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.

DKP Method:
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This thread while not groundbreaking actually did bring up a very valid point most probably hadn't thought of. Now if you aren't a raider (even Casual Raiders may not get it), you probably don't have too much experience with DKP. DKP stands for Dragon Kill Points and are awarded to members for attending raids/killing things. When items drop, instead of everyone rolling, you bid points for it. Lord of the Rings Online doesn't really have a system or addons that can be used like other games.

There are some interesting methods people use, some as simple as purple items costing twice as much as others but surprisingly I saw no jokes referencing minus 50 DKP. This made me very sad. The thread gets a little rowdy on page 5, Ramen steps in, and it gets back on topic for the most part. Might be worth your time if you have a few minutes.

Refer Your Friends, Play for Free!:
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Turbine started up an interesting program this week to refer your friends for game time. It appears for every person you refer that purchases a box copy and subscribes to the game, you get a free months subscription. Where is the catch? There doesn't appear to be one other than convincing people to go out and buy a copy of the game. It doesn't really state what a friend "subscribing to the game" means either. Do they just have to register their 30 days or do they actually need to be billed? Clarification por favor.

What about founders? They aren't paying any subs anyway right? Turbine is giving a 30 day game card which...you could give to your friend who just subscribed. Highly motivated aren't you? There was a pretty cool aspect of this program that you could bring up to 10 people in as founders giving them a lifetime subscription for a few hundred dollars. Now granted if you can get them to buy the box AND do the lifetime subscription? You deserve that gamecard and more.

Vista is Crap:
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Vista is a big pile of steaming poo. Did you just go "Doy?" Apparently there has been a bug involving Nvidia chips and MS Vista causing Lord of the Rings Online to crash repeatedly. There was at least one frustrated customer who brought this thread up and while debates went back and forth between it being Nvidia's fault to it being Vistas, we know the truth. I point you to the pile of steaming poo.

Developer Bunsen posts on page 2 an update which probably didn't make many folks with the issue happy. He states they are still working on a fix but much of it was "out of our hands." Not exactly inspiring confidence sir, but I respect your honesty. If you have this issue, wow I'm sorry. Hopefully MS (or Nvidia if for some reason it really is their fault) gets this together and fixes the issue. In fairness Bunsen replies to a number of posts in the thread so at least they care.

Bigger, Badder, Better UI:
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Turbine employee Frosty_Turbine who I'm going to assume is a programmer, let us in on a little bit of what Book 10 will bring in the way of UI skinning. We all know the launch LOTRO UI could have used a little flexibility, so it looks like we are getting some.

Frosty states that they will be releasing 400 art assets and the game will be "90% skinnable" which means almost nothing to me. I saw the word "resizing" and I know for a fact he said "widgets" at one point. It does appear they want us to be able to customize the UI with mods similar to EverQuest 2, World of Warcraft, etc... I think it's a very positive thing and thanks for letting us know Turbine.

LOTRO Google Maps:
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Turbine added a few things to the new Lorebook this week including updates to NPC's, Landmarks, dungeons, and Interiors. More information is always good when it comes to a wiki and I can admit I've used it a number of times to look things up. It's an interesting idea that seems to be working for the players.

Another feature they added however, was a Google Map system for the game areas. If you aren't familiar with Google Maps, I need you to tell me how you never get lost. Essentially it's a giant map put together which can be moved around, zoomed in and out, and able to provide an amazing amount of detail you won't find in most game maps. Now if they can just get it in the ingame map, I don't think we could ask for more in that regard.

Off with his Head!
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This thread most certainly wins for rant of the week. Although the original post has been edited, it's very easy to ascertain they demanded the firing of the Creative Director because of a disagreement in the importance of PvP to MMO's. The interview in question was done by Gamespy and really wasn't that bad of a read. The drama only continued a few posts before being closed by Orion which it should have been without question.

First of all saying the Creative Director should be fired because they don't openly support PvP is beyond stupid. Anyone who knows the first thing about MMO's, realizes Turbine is attempting to go in a different direction with this game. In keynote speech this week Richard Garriott (Ultima, Ultima Online, Lineage, etc...) basically stated that MMO's have stagnated and it's time to start thinking outside the box. Obviously PvP and PvE content need to be balanced but not everything has to be a WoW clone (which just clones other game mechanics who cloned other games mechanics).

Where is the Recipe?:
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If you've done any advanced crafting in Lord of the Rings at some point you've had to purchase recipes at the Auction House. Now some look for drops or hope for the best, while some sit in front of the AH for hours watching it like eBay. One Jewelcrafter got tired of digging through every recipe just looking for his tradeskill so he asked if you could sort them? Well of course you can't...yet.

Game Systems Engineer Denour stopped in to let them know it isn't possible to do at this point but mentioned its being worked on for one of the upcoming updates. This is a change that would benefit everyone and I'm glad they started putting it in. Apparently they are doing this crazy thing like "reading suggestions" so stop in and make yours regarding auction searching.

Giants:
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Saffron announced Thursday they've put together another mini feature regarding the Giants of Middle Earth. They aren't mentioned frequently in Tolkien's work so it's easy for them to have a lot of room to work with the lore and design of these terrifying creatures.

I'm a fan of this creature descriptions. Let's be honest, how many people actually read the manual? Ok yes we know *YOU* did because you are the same person who watched all three extended edition movies back to back. For most of us, it's easy to miss some lore in a quest or cutscene in game so information like this can really enlighten people. Head over to the thread with any feedback you have.

Threads of the Week:

The following threads fit into two outstanding categories. 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.

Dev Response of the Week - Careful What you Click:
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The creator of this thread did one of those things you always hear about and accidentally deleted his Monster Player Character. On a personal note Mr. Dewwilliamson, you aren't special. The GM's knew what they were doing and this didn't require a treatise on how well respected and liked you were. What happened was your fault, not Turbines

Super Dev Orion to the rescue! Orion not only backed up the GM's statements that it couldn't be reversed but went into a lengthy description of how different Monster Players are from normal Characters. He also stated he'd see if there could be a confirmation box popped up to confirm deletion similar to what we see on our normal characters. It'd be nice Orion, and thank you for taking the time to answer the every day player.

Most Overused Topic of the Week - ZOMG TEH SERVERS ARE DOWNZ!!111!!:
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The servers have gone down?! I am shocked. Shocked and outraged. How dare Turbine have unexpected server downtime like every other MMO! Someone start a thread detailing exactly how long it's been down and how much free time Turbine owes us! If you didn't know, the Landroval server went down last weekend for a few hours.
First, we don't need 26 threads letting everyone know the server is down. If you play on the server, you already know and do you honestly believe that Turbine is unaware? MMO companies have people that watch their servers, I promise you it was only minutes before their tech team was working on it.