Explore Middle-Earth (56k warning!)

[cossieuk 203]

Well mine were cheating within an admin client. As a player I wasn't an intrepid explorer, with most of the exit spots (such as those in LL) being shown to me by other players. And I never personally reported any to work, feeling it was just harmless fun. It wasn't as if the source code or company account books were lying around out there in FixMe. Most ended up being reported by Johnny Do-gooders who thought they were doing a great service but IMO were just being wet blankets.

Maybe the same guy, maybe not, a few ended up discovering the Tavern.

There was often reports on the forum that going into these places could leave your character stuck and that if it happened there was no way to recover your character.

[Danchir 35]

Well mine were cheating within an admin client. As a player I wasn't an intrepid explorer, with most of the exit spots (such as those in LL) being shown to me by other players. And I never personally reported any to work, feeling it was just harmless fun. It wasn't as if the source code or company account books were lying around out there in FixMe. Most ended up being reported by Johnny Do-gooders who thought they were doing a great service but IMO were just being wet blankets.

Maybe the same guy, maybe not, a few ended up discovering the Tavern.

Hold on a second! Players were told that the sky may fall if they wonder outside the areas intended for playing.

 

Actually, this is worth a question in the other thread

[Aylwen 452]

There was often reports on the forum that going into these places could leave your character stuck and that if it happened there was no way to recover your character.

Yeah I suppose that's true although I never encountered it myself, /stuck always worked for me. But there always those fringe cases.

[ibfe77 4]

Well mine were cheating within an admin client...

 

That's exactly what makes them so interesting...

 

I also remember a guy who almost rounded the old Eriador map out in FixMe from the Squirrels thread, maybe the same person you were talking about, and i still have some of his screenshots saved (the links in that thread are long broken...). Not sure if it's ok to repost them here, as they aren't mine...

[drul 68]

Love the Evendim pic Abba.

One of the most impressive player accomplishments I remember from my days with the company involved a spot in MM that one could use to escape to FixMe. It was along the pathway above Goblin Town. Somehow a player escaped through it and made his way to the skirmish test area. Alex, CS lead, came over to tell me about it one morning and asked if I could repro what the guy had done. So since it was a slow morning I jumped on an internal build (we had 3 or 4 internal servers-Anduril, Narsil, Hollin, and Charaderas, the last name I'm butchering) with an admin toon and set runspeed to x5 and set out. It ended up taking me almost all morning running around, negotiating canyons and those occasional 'death spots', before I finally retraced roughly the route he had taken. I was amazed at his ingenuity and told Alex, 'the hell with banning this guy, he should be in QA!'. Sadly, his greed in helping himself to free skirmish marks from the test vendors was his undoing.

Just out of curiosity. How did you know that player ended up in skirmish test area?    Did something like that was anticipated and somehow server software is notyfying CS if/when player ventures where he/she was not supposed to be?

or this player just posted this on forum to brag about it or something like that and someone did reprot him?

[Noir Adaure 11]

[Aylwen 452]

Just out of curiosity. How did you know that player ended up in skirmish test area? Did something like that was anticipated and somehow server software is notyfying CS if/when player ventures where he/she was not supposed to be?

or this player just posted this on forum to brag about it or something like that and someone did reprot him?

There were a number of ways his ill-gotten gains could have come to the attention of CS. Firstly, there was the infamous Brandywine Skirmish Scandal (Skimishgate), where a bunch of players on BW used the flag exploit to rack up 100s of thousands of skirmish marks. That was an embarrassing time for me as a BWer at Turbine, let me tell ya...it was one thing to exploit but the knuckleheads did it despite leaderboards anyone and their grandma could see. Fools! But after that CS rigged up a system to flag excessive skirmish mark acquisitions. So he may have been snagged by that contrivence. Or he may have been turned in by another player. Friendship and confidences tended to go out the window when a player was put under the lamp and threatened with a perma. A good CS could work a perp like a detective in a noir film, right down to sitting him down in a closed room. 'Listen here, Jimmy, start singing or you're going up the river and you aren't coming back!'. To which most players would start rattling off every exploit and exploiter they knew. There was a well-known ranked RK on BW (who I won't name although he left the game quite a while ago) who spilled on half his kinship, netting them all bans of various lengths but thereby avoiding a perma himself. And insofar as I knew they never knew he had fingered them. For good measure the CS detective would pull chat logs and study them: often as not guys couldn't resist telling others about their exploits. So in general be careful who you talk to. Let it be said however that CS was very lenient for the most part, sometimes too lenient. Whenever I heard a player crying in the BW moors that they were banned 'for no good reason' I often knew otherwise. CS almost always had a good reason for a ban. And you really needed to screw up good to catch a perma.

[warspeech 291]

 

What is this strange place?  The penalty box?  or maybe the stumbled-upon skirmish testing area?

[Dorf 15]

On 24.2.2015 at 8:33 PM, abbazabba said:

Helegrod

 

 

 

I had to try this myself:

 

 

Coldbear was not in the same dimension:

 

 

There were some level 50 elite-master orcs, who could be killed for silver:

 

 

This place had some problems with culling:

 

 

Helegrod giant wing, no mobs:

 

 

For some reason headbutt was disabled here:

 

 

High Pass:

[Dakilven 57]

They're all out there in FixMe somewhere. Most of the specific places I knew about-Town Colour and the like-I found through the list of locs on the admin client UI. The map is massive. I recall one afternoon after work ended exploring FixMe on an internal server. I was on a vast plain and seeing a huge mountain range in the distance set my run speed to x6 and headed that way. Eventually I engaged auto run and went outside for a smoke, coming back to find my destination seemed scarcely any closer. It took over a half hour-again at x6 speed-to finally get there.

 

Man, the world of FixMe is damn intriguing. Wish I could try to explore and map it all.

[ibfe77 4]

Aylwen, since you were working for Turbine, do you know of any examples of players who have been strolling around outside the map and have been caught right away doing so?

[Aylwen 452]

Aylwen, since you were working for Turbine, do you know of any examples of players who have been strolling around outside the map and have been caught right away doing so?

Not that I can think of, that would have been just pure random chance. Probably 99% of off-map wanderings went unnoticed. But jumping into GV on a reaver or waving down at people from a cliff as they rode by was a good way to be visited by customer service.

[Snowlock 26]

I have some old ones from my Turbine days,

Where the Moors first began: pvmp prototype area

Fixme unassigned mountains

 

 

Fascinating!  Housing in the moors.

[Aylwen 452]

One thing I've always wondered, and that these images reminded me of, is if the engine Lotro is built on could handle flying mounts.

I know it wouldn't make sense from a lore perspective, but the "chasing WoW" mentality would have belive that the lore would be thrown out the window if they could actually do flying mounts.

Do you have any insight in this? Could we be having eagles and fell beast mounts, in theory? Or does the engine not support it?

Just noticed your question. There was some passing talk about using eagles for travel, from point a to b, but the engine really couldn't handle it. Once you go much beyond 100% speed you begin exceeding the ability of the game to load graphics. At 300%, or around the speed of a wow epic flying out, it really starts breaking down: textures load in ultra-low rez or don't render at all, you start getting hitches, and frame rate plummets.

[Chromite 22]

you start getting hitches, and frame rate plummets.

 

So just like normal LOTRO... (Mounted Combat)

[LasraelLarson 113]

One thing I've always wondered, and that these images reminded me of, is if the engine Lotro is built on could handle flying mounts.

I know it wouldn't make sense from a lore perspective, but the "chasing WoW" mentality would have belive that the lore would be thrown out the window if they could actually do flying mounts.

Do you have any insight in this? Could we be having eagles and fell beast mounts, in theory? Or does the engine not support it?

 

Just noticed your question. There was some passing talk about using eagles for travel, from point a to b, but the engine really couldn't handle it. Once you go much beyond 100% speed you begin exceeding the ability of the game to load graphics. At 300%, or around the speed of a wow epic flying out, it really starts breaking down: textures load in ultra-low rez or don't render at all, you start getting hitches, and frame rate plummets.

it would be an utter disaster, making mounted combat seem like fair weather sailing by comparison.

 

am i correct in stating that the engines "Z" axis isn't supported?  hence swimming underneath the water surface is also in the same boat as flying.

 

what the current game has is a psuedo "Z" axis, or the flying effect is faked.  craban, hendroval, the fell beasts... none of those things are actually flying.  but rather just extended on an invisible pole.  another reason why those fell beasts are only shown in flight in cut scenes, rather than anything live action.  i bet creating that illusion was very time consuming.

 

i think the only things that come close to flight in the game are the seagulls in the new Gondor regions around the sea-line (Dol Amroth) & the carrion birds circling Dol Guldur in Mirkwood.  but those are just sprites & interpreted entirely different by the game, and i very much doubt we could ever ride something built on that tech as i don't think it remotely inhabits the world in the same way as other objects do.

 

so yeah speed variants definitely cause the engine & client to take a little shit, repeatedly during use...

 

adding an adjusting "Z" axis absent terrain...  holy fucking SHIT Hurricane game engine, we are talking naquadah level shit explosions.  it would be a crap-spectical, that would make the clay-mation "Hobbits to Isenguard" runs look almost functional.

 

only ever ask for underwater swimming, or flying mounts, if "FULL TROLL MODE" is operating, because there is no way they could make it work with the current systems at the foundation of the client & game engine.

[Dorf 15]

Managed to get inside Carn Dum without entering the instance itself:

 

There were no mobs or bosses in the overworld part of Carn Dum except at the gate:

 

 

In the sewer/dungeons there were mobs but the bosses could not be activated:

 

 

The castle itself could not be accessed.

 

 

We tried to get inside Urugarth but only managed to get under some structure:

[abbazabba 0]

Spotted this place on terrain map plugin but until recently couldn't get there, managed few days ago:

North Downs, Nan Amlug east, on the borders of map, can't get inside camp, walls forbid:

 

About this second picture, did anyone ever ventured there, maybe before when most of the current invisible walls and fix me areas didn't exist:

Above Nen Hilith:

[ibfe77 4]

Spotted this place on terrain map plugin but until recently couldn't get there, managed few days ago:

North Downs, Nan Amlug east, on the borders of map, can't get inside camp, walls forbid:

 

About this second picture, did anyone ever ventured there, maybe before when most of the current invisible walls and fix me areas didn't exist:

Above Nen Hilith:

abbazabba, check out this video:

Lots of cool videos in his account by the way...

Also his page is worth checking out, more great pictures of usually unreachable places. Sadly it's written in russian language:

http://lotro-mindon.ru/content/neizvestnaya-krepost

 

[buir 0]

Great thread. I haven't played regularly in years, but back circa 2007-2009 I spent quite a bit of time going off-map. The rooftops of Bree, the area that would become Forochel, and yes the squirrel-farming hobbit north of the Lone Lands. i loved how off-limits areas would show on the mini-map as "FIX ME: Unassigned".

 

 

[abbazabba 0]

Funny thing Ibfe, i just today found all his vids  His video with hobbit and squirrel is not that old, and he somehow managed to avoid the invisible wall, so makes me wonder how he did it.

[Dakilven 57]

Funny thing Ibfe, i just today found all his vids  His video with hobbit and squirrel is not that old, and he somehow managed to avoid the invisible wall, so makes me wonder how he did it.

Probably did it before the invis wall was added?

[Dorf 15]

Funny thing Ibfe, i just today found all his vids  His video with hobbit and squirrel is not that old, and he somehow managed to avoid the invisible wall, so makes me wonder how he did it.

There is one video of him flying around  Middle Earth:

Edited August 7, 2015 by Dorf

[ibfe77 4]

I expect him to have done this on Bullroarer with that jetpack thing, i have no other explanation for this, unless he is a GM or something.

What really wonders me is the following:

He got out in Ered Luin really far to that Dourhand's Tavern (never seen this before)

http://lotro-mindon.ru/content/taverna-krepkohvatov

But their site doesn't say it's a fix me area, which is a bit strange, but if turbine is sure enough the invisible walls keep players out it may be true, so with the jetpack it could be possible to get there because it seems one can fly over the invisible walls with it.

 

And he also got to the hidden shire village, which is a fix me area, so how has he done this without getting ported away?

This must be an older video, because they also had been to the hidden village south of the lonelands and they wrote that they couldn't get any closer because of the teleporters (used google translate, can't read russian).

 

That jetpack thing would then also be the answer how he got close to the hobbit and squirrel guy...

By the way, anyone here that is still active over on lotrolife in the hobbit&squirrels thread?

[abbazabba 0]

Some of the places i have recently found:

Misty mountains, unexplored territory (according to terrain map plugins, just in between and above small lake are 3 castles, but object/landscape draw distance is at max, so we can't see it because invisible walls prevent further approach:

Imlad Gelair, Rivendell:

Gloin's camp:

North Downs, mountain across Meluinen: