Lord of the Rings Online Forum

Several issues that I would love to get some help on.

I used the Crosstie and pointed it at the current download at the main LOTRO site. In an attempt to remedy what I describe below, I did add in DX9 Modern, but to no avail.

Firstly, every launch of the launcher (say that 5x fast), I have to accept 4 eulas and it appears to be reinstalling Akamai. Is this actually normal?

Second, and the absolute dealbreaker here, is that when I log in and select my realm, nothing good happens. The window minimizes, screws my resolution up, and if I bring it into focus (cant use mous as thats non responsive) it just sits. Left it there for 4hrs, no improvement/change. This is like that on two machines, one laptop with Bumblebee (tried both Intel and NVIDIA) and then my tower running on just NVIDIA.

SELinux, NVIDIA, etc are all in good shape. Any ideas on where to go?

I used the Crosstie and pointed it at the current download at the main LOTRO site. In an attempt to remedy what I describe below, I did add in DX9 Modern, but to no avail.

Firstly, every launch of the launcher (say that 5x fast), I have to accept 4 eulas and it appears to be reinstalling Akamai. Is this actually normal?

Yes. Turbine and now SSG use the Akamai Content Delivery Network (CDN) to provide the game download. The program "Akamai Net Session" is used during the download process and then lis unused.
There are two EULAs which are used by SSG (Actually one for the Publisher - Daybreak Games, and one for SSG. The other two are related to Akamai.
The reason they keep re-appearing is because the fact that you have viewed them is not being saved.
The Launcher is actualy an authentication mechanism (an Authenticator). It validates your credentials with the SSG Authenticatino servers and then passes a token along tothe actual game client.

Second, and the absolute dealbreaker here, is that when I log in and select my realm, nothing good happens. The window minimizes, screws my resolution up, and if I bring it into focus (cant use mous as thats non responsive) it just sits. Left it there for 4hrs, no improvement/change. This is like that on two machines, one laptop with Bumblebee (tried both Intel and NVIDIA) and then my tower running on just NVIDIA.

At this point the Launcher has (theoretically) successfullly verified your login information and acquired your login token (when you clicked the Login buttion in the Launcher). When you select your world to join, the laucher consults its list of world server IP addresses and launches the Game client with the Login Token and that address.
At that point you should get a fullscreen BLACK screen for about 10 seconds, followed by the first splash screen. That file is found in (If I remember the translation from Mac to Linux) <language>/splash_screen_en.bmp - This screen contains all of the Copyright info.
That screen will display for 5-10 seconds before fading to black and returning with the annotations at the bottom - about contacting servers and transferring information. It then fades to black again to be replaced by the Standing Stone Games logo on a grey screen.
At this point you get your first sound -- a wosh as the logo swoops upright. The activities of the Launcher are all completely quiet.

One thing which you can try. When you launch the launcher use the pull-down - a little down arrow in the upper right adjacent to the language selection button. Select Options
Select the Repair tab and check the "Reset the game display settings" click "OK"
Click Restore Defaults.
If I remember corrrectly, the launcher will then re-launch itself and you can then continue with your login.

In general, the black screen is a graphics issue. Usually related to the fact that LOTRO uses DX9 and that DX10 and DX11 do not include the DX9 code.