I've been reading ctrl+alt+del comics for forever now and they feed my geek brain with just enough of that good fun stuff. I've tried to avoid thinking about all the May pop culture favorites but Stracraft 2 has made such a huge impact on the internet as a whole last week (just go to alexa.com and you'll see what I mean) that I have to say something at least. Of course, I've stumbled upon the latest comic from ctrl-alt-del and decided that I couldn't put it better myself. So go here and enjoy their great comic.

I haven't even managed to go through all of the original content and already the free expansion release is upon us... True customer care ftw!

"We’re pleased to provide you with some stunning screenshots from our upcoming content update: The Shores of Evendim! Enjoy!"

To see the new screenies click here.

Time to make and read some comics than I guess 🙂

"On Thursday morning (24th May) we will be bringing all worlds down for an additional update. A small patch will be applied that will fix the map bug currently present in the French and German versions of the game. It will also update the reserved names list, which will permit several more names that were previously considered "vulgar". Additionally, we'll also be applying a few small tweaks to the servers as part of our on-going login fix process. The servers will come down at 09.00 and will be back online at approximately 13.00 UK time (GMT + 1). Thank you for your patience during this time."

Running through The Old Forest wasn't pleasant at all, dangerous animals followed our every step. But the scariest things were the sounds around us. And at that moment I finally realized - the scariest sound was coming from right next to me. It was my hubby's stomach. You see we've been playing too much and no one bothered to make any dinner...
(* don't tell him but he's starting to look like a hobbit himself *)

Matt “Scenario” Elliott gives you a sneak peek at the creation of LOTRO’s first content update: The Shores of Evendim! Here's a little excerpt:

" As the end of commercial launch development for LOTRO rapidly approached, we began looking at what we wanted to do in the future, particularly for our first post-launch content update. Turbine is a company known for its live updates and we wanted to start with a bang, to get the momentum going."

You can find the rest here.

Taken from the EU forums:

"As we approach the one-month anniversary of the game's launch, we're delighted to announce the commencement of our live, in-game events.

See you in Middle-earth!"

"Bad quests" are bound to happen in any given RPG. We found out that LOTRO is not immune to this once we ventured into the old forest given a task to skin/kill 25 wolves. There are like 5 wolf spawn spots in the whole forest! And you know how tricky it can be to get around the forest. In any case at some point I had a feeling like wolves were playing hide and seek with us - hence the comic.

Turbine has made a lot of purchasing options for LOTRO at the very start. If I was to name all of them this page probably wouldn't be enough. When you add to that the preorder options European Codemasters offered you can imagine that there were some confused faces among the player community. What seemed to be a common denominator for all "special" preorders/packages/editions was that you get an in game item as a gift. I think in most cases (both in EU and US) you got some type of cloak with a very nicely designed pattern on it. This was to be a feature that would make you distinctive from the non-pre-ordering crowd. Things in Europe got a bit strange though. Everyone that bought a special pre order pack got to start the game some 10 days ahead of everyone else and got this beautiful cloak as a bonus. First day of servers going live people were lining up to go to Middle Earth and soon we were all questing and sending woohooos in the OOC chat. What happened though is that everyone ... was ... wearing ... the ... same ... cloak. And this is the topic of our new Epic comic. (sorry for the long introduction...).

The moment we finished making Longbottom Leaf featuring The Frog, I had a sudden flash of inspiration and wondered what would happen if we changed the perspective and what would the female character imagine in that situation. Well you can only imagine what she saw 🙂 Here's a gift to all the female MMORPG players from Lotro Life - may your fantasies come true... And for you guys - this might be a perfect webcomic to show to your lady.

Our dear friends from mehq.net delighted us with their new Dynamic Maps - in German and French! This map became "precious" to me during my excruciating search for the last Lenhwest's flower in the Old Forest :). Have a peek at mehg.net world to find out more about this new map.