So I’ve come out the other side of Moria with my level 58 Loremaster. I want to hit 60 in Lorien, so I’ve been working on getting access to the inner city.
The quests have me do things like pick flowers, meditating, and singing to saplings. When I last had to pick grapes in a vinyard 50 levels ago, I actually thought it was pretty cool. Goblins had infested the vinyard in Ered Luin, and it was quite fun to fight my way in so that I could get some grapes. Now, I’m asked to collect grapes from a vinyard a few feet away with no enemies in sight. This quest is orange to me. No danger at all. Talk about a snooze fest!
Come’on Turbine. Really? Is that really all you could think of?
It’s sad because the epic quest line seems really cool. The fellowship is all familiar with me and happy to see me. I really feel like a legendary hero, and almost like one of the fellowship when Frodo exclaims, “Suzina! Sam and I didn’t expect to see you again so soon!”
How much of a hero do you think I feel like when the elves tell me they need me to help make Frodo’s dinner. I feel like a loser. Even the npcs can’t be bothered to do something so boring as lighting the street lights, so they assign me to do it.
Why did they not just have 20 different elves say, “Let me tell you a story of one of the many battles in Lorien’s history” and then give me an instanced version of Lorien with something cooler and more interest going on? They did it with the “They can not get out” instance in Moria, so they should have done it in Lorien. It certainly would have made a lot more sense than picking daisys all day.
That have-the-NPC-tell-you-a-story-idea is pretty cool, I’d love to see more of that.
I remember the tutorial for one of those hack ‘n’ slash LotR XBox games was set in the past, you were controlling like Isildur or someone during the great battle with Sauron where they cut the ring off his hand.
Shats all over picking grapes ^^
So we look at Book 7 and ask, “And you’re announcing your plans to sell us a new expansion pack, based on the quality, quantity, and stability of content you have been offering?”
seriously, go back into Moria and get to 60 there. Lorien will sap your will to play the game as elves sap my desire to help them by singing to trees and picking arrows off dead orcs. I don’t even get to KILL the orcs (ok, there are some kill orc quests, but that’s it), even the Battle for LOrien battlefield instance isn’t that hot.
A new 57+ zone filled with quests that feel like newbie quests seems like a major misstep to me. Having the option to do the last few levels by picking grapes and meditating rather than fighting things in the mines is an interesting idea, but all in all I’d call it an experiment that doesn’t work very well.
Since I ran out of steam in LotRO before I ht 40, I won’t be experiencing this change of direction myself, but it sounds like a good idea to me.
Even after ten years of MMOs and twenty years of tabletop and offline RPGs before that, the one part I could do without is the endless combat. Fighting things, generally, is just a bit dull; a battle for an objective is one thing, but having to kill kill kill just to increase the power of your character can become a real chore, and dressing it up with meaningless questing just makes it seem more contrived.
It’s the non-combat parts of MMOs that really still keep me playing. Unfortunately, no matter how much non-combat gameplay any MMO includes, and some have plenty, in the end it’s always killing things that raises your character level and gives you access to more content. Picking flowers might not be the most imaginative implementation of non-combat related character progression, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.