Category: Lord of the Rings Online

While the Sixteenth Hall may be the last Moria instance that I reached, it is the central one in their story. It is the lengthy but straightforward, and its three parts lead you through the instance progression. (This is fairly spoiler-ish, so I’ll insert a break now. RSS readers: note.) Continue reading 16th Fulcrum

I had a chance to talk with Jeffrey Steefel, the executive producer for Lord of the Rings Online, and I decided that it would be great to discuss some of the lore aspects of the MMO.  Since I had recently completed most of the Mines of Moria quests, I figured talking about the lore of the black pit would be a good way to go.

Continue reading Interview with Turbine’s Jeffrey Steefel

The rental goats in Moria are absurd. Not their appearance, not how they get drunk and stuck on things: their use of mechanics is nonsensical. This is a standard thing in games: you get used to a mechanic in one case, then still accept it even when the context that made it coherent is gone.

In this case, the mechanic is “you cannot be attacked on rental mounts.” This makes sense as gameplay: that would suck, especially as you have no control at that point. In the early days of Dark Age of Camelot, there were horse routes that would kill people, because they took hills very sharply, and you were not flagged as immune to falling damage. Yeah. Anyway, throughout Shadows of Angmarâ„¢, you use the rental horses along roads. There are few to no enemies on the roads, and you can buy blowing by the occasional orc or bear on your Fast Horse. There are a few horse routes through dangerous areas, but they all use the fast travel mechanic: you teleport from one stable to the next, not seeing the monsters you must have dodged along the way. Immersion is preserved!

All that goes out the window in Moria. Except that Moria lacks windows. The goats ride directly through large camps of monsters, who ignore you because … because you’re on a goat. Right, orcs fear goats, or goats and their cargo are invisible to bats’ sonar, or…

You are standing there in Moria, starting a risky solo fight, and a rental goat silently zooms in and runs you over. It looks like some double-stacked warg rider just added to your fight, so panic! panic! Wait, no, it is another goat that somehow is immune to everything. But if you ride your own, identical goat, they are all over you.

Can I buy one of those invisible, invulnerable goats? How do they tell them apart?

: Zubon

I seem to be getting a lot of money in Lord of the Rings Online lately.  I think it is mostly that I have few things to spend it on, and between slayer deeds, black dye profiteering, and hard mode runs, I am racking it in more than ever.  Which leads me to the ultimate buyable (not auctionable) item in Moria… the Nimble Redhorn-Goat.

This caprine pile of fur and pockets weighs in at a decent 6 gold and some change.  For many players this is a drop in the bucket.  For casual players, like me, this will take most everything.  But, this is not the issue because the money will come back and the elves in Lothlorien abhor cash in order to use twig and berries to barter.

The problem is I can’t use my horse in Moria (decrees Tolkien), but I can use a goat in Moria and under the sky.  If it were merely an unlockable skill, which Zubon discussed earlier, there would be no discussion.  But, with a bag full of status potions, legendary items, traveling rations, maps, hope tokens, and random crafting materials, it feels like it is a decision.

I suppose I have plenty of options.  Hoof it (colloquially) in Moria and use my horse elsewhere.  Hoof it (literally) in Moria and carry my horse too.  Stuff one of the hoofers into the bank vault.  Retire my dapple gray.  Etc.

The big things against buying a goat is that the travel system in Moria is very good and the mobs are packed tightly in the narrow stone halls.  Buying the beast feels a little superfluous.  Sure, it might be nice to dodge past fungus-filled trolls or cross the 300 m back to the quest hub, but I have gotten so used to 35-45 silver rides where I high five a warg-rider on my way to the depths that the control might shake things up a little too much.  Plus, goat eyes were not meant for this world.

–Ravious
seventeen dollars and a good watch

I’ve been in Moria for too long.  Far too long.  I forgot that the light shifted from night to day.  When I ported back to Bree it was raining, and I wanted to run inside the nearest hole until the foreign precipitation stopped.

Moria is beautiful and expertly crafted, but I subconsciously missed the real world landscapes and skies.  Scientists should be doing psychological studies on the affect of environments on player depression and guild drama rather than doing heuristics on terabytes of numbers.

I think Lorien is going to breath fresh air into everyone’s psyches… those of us that aren’t coal miners.

–Ravious
no coolness in me at all

Yesterday was all about DPS, but Hunters have a secondary function in crowd control. They are a tertiary CC class, but let us look at the toolbox anyway. Hunters have the best rooting options around. They have decent fear, several slows, and minimal mez. Their abilities also require extra planning, setup, communication, or expense.

Rain of Thorns is hard to beat. There is not a lot of area effect crowd control available, and Rain of Thorns is an instant-cast, 30-second AE root at maximum range. It does, however, require a legendary trait and six focus. Continue reading Hunters as Crowd Control

The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Volume Two, Book Seven patch is on test. There is much to discuss, and my heart goes out to Captains, but right now I want to talk about Hunters. Because my main character is a Hunter, and everything is about me me me.

Ranged DPS classes are hard to balance. Turbine has it easier because there is no ranged AE class, but consider the problem. High DPS and long range are both things that get your defenses cut, so the plan is to burn something down before it gets to you. Once it gets to you, your primary defense is a robe, and nothing slows your casting times like being smacked in the face. The ranged DPS class fares relatively poorly against ambushes and unexpected respawns. Your primary defense is to kill it before it can kill you, ideally before it can hit you.

Based on that threshold value, “kill it before it gets to you,” a ranged DPS class is a god or a weakling. Continue reading DPS Balance

I have commented several times that, if you want to fill your deed log, The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ expects you to run each instance six times. You can tell this by comparing the deed amounts to the number of enemies in the instance.

This is reasonable given that you have a team of six, with one drop at the end. If your team runs one of the hard mode instances six times, everyone has the radiance piece. Surprise, you also get the associated slayer deed. It is a reason to stick around and help others, although it does mean you are committing a solid day of your life to some instances.

This is less reasonable for the three-person instances, but old habits die hard, and they are pretty quick anyway.

: Zubon

I have been starting the end game for Lord of the Rings Online Mines of Moria expansion.  There are six dungeons in Moria.  I have not been in every dungeon, but each dungeon seems to be a full dungeon having hours of content.  The ones I have experienced so far each have had an excellent story vignette, and they are beautifully crafted.

However, I don’t know if I will ever get to play the full experience of each dungeon.. or just one.  Each dungeon has a hard mode.  The best way to describe it is hard mode requires a trick, which usually requires two things.  The first thing is players must usually ignore a lot of the dungeon’s content in order to accomplish hardmode.  The second thing is players must employ some sort tactic that is not usually required.

When hard mode is beat players get a one-in-six chance to get the absolute best armor in the game -  radiance armor.  This armor is required to fight the (current) ultimate boss of Moria: the Watcher in the Water.  The loot gained from doing the dungeon as normal pales by comparison, as does any crafted items.  So, Turbine created an atmosphere where players only want to do hard mode.  Yesterday, I saw a group on a global chat trying to form for well over an hour to go through to play one of the dungeons normally.

I like the challenges that hard mode presents, when they are not bugged to hell (which many are).  I do not like that Turbine funneled players to this extreme degree.  I hope that upcoming Book 7 update looks at hard mode with a hard eye. 

–Ravious
hip about time

Epic quest 2.3.9, “We Cannot Get Out,” is one of the most fun session play instances: you play a dwarf champion with ridiculous stats, and you slaughter many orcs. The quest also has a recurring bug: the NPCs you click to advance/leave the instance break. You cannot get out.

: Zubon