Devchat du 20/12/12 avec l'équipe Turbine (Twitter - en anglais)

All these come from the @LOTRO account and are limited to 140 characters so if they seem a little brief, there is a reason!

I’ve stripped out the mentions to the question asker and hash tags and such to try to make it as clear of an answer as possible. Some answers took more than one tweet so I’ve just compiled into a single answer. I’ve also expanded the names of the dev who answered (they used initials on twitter).


How do you feel mounted combat has been received?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti: MC has been very well received so far. We’re already incorporating feedback into the system… Specifically, we’re looking into ways to make the classes have more of a distinct impact in future updates.

When will you make new creep appearances available in the store?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti-I just stood over the shoulder of someone working on these this morning. We’re hoping for u10 and u11.

Why did you remove raid locks from BG? Any plans to let us do the raid over multiple nights again?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry-Raid locks don’t really work well with scaled instances. We think BG is doable in a night. OD will be multiple instances.

Do you have any plans to make a new zone for Dale and Erebor or is it just going to be the Instaces?

Just the instances.

Do you have any ideas/plans for Lotro nobody but you knows about and you think this would be great?

Lauren “Budgeford” Salk-Yes, yes I do!

Level cap increases makes me feel like the endgame is increasingly less attainable. Why not add new content midgame?

Lauren “Budgeford” Salk- We’re working on improving mid=level content such as the moria revamp.

Are we going to scale Rift/CD anytime in the near future?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry -They’re on the list. There’s a lot of nostalgia and love for those spaces, so we’re taking our time and treading very carefully.

Great work on Bree/Archet appearance! Any plans for other older game areas?

Matt “Scarycrow” Fahey- We’ve been discussing older game areas and how we can bring them up to ROhan quality.

Hunter class are they getting anything new in future updates or game play?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti- We’re doing a comprehensive investigation into ALL classes.

What advice would you give to someone interested in starting a career in game development?

PLay lots of games. All games. Look for Entry level positions and work HARD.Or learn to code and how to work well with others. )

When will we see some work done for housing?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti-Hoo-ee…need to set the stage by getting neighborhoods consolidated with less vacant housing first. Working out the details of that stuff now.All I can say is that we have a lot of devs interested in doing some serious home improvement.

In a recent interview with Lotro Reporter you acknowledged video of a landmass. Can you tell us about region timetable? U10?

Lauren “Budgeford” Salk- The next region is in the update after part II of the instance cluster.

Is there any way you can delete hunters so we dont have to hear them cry anymore?

Rick “Sapience” Heaton – HEY! I’m a hunter!

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti- Well in that case….

When are you going to fix the forums?

Rick “Sapience” Heaton – We just revamped http://lotro.com and the forums are currently in the web team’s sights. No ETA. (Soon(tm)!)

What do you do for fun?

Matt “Scarycrow” Fahey – I play lots and lots of games. I have very little time, I live here. Help me.

Lauren “Budgeford” Salk- I work for fun. Don’t help Matt.

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti- Brew beer. Make Cheese. Craft beards.

Rick “Sapience” Heaton- Matt Z has been holding out on me…

How far down the chain is a Helegrod scaling?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry – DONE! Go play!

Can we see something very awesome new feature in 2013? Character updates, better mounted combat or a very new feature?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti- YES!

Will there be mounted combat instances in the future?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry-There’s a lot of design and work going on internally to figure out how to meld MC and instance gameplay in a satisfying way.

Plans to Hytbold type of non-killkillkill questing to additional areas of the game?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry – Variety is the spice of life! Yes.

Instance Finder was a perfect idea but never adopted by players.Do you plan to review it for Help solo players to group?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry- We’re looking into it.

Are there plans to allow mounted combat in future regions?

Lauren “Budgeford” Salk- Yes. We already have MC content in development. It’s in the next region.

What are your plans to protect RPers from forced emotes?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti- Plans? We’re done with plans.We’re testing a solution right now.

Matt “Scarycrow” Fahey – In the meantime we’re also putting in "serious business’ locales, where those emotes won’t work.

Are there any plans to revamp questing in the 40s?

Lauren “Budgeford” Salk- Now that Moria is finished, we have our eye on lower levels, but no solid plans.

Hey, My house is really cold. Anyway to use some dragon fire to heat it up?!?

Joe “JWBarry” Barry – Draigoch drops an animated fireplace.

What were your thoughts on releasing the Rohan cluster into two separate releases?

Matt “HorseDev” Zimmitti – This balanced approach allows us to focus more on individual spaces. Speed is often the enemy of quality… Cramming them all into one release can seriously bring the overall quality level down. It also allows us to work on more long-term improvements that need to simmer at the same time.

Joe “JWBarry” Barry-It was a very hard decision.We’d prefer to release it as a whole.But it’s more important to have quality gameplay.

You seriously dropped the ball by not answering: Chili- beans or no beans?

Rick “Sapience” Heaton – No beans!