Rohan.

Bill -

• Maxed his rep with all the factions of Rohan.

News

LOTRO Announces Helm’s Deep

http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/warner-bros-interactive-entertainment-and-turbine-announce-lord-rings-online%E2%84%A2-helm%E2%80%99s

• Experience the Battle for Helm’s Deep – Fight to defend Helm’s Deep starting at level 10, as your character enlists as a soldier in the Battle of the Hornburg, the most massive conflict yet in The Lord of the Rings Online.  Earn rewards for your contribution to the war effort – win or lose, your aid makes a difference!
• Explore new landscapes across Western Rohan – Explore the Westemnet of Rohan and rally each of the five Ridings as Rohan returns to glory. Traverse the capital of Edoras, mysterious Dunharrow, and the fortress of the Hornburg, deep within Helm’s Deep.
• Advance from levels 85 to 95 – Experience 10 new levels, from 85 to 95, with new skills and completely updated class specializations. Both mounted and un-mounted combat will challenge you as you war against the evil of Saruman.
• Continue the Epic Story – Encounter beloved characters such as Aragorn, Éowyn, and Éomer. Restore King Théoden to his rightful lordship and defend the peoples of Rohan at Helm’s Deep.

New Player Council Members

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?509600-Introducing-the-2013-LOTRO-Player-Council

• And the forums and social media have blown up.
• 75 players have been chosen
• They come from all servers though according to Sapience this wasn’t intentional

VIP Players Charged Multiple Times

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6761650#post6761650

• CarpeNoctum said that there were a few players who were charged multiple times for their VIP subscriptions.
• They are aware of who they are and are working to fix the issue and give credits to those affected.
• You will get a free month of VIP for your trouble if you were affected.
• FYI this also affected DDO.

Important changes coming to the LOTRO Forums and MyLOTRO Forums

The forums are going to be upgraded to a slightly newer version of VBulletin.

Changes will include:

• The forum styling/appearance will be updated.
• We will be adding a new forum home page that includes forum category navigation and feeds of recent turbine announcements/recent player discussions.
• Forum performance will be improved.
• Our bug reporting system is being revamped. We will update the bug reporting links as soon as the new system is available.
• The Character Copy tool is being revamped and migrated to LOTRO.com.
• The LOTRO referral system is being revamped and migrated to LOTRO.com. Please note that if you currently have active referrals, you will continue to accrue bonus points from your existing referrals, but you will be unable to redeem bonus points from your referral wallet or add new referrals until the new front-end of the referral system is launched.

 Discontinued Features

• The current player blog functionality will be discontinued. We are investigating ways of bringing blogging to players in the community site.
• The LOTRO Lorebook will be discontinued.
• The reputation system will be discontinued.
• PVMP leaderboards data will be discontinued, Character Signatures, and API functionality (data.lotro.com).
• Character database will be discontinued.

LOTRO Lotteries

The LOTRO Lotteries will receive a slight refresh and a new widget that should make them easier to find and enter. Our current expectation is the new system will be available with the launch of the new community site.

Update 10.1.1,Official

• Addressed a server-side performance issue.
• Addressed a number of unintended gameplay issues.

Anniversary Festival

• The Six-Year Frames for both Freeps and Creeps were not using the correct art work.
• The Eastemnet Gift Box was incorrectly Flagged as a Westfold giftbox.
• Added a number of new rewards to the Sixth Anniversary Festival.

Festival has been extended to May 6.

New Festival Cosmetics

http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2013/04/new-anniversary-rewards/

• Not really new
• Re-colored to Teal and some new details.

 Turbine Announces The One Fund Cloak

http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/one-fund-cloak

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6768193#post6768193

Sapience “We investigated making the item for sale with proceeds going to The One Fund, but the timing and process behind doing that proved to be prohibitive (it would have taken a great deal of time). We want to get an item out to players who had been asking us if there was something hey could do to show support and do so in a timely manner. So we created the cloak, created the coupon code to make it free, and ask that if you wish to make a donation to The One Fund you do so via http://onefundboston.org

Turbine will be making a donation to The One Fund, as many of us have individually.

The store has a requirement of a price and we set it based on not wishing to topple the store over by making it 1 point.”

Put BOSTON in at Checkout and it will be free

https://twitter.com/mizlia/status/329332418664345601

@mizlia: The back of the One Fund cloaks read BOSTON THALION in Tengwar – Thalion being the Sindarin word for strong, steadfast, dauntless. #LOTRO

Turbine Account Maintenance Scheduled Downtime Wednesday May 1st 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM

The Turbine Account Maintenance site at http://myaccount.turbine.com will be brought down for maintenance on Wednesday, May 1st from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT). During this time, players will be unable to log into the game or make changes to their accounts. Players already in the game when the site is brought down will be unaffected unless they log out or are disconnected.

Lotteries are coming back

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?509796-When-are-the-Lotteries-coming-back

Layanor’s©®™ Did you know?

• This weeks Did You Know was sent in by Rorgg
• 1-6 finishing the intro
• 6 – 15 Finish quests in your home town
• Do key quests that will take you to Bree-Land
• 20-29 skirmish skirmish skirmish
• 29-40 Evendim!
• 40-45 catch up on your epic books and get key quests
• 45-48 Eregion!
• 48-52 finish epic book 1
• Plenty more of this guide will be in the show notes.

You can find the entire leveling guide from the comments here:

http://glimpses.mymiddleearth.com/2013/04/30/leveling-guide-from-rogg-for-lotro-reporter/ 

Community

Spring Racing Carnival on Landroval

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YGkHsrnGlk

http://windyacres.mymiddleearth.com/?p=3610#more-3610

May 3 and 4 on Landroval

Contact Information:

Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com

Twitter: @lotroreporter

Facebook: LOTRO Reporter

Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.

Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

www.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Bill Twitter @MMOBill

Chris, Cari, and Layanor are waiting for Hobbits to bring gifts, and turtle tokens. We are anxiously awaiting Update 11 on Bullroarer.

Listen now:

What We Did in Game

Layanor-

• More Moors.
• Agility warden build is a lot of fun.
• High dps and high morale.
• Last raid I was in had seven wardens. We wiped the creeps almost repeatedly.

Cari -

• Got a couple of levels on Cyn Level 54
• Did Hytbold dailies a couple of times
• Did some Anniversary stuff. I can’t get excited for it this year since there are no new shinies.

Chris -

• Anniversary Quests. Finding the perfect place for fireworks sucks.
• Hytbold Dailies
• Got my anniversary stuff. Ho hum…

News

Sapience lets us in on Update 11 details.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?507799-Update-11&s=3de581209b44de40f547223e53447ff6&p=6755068#post6755068

• Bullroarer could be out next week.
• Hobbit Presents
• Epic story
• New Region
• Housing upkeep and escrow changes (foreclosure)
• New launcher tech (say bye bye to .net 1.1)
• Bug fixes
• So where is the new moors armour sets?

Sapience Tweeted on 4/23 that player council invitation e-mails should be coming out on 4/24 *crosses fingers*

Hobbit Presents are Coming
http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/faq-hobbit-presents-2http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6756124#post6756124

• Log in to get your Silver Present ever 24 hours
• VIP’s get gold presents
• Similar to the DDO Daily Dice?
• Forum has blow up with questions/comments/hate.
• Will be on Bullroarer with update 11 to test.

Sapience says the Anniversary festival will be extended due to extended downtime.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6757439#post6757439

• No news on exactly how long it will be extended.

Cari talk! With Cari! Tee hee!

http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2013/04/help-the-hobbit-altoholism/

• One suggestion was to rotate every 10 levels.
• One suggestion is to concentrate on one alt and if you get burned out try other games.
• Through Moria there was a high road one round and the low road the next time through.

Community

CSTM Article how to Export your My.LOTRO Blog

http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2013/04/export-your-my-lotro-blog/

Sapience has given a heads up that when the new community site goes live the blogs will be going away. CSTM has given us instructions on how to export those blogs.

Weatherstock will be Held on June 15 on Landroval at Weathertop

Weatherstock 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCDgr_ySRnE

Contact Information:

Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com

Twitter: @lotroreporter

Facebook: LOTRO Reporter

Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.

Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

www.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

The Three Amigo’s are back again. Chris, Layanor, and Cari are back from PAX, Real Life, and the plague. We get pretty silly and there may be a search for pants.

Listen now:

What We Did in Game

 Layanor-

• Nothing but the moors!

• Going for rank 11.

• Only need 52,293 renown to rank up.

Cari -

• I was out of town most of last week, and had visitors until Tuesday morning.

• I gave my Mum a tour of LOTRO. It took forever even with quick travel to get from the Shire to Isenguard.

• I picked up Lottery winnings and paid housing maintenance.

Chris -

• Hytbold dailies

• Played on my hunter for a little while.

• Super busy with day job stuff and the whole plague thing.

News:

Updated 10.1 Patch Notes

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Update_10.1,Official

• Flight to the Lonely Mountain is Back.

• Some Fate Adjustments have been done

• The Spotted War-steed and Orc Head on a Pike mounted cosmetics are back on the Warband lootboxes.

• Raids will no longer bestow Seals if the player is below cap.

• It is no longer possible to join an instanced public questing area if you do not meet the entrance prerequisites (e.g. having exceeded the per-hour instance limit).

10.1 Known Issues

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?507214-Update-10.1-Known-Issues

• The Ceremonial Mark of the West Trousers doesn’t look right.

10.1 Store Updated

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?507230-LOTRO-%E2%80%93-Store-offer-update-10.1-4-3-2013

Bullroarer Took Day Screenshot Winners

http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/bullroarer-took-day-2013-screenshot-contest-winners

Fashion Week Screenshot Winners

https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/fashion-week-screenshot-contest-2013-winners

The Festivals are Coming:

http://forums.lotro.com/calendar.php?year=2013&month=4&c=1

According to the Official LOTRO Calendar:

Anniversary Festival 4/16/2013-4/30/2013

Spring Festival 5/23/2013-06/04/2013

6th Anniversary is Live

http://www.lotro.com/en/6anniversary

• 6 Year’s VIP or Premium get an Azure War-Steed Appearance

• 3 years get 3-Loot Box Keys

• April 18-21 Double XP on all Monster Kills

• The Keg Battle is Back

• Horse Racing is back!!!

• Monsters will drop Anniversary Tokens

• There were some issues with people getting their Anniversary gifts, but @LOTRO reports those issues have been fixed.

• CSTM has their festival guide up. http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2013/04/lotro-6th-anniversary-festival-guide/

Did You Know

This weeks did you know is about multiboxing. This is when you open up more than one client with multiple accounts to do something. In the past you had to go into some setting in my documents and change some options. You also had to copy your entire client over to a new location. You do not need to do any of this anymore. Turbine now allows you to just click the client again and you can run multiple games of LOTRO all the same time.

You will need a decent computer to run more than one game. I have never done more than three clients at once.

With multiple clients open, you can do a lot of things. You can have alts you made join a kin incase it is about to get disbanded by members who have left. You can have a alt follow you around in group for extra loot. I use a free account character to grind for lootbox keys right now. Cause i’m cheap and do not want to pay for keys!

Community

Message on our Facebook Page

James Ford

Hello, I would like to show you what I have made and it would be great of you could mention it on your page.

The best place to look at my projects is

http://www.facebook.com/myshirehouses

Cheers and I hope you can help me get the word out. I am going on TV soon as well. Channel 4 loved it.

My Shire Houses

Mini Oak timber framed Shire houses

From Tarpilion:

In my opinion about the recent exploiting and bans, they don’t really have the right to ban. They made this game so that the hardest stuff is based on luck. Not anymore about skill or real grouping, luck is the new way, so people look for other ways to get stuff. Which is what most call exploiting. They should go back to their old system, or give only content that is finished for 100% sure.

Bryan from Twitter:

Has there ever been a raid or two on war steeds against Bugud? :) That would be fun.

LOTRO PvMP Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-RaIgYlaU0&sns=em

Thanks to Scott Fontenot for sending us the link.

Contact Information:

Email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com

Twitter: @lotroreporter

Facebook: LOTRO Reporter

Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.

Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

www.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Chris and Cari go over Episode 189 of CSTM. We discuss Merric and Goldenstar talking about Tier 3 Skirmishes and questing together.

Listen now:

You are listening to CSTM  Reporter on the MMO Reporter Network brought to you by Pine Leaf’s Skirmish Guides, and Andang’s Gaming Commentary.

From the March 18 Episode 189 of CSTM:

They have been on vacation. Their loyal fan-base misses them terribly. Oh well, let’s go over episode 189 see if we can find nuggets of wisdom from Merric and Goldenstar.

It’s Pine Leaf’s Skirmishes on CSTM

http://casualstrolltomordor.com/category/guides/skirmish/

Andang’s Gaming Commentary

http://www.youtube.com/user/PvMPAndang

Listen now:

What We Did This Week

Layanor-

• Power leveled a few friend but mostly planning for my trip.
• Got a new steed! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7alSI1XH4OU

Cari-

• Power leveled in Moria with Layanor
• Worked on my epic books
• Cyn has her first LIs, and on her way out of Moria

Chris-

• PAX!
• PAX!
• PAX!
• Turbine Party!
• Ent Play Confirmed!!!!!!

News

Player Council Announced

http://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/we-are-very-pleased-announce-lotro-player-council

Requirements for Applicants and Nominees

• Be 18 years of age or older at the time of their application, nomination, or selection for the council. Must be an active player of The Lord of the Rings Online for at least the previous six months.
• Must maintain an active play style during the council’s term of service. (“Active” to be determined by Turbine at its sole discretion).
• Account must be in good standing with no significant violations of Turbine’s Terms of Service, End User License Agreement or Community Guidelines. Accounts must remain free of said violations during the period of service.
• Applicants may be from any geographic region officially supported by The Lord of the Rings Online.
• Council business will be conducted primarily in English. Therefore we request applicants have the ability to communicate with the team and each other via written and spoken English.
• The ability to interact with other members of the Council and Turbine employees in a mature, constructive, and mutually respectful manner.

Things to Talk About:

• Council members must agree to the terms of our NDA and agree that any information will not be shared out of the program at any point during or after their service.
• Members of the press or those acting in a journalistic/editorial capacity are not eligible to participate on the council. – This means us

Dev Twitter Chat 3/21

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?505854-Transcript-LOTRO-Developer-Twitter-Chat-Thursday-March-21-2013

• Skill trees are coming
• U11 is for solo players and has a new epic story
• There are two new healer rings being released with Update 10.1 – one that is might-based and another that is will-based, both with on-heal procs
• Player created relic contest staring after PAX EAST

Unexpectedly Lose VIP Access?

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6722683#post6722683

Since our billing system update in February, Turbine has received reports from players with accounts that did not have the correct Free, Premium or VIP subscription status. Yesterday we implemented a fix that makes sure that all players have the correct, up-to-date subscription status.

Before yesterday’s fix, some players may have received additional VIP access incorrectly. VIP access will be dropped for these players, as it should not have been available in the first place. If you unexpectedly lost VIP access yesterday or today, please check your bank statement and make sure that your most recent VIP payment went through. After checking, if you believe you have the wrong account access level, please contact Account Support and they will be happy to investigate further.

Did you Know

From Rose:

Did you know that there was search functionality hooked up in game to let you search through your bag space?

I’ve played LOTRO for over 5 years…and I JUST discovered that you can search your bag space.  Can’t find that item you just picked up or your crafting bit?  Search for it.

How do you do it?

Just to the left of the X that closes the window for your bag there is a small icon for a magnifying glass…click on it and that triggers the “find items” interface.  Now you can type in the new window the name or partial name of items and you can help find things in your bags.

A small did you know this week. I have people logging in my kin. They yell and complain that I kicked them out. When I started this game after Moria came out, there has been a kinship bug. It looks like you are kinless. Don’t freak out! First off look and see in your alerts if you lost your kinship title. If you did, that means you were kicked out. If you have no alerts about titles, you’re still in the kin. Just log out and log back in again.

Community

Murder in Bree Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S58PeZGgPw

The Road to Mordor: Ten virtues strategies for LotRO players
http://i.massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/16/the-road-to-mordor-ten-virtues-strategies-for-lotro-players/Syp wrote up a nice article on how to get your virtues in an effective way.

Mail

Greetings Chris, Layanor and Cari!

Really enjoy the show but due to scheduling of raids and early wakeup times for work, I am not able to listen live.  I’m in luck though because I can download each episode from iTunes.  I like to catch up on all the podcasts while I’m driving to and from work and I have no trouble hearing most podcasts – but sadly, once I hit the highway (at least half of my commute), lotro reporter is recorded so softly I can barely hear any of what is being said.  Any chance you can record it a little bit louder?  I have my iPod at max volume, car radio (on Aux) at max volume – I don’t have a hearing problem and don’t have trouble hearing most other podcasts.  Sure hope it’s something that can be adjusted because I really do enjoy the show.

thanks!

Kat

(Kathwren)

Contact Information:
email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com
twitter: @lotroreporterfacebook: LOTRO ReporterVoicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.
youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetworkwww.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac
Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor

Cari and Layanor are Chris-less this week. It’s not the same thing as pant-less trust us. We talk about herding cats, fashion extravaganza’s and hot fixes.

Listen now:

What We Did This Week

Layanor-

• Working on my first age.
• Farming Battle of Erebor

Cari-

•  Seat of the Great Goblin T2
• Hytbold – Still
• Iober’s Peak T2 – We beat the challenge mode.
• Questing with Cyn Level 48

Chris-

• Packing for PAX

News

PAX East WB Event is Sold Out

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6717655#post6717655

Don’t forget your ticket and get there early.

Dev Twitter Chat March 21

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?505069-LOTRO-Developer-Twitter-Chat-Thursday-March-21-3-00PM-Eastern-Time

Come chat with members of the LOTRO Team!

When: Thursday March 21, 2013 at 3:00PM Eastern time.

Where: http://www.twitter.com/lotro

Members of the LOTRO dev team will be answering your questions live on Twitter starting at 3:00PM Eastern time. To ask a question, just tweet it to us @lotro and be sure to include the hashtags #LOTRO and #DEVCHAT.

The following members of the LOTRO Team will be answering your questions.

Aaron “Rowan” Campbell – Senior Producer
Derek Flippo – Design Director
Matt “Hoarsedev” Zimmitti – Lead Systems Designer
Lauren “Budgeford” Salk – Senior Content Designer (Region Gameplay and Content)
Matt “Scarycrow” Fahey – World Builder
Evan “Verizal” Graziano – Associate Systems Designer (Classes, Items, Mounted Combat)
Rick “Sapience” Heaton – Community Manager

Game Down

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?&postid=6717517#post6717517

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Wednesday, March 20th from 7:00 – 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) for a hotfix. Hotfix notes will be available during the downtime. Thanks for your patience, and we’ll see you back in the game soon!

Sapience Reports the Flight to the Lonely Mountain will not be part of this fix.

Update on the VIP Points Award

Cari – I got my VIP points for February on March 14. It showed up as steam.

There also seems to be an issue where multiple awards are happening. If you put in a ticket or made a call you may get extra points.

Did You Know

Did you know you can lock items in your inventory when not at a vendor? Alt-click the item in inventory to target it and use ctrl-t to toggle lock on/off.  You can also lock them at a vendor by clicking the lock on the item. You can equip locked items and when you unequip them they are still locked.

Community

LOTRO Reporter Fashion Show

http://mmoreporter.com/2013/03/17/lotro-reporter-fashion-show/

Winners:

Best Casual Wear
Grand: Luicious
Second: Cierranior
Third: Annarose

Best Battle Wear
Grand: Mince
Second: Mallis
Third: Cierranior

Worst Dressed
Grand: Mellowan
Second: Casebrandstone
Third: Donnion

Thank you to Morrganie (aka www.candicepizzo.com  the store is www.candicepizzodesigns.etsy.com)

The Extra Life Codes have gone out.

Sapience reported that all the Extra Life codes for those who donated to him.
There were horse codes and forum titles.

Raging Monkey’s Article

http://raging-monkeys.blogspot.com/2013/03/tunes-of-magic-v-my-top-10-songs-to.html

Syl From Raging Monkey’s top 10 songs to Play in LOTRO

Comment from Episode 174:

Tapkoh The tarnished symbols of the elder king are gated behind 3 deeds. The most expensive requiring completing all 3 new raids on tier 1, the next less expensive for completing them on tier 2, and the cheapest for completing the challenge modes as well. You can see this by selecting the item and then hovering over the barter button. A tooltip will say you are ineligible (if that is true) because you have not completed the appropriate deed/quest and will then list them. Many gated barter items hide their information there.

Please join us on www.mmoreporter.com/live on Tuesday nights at about 8:15 PST.

Contact Information:

email: lotro.reporter@gmail.com

twitter: @lotroreporter

facebook: LOTRO Reporter

Voicemail: 616-666-6778 or the widget on the right side of the screen when you visit the site.

youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

www.lotroreporter.com

Cari  Twitter: @thecarimac

Layanor  Twitter: @Layanor