LOTRO: Standing Stone Games Test UI Scaling
Today Standing Stone Games began beta testing Update 46.1 for the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. The current preview on the Bullroarer test server is mainly for the new instance cluster that comes with the Kingdoms of Harad expansion which launched a few weeks ago. However, it would appear that this latest preview has another feature or note. One that should please LOTRO players. Contrary to what a lot of people thought, myself included, SSG have been working on a scaling UI for 2K and 4K monitors and the results are now available for testing from today Monday 15th through to Friday 19th December. Until now the main workaround to the lack of UI scaling has been to use either Nvidia or AMD graphics software to upscale the game from 1920 x 1080, or a third party app such as LosslessScaling. Having an official solution is a far better option.
I logged into the LOTRO test server earlier this evening and had a look at this new scaling UI functionality and feel overall that it is a massive improvement. There is a main UI slider that increases all onscreen elements proportionally. There is also the option of changing the size of specific elements, such as in-game bags, item tooltips or onscreen alerts. At present this is a work in progress so there are some minor issues with icons looking a little low definition or tearing. Also the mouse arrow is not scalable at present, which is a nuisance. However, this ongoing project by SSG has other benefits. Loading screen graphics are no longer stretched, nor are the older in-game maps. Perhaps in the long run, these will all be replaced with higher resolution versions but in the meantime, having these images in the right aspect ratio is a step in the right direction.
Already there is a lively discussion on the official LOTRO forums about these changes on the test server. Furthermore, SSG is endeavouring to take on board the respective feedback. I suspect that not every suggestion will be implemented or can be but I certainly think that the end results, once they go live, will be infinitely better than what we have at present. LOTRO is an ageing game, so dissecting and tinkering with such ancient code is problematic. Hence it is laudable that SSG has started to tackle this issue. The fact that this work has been carried out quietly in the background when many LOTRO players felt that this project has stalled, is most promising. Perhaps other “quality of life” changes are also being addressed behind the scenes and will be rolled out in a similarly unexpected fashion over 2026. All of which has the potential to bring players back to the game and extend LOTRO’s lifecycle.
Roger Edwards