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Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

Just thought I'd give you a heads up (Really looking forward to a hi-res map... LotRO can't even USE more than half my ram.)

Details can be found here.
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Book_13_Official

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:52 pm

Well, that's bad timing unfortunately. I'm in the middle of the 2.2x beta cycle for CMUD right now, and will be gone a week in May for a graduation, so I'm not going to be able to update the LOTRO map as quickly as I'd like.

I also need to get LOTRO working on this new Vista computer since the one that I did the old map on died in February and I haven't reinstalled the game since then.

Anyway, hopefully I'll get time to do the new map at the end of May. Sorry I couldn't do something sooner.

Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:18 pm

Good to hear. I really lost interest when they slipped their update schedule. Originally they were supposed to add a new area in October and when that didn't happen, I started to worry about them. I know LoTRO wasn't the huge success they were hoping for, and I worried that it was causing them to rethink their plans. Waiting and releasing new areas in paid expansions is unfortunate, but not unexpected. We'll just have to wait and see if they make their release schedule.

But given that the sales of zExplorer has been *very poor* (nobody want to pay for mapping software anymore when you can find free maps online), I'm going to have to rethink whether or not I'll be buying the expansions and updating the map or not. I was also hoping that LoTRO was going to be more popular than it turned out and that more people would be interested in zExplorer.

Novice Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Colorado

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:20 am

Sorry, but there was no way to include the real time tracking in this product. That would require constant hacking of each new LotRO client, like I did with AC, and that is now a violation of the EULA from Turbine. The closest thing I could do is a "copy/paste tracker" where zExplorer monitors the clipboard for coordinates, which is still on the wish list for a future version if I do any other updates.

Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

Any news on an update to the LotRO map?

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:22 pm

Hopefully sometime this month, but it depends upon whether the latest CMUD public version needs any more quick updates.

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:04 pm

Bad news I'm afraid. I have updated my LOTRO client and taken a peek into the data files. While I can see the terrain changes that were made for Forochel, I cannot find any of the radar images that the zExplorer map is based upon. It looks like Turbine has once again changed how they are doing things and have hidden the data in some new place that I haven't been able to find.

If someone has any links to any sites that have information on the LOTRO file formats and any changes made by the latest expansion, please post them. Otherwise I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to support LOTRO expansions anymore. In fact, given the history of Turbine with 3rd party apps like zExplorer, I'm seriously considering cancelling my LOTRO subscription and never touching any other Turbine products in the future.

Everything was fine back when Microsoft was in charge of Asheron's Call. Ever since Microsoft sold it back to Turbine and Turbine has been in charge, they just don't seem to understand how important it is to work nicely with 3rd parties to build a good community for their game. Gee, maybe that's why there games have not been the huge hits that they could have been. Take a look at the difference in how Blizzard treats their 3rd party community and you'll see the obvious difference.

Anyway, sorry for my rant, but I'm pretty disgusted with them right now. I apologize to all of the zExplorer customers who are affected by this.

Edited: And honestly, with all of the web-based maps and the Turbine LoreBook and other sites that access the LOTRO maps via the Google Maps API, there isn't much need for something like zExplorer for LOTRO anymore anyway. But if someone has a way for me to extract the official maps from their Google map API, let me know.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:16 pm

What I meant by this was that at least Blizzard supports an API for their game. Nobody else in the MMORPG market comes close to the 3rd party MOD support that Blizzard allows. Yes, it's always a struggle against those people who want to cheat in various ways. I saw a lot of this with Asheron's Call. So it's a fine line to walk. But at least Blizzard tries to walk it and supports MODs for WoW. No other MMO game has such an extensive scripting API.

MUDs are different. MUDs tend to allow a *lot* more scripting and botting than any MMO. So I wasn't comparing with zMUD or Muds. I was comparing WoW with it's other competitors, such as LOTRO, AoC, EQ2, Vanguard, SWG, GuildWars, etc, etc. I couldn't play WoW without MODs and I know that it is tough for them to maintain their API through their updates. It's hard enough making sure that your own code works with a new update, but I know for a fact that Blizzard actually worries about API issues for each update too.

Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

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