Our players make a lot of cool things.  iPhone apps among them.  Probably the closest you’re going to get to a portable, iPhone version of my.lotro.com is Odd Duck Computing’s LOTROHerald.
You can check server status for all LOTR servers. And I do mean, all – US, EU, Russia, Korea, even China’s beta servers are all available. Making the app useful regardless of which region you happen to play in.
Of course, if you play on US servers LOTROHerald gives you access to virtually everything on my.lotro.com. You can check your Freep characters, Monster characters, even your entire Kinship if you wish.  You can also pull up item details from the lorebook.
Best of all it’s free! If you’ve got an iPhone and you play LOTRO, this is a no brainer.

If you’re currently using the lorebook tooltips on your site, I have a whole new list of useable items and things!

In addition to the tooltips already available (read how to enable them here) you can add the following:

• Tool
• Relic
• Passive_Skill
• Vocation
• Profession
• Landmark
• Race
• Class
• Nationality
• NPC
• Recipe
• Lore
• Fellowship_Maneuver

You can create BB Code and other tags for them on your own forums using the same tutorial in my other entry. Just remember, spelling, capitalization and underscores count! Passive_Skill will work, but Passive skill will not!

Have fun!

We slipped out a new teaser trailer for Book 8 today. There’s a first peek at an instance boss in it.

Being a gadget geek I’m always looking for ways to get the things I want in places they probably weren’t intended to be in ways that are often suspect. After all, I have a gadget! I should be able to do stuff with it!

Some of our very resourceful players seem to have much the same way of thinking.

Windows Gadgets

Digitial_Utopia has created a handy vista gadget that will pull up character info and gear stats from my.lotro.com. It’s a great way to peek into the game while you’re supposed to be doing other less important stuff. Like work or something.

iPhone Apps

Need to check server status on the go? How about check up on your gear or your character’s stats? Bymartin07 has two great iphone apps that can do it! And they’re Free!

Netbook fix

Sometimes you just have to bend technology to your will. Netbooks were never meant to be gaming rigs. Heck their function is right there in the name, Net Surfing, Email, and the like. But where there’s a ‘Net there’s a way and some intrepid LOTRO players, led by Comstrike,  have managed to bend their little atom powered devices into tiny portable servants of LOTRO goodness. Even some Turbine employees are getting in on the act (Guilty!).

Of course your netbook will probably love you more if you used it for something like checking out your Kinship’s roster (after all, who knows how many nosy hobbits your officers invited today?) with Charonthe Hand’s nifty Kinship Roster application you can keep track of all your members.

Boost it!

Gadget geeks share a common gene with car geeks. We both have an irresistible urge to take something that works exactly as intended and make it perform just a little better. Enter, LOTRO Flash Boost!

Check them all out and let their developers know their efforts are appreciated. Maybe they’ll make more!

Patch notes are one of those wonderful, magical things. Line after line of bulleted text that sheds a little light on the changes made in an upcoming Book or Update.  There are various ‘types’ of notes.

For example, later today you’ll get a look at the preliminary patch notes for book 8.  Why preliminary? Because Bullroarer is going live with a version of the game that is not the same as what you’ll see when the final version of Book 8 goes live.  Some of the things you see listed will probably change. Many of the planned changes aren’t in the game yet, some might not ever make it into the game, some are in but are already changed in the next version.

Here’s a great example:

• First age legendary Items are now Bind On Acquire

While technically true, it’s also not true.  Yes, on Bullroarer you’ll find your First Age Legendaries are Bind on Acquire. However, that change was reverted just the other day. Too recent to be added to Bullroarer. So the notes say they’ BoA, but in the live version of Book 8 they won’t be. They’ll still be Bind on Equip.

So when you look over the patch notes later on, be aware that some of the things you read might change and there are likely to be more changes and tweaks before the whole thing is “finished” and brought to the live servers.

Oh, and remember, patch notes don’t include all the new features we’ve tucked away inside the game. It’d be like Santa leaving a list on top of your presents telling what’s in all of them. Where’s the fun in that?

Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give you one little sneak peek.

• All reputation tokens now stack to 100.

Just imagine if we did the same thing to travel rations. Or crafting items. Whoops…..

How to use the onering.js code to create Tooltips on your site.

If you’re comfortable editing your own HTML and/or forum headers then all you need to do is grab the code from this page and drop it into either your forum Skin’s header block or the head section of your page’s HTML.

The following code is everything you need to get started. Make sure you copy everything between the <script> tags.  You don’t need to edit or change anything. You can drop this code into your site as is.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://content.level3.turbine.com/sites/lorebook.lotro.com/js/onering.js”>

</script>

The script works with all of the following entry types:

• Weapon
• Armour
• Item
• Quest
• Deed
• Trait
• Skill
• Perk

It does not currently work with area, tool, region, and several other tags.

Once the JS code is placed on the page, creating the tool tip is simply a matter of placing a supported link in your html somewhere.

Text link: <a href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Weapon:Dagger”>I’m a piece of text</a>

Image link: <a href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Weapon:Dagger”><img src=”http://content.turbine.com/path/to/some/image.png” /></a>

In both cases the script will find the lorebook URL and generate a tooltip when you mouse over either the link text or the image.

If that was all Greek to you, read on and I’ll walk you through adding the script to a forum.

Tooltips in your forums

This example uses VBulletin as its basis however, it will work much the same on any forum software. You’ll just need to find the corresponding header section of your template.
Note for Invision users: Invision’s template system is a bit different. You’ll want to put the code at the top of the header and outside of any other call routines. Otherwise you can end up generating weird things in weird places.

Getting started

Grab the code above (the one with the <script> tags around it) and paste it into notepad or some other text editor.  You want to do this to make sure all any formatting tags are cleaned before pasting it into your site. Nothing says kaboom like stray tags.

• Log into your forum’s admin panel and Click the “Styles & Templates” link on the left side menu(remember, this example assumes you are using Vbulletin).
• In the drop down menu choose, “Style Manager”
• With the style manager open you’ll see all of the styles (skins) your forum is currently using. If you are using more than one skin on your forum you’ll need to repeat this for each one.
  Click the << >> button to open the  style
• The list on the left is all of the scripts that make up your VBulletin skin. Find the ‘header include” and hit edit in the right hand menu.
• The scary thing you are looking at is the code that calls all of the includes for your forums. Mess it up and your forums will break. So we won’t mess it up, right?
• Scroll all the way to the bottom of the code.  There should be a </if> at the very end. (See image)
• Copy the code out of notepad and paste it into the admin window just after the last </if>. You should place it on a new line.
• Once the code is pasted in just hit SAVE at the bottom of the editing area.

You’re done. The code will now take any link it sees to the lorebook and try to parse it. If it finds a hit you’ll get a tooltip; If it doesn’t you’ll get a ‘not found’ box.

Getting Fancy

If you want to get fancy and provide your forum members with an easy way to generate tooltips you can create custom BB code as follows.

Again, all forums use similar BB code creation methods, but this example uses the VBulletin editor. The result will be the same regardless of the forum you use.

Because the onering.js code takes a URL and parses it to find a tool tip this requires the person posting an item to have gone to the lorebook, looked up the item, and then come back to your forums and paste the link into their post. What if all they had to know was the name of the item or weapon? BB Code can help you out.

Creating a custom BB code tag will make it possible for a poster to use a tag, like [b][/b[ to create bold text, instead of having to look up the entire URL first.  So they could use [item]Coal[/item] instead and still see the tool tip. The BB code generates the URL for them.

Adding a Custom BB Code Tag to your Forum
Go to your VBulletin admin panel and choose, “Custom BB Codes” from the left hand menu. Then choose, “Add new BB Code”.

Refer to this image to create an [item] tag. All other tags will use the exact same format so just replace ‘item’ with ‘weapon’ or whichever tag you’re creating.

You can create a tag for each type of supported entry; item, weapon, armour, quest, deed, trait, skill, perk.

Copy the codes below and use them to save time (and typos).  Just drop the correct code into the “replacement” section for the tag you’re creating. Keep in mind; capitalization counts!

• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Item:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Weapon:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Armour:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Quest:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Deed:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Trait:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Skill:{param}”>{param}</A>
• <A href=”http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Perk:{param}”>{param}</A>

Make sure you name your tags something useful. No one is going to guess that ‘[stuff]‘ is your item tag or that [gear] means armour.  Stick to naming the tags the same as their Lorebook entry type. That will help your users figure it out.

Some tips on using the BB Codes.

Spaces before and after the item name will break the code.

• Right: [item]Coal[/item]
• Wrong: [item] Coal [/item]

You must enter the name of the item correctly.

• [armour]Doom-hunter’s Breastplate[/armour] is the correct entry and works correctly
• [armour]Doom-Hunter’s Breastplate[/armour] will generate the tooltip but not a valid link to the lorebook.
• [armour]Doom hunter’s Breastplate[/armour] will not generate a tooltip or a valid link

As a general rule if you are typing the item name exactly as it appears in-game, you’re probably good to go!

If you have any questions or are running into issue, please feel free to drop me a PM!

Update: Make sure you check the comments below to find out how others are using this code, or tips for using it with Invision Power Board. Also, check out ScrappyTheGreat’s tips for making this work with Guildportal sites.

Update to the Update: As some have pointed out below the quotes in all the example above have been converted to ‘curly quotes’ by my.lotro.com. You will have to replace them with ‘normal’ quotes (pasting into notepad doesn’t do this) before using the example. If you don’t, things will be…..bad.

It’s the Final Showdown, baby! Our fans have carried Turbine to the finals in The Escapist Magazine’s March Mayhem. We’re head to head against Bioware and they’re bringing their A game. It’s time for one last rally as we shoot to bring home the hardware! Let’s put it away! You’ll need to be registered to vote.

See? I got through that without one reference to Europe’s The Final Countdown! (oops)

Ok guys, you asked us to rally the troops for this one here we go.

Field of Four Voting for a spot in the finals! Nintendo is a worthy opponent but even the power of the plumber is no match for our mighty fans! Bring the noise!

The voting has begun!

This one’s not going to be easy. Betheda is already pulling ahead and there are some angry fans of our vanquished foes lining up to vote against us.  We know we have the best fans in the world we just want everyone else to know it too!

Head over the The Escapist and cast your vote. You’ll need to register first, though.