Concerns from my Kinmates

Rob Henderson

New Member
Several members of my kinship, and several of our friends, attended the first course session last night. Most of them had never attended a Mythgard event before, and they were all impressed with the quality and detail of the discussion! But they also had some concerns and i promised I'd bring them up with y'all, so here goes:

Two of them were getting ready to arrive an hour early because the Mythgard calendar listed the starting time as 8:30, and they didn't realize it was set to Central time. (If folks add the Mythgard calendar to their own personal Google calendar, it will do the conversion automatically, but I suspect most people will just look at it on these forums.) It should really be set to server time, to avoid confusion.

The forced emotes. Yeah, I know everyone else noticed them, but I promised I'd say something. >8) We're hoping that the Lore Hall will be set to "Serious Business" to prevent this, but there will still be a potential problem during the field trips, especially if it's causing Corey's client to crash. Can we approach the devs about this? They might be more likely to intervene if the emotes are literally preventing the class from proceeding.

There was some confusion over who to ask about layer invites (and over which layer they were supposed to be in), but I managed to handle that on my own.

There was also discussion of whether they should even bother showing up in-game if they could just follow on Twitch/Discord, and they do have a point. I expect the equilibrium will shift around a bit and we'll work out after a few months how many people prefer which.

That's all! They do appreciate what an undertaking this has been and will continue to be, and that it'll be a learning process for everyone involved, and they definitely want to continue with it.
 
Hi. I'm can't speak in any kind of official capacity, but I did want to address one of your points:

There is a checkbox in the options to disable forced emotes on yourself. In a group that large, there will always be some prankster trying to spam them, if only to finish the deeds--and especially during an event. You should be able to search for it and set it up. I'm not sure if that was throwing Corey's computer so much as 300 people trying to phase in around him, which would be tough on even the heartiest video card around!

Personally, I know my computer can't handle that, so I just listen along. I'm sure it's a lot of fun to follow along in the van, but Middle Earth doesn't look so great as a slideshow. :)
 
As I understand it, we could also keep the lag down by leaving off our beautiful cloaks and capes, and putting our pets back in their kennels. But maybe someone more knowledgeable about the client could speak to this?
 
Yes, all of that would help a deal as well. It's not something that can be forced, but a request over voice coms would go a long way.
 
Let's see. Calendar...something is up with it. It was supposed to be set to server time and it wasn't. Today it's showing the course as starting at 2:30 am. So I'm working on it.

This is a Google calendar. If anyone has suggestions for another calendar that we can use, that's great. OTOH, we could do without the calendar, except that other events are listed that might interest people, which is why I've used it.

Forced emotes. We've requested "serious business" in the Scholars Hall, don't know if we'll get it. Doesn't solve the issue on the landscape however, and that will likely need to be a voice comm request, as Zach said. Cloaks and pets, yes, though I hate the thought of putting our pets away as they are probably interesting to the non-players. Our in game events can be pretty boring to look at when it's just a bunch of people standing around, so neither Corey nor I have a problem with "shenanigans." The AoE stuff, however, creates system problems and I'd like that to be an honor system rule that we don't do those.

The choice to show up in game or not is completely personal, and watching on Twitch would probably suit some folks perfectly. If watching Twitch and wanting to ask questions, one would have to go to Discord to do so, but there's no need to use the audio channel there...the only thing is that their question would be delayed due to the Twitch delay. Someone could watch Twitch, turn the volume down there, and join the Discord audio channel. In that case, the video would lag the audio. So it's a matter of what works for each person. I'm sure people will decide the best way to participate pretty soon!

Dealing with layers will apparently have to be something to deal with every week. I (Maevenn on all but one server) am the person to check with, though I do appreciate experienced players taking care of some of that themselves. But the bottom line is that sending me a tell is the thing to do if a player doesn't know what to do. Hopefully this process will become second nature to those of us in game...looking ahead, we are going to have other interesting issues when it comes to traveling to places farther away than The Shire!

I'll address these and other things here. Please direct people to this forum so that it can become the hub for logistics and book conversations.

Thanks for bringing the stuff up Rob!!!
 
I received confirmation from Cordovan last night that we will have serious business applied to the hall, and also that the layer thing will get taken care of. Also, he said they've received complaints about the incongruity of Gondorian hall in Bree, and that they will be talking about possibly moving it somewhere else. I'll keep y'all posted on this as we find out, and will make sure directions to the new place, if there is one, are posted here.
 
Trish, I've been hearing that complaint, too, about the incongruity of the hall. I should really drop in and visit it. The problem with moving it from Bree and taking it somewhere Gondorian is that it becomes a lot more difficult for new toons on a server to access. The closest Gondorian place (level wise) would probably be Evendim. Easy enough to set up a muster there and not get folks one-shotted, but still.

And huzzah for the Serious Business!
 
Yes, I'm sorry that people are bothered about it. I admit that I was surprised, because I thought it would be more of a ruin, in keeping with the other ruins in Bree. But I wasn't going to look at a gift horse in the mouth.

Standing Stone is very aware of the need to make it available to low level players...and if for some reason they aren't, Corey will certainly remind them. I don't know how it will be rationalized in the game (perhaps something like Frostbluff, available via stable horse?), but I'm sure it'll work for everyone.
 
I actually went and paid a visit, and I really like it. It's almost like the Rangers have a secret hideout, a bit of the Old World hiding in the middle of Bree.

My first thought was "Illuminati ritual chamber" but then, more appropriately, it made me think of a couple passages in Mythopoeia, "heraldic emblems of a lord unseen" and all that. :)

And I'm sure that SS will get it right. ^_^
 
I wonder if a more elegant solution would be to move that hall to a more suitable location, while simultaneously providing a swift horse to it from the Scholar place in Bree, accessible to all even new toons. My newly hatched CaptainWrungel is right now standing in the giant marvelous Hall completely puzzled by it.
 
I'm hoping they do something like that. Or an open instance that takes the player to Minas Tirith or somewhere secluded in Gondor by going through a portal somewhere. I mean, Gandalf can whoosh us to Bree from the Prancing Pony, maybe he can send us to Gondor!
 
Just my 2 cents worth, for what that might be worth (not much). Problem with a horse to a Gondorian location would be that folks would be using it as a way to get to that location instead of in game gold, or mithril coins. I think SSG might have a problem with that. But Frostbluff type place would solve that problem, or not being able to actually leave the Lore Hall once ported there, other then the horse back to Bree.

Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about the type of hall that is in Bree. I know it is the Role Players, and some of us Lore Hounds that are objecting to it. But in the appendix's it does state something to the effect about how after the dark days when the Numorieans returned to Middle-Earth, that they found the Bree men still there. It may be a stretch, but I could see The Men of the West building a lore Hall in Bree, since it was "a/The" major crossroad location for the east/west/south/north.
Again a stretch, not out of my realm of imagination in regards to Sub Creation.
 
As a relatively new player (around 2.5 yrs), I found the Gondorian theme of the Lore Scholar's hall a bit of a jolt. Beautiful, but not what I was expecting. I thought the hall might look like the Mayor's office. In fact, I looked over the Mayor of Bree's building anticipating a similar style. Do I like it? Why yes, I do. Do I wish SSG had designed a a hall with a different theme? Why, yes I do. Am I going to fret over it? Not at all.

If the hall is changed, I won't be upset. If the hall is moved to an area accessible to low-level toons, I think that will be nice as well. If the hall stays Gondorian in style in the center of Bree, it will remain beautiful. Whatever SSG comes up with will be just fine. It is time to relax and trust the developers. They do, after all, want us to play the game and enjoy it while we do.
 
Just my 2 cents worth, for what that might be worth (not much). Problem with a horse to a Gondorian location would be that folks would be using it as a way to get to that location instead of in game gold, or mithril coins. I think SSG might have a problem with that. But Frostbluff type place would solve that problem, or not being able to actually leave the Lore Hall once ported there, other then the horse back to Bree.

Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about the type of hall that is in Bree. I know it is the Role Players, and some of us Lore Hounds that are objecting to it. But in the appendix's it does state something to the effect about how after the dark days when the Numorieans returned to Middle-Earth, that they found the Bree men still there. It may be a stretch, but I could see The Men of the West building a lore Hall in Bree, since it was "a/The" major crossroad location for the east/west/south/north.
Again a stretch, not out of my realm of imagination in regards to Sub Creation.

I doubt that they would have a problem with the horse solution. With the addition of the premium neighborhoods it's possible to gain access to Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth (both of these being in areas for level 100-105) from places like Bree and Michel Delving. Also, there's always been ways to bypass problems like that. It's as easy as finding a generous hunter with time to kill. I personally don't see what all the fuss is about, seeing as Bree was a part of the Kingdom of Arnor, which was the northern kingdom ruled by Elendil while Gondor was ruled by Isildur and Anarion. It should be no surprise to find Gondorian influence and architecture there.

I'm not surprised by the complaints though. I've been rolling my eyes at some of the "Lore Hounds" since the open beta days when I first started. It's always amused me when people complained about something because of the "lore" and yet they get the lore wrong in their complaint.
 
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I saw some of the complaints and I agree with them somewhat - it is a little jarring (especially because it's huge.) I love the inside of the hall and think that works well, but the exterior doesn't quite fit in with the rest of Bree. If they had made it more ruin-y (making up words now) it would have been better. It's certainly not a deal breaker for me, but I can somewhat understand where they are coming from.
 
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