City of Heroes used to have the Isolator badge restricted to players who for some reason farmed 100 enemies in the tutorial. No point, no benefit except this, and nothing indicates its existence. You just need to know in advance that it is there and put in the time for it during the most boring part of the game. That is like design decisions duct taped together. That was compounded in Issue 7 with a change seemingly designed solely to taunt the players: one of those enemies would spawn every 45 minutes in the highest level PvP zone. Issue 11 added a mission that let players farm it post-tutorial, and the City of Villains equivalent was always available later via a mission on the tutorial map.

LotRO has “The Undying,” a title track for not dying until level 5/10/14/17/20. If you want to pursue that link, you can see some related unhappiness. Recommendations for getting the title were usually to solo (no PUG risk) and NOT to take the easiest content; you were in a race against the inevitable lag/bug/crash that would kill you, so you needed to get experience at a sane rate rather than trying to farm the weakest enemies. MMO designs that discourage soloing and trying challenging content are not good. The Guild Wars equivalent was even worse (earn more than 1,000,000xp with no deaths, go!), and it was mutually exclusive with another title. That changed in a 2011 update that made Survivor for earning X xp since your last death rather than without ever dying. This helped many slightly unbalanced people avoid going entirely off the deep end.

Feel free to toss in your favorite from other MMOs.

: Zubon

Closed Doors is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I’ve been almost forcing myself to keep playing Lord of the Rings Online because it is still the one game I feel “connected” to. Regardless, as I play less and less, I get more and more lost. I will often log in, pay for my house upkeep, see if anyone I know is playing, and log out.

To make things worse, they reset my Legendary Items again. I get tired of trying to decide if I want 1% more of this or 1% less of that. This time I just dumped it all into DPS until I had capped the weapons. The next issue was to find out where I “should” be in Moria. Honestly Moria has been wearing me down over the last few months. I ended up going back outside to do a bunch of quests well below my level, just to be outside.

I did some research out of game and decided to head to “The Rotting Cellar” in the Waterworks. All of a sudden it all came back to me. The spark was lit. Quests! Direction! Level 55! I keep thinking about how much I love the freedom to just choose to do whatever you want in games, but I frequently need to get reminded that sometimes I really need that carrot to get me back on track.

- Ethic

Sometimes I Need That Carrot is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I am really digging the really different quest hub designs in Enedwaith. Sure, the chore hub of Maur Tulhau was the low point, but I agree with Vantec that, for at least this hub, chore quests are working as intended.  Echad Dagoras is the first quest hub that branches outward as saved Rangers phase in to the quest hub, while the tribal town of Lhaunuch compresses inward to a culmination of the quest hub in a well-written showdown between the tribesman and Isengard with me as the unbalancer.

My favorite place was the sub-zone of the Mournshaws. It was an overbearing forest at night, but during the day it was relaxed. The dichotomy was pretty well designed. There is no central hub per se, but the Wild Hunt quest chain to seek out the Elder Spirit was pretty good. Turbine has some really good lore expansions sometimes. I quite enjoyed the otherworldliness of the Gloomglens followed with spirit world offerings of the Mournshaws.

I climbed up Nar’s Peak once. It has a mustering horn and a milestone at the top of the trail. I was there to finish Book 2, and wouldn’t you know it but the Ranger Corunir is there ready to start Book 4! Wait, I would have to re-climb this 5 minute winding path to this desolate poor excuse for a quest hub two books from now? That didn’t seem fun. So I bought my first extra milestone waypoint skill. Until I start Book 4, it will be forever linked to Nar’s Peak. Seriously, I think I would rather log and wait an hour than weave my way through elite wurms and up the winding climb.

This got me thinking about LOTRO’s business model. I just dropped about $3.5o worth of points (considerably less if points bought on sale) so that once in awhile I wouldn’t have to spend 5 minutes on the climb up Nar’s Peak. Eventually I think most players will want to buy one or two more milestone skills, and honestly it feels like a pretty good purchase. Buying it definitely gave me a significant benefit, and I think Turbine is more than fair in most of their store offerings. Getting by on $10-15/month especially if the savvy stick to Turbine Point sales seems ridiculously easy in comparison to many other F2P games.

Sure, I just bought “power” in the sense of time, but I am still not thinking that I have seen anything “unfair.” There is a difference between “feeling” the need for an item, and actually “needing” it. Since I have come back to LOTRO with the embedded cash shop I am having a hard time seeing any objective wrong. Perhaps if I hadn’t saved up 8,000 Turbine Points I would have a different outlook. For the most part it feels like I would spend less money on LOTRO than on the normal subscription game, and unlike the normal subscription game, the moment I do choose to spend some money on a cash shop item, I get something cool. That’s a pretty neat feeling.

–Ravious

[LOTRO] Enedwaith Half Time is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Because, hey, free stuff

[LotRO] Free Samples! is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The Tier 3 versions appear to be on-level somewhere in the level 20-30 range. This isn’t low level armor, this is super low level armor. I tend to think that anything below 50 is definitively “low level” so Tier 3 versions won’t even last players through all the low-levels. So this offering is clearly not “pay to win.” It’s barely “pay to accelerate through much-needed leveling.”

What I am disappointed in is how Turbine handled it. First, they went back on their word. They are allowed to do that, but if they want to seem “not shady” then they should have preemptively issued a statement as to why. Some statement even just repeating what Sapience said above would at least show they weren’t going to slide this in without acknowledging they were crossing a line they had made.

Second, kudos to Sapience for issuing a response fairly quickly to the forum thread, but the logic seems a bit askew still. If there is an issue of not having decent leveling gear, which would be why many players would be looking for lower-level gear at the auction house, why wouldn’t Turbine considering ensuring that quest rewards filled that hole? Instead, it appears the answer is for players to pay a couple bucks. In the past, Turbine has added things like the Tasks Bulletin Board to help with leveling issues, and similar systems could be put in place for gear leveling issues. (As an aside, I would love for a legacy gear system in LOTRO.)

It seems like such a silly thing for them to harm consumer confidence for, which makes me believe it is a kind of dip test to see how customers react. Heck, I’ve had times where I wished I could spend some TP on gear. But, if Turbine crossed that line (which they did), I would want to understand where they would be going. I don’t believe Turbine is ever going to make LOTRO “pay to win,” but with them selling gear what are their new thoughts on “pay to be more comfortable.”

–Ravious

[LOTRO] New In-Store Armors is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I have just completed perhaps a third to a half of Enedwaith coming from the North downward as I haphazardly follow the Book quests. I must say that I am really enjoying the design of this zone. It feels like a refreshing return. There is the old comfortable with a bit of new flash. It is actually getting me pretty excited to hit Dunland, the next zone.

The story of Enedwaith is one of flux. Rangers in the Grey Company are traveling southward trying to ensure a safe route through tribal lands. The tribes are dealing with enemies and allies of the Grey Company, Saruman the White, and other tribes themselves. And, so far, the Enemy seems to have less of a stabilized power base than the half-orc companies in Eregion to the North. The theme of this zone is really well done, at least in the northern half of the zone. I will have to see if it changes as I hit the main town and a possible dwarven area.

In the Foridrith sub-zone at the far North end of Enedwaith, Turbine used some great phasing of NPCs. As I went out and saved Rangers, the would appear at the quest hub (Echad Dagoras) with more quests. By the time I had completed the hub I had saved 4-5 Rangers. It was really nice to see this effect. At the same time though I felt like Robin saving the Justice League. The Rangers are men of serious stature compared to me, and as good as the storytelling was, the system mechanics seemed tell a different story. I was the lackey, perhaps, to come slightly save the day.

For instance, one Ranger was harried by some evil wolves in the quest A Timely Rescue. Amarion sat on a boulder until I came along to free him from the dark wolves. I did so and we even killed a named black wolf. Then he sends me, from the safety of the camp, to go back to the Black Dens to kill another named wolf he failed to kill. From a story standpoint, this is great, and then I look at his mechanical legendary stature and double my hit points.

Anyway, the Black Dens themselves are a triumph in MMO design. Whoever designed them seriously took some of the blandish colors often found in vanilla MMOs, and turned it into a masterpiece. The Black Dens are a series of corridors, not unlike Pacman as far as branching is concerned. Also like Pacman, there are super elite shadow wolves that walk in a mostly counterclockwise direction. Players get a small warning of dread before the shadow wolf gets into attack range because it is really hard in the cramped corridor to see very far. Death, or at least a run with a frantic mashing of escape buttons, are imminent if a super elite shadow wolf sets upon a player. This was really exciting and tense.

I’ve already noted the lost hobbit colony, which is a nice joke piece set in the zone, and I am just beginning the dark Mournshaws before I head to the central settlement of Nan Laeglin. The Mournshaws are reminiscent of the eery forest of Mirkwood, but it feels like its own little subzone. Turbine seems to do really well with environmental design. Each subzone has a definitive feeling that really emphasizes the subzone’s theme.

I plan on taking my time as I head towards the shinier Dunland region, but for right now it feels pretty good to be back in the game.

–Ravious

[LOTRO] Go Your Own Enedwaith is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Turbine devs doing this kind of reminds me what Viktor Taransky (Pacino) did to his digitally created star in the movie Simone. I expect to be cleaning horse stalls in Rohan as part of mounted combat pre-training.*

–Ravious

*mounted combat not confirmed, as far as I know.

[LOTRO] Sensible Folk is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

My return was horrible to be frank. When I logged back in I was beset on all sides by system mailings, announcements of new achievements I had somehow started, resets to all my legendary weapons, and a new trait / stat regime. It was bad enough that I was in the middle of a book, with tons of other quests already started, in the beginning of a region I didn’t remember while staring at a virtual cockpit of skills. Like a strange, albino gangle creature emerging into sunlight, I just blindly stumbled around for awhile until I found something to kill. It took me way too long to kill the enemy (as I, in the madness of things, had forgotten to up my legendary weapon’s DPS because it had been reset), and frustrated I logged off.

All I wanted was to start playing. Was that so much to ask? I didn’t want to think about all the chores I had to do. I would get to that. There was no easing back in to things. It was a sheer cliff wall of activation energy facing me.

Thankfully my current guild leader, a close friend in real life, offered to “fix” all my traits, legendary items, etc. so that I could get to bashing things quick. He was more than familiar with the captain class, and he offered me a drop or two of advice. Then it was done. It felt like he had swept away all the bad energy and gotten me quickly back into playing. It was nice. I had a great time in northern Enedwaith after that. I am looking forward to the many adventures to come.

This problem of getting fun-destroying information overload when finally returning to a game seems endemic to MMOs. With a subscription-based MMO at least the player has the monetary resolve of pushing back through the learning curve (with new twists) since the fee has already been paid. The same goes for expansions of any MMO and the energy that surrounds them. In a straight-up flat-fee or F2P MMO there is less motivational energy coming from the wallet. The motivation comes from community and fun. Given that I had been long-time-gone from the community, all to be gained at the moment of re-entry was fun. I had no fun until glorious guild leader “fixed” the wrongs.

I would love to have access to some heuristics and see what the statistics are on re-entry burnout. I know I have experienced re-entry burnout plenty, but usually it is because I become awash in all the negative things that made me leave in the first place. LOTRO and Rift both had this burnout, and Rift even had the wallet energy going for it. Feeling the grind upon re-entry speaks pretty bad for the MMO. It takes longer for those wounds to heal. This is honestly the first time I nearly burned out from information overflow destroying fun, and it makes me wonder how common it is. Perhaps most of the developers bank on returns occurring around moments they control, and I was merely a statistical flier.

The crux of this is the standing question how much time is expected to be used doing non-fun things upon re-entry in order to do fun things. Is it a give in for our MMO genre that work is simply part of how things go. Players “work” to get “fun” and this is no different. Thoughts and condolences are welcome.

–Ravious

[LOTRO] A Tale of Re-Entry is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

2012 Predictions is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Kill Ten Rats quest is a post from: Kill Ten Rats