by: Tony "RadarX" Jones

Keeping up with the Official Forums can be cumbersome and who really has time to troll through hundreds of dramatic posts for that one nugget you occasionally find? I do! Join us as Ten Ton Hammer examines all the important threads this week and keeps you up to date.

Play on Roheryn:
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Server downtime always brings Communities to the forums, because most folks who are trying to play have nothing better to do than wait for things to come back up. Anger, bickering, complaints, and so much more are there for the reading. In a unique and impressive move Turbine held a contest on the preview server which was up during the downtime. One lucky person won a graphics card and others won a 60 day game card.

Elladan and Elrohir:
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I have to be honest, it's been years since I've read the books, so these two drew blanks when I saw them mentioned. There are important in Lord of the Rings Online however! If you are big into lore, Turbine provided a little background for these interesting twins. Further discussion on them is currently ongoing in the forums.

Barter System:
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The Barter System was first mentioned in a Stratics House of Commons chat with developers. Denour expounds on the subject a little by stating "The Barter System has nothing to do with the Auction House or posting items for trade. Really, it's a new type of NPC Vendor that accepts different items to purchase goods instead of coin." So we'll be able to trade pigs for chickens? Goats for sheep? Jelly for Jam? It's an interesting concept, that's for sure.

Known Issues
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This is one thing I really admire about the Lord of the Rings developers. They admit there are broken things and explain they are working on them. Last weeks "Known Issues" listed only 3 problems none of which appear to be life threatening. I'd call 2 broken quests and a clarification on raid content running quite smoothly, but I'm sure plenty would disagree..

Stats
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Someone was curious about why the Lorebook showed no item stats for anything in game. Now while I agree it should be able to do this, I far from find it "almost worthless" as the original poster says. Aylwyne seems to agree and mentions work is being done. Apparently there small problems like "tons of data" and "repicating logic" and a bunch of other technical terms.

Lorebook going in Game:
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Turbine put up a short informative piece on Wights discussing why they are creepy/evil and where they came from. An interesting discussion continued on at the official forums so if you are into lore, this is a thread for you!

Landroval Mail Issue Resolved:
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If you missed it last week, the Landroval server had a minor hiccup that like the US Post Office lost a few envelopes. Community Manager Patience announced on Thursday the issue had finally been resolved and people had been refunded their items. How many other companies would you have just gotten a free Frogurt and an apology from? Sure it broke, but they made it right.

An Angry Minstrel:
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I caught this rant perusing through the class forums. Apparently this Minstrel got so angry he couldn't use paragraphs in his first set of statements. He did at least provide a list of bugs currently in need of attention so I have to give him credit for backing it up. Still, I think things could've gone a little more constructive route and gotten a better response.

Threads of the Week:

The following threads fit into two outstanding catergories. The first of these is the best Dev response of the week from Turbine employees regarding...well anything. The second is the most overused topic of the week meaning there have been 20 threads beating the subject into the ground.

Auction House Discussion:
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Game Systems Engineer Denour takes time to answer a few questions regarding the Auction House and why things are as they are. He also takes a moment to professionally smack a smartmouth poster. *thumbs up*

Most Overused Topic of the Week - Battle Cries:
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Last month they removed battles cries because players complained they were annoying. And let's be honest, it wasn't a "Ryuken!" every few seconds, it was cry after cry after cry. Well then people complained that they took them out so they've been readded. Now people are complaining they've been readded. Turbine hopefully you learned something from this, you are going to lose no matter what you do. Add an option into the sounds menu so you can turn it off if it annoys you.