Kill Ten Rats

Last night I spent most of my time in Caras Galadhon, the city center of Lothlorien in Lord of the Rings Online. The city is built on huge flets, which are basically large platforms built above the ground on white trees that put the Redwoods to shame. There are two ways to get up the flets: a spiral staircase following the trunk of the three or ladders that port players up. Once on a flet there are no railings, no invisible walls, no last minute Prince of Persia ledge grabs between you and the ground far below. During my time played last night, I am pretty comfortable in saying that I had never spent a larger percentage of time being wounded from falling injuries.

Continue reading City of Falling Injuries

Mines of Moriaâ„¢ has a surprisingly large amount of forced solo content. By that, I do not mean that you can solo it, or that it is too bothersome to find a group. The content is in an instance that you cannot enter in a fellowship. There are the six daily IXP instances, several chapters of the epic books, and steps in quest chains. Book Seven added six crafting instances, which are again forced solo. The three-man instances are forced small group content.

This is an odd way to train your players. I understand worries about people taking the easiest path, which is bringing too many people, but we already have hundreds of quests that people prefer to solo, with little evidence that they will bring six people to kill those eighteen orcs even faster. Do you want to train your players to spend multiple hours per day alone in instances? For non-hardcore players, that is their entire play session. It leads to the unfortunate effects seen with the opening of Book Seven: the outer areas of Lothlorien completely empty of orcs, as people solo them for the faction quests rather than grouping to share and speed things. You know that people around you are on the same quests, but we have been trained not to bother finding a group if it is possible to solo.

So far in Volume Two, there are three chapters that demand fellowships: 2.4.7, 2.5.5, and 2.6.8. I do not even want to count how many solo instances there are; I would guess at least fifteen. You can experience almost everything in Moria solo except the six radiance instances, and you need to visit those only if you plan to join the twelve-man raid. We do not need to force people to be alone even more.

: Zubon

Because Book Seven reminded me and so I have this in one place for future reference: the epic quest line for The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Volume One: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ is weak because the players are observers, not protagonists.

You start by following the Fellowship, and that works well. You fight alongside them. Once you accept that you will not get to be Legolas, this is the next best thing, and this is what you paid for.

Then you enter the main storyline, and you are helping the real protagonists complete their story in Angmar. While you are sent to fetch a horse, gather scrap metal, and buy honey (all real quests in the epic line), they get the killing blows on the bosses. Almost every Book ends with the PCs paralyzed, watching NPCs act out the conclusion. This starts in Book One, where Tom Bombadill is a kill-stealing jerk, and continues through to Book Fifteen, where you do not even have camera control at the end.

They are also weak on gameplay, because someone decided that it is not an Epic quest chain unless there is more than an hour of travel. But that is symptomatic of what you are doing: running errands for the real heroes.

The Books in the game at retail release were lighter on background but they had better gameplay. The ones added later were killing time until the expansion, it seems, and they killed a lot of time. It is a neat story, but it is just that: a story, not a game.

: Zubon

Since returning to The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢, I have noticed a lack of something: gold spam. I have not seen a single instance of it. Even spending time in Bree-town, formerly ground zero, now just zero. No broadcast spam, no tells, no mails, nothing. Refreshing!

: Zubon

Arrive home last night, hang with family. Family goes to sleep, dad sneaks online. 20 minute queue.

Queue does its thing, log in. My character is missing a Second Age book he had looted before I logged off on Sunday night (I travel during the week on business) in a group and that I was deliriously happy to win. Petition launched.

Wander in Lothlorien, very pretty, and very simple quests. Impressed. Atmosphere seems perfect for what type of zone it should be.

GM contacts me out of the blue with the comment “I’m sorry, we cannot replace Legendary items”. When I ask why, or for any details, tells me it is policy, then sends me their cut-and-paste closure message (“Have a great day in Middle Earth!”).

No longer impressed. Migraine. Log out.