Kill Ten Rats

What’s the future of Lotro?  We now know that Lotro will have some kind of “continuation of the epic story line” for book 8 in June, and later in the year we should see Dol Guldor, a level cap-increase, and a paid expansion.  The expansion is rumored to be “Riders of Rohan” for several reasons, but mainly because ridersofrohan.com redirects to lotro.com.  But when it comes down to it, saying we’ll get something including Rohan is about as vague as telling a player that we currently have some place that includes Angmar.  There’s no reason to think that an expansion called “Riders of Rohan” could only include Rohan.

 

I’m expecting some zones to come in free chapter updates, but for the most part I’m expecting the world to be expanded as part of an expansion.  The Moria expansion alone is reportedly 35% as large as all the other areas put together in terms of land-mass. The next expansion has been in development since before Moria launched, which means the same philosophy that planned Moria’s 12 zones was also used to plan a similar number of zones for the Rhovanion expansion.

 

What zones am I expecting with this expansion?  Well lets look at the map of Rhovanion:

http://www.orderofbane.com/Files/Rhovanion_map.jpg

 

The folks at Turbine don’t want to have to bother making a map twice.  If they are planning to add an area that will be visible on the Rhovanion map, then they are going to label it and put a little graphic under the label.  The Gladden Fields for example has little flowers under it.  That means we’re getting Gladden Fields.  The Wilderland is clearly marked on the map.  And although I think that would make a boring area, we must be getting it as a zone because they made sure to make it so clearly.  By contrast, Isengard is not even mentioned on the map.  As cool an area as Isengard might make, I doubt we’ll ever see it.  Perhaps allowing us to attack Isengard before the fellowship arrived would be too lore-breaking.

 

So here’s my prediction for 12 zones we’ll see by the end of the year: 

1. Dul Guldor (Free update)
2. Fangorn North
3. Fangorn South
4. The Brown Lands
5. Emyn Muil
6. Rohan East
7. Rohan West
8. Rohan South
9. Dagorlad
10. Wilderland
11. The Wold
12.  Gladden Fields (Free update)

 

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.