Thread: The 2011 Yule Festival Developer Diary Feedback

Originally Posted by Sebbi

If you click the link to go to the page for the 20th it does say Yule festival on it, so not all hope is gone it just doesn't show on the main calendar page

the calender entry shows this time:

Dec 20 2011 to Feb 01 2012 05:00 PM to 04:59 AM

whatever 5PM refers to, perhaps 5 PM server time (EST?) so probably it starts 'tonight'

Originally Posted by enrious2

After all, you are both saying that they've stepped up their festival game and they only changed things due to a lack of courage or integrity as opposed to genuine ingenuity.

Those two ideas don't seem to go together.

They are completely separate and unrelated thoughts that I think you unintentionally combined. The festivals have been awesome. The complaints I am referring to about them were absolutely weak and immature. As you can see from my post that you quoted, simply not liking the festival quests was NOT included in what I consider weak and immature. The way MANY people behaved about it, however, was. Since I haven't seen the festival changes yet, I'm excited that it will be good for everyone SINCE they have proven to really be putting much into them. They could have caved to the vocal complainers and still released quality content... we will see today

Originally Posted by hucklebarry

They are completely separate and unrelated thoughts that I think you unintentionally combined. The festivals have been awesome. The complaints I am referring to about them were absolutely weak and immature. As you can see from my post that you quoted, simply not liking the festival quests was NOT included in what I consider weak and immature. The way MANY people behaved about it, however, was. Since I haven't seen the festival changes yet, I'm excited that it will be good for everyone SINCE they have proven to really be putting much into them. They could have caved to the vocal complainers and still released quality content... we will see today

I agree there were over-the-top posts in last year's feedback, but there were also a lot of mature and rational responses to it, so categorizing a change as "caving" to the "weak and immature" people doesn't seem to allow for them listening to the mature and rational arguments and therefore making a change.

One is a positive motivation for change; one is a negative reason for change. I'd like to think that the devs were positively motivated, but that's me. It also avoids casting aspersions, even indirectly or unintentionally, on those who disliked the festival.

If the complaints about the festival were only over-the-top (or as you categorize them, "weak and immature") then I think there'd be a strong case that could have been made for "caving", but that simply wasn't the case.

In any event, I'm with you - I can't wait for it to start and am looking forward to this year's festival.

Originally Posted by enrious2

I agree there were over-the-top posts in last year's feedback, but there were also a lot of mature and rational responses to it, so categorizing a change as "caving" to the "weak and immature" people doesn't seem to allow for them listening to the mature and rational arguments and therefore making a change.

One is a positive motivation for change; one is a negative reason for change. I'd like to think that the devs were positively motivated, but that's me. It also avoids casting aspersions, even indirectly or unintentionally, on those who disliked the festival.

If the complaints about the festival were only over-the-top (or as you categorize them, "weak and immature") then I think there'd be a strong case that could have been made for "caving", but that simply wasn't the case.

In any event, I'm with you - I can't wait for it to start and am looking forward to this year's festival.

I think you are putting far too much weight on a few words in my post. Nothing I said was in totality of the event participants. However, Agreed, the event should be fun Enjoy!

I just want to know EXACTLY what date and TIME the Yule Festival is scheduled to start/end... I've been searching the internet for over an hour and all I can find is dates/times of previous years... It is now the 20th, which is when the event is supposed to start according to the news feed on the game login screen, but at 530am Central Time I am still unable to go...

Originally Posted by KingDutka

I just want to know EXACTLY what date and TIME the Yule Festival is scheduled to start/end... I've been searching the internet for over an hour and all I can find is dates/times of previous years... It is now the 20th, which is when the event is supposed to start according to the news feed on the game login screen, but at 530am Central Time I am still unable to go...

http://forums.lotro.com/calendar.php...2011-12-20&c=1

it says today from 12:00 PM until January 31 at 11:59 PM

Originally Posted by hucklebarry

However, Agreed, the event should be fun Enjoy!

And you!


And since this is the season of giving...I present to you screenshots of the new steed and two new cloaks, along with the list of 4 maps available.

http://s679.photobucket.com/albums/v...011/?start=all

I'm 40 years old and I woke up an hour early ran to my computer like a 12 year old running to the christmas tree on christmas morning expecting to see gifts from santa.

Flicked on my computer, no festi no snow no nuthin...

Now I'm 13 all over again and have to wait for my family to get to the house at noon with my presents.

/pout
/kick
/cry

While I was running from one part of the world to another in the Shire an interesting thing happened "Entered the Festival - Regional channel." Popped up for one minute, I stopped running did a little dance... then immediately it said "Entered the Shire - Regional channel." I hadn't moved at all I was too busy dancing like a loon in my chair.

Any ideas?

Originally Posted by KingDutka

I just want to know EXACTLY what date and TIME the Yule Festival is scheduled to start/end... I've been searching the internet for over an hour and all I can find is dates/times of previous years... It is now the 20th, which is when the event is supposed to start according to the news feed on the game login screen, but at 530am Central Time I am still unable to go...

Its today. Log in to the game. You will typically see an email pop up once the festival has been made live. Its usually fairly early in the day, but I wouldn't really go hunting for it until after noon-ish.

Originally Posted by Artemis023

While I was running from one part of the world to another in the Shire an interesting thing happened "Entered the Festival - Regional channel." Popped up for one minute, I stopped running did a little dance... then immediately it said "Entered the Shire - Regional channel." I hadn't moved at all I was too busy dancing like a loon in my chair.

Any ideas?

I was levelling an alt in the Shire last week and this happened to me, when entering the 'Marish' area it told me I had entered the 'Festival' area, along with the different 'Festival' area chats (OOC, regional. trade etc).

Originally Posted by Bellgwen

http://forums.lotro.com/calendar.php...2011-12-20&c=1

it says today from 12:00 PM until January 31 at 11:59 PM

It looks like it says from 5:00 PM? I hope it starts at noon instead! I wanna throw snowballs.

I'm guessing there is some computer magic going on here because it does say it starts at 12:00 PM for me but someone else posted theirs also said 5 PM... perhaps it's a settings thing? or a time zone? dunno but with the event going on that long I'm not going to worry about a few hours here or there

Originally Posted by Bellgwen

I'm guessing there is some computer magic going on here because it does say it starts at 12:00 PM for me but someone else posted theirs also said 5 PM... perhaps it's a settings thing? or a time zone? dunno but with the event going on that long I'm not going to worry about a few hours here or there

Aye, mine says 5PM too, and at the bottom of the screen, it says something like "all times are GMT+1", my timezone.

Originally Posted by Duci

Aye, mine says 5PM too, and at the bottom of the screen, it says something like "all times are GMT+1", my timezone.

D'oh! I totally missed the "all times are GMT" statement on the bottom of the screen. If it's 2:13 GMT now, 5:00 GMT would be in about three hours which puts it at noon my time. Going on a year of gameplay and I still find the timezone thing very confusing.

Just wanted to say that I loved the festival last year, and I'm sure the changes will make it even better. Thanks for all the hard work you put into this.

I can see how the poverty and homelessness would be painful for someone who was homeless, but unfortunately it's not possible to remove everything that could trigger one segment of the population, or we wouldn't have a game. I was mugged in New York, but I don't expect the surprise attack in the Bree alley to be removed. I don't want to trivialize the pain that someone suffered by being homeless and I understand that you play a game to escape, not to experience the world as it is. But I think that the inclusion of realistic pain and strife in the storyline is one of the things that make this game more satisfying than games like WoW.

I'm glad to hear that the quest choices are more nuanced now, though. But I still want to give credit to the creation of a whole new area for a festival. I've been anticipating the return for months!

Originally Posted by debegray

I can see how the poverty and homelessness would be painful for someone who was homeless, but unfortunately it's not possible to remove everything that could trigger one segment of the population, or we wouldn't have a game. I was mugged in New York, but I don't expect the surprise attack in the Bree alley to be removed. I don't want to trivialize the pain that someone suffered by being homeless and I understand that you play a game to escape, not to experience the world as it is. But I think that the inclusion of realistic pain and strife in the storyline is one of the things that make this game more satisfying than games like WoW.

Interesting how you mention both poverty and homelessness initially, then focus on homelessness in order to dismiss it as "one segment of the population".

Apart from the obvious, that there is a smaller segment of the populace that are homeless than there are low-income (between one-third and one-half of Americans are classified as low-income) (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...overty-numbers).

Interesting that you'd want to categorize it as "one segment of the population" as a way of dismissing the complaint, rather than addressing the fact that it potentially affects the person to the left or right of you.

What do you need to get the mount and where do you get it from?

I read somewhere it was 20 tokens, but can't find it now. I'm sure there was something else you needed as well as the tokens.

Originally Posted by Stubbins

What do you need to get the mount and where do you get it from?

I read somewhere it was 20 tokens, but can't find it now. I'm sure there was something else you needed as well as the tokens.

You also need a race token which is given by completing the race track either in the shire (by homestads) or in bree (between bree and hengstars farm, just south of the farm).

If you fail the race it has a long cooldwon (24hrs?), but if you fail the bree one you can go and do the shire one =)

There is a BIG HUGE grin on my face after spending a lot of time in the theater. ;-) LOVE IT!

Thank you, Turbine, for adding this little thing in!

After spending several hours in the Theatre, I have been picked for a role three times.

Every one of those roles has been Gandalf. Urgh.

I do love this festival though.

Originally Posted by Leselle

If you fail the race it has a long cooldwon (24hrs?), but if you fail the bree one you can go and do the shire one =)

If you fail the race the cooldown should be one hour. 24 hours is the cooldown if you win the race.

Originally Posted by Gwenryth

If you fail the race the cooldown should be one hour. 24 hours is the cooldown if you win the race.

thanks for the clarification =)

Originally Posted by Leselle

thanks for the clarification =)

...and thanks for the info!

Lovin the festival!!

Lovely horse design! The past two years I have taken a pass on Winter-home because I just didn't like the quest string. I'm looking forward to giving it another try. Thanks for listening to those of us who were troubled by Winter-home's harshness.

You probably skipped Winterhome in 2009, because it wasn't in the game then. Winterhome was added in 2010. This is the second year it's been available.

Love the snowmen and the Yeti additions to the festival. Well done devs! as always, an enjoyable event

Non-racial Gift Boxes are a waste of tokens...

15 boxes later... 15 lumps of coal.

Originally Posted by Artemis023

Non-racial Gift Boxes are a waste of tokens...

15 boxes later... 15 lumps of coal.

The non-racial quote/unquote "Gift-Box" are Fail boxes, read the tooltip, it is working as intended. It is so you can give coal to all your nawty friends. (5 lumps of coal for just a few tokens are actually pretty useful for prospecting crafters.)

What rhymes with ale? Why coal of course! errr.. fail I mean. These ones are intended that way, I'm sorry that it caught you off guard.

I thought they were something special like house decoration (still working off of the old 2010 list which seems to be different and I have yet to find the wall decor) so yes it indeed caught me off guard.

Grrr....

Originally Posted by Artemis023

I thought they were something special like house decoration (still working off of the old 2010 list which seems to be different and I have yet to find the wall decor) so yes it indeed caught me off guard.

Grrr....

Boxes with house decorations are still in game: the racial boxes for 6 tokens each. I just got the hobbit Yule wall from one of them. Good luck!


I am succeeding at the horse races for the first time in a year! Very cool to get all non-dwarf characters a Yule horse/pony.

New horse looks great and the additions to Frostbluff are neat, but the shared 5 minute cooldowns on the festival consumables is NOT FUN. What a waste of time and bag space compared to the previous festival deeds.

Soo....I was really excited to do the festival this year. I'd seen the Fancy Snow Cloak (if you want to see what it looks like go here http://www.northshield.co.uk/LOTRO/O...aks/Cloaks.htm ) on another player months and months ago and was DYING to purchase it for my Mini's winter set. As soon as the event started I rushed to Winter-home,then rushed to the vendor.....no Fancy Snow Cloak. Maybe it's in the store I thought, it's such a great cloak I'd be willing to pay some Turbine points. No Fancy Snow Cloak in the store either.

I get that there's a need to add NEW items to the event so that people who've done it before don't get bored, but I DON'T see any reason why the old items and the new items can't BOTH be available, or at the very least be purchasable in the store. I'm sure there are other items from the past few years that people are also disappointed are not in this year's list (like the Theatre Stage decoration which was the other major disappointment for me this year).

What's weird is last year they were in the Store.

Just like to say that the 2011 Yule festival is the first Yule festival i've ever been too (i've been playing for about a year) and in the first day of visiting it I knew this was the best festival I had been to all year. Great job devs!

First festival I've had any desire in messing with. It's very well done. I must have the Perfect Snowball emote.....

Great Festival! And I discovered the Yule tree quest line is available again (Hobbiton--see Hal by the stables)-- YAY!!

Originally Posted by urdess02

(like the Theatre Stage decoration which was the other major disappointment for me this year).

Sorry to hear about the cloak not being there, but the stage decoration is bartered from the concessions NPC inside the theatre, I think it's 10 or 12 tokens.

The Thespian title still doesn't auto-reward upon being picked for the Villain, Extra and Protagonist roles in the Frostbluff Theater. You STILL have to barter for the title.

Unless, of course, you have to play all 3 roles perfectly, or something else. Just easier to barter for the title rather than wait for it to get fixed at this point, I suppose.

Originally Posted by urdess02

Soo....I was really excited to do the festival this year. I'd seen the Fancy Snow Cloak (if you want to see what it looks like go here http://www.northshield.co.uk/LOTRO/O...aks/Cloaks.htm ) on another player months and months ago and was DYING to purchase it for my Mini's winter set. As soon as the event started I rushed to Winter-home,then rushed to the vendor.....no Fancy Snow Cloak. Maybe it's in the store I thought, it's such a great cloak I'd be willing to pay some Turbine points. No Fancy Snow Cloak in the store either.

I get that there's a need to add NEW items to the event so that people who've done it before don't get bored, but I DON'T see any reason why the old items and the new items can't BOTH be available, or at the very least be purchasable in the store. I'm sure there are other items from the past few years that people are also disappointed are not in this year's list (like the Theatre Stage decoration which was the other major disappointment for me this year).

Yeh I was wanting that cloak to :/ don't even like the new ones...

and been enjoying the festival as well. I wasn;t here for one last year but the storyline don't seem to bad. Though for me was still bit difficult when decided to take the rich side on my alt. Setting fireworks and pick pocketing was a bit off for me but not that bad as others make past festivals sound. Still have fun lol

I have enjoyed myself immensely and have had so much fun with the theatre and the snowball fight. I was too busy last year to attend so have just been very surprised at how different this festival feels to the other festivals. Not that the others aren't fun but this just seems more festive shall we say. Anyways to the designers and the people who make it fun a big /cheer!