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Well, here it comes, the new expansion for LOTRO has been announced.  The biggest surprise so far is that it was *not* "Riders of Rohan."  Turbine has decided, instead, to take us east, into the southwestern "bulge" of Mirkwood Forest.  This should be an excellent, if smaller then expected expansion pack.  Mirkwood itself encompasses nearly as much geographical area as the existing Zones in the game, including in it's expanse the stronghold of Dol Guldur - where Sauron fled to recover his strength, later putting it in the charge of the second most powerful of the Nazgul.  During the War of the Ring, several assaults were launched from Dol Guldur against one or the other of Lothlorien to the West or Thranduil's woodland stronghold of Silvan Elves far to the Northeast.  Also nestled into the edge of the forests western edge, not far to the northeast of Dol Guldur, is Rhosgobel - the home of Gandalf's "cousin" Radagast the Brown.

Mirkwood has the potential to be a very interesting addition to the game.

Tags: LOTRO

I'm appalled. 

For years, I've been pointing out to people that even though we have our arguments in the LOTRO forums, that the maturity level there has always been maintained at a much higher level then in the forums of other games I've been involved with, and most particularly, have never devolved to the depths seen in the World of Warcraft forums.  WoW attracted a much younger crowd of gamers, probably because of Blizzard.net, then most MMORPGs seem to.  And you can see it in the forums.  Baseless rants, demands to change aspects if the game with no explanations of the perceived problem, calling the devs names - there's an effect way to encourage them to look into your problem, and broad, sweeping generalizations were rampant.

Tags: LOTRO | QA | devs | forums

Majel Barrett Roddenbury has passed.

Number One.  Christine Chapel.  Lwazana Troi.  The Ship's Computer, in every single series, and movie, including both the new JJ Abrams production, and the "unofficial" 'New Voyages' fan production.  Producer of Earth:Final Conflict and Gene Roddenbury's Andromeda.  Since Gene's death in 1991, this woman has truly been one of the driving forces behind the Star Trek phenomenon, and one that maintains a line of continuity in the franchise since it's original debut in 1966.

As a rabid fan of the original series, just knowing that when some new crew member in some new movie or series addressed the computer, that it was going to be a *very* familiar voice that answered always gave me a little pang of awe.

Majel passed today, just 2 weeks after finishing her voice work as the computer on ... James Kirk's Enterprise. 

The circle has completed.

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Early today, on the LOTRO official forums, some total cretin started this thread.

Now, anyone that knows me knows that I've done a ton of beta testing.  And that through my involvement with testing I've contributed to a few Strat Guides for different games: DAoC, Asheron's Call:Dark Majesty, Asheron's Call 2 are examples.  I've written magazine articles about MMO's.  For a year, I volunteered to help players as both an Advocate and a Sentinel in AC, as well as an MS Gaming Zone Chancellor.  At some point or another I've beta tested just about every major or minor MMO that's come along since Sierra's "The Realm," including a few non-starters like Mythica and Wish.  Specifically for Turbine, I first beta tested Asheron's Call, then alpha & beta tested AC:DM, AC2, Lotro, Lotro:MoM.  I don't apply to Turbine test programs anymore, haven't had to since the AC:DM alpha.  Of course that also means that I've been under NDA to Turbine almost constantly for the last 10 years.  Since most of those NDA's cover material for the next 5 years there are still things I can't talk about.  But at this very moment I don't have an active NDA.

That means I can answer the cretin.  And since people ragging on the job done by beta and alpha testers, as well as the staff QA people is a hot button issue of mine, that I have *not* been able to respond to for the last 10 years, its likely to get a little dicey.

 My immediate response was poste to the forums in reply to the troll.  I knew when I hit "submit" that it was over the line and I'd probably end up with my first warning in any of Turbine's forums, but, like I said...hot button issue.

The post was deleted, but interestingly still appears in the thread because the person that reported it also kindly quoted the entire text.  I've reposted it below, though.  Hit "read more."

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Oh what fun.  You know, it's amazing the things that get posted to a games forums while the servers are down for patches.  I could write a thesis on the phobias that become evident when people lose access to their online addictions.  Within 1 minute of the servers going offline, there had to be 50 new threads asking when they'll be back up.  Dozens of people giving very impressive arguments about why it's completely critical that they be provided with an exact hour, minute, and second that the servers will be back.

 Then there's the people who try to appease the boredom of waiting for the servers to come back online by reading pre-launch write-ups on less than reputable sites, and then charging into the official forums to post the most indignant rants *without* bothering to verify the facts.  Then they wonder why they're shot down in flames.

 Whoa!  2 servers are up, time to go play. :-) 

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