Author: Ravious

Lord of the Rings Online legendary item system has always rubbed me the wrong way.  In most other MMOs, with work and people, I can plan out my character to the pixel.  Then it becomes a budgeting process where I evaluate the estimated time per milestone accomplishment whereupon I reorder said milestones to constantly feed me some measure of accomplishment.  Afterall, I am hardcore. 

Give me a break, I am not that hardcore.  I play for fun and as a hobby.  If I went cold turkey on MMOs, I would be sad that I was not having fun with my hobby, but I don’t play MMOs to fill some netherling void in my life.  Still, I do like some constant drip of achievement that does not seem to cohesively exist in the legendary item system. Continue reading Splitting LIs

I have been going through stages of my feelings for Lord of the Rings Online’s skirmish system.  First, I thought it could completely redefine my MMO game time.  After playing them and playing them, I experienced a burnout that I thought would not come from the fun little bites of play.  Finally, I think I have found a good middle ground.  Zubon is right, in part.  Onion Headline Syndrome can definitely be experienced by attributing skirmishes to what they are not.  They are not the game.  Continue reading Skirmish Density

Unscientifically, Lord of the Rings Online takes the longest to load on my system of any MMO.  It seems I am not alone.  One big problem is the fragmentation of the internal file system.  Turbine just released a beta internal defragger for Lord of the Rings Online.  Read all the warnings and problems to be safe, but apart from using SSD or a large USB drive to load the MMO, this should help speed things up.

–Ravious

Perhaps the biggest change to come in Lord of the Rings Online Volume 3, Book 1 update will be that skirmishes can now be done with a 2-person party. It was the podcast by Casual Stroll to Mordor where the devs talk about the “need” for this and how they went about it. (I also learned a new meme, like how my mom just learned about the Google.)

The most interesting statistic was that 40% of players doing the 3-man skirmishes were using only 2/3 of their fellowship slots.  This gave the devs the oompf they needed to get their turbines in gear.  The way they made the extremely fine point between solo and 3-man was to use the 3-man mobs and apply a reverse Tier debuff to the 3-man mobs.  So 2-man skirmishes are basically a 3-man minus a Tier of difficulty to the mobstats.  Then the 2-man skirmish will use the solo mechanics instead of the 3-man mechanics such as how counterattacks or waves will work.

I want to posit that this will have good, unintended consequences because it further lowers the activation energy to group.  Players can nearly always find one person.  So there is a group for skirmishes right there.  Add another person, and you have a three-man.  This sequence of grouping is simply going to be smoother than the need to find two other people at the outset.  If I had to bet, I would say that 3-man skirmish play will increase and solo skirmish will actually decrease due to the advent of the 2-man skirmish.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled rants on Legendary Items where it is apparent that Turbine never listens to us.

–Ravious
down by the schoolyard

I got through Volume 2, Book 9 pretty quickly in Lord of the Rings Online Siege of Mirkwood.  Getting through the epic books is one of my favorite goals to set, and when a new Book drops, it is one of the first I usually attack.  Book 9 used the new gameplay type Skirmishes instead of the usual static 3 or 6-man quests.  This created a choice, where none really existed before.  A person could get through the Skirmish portions quickly by going at it alone, or they could choose to group up.  Except for one Skirmish Book quest, I went at it alone and regretted it. Continue reading Risk vs. Story