THANK YOU FOR LISTENING

Responding to my post about radiance gating a few days ago, unwize pointed me at a comment in Orion's Belt, an ongoing blog by the senior Turbine developer of that name. The blog, well worth following by anybody interested in the nuts and bolts of how a games designer tackles a specific job, is essentially about Orion's ongoing redesign of Garth Agarwen; on 24 July, however, he had the following to say about the radiance controversy:

When you deal with a mass of people all spouting opinions and everyone keeps harping on one point or another it can be very difficult to drill through to the core of the issue. This has been the case with Radiance Gear. At first, it appeared that radiance gating was the only part of the issue because that was the breadth of the complaints. After drilling deeper and reading more and more from folks it became apparent that there were many symptoms to the problem.

1. Radiance gear is now required to enter raids.
2. The only way to acquire radiance gear is to complete hard modes.
3. Hard modes objectives are obtuse.

All good points, all taken to heart and all actively in the pipe for some form of retrofit to address the core issues. No time frame yet. Just and admission that we hear you, we understand you and we are committed to rectifying the issue.

It was, needless to say, heartening to read this, as it's the very first time anybody at Turbine has so much as conceded that there might be a problem. Of course, Orion's comment shows that he has very slightly missed the point: it's not that people object to completing hard mode instances, it's having to complete them over and over and over again that they hate - that, and the fact that the only pathway to the new instances is the radiance pathway. Nevertheless, his blog demonstrates that the message has registered with at least one person in the right quarters. "No time frame yet" casts a slight chill, but on the other hand, "we are committed to rectifying the issue" is pretty clear-cut. Let's hope a retrofit will indeed be applied before too long; in the meantime, thank you for listening, sir.

SOME NEW LOTRO BLOGS

By and large, the average LOTRO player is rather older than players of most other online games. Does that make him or her more sensible, more mature and less likely to act like a completely selfish prat? With the exception of the thirty-odd people on my ignore list (you know who you are), this is to a certain extent true. Interestingly, it also means that an increasing number of players are electing to put pen to paper (update: fingers to keyboard) and writing about their experience of the game. It is therefore a great pleasure to welcome Epic Book to our little clan of LOTRO bloggers. Authored by Raegn, a gamer of some eleven-plus years experience, it includes some long, thoughtful but never dull posts on all aspects of the game, and comes highly recommended.

I also want to take this opportunity of bringing to your attention The Road Goes Ever On, an unusual and visually brilliant blog which is slowly and patiently illustrating each chapter of the original Lord of the Rings books with scenes from LOTRO, the game. The images are astonishingly vivid, but they have also made me realise how well and faithfully the game designers and artists have brought Tolkien's narrative to life. To give just a tiny example, which most of us may never have noticed (I certainly didn't): Tolkien writes that after waking up in the house of Tom Bombadil, Frodo peered out the east-facing window of their room and found himself looking upon a kitchen-garden, but "his view was screened by a tall line of beans on poles". Well, the beans and the bean-poles are right there where they should be, and we get a picture to prove it. Magic...

THE ELITE AGGREGATOR ORC

As befits a rather more mature online game, LOTRO has attracted a number of blogs devoted to the game, many of them both readable and informative. Some of these I have noted from time to time and added to the recommended links, but up to now it's been largely a matter of luck whether or not I stumble across one. Now, mmeow.net's LOTRO Combo Blog has come online, its mission, like it says on the title bar, to "Aggregate LotRO Blogs Faster Than an Elite Aggregator Orc".

They must have found a really a hard-working orc, because it carries out its instructions perfectly: click on or, better yet, subscribe to http://combo.mmeow.net/ and you will find a constantly updated list of feeds from the best LOTRO-related blogs, including, title, link and the first few lines of every post. Eight fine blogs are currently included. Service with an (orcish) smile...