rick-heaton
Latest
Warner Bros. confirms Turbine layoffs [Updated]
Turbine appears to be going through another round of layoffs that are possibly affecting the Lord of the Rings Online team, according to Twitter messages. Former Community Manager Rick Heaton seemed to confirm this in a tweet sent earlier today: "Thinking of my friends at #Turbine and #LOTRO and elsewhere today. I'm easy to find if you need me." Massively has reached out to the studio for an official comment. [Update: Warner Bros. has confirmed unspecified layoffs by issuing the following statement to Massively: "As part of our normal business process, we're routinely looking at the strategic alignment of our company. Unfortunately, in order for us to invest in growth areas at Turbine, we have to eliminate some positions. These are always tough decisions, which we don't approach lightly, but it's crucial that Turbine is structured in a way that reflects the current and coming marketplace."]
The Daily Grind: Do you tend to believe dev statements?
Lord of the Rings Online community manager Rick Heaton created a stir recently when he said that raiders are few and far between in Middle-earth. After he explained that Turbine's data show raiders, PvPers, and forum posters as tiny fringe groups, he ended his announcement with the following statement. "I fully appreciate and understand you won't believe a word of this. That's perfectly fine. It doesn't change the facts of the matter." Predictably, a slew of comments ensued in which Heaton was accused of lying. Plenty of commenters, both on the Turbine forums and here on Massively, then posited that of course there are no raiders because LotRO's raid content sucks, Turbine's definition of "raider" is different from the commonly accepted definition (whatever that is), and dozens of other reasons. Which leads to an interesting question regarding official dev statements. Do you tend to believe them? Even when they irritate you or don't align with your personal wishes for a given game? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Lord of the Rings Online to revamp North Downs and more
With its focus shifting from expansions to regular content in 2014, Turbine has announced that one of its upcoming projects is a revamp of Lord of the Rings Online's North Downs. During a recent in-game event, Community Manager Rick Heaton said that North Downs will be one of several zones to receive love in a future update: "Update 13 will see a few zones revamped. A few of have been asked for by many people. You will get some more information in the 20 questions, but I'll spill the beans since you going to read it next week. North Downs will be getting a once-over." North Downs was widely rumored to be the next zone to be reworked several years ago following the major revamps of Evendim and Lone-lands.
LotRO not working on new dungeons, has no plans to merge servers
Lord of the Rings Online Community Manager Rick Heaton spent time answering various player queries during a recent "Take the Hobbits to Isengard" event, and an enterprising player recorded the salient details to pass along. Heaton said that despite demand from players, the team is not working on creating any new traditional instances, raids, or Rohan housing. He did comment that one of the older zones is a "possibility" for a revamp during 2014 and that there are no plans to merge servers. For players looking to jump from the old Codemasters servers to the other ones, Heaton reported that a "significant technical issue" has kept this from becoming a reality. If you're curious about how many people are playing the game, well, you're going to be curious for a long time to come. "Unless we can say we have 10 million players and are bigger than World of Warcraft, what's the point?" asked Heaton during the event.
Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep breaks beta records
Will Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep break records when it launches next week? Only time will tell, but Community Manager Rick Heaton said that the expansion has already done so in beta. On the forums Heaton posted, "It's the first expansion that we've had since Shadows of Angmar that required us to add servers to the beta world to match the number of players trying to log in and participate. It was the first beta since Shadows of Angmar that actually tripped our login queues on the beta world and forced us to raise the max player population." Helm's Deep launches on Monday, November 18th.
LotRO: Helm's Deep purchase required to continue the epic story
Lord of the Rings Online's epic story is one of the crown jewels of the game, and for the longest of time it's been available for free whether you subscribe or not. However, Turbine confirmed this week that purchasing Helm's Deep will be required if you want to see how the epic story plays out over western Rohan. On the forums, CM Rick Heaton explained the change: "The epic story in Helm's Deep is very tightly entwined with the epic battle system. The story in Helm's Deep is the epic battle we all know from the books. We've returned to the core story line from the lore and that line leads in a direct path, laid out by the Professor himself, into Helm's Deep and the battles and heroic deeds that occur there. As a result, this means the epic story requires the purchase of the Helm's Deep expansion." "Epic Story Guy" MadeOfLions also chimed in with a much more informative post about the decision. "It's a change that serves to reward the players that do pick up the expansion, and makes the expansion a better deal, more worth your time and your money," he writes. "This is just an expansion change for now -- I'm hoping we can keep the epic story free in other updates." Speaking of Helm's Deep, Turbine just posted the Champion class update dev diary for all to peruse!
LotRO connectivity issues outside of Turbine's control
Access denied? Some Lord of the Rings Online players have felt as though they were being kept out of the Middle-earth club lately as connectivity issues plagued the game. Turbine has been investigating log-in issues and came back to report that the problem is outside of the studio's direct control. "This morning we have received word that one of our affiliated connection providers is taking steps to re-route services around certain areas of the internet that are experiencing issues we believe are the root cause of the reported issues," CM Rick Heaton posted. Turbine says that the issue should be resolved shortly, but in the meantime the studio encourages players to try many of the workarounds that the community has come up with.
LotRO's team fields live dev chat
A gaggle of Turbine developers sat down this afternoon to field scores of Lord of the Rings Online questions from the community in a live dev chat. Among the topics discussed were mounted combat, earlier zone revamps, class updates, and PvMP options. One of the burning topics concerned possible player housing improvements. Turbine said that it needed to address the vacant neighborhoods first, but was moving in that direction: "All I can say is that we have a lot of devs interested in doing some serious home improvement." We have the full chat transcript for you after the jump, starring Senior Producer Aaron Campbell, Lead Systems Designer Matt Zimmitti, World Designer Matt Fahey, Senior Content Designer Lauren Salk, Senior Content Designer Joe Barry, and Community Manager Rick Heaton.
Turbine lifts LotRO's Rohan NDA, unveils Mac client
On the flip side of the news earlier that Turbine is delaying Riders of Rohan until October 15th is the word that the studio has dropped the NDA for LotRO's fourth expansion. Community Manager Rick Heaton announced the lift on the forums: "Today we have officially released Riders of Rohan beta testers from their NDA. Beta testing will continue as we move towards our new release date of October 15th. In the meantime, those beta testers who wish to share their thoughts and experiences thus far with the general community are encouraged to do so here." With the NDA lift comes news that Turbine has been secretly working on a native OSX client for Mac players. It remains to be seen whether or not this client will be available with Riders of Rohan's launch.
New Lord of the Rings Online video is all about warbands
Riders of Rohan is introducing several new mechanics to Lord of the Rings Online, including the brand-new warbands. But what are warbands? How do you interact with them? Can you join them, possibly on the strength of rocking a sweet lute solo? A new community video with community manager Rick "Sapience" Heaton and Senior Producer Aaron "Rowan" Campbell addresses all of these concerns and more. Except for the lute solo. You're on your own with that one. Campbell explains that warbands are essentially rare enemies taken up to the next level. Instead of just finding the occasional notable spawn, you'll see groups of enemies roaming the world, marked on your map and just waiting for you to ride off and challenge them. These bands will vary in size, with some requiring only a single player and some potentially requiring a full raid to defeat. The bands are also subject to a new "open tapping" system, which allows players to work together and receive rewards without being in a full group and encourages players to challenge these bands without worrying about competition. Check out the full video just past the break for more information on this upcoming addition to the game's mechanics.
LotRO devs show off its mounted combat system
While the upcoming Riders of Rohan expansion for Lord of the Rings Online promises a great wealth of content for players, undoubtedly its keystone feature is mounted combat. This system became the centerpiece of a filmed discussion between CM Rick Heaton and Producer Aaron Campbell. One of the concerns that Heaton addresses is how player classes will translate once on horseback. Campbell says that the team has created ways for those roles to continue, albeit in a slightly different form. One example given was how Guardians can taunt, except that on horseback, it means that the enemy will then start riding alongside of you. "You can bring them in and control the battlefield," Campbell says. Other points of discussion include how Fellowships work while mounted, the different stances (aggressive, utility, and defensive), the speed of combat, and situational awareness. The pair also gives us a first glimpse of mounted combat in action. You can watch the full dev video after the jump!
Turbine fields 33 Lord of the Rings Online questions
If you could ask a dev team anything about your favorite MMO, what would it be? Well, Turbine invited its Lord of the Rings Online players to do just that, and today the studio posted 33 answers to the sometimes-serious, sometimes-silly queries that players posed. Through this community Q&A, we learned that the team is working on a way to disable experience gain, has put additional hobbies on hold, has discussed and mostly dismissed multi-attachment mail, and is considering how dynamic events might work in the game. So do the devs play the game they make? Sapience says they do: "I think you'd be surprised at how many people at Turbine play LotRO on a regular basis." There are also a lot of interesting tidbits in this Q&A regarding the decisions behind prioritizing features, expanding into certain regions, and how the teams work in tandem to produce content. Finally, Sapience said that players should be seeing pre-order information for Riders of Rohan "Incredisoon™" and that there will probably be ways to attain the game's soundtrack in the future.
