Hey everybody. This is Joe “jwbarry” and in this, the first entry in a series of Dev Diaries, I’m going to be talking about our new Scaling Instances and explaining what that means, how it works, and giving you a bit of insight into why we made a lot of the decisions we did and some of the cool upgrades and changes coming with The Lord of the Rings Online™ Volume 3, Book 2.

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The Grey Company has begun their journey southwards to rendezvous with their chieftain, Aragorn son of Arathorn. They pass quickly through the forgotten lands of Eregion, soon crossing into the region of Enedwaith and the northern tip of Dunland. The first thing that veteran players of The Lord of the Rings Online^TM should notice is that Enedwaith has received all new biome textures and assets. In fact, each division within Enedwaith has its own unique biome and atmosphere. In this diary, however, I am going to focus on the themes and content found with the region of Eregion and touch upon the lore, both Tolkien and folklore, that inspired the content within it.

Eregion, the region due north of Enedwaith, had a heavily Elvish influence, being an ancient abandoned Elf-home. However, along the southern border Dunlending influences were beginning to be seen, especially in the way of small fortifications of an invading force in service to Saruman the White. For those conscious of the differences in naming convention, the names of these fortifications were based on Welsh (and modified to actually be readable to folks who do not count w or y as common vowels).

And this is where we enter Enedwaith and northern Dunland. The flavour and language conventions for the region and the Dunlendings were strongly influenced by Medieval Welsh and Briton (Old Welsh) language and folklore, in keeping with our practice of mimicking Tolkien’s use of real-world languages and cultures.

So let’s take a look at the divisions within Enedwaith…...

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What are Tournaments & events?
Tournaments & Events are new community features coming to LOTRO this fall. Similar to a public quest system or challenge system, Tournaments will offer a variety of events and competitions for those who wish to participate. Players who participate in Tournaments may win community renown, badges for display on player profile pages at mylotro.com, or even in-game items, gold, or Skirmish Marks!

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According to Adam Mersky, Director of Communications at Turbine, who was recently interviewed by Gamespy at PaxEast 2010, the next major landmass will by Enedwaith, which is coming "later this year".

"We're on the road to Isengard right now, so eventually we'll go to Isengard soon and our next big region will be Enedwaith by later this year." - Adam Mersky

Not only does this give us information about the next landmass, but it almost confirms that the next paid expansion will in fact be Rohan.

Video of the interview and map of Middle Earth (for anyone unfamiliar with Enedwaith's location) after the break.

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Marketriod had this to say about DX11 over on the official forums:

"We got the core DX11 technology merged into the game engine during Q1 as planned. We're now in the process of integrating that new engine technology back into the game client.

While I don't have an official ETA for it yet it should be in the next major game update. There are a number of improvements to both visuals and performance on the DX11-class hardware from ATI that we've been working with.

It's still a little early to share public screenshots and videos, but we're working on it and should have some more info in the coming weeks."

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The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Monday, April 26 from 6:00am - 10:00AM Eastern (-5 GMT) for an update to the game. (Click here) to read the Patch notes. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!

The Spring Festival will return from April 26 - May 3.

Patch notes after the break...

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The issue, simply put, is that we have seen that in certain situations characters see no items in their shared storage. While this may be a display error, we felt it more prudent to not release the patch until we understood the full impact of the issue and could resolve it. I think we can all agree that losing items would have been far more saddening than waiting a little bit longer for the patch.

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WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT GROUP ACQUIRES TURBINE, INC.
NORTH AMERICA’S LARGEST PRIVATELY-HELD
ONLINE GAMING STUDIO

BURBANK, Calif., April 20, 2010 – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group announced today the acquisition of Turbine, Inc., the largest privately-held online gaming studio in North America, further strengthening Warner Bros.’ position as one of the industry’s fastest growing, full-scale games publishers.

“Turbine is a leader in online entertainment and a strong strategic fit for Warner Bros. as we continue to broaden our games portfolio and development capabilities,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. “Turbine’s renowned online game development and publishing expertise will help us develop additional online product offerings, while also providing us with new and innovative ways to market and communicate with our consumers.”

Founded in 1994 and operating primarily in Boston, Turbine has created some of the most popular and exciting gaming worlds on the Internet, including Dungeons & Dragons Online®: Eberron Unlimited™, the world’s best free-to-play massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) and The Lord of the Rings Online™, the first and only MMORPG based on the books of J.R.R. Tolkien. Previously, Warner Bros. held all The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) games rights, with the exception of the literary MMO (massively multiplayer online game) rights. Now all games rights for the LOTR franchise will be unified under the Warner Bros. shield.

“We have been looking to expand access to our online worlds to more players and more markets,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO, Turbine, Inc. “This acquisition is very exciting because it allows us to expand globally while continuing to focus on creating spectacular online games that our loyal fans and players have come to expect.”

Additionally, the acquisition of Turbine provides Warner Bros. with access to a proprietary digital publishing platform that enables dynamic direct-to-consumer relationships, robust online merchandising opportunities and vibrant e-commerce functionality for online games. Turbine has also developed a social networking platform that can integrate their self-developed online communities with popular third-party social networks. Outside of the games arena, these platforms present unique opportunities for Warner’s other home entertainment businesses.

“Turbine is recognized globally for its industry-leading technology, groundbreaking graphics and its unique ability to create and operate massive and persistent online worlds which greatly enhance players’ social gaming experiences,” said Martin Tremblay, president, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online have both been an enormous success for Turbine and we look forward to working with their talented development team to continue creating award-winning online games.”

In 2007, Warner Bros. acquired TT Games, developer of the hit LEGO-based game franchises, including LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman, which have wide appeal with players of all ages. Early in 2009, Warner Bros. acquired Snowblind Studios to develop its The Lord of the Rings games franchise, with the first title The Lord of the Rings: War in the North expected to be released in 2011. Also in 2009, the Studio purchased the primary assets of Midway Games. Midway published the Mortal Kombat franchise, which has sold over 26 million units worldwide. Most recently, Warner Bros. acquired a majority stake in Rocksteady Studios, a privately held developer of interactive entertainment targeted at teens and adults.

Warner Bros. continues to grow its games business through key acquisitions, building internal development capabilities, leveraging its global video distribution infrastructure, and focusing on developing major games franchises such as Batman, F.E.A.R., Mortal Kombat, The Lord of the Rings and LEGO.

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Sapience had this to say over on the official forums:

Hey guys! I didn't forget, just got sidetracked by a slew of last minute meetings. I'm going to post this here, ahead of the offical announcement, so that all of you patiently waiting get the facts first.

• The last day of the Spring Festival is April 19 (Monday).
• There will be an update on Wednesday April 21 that will restore the Horse vendor.
• On April 21 the Spring Festival will start again and will run through Monday April 26. This gives you time to not only trade your tokens for your horse but also to play all the content again in case you haven't earned your horse yet.
• Finally, when the Summer Festival arrives this summer we will also turn on the Spring Festival Horse Barter NPC to allow everyone who collected their items a final chance to trade them for their Spring Mount. This should help those who have their tokens but won't be able to log in during the April 21-26 time frame. Oh and there will be an new Summer Mount as well (but you'll need to earn summer tokens for that one!).

Expect the official announcements, release notes, etc, soon.

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