Belated Weatherstock Thanks

The event has had a host of coverage on the internet, and a host of pictures in the flickr group, so I don’ want to overegg the pudding, but if you do want to check it our some more, then head over to CSTM’s wrap up which has plenty of links to follow. However, we did want to put out a somewhat belated thank you for all the individuals involved, especially Harparella and the Lonely mountain band, for organising a running the show, which was absolutely superb, and enjoyed by many!

Secondly all the bands for the enormous effort it must take to get them there, and the players for coming. There seemed to be such a lot of people from the old EU servers, and other US servers here this year too. I heard shout outs from almost every server at some point. It really felt like a proper community bonding event which was brilliant, especially as there has been such a lot negative attitudes on both forums from what I assume is the usual vocal minority assuming they speak for the majority. Weatherstock, proved them wrong; big time. There were the inevitable few idiots there riding in on horses to the stage, and playing their own cow bells etc, but to be fair given it is not a wholly RP server, very little poor behaviour. Other games, and even other servers on LOTRO, there would almost certainly have been some people turning up just to spoil other people’s evenings with spammed forced emoted, and other such nonsense. Most silly behaviour stopped very soon after it started, perhaps an innocent mistake, perhaps the cumulative grumpiness of 600+ players, or perhaps just lag, but either way, there was remarkably little and it only lasted a few seconds if it started, which is a great indicator of the quality of the LOTRO community!

I certainly clocked over 650 players at one point; hunters and champions were maxed out at 100, and my PC crashed before I could filter them and get an exact number. Thank fully the awesome folks at a Casual Stroll to Mordor were streaming it on Middle Earth Network Radio, and for her early exploits during this Goldenstar won the prestigious Khazad Guard Pro-Mic stand award… the cheque is in the post honest. This meant after my PC crash we were able to log into Eldar and duo Carn Dum on my Rune Keeper and Emmas Champion, whilst still listening to the bands, then after we had killed Helchy, and Azgoth and got all our keys and the slime, we logged back in Landroval for the last few bands.

I have to say the variety was immense, Particular highlights for me were the Shades, because their particular haunting melancholic folks style really appeals, the Blackheart Pirates, because seeing pirates play Weathertop in a sunset is awesome,, and the Ingolemo Experience, who were the perfect band to finish the event, because thought they did modern covers, they really got the party pumping!

It is a very surreal experience going to an event like this, such a large volume of people virtually, but incredibly good fun. Here is a small slideshow of some of our pics from the event, and the column back to bree afterwards!

Dwarf of the month- Missing dwarves!

At the beggining of the month we posted some player submitted pictures of some of their inspiring shots of dwarveness. Unfortunately, our gmail account was not correctly forwarding all our mail to our personal accounts, and two player submitted entries were missed out by accident. It was only last night when I went to check why a middle earth network verification was not arriving that I saw a host of mail I had not ever read, and amongst it these two fine entries. So our humblest apologies to you both not showing your submitted pictures. Here they are now:

The first is Skarvi of Eldar, our fellow Khazad Guard member, and a fine Champion. Skarvi Smoking his pipe in the Trollshaws!

The Second was sent in by Keli of Evernight, and is of Twobeers Barrelbelly, the one and only tank in a dress!

Thanks for these entries you two, and once again apologies for the technical hitch!

Adam and Emma

Dwarf of the Month

Izbarak in Thorins Hall

Sorry to all who were expecting this post yesterday as originally promised, as we have been getting a little behind with the blog, what with the EU server migrations.

Thanks to all who have sent us in your screenshots of all things Dwarf – there were more to look through than we expected, and we had a great time perusing them all. All we can say is that the LOTRO community has some very gifted photographers out there with a great eye for screenshots, and seeing them all have made us much more conscious about looking for screenshots when we play. There was a tricky time last week when the Khazad Guard were searching for bodies of lost Dwarfs in the Foundations of Stone, when Emma forgot to heal as she was taking so many action shots, and Adam had a close shave soloing Gwathnor (of the Cloak of Shadow and Flame fame) as he was too busy snapping away.

There was such a good response to our little Dwarf of the Month slot that we found it difficult to choose just one screenshot, so we picked out a few of each for your viewing pleasure!

Firstly this Great Shot across Thorins Gate from our friend Bor of Gondor Awaits.

Secondly this very smart-looking picture of Branli Orecrusher, sent in by Branli. A whole host of character in this one!

And last… but by no means least these two awesome shots, we struggled to pick a favourite between us, so we put in two. Sent in by Tigerberry. These are some dramatic shots of the very distinct and dramatic architecture of the Great Hall of Durin in Moria, some really cools pictures here.

You can find all of these sets and artists in the LOTRO screens shots group on Flickr, I would recommend checking them all, and the other artists in the group out as there is some amazing work there! So head over and see for yourself.

On a final note we are going to change-up what we do with screen shots, so well put out a post announcing how we are going to proceed in future, but most probably we’ll pick a featured screen shot from the LOTRO group similar to CSTM and Gondor Awaits are doing, but we might supplement it a little, but well see!

Thanks for looking

Adam and Emma

EU Servers are Live… that went well… we think?

Well the nice surprise of the day is that the EU servers are live already!

There are however, a few issues.

• Many people are reporting their friends list being empty

• The two new instances Inn of the Forsaken, and Halls of night, seem to be unavailable, though this is currently clearing up

• A few people have reported still not getting their turbine points, and some items/mounts, indeed some people have received their Turbine points, only to have them deducted again.

Turbine have communicated on the Forums and Twitter that they are aware of these issues, and are continuously working on them, so I wouldn’t panic, I’m sure they will get to these soon, but if you are in no rush to log on, then waiting a day or so, would probably be the simplest route.

Opinion Time:

All in all I’m pretty impressed by the speed, and general smoothness, and efficiency of the move, though I must say they communication has been pretty poor. They seem to be operating on the assumption that people are following Twitter, and the forums, but I personally know several people who are not.

I also find the lack of an official read through guide totally bewildering. Yes the process seems fairly straight forward, but some of us like to read instructions first, and when the process hangs it’s a bit difficult to know what to do next! Myself and some other players have made an attempt to provide a guide (and judging by our hits today from google searches it was wanted), but this is something Turbine should have had. Sent with the first email, and online to read too. In addition an If/Buts/Maybes type of FAQ for possible issues, errors, even hints like when it says ‘down for maintenance’, it isn’t; just try again, would have been much appreciated.

For myself it was no issue, but many friends and kinmates have been very unsure about the whole process, and I suspect a good few customers will disappear due to being unaware of what to do. That said, there are enough of us given the hundreds of level 1-15 characters running round the Landroval server today with kin names like ‘Euro Exiles’ etc, so I’m sure they won’t miss a few!

But all in all it seems to be a decent job, so thanks for you efforts Turbine team, it can’t have been an easy or relaxing process.

We are here, and we are live… now we just got to iron out the wrinkles!

Thanks for Reading

Adam

European Account Migration: How To

So the rush across the seas has started, and already we broke their t’internets guys. Good job all; that took team work!

We took the risk ourselves after some positive early reports, and already have all three of our accounts safe and sound stateside with all our points, perks, and lifetime subscription.

For those of you that haven’t yet done it, here is a rough run down of what to do.

Step One: Where do I go?

Firstly you need to follow the link you will receive in an email, that will pop up when you launch your game client, or alternately you can just head here: https://transfer.lotro.com/

Step Two: Migrating your Information

It is pointless me going through that in too much detail, but you will need to click the ‘migrate now button, and follow the steps. It will ask for your Codemasters ‘COG accounts’ name and password (the one you log in with currently) and a new ‘Turbine account’ name and password, which you will log in with from now on. They can be the same, but be aware they may have already have been used so you may need to pick a new username.

At this point I’d advise you all to pick good, secure usernames and passwords and keep them secret. preferably a combination of lower and Upper case letters, at least 1 number and a symbol, like @#> or something. No one wants their account hacked and stripped of all their items.

If there are any crashes or glitches at this point it is worth checking http://myaccount.turbine.com/and try to log in with your new details, the volume of people being processed seems to be causing some problems, but often the data IS going through fine even if a following confirmation screen comes up. If you can log in, it worked fine.

Step Three: Billing and Checking you account

If your username and password are accepted it will take you to the http://myaccount.turbine.com/ page, and at the top right it should say ‘welcome, *yournewusername*’. It should be on the ‘payment method’ page, asking you for new details to renew your subscription, or continue it. We had problems putting our card details in here, and a few others seem to have done too, so it may be worth giving turbine a call on the numbers provided, or emailing if you have an issue, though there are a few pointers to try here first.

As we have lifetime accounts, this was not an issue as we can use alternate methods such as paypal to pay for any points in the lotro store, and do not need a card for recurring payments, but currently credit cards, and game time cards seems to be the only methods of VIP subscription payment.

This is also the place where you can take advantage of the 12 month reduced subscription plan, should you so wish.

Remember that your old subscription as of 31 May 2011 was frozen at this date, and will now renew and continue from this point, so you haven’t lost any time, nor any of the downtime in-between. In addition, Turbine a throwing a extra 14 days free onto the end of your current subscription as a welcome gift, I think this is appropriate, and a good gesture on their part so kudos.

If you click on the ‘home tab on this page, it should tell you your current subscription, and any perks you are due; in the lower right; pre-order special offer bonuses etc. If you are a lifetimer, it should say EU lifetime subscription, so check these details carefully!

Step Four: The Client and Logging In!

Regardless of whether or not you get your payment details added, as long as you have game time remaining , and you can log into the http://myaccount.turbine.com/ page, you should now be able to log in-game. If you open your current client (depending on which method you took it may open for you and start this) it should begin to patch itself up, again when prompted by the client it is now you new username and password. Teh will be two lots of patching, an initial fairly quick one which I assume is updating to the current live US client, and a larger one after log in with a new account, which I assume is the Update Three: Lost Legends of Eriador data.

When this is done you can enter the American servers (so un-tick your previously entered server), at some point on Friday/Saturday the European Servers will go live too, and we can re-enter those, but for the time being time to try those starter areas out again. We have rolled some more dwarves on Landroval, so see you guys there!

Step Five: Where are my points?

Please be aware, that currently the Turbine points and perks linked to your account may not be there when you first log in. When I logged in a new character on an american server last night I did actually have my perks- free goat, hope candles, mouse, pocket horseshoe, harbingers cloak etc, but in the store my Turbine points said 0.

Now when I checked https://transfer.lotro.com/ and added my details to see the status, it was still pending. this morning however, the status now says complete, and sure enough, when I logged in all my points were there, so don’t panic if they are not there immediately.

One last thing…

• If any of you are having any trouble, I would strongly advise contacting Turbine themselves.
• There is also a good guide here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?397970-A-guide-to-migration.
• Remember, the EU servers wont appear until probably the weekend, so for now even if you do all this, you will only be able to create new characters on other servers.
• Dont forget if you want to know if you have been fully transferred to check the left column here: https://transfer.lotro.com/
• If you use plugins and they are broken- did you change your account name? If so then you will have to rename the folder/s in: Documents/The Lord of The Rings Online/PluginData from your old log in name to your new one, nothing else should be nessecary, and they should then work fine!

Have fun, and see you in Middle-Earth!

Adam