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Community Event – Have your say!

Codemasters Online is planning the first of their regular, huge community gatherings to take place early next year!

"Codemasters Online Connect", Codemasters' first massive community gathering, is shaping up to be one of the most exciting events of 2008. Members of the community are invited to attend this exciting event where they will be able to talk to the devs, participate in events, win prizes in fabulous competitions, get the scoop on what's coming up in the future, play the latest games and meet the people that you have been playing with all these years.

As this is a community event - an event for you - we need your feedback to help us shape Connect into the one of the most exciting weekends to date. What would you like to see? What would you like to do? To have your say in how the event is put together, please complete the survey by following the link below:

Click here to complete the survey

Completing the survey will only take a few minutes and no personal data is collected, so pass the link onto anyone you know who may be interested in coming along!

We look forward to reading your responses and hope to see you next year! Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for more information.

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Happy Thanksgiving

We just wanted to wish a happy Thanksgiving holiday to our US visitors. Get some time off LotRO and get together with your families and friends. I know you would rather be killing dragons in Angmar but that turkey ain't gonna eat itself. Pretend that you are stabbing Bloodwing for example (very cool looking dragon in Angmar, Silriel and me tried taking on by ourselves - got our asses whooped).

Just wanted to mention a couple of things I stumbled across in search for LotRO news:

Blog of Troggle a level 12 Hobbit Burglar on the ArkenStone (he just about has the same leveling pace as Silriel and me do)
http://lotrotroggle.blogspot.com/

I was thinking of using this weekend to maybe upgrade to Vista. But than I saw this commercial and pretty much gave up on it. Heard there's a new version of Mac OS out - maybe give that a try 😛 (yes I am easily influenced my mildly entertaining advertisements)


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Dev Corner (November) – Housing

As we can see in Book 12, a lot of problems that we are dealing with during the last few weeks will be solved. DangerDan - Turbine Developer has answered a lot of questions and shared with Lotro Community major improvements in housing.

Summary

* Decoration Rotation in Hooks -- More Decoration Customization!
* Housing Benefits Extended to All Characters on an Account -- Alts Can Fast Travel And More!
* More Ownership Information Displayed -- Meet your neighbors!
* Trophy Decorations Bound to the Player -- Bask in the Prestige!
* Usable Decorations -- Fun Items Do Fun Stuff!

Q: Free-form placement? Please?
A: The feedback from players on both sides of the pond has been very clear on this. We're investigating how to update decorations with a truly free-form system, though we already know this would take a significant chunk of time to do. So, in the meanwhile, we've looked for something to tide everyone over. For that, we're adding support for *rotation*.
Starting in Book 12, you will be able to spin your chairs to face your tables or fireplaces, your trees to face the sun, etc.

Q: I have multiple characters, but only one house! Help!
A: Another big request was to extend all the benefits of house ownership to the other characters on that server for that account. We heard your request and we've implemented it for Book 12.
Now, all your characters will gain the fast travel skill, get the neighborhood discount, use the mailbox, as well as receive full permissions to the house.

Q: Who are my neighbors? I'd like to meet them, communicate, and plan fun events.
A: A small thing, but hopefully something you'll like: We're adding owner indentification to a few places in the UI.
Now, when you run up to a house that's owned by a player, not only will you see the address appear, you'll also see the character's name. This will show up in the big white "billboard" text as well as below the mini-map and on the Housing Info panel. Of course, if you prefer your privacy, you can hide your name.

Q: Can I buy and decorate my Hobbit House with Elf Furniture?
A: You sure can. Each of the Furnishers in the different neighborhoods have a few different things that you can decorate with. You just need to pay a visit and pick up the unique decorations or crafting recipes on them. While we may, in the future, introduce decorations that can only be used in certain housing neighborhoods, right now all decorations can be used in any house. Mix and match to your heart's content.

Q: I like to pretend I am an unkempt and untidy Hobbit. Where are my dirty house decorations?
A: While I appreciate a house that keeps itself clean, perhaps that's a reaction to clutter of my real home. We're working on adding more decorations in Book 12 that will help you to express your character's personality - and I expect we will keep on adding more in future books. I can think of at least one decoration coming in Book 12 to fit what you're looking for.

Q: Can I fish in my neighborhood?
A: Once you can fish at all... I think you'll be able to fish in your neighborhood. I have #4 Waterbank in the Falathlorn homestead. I definitely want to go fishing from my side yard.

Q: What about trophies? Proof of great deeds? Armor and swords on the wall?
A: While being able to show off any weapon or armor is not yet in the cards, we are adding a number of trophy decorations you can only get by accomplishing great deeds. You've met the Clar the Taxidermist? Well, in Book 12 you can bring him new things for him to clean-up into a very exciting trophy you can display in your home.

What's more, if you see one of these trophies, you know that whoever placed it had to have done the work to earn it. That's because these trophies are bound to the person who earned them and cannot simply be bought and sold.

Q: What about items I can use? Can I light candles and fireplaces? Use bookshelves? Tables? That kind of thing?
A: Another feature that we're introducing in Book 12 are usable decorations. I expect that this is one feature we'll get a lot of mileage out of over time, adding new items that can be placed in or around your house to do interesting things.
There will be a couple of fun things in Book 12, and I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Q: Will I ever be able to craft at home?
A: Maybe, but not in Book 12. We want to be very careful about how and if we allow crafting in Neighborhoods. Among other things, we're concerned about draining people away major social centers who are drawn by crafting stations. It's not out of the question for the future, if we can work out the right approach.

Q: What about letting a room at an Inn?
A: We don't have plans to support this, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

A: There are a lot of good questions and ideas in this thread, and they are ones that we as developers love to see and take back to our planning for future updates. More house routes to neighborhoods. Hiding Decoration Floating Text. House Pets. Message Boards. Inviting Friends To Your House. Kinship Neighborhoods. At Home Notification. Event Planning... these are all awesome ideas.

I really hope that, over time, we can keep adding on to housing with these and other features.

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Gold Edition Items

We made a small guide to show you all new items from Gold Edition.
You can see it here

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Harvest Festival Extended until November 26th

The Harvest Festival came back to Middle-earth after Thursday's maintenance window (15/11/07)!
The Festival will now be running until November 26th.

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Release Notes Book 11 Patch 1

Housing

  • Resolved several duplicate or misplaced housing hook issues.
  • For Sale signs have been updated to reflect the correct number of available interior and exterior hooks -- including hooks for walls, floors, and music.
  • All types of housing decorations now appear under the main "Decoration" category on the Auction House.
  • Mailboxes in housing neighborhoods will no longer display icons on the radar or regional map panels. This includes the specific neighborhood map pages.

 

DirectX 10

As of the November 14 patch we are officially bringing DX10 graphics features out of Beta! Several bugs and performance issues have been addressed with this patch and auto-detect defaults have been revised. Specifically we have made the following changes:

  • DX10 dynamic shadows are much faster than before.
  • DX10 water look has been tuned. The water should no longer appear to be too transparent in some places.
  • Fixed an issue which caused some tree shadows to look blocky.
  • Improved DX10 shadows to reduce flickering when moving.
  • Fixed a large performance drop in DX10 mode from certain UI panels, such as when a pet was summoned or in fellowships.
  • Auto-detect settings for DX10 class graphics cards have been adjusted.

 

DX10 Known Issue

  • There is a known issue where on ATI Radeon 2900 and other ATI DX10 cards, turning on anti-aliasing will cause the 3D world view to render improperly. ATI is investigating the problem and will address it in an upcoming driver update. For now affected users should disable anti-aliasing on these cards.

 

Quests, Instances, and Raids

  • The Rift
    • Fixed the badly pathing Orcs in the Lava section.
    • Fixed the door in the World-eater boss room so players can't get stuck behind it after killing the World-eater bosses.
    • Fixed Boss chests so they don't despawn
    • We've adjusted the pathing for the minions of Frûz the Troll in the Rift so that these minions can now successfully jump down the ledge and join him in the battle.
    • Barz and Zurm now reliably lose the "Ire of Zurm" or "Ire of Barz" (respectively) effect when beginning combat.
    • Barz will now properly animate through his healing induction sequence.
  • We've reduced the power of Helchgam's heal, which was used when his line-of-sight to you is blocked and he has no skills that can be used on you, by 75%.
  • A pathing issue in the Book 11, Chapter 12 instance has been resolved.
  • Fixed an issue where the Book 11 Chapter 4 funeral could break. It was very sad.
  • We've fixed a problem with the Bree-land Dance quest, so that you will now be able to complete the quest and receive the dance step.

 

PvMP

  • Monster conjunction damage has been changed for balance; Fear and Disease were far beyond their intended power level and their output has been reduced
  • Hot points surrounding Tirith Rhaw will now generate the guards needed to defend the Free People.
  • Rangers will no longer cost Destiny Points to play. Instead, they will cost 10 Tokens of Valour.
  • Session-based troll characters are no longer immune to stun, and can now be the victims of fellowship manouevers.
  • The Warleader Banner of Terror skill now functions as follows: you can summon a banner to the field once every 2 minutes and it will negatively affect players and only players.

 

Crafting

  • Tailoring
    • The "Spool of Rough Thread" can now be purchased from all Novice Tailor vendor NPCs.
    • Corrected the required ingredients for the following six Tailoring decoration recipes (these recipes were previously using only store-bought ingredients):
      • "Small 'Tree Shadow' Rug Decoration Recipe"
      • "Large White 'Leaf Border' Rug Decoration Recipe"
      • "Small 'Ring and Leaf' Rug Decoration Recipe"
      • "Large 'Dragon-fly' Rug Decoration Recipe"
      • "Small 'High Seas' Rug Decoration Recipe"
      • "Cushioned Bench Decoration Recipe"
  • The critical crafted "Fine Gondorian Sword" has had its attribute bonuses changed to be more in line with the non-critical "Gondorian Sword". They now both grant 19 Agility, with the critical version granting 9 Vitality as well.
  • Pre-Book 11 versions of the 4 crafted Westernesse weapons (Westernesse Sword, Westernesse Greatsword, Westernesse Axe and Westernesse Dagger) have had their minimum level requirements returned to the pre-Book 11 values (from level 35 back down to 31). Any new versions of these weapons that are created will be level 35. All older versions will revert to level 31.

 

Graphics

  • Eliminated several hitches which occurred as you traveled through the world.
  • Changed Very Low, Low and Medium graphics details to fix performance degradation introduced with Book 11 for people on certain hardware (e.g. ATI Radeon 9xxx or NVidia FX 5xxx cards).
  • The Intel 945 chipset should no longer have performance/stability problems.
  • The lava outside the Balrog room in the Rift is now properly visible from greater distances.
  • Fearsome Murk-Waters no longer appear invisible under Low detail.
  • Fixed a white "shimmering" effect that was visible with anti-aliasing on.
  • Improved DX9 particle/decal/streak/beam performance.
  • Fixed a performance issue related to use of Blob shadows.
  • Vista users can use high resolution textures again.

 

Miscellaneous

  • Pets don't spawn on top of you anymore!
  • The Hope bonus on the Bounder Shirriff's Cap has been fixed so it no longer vanishes 10 minutes after being equipped, and we removed the effect icon from the user interface.
  • Cam Applewood now barters Fall Festival Mounts year-round!
  • Reputation: You will now receive an alert when you hit a new standing with a faction.
  • If you tried to send a second kinship mail too quickly, the mail system would take your money but not deliver your mail. This has been corrected.
  • The "Show Vitals" checkbox now stays checked.
  • Fixed a problem with the Kinship Lifespan Rank not updating properly for some Kinships.
  • Updated the skill icons for "Track Artifacts" and "Track Crops."
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Codemasters Online launch The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Gold Edition!

Codemasters Online announce today that The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar; Gold Edition is now available for purchase across Europe. At launch, The Lord of the Rings Online was the number one selling PC title across Europe and North America. Encased in an exclusive Steel Pack, The Lord of the Rings Online Gold Edition entitles players to four exclusive in-game items, all three content updates since launch and 45-days' free gaming experience.

"The launch of the Gold Edition reinforces the monumental success The Lord of the Rings Online has received since release in April", comments Ed Blincoe, Senior Product Manager, Codemasters Online. "We are delighted with the exceptional demand LOTRO has seen and we look forward to welcoming thousands more people into Middle-earth".

The Lord of the Rings Online Gold Edition contains an exclusive package of four in-game items and 45-days' free game time, only available with the purchase of the Gold Edition. Upon reaching level 25 players are welcomed with an all new unique horse mount to aid in their travels through the vast lands of Middle-earth. Players also have the opportunity to personalise their new homes within Middle-earth with a unique welcome mat, five scented candles and a lucky horseshoe complete this distinctive package.

The Lord of the Rings Online Gold Edition is now available for purchase at all major retailers across Europe. To download The Lord of the Rings Online free trial or for more information please visit www.trylotro.com

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Dev Chat – Book 12 & GOLD EDITION

  • In Book 12 we're looking to add support for rotating decorations. Also, we're adding more trophy decorations--even some that you can only get by defeating certain bosses. In Book 12 you can also see whose home it is. (Though we will give you an option to not to show your name if you want to be private)
  • In Book 12 we are planning to offer a number of options for cosmetic outfits. If you like a hat or robe, but don't like the stats, you would be able to display that hat but really wear another for their bonuses. That and a few other cosmetic options are coming along.
  • Regarding new zones, we are not planning any new landscape additions. We will be aiding the content team in a region-wide polish pass on Angmar. The World team is also heavily into the development of our next new landscape region, but that region will not be available for Book 12.
  • We aren't planning to add house pets in Book 12, but there are a lot of people here who like pets...
  • In the "Month of the Burglar" we're looking to add a bunch of skills enhancing or reinforcing many of those areas. For example, we're going to add "Fellowship Manoeveur" response skills that Burglars can use after their group pulls off a successful FM. Also, we're looking into a skill that would let you take a friend into Stealth with you... with some restrictions.
  • In our new Gold Edition box which is launched next week, one of the exclusive items in the box will be a new mount with different stats! The mount included as part of the Gold Edition box will be awarded when players reach level 25. The mount in the Gold Edition box is exclusive to that box, so you can only get it by getting the Gold Edition. The horse is free. The Gold Edition will contain: 45 days' free game time, the mount as discussed earlier, a welcome mat for your home, five scented candles and a lucky horsehoe!
  • Champion will see some new skills and updates to existing skills in Book 12
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Fall Festival Horse race video guide

The Fall Festivities in Middle Earth are ongoing as some of you might know. On the Bree Festival grounds there's an event in which you can win yourself a special looking horse mount. It takes some skill to get the quest among all the interested and than you need to win against three opponents in order to earn yourself a brand new looking horse. We here at LotroLife couldn't resist snatching up one of these mounts and after some practice we managed to do just that and more. We captured the whole race on video and you can see it on YouTube. While we compile a small guide page about the Fall Festival quests and rewards you can see the video below:

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Patch Notes 02/11/07

The following fixes will be implemented during maintenance on Friday the 2nd of November:

- Fixed the 'general access denied error' for Windows Vista users when launcher updates programs.
- Fixed Fog for DX10 graphics card users
- Additional Backend fixes.
- Alteration to Neighbourhood names.

Windows Vista Users!: In order to download the patch, you will first of all need to do the following:

1. Disable User Account Controls (UAC) on the client machine and then reboot.
To do this, go to your Control Panel (In Classic View) > User Accounts > Turn User Account Control on or off > uncheck the User Account Control box > hit OK.
2. Connect to the server and complete patching.
3. Once patching is complete enable the User Account Control again and then reboot your machine.

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