Variety of Content

I posted about how happy I am about the bit of luck I got on my current Legendary Third Age Halberd, and before that about the uselessness of crafted items now that gear acquired through other means is significantly better rather than marginally and perhaps an alternative. But after grabbing myself a critted crafted Halberd, if it weren't for the legacy and relic bonuses, I'd use it instead of the legendary. A trade off between overall better DPS and the bonuses... it's too bad it's so unequal and that DPS for a captain isn't everything. Maybe if I were a champ or hunter, but then again, there's so much to lose without a legendary item. Now there's a new one that'll be available through the Galadhrim rep, better than the crafted ones. Why bother putting in these weapons anyway?

I don't mind variety, don't get me wrong, but variety needs to be useful. Having options that aren't worthwhile is pointless. It is true that there are opinions about variety and that an item deemed useless by one player will be embraced by another. At the moment we have an overwhelming opinion towards one option, because it is proven to be the most effective all around.

We're seeing this kind of thing in the raiding structure as well. Take a look at the latest post by LOTRO Chronicles. It seems Turbine is going for one direction in raid design and playstyle. Seriously, this trend needs to be rectified or at least tempered. We need variety, options, choice, free will. Within structure, yes, but Shadows of Angmar was well received in many ways, one for the multiple was to advance your character and be sucessful at whatever end-game activity you wanted (PvMP, raiding, instance runs, etc). We're sliding away from that right now.