f13.net

I am hopping on Wednesday night to get a few kin groups going with alts and the like, or mains if you are still in the bree-land area.

Yea, so why the hell can't I play now?

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=274288


Had no clue this was happening today either. Damnit! I missed my pre-work morning play time. :(

It was posted late on the 19th, so maybe I need to see about setting up some sort of alert thingy.

Is there some way to get this TDM for LotRO?  I know how it works and I like it, I think, but I don't know how to get this for LotRO.  Would be nice to have it patching away while I am at work.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=274283

I have already downloaded and installed the update... so you don't know the answer to my question, I think.

I have a service running for TDM. There's a handy little icon in my systray. I'm assuming that it's just going to patch at some point today on its own. I'm also assuming it actively polls the patch server for updates, then does it automagically. I hope this is the case anyways.

This is my first Turbine patch release day ever. How are they on patch day? Should I expect many outages this evening or are they typically smooth?

The ones I have been through (Moria and since) have been relatively smooth except for large numbers of people (Brandywine is packed).  There is going to be a patch or two after this but I don't expect anything major.

B-wine most likely to see queues, usually only a couple minutes wait though.  Annoying if you have the vista-64 login reset (once) bug, and have to go back into the queue.  Pro-tip: if you haven't already seen on these boards, keep clicking on the desktop during login and should avoid that initial reset.

I did not know about that.  Interesting.  Even more interesting, this problem did not occur on W7 beta but is present on W7 RC.

Thinking about leaving work early to go play.  Boss is on vacation, current projects are on hold and I'll be laid off in October.

I don't even know why you paused to post. GO HOME! 

When you log on, post some stuff you're doing so I can live vicariously through you. :grin:

Updating is 52% complete.  It still takes forever even though I did the pre-install.  I'm wondering if the TDM would have done this for me?

I'm hoping that's how it works. I forgot to bring up LogMeIn so I could take a look from work.

92%.  Killed some time, ripped the Persona 4 soundtrack, etc.  The first thing I'm going to do is try out the Evendim pathing.

Amazing amounts of space were freed up in my banking, only 1 stack of crafting components went grey. New minimap icons are odd though. And the LI runes look much cruder.

Quick:

• Boat in Evendim probably works great but I have to swim across first since it works like horses.
• Pathing in Evendim appears fixed, at least with the tomb-robbers.  This has the effect of making it noticeably more difficult to avoid dying!
• I thought all of the craft materials would say who/what they were for, but apparently not.
• I'm seeing some lag when hitting buttons on my hot bar on occasion.  One time I just stopped walking, had to move using mouse buttons then my W key started working again.
• New complaint: UI could use a "reorganize" button that stacks up everything for you.

I parked my main at a bank to gather the space luv once I finish patching.

has anyone tried the new UI save ability?  I'm really looking forward to that.  It could be very useful.  For example, I now run for raids in 800x600 with all spell effects and particles turned off.  The lowest of the low, and I manage 60FPS smooth.  For duo'ing I'd like to ramp that up and I'm hoping with this new feature I'll be able to switch easily.

The queues begin.

I thought the /uisave just worked on window positions.  Be sure to report back!

Drops seem to have been tweaked up, more yellows at the same level as the mob, and purples 3-5 levels lower.

Noticed that too.

The thing about starting the client twice is really pissing me off when the queue is about sixty deep.

Thinking about going home early again to get on the Summer Festival stuff.  Giggity!

Do it man. What are you, a communist?

From what you explained about your job situation above, I'm surprised you're not on "lunch break" already.

Oh hell, it's already 11am. :awesome_for_real:

I'll get more free coffee here, look up a few things I have been meaning to, then I'll head out.

People keep talking of this, but I've only ever had to start the client two times once, and I think that was a bad patch. I launch it in win7x64, let it sit in queue while I noodle around the interweb, screen goes black then pops up the annoying splash screens. I'm using ati, is it an nvidia thing?

I'm running Vista 64 with an nVidia and don't have queue issues. It sometimes crashes on launch when I run it in DX10, but if I'm quick and give focus to the window as it appears, it doesn't happen.

It does have something to do with window focus, that much is clear.  I'm using an Nvidia 9800 GTX+, so maybe it is an Nvidia thing.  I believe Nija said something about running it in windowed mode, but I don't recall.  It's not really a problem as long as I don't have to worry about queues.

I think if you have to bring down the server, it's not a hotfix.  I could be wrong.

I think it is definitely something to do with operating systems, as I have a ATI card.  The work-around does not work for you? It has worked flawlessly for me, just keep clicking on the desktop after you input log-in information and you should be golden.

Haven't been able to log-in due to time constraints to try out book 8.  I was hoping to get on last night and join bloodworth's bree group, but central air-conditioning installation has taken priority.

Hehe.

:why_so_serious:

Anyway, the festival races are so simple, yet so awesome.

Yeah, I definitely prefer this method to the horse race method.  It's no longer gated to 4 people per 10 minutes.  I wonder if this is what they were trying to do with the Spring Festival that broke.

Quite the opposite, if I click on the game form as it opens (right as the screen turns black) then I'm golden.  Clicking on the desktop gives focus to that form (desktop is a windows form also) and did not work for me.  Thanks to Tarami for the idea.

As for the Book 8... I'm seeing that I now suddenly stop moving for no apparent reason.  I have always been able to get going again either with W or LM+RM, but it's annoying.  May or may not occur at zone lines; I don't know where most of those are.  I'm also getting some slight performance hitches which will probably be solved by a defrag or two after I have played using the new files, but I can't say.

I agree they're an improvement. They create a crowd. I had a great time the other night hanging out with a few people at the Hill, cheering and jeering at the tubby hobbits. A band of minstrels showed up. I got drunk in game and at the computer. Good times.

That said, I play so late compared to most that in the dozens of times I did the horse races, I only ran against another player once. (Of course, that was on Gladden. Brandywine seems to have crowds 24/7.)

Wonder if that has something to do with switches in UserPreferences file (sits in the Documents/LotRO folder). They go like:


and if i understand it correctly, they basically 'fake' fullscreen by making full-sized window with no border. Which doesn't seem to suffer from crash issues as i've been running with this setting forever without one. iirc this is not a default setting, maybe worth a try.

Hmm, I have ForceFakeFullScreen=False and AllowFakeFullScreen=True.  I will try adding FakeFullScreen=True and see what happens, then try Force*.  Although I really don't want it to run in a window so I might not. :awesome_for_real:

I absolutely hate the new races.  They are a total failure in design.  The starting criteria for several players (because they are asking in /advice, /say, /regional for help) is to fail.  Once you fail and get frustrated, and then you figure out later what to do, then you can start the challenge. You have to fail first before trying the actual game itself.  It's a 3 quest cycle.  Or 4 step process, including failure and 2 hour wait.  It is not intuitive and the supporting instructions (e.g. "party Tree", "Thorin's Hall") do not explain where to go or what to do.

It's a fucking mess -- over-elaborate, unplay-tested.  It's not a big deal at all, but for such a failure in such a small bit of game design it makes me worried about the bigger stuff they are throwing at the wall.  People are cranky with Bk8 being in Moria and the continuing, growing emphasis on gear.  And the growing backlog of fellowship required quests.  I am starting to wonder about this game post-expansion, post Bk 9.

I'm sorry. I am not sure you were dong the same races I was.

First you are invited by mail, to visit a hobbit at the party tree. Once there, she gives you 2 tokens, and tells you to go up the hill (That also happens to be marked now with arches all the way up, right behind her).

Ones the race master is active (10 min between races) you simply talk to him, choose who you want to be on, then talk once more to confirm. That's it, just follow your hobbit around and cheer.

The timer is only for getting more race tokens, not for betting on the races, you can keep betting until you win 2 times, as I don't think the tokens are removed unless you win.

I think all of this is explained in the quest text, and the festival brochure you received in the mail. The only people who need to ask in /advice ETC, did not read the quest text, because it is clearly stated (Go up the hill behind me, and talk tot he racemaster).


Other than that, they have been adding solo versions of all the epic quests with each zone revamp....

The beauty of the new races, IMO, is that multiple people can win each one, and there's no direct competition between players. There's never a reason for one person to get angry at another -- blame the NPCs.

I don't understand any of this.  Can you be more specific about the failing bit?  I have only done the race at Thorin's, and I failed that one time mostly because I didn't read the quest text very well.

I got my festival tokens (Go Gladdy you running vomiting machine!) and got my chit for a Summer Horse. Then had to bankrupt all my toons to afford the regular horse to exchange with the chit (and 6 more tokens!) to get it. Why make it take 50 tokens for the Fest horse chit, then make it 6 more at the traders? Why not just make it 56 to begin with?

It's probably a holdover from the old horse races more than anything, honestly.  You won the horse chit originally in a 4 person horse race which had no costs to enter, and then had to also have summer tokens from other events to trade in addition to the chit.

 :facepalm:

it's not a big deal, but the race design is frustrating and at least for me is emblematic that Turbine may be losing its focus. It's admirable to want to give players a better chance to win, but the current design is ugly.

You've got the following steps:

1) go to Race Trader, who is also a blue rep merchant for barter.  Not a unique NPC.
2) accept quest
3) find your way to race site (and at least in Hobbiton it's not obvious, but good idea with the gates.  Regardless, why not have the ticket vendor be 1 NPC, or at least have them at the track?)
4) click on Race Master, turn in quest, select new quest
5) then select a competitor, accept quest again
6) then, select the Race Master again again, to "pass" in tokens and accept an other quest (?)
7) then wait and watch for an idea of duration of wait
8) then get a quest update
9) then go back to Race Trader to turn in quest

Also, you have to read these quests on a timer. This is a race. So the anticipation of missing the race, and not knowing the timer (is it 10-15min?) does make people naturally in a hurry. 

so that does all that make sense just to play a micro game?

You know, I really do agree that there are way too many steps to perform just to bet on a race.  As you say, you get a quest from the guy in the tavern (Thorin's) and complete the quest by talking to him to get the tokens and another quest, or something similar.  Then you go outside and talk to the other dude to complete that second quest and pick a third quest (your pick to win).  I blame the tool, in that they are using the existing quest mechanism to do this and it's not really optimal here, and I blame the people who thought it was a good idea to have you truck back and forth between the race location and the guy who hands out tickets.

So what part of the summer festival is it that lets you win a mount? And how do you go about it? Because I'm not even halfway to mount money and goddamn, I need a mount.

You don't win a mount because you have to trade in your old mount to get the festival mount. You still have to pay for a mount no matter how you look at it.

To ride a mount you have to do the quests to get the skill, which are only available at lv35, then buy one for 4.2 gold (start saving now), then you obtain 50 festival tokens and trade those for the new mount voucher from the festival yay-hoo, then give the voucher and six more festival tokens (I am told) to the dingdong at Hengstacer.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass.  I might opt for the summer dress. :grin:

Oh, but which one.  Every area has their own color variation.  It's ever so hard choosing between the blue and the green.  I'm not quite sure which goes best with the lumberjack song.

I find that I look pretty good in a basic dwarf dress (odd considering there aren't any female dwarves) so I was planning on getting the one at Thorin's.  Plus sun hat.

I got the festival bed as well, looks awfully small. Dwarf/hobbit bed, I guess.

And yeah, you have to shell out the 4.2G for a real horse. For as much travel as the game requires, horses cost too much money.

Maybe I'm a moron but I can't seem to finish the summer festival deed. None of the fishing parts of the deed complete despite me having finished the quest to go get fish from each of those areas.

Not sure if it helps Riggs, as I got all mine a while ago, but noticed this on the forums after seeing your issue...

Well, technically there's no dwarves with apparent tits. But since --per lorelol-- they're not specifying the gender of dwarves, then if you see one in a dress it just may be a female. Or a trap.

You have to do the initial quest to find all 4 fishing areas, and bring 3 fish back from each, and then another quest opens up in each location, to fish for either 10 or 20 minutes.  Run out the timers on all 4 of those (you don't actually have to fish) and you'll finish the deed.

Has anyone else noticed a drop in frame rate since the patch? It usually hits me after about half-an-hour on my Vista machine at work. Feels like a memory leak. Haven't noticed it so much on the XP version at home.

Finally got around to playing since the patch and the Bree-Land revamp is nice, although its a bit weird that you have to run all the way out to Buckland to start the new 'track'. Well unless you're coming from the Shire.

1.5 levels to Undying and then I can stop being so paranoid about signatures. \o/

yes I did last night.  It was chunky.


FWIW, I've taken the new ui load tool to save settings for my 1200x768 res for duo'ing, and an other at 800x600 for raids.  With EVERYTHING, like all particles and any indicators at 8x6 I can survive.

You don't KNOW there aren't any female dwarves. After all, it just says "dwarf," not "dwarf (male)."  :drillf:

Unless things changed since launch, the devs stated way back then that they were very careful to make all pronouns relating to dwarf players gender neutral.

edit:  dev chat log that mentions it:
http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/devchat/4649-Lord-Of-The-Rings-Online-Developer-Chat-Log (http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/devchat/4649-Lord-Of-The-Rings-Online-Developer-Chat-Log)

In early beta, they WERE all male. A bunch of us bitched them out for it, so they changed it.  :why_so_serious:

I somehow missed this.  Probably I just didn't notice the neutrality.  Now I'm going to be looking for this in the books.  Sigh.

It is actually a dwarf-make dress, not necessarily a dress a dwarf might wear, so that may explain why my hobbit-cans look so huge in it.  Can't say I've seen a dwarf in a dress, to be honest, but I don't really hang out in that part of Thorin's Hall.

Appendix A:

I suppose, then that there would be some gender-specific references in the book (damn you Appendices) but I will be looking for them anyway.  I will also keep my eyes out for a dwarf in a dress... then again I can always put one on Dwuli and say she's a girl.



:awesome_for_real:

I thought about making a lady dwarf, but I never did. Maybe I should on Brandywine!

I see dwarves wearing dresses in game all the time.

But is this because you already had a predilection towards looking for short bearded women in dresses?  I think this says more about you than you want.   :awesome_for_real:

Alright, I got someone in the Brandywine kinship. Her name is Harlean and she's an adorable widdle hobbit warden.  :heart:

When will you be online?

Oh, I got an invite already from someone named Megain. Who knows when I'll be online next!  :awesome_for_real: