Isengard — Only those dedicated enough may enter

Chris posted this on May 17th, 2009. It has 6 Comments »
Categorized as News.
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Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1710

Both Tur­bine and Code­mas­ters have announced that appli­ca­tions to the Isen­gard Test Server are now open for Euro­pean and Amer­i­can play­ers alike.

As it says on the Offi­cial Lotro forums, to stand a chance at being one of the select few to take part in this pre­view pro­gram you need to:

  1. Have a valid and active sub­scrip­tion to The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria
  2. Be at least 18 years of age
  3. Have a clean forum and game history
  4. Be able to inter­act with the com­mu­nity in a mature and con­struc­tive manner
  5. Be able to com­mu­ni­cate well through forum posts and bug reports
  6. Accept the terms of the Pri­vate Pre­view Pro­gram Non-Disclosure Agree­ment, the full con­tents of which will be pro­vided dur­ing the reg­is­tra­tion process should you be accepted to the program.

It is nice to see that they are mak­ing Isengard’s pur­pose clear. This is not just a cheap way of see­ing new con­tent before every­one else does, like for exam­ple World of Warcraft’s PTRs whose con­tent is avail­able for all to see within hours of it open­ing, but a gen­uine effort to get reli­able mem­bers of the com­mu­nity involved in mak­ing the game bet­ter. Appar­ently places are extremely lim­ited, so I would assume com­mu­nity mem­bers who have par­tic­i­pated in forum dis­cus­sions (read: not trolling) will be picked first.

Already sev­eral peo­ple on the forums have shown their inter­est in join­ing up, which only goes to prove how suc­cess­ful a test­ing strat­egy this is for Tur­bine. True, they may not get the num­bers a PTR open to all (like Bull­roarer but with deeper con­tent) would pull in, but instead they will get a small num­ber of elite testers who care about the direc­tion the game is tak­ing. I must say I would love to be one of them how­ever, I have not really played the game long enough to deserve such a place.

If you are inter­ested in apply­ing for a posi­tion, you need to send an e-mail to LotROIsengard@turbine.com or isengardeurope@codemasters.com depend­ing on the region you are from. In this e-mail you should include your real name, user name and forum name, the e-mail address you used to sign up to Lotro with, and cru­cially an expla­na­tion of why you want to par­tic­i­pate in the program.

Good luck to all those who attempt to set out on a trip to Isen­gard, and I hope you expe­ri­ence some excel­lent con­tent on the hori­zon!

Friday 24th — 2000 Free copies of LOTRO! (EU Only)

Chris posted this on April 17th, 2009. It has 2 Comments »
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Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1542

Now this is surprising…and amaz­ingly gen­er­ous. To cel­e­brate Lotro’s upcom­ing 2nd birth­day, Code­mas­ters has teamed up with the pop­u­lar Euro­pean game review site/blog Eurogamer to give away 2000…yes TWO THOUSAND free…yes FREE (okie i’ll stop that now) copies of the game (minus Mines of Moria). As you’ll read in the site’s news arti­cle, the first 2000 indi­vid­u­als to claim a key after 2pm GMT on April 24th will get 30 days’ game time and a dig­i­tal down­load of ‘Shad­ows of Angmar’ totally free!  All you need to do is sign up to Eurogamers’ free com­mu­nity and wait for the time to arrive so you can pounce.

Now I know this is lit­tle more than a huge free trial, and Code­mas­ters only stand to profit from this arrange­ment since at least some of the 2000 will go on to set up paid sub­scrip­tions to the game, but it is rare a com­pany shows this kind of gen­eros­ity these days. Espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the fact that Lord of the Rings Online is doing extremely well, I can­not pro­mote this move enough and thank Code­mas­ters for this oppor­tu­nity for the unini­ti­ated to try out my favourite MMORPG on the market.

[http://​www​.eurogamer​.net/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​0​0​-​f​r​e​e​-​c​o​p​i​e​s​-​o​f​-​l​o​t​r​o​-​b​l​o​g​-​e​n​try]

…Those in-game events, com­pe­ti­tions and give aways sound intru­ig­ing too…

Spring Fashion Contest (EU Only)

Chris posted this on April 17th, 2009. It has 1 Comment »
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Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1521

1st-fashion

Euro­peans! Get ready to look (and more impor­tantly feel) ridicu­lous, as Code­mas­ters are hold­ing a fash­ion con­test that is being held com­pletely out­side of the game uni­verse. The details are below, hav­ing been posted in the offi­cial EU forums.

[http://​com​mu​nity​.code​mas​ters​.com/​f​o​r​u​m​/​s​h​o​w​t​h​r​e​a​d​.​p​h​p​?​t​=​3​4​7​253]

Greet­ings, fash­ion­istas! Think your fash­ion sense (or lack of it) has what it takes to win the LotRO Spring Fash­ion Week con­test? Send us screen­shots of your best or worst out­fit in LotRO and you could win a cus­tom forums title and avatar for the LotRO com­mu­nity forums! Entries will be accepted in the fol­low­ing categories:

–Best-dressed Indi­vid­ual
–Worst-dressed Indi­vid­ual
–Best-dressed Cou­ple
–Worst-dressed Cou­ple
–Odd Cou­ple
–Best-dressed Kinship

Send in your entries to lotrocompetition@codemasters.com using “Spring Fash­ion Con­test” as the sub­ject line.

Screen­shots must be orig­i­nal and unedited (crop­ping is allowed) and should have a res­o­lu­tion of at least 1024×768. Here are some tips for tak­ing screen­shots:
–You can zoom in to a first-person view with the mouse-wheel
–The num­ber pad or right mouse but­ton can be used to adjust the cam­era angle
–F11 or CTRL-P takes your screen­shot
–Screen­shots are stored in My Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online

Entries must be received by mid­night GMT on April 28th , 2009. Code­mas­ters Online expects to announce the win­ners dur­ing the week of May 5th. Eli­gi­ble win­ners will receive a spe­cial forum title (“Fash­ion Hero” or “Fash­ion Vic­tim”) and a cus­tom avatar cre­ated from their win­ning entries!

Click here for the full, offi­cial rules and tips on send­ing in your entry!

I think this is an excel­lent idea, one that really takes play­ers’ inter­ests beyond the game itself and into the expanded ele­ments such as forums and com­mu­nity events. Now I am aware they have done things like this before, but new events are always worth report­ing on to analyse the state of the game. Tur­bine have always been fans of “fluff” con­tent (things that serve no spe­cific pur­pose to beef up your char­ac­ter or PROGRESS through the game) whether its their cos­tume and music sys­tems or their in game events.

The recent Spring Fes­ti­val is an excel­lent exam­ple of how they can cre­ate some­thing fun and immers­ing with­out exclud­ing any­one, and this fash­ion con­test is linked in with that. Even though itof­fers no in-game incen­tive to par­tic­i­pate, it is great to see Code­mas­ters doing some­thing to get play­ers involved with the com­mu­nity. Since here in the EU we lack America’s Mylotro site and other things that allow you to inter­act with the game when not play­ing, it is actions like these that show that the COG is indeed turn­ing and offer­ing what it can.

So do tell. Are you going to enter? Are you not from Europe and dis­ap­pointed that Tur­bine don’t seem to be doing such a con­test? Do you just not care? We’d love to know!

Me, you ask? I am going to enter. After I write this post it’s time to find the most ridicu­lous out­fit I can, break out the turquoise dye and do my hair, ‘cos I want that cus­tom forum good­ness and will stop at noth­ing (Cross dress­ing aside.…well maybe) to win! Rawr!

Putting the ‘RP’ back into ‘MMORPG’

Chris posted this on April 3rd, 2009. It has 6 Comments »
Categorized as Editorials and Thoughts, Why LotRO?.
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Shorthand Link: http://mmeow.net/tw1413

Concert at the Pony

Wul­fare leaned back in his chair, peer­ing out from under his hood to observe the crowds packed into The Pranc­ing Pony. It amazed even him, a reg­u­lar patron, how a local event could sum­mon so many towns­folk to one
place for dis­cus­sion and col­lec­tive condolence.

He was not from the lands sur­round­ing Bree-Town. Indeed his mus­cu­lar frame, con­fi­dent pose and fairer skin betrayed his iden­tity as a well trav­elled adven­turer from the plains of Rohan. How­ever, despite this he could not help but feel a sense of duty to help out these folk when he over­heard snip­pets of
con­ver­sa­tion about press­ing matters.

“A word in yer ear stranger.” A grav­elly voice mur­mured from across the table at which Wul­fare was sat. “Word on the street ‘as it that last night was only the first strike. Some mad­man out­side is ravin’ about two bits of a key, down in that…tha-”,

“Great Bar­row.” Wul­fare inter­rupted, a wry grin on his face. “Leave it to me.”

Does this sound famil­iar? Per­haps it reminds you of a pas­sage from a novel you may have read, or a piece of lore pro­vided by the in-game quests and NPC chat­ter. Well this is in fact just one exam­ple of how Role Play­ing can begin
in Lord of the Rings Online. My first ever (and cur­rently only suc­cess­ful) group to Great Bar­row, the game’s first dun­geon, began when my Cap­tain Wul­fare was approached by some­one in Bree. They had four guildies ready for
GB and only needed a healer and ran­dom to get going. It just so hap­pened that my girl­friend (who plays a Min­strel called Esyllt) and I were also look­ing for a group to the dun­geon and we teamed up.

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