My.lotro.com beta

[Tarami]

Link: http://my.lotro.com

Ever glimpsed a passing character and wondered what they’re wearing or how to get it? Have you been looking for a guild that’s active on your server and supports your favorite playstyle? When you have that awesome experience in LOTRO do you ever want to share it with your friends?

Now you can.

A free benefit for subscribers, the all-new my.lotro.com features a searchable database of players, characters, monster characters, kinships, and tribes. Subscribers may sign in now to start your own blog, create a custom profile, or start making your new web friends list. Search for new friends and reconnect with old ones while you explore the millions of characters available on the site.

This beta preview starts today, 12/9/2008 and runs through Friday 12/12/2008. During the preview all beta functionality will be live and available to subscribers however characters will not be linked to players by default.

[Soln]

So there's MJ with his drama over never having forums and here's Turbine giving players a personal blog, WoW-style armory, leaderboard and wiki.  Amazing how different some companies can be.  Good going Turbine.

[Ard]

So there's MJ with his drama over never having forums and here's Turbine giving players a personal blog, WoW-style armory, leaderboard and wiki.  Amazing how different some companies can be.  Good going Turbine.

Wait, isn't the standard fanboy arguement here "WAR is competing with Wo...lord of the rings as it launched, not as it is now"?

And yeah, go Turbine 

[Mrbloodworth]

I was just about to post this! I am still checking it out myself. Looks good so far.

Here is our kinship: http://my.lotro.com/kinship-brandywine-riders_of_middle_earth/

[Nebu]

So there's MJ with his drama over never having forums and here's Turbine giving players a personal blog, WoW-style armory, leaderboard and wiki.  Amazing how different some companies can be.  Good going Turbine.

Giving players what they want?  That's CRAZY!!!

[waffel]

Um. Mythic knows what its players want. They've been in the gaming industry for years, they released a successful RvR based MMO, and they have a great team, backed by an equally great company in EA.

Anyway, I don't even play LOTRO and that sounds pretty sweet.

[Stormwaltz]

So there's MJ with his drama over never having forums and here's Turbine giving players a personal blog, WoW-style armory, leaderboard and wiki.  Amazing how different some companies can be.  Good going Turbine.

Not really; I don't want people to see the equivalent of what underwear I'm wearing (equipment), what my salary is (money), and how often I go to the bathroom (quests/deeds completed log) by looking in a public phone book. I want my characters removed, or limit access to that information. Turbine says no.

If you wanted to Godwin it, MJ's position is dictatorial (you have no say), and Turbine's communist (you have no privacy).

[Jamiko]

I don't see where you can see the money.

[Mrbloodworth]

So there's MJ with his drama over never having forums and here's Turbine giving players a personal blog, WoW-style armory, leaderboard and wiki.  Amazing how different some companies can be.  Good going Turbine.

Not really; I don't want people to see the equivalent of what underwear I'm wearing (equipment), what my salary is (money), and how often I go to the bathroom (quests/deeds completed log) by looking in a public phone book. I want my characters removed, or limit access to that information. Turbine says no.

If you wanted to Godwin it, MJ's position is dictatorial (you have no say), and Turbine's communist (you have no privacy).

That's what opting out is for, its in your user settings if you log in.

Log in > My Admin > My Characters > Character Visibility = Anonymous  or Public .

[Stormwaltz]

That's what opting out is for, its in your user settings if you log in.

According to the FAQ, all that does is disassociate your forum name from your characters. You can't choose to hide any data on a character, or choose not to have a character appear.

[Mrbloodworth]

None of my players info showed up until i made the public. Every entry was ??? on the sheet.

EDIT: Perhaps the ??? was just the data had not been propagated then...humm.



Its also beta. I have seen threads that are the same concerns as yours.

[Riggswolfe]

Maybe I'm just odd but I don't really care if people can look at my character one way or the other. So I don't see a) Why some people are very excited and b) why other people are upset.

[Mrbloodworth]

Maybe I'm just odd but I don't really care if people can look at my character one way or the other. So I don't see a) Why some people are very excited and b) why other people are upset.

Well, i dig it, because it can see it from work, and can look at things or items i may wish to replace, after my work is done of course!

[Tarami]

...after my work is done of course!

Of course.

[Yegolev]

Looks like the characters are unviewable by default this morning.

[Soln]

when this is working fully, and since we are so few on f13, we get a sticky for this forum so we can see who is out there and where.  Put it in the links to our mains. 

Edit: a new thread that is

[Mrbloodworth]

Well the beta ends today, so i am not sure when we will see it go live, if it doesn't go through another revision/beta stage.

[Draegan]

That's a pretty cool feature.

[Mrbloodworth]

It was extended through the end of the year, also, rumors of making in game "/anon" the setting you need to not be on the site.

[Stormwaltz]

It was extended through the end of the year, also, rumors of making in game "/anon" the setting you need to not be on the site.

That would be appropriate and faboo.

[Tarami]

I don't agree with the anonymous flag at all. It's vehemently stupid.

Seriously, I'm all ears for rational reasons to why it exists.

[tazelbain]

The customer is always right.  The fact that one would search for a reason to give the customer what they want when it is so trivially easy to do is total fail.

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't agree with the anonymous flag at all. It's vehemently stupid.

Seriously, I'm all ears for rational reasons to why it exists.

Options. Choice.

[Stormwaltz]

I don't agree with the anonymous flag at all. It's vehemently stupid.

Seriously, I'm all ears for rational reasons to why it exists.

Options. Choice.

Foiling of internet stalkers. Yes, I've had one in LotRO (and another in CoX). Fortunately, not dangerous ones - just annoyingly pestering me with tells and begging.

[Tarami]

You're both evading the question. "Why not" isn't a reason, really.

If LotRO had problems with random invites and /who parses, I could see why it would be in. But it doesn't - I haven't had a tell, invite or any other abuse for showing up in the who list in over a year. I had some gold spam a few months after release (a total of 10, tops) but since they laid the smackdown on farmers, I haven't had a single unsolicited tell.

Foiling of internet stalkers. Yes, I've had one in LotRO (and another in CoX). Fortunately, not dangerous ones - just annoyingly pestering me with tells and begging.

But anonymous doesn't really help with that. That assumes you can, from the character name, tell that you are you. Ignore does help, however, and I'm not argueing ignore's to be or not to be. That's a reasonable and needed tool.

Truth is, /anon doesn't actually really help against anything but a problem that LotRO doesn't have (gold farmers). Add someone to friends, and you'll still be notified when they go online. The only thing it actually blocks people from doing, is looking at your stuff. Is that your worry? Is that really worth it considering you're making several usually available tools useless?

[Mrbloodworth]

 i think /anon went in shortly after launch, as one of the first ways to combat gold spam (among many). It removes you from all listings of any kind. Who LFF ETC... Gold spam, WAS a problem, its not anymore.

[Mrbloodworth]

It was extended through the end of the year, also, rumors of making in game "/anon" the setting you need to not be on the site.

That would be appropriate and faboo.

Confirmation for you.

[Cheddar]

I refuse to group with anyone with an anon flag; how the fuck do I know your class and whatnot unless I spend the extra 20 seconds asking?  And why the fuck are the anon in a complete PvE environment where equipment does not determine anything?

God I hate people.

[Tarami]

Because, "I get bullied for my gear and/or spec."

Horseshit.

[Stormwaltz]

Because, "I get bullied for my gear and/or spec."

Horseshit.

No, but I have heard that some guilds in WoW will refuse to accept or group with those who have "non-optimal" builds/equipment, as viewed in the Armory. I wouldn't want to play with that kind of guild, but the point here isn't that people are bullied, but excluded. I certainly would be. I have weird traits, and fairly primitive gear, because e-peen and grinding don't interest me.

To throw a grenade in the room, your arguments reek of "Only criminals should object to mandatory DNA registration!"

[Tarami]

That's a crappy parallell and you surely know it. It's more like "jackasses are not the norm and people therefore shouldn't need to be protected from them, at the expense of normal people." Without quoting numbers, I'm pretty certain that the vast, vast majority of all inspects are done in good faith. It hurts your average guy wanting to check what that awesome armour really is, or maybe learn something about his or her class by inspecting the server's catasses. Or simply reading the character's biography.

Anonymous doesn't fix your issue in either case. If your gear is that important, you'll be excluded simply because they CAN'T check it out. See Cheddar's post above. You're not in general "getting away" with having bad gear by blocking catasses from examining you. You'll just be excluded for different, superficial reasons that have the same ulterior motive. Secondly, when people claim need on stuff, it's horrible that you can't check if they're just being greedy bastards or if they actually need the item.

This isn't about me wanting to greenlight people for PuGs though. I very, very rarely check anyone for gear in a PuG. It happens and if I realize it's really that bad, I sigh, pray to God for a smooth run and go with it. Not being able to inspect them makes me far more suspicious than having subpar gear makes me cranky.

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't give a shit ether way. Really, who cares? The only time it bothers me is when i am looking at a new member, to see if i can't make anything better for them.

Now, if you guys wold like to talk about unpronounceable names, or names that the spelling is "o-so-clever" or long as hell. I got some For ya on that topic!

If i can't type your name, no invite for U!

[Cheddar]

The deal is this; I am a minstrel.  I could care less of what gear you got, but if you are spamming LFF on something I damn well would like to know who I am grouping with. 

See, I am a minstrel, I can be picky.   

I >literally< only need to say "/lff min" and I will get 10 im's.  Why should I waste time on useless discourse with someone who may or may not be in my level range?

[EWSpider]

Last time I played LoTRO gear had almost no impact at all on your toon's performance.  There was no reason at all to care what type of gear someone was wearing.  Did that change with Moria?  I know they tinkered with combat quite a bit, but I haven't delved into those changes yet.

[Tarami]

Gear has significant impact on your performance if you can play your class to begin with. Not as much as in other comtemporary dikus, nor so much that it makes a shitty player a good player, but it certainly matters.