Dev Chat Logs

I had the chance to participate in a live 'webinar' with Chronicles of the Spellborn developers and Acclaim Games representatives. Developers El Dryver and Matthew Florianz and Acclaim representatives David Perry (CCO), Neil Malhotra (CTO), David DeWald (The Historian) and Howard Marks (CEO) all participated in the webinar. In short, it was a who's who of the development and North American distribution teams for TCotS.

Head through the jump to read some highlights from the chat as well as to get a look at some never before seen screenshots.

The fine folks from Flying Labs stopped by our chat room and answered questions from the community about Pirates of The Burning Sea.

<DelmarWynn> Arkenor: Question: Limiting conquest chat to a single career has the effect of marginalising Privateers and Freetraders in the organisation of RvR, especially with regards to organising invites for Port Battles. Are there any plans to make Conquest a general skill (with a level requirement)?
<[FLS]Taelorn> Navy have conquest chat because it's one of the benefits of their career, similar to how Privateers have Sanctioned Piracy.
<[FLS]Taelorn> We're not currently planning to move it to a general skill, but it's on the list of possibilities.
<[FLS]Taelorn> Also, the skill work in 1.4 is changing things to make it easier to access some of those abilities.

Click "Read More" to see the entire chat log.

Here is the chat log from our Warhammer Online Dev chat. We want to thank the Devs for taking time out of their busy schedule to answer a few questions.

<~DelmarWynn> Guest120: 1) Tell me more about lairs. Saw them in newsletter, but not too much info. How are they different from an instance dungeon.
<@[WAR]Gabe> Generally speaking lairs will be fundamentally different in that they are not instanced.
<@[WAR]Gabe> They will be persistant world things that you come by.
<@[WAR]Gabe> There will be various ways to gain access to them.
<@[WAR]Gabe> For example discovering a button in one end of city.
<@[WAR]Gabe> That opens a cage with a beast inside on the other.

Click "Read More" to see the entire chat.

You totally missed it and we hate you for that. Next time, we're not even going to save a piece of the cake for you. Meanie. We don't hold a grudge, though, so be sure to click Read More for the full chat log! Here's a mere taste:

WarCry: Orladen: Will we ever see the costline in the areas we currently have to explore,?
Scenario: Our next new region, currently slated for a Book 13 release, will allow players to see the ocean for the very first time. The time for speculation is now!

Enjoy!

The chat's officially over. Were you there? If not, you missed a great one! Fortunately for you, however, we have the log. Here's a sample:

WarCry: AnnraThannar: When will trial island be ready and is trial island also dedicated for old buddy key owners. I hope so, because it may help reducing spam.
Phathom: Trial Island is a name that has a poor association with it at the moment. The Trial Island was started with the intention of having a stand alone client that new players can try out. Our current intention for the Trial Island is to use it as the new starting location for most of the races and new players.
Phathom: The Isle of Dawn is the actual name now "Spoiler Alert"
Phathom: We plan on restarting work on the Isle next month and expect to have it out to you near and around April
Phathom: Spam -- We are looking at issues at the moment with this but we want you to be able to get your friends back in the game to experience a much better starting experience
Phathom: and allow you to be there to share the new experience without having the content too low for you to play. We're still working out the details

You'll just have to click on "Read More" to devour the rest. A huge thank you for everyone, especially the developers, for taking the time to join us tonight. We look forward to doing it again!

Ah, another fantastic chat in the books! Here's a sample of what went on:

WarCry: arkohighstar: there has been much discussion lately on the death penalty, any update on whether you plan on making major changes to it in the future?
Eladrin: There's been a very active thread on the DDO forums related to XP as a death penalty, and we've been listening to the feedback that we've been getting from there and other sources.
Eladrin: Two of the biggest things we hear about as negative play experiences revolve around permanent item damage as well as XP loss on death.
Eladrin: Both of these are being addressed in Module Six...
Eladrin: First off, bound items will no longer be subject to permanent damage. The permanent damage rate on unbound objects will be halved, and repair costs are reduced across the board.
Eladrin: A simple manner to bind any objects you desire will be available using the Eldritch Devices in some common areas.
Eladrin: Related to the death penalty: We've removed the XP penalty from death entirely, and replaced it with a system that deals some item wear to all equipped, non-stacking objects and applies a short duration debuff after resurrection.

Big thanks to everyone for joining us and to Turbine for taking the time to answer our questions! Be sure to click "Read More" to see the entire log.

Another developer chat in the books! Thanks to everyone for coming.

WarCry: Spartikus: Are their currently any plans for regular live events, monthly content patches or even better an active live events team?
Ringleader: We've always focused on live events in our games - many of you may remember some of the events from AC, and we have a number of AC veterans on the Live team for LOTRO. We are currently adding to our tech to allow us to do even more cool stuff moving forward. We won't spoil the fun and lay them out here, but we already have some events planned, and that will continue. We've even tried to have small events in Alpha/Beta, like the Bday party
Ringleader: .....Bday party for Tolkien at the Party Tree, or the chaotic End of World event we just had.
Mithril_Miser: I thought the chaos was well controlled.
* LOTRO_Patience wags her Wargy tail.
LOTRO_Patience: So you say.
Ringleader: As for content, we'll have plenty of new stuff for players on a regular basis. We're pretty sure people are going to be surprised to see the extent of our first update and how soon it comes :)

Yes, that's right. Patience has a wargy tail. Be sure to click Read More for the full log!

Just a reminder that tonight we are hosting a chat with the developers of Lord of the Rings Online:

Come join us for a dev chat this Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 8pm EST.

When: 03/28/2007 8pm EST
Where: irc.chatspike.net 6667 in #lotro
General chat will be available in #warcry

Need a way in? No problem just use our Java Client

We look forward to seeing you there.

A few days ago, the folks at LotRO WarCry did a developer chat with some of the people behind Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine just announced that this game would launch in April.

WarCry: Glorfindel: will all characters from the trilogy be in the game, like Glorfindel or Radigast?
Mithril_Miser: I can imagine why Glorfindel wants to know whether Glorfindel is in the game.
Mithril_Miser: "All" is a bit more than we can promise. But we feature a very large number of characters, both major and small. Some are integral to quests, some make brief cameo appearances.
Mithril_Miser: As to your two specific examples, yes to both.

The full log is here.

Did you miss the chat? Perhaps you want to relive some of the questions. Well, in either event, we have a chat log for you:

WarCry: asdfsdf: Hi, Im interested in the playable instruments, are there quests or more features centered around the instruments you play yourself?
Mithril_Miser: This started off as a little experimental feature, and it's turned into one of my favorites.
Mithril_Miser: For those of you that don't know, LOTRO has a music system in which you can essentially turn your keyboard into a... um... keyboard, and play music in the game.
Mithril_Miser: Already, people in beta have been composing original songs, as well as adapting some well-known melodies for play in-game.
Mithril_Miser: It started off as an experiment, but given how positively it's been received, we're planning to expand the feature over time.
Mithril_Miser: More instruments, more features, more ways to channel your inner Mozart. Or Jagger.
LOTRO_Patience: Our beta players have put together a thread of "sheet music" on the beta forums, actually. And Ramen swears she heard someone playing Silent Night, albeit badly, during last weekend's Stress Test Event.

Be sure to click Read More for the full log. Thanks to Turbine and the community for attending tonight!

Last nights dev chat had some great information in it. While waiting for the official dev chat log to be posted on Stratics, I figured I would share an official log posted over on MMO People

The Lord of the Rings Online developer fellowship was kind enough to answer some questions from the furry-footed masses.

Developer names are in orange, questions are in bold.

*tiveria* when will open beta start?

LOTRO_Patience: Hi tiveria!

LOTRO_Patience: I'll just have to give the stock answer of: "Soon." But we really mean it this time. :) Our closed beta is cruising along and our players are having a blast; we expect to enter our open beta shortly.